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House Poised to Impeach President Trump Today; GOP Starts Proceedings with Motion to Adjourn Impeachment Today; Donald Trump Poised to be Third President Impeached in American History Today; Interview with Representative Steny Hoyer. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 18, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It isn't OK for the president of the United States to abuse his power, and that's quite jarring.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Scott.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I -- they have been planning impeachment since before he was ever sworn in. I mean, there was an article in "Vanity Fair" in December of 2016 where several Democratic senators were laying tracks, I think was the phrase they use to set up an impeachment of the president. So --

COOPER: That was right after the Beto O'Rourke cover.

JENNINGS: Yes. Right. Right.

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: But one of the people was Elizabeth Warren. And she was, you know, part of this group. And so now she's running for president. So Republicans have never trusted that Democrats were actually acting in good faith because of what they saw even before the president was sworn in.

I agree with you. We're living in a historic moment here and it's hard not to feel that today. But it's not often you live through one of these moments where you know how it's going to turn out. You know, we know how the vote today is going to turn out. What's less known, and what I think, to your point, is how the American people are going to absorb it. I mean, we've now reached the ultimate tribalism.

The Democrats don't believe a darn thing Trump says. Republicans don't believe a darn thing Democrats say, and we'll survive that sort of tribalism tonight and we'll survive it when he's acquitted in the Senate. But what happens when we wake up one day and there's an emergency or a crisis, and these two American political silos which don't interact anymore except to clash would be expected to combine and tell us the truth and say, we're going to preserve the country in this way?

To me, knowing how this historic moment is going to turn out gives me some comfort, but what gives me no comfort is whether they could combine efforts if we had a true emergency.

COOPER: If only we had a presidential historian here.

(LAUGHTER)

Jeffrey Engel, yes, on this historic day, it's good to have you here.

JEFFREY ENGEL, CO-AUTHOR, "IMPEACHMENT: AN AMERICAN HISTORY": You know, I keep thinking honestly about Benjamin Franklin in the sense that when he was talking about impeachment at the constitutional convention, he made the point explicitly that the president, any president, should actually welcome the idea of impeachment because what's the alternative?

Well, historically Franklin said the alternative was assassination. So if you have someone that you don't like politically, that's how you dealt with it. So Franklin said that this is part of a broader process of actually how we civilize ourselves. How we bring law and order to a potentially chaotic situation. If we have someone that appears to be not worthy of the office anymore, we have a process for going through.

COOPER: Let's listen to the House floor.

MEMBERS: Liberty and justice for all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Leave a message.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madame Speaker, a message from the president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Madam Speaker.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Madam Secretary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm directed by the president of the United States to deliver to the House of Representatives a message in writing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pursuit to Clause 4 of Rule 1, the following enrolled bill was signed by the speaker on Tuesday, December 17th, 2019.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: HR-5363. A bill to reauthorize mandatory funding programs for historically black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions and --

COOPER: While they are doing this, Jeff, can you just explain for our viewers what -- how this is going to proceed or what we know is going to proceed?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the House Rules Committee met yesterday and established the parameters. Basically there's first going to be a debate about the rules, about the terms of engagement. And, you know, I don't anticipate there will be a lot of debate about the rules themselves. Everybody is just going to be talking about impeachment. But then there will be a vote on the rules, and at that point, the debate will be six hours according to the description -- the rules passed yesterday.

Three hours for each side, controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler for the majority and Representative Collins for the minority. Six hours. That should cover both articles of impeachment. There will be then separate votes --

COOPER: And that's -- anybody who wants to ask for time has -- will be allotted some time?

TOOBIN: Well, they have to ask their party -- the leader, in this case Nadler and Collins.

COOPER: Right.

TOOBIN: will control the time. And the speech -- the vote should be some time around 7:00.

COOPER: All right. Let's check in with Jake and Wolf -- Jake.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it's interesting, Jake, right now the first procedural move by Republicans to try to delay this as much as possible. You see a vote on a motion to adjourn. They've got 14 minutes and 12 seconds left. The Republicans are voting yea in favor of this motion to adjourn. The Democrats are voting nay. The Democrats are the majority, they will win, but it clearly is underscoring what we anticipated there would be some efforts to try to prolong this operation.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The minority party has fewer rights in the House than they do in the Senate, but they have some rights. There is nobody who thinks that the Congress is going to vote to adjourn right now. I mean, it's a silly motion. But it's just asserting themselves, exerting the few rights that they have. And trying to, as has been described before, gum up the works. Delay the process.

