GOP Senator Calls For Trump To Not Infect Trial With House GOP; Pelosi: Senate Must Call Witnesses Or "Pay A Price"
TAPPER: In our politics lead, one Republican senator is asking President Trump to not, "infect the Senate trial" by picking Republican congressmen to be part of his legal team. So, it's worth noting we did see Congressman Jim Jordan walking into the White House just hours ago. Presumably he would be one of the infectors. CNN's Manu Raju joins me live on the Hill. Manu, you talked to two GOP senators about the pending impeachment trial. What did they have to say?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John Cornyn, he's a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, made that comment to me just moments ago. He said let's not infect the Senate trial with a circus-like atmosphere of the House. I think there is an increased risk of doing that if you were to add the House members to the Senate team. Now, this comes as there is that debate going on within the president's legal team and beyond about bringing in those additional Republicans, people like Jim Jordan or others who were part of the Republican defense in the House. Some Senate Republicans say let's in fact just go proceed as normal. Let's not bring in these individuals who could distract from the president's defense in any way. And also over the weekend, President Trump called for an outright dismissal of his case. John Cornyn instead said to me, look, instead we should move to acquit the president, not to acquit dismissal like the president wants. And other Republican senator Lamar Alexander, a close confidant of Mitch McConnell said the majority leader, said to me that he is open to the idea of bringing forward witnesses. But he said that is a new way, that needs to wait until later, wait until actually the opening arguments happen in this case, and then they can vote to decide. So, a lot of steps need to take place, a lot of uncertainty, but certainly clear that there is going to be some big votes on the floor in the coming weeks, Jake.</s>TAPPER: So witnesses still a possibility. Manu, we are expecting to see how Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially hand to the Senate the impeachment articles this week after nearly a month of limb. How soon might there be a Senate trial?</s>RAJU: Well, we can expect some procedural moves to occur this week. Tomorrow, Nancy Pelosi is going to meet with her caucus behind closed doors, detail her plans in moving ahead including discussion about naming House impeachment managers, people who would actually formally prosecute the case on behalf of House Democrats. And the House floor, they'll actually vote to name those House managers and then after that, the actual articles will be delivered by those House managers over to the Senate. They will read aloud those articles of impeachment on the floor of the Senate. And then afterwards, the senators will be sworn. The Chief Justice will be sworn in and then we could expect arguments to happen next week, likely probably at the beginning of next week. There is opening arguments that each side will make and then the question will be how quickly they move to dismiss or whether or not they actually do go forward and subpoena these witnesses.</s>TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju, thanks so much. Let's chat about all this. Gloria, if the Senate ultimately allows witnesses, and that is a big if. We know now -- I mean does whether or not Pelosi has gained this out all ride on that decision?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, she wants witnesses. She believes she made the case to the American public, that without witnesses, it is a, "cover-up." So, and she believes that the news that has transpired since the House impeached Donald Trump, John Bolton saying, you know, he wants to be subpoenaed, the e-mails about Ukraine and the Office of Management and Budget and the question of the president's culpability and involvement. She believes all of that has helped her make the case that there ought to be witnesses. And so, I think, you know, in the end, Nancy Pelosi, if it works out, she can say, well, maybe it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had this delay.</s>TAPPER: We'll see.</s>BORGER: I think it would have happened one way or another honestly, but we'll see.</s>TAPPER: And you don't hear it publicly, but a lot of members, the Democrats in the House are frustrated not just because some of them feel that the urgency has been undermined by this delay, but also they don't know who the House impeachment managers are going to be and they want to know.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right -- right. And certainly from the White House perspective, the White House, I mean, will argue, you know, spokespeople will argue that this had no effect at all, that it didn't help to move the ball forward at all. There was of course public conversation about all of this. I think the more interesting thing is the way that it fits into the thinking among people close to the president because there is kind of two camps that way I see it. There are the individuals who do not want witnesses who want this to be a legal case that's made by Pat Cipollone, quick and dirty, done. No witnesses at all, right. And then there is the other camp of folks who frankly align with the president's instincts, which is a theatrical defense, you know, you bring in witnesses. Sure, you can give them Mulvaney, but we get the whistle-blower, we get Hunter Biden, we get those folks. So, I think it's more interesting to see, you know, if there is indeed witnesses that do come up. If there are four votes among Republicans, does that then open a can of worms of all of the witnesses that the president would like who are of course much more politically motivated candidates.</s>TAPPER: Sara, take a listen as Pelosi this weekend defending the delay when sending the impeachment articles to the Senate.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What we did want though, and we think we accomplished, in the past few weeks is that we wanted the public to see the need for witnesses. Now, the ball is in their court to either do that or pay a price.</s>TAPPER: And Republican Senator Susan Collins says she's working with a small group of Republican colleagues to work on an agreement to call witnesses.</s>SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And, you know, there have been revelations in this time that the impeachment articles have just been sitting there, cooling their heels. You know, John Bolton came out and said that he would be willing to testify in front of the Senate. We had learned more about what's in the kinds of documents that the White House has refused to hand over. So, in that sense, you know, you can understand what the Speaker is saying. But it does kind of undermine their argument that they couldn't possibly wait for any of this stuff to play out in the courts because, like you said, it all needs to be done very urgently because this election is coming up and because the President's behavior was so egregious. And so, it is a double-edged sword.</s>TAPPER: And then, of course, there's the question, if Bolton doesn't testify before the Senate, would the House subpoena him? Take a listen to the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, this weekend.</s>MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS HOST: The Speaker was on another network today and seemed to leave open the idea of subpoenaing John Bolton, the former national security adviser to the President. Is that something you would be looking at? Are you looking at?</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: You know, it's certainly something that we are considering.</s>TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, they are considering it. And I think, as Speaker Pelosi said, the ball is in the court of the Senate. If the Senate decides to call these witnesses and have John Bolton come and speak what he has said that he's willing to do, then that leaves the House not having to do that. But I think that they want to have that in their back pocket. And if the Senate decides that they're going to push through this very quick trial -- no witnesses, no John Bolton, none of these firsthand witnesses who have an understanding of what the President was doing -- then we could have another repeat of what happened in the House with, you know, these momentous hearings where people come before the televised committee hearings and expose what the President was doing. I wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats say that if the Senate does not hold hearings with witnesses, then we're going to do it ourselves.</s>TAPPER: Perhaps the best argument that Pelosi was up to something that was actually effective are the tweets and the reaction of President Trump, who really seems to have become unmoored even more so than normal. Here is one tweet. Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, no pressure impeachment hoax, rather than outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat witch-hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree! That's like mad libs.</s>TAPPER: For whom?</s>MURRAY: Right out in your face (ph).</s>DIAMOND: I will say, though, that it was really in the first few days after Pelosi did this that you saw the President really -- you saw why Pelosi was doing this. Because the President was extremely bothered by it --</s>TAPPER: Of course, yes.</s>DIAMOND: -- I want my trial, I want my vindication. Then that kind of dissipated a little bit. And so, I think that that is where Pelosi maybe didn't get quite as -- exactly what she wanted. But, again, we've seen the President say all kinds of things, and we've seen him say we're going to dismiss it, I want the theatrical trial, I want witnesses. So, you know, I think he kind of throws a lot of things at the wall and see which sticks.</s>BORGER: She is so brilliant at getting under his skin.</s>TAPPER: Yes.</s>BORGER: And when she said on ABC yesterday that he'll be impeached for life, it drove him crazy because he started tweeting about that, why do I have to have that? And he is clearly thinking about his legacy. And she knows that. And she knew how much that would bother him. So she can play --</s>TAPPER: Yes.</s>BORGER: -- play him so well, it's remarkable.</s>TAPPER: That's a skill, I suppose.</s>BORGER: Maybe, I guess.</s>TAPPER: Three weeks until the Iowa caucuses and another Democratic candidate dropping out. Could his voters put someone else over the top? Stay with us.