White House Struggling to Form Cohesive Messaging Strategy
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're now a month into the speedy impeachment inquiry against President Trump and the White House is still struggling to formulate a uniform response while also dealing with the defiant and unpredictable president.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here's the thing. I don't have teams. Everybody is talking about teams. I'm the team.</s>KEILAR: So we're told the White House is now eying former Treasury Department spokesman, Tony Sayegh, to lead the administration's message strategy amid reports of constant infighting between the president's chief of staff and legal counsel. I want to bring in CNN host and political commentator, Michael Smerconish, and McClatchy White House correspondent, Francesca Chambers, to talk about this. You heard the president, Michael. He said he doesn't need a team. He is the team. How do you see that approach working so far?</s>MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND CNN HOST, "SMERCONISH": I'm a lawyer but I wouldn't want to represent myself, and I would suggest that even though his political instincts are often spot on, this might be a case where he'll want to surrender some judgment to an outside counsel. Look, they haven't offered, Brianna, a substantive defense to the allegations which, frankly, don't seem like they're very much in dispute. The whistleblower complaint was backed up by the transcript of the call with President Zelensky, and then you've got the diplomatic court testimony as it has leaked, particularly the 15-page statement from Ambassador Taylor. It all tells the same story. The defense from the White House so far has been one of process, like unleashing the Republican members of Congress to disrupt that hearing earlier this week. But in the end, if it gets past the House and there's a Senate trial, there will need to be some level of substantive defense. I thought that Mick Mulvaney, frankly, as a legal matter was on the right path a week ago when he tried to own the quid pro quo, but very quickly they did an about-face on that. So bottom line, thus far, there hasn't been a substantive defense. It's all been about the process.</s>KEILAR: They should have a substantive defense by now, right? You would think they wouldn't be just flip-flopping and confined of flailing, Francesca. Tell us where they are on finding someone to help with the messaging as we learn that former Treasury Department spokesperson, Tony Sayegh, is under consideration.</s>FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY: There's no war room but they are ramping up pressure for the president to come up with a more cohesive message on strategy to lead the war room. Who are they considering for that? Tony Sayegh is under consideration. The question is if he would want to take the job. He had left the administration and moved back to New York. He was happy at the time. He has not said this is something he would like to do. Pam Bondi is also being considered for this role. Also unclear this is something she would like to do. No doubt, this is an issue for the president. I'm also told by Mick Mulvaney this is not a reflection of the job he is or isn't doing, this would just be an addition to the job.</s>KEILAR: We're learning Democrats are starting to think about what would be in articles of impeachment. Lawmakers and aids have told CNN that. And I just heard from Congressman Ro Khanna that he hopes there would be public hearings after Thanksgiving, Francesca. So we're at least a month out from that. But knowing they're getting started on articles of impeachment, how much do they tell you about the information they have and how much the White House should be worried?</s>CHAMBERS: In terms of the war room, the White House thought they didn't need one and it would be too early for that that should certainly make them think they need to speed this up a little bit, because you don't want to be caught off guard and have no infrastructure in place. The White House counsel's office has been working on this, but that's quite different from having an outside firm working on this or even one of those impeachment war room that we've been talking about</s>KEILAR: And, Michael, we've heard from Senator Lindsey Graham who says that President Trump needs to take a page out of the Clinton playbook. He needs for others to take the helm and he needs to ignore the distraction and focus on governing. Can you imagine a situation where that's what Trump would do?</s>SMERCONISH: I can imagine him wanting to do that. I don't know that Democrats in the House would be inclined to play ball with him. I think this issue is a five-alarm fire on the corridor. I'm not sure about the rest of the country. Brianna, I base that, in large part, on the fact, by day, what do I do? I answer the telephone, and the people who are calling me to talk about issues are scattered all across the country. It's not so clear to me that this has really resonated yet with Americans all across the nation. So I know it's a hot subject for us, I know it's hot on the eastern seaboard and the northeast, among the cable outlets and so forth. But in the rest of the country, I think people are focused on jobs, health care and the economy. So to the extent he's able to show something in that regard, he, the president, it's in his best interest.</s>KEILAR: Yes, I think you're definitely right on that, Michael. There's so much intense interest here. But we will see how Democrats and the White House duke out the messaging when it comes to impeachment. That's going to be the next fight here. Michael Smerconish, Francesca Chambers, thank you. CNN's Fareed Zakaria investigates impeachment and its role in our democracy. He has a CNN special report, "On the Brink: When the President Faces Impeachment." It airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. We'll be right back.