[09:05:04]

I suspect that if Republicans have their druthers, I don't know if they would follow through on this, but if they had their druthers that they would have this vote take place at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Now I don't know if they have the wherewithal to do that, but they're going to try to make this as onerous as possible.

BLITZER: And we're getting the first instinct of that right now. Manu Raju is up on Capitol Hill.

What are you hearing up there, Manu? What's going on?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly the decision the Republicans are going to make, exactly how far to go in mounting these procedural objections. Now what I am hearing from Republican sources that they will mount a number of these motions to try to voice their frustration at the process. But this is not going to be an endless parade of motions. At least that's not the plan right now.

They plan to set the tone at the beginning of the day which is why they are making this move right now to adjourn the House proceedings. It's a procedural thing under the rules. They can do -- certainly force this vote and as you guys mentioned, this will not pass. The Democrats will reject it but it's a way to express their frustrations. Expect that to be -- to happen through the course of today.

This will be a -- there'll be probably a handful of other times at which Republicans will move forward. Will try to move on a motion to try to get -- to make it clear that they disagree with what's happening here. But it's not going to end up delaying things. At the moment it doesn't appear until late at night. In fact we do expect ultimately the final votes to happen in the evening.

Now the Republicans are signaling that this could delay probably things by about an hour tonight. So we'll see what else they have in store but this is an effort to kind of set the tone through the course of the day here, guys.

BLITZER: It's interesting. Let's go to Dana. She's over in Statuary Hall watching all of this unfold.

What are the Democrats planning to do about this, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're just going to take the votes when they come up, and they understand that as Manu was reporting, Republicans are going to try to make this as messy as possible.

But, Wolf, I want to tell you that I am in what's called Statuary Hall which is just about 10 feet or so, maybe a little bit more off the House floor. And behind me is where the suite of offices that the House speaker has. So momentarily, we expect to see the House speaker make her way to the floor of the House at some point soon.

And as we're sitting here waiting for that, it's important to remember that this is a walk to begin a day of impeachment votes for the president of the United States that she did not want. That she pushed back on big time for all the times that people on the left of her caucus, as Kevin McCarthy was mentioning earlier, did push her to do. But because moderates came along with her, she decided that she was going to go -- hang on one second.

Here's Steny Hoyer coming behind me. He is the House majority leader. He's going to the floor because one of his big jobs is to manage the floor. Even on important days like this. So he's going to go see what's going on. Probably talk to the Republicans, get a sense of how much they're going to do this.

But back to the notion of where we are and how the Democrats are feeling today, you can feel it in the air here. It feels different. It is palpable that this is momentous. That this is grave. And again, it is, despite the Democrats' talking points, not something that this speaker wanted to do for and about this president.

BLITZER: Dana, stand by. I know you're going to be grabbing some of those members over there as this day continues.

You know, Gloria, this is the first of what's likely to be several Republican efforts to delay, delay, delay, as much as possible. They hate what's going on right now.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: They do hate what's going on. But at a certain point they have to make a decision which is we can delay and we can delay to a certain degree but do we want the American public to hear our arguments about why this impeachment is unfair and about why this is something the Democrats wanted to do from day one? And so they have to kind of -- they have to weigh those things.

There is a rule governing the consideration of what we're seeing today. So I think that the chair has some influence on this. But yes, they're going to play some games, and I think we can expect that.

One thing I want to point out, though, when I heard Leader McCarthy talk about, you know, the Democrats have wanted to impeach since day one. I went back and looked to what Donald Trump said a bit during the campaign. And he made the point that Hillary Clinton would inevitably create a constitutional crisis herself. And that we've been through enough with the Clintons. We don't want to create another constitutional crisis. Talking about, of course, Bill Clinton's impeachment which I might add also is 21 years ago almost to the day.

BLITZER: Dana's with the Senate majority leader Steny Hoyer. Go ahead, Dana.

BASH: Thank you so much, Mr. Leader. Thanks for stopping. So explain what we saw on the floor and more importantly, you know, despite the screaming and yelling, you do have conversations with your Republican colleagues. How much do you expect them to try to gum up the works with procedural votes today?

