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Senate Formally Accepts Articles of Impeachment; Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) Is Interviewed About the Senate Impeachment Trial. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 16, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

ALAN FRUMIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The chief can rule on these questions of evidence initially. And any ruling that the chief makes under the impeachment rules is subject to an appeal. And it's a simple majority vote on appeal, and appeals are phrased shall the decision of the chair stand as the judgment of the Senate. So if the chief says the evidence is in and an appeal is taken and a vote occurs and the vote is tied, the chief loses on a tie vote.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Very interesting. And Michael Gerhardt, I want to bring you in and I want the control room to prepare (INAUDIBLE) because we went through this obviously once before as a country within our lifetimes with the impeachment of President Clinton. Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat at the time objected to the fact that the Republican House impeachment managers back then kept referring to them as jurors, referring to the 100 senators as jurors, because as you just heard there -- they have more power than a jury. They get to make decisions, unlike a juror.

Take a listen to Senator Harkin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-IA): And Mr. Chief Justice, I object to the continued use of the word jurors when referring to the Senate sitting as triers, a trial on the impeachment of the president of the United States.

WILLIAM REHNQUIST, CHIEF JUSTICE: The chair was of the view that the senator from Iowa's objection is well taken, that the Senate is not simply a jury, it is a court in this case. And, therefore, counsel should refrain from referring to senators as jurors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And Michael Gerhardt, one the reasons Harkin was making that argument was that he said a jury in the judicial system is really only making decisions that will impact the life of one man, whereas the U.S. Senate is setting standards for the United States of America when it comes to presidential behavior.

MICHAEL GERHARDT, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That is exactly right and Senator Harkin made that point. And I think quite significantly, the chief justice who presided over that trial, William Rehnquist, agreed with him. In fact, Alexander Hamilton referred to the senators as judges in these trials not as jurors. And so, Senator Harkin and the Chief Justice Rehnquist are both correct that senators have critical rules in this trial.

In fact, they are the power. All critical power really resides with them, not with the chief justice. The chief justice only has power to the extent that at least 51 senators support him.

Otherwise, it's up to the senators. They are court, they're not a court of law, they're a special political court, and they have to think about this case as well as the big ramifications for the balance of power in the longer run for the United States.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I wanted to get Jeffrey Toobin into this as well. Jeffrey -- we don't have him right now but I'll ask Michael Gerhardt --

TAPPER: Well, I want to ask you a question.

BLITZER: Yes?

TAPPER: What are the standards, then, if the Senate decides to acquit President Trump? What are the standards that will then set whether you're referring to Tom Harkin or William Rehnquist or Alexander Hamilton? What does it mean for the next president if President Trump, given all the evidence we have, is acquitted?

BLITZER: A simple majority in the House of Representatives can impeach a president of the United States, but it takes a two-thirds supermajority in the United States Senate to convict and remove a president. Sixty-seven votes you need out of a hundred U.S. senators. There are 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats.

Dana, you watch this as closely as anyone. Is there any way, knowing what we know right now, that 67 senators are going to vote in favor of conviction?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you put a key phrase in there knowing what we know right now. And making sure to include that, no, and Democrats submit that. Whether -- if, in the interim, 51 senators vote to allow witnesses that change minds, if 51 senators vote to allow documents that change minds, it could change the dynamic but I still think what Nia said before it is -- is dead on about the fact that, yes, you have the jury here, the 100 senators, but you said this before, what is so unusual and it is really unprecedented about the impeachment throughout that we're going to see is it happening in an election year when the president of the United States is on the ballot? So the court of public opinion is as important as the jurors/senators in that trial.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And when the Republican Senate majority is at stake on the ballot, and Mitch McConnell understands anything he does could affect his job, could affect the political climate in the country. That's what makes this so unique and so different. Even if all 47 Democrats stay together, do you think in an election where the Republican majority is at stake, 20 of them are going to risk the president's wrath and risk what that would do to them politically?

We have seen what happens when this president turns on a Republican. That is one of the biggest differences. The presidential year where he leads the ticket and drives the turnout, and he has a billion-dollar campaign organization, that is just a fact.

[12:35:06]

You might think we're supposed to make these decisions separate of the political calendar. We cannot.

The other big difference we were talking earlier about is President Clinton was contrite at this point. He was not for months. He lied to the American people, he lied in his deposition of the Paula Jones case, he had been defiant for months but at this point, after the House had impeached him, President Clinton was contrite. He was asking America to forgive him and asking the Senate not to convict him saying I get it.

This president is not contrite. And as this plays out, it is going to be fascinating. If the Republican -- if four or five Republicans side with the Democrats and some new document is brought in, some new evidence is brought in, how does the president react? We are going to be having live commentary from the current president of the United States, the defendant, if you will, during the trial. We didn't have that during the Clinton days, he mostly kept his head down.

BASH: And there was no Twitter.

