Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Plans To Send Impeachment Articles To Senate Next Week; White House Pushes Back On Doubts Over Strike Intelligence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: Pressed On Whether Soleimani Threat Was "Imminent"; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: Qasem Soleimani Was Plotting Against U.S. Embassies, Bases; U.S. Adds 145K Jobs In December, Unemployment Holds Steady. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 10, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm John King. A lot of breaking news today we begin with this dramatic breaking news this hour in the impeachment of the President the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just moments ago offering a timeline now to finally deliver the articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate it will happen next week.

There has been, of course, several weeks have delayed, the Speaker though writing in a dear colleague letter release just "I have asked the Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate. I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus Meeting on how we proceed further".

Let's get straight to CNN's Manu Raju live on Capitol Hill. So, Manu, they'll talk about this Tuesday, they'll be ready middle of next week. What else do we know?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. This means the President's impeachment trial is going to happen in a matter of days and the terms of that trial will essentially have been set by Mitch McConnell. The Democrats have been demanding that McConnell agree to have witnesses up front, agreed to have documents up front.

That would have been one reason why we've seen this impasse of her for weeks, but they're not getting that. Nancy Pelosi making it clear that she plans to take those procedural steps to send over those articles of impeachment first there will be that vote on the House floor that would actually appoint the impeachment managers, the people who would actually prosecute the case on the Democrats' part.

We do expect Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, to lead that effort, as well as House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler. There will be other people who that will the Speaker will name. Those people will go over to the Senate. They will deliver those articles of impeachment to the Senate and then that will set the course for the trial.

Now this impasse had been intensified in the aftermath of the vote by the House to impeach the President on those two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and one part because the Democrats had demanded a fair trial, but also Nancy Pelosi had demanded that Mitch McConnell detail and unveil the exact procedures of how the trial would take place? The resolution the Senate would vote on that it had to adopt to move forward here.

Mitch McConnell made clear he was not going to listen to Nancy Pelosi. He told me last night he was not going to unveil the resolution. He made it clear he is not going to agree to those witnesses up front. So ultimately the Democrats agreed that they had to turn this over because it was unclear what else they would get from this delay that had been going on for several weeks here.

They contend some developments happened that was beneficial to them, like John Bolton saying he would testify in the Senate trial, but nevertheless, John, this trial is going to proceed and Mitch McConnell wants it to happen quickly, as the White House does, to acquit the President in just a matter of weeks. John?

KING: It sets up a critical week next week up on Capitol Hill. Manu Raju live on the Hill, I appreciate the breaking news. With me here in studio to share their reporting and their insights CNN's Kaitlan Collins Dan Balz with "The Washington Post" Tarini Parti with "The Wall Street Journal" and Julie Hirschfeld Davis with "The New York Times."

The Speaker held this out, it's become almost as much about the process all of the sudden and about the specifics that charges against the President is the Speaker leaking or did she win something here?

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It's hard to say really whether she wants something. She did get a lot of focus on this issue of whether the trial is going to include witnesses and the degree to which Mitch McConnell has indicated that he is going to be working hand in glove with the White House, which of course I think she knew from the get-go, many lawmakers knew from the get-go.

But she did get a lot of public attention on that, and as Manu said John Bolton came out in the interim and said he would be willing to testify. Some more emails came out, some more evidence came to live that indicated that there might be more facts yet to come forward in this trial. But really, I think she was at the point of diminishing returns. They got what they were going to get and there started to be some discomfort among Democrats about holding this out when everyone knew what the outcome was going to be.

KING: And so now we know the outcome. We don't know the exact timing Dan, but that the House will come in on Tuesday, we suspect Tuesday or Wednesday, they'll finally bring this to the floor and send them over. Mitch McConnell starts the trial, he says we're going to have the Clinton rules, not exactly but he says we're going to try to follow the Clinton rule which, means the House Managers present their case.

The President's team offers their defense. Senators then get to ask questions, submitted in writing through the Chief Justice, and then and only then after that phase, they will come to the issue of do we want witnesses? So there's still a chance for witnesses, but McConnell has made clear he doesn't want that.

DAN BALZ, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: No, and it's likely that debate will be the most important debate of the trial. Because I think we know what the ultimate outcome is going to be, that the Senate will acquit President Trump, but this question of whether this evidence that now seems in the offing will be presented in a public forum is the big question.

And I think, I mean, Julie is right, that in the interim, because of what John Bolton indicated, that he's willing to testify, that gave Pelosi something, and I think the question is why she waited several more days and didn't move quickly? For Democrats, the issue is this.

[12:05:00]

BALZ: How do they get through this relatively quickly, because they know that this is not a winner in some of the swing states, but how do they do it in a way that they come out with the ability to say this was ultimately not a fair trial? I think those are the tensions and McConnell is going to try to manage it in his way and the Democrats will try to manage it in their way.