[09:10:05]

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): I think they want to express what is understandable, their regret and anger even at the process that is proceeding today. However, I don't expect it to be protracted, and I don't expect it to be undermining of getting this work done today.

BASH: And when you say expressing themselves, you know, this is a motion to adjourn which is, again, just a way to delay what they understand will be the inevitable, right?

HOYER: I think that's correct. I think this is a way to say we don't like what you're doing today. And we don't think you ought to be doing it today. There's a disagreement on that. We feel very strongly that we are compelled by our duty to our oath and the Constitution and our democracy to act today where we have found that the president of the United States has abused his power. They don't agree with that, many of them.

Not everybody doesn't agree with it on that side. I don't think they'll vote with us, but this is a way to express that. But I don't believe that it's going to be an all-day obstructive conduct. I think it will be six hours of debate. It will be historic and important debate but I think we'll get the work done by the end of the day.

BASH: Before I let you go, because I know you've got work to do on the floor, we saw the letter that the speaker sent to your colleagues about the importance of this debate, about the importance of these votes. What are -- the speaker, what are you saying internally to your caucus about the way to, you know, comport themselves and just about the moment of the day?

HOYER: We think this is a very serious and sad day for the country in some ways, but a responsibility that we could not shirk. In light of the oath we made to protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States and our democracy. And to confront abuse of power so that it is not repeated. But this is a serious day. This is not a day for celebration.

This is not a day for claiming victory. And this is a day for doing our responsibility. We have not whipped a single member, as you know. Every member has been urged to reach their conclusion based upon what they believe is consistent with their oath of office.

BASH: Thank you so much. Appreciate you stopping. Thanks, Mr. Leader.

Wolf and Jake, back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Dana, thank you.

You know, Jake, almost all of the Democrats in the House of Representatives are going to vote in favor of these articles of impeachment, even those who face potentially difficult re-election campaigns in districts, more than 30, that the president carried in 2016.

TAPPER: Any minute we expect, I think there are about 234 House Democrats, they have the majority now since the 2018 election. And any moment we expect many, if not most or even all potentially of them to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and stand with Speaker Pelosi as they begin this procedure, this very serious rebuke of President Trump. The impeachment. Only the third time in American history it's happened.

BLITZER: Yes. It's a somber, sober mood up on Capitol Hill. We're standing by for a dramatic show of unity by the Democrats as the House is kicking off debate on the articles of impeachment against the president of the United States. Our special coverage is only just beginning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: We're standing by for Speaker Pelosi to take the floor as the house begins historic debate on the impeachment. We expect Speaker Pelosi to head toward the hall any moment. Pelosi has asked fellow Democrats to join her in what they call a show of strength on this momentous day.

A stalling tactic by Republicans, a motion to adjourn, is under consideration right now. That is expected to fail, but it's likely we will see several protest motions throughout the day as Republicans expressing their displeasure with this entire proceedings as we continue to watch this.

We want to go back to our folks here, legal and political folks. Jeffrey Engel, just in terms of -- as a presidential historian, just in terms of the history of all of this, how does -- how does history remember the other attempts at impeachment, and how do you think history is going to remember this?

JEFFREY ENGEL, AUTHOR: You know, there's a general consensus on the previous three times that we had to go through this, including Nixon's, of course. Andrew Johnson is generally understood as being an unconstitutional impeachment. I would say Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the law that Johnson broke that was intentionally set for him as a trap, basically was unconstitutional.

So, we see that as a political fight which Johnson survived by the skin of his teeth, and by the way, we can get into this later, survived by bribing votes. That's a whole different question. Second one --

COOPER: Classic Andrew Johnson.

ENGEL: You know, we see it all the time. You know, second with Richard Nixon. Again, historians are really being a consensus on this one that of course, Nixon did something that needed to be removed. It was really very hard to find anyone in historical community who would argue the opposite.

And then with Bill Clinton, that's the one that I think is actually really interesting and then more pertinent for our case because that's the one where the debate was not over, of course, whether or not he did it, but what it meant. And so, that's when we really had to explore what the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors was.

We saw several senators, Senator Collins in particular, in '99, make the point that she thought Bill Clinton was guilty, but should not be removed from office because it was not a high crime. So, that's the way which we're framing this.