KING: Yes, there was no Twitter.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: The president's favorite mode of expression. You know, I think we've seen from Republicans so far that they have by and large gone along with this president. Even the people we kind of say, oh, maybe there is a question. People like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, they have by and large been in lockstep with this president. We kind of go about this and say, well it's a time for choosing for these Republicans. They've chosen in the past to cast their lot with this president who has taken over, it's probably a hustle takeover of this Republican Party.

So if you're somebody like Susan Collins, you're somebody like Martha McSally who we're talking about before, why would you risk breaking with this president?

KING: You can't when -- there's a roughly an even split if you look at the (INAUDIBLE) question Republican opinion polling, should the president be convicted and removed. He's roughly in even split, you know, somewhere -- if it's 40 -- it has to be a big blowout otherwise, the Republicans have to stay with their base. That's their political calculation. Unless they want to make a principle decision and say I don't care about my re-election. I don't care about that.

If it's an even split, basic politics, you stick with your base and you hope.

BLITZER: Up next, much more live CNN special coverage of the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:08]

BLITZER: Welcome back.

The United States Senate has formally begun the impeachment trial of the president of the United States. Manu Raju, our congressional correspondent up on Capitol Hill. Manu, you're watching this as closely as anyone and you have a special guest.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're speaking right now to Senator Kamala Harris of California. Of course, (INAUDIBLE) the evidence as it's coming in, you're just sitting up in the chamber. Obviously, you have called for the president to be impeached, you supported his impeachment. But as you approach this, is there any way that you would actually vote to acquit this president?

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): I take seriously the oath that I'm about to take this afternoon to do impartial justice, and I am fully prepared to follow the facts and the evidence where they lead. And I think the most important thing is that this is a process that allows for all of the available evidence to be present before the Senate so that we can have an outcome that reflects fairness and justice. And that means bringing forward before the senators all documents and all live witness that is available for us to make a decision about what happened.

RAJU: And, of course, some new information has come out in the last couple of days. Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate coming forward. Do you think that the Democrats should push to get Lev Parnas to testify before the Senate impeachment trial?

HARRIS: I think there's no question that we need to have all available evidence so that we can actually figure out what happened and make a decision again that reflects justice and that reflects a fair process. And any attempt to limit our ability to have the evidence that is available, I think, is not in pursuit of justice and will not be respected by the American people.

RAJU: Do you think, though, that Parnas is one person who you could consider as a possible witness?

HARRIS: Yes, I think there are many people. I mean, we've -- but let's just start with those witnesses that we know have been subpoenaed, are available, willing to testify, and have not been available to us. I have called John Bolton to come before us, Mick Mulvaney should come before us. There are a number of people even as Adam Schiff read the articles of impeachment that have not been made available to this process.

RAJU: But some Republicans want a deal in which you have the Republican witnesses to come forward in addition to these Democratic witnesses. Would you be open to something that allows a Hunter Biden to testify and also John Bolton?

HARRIS: Yes. But here's the thing, let's just be clear about this. There are rules including relevancy because then you could just say I want Santa Claus to come forward, right? I mean, the reality is that it has to be people who have relevant information about the charges before us. And that means people like John Bolton, it means people like Mick Mulvaney, it means people who have firsthand information that will help the United States Senate in its role as jurors determine where the facts and the evidence lie in a way that allows us to make the decision we ultimately must make.

RAJU: And you're here now as a senator, but you're also just as a presidential candidate. Do you have any thoughts about this spat that has occurred between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in which apparently Elizabeth Warren was told by Bernie Sanders that a woman can't win as president?

HARRIS: Listen, I think that as a former candidate running for president of the United States, I will tell you that my one area of focus, and I believe all our collective area of focus, needs to be on the misconduct by Donald Trump in terms of what he has done passing a tax bill that only benefits the top one percent in our country, allowing his administration to stand in the way of all Americans having access to affordable health care, and in particular, attempting to get rid of the ban on pre-existing conditions. We should be looking at what he is doing to stand in the way of what we need to do to take on the climate crisis and is running an administration who, on a daily basis, are deregulating some of the most toxic and harmful industries that a government should actually be paying attention to. These are the issues that we should be focused on.

RAJU: Senator Harris, thank you for talking to us.

Wolf and Jake, back to you.

[12:45:01]

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much, Manu. Thank the senator as well. You know, it's interesting, Jake, as we watch this unfold. A little bit more than an hour or so from now, the Senate will once again reconvene, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts will be presiding over this Senate trial, will be sworn in. And then all 100 U.S. senators will be sworn in as well.

TAPPER: We're going to see a couple very rare bipartisan moments, and this having mainly to do with the pageantry. The Senate cloakroom just announced that the chair has appointed Senators Blunt, a Republican, Feinstein, a Democrat, Graham, a Republican, and Leahy, a Democrat, to escort the chief justice of the United States to the Senate chamber.

