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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Republican Lawmakers Falling To Defend The Constitution; House Democrats To Say In Washington This Weekend To Work On Drafting Articles Of Impeachment; Vote On Articles Of Impeachment Could Come Next Week; 3 Killed, Shooter Dead At Naval Air Station Pensacola; U.S. Creates 266,000 Jobs In November, Unemployment At 50-Year Low. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired December 06, 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]
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.
Tragedy this morning at a major military base in Florida a gunman kills at least three people and injures many more.
Plus, a gain buster's jobs report, the economy added 6,322 jobs last month brushing off a global slowdown and trade tensions. Wall Street sees reasons to cheer and so does the President's re-election campaign.
And a key deadline now just hours away. The White House must decide whether to participate in House hearings next week as articles of impeachment are drafted. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Democrats have no choice and she recalls a very different Republican standard in the last impeachment fight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Some of these same people are saying this doesn't rise to impeachment. Who all is that right there impeaching Bill Clinton being stupid in terms of something like that. I mean, I love him. I think he was a good President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We will begin the hour with that impeachment debate and a looming deadline one that foreshadows a pivotal week ahead in the Trump impeachment process. Today by 5:00 pm, the White House must decide if its lawyers will take part in House impeachment proceedings. The next hearing is set for Monday.
Plus, key lawmakers and key staff staying in town over this weekend to draft those articles of impeachment against the President. What should be in them is still the subject of internal Democratic Debate and there are new questions today about whether Democrats got all the facts right in that Intelligence Committee report that is the backbone of their impeachment case.
Not one congressional Republican is on record supporting impeachment. Last night the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisting Democrats are acting prayerfully is her word, against the lawbreaking President and she says the lack of bipartisan support is not a reason to stop the process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Does it mean that you're failing to meet the standard that you set in January.
PELOSI: No, I was setting - the Republicans have failed to meet the standard of honoring their oath of office, to protect and defend the constitution of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With me to share their reporting and their insights today, Margaret Talev with "AXIOS" Melanie Zanona with "POLITICO" Lisa Lerer with "The New York Times" and CNN's Abby Phillip. 5:00 pm deadline, the White House has heaped scorn day after day on the House process. Is there any expectation the answer will be yes, we'll send up lawyers or we are going to get enough?
MARGARET TALEV, POLITICS AND WHITE HOUSE EDITOR, AXIOS: I don't have any expectation the White House's game has all been geared toward the Senate, feeling up until now has been that if they sort of play in the House or they participate in the House, they are legitimizing and acknowledging the process. Strategically they thought it makes much more sense to diminish the validity of this process, to try to engage in the chamber where their party controls the majority.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I would add the White House's strategy has largely been successful up until this point. They have resisted and withheld information that has been key to the investigation, and the result has been that Democrats have a somewhat incomplete picture about all of the aspects of what went on.
They believe they have enough to go forward with a vote, but certainly not all of it. And over in the Senate, even though there was so much skepticism among some Republicans, like Mitt Romney, for example, about what the President was up to, you still have not heard those same members coming forward and saying, we've seen enough, this is bad, this is impeachable.
I think that's in part because some key witnesses have been held back from testifying because of the White House's stonewalling and important documents, important paperwork, call logs, all of these have been withheld, and to change the strategy now, I think, for the White House, they look at that and they say what point would there be in doing that and engaging in this process?
MELANIE ZANONA, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: And I also just point out, I think the White House has actually made a really valid point here. They said, how are we supposed to participate when we don't know what we're preparing for, which I think is a real different for Pat Cipollone whose letter in the previous month was more of a Trump tweet than a serious legal argument.
So I think they're taking it a lot more seriously. They're bringing up some valid points. They don't know what the structure is going to look like. They don't know the format. They know as much as we do as reporters right now. So it is hard for them to strategize.
KING: To that point, the President is a very effective communicator, whether you like him or not, whether you support him or not the President today very effective communicating using Twitter and other platforms to get his side out. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided, because she is the leader of the House Democrats and these are her decisions, that she is now a front person for this as it goes forward.
To your point about what will the article say, what specifically will you charge against the President of the United States, Jake Tapper tried to get some answers last night.
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PELOSI: No. This isn't about politics at all. I don't think that the 2020 election is going to ride on this. We're operating collectively. It's not going to be somebody put something on the table.
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PELOSI: We have our own, shall we say, communication with each other.
TAPPER: OK.