KING: And they're going to try to manage that at an enormously consequential here in Washington and around the country in the sense that we're in this military standoff right now. And hopefully it's back to a diplomatic standoff with Iran. We'll see we'll talk about that in a moment. There was a big briefing at the White House today on this subject.

The campaign year is getting underway. I just want to look at the calendar right here for January and February, where we are? Here's Tuesday when the House Democrats will get together and meet, Tuesday the 14th. There is a Democratic Presidential Debate that night, including Senators who would be jurors in an impeachment trial.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are other Senators also running for President who are having qualified for that debate, so they are factored into this. Then just look, so sometime in this week, sometime in this period here, we'll have a clearer sense. The articles will go over to the Senate. McConnell will make clear his scheduling.

The week after that, Kaitlan Collins, the President of the United States is supposed to be in Devos.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is exactly what I was going to say.

KING: On the 20th there also is supposed to be a Democratic Presidential Forum in Iowa. Martin Luther King Day Forum there. So we assume the trial is going to play out that week there. COLLINS: So the question is going to be does the President still go to Davos? That's already been something in speculation inside the White House with several people saying this is not a good idea. There is no point in going. It's a really short trip; he goes and comes back in the next day as he is - with some of these trips.

So that is going to be the question. Does he decide to so go to this economic forum while his Senate trial is going on? Some people close to the President are going to speculate, no, because he doesn't like to go on these foreign travel trips, anyway, so that will be a big question of where he is when this impeachment trial is getting started?

KING: And the big issue in impeachment trial is will the Senate convict and remove the President of the United States? There is zero reason to believe that is going to happen based on the math right now. There is zero indication there are enough Republican Senators if all the Democrats voted to convict and remove which is not certain you need 20 Republican Senators. Not going to happen.

Based on anything we know today, the world can change. So the other part is the politics. I mentioned those Democratic Senators who would be jurors - need this there is another day here, February 3rd, the Iowa Caucuses. Now by all anticipation if the trial begins sometime this week of the 19th or even late if they decided to go quickly, there are all indications it is over by then.

But those Senators will have to be here, Julie Davis giving me a shrug saying she's not so sure. The Senators will have to be here. Elizabeth Warren says, of course it matters. We just did a three and half hour Selfie line; don't tell me it doesn't matter being face to face.

Senator Chris Murphy a Democratic colleague says I don't really buy the fact that it really affects them and it frankly puts them in the center of the national conversation. If you're Elizabeth Warren and you're suddenly struggling after a very good summer you want to be campaigning not in a chair especially if you believe the final math is essentially cooked.

TARINI PARTI, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Right. The more that this has gotten delayed, the closer it is gotten to the Iowa Caucuses, and you're seeing based on the Democrats I have talk to in the campaigns here seeing two different sort of strategies.

For Elizabeth Warren, if you remember, she has not been doing as much national TV. She has not been until recently been doing as many national interviews. So for her going on to Iowa, campaigning, doing those Selfie lines was to her advantage. She's starting to do more national TV, but her campaign kind of viewed this as potentially problematic in terms of the timing.

For others, going on national TV does get them the voters and the fundraising that they need. There is also this thinking that this primary in particular has become more nationalized than what we've seen in the past. So going on national TV might actually be more helpful than potentially hosting events in Iowa and getting the front page of the Des Moines Register, for example.

KING: Lot of TV studio time because during the actual trial, during the proceedings, the Senators are to sit and to sit silently. I remember through the Clinton trial, it's an unusual position for Senators in their own chamber, to have to sit and be silent. Just want one last question on the Pelosi calculation here if McConnell does not give her exact details, she needs to pick managers not knowing exactly how many she will use or what the format will be? So she has to have some nimble and flexibility in those choices.

DAVIS: Right, and I mean, I think she's been thinking about this obviously for a number of weeks. One of the issues is does she pick people who are good at sort of questioning and cross-examining? If they're going to have witnesses, of course, she would. If they're not going to have witnesses, does she pick people who have other strengths? And she is - I think not going to know the answers to these questions.

I think she is now resign to that fact before she decides who is going to be on the roaster. I think we know that Jerry Nadler, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Adam Schiff will be part of that team and we don't know who the rest of the team is and just because of this impasse and all of this delay, one thing that we haven't talked much about is how little time these people are going to have to prepare for this trial. The Clinton impeachment managers had a long holiday break to craft their opening arguments these managers are going to have a very, very tight window.

COLLINS: And we should note that the White House has not selected their team either yet. That's still been going back and forth with the President, McCarthy several leaders about who exactly it is going to be on his team. So they're kind of in the same position there.

[12:10:00]

KING: That sets up the fascinating week next week and the competition among Democrats to be part of the House manager team you now know you have a Tuesday or Wednesday deadline to make your case to the boss the Speaker of the House.