There's going to be some pageantry of bipartisanship but do not be fooled. This is going to be a nasty, ugly, and very partisan fight.

KING: All veterans of the Clinton impeachment battle. Lindsey Graham was a House manager. He was in the House then not in the Senate. Now he's the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but he was among of the 13 Republican House managers back on that day. So we --

BLITZER: And at that time he was very forceful in insisting there has to be witnesses in the Senate trial.

KING: I think Lindsey Graham then and Lindsey Graham now are two very different --

TAPPER: You could have a good debate between the two but the House manager Lindsey Graham and Senator Lindsey Graham, they're very -- they're diametrically opposed on a lot of important --

KING: But he also does understand the risks here in the sense that number one, you heard Senator Harris call for live witnesses in the United States Senate. That was one of the issues, do you bring live witnesses on the floor of the United States.

Now, as in then, you had the leadership especially -- Mitch McConnell (INAUDIBLE) on the same page on this one. They don't want what they believed to be a circus --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Spectacle coming over.

KING: Spectacle coming over into what they believed is the better, more dignified chamber. The compromise in the Clinton days was to do videotaped depositions and then decide what will we brought in and then played on the Senate floor. And it was not Lindsey Graham, it was his colleague, Mr. Bryant who questioned Monica Lewinsky. Republicans thought they were going to get new information out of Monica Lewinsky, bring it to the floor in the Senate trial, and if you go back and read the transcript of the day, they got nothing.

In fact, she schooled them in that deposition to the point that President Clinton's lawyer not wanting to antagonize her didn't ask any questions. They said we're fine here, we're done.

And so the push for witnesses in that case backfired and the Republicans they didn't get anything for it. They got no new information to change the dynamic. I think that's something to keep in mind as we go forward here is that, you know, we have certain ideas but these things are unpredictable.

TAPPER: And Dana, I had Justin Amash on my show yesterday, he's the Republican turned independent, he voted in favor of sending the articles of impeachment as well as impeachment. And he said he would have -- he would take the trade if he were a Democratic senator of getting John Bolton to testify, getting Mick Mulvaney and others that they want to hear from, perhaps Lev Parnas, in exchange for what people like Senator Rand Paul and others are saying, demanding Hunted Biden testify, and Joe Biden, maybe even the whistleblower behind some sort of closed-door briefing. He said that's a trade worth making.

BASH: I would not hold my breath on any Democrat, and I know you wouldn't, either on any Democrat agreeing to that for the reason that Senator Kamala Harris just laid out. Because Hunter Biden as much as he in involved in, you know, talking about him as part of the case, he's not involved in what the House is prosecuting the president for which is withholding aid, military aid in exchange for an investigation. What Hunter Biden did or didn't do is a separate question and maybe it could be a separate investigation in any other forum but not here.

The one thing I just want to add about the comparisons that we're going to hear and see a lot of comparisons to Clinton because it was only 21 years ago and it was -- that was the first time in a hundred years we've seen an impeachment. But the thing we always have to keep in mind is that there was a huge, long, real independent investigation that went on with Ken Starr. And they got all the interviews and they had all the witnesses.

This is totally different because there was no independent investigation, and for the House, they didn't get any of these witnesses because the White House wouldn't allow it. So, you know, that is why the Democrats are going to push so hard to at least hear some of them despite the fact that, you're right, it could backfire if you --

TAPPER: And you haven't seen an attorney general with the independent streak of Janet Reno appointed ever since then.

We're going to take a break and we're going to see the chief justice of the Supreme Court shortly as he prepares to be sworn in for the trial. More on our coverage after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:54:09]

BLITZER: We're just an hour or so away when -- before the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, will be sworn in to preside over this trial in the Senate.

Alan, he takes very seriously the title chief justice of the United States not of the United States Supreme Court.

FRUMIN: Well, the chief justice has always taken that title very seriously and has taken the responsibility very seriously. I have gone back and reviewed some of my notes surrounding the presence of chief -- of then Chief Justice Rehnquist, and nobody really knew the proper verbiage, the manner in which he should be approached, what he should say. And looking at some of my office notes, a language had been prepared for the chief to say, senators, I attend the Senate in obedience to your notice for the purpose of joining with you and forming a court of impeachment.

[12:55:06]

That language had been prepared for the chief justice. He did not use it.

TAPPER: That's interesting. I do think that it's possible that John Roberts is even less inclined to insert himself in the process than Chief Justice Rehnquist was, and Rehnquist was very deferential and respectful of the process. But I think Roberts is even -- we won't see any stripes on his robe to start with.

BLITZER: Which means the 51 votes will potentially be even more significant.

TAPPER: My guess, just based on watching John Roberts as chief justice of the United States is that he will defer as much as possible. He doesn't want to be tainted. He doesn't want to be seen as political.

Stay with us. We have more live CNN special coverage of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. We're going to take a quick break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:00]