PELOSI: I'm not going to answer - with all due respect, I'm not going to answer one charge. We're not writing the articles of impeachment here tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You can see her struggling there because they're not settled on the specifics, how many articles, how much, if any of the Mueller report do you bring into them? Whatever your views at home, it looks, if they keep on their schedule right now, that a week from today the House Judiciary Committee could be voting on articles of impeachment against the President of the United States, and nobody has seen them.
Are the Democrats open to criticism in the process that you're saying a President should be removed from office, you're voting to impeach him. To send it to the Senate with that question, shouldn't the American people and every member of Congress have some time to look this over?
LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, I mean, they're already getting that kind of criticism, and I think it's a valid critique, and it's one the White House hopes they can sort of run with. Of course, the process there is going to be a second part to this process where it will go to the Senate, but you do get the sense that despite initial reports, there isn't a place in the Senate for a drawn-out process there, either, in part because it cuts both ways.
You have a lot of fairly Republican Senators who are fairly vulnerable, take Cory Gardner, in the election, and this is not something they want running right into their reelection campaign. So I think that is certainly a point of attack, a point of criticism that Democrats could find themselves dealing with, but they've made the conclusion that a good impeachment is a fast impeachment.
KING: I want to stick to the House side from here, but that's a great point. I want to read as it is about the Senate. But in the House side, Speaker Pelosi, one of the reasons she's being quiet here is that she's trying to do the math herself. She believes they have the votes, she has no doubt she wouldn't have gone forward if she didn't have the votes to impeach the President.
The challenge now here is can you write and then can you handle the process in a way that looses as few Democrats as possible to her. Here's one Jeff Van Drew who is from a very tough district back home saying, it doesn't matter. Based on everything I've heard today, I'm a no vote.
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REP. JEFF VAN DREW (D-NJ): Unless there is something again that I haven't seen, haven't heard before, that has been my position for reasons that I've staked out. For numerous reasons, the reason I staked out, be careful what you wish for.
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KING: That's a more conservative moderate Democrat from a tough district. That if President of the United States is expected run strong in next year, so he is thinking OK, I have got to count, I got to listen to the people back home. That's the challenge for Pelosi as she tries to work this. How many will lead?
I just want to read this is Jarrett Huffman California Democrat a Pelosi ally in "The Washington Post" today. She's juggling chain saws and kittens and doing it seemingly with perfect composure. It would be hard to characterize this as anything but reluctant. This is not where she wanted to be, even a couple months ago. It is a fascinating challenge for her, people make mistakes when they under estimate Nancy Pelosi because she is where she is because she knows how to count. She knows how to organize. She knows how when necessary to twist elbows. But do we have any sense of how many she's going to lose?
ZANONA: Well, there were at least two Democrats who voted against impeachment resolution on the floor Van Dew being one of them. But look, with Pelosi, she came here reluctantly, but now that she's in the impeachment, she's going to tightly control this process. She was the one who said it's time to start drafting articles of impeachment, she said, it's time to open the inquiry, she is dictated which committees are in charge of this process.
So if anyone can do it, it will be Nancy Pelosi but at the same time leadership has said, we're not going to whip this, we're not going to force members into this, it's going to be a vote of conscious but you know that they're going to be crafting these articles in close consultation with these moderate members to make sure they're comfortable with everything.
LERER: This is largely about perception, right? She's not going to put it up if it's not going to pass, so it should go through. The question is how many Democrats she can lose without looking like the caucus is divided, like Democrats are in a weak position moving into the next election.
ZANONA: Right, Republicans are seeing that. They're already trying to drum that up right? And as they move into their own primary so is it five, is it eight, is it four? That's the kind of perception math that they're doing.
TALEV: The Republicans we're all talking to think about this in terms of a few kinds of circles of influence, right? There are a few dozen Democrats for whom this puts them in a really sticky situation, and there's probably around a dozen or so whom it's like a super tough situation and then we know there is a couple who are already get to be knowing this.
That magic number, if it's less than five, it's probably predictable. If it's more than five, it's potentially a problem. For the history books it matters what the no vote is. But for political purposes, even more important than the no vote is just how uncomfortable and how vulnerable are those yes votes that they actually get.
KING: And so one of the challenges for the Democrats, especially, again, given the President's skills, he's denying witnesses, he is obstructing their investigation, he is ignoring subpoenas no question about that, but he is keeping his base loyal. Is for the Democrats there is very little room for error in this court of public opinion. Did they make a mistake? Now most Democrats were very happy with the Intelligence Committee hearings.
