Trump's State of the Union; Iowa Results Show Buttigieg with Narrow Lead; Senate Expected to Acquit Trump; Pelosi Calls Trump Speech A Manifesto Of Mistruths
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church.</s>JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): I'm John Vause at the CNN Center in Atlanta where it's just gone 2:00 am on the U.S. East Coast. It's 11:00 pm out west. Wherever you are, thank you for joining us. And we begin this hour with a split-screen moment in America. As the president was delivering the most partisan State of the Union address in memory, Democrats continued counting votes in the Iowa caucus. The long delayed results have been slowly trickling in. Right now with 71 percent of precincts counted, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, maintains a narrow lead over Bernie Sanders. The big loser still in fourth place, former Vice President Joe Biden.</s>CHURCH: Meanwhile, Donald Trump delivered the annual address to Congress, taking center stage for 78 partisan minutes, starting with a presidential snub for the House Speaker and ending with a not-too- subtle insult from Nancy Pelosi.</s>VAUSE: And in the moments in between, the president appealed mostly to his base, talking about the economy, immigration, his border wall, socialism, abortion, judges, guns, school prayer. And then there were the major TV moments, like the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, for conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. And, of course, there was the usual Trumpian hyperbole.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our borders are secure. Our families are flourishing. Our values are renewed. Our pride is restored. And for all of these reasons I say to the people of our great country and to the members of Congress, the state of our union is stronger than ever before.</s>CHURCH: Speaker Pelosi was not having any of it. After Mr. Trump snubbed her offer to shake hands before the speech, she returned the favor several times, introducing him without using the words "high privilege and honor," standing and clapping only when someone was honored and ripping up the paper copy of his speech at the end.</s>VAUSE: Not very subtle. Joining us now from Los Angeles, Ron Brownstein and Michael Genovese.</s>CHURCH: Also Democratic strategist Caroline Heldman and political radio host Joe Messina.</s>VAUSE: First, though, we'll begin with Michael. Judging by what we saw a few hours ago, the State of the Union, what, best described as two toddlers having temper tantrums in a sand pit?</s>MICHAEL GENOVESE, POLITICAL ANALYST: Both the Speaker and the president were a bit snarky. It started with the snub. It ended with the tearing of the speech. That's partly because I think we all knew that it was going to be a highly partisan speech. And both sides were highly partisan. But this was I think one of the president's better speeches. I think he hit most of the key points. It was really two speeches. The first was listing his accomplishments. And he has some accomplishments to list. The second was red meat to the base, throwing at them all of the key things that will highlight why they should be energized by him.</s>CHURCH: And, Ron, I want to turn to you now. Of course, in his address President Trump boasted that the U.S. economy is the best it's ever been, due to his policies. Can he claim all those successes? And what about his flip-flop on pre-existing conditions? How does he get to own that, given he's trying to take those very same protections away now in the courts?</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it's interesting, Rosemary. I thought the speech actually was a good preview of what the economic debate is going to be in the general election here in the U.S. because, on the one hand, voters are very satisfied with the economy, three-quarters of Americans saying the economy is excellent or good. And President Trump's approval rating on the economy is up to the mid to high 50s, which is a very robust number for an incumbent president. On the other hand, the share of Americans who approve of the way he's handling health care is under 40 percent usually in polls. And when people talk about their day-to-day economic concerns, the cost of health care, in particular, the cost of prescription drugs, is right at the top of the list. If the economy may be his greatest policy strength at the moment, health care is his greatest policy vulnerability. And I think you're going to see an argument play out through the rest of the year about which one of those weighs more in the minds of voters.</s>BROWNSTEIN: It was quite telling that, when Democrats at one point got up and started chanting, you know, 3, 3, 3, after H.R. 3, the bill that passed the same week as they impeached him in the House to lower prescription drug prices and which may prove more consequential, at least in the battle for control of the House than the impeachment vote itself.</s>CHURCH: Right. And, of course, we will have a lot more from the State of the Union later this hour with CNN's Nic Robertson, live from London, while in Abu Dhabi CNN's John Defterios will join us. And Ron and Michael will also be staying along for that.</s>VAUSE: The president addressed Congress from the same room where 48 days earlier Democrats voted to impeach him. In the coming hours, though, he'll be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate. And his approval rating with Gallup is at an all-time high. So, too, his approval for the handling of the economy. Meantime, Democrats, it seems, are struggling to count people in a room. So Joe, to you, is this the high water mark if not the high point for the Trump presidency so far? Does it get any better than this?</s>JOE MESSINA, POLITICAL RADIO HOST: Oh, it's going to get much better than this.</s>VAUSE: Why did I know you'd say that?</s>MESSINA: You're going to see the economy get even better to the point where we'll be able to let more people into the country that want to work here because we don't have the people now to fill the jobs that we have. He's going to finish building the wall. I'm going to tell you something. It's easy to sit there when you're looking at it from a different set of lenses and talk about all his -- all his issues and all his problems. But the reality is he's done a lot of what he said he was going to do. You brought up health care a few minutes ago. I think it's rich to bring up health care and talk about how much of a problem it is when some of the people I know were paying three times the amount in premiums when it was under the ACA. So it needs to be fixed. It needs to be changed. And I believe that Nancy Pelosi runs the Congress. I think she can help with this.</s>CHURCH: Caroline, turning to you, if the Democrats can't even successfully organize their own Iowa caucuses, how can they convince America's voters that they offer a better way ahead than President Trump?</s>CAROLINE HELDMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think you bring up a good point, Rosemary, that they have an uphill battle. And I think that perhaps Democrats have been thinking that because perhaps Trump is the least popular president in modern history that this is going to be a cakewalk in November. I think tonight, you know, the third State of the Union address that Trump has delivered, where he actually looks presidential. And I don't think he does 364 days out of the year. He does a lot of erratic things. He violates the norms of the office. Some would argue the Constitution. But this one night of the year when he knows that he has probably 20 million viewers, he absolutely acts presidential. And what he did tonight is he essentially stole the mantle of environmentalism. He stole the mantle of being good on health care when really what he's doing is gutting environmental regulations. He is gutting health care, pre-existing conditions. The fact he's claiming credit for that really shows the length to which he is going to go to, to frame the issues that matter most to Americans, despite the fact that behind the scenes he's actually not supporting those policies one bit.</s>VAUSE: For Democrats, everything that could go wrong in Iowa on Monday night did go wrong. Here's a short list. There's probably a lot of other things we could add to it. But having said that, you can read it as we talk. Joe, in 2012, the Republicans declared the wrong winner from their Iowa caucus. On the night they called it for Romney. Days later it was Rick Santorum they said won. Days after that Congressman Ron Paul emerged the winner. I guess there were problems last time between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Is this the last we'll see of the Iowa caucus?</s>MESSINA: I don't know. That's a good question. People like consistency. They like things they're familiar with. I looked it up before I got here. And 15 of the last winners of the Iowa caucus did not go on to become president. When you look at those numbers and you look at what they're doing, this is what they're comfortable with. I'm not so sure they're going to change it anytime soon.</s>CHURCH: And, Ron, I wanted to turn to you because the results from Iowa, so far at least, show Pete Buttigieg just in the lead ahead of Bernie Sanders. Here's what Buttigieg said earlier.</s>PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), MAYOR OF SOUTH BEND, IND., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It validates for a kid somewhere in the community, wondering if he belongs or she belongs or they belong in their own family, that, if you believe in yourself and your country, there's a lot backing up that belief.</s>CHURCH: A very emotional point there in Buttigieg's speech. But Ron, Democrats have and had previously viewed Joe Biden as their best bet for beating President Trump. That view appears to have been abandoned within the party, certainly in Iowa. It's just one state, though, right? But if Buttigieg does become the Democratic presidential nominee, what are his real chances of beating President Trump?</s>BROWNSTEIN: That's several steps down the road, Rosemary. First of all, I mean, to the point of the previous question.</s>BROWNSTEIN: You know, the Iowa caucus is a caucus because it is a way to evade New Hampshire's law requiring it to be the first in the nation primary. That is sanctioned by the Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee in Iowa, that lead opposition. I think they're going to face enormous pressure to not have these two 90 percent white states lead off the process for an increasingly diverse party, especially after this historic debacle this week. Look, to me the biggest story out of the Iowa caucus was that none of the Democrats yet is big or broad enough to pull away from the others. It is entirely likely that the margin of the share of the total delegates won by the winner will be the smallest ever for a first place finisher in Iowa. It was the first time five candidates reached double digits for Democrats in the Iowa caucus. And it reflects the reality that they are all operating -- they've all consolidated different parts of the party, different pools of the party. But no one really, I think, looks nearly strong enough to pull away from the others. Biden I think was staggered and you could see it coming. I spent the last week at his events. They were small. His energy was low. But his best constituency, African Americans, haven't weighed in yet. So it is possible Democrats have a long way to go until they find a candidate to oppose Trump, at a point when, you know, Trump's approval has been rising slowly but steadily given the increasing -- under the push of the increasing optimism about the economy.</s>VAUSE: It turns out if someone wants to launch a thousand conspiracy theories, ruin their own credibility, cast doubt over an entire election, there's an app for that. And Democrats in Iowa are sorry. Listen to this.</s>TROY PRICE, IOWA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN: The reporting of the results, circumstances surrounding the 2020 Iowa Democratic Party caucuses, were unacceptable. As chair of the party, I apologize deeply for this.</s>VAUSE: So, Caroline, I apologize. That's good. But how about I resign?</s>HELDMAN: He should absolutely resign. This was a rookie mistake. You put out a new app you haven't properly tested under the cloak of secrecy. When people finally do download it on Monday night, they find that they get a warning that says, look, maybe you don't want to download this app because it wasn't coming from an app store, which caused a lot of people to close it down. Just from top to bottom, all of the issues with this technology are things that could have been prevented, had someone simply had a little more experience. So I think at the end of the day, he should resign. This absolutely hurts the party. It's opened it up so that Republicans are now floating a lot of conspiracy theories. It's playing into this fear about things being rigged against Sanders in 2016. So it's incredibly harmful to the party.</s>CHURCH: Joe, I do want to go back to you and to the State of the Union address, where President Trump pledged to protect patients with pre-existing conditions. That's not even factual. He's currently in the courts trying to eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions. So he can't claim that. How do you explain that to voters?</s>MESSINA: Well, look, it's like everything else when they're laying down legislature, trying to work through things. These bills aren't clean. They never have been clean when they come through. I've been screaming from my own radio show that the bottom line is I would like bills to show up with one issue on them. So if we're talking about medical issues, pre-existing conditions, which ones are we talking about? What conditions exactly is he trying to get thrown out or is he trying to keep in? And the Republican legislators have said they will keep it in there, they will work to make sure they maintain pre-existing conditions.</s>VAUSE: A couple hours from now, it looks as if President Trump will be acquitted in the impeachment trial in the Senate. And, Michael Genovese, we heard from one of the swing voters if you like, senator Susan Collins, basically saying that she will vote for acquittal, believing that Donald Trump has learned a very valuable lesson from this and will be more essentially contrite moving forward. Really?</s>GENOVESE: Well, there's a first for everything. You know, basically the Republicans have been saying guilty but so what. There's a big so what. It matters greatly. Presidents need to be controlled. They need to be under the rule of law. And I think in this case, especially you see a lot of Republicans scrambling because they know that politically they need to support the president. And yet they know that on the basis of the evidence, as Alexander said, the House Democrats have proven their case. We know he's done wrong. But so what?</s>CHURCH: All right. We'll wrap that panel up. Many thanks to Caroline Heldman, Joe Messina for joining us there. Of course, Ron and Michael, you're going to stick around.</s>VAUSE (voice-over): In the meantime we're going to take a short break. When we come back,</s>CHURCH (voice-over): Plus the U.S. and other countries are racing to get their people out of China as the Wuhan virus spreads. The dramatic new steps China is taking to slow the outbreak. That's next.