Warren Silenced on Senate Floor
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I appeal the ruling of --</s>SEN. STEVE DAINES (R), MONTANA: The objection has been heard. The senator will take her seat.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: High drama on Capitol Hill. A leading liberal senator tries to read a letter in her attempts to oppose the attorney general nominee. Oh, but then the GOP reads her the rules. The fallout, ahead. The future now in the hands of a federal appeals court. Will the judges decide the president has such authority for such a use of power? Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START this morning. I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday. It is February 8th, 5:00 a.m. on the nose in the East. Good morning, everyone. We begin with the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren silenced. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell taking action as Senator Warren was trying to read the words of Coretta Scott King to criticize Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee for attorney general. Senator McConnell invoked a rarely used rule to cut off Warren. It's known as Rule 19. Now, normally, a floor speech gets little to no attention. But when McConnell shut down Warren's speech invoking the words of Martin Luther King's widow, McConnell may have given Senator Warren and her followers a spark. Watch what happened on the Senate floor.</s>WARREN: This is what it said, "They are mothers, daughters, sisters, fathers, sons and brothers.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: Mr. President --</s>WARREN: They are --</s>MCCONNELL: Mr. President --</s>DAINES: The majority leader?</s>MCCONNELL: The senator's impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, as warned by the chair. Senator Warren, quote, "said Senator Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens." I call the senator to order under the provision of Rule 19.</s>WARREN: Mr. President?</s>DAINES: Senator from Massachusetts.</s>WARREN: Mr. President, I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate. I ask leave of the Senate to continue my remarks.</s>DAINES: Is there objection?</s>MCCONNELL: I object.</s>WARREN: I appeal the ruling --</s>DAINES: Objection is heard. The senator will take her seat.</s>ROMANS: According to Majority Leader McConnell's staff, Warren is now banned from speaking on the Senate floor for the remainder of the debate on Sessions nomination. She's not staying quiet, though, sort of seizing this moment. She took to the Internet to read Mrs. King's letter after she was cut off from the Senate chamber. And then she told CNN's Don lemon a new level of hostility in politics won't silence her.</s>WARREN: There's been some hard words in the United States Senate through the years, but all of a sudden, when I'm reading something, a truthful statement from Coretta Scott King, answer, no, can't say that. Well, I'm going to tell you this, they can shut me up but they can't change the truth.</s>ROMANS: Now, the debate over the Sessions nomination is expected to wrap up at 7:00 Eastern tonight when a final confirmation vote is planned. Let's go live to Washington now and bring in Zach Wolf, managing editor of CNNpolitics.com. I'm fascinated to get your read on this. You know, reading a letter on the floor of the Senate. I mean, maybe that would have just been, you know, your typical kind of nomination process antics. But then to shut her down, it almost -- it almost made a voice louder in a way.</s>ZACHARY WOLF, CNN POLITICS: Unquestionably, I mean, this is a speech that very few people would have seen. You know, C-Span junkies maybe tuning into this Jeff Sessions debate that goes on for hours and hours and days even in this case. But by shutting her down, they've essentially given her a platform. And you have to wonder the strategy, if there was one behind this for Republicans, they've certainly galvanized Elizabeth Warren and her politics.</s>ROMANS: Yes, was that a tactical error by Senator Mitch McConnell, do you think?</s>WOLF: We'll have to see, you got to wonder what was going on in his mind while doing that, especially since she was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King. It's not like she was saying Jeff Sessions used, you know, the force of his power. It was a letter from kind of a, you know, an icon of the civil rights movement doing that.</s>ROMANS: And remind us, remind our viewers why she was bringing that letter. What was in that letter? It was a criticism of Jeff Sessions at a time when he was being considered for a federal courtship, federal judgeship.</s>WOLF: That's right. He did not end up getting that federal judgeship. It was before he ran for Senate. It was back in the '80s. And honestly, this kind of episode had almost been forgotten in the confirmation fight of Jeff Sessions. He seemed to do very well in his confirmation hearings, answering some of these questions. Democrats didn't have the numbers to stop him. By doing this, they've really opened this whole chapter back up again.</s>ROMANS: Well, it's clear they don't have the numbers to stop him, so they're trying to find other ways, you know, other ways to slow walk or to oppose the president's nominees. Let's listen to what Senator Mitch McConnell said. His sort of rationale here. He said she'd been warned and she didn't listen.</s>MCCONNELL: Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.</s>ROMANS: So, for those of you who are not as geeky as Zach and others and don't know what Senate Rule 19 Provision 2 is, here it is, "No senator in debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to another senator or other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator." So, a letter from Coretta Scott King, Mitch McConnell rules, fulfills that mandate there?</s>WOLF: Well, yes. The reading of it during this debate on Sessions, I guess, does it. And it's by giving it voice perhaps that does it. That sound in there where he said, "She was warned before we made her sit down." I can't imagine that's going to help her cause much.</s>ROMANS: Yes. Senator Orrin Hatch talked about, you know, sort of like respect and decorum in the chamber. Let's listen to what he said.</s>SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: We have to treat each other with respect, or this place is going to evolve into nothing but a jungle. I'm not perfect so I don't mean to act like I am. But I have to say that all of us need to take stock. We need to start thinking about people on the other side, need to start thinking about how we might bring each other together in the best interests of our country.</s>ROMANS: I thought that was an interesting remark. You know, she went -- Elizabeth Warren went on our air last night with Don Lemon and said, you know, it's remarkable hostility happening right now. And she feels she has to find other ways of voicing her frustration.</s>WOLF: It's really interesting what's going on out there, after they changed the filibuster rule which is another -- you know, arcane element of Senate procedure to make it so that it's -- you know, 51 votes gets you, with the Supreme Court nominees, instead of 60. You can really tell, the Senate used to have this sort of -- I don't know what the right word is -- it just felt a little bit different. But recently, it felt like the House, a lot of Democrats are saying that, the way the senators are interacting with each other. You could just feel it. It's a little bit different.</s>ROMANS: I think the word you're looking for is gravitas, you know? Gravitas in the Senate. I also think it's interesting that just a week ago, Senator Orrin Hatch called Democrats idiots. So, we do have these remarkable moment we're in right now. All right. Zach, go get a cup of coffee. Come back in a couple of minutes because I want to talk to you more about Kellyanne Conway and Jake Tapper, in this remarkable interview almost trying to figure out what kind of relationship the media and White House are going to have over the next four years. So, come back and we'll talk about that. Thanks, Zach.</s>WOLF: Sounds good.</s>ROMANS: A ruling on the president's travel ban coming as soon as today. We have the argument and the next legal steps.