[12:10:00]
KING: They thought Chairman Adam Schiff plowed through and either Republican objection. They thought that they made a presented, they thought the witnesses presented some pretty damning evidence, but in their report they said that Rudy Giuliani had called a number that was associated with the Office of Management and Budget documents released by you can guess are pushing back on that.
This is from the CNN reporting Giuliani's phone call with the number that House investigators says associated with the White House's Budget Office may have simply been calls to and from the White House, according to information obtained by CNN. CNN has learned that the number the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment report said was associated with the Office of Management and Budget is a number that could go to multiple officials within the White House complex.
Now, the Democrats are saying this is indifference without distinction, this doesn't matter. Rudy Giuliani was still calling, but they were trying to show that he was calling to be involved. They were insinuating he was calling to be involved specifically in the hold on the military money. Why would he be calling the Office of Management and Budget? Is this a big deal or is it?
PHILLIP: I think it's an unforced error on the Republican - the Democrats part. I don't know if it's a big deal or not in the big scheme of things, but what it does show is that there is a need for Democrats to be careful here about what evidence they are putting out. Because it is an important distinction whether Rudy Giuliani was calling the White House, maybe calling the President through the switchboard or calling Mick Mulvaney and whether he was calling directly to the Office of Management and Budget.
The fact that they may not have known the answer to that question before they put out these call logs is - there's no real good excuse for that. And I think that it really calls into question the carefulness with which they're putting out some of this information, and it's only going to erode their standing with the public if people feel like they're not taking the evidence seriously.
KING: Right, they should not try to connect dots that they can't definitively collect. The flip side is the White House can clear this up in a nanosecond with transparency and releasing where the actual phone call went along with other documents they have withheld. So there are two sides definitely two sides to this one. Up next to us, an update from Pensacola after a tragic morning, a shooting at a naval base.
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KING: Pensacola, Florida in shock today after a deadly shooting this morning at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Three people are dead and a number others wounded after a shooter opened fire in a classroom building on that base. The wounded include two responding sheriff's deputies, both shot before killing the shooter. The County sheriff saying a short time ago the crime scene felt surreal.
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SHERIFF DAVID MORGAN, ESCAMBIA COUNTY, FLORIDA: This strike is particularly hard for me as a retired military member. Walking through the crime scene was like being on the set of a movie. As the Mayor eloquently put it, you just don't expect this to happen at home. This doesn't happen in Escambia County, it doesn't happen in Pensacola, it doesn't happen to our friends and neighbors who are members of the United States Navy. But it did. And it has. For now we're here to pick up the pieces.
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KING: The base remains on lockdown as the investigation continues. Joining me CNN Crime and Justice Reporter Shimon Prokupecz and Retired Rear Admiral John Kirby. Shimon, let me just start with you. What do we know about the investigation and what happening here? SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: It's still very early in the investigation, John. Key thing right now based on everyone we're talking to is the motive. There are some serious questions about that it is something that investigators both the FBI and officials there on the base are trying to figure out.
They are not speculating whether it's terrorism or not, they're not indicating either way. So that investigation, that is an important part of this. That is still very much underway. And the other thing we're hearing are stories of really two sheriff deputies who are the heroes here stopping the shooter. They were on scene within minutes and they were able to shoot, and what investigators believe, kill this shooter.
They, too, were injured, the two deputies, one of them being shot in the knee and the other one have been shot in the arm. A total of 11 people shot, including, obviously, the gunman, and as we've been reporting three dead. We don't know much about the victims now this all taking place just before 7:00 am local time.
Obviously early in the morning there but I think, John, the big thing here right now and what has investigators focused and concerned here is the motive, which we have yet to learn about, obviously, but that is going to be the central focus here right now for investigators.
KING: And Admiral, as you watched the photos from outside the gates there, you're looking at a place that for you for five years was home.
JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Yes, it was.
KING: And tell us about that. 7:00 a.m. in a classroom. This is largely a training base. Take us there.
KIRBY: It is a training base, huge. It's basically training for aviation both on the technical maintenance side as well as pilots and flyers so the fact this happened early in the morning that's not to be totally unexpected because you get these classes started early in the morning. It's the navy. So these students, because they're in training, and aviation training in particular, they're not going to be armed.
This isn't like an infantry base where you have soldiers who are issued weaponry. These are men and women who are coming to class for the day to learn whatever it was they had to learn that day.
KING: It's a small city, right? 23,000 people, schools for the children--
KIRBY: Yes, there's no schools for the kids, but there's preschool and then daycare kind of thing. But it is a small city. There are gas stations, a grocery store. My son was born in the naval hospital just off base.
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KIRBY: 20,000 or more people, about a third of them are civilians and families live on that base. There is a significant number of housing there.