Up next for us the White House adds new details about to its public explanation about why the President ordered that strike to kill Iran's Terror Chief?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is your definition of "Imminent"?

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: This was going to happen and American lives were at risk. We would have been culpably negligent as the Chairman of Joint-Chiefs who says that we would have been culpably negligent that we not recommended the President that he takes this action on Qasem Soleimani. He made the right call and America is safe with the result of that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That exchange featuring our Kaitlan Collins part of a net times testing White House pushback today against those questioning the wisdom of the strike that killed Iran's Terror Chief or questioning the credibility of the explanation of why the President decided to issue those bold orders.

[12:15:00]

KING: Last hour the Secretary of State and Treasury announcing new sanctions against Iran, it's steel industry, construction sector and senior Iranian officials the administration blames for "Murder and mayhem". The question and answer session though dominated by a back and forth over how specific was U.S. Intelligence about planned attacks? And how imminent were those threats?

Team Trump's answers do keep changing in recent days while Secretary Pompeo disputes this some members of Congress complain what the President and his top deputies are now saying in public isn't backed up by what they're being told in classified intelligence briefings. Here is one example of why this can be hard to follow? Imminent, pick up a dictionary, it means about to happen. Last night, though, Pompeo took issue with the dictionary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POMPEO: There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani. We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So the first question from reporters today at that White House briefing how can imminent mean you don't know when? It brought this clarification.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POMPEO: We had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threats included attacks on U.S. Embassies, period, full stop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you were mistaken when you said you didn't know precisely when and you didn't know precisely where?

POMPEO: Nope, those were completely true. Those were completely consistent thoughts. I didn't know exactly which minute? We don't know exactly which day it would have been executed? But it was very clear. Qasem Soleimani himself was plotting a large, broad large scale attack against American interest and those attacks were imminent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Against an Embassy?

POMPEO: Against Americans facilities including American Embassies, military bases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Biggest question coming away from a number one, they get prickly at these questions sometimes. I get it, however they should understand the legacy of the Iraq War, the legacy of the Bush Administration the fact that our business did not do it's diligent a job as it should have done back in those days questioning the intelligence, as should members of Congress know be pushing in questioning the intelligence.

But number two if they have evidence that it was Embassies, plural, why didn't they say that out of the box? They're not disclosing sources and methods here the Secretary didn't do that. They said that they can't disclose some things. If it's Embassies, plural, why didn't they say that right outside the box?

COLLINS: And that's why this word "imminent" has had such a big place in these conversations over this intelligence because you've seen people like in the Pentagon have been reluctant to say imminent, but you've seen the Secretary of State rely on it time and time again. Though it's hard to make the argument and something is "Imminent" if you say admit that you don't know when it was going to happen?

Of course, the question about the Embassies came because the President was the one who revealed yesterday, he said they were looking to blow up our Embassy. A senior defense official later said, yes, there were broad plots they involved explosives and attacks on Embassies, and the question is then those members of Congress who got briefed and they essentially learned more than what we are hearing publicly, why didn't they find about that?

And Pompeo today argued that they did but people like Val Demings a member of the House Intelligence Committee said they were not told about a plot to blow up a U.S. Embassy.

DAVIS: And the reason also that the word "Imminent" is so important, particularly to members of Congress, is because there is this loophole right in the consultation that has to happen with Congress before military action is taken if the President is acting on an imminent threat to Americans or American troops.

And so this is something that the administration has been very interested in confirming that they were acting on that kind of intelligence, because then they're totally within their rights to move without even a call to a member of Congress. But if they did not have that kind of information, then that's more questionable, and that is why lawmakers were insisting so strongly in these briefings that hearing if you did have that kind of information, what was it?

And the people that we have talked to at least in the larger briefings for all members said, they were told "Imminent" time and time again when they pressed on what specific information they had, they were not given any.

BALZ: Leaving the Secretary of State said this morning embassies and facilities. So we've broadened it out. The President said last night he didn't have time to call Speaker Pelosi. That suggests something is about to go down. Understanding why there's so much confusion, and it is totally legitimate to press on those points. Administrations have to be held accountable because we know administrations in the past have not told the truth about these kinds of matters.

KING: Right and, forgive me, this President has a history of saying things that are not true or are of greatly exaggerated. If you're a Trump supporter, I'm sorry, use the tools at your disposal, including your smart phone. It's just a fact. It's just a fact that this President has credibility questions from time to time, so at a moment of war and peace you would think they would get their stories straight and say as much as they can with respect for the intelligence community and sources and methods.

PARTI: I think the Trump as though my colleagues were in Ohio this week talking to voters there, and it seems has base it was clear from his rally last night as well are sticking with the President they believe what he is saying on his account of why he chose to attack Soleimani at this moment?

[12:20:00]

And they feel like it showed you know what the President ran on, that he wants Americans to be taken seriously and he did what he was going to do. I did talk to some Democrats at events this week who said that they're not sure why now? That is the big question that Democrats and critics of his actions have been asking what changed. Why now?

KING: Another interesting wrinkle where there is summing inconsistency and this one I think I might be understand a little better because of the politics not in this country, but the geopolitics. After the missile strikes, a number of U.S. officials said it appeared to them that Iran deliberately came close but not close enough, if you will.

That the missiles were fired in a way that Iran is well wired within Iraq. If it - it knows where the barracks are? It knows where the troops are? And there was talk about may be a heads up and early warning system. No Americans no Iraqis killed, thank God. Listen to Secretary Pompeo although some U.S. officials says they think Iran did it on purpose essentially to prove its capabilities but to not ignite further military confrontation I mean. Now U.S. officials are going public like Secretary Pompeo said, no, no, they were trying to kill Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it was Iran's intent to kill Americans, does that not deserve some sort of response? If somebody takes a shot at you and they don't hit you simply because you duck, does that mean they weren't trying to kill you?

POMPEO: I'd like to defer to the Department of Defense on the details, but there is no doubt in my judgment as I observed the Iranian activity in the region that night, they had the full intention of killing U.S. forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And yet, again, this is complicated in a number of ways. They're now saying publicly they believe they were trying to kill Americans, but if they were trying to kill Americans, then how does the President step back? One of the explanations they gave for the President not retaliating to the Iranian strikes was that they believed Iran was trying to - as the President himself said trying to stand down.

COLLINS: Yes, that's what the President had been saying privately and members of the administration saying they intentionally missed. They did not hit our troops on purpose, and now we have the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman and the Secretary of State saying, no, they were trying to kill Americans.

Now when you ask people to square this, how does that work? They're saying by striking places where they knew U.S. troops were generally, they were trying to kill them. Of course, that doesn't square with what the President had been saying, so that is really the question here.

They say it's more of a thing of nuance, but its part of a larger thing here of the shifting explanations of the intelligence. Were they trying to hit U.S. troops or not? Were they plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy or not? Was it imminent or was it not? Those are the questions that have been percolating for several days and we haven't gotten sufficient answers on them.

BALZ: But part of the challenge that they're facing is this question of how do you both ratchet down from where we were and continue to apply maximum pressure? So in a sense they are trying to have it both ways. They're trying to send signals in many different directions. So these answers are not consistent, perhaps deliberately, because they haven't figured out what's the right path forward to get to that calibration.

DAVIS: Well, and they're also dealing with a President who is unwilling, unlike prior Presidents, to sort of stay quiet when strategically that may be the thing to do. He wanted to say that they stood down so that people would understand why he wasn't hitting back the day after these strikes.

He wanted to say that when he struck Soleimani, he was retaliating, but of course that's not the rationale that the rest of his administration was given, so it makes that job of trying to balance this even harder when President Trump wants to say what he wants to say and it's often not the most disciplined.

KING: Right, and when that happens on health care or other policy, domestic policies questions, that's one thing. When it happens on questions of war and peace and the risk to troops, it's a whole other matter.

Coming up for us the Trump economy gets its latest report card as the DOW surges to new highs. We'll breakdown the numbers when we come back.

[12:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Fresh economic numbers today showing a resilient U.S. labor market as 2019 gave way to 2020 and the Election Year. The U.S. economy adding 145,000 jobs in December, that according to the latest jobs report. That number a bit short economists' excuse me expectations. The report, the final snap shot for 2019 and for the decade. Investors clearly cheering on the news the DOW Jones hitting a record 29,000 for the first time a bit earlier today you see it a bit below that. Now CNN's Christine Romans, first there to break down the numbers, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John, I'm going to call it a solid end to the year. Not sizzling, but solid. 145,000 net new jobs created, and we saw October-November revise down just a little bit. Where is the hiring?

3.5 percent unemployment rate, still that low, low generational unemployment rate, retail trade, health care. This is about 400,000 jobs for the whole year in health care, manufacturing those stumbled again. The year really a disappointment for manufacturing job growth barely positive for the year in total on manufacturing jobs, and when you look at some of the output numbers that we watch, it's probably a manufacturing recession right now.

It's the December jobs report, so we get the picture of the whole year. 2.1 million net new jobs for the year. That's a little bit shy of what we saw in 2018 that was probably the President's tax cuts boosting that, but it's in line with 2017 and really kind of on par with the last seven or eight years. It doesn't approach some of the best years of the Obama Administration. When you watch these numbers, we also really look at wages. 2.9 percent wage growth. This has been the missing piece, the missing piece of a strong--

[12:30:00]