[09:20:00]

Again, we only have a few examples. So, it's really remarkable.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is notable that very facts are in dispute here. It's the partisanisation of facts. Even facts that were laid out in clear, sworn testimony. Remember, the one that always sticks in my mind. You had repeated by GOP lawmakers, and you know, even in the last few days, Ukrainians never knew about the aid delay. How could it be pressure if they didn't know? There was sworn testimony that in early July, Laura Cooper; Defense Department official, and there are e-mails to prove it. They were getting questions at that point, why is the aid delayed? And yet that false claim lives on.

I mean, even the idea of a quid pro quo. Folks forget because it seems like a million years ago, though it was three weeks ago, the president's EU ambassador said, yes, there was a quid pro quo and everybody knew about it. And yet, that you know, is questioned. There's no proof of it.

And that is truly remarkable here because those facts were laid out in sworn testimony on live television. We broadcast them, and yet they remain in dispute today, and that's pretty remarkable because that's a phenomenon we see really across the way, the news even covers this presidency, right? That if you turn on one channel, you see a certain set of facts, you turn on another, you see a certain set of facts.

COOPER: Yet, another thing that is -- we've never seen before is the kind of -- what Democrats are saying is obstruction of Congress, but of the White House just refusing to send documents, refusing to allow witnesses to testify. Just a blanket we've seen in other administrations, time and time again, individual acts of a White House and an administration not wanting to send particular documents or present some witnesses for executive privilege. But this is pretty blanket. Isn't it?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: In every administration, you have these disputes over oversight from Congress. You know, will this document be produced? Will this witness testify? Will that witness testify about the following subjects or conversations? What we have never seen before is the blanket refusal, the absolute refusal reflected in Pat Cipollone; the White House counsel's eight-page letter that he sent in September that said we are not going to participate at all in the impeachment process.

We are not going to allow any witnesses to testify. We are not going to produce any documents, any e-mails, and that is something that has never been done before, and it got -- it got the president impeached. It's going to get the president impeached.

COOPER: If you're wondering this motion to adjourn, which is a motion that the Republicans put forward, it was a delaying tactic, also an effort just to show displeasure and signal displeasure at this entire proceeding. That is still ongoing. It's out of time. But it is, obviously -- it is not going to pass. It is not going to adjourn. This is going to move forward. We're going to take a short break, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN: We're watching very closely what's happening on the floor of the House of Representatives. This motion to adjourn, you can see 213 nay votes, those are the Democrats, 184 yea votes, those are the Republicans. It's going to be a very delicate process that is about to unfold leading to these two articles of impeachment against the president.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN: There's about six hours of debate scheduled right now. I mean, who knows what's going to happen? And if you're looking for the key when it comes to these procedural motions, 216 is the vote. Normally it's 218, but there's a vacancy and Congressman Elijah Cummings passed away. So, 216 is the threshold.

We're expecting about six hours of debate, roughly one hour for the Democrats, one hour for the Republicans and on and on. Each different committee gets two different hours. So, we'll start with the rules committee, and then there are other committees. Nia-Malika, one of the things that's interesting is we're not going to hear a lot of debate about the actual rules.

It's going to be debating whether or not President Trump should be impeached. And it just reminds me how, unlike the Clinton impeachment, this is where the president's own attorney during that impeachment, Charles Ruff went on the floor of the Senate during the trial and called Clinton's behavior morally reprehensible, although not to the level of impeachment.

Here we have Republicans not only defending the president's behavior as perfect, but denying empirical fact. Denying that he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right, and essentially saying this was OK, and that the Bidens did do something wrong, and they're the ones that should be held in front of Congress to testify. You did see Kevin McCarthy not really want to answer, right? To say whether it was right or wrong the president's behavior.

I think we know that the president is going to be watching this, and he's certainly going to be watching for those Republican defenders. We've talked about his six-page letter -- in many ways, I think he wants to put words in those folks mouths, right? Who are going to be defending him and talking about him, to drag the Bidens into this.

To essentially defend his call, say that it was perfect. Say that it was well within his purview to have an investigation called on by the Ukrainian president, an investigation into the Bidens. We'll see if that happens, right? We've seen some of that in these hearings so far. People like Jim Jordan, people like Doug Collins, we'll see if Jim Jordan wears his jacket.

Probably will wear it today. But, yes, we know that the president who gets his ideas from TV, sees television as an echo chamber often times, so will certainly be waiting for sort of the cavalry of Republicans to reciprocally defend him today.

TAPPER: And he expects fealty.

HENDERSON: Yes.

END