KING: So the giant part of the community have been there before. Shimon and Admiral Kirby, I appreciate this on a tough day there. Up next for us, the Trump economy gets a boost in the latest snapshot of the jobs market.
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KING: Strong new, very strong news for U.S. economy this morning. The November jobs report showing a very robust labor market. New hiring last month that surpassed most economists' expectations. Investors clearly loving it, you see the DOW right there up 330 points investors cheering the good news.
It's also welcome news for the President as he argues the economy is strong enough to withstand trade tensions and as he gears up, of course, for the 2020 campaign. The numbers first from CNN's Christine Romans.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, strengthen labor market catching some economists by surprise. 266,000 net new jobs in November that blows away expectations. And the prior two months were also revised higher, what this tells us is companies were a little more confident than many economists had thought in the fall and in fact continued to higher at a pretty brisk pace.
That brought the unemployment rate back down to 3.5 percent, still the lowest in 50 years. 3.5 percent is nearing really full employment in this country. It should mean that anyone who wants a job has a job, and companies are really looking for workers. Where are the sectors? Where is the hiring?
Health care, again a very strong part of the economy 45,000 jobs there, John 414,000 jobs over the past year. Make no mistake, health care is a really important job driver in this country right now. Professional tax services and manufacturing look at that big manufacturing number. What's that all about? GM and Auto production after the GM strike ended, a lot of those workers went back. 41,000 of those jobs on the very far right of your screen are GM workers so manufacturing bouncing back because of the end of the GM strike. John?
KING: Thanks to Christine Romans. Damien Polato (Ph) with "The Washington Post" joins our conversation. It's a wow report if you look at it in the sense that even a lot of accounts have been worried. Trade tensions with China, the uncertainty about the U.S.-Mexico- Canada trade agreement, the global slowdown. Yet the U.S. economy--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely, I mean, it's amazing that a few months ago, a lot of people thought a recession was likely in the middle of the 2020 campaign, and now the labor markets really plowing ahead the consumer spending is really strong, the stock market have been really high. And a lot those things seem to be moving in the right direction for the President. He is really trying to set this counter narrative right? With the impeachment going on over here, he is trying to say look at the economy that I've delivered for everybody, you need to support me in 2020. As far as that and as far as today goes, it was a really good day for him.
KING: In the sense of that, as we go into the campaign, I mean, what is the Democratic argument? I saw Governor Patrick on earlier saying well a lot of people are still working lower wage jobs, minimum wage jobs. A lot of families were stressed and have to work two or three jobs. But when you're the President of the United States, you can say 3.5 percent unemployment. The economy adding 200,000-plus jobs on average now, it's hard.
PHILLIP: It is hard, but I do think this is the rationale for the populace Democrats and progressives in the race. The Bernie's they're talking about things like college affordability, and about universal health care in part because even while people might have jobs, do they feel like they could afford things that you might have previously associated with the middle class.
Is that a sense of a hammer hanging over your head something making you sick the next day, holding you back from feeling like the economy is doing really well for you. I think people acknowledge largely these numbers as you see them on paper, but there is some real anxieties in middle and lower class America that some of these Democratic candidates are trying to speak to.
And the report in "The Washington Post" about the Trump campaign, trying to come up with some kind of student loan plan also speaks to the fact that they know that this is a really transient issue for voters. The voters are employed but can they go to college? Are they burdened by student debt? Do they feel like they can afford to have their kids go to college? I don't think this issue is going away any time soon.
KING: It will be a fight, but if you're an incumbent President regardless of party you love the fact that you are 50 year low in unemployment the job created we'll see if it continues. There are some stresses, if you look at some swing states and you look at manufacturing jobs in some of those swing states, it has been a tough year for manufacturing.
If you look at Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, manufacturing jobs down in those places, are all key to the President's 2016 map and his 2020 reelection plans. The President has some big decisions to make in the middle of these trade negotiations with China. This was his take just yesterday.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We'll have to see, but right now we're moving along. We're not discussing that, but we're having major discussions. On December 15th, something could happen, but we're not discussing that yet. We're having very good discussions with China, however.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Very muted in his language there. Sometimes he gets more spicy when talking trade, he gets more confrontational. But it is a big decision. His argument has been, and on the trade issue he's been the most consistent even more consistent than immigration. His argument has been, yes, it hurts farmers, yes, it hurts ranchers, yes, it hurts some of my voters, but we have to do this, stand up to China. The economy is strong enough to get through it. Today's report would suggest, on that point at least he's right.
