Lawmakers Face Tough Fights; Congress Faces Battle over Gun Legislation
KING: There's plenty of urgency and uncertainty in both parties and in both chambers as Congress returns today from its long summer break. The to-do or debate doing list is long and consequential. Gun legislation tops the will they or won't they act list after four mass shootings happened during the summer recess. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on a budget deal. Twenty-one days left, only 21 days, until the government would shut down. On trade, many lawmakers, including some House Democrats, getting impatient to ratify the USMCA. And amid all of this, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says Democrats are pushing forward on at least three investigations involving the president. CNN's Manu Raju joins us now live from Capitol Hill. Manu, more about those investigations coming into your reporting today and a big vote this week on a possible impeachment inquiry. Fill us in.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday will vote to essentially formalize its process and hearings and its investigations, saying that what they are doing is essentially an impeachment investigation. What this resolution does is essentially set the ground rules for how these hearings will be carried out, things like staff attorneys on the committee can question witnesses, something that typically is not done. It's going to be similar to the way that what happened in 1974 when the House Judiciary Committee adopted its rules dealing with the Nixon impeachment proceedings. Now, I'm told that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has resisted moving forward on formal impeachment proceedings, she actually supports this resolution that the House Judicial Committee will adopt. And, John, I just spoke to some Democratic aides on the House Judiciary Committee who say that is 100 percent correct to say what the committee is doing right now is an impeachment investigation. This comes as more than half of House Democrats have formally supported moving forward. The House -- with the formal impeachment inquiry. And the Democrats on that same committee, John, plan to make a decision about whether to formally recommend articles of impeachment by the end of the year. That is their goal, but that could be complicated by the court fights that are tied up, including trying to get former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify. That issue also being wrapped up. But, John, one reason why, of course, the speaker has not been fully on board with moving forward with impeachment proceedings, she does not want to overshadow the legislative debate, including what they're going to want to be talking about this afternoon, movement on guns, which is what the speaker's message is going to be today, even as a lot of Democrats are saying it's time to impeach. John.</s>KING: Manu Raju live on The Hill. That's just the Democratic pressure. There are obviously questions in the Republican Senate and a lot of questions about what the president wants and can get out of this. But let me start, Matt Viser with "The Boston Globe" joins our conversation. "Washington Post," I'm sorry Matt. I tried to give you back -- tried to give you back to your former employer there. Sorry about that. The question for Democrats here is, you know, you're going to keep encouraging -- now you're calling it an impeachment investigation. It's not impeachment. There are no articles of impeachment for the House of Representatives. But if you keep saying, our base wants this, we believe there's legitimate areas of inquiry. At what point do you reach the, we're all in or we pull back as we head into an election year?</s>MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": And these next couple months are sort of crucial for that and crucial for the legislative agenda as well as that question. And it is sort of a tap dance that Nancy Pelosi has done, somewhat effectively so far, but this sort of next phase sort of changes that, where it is difficult, if you're going to go all in, to go toward impeachment, to increase their investigative powers or not. And President Trump keeps giving them more ammunition. They've also turned toward investigating him and his properties, as we saw the vice president saying in Doonberry (ph). So I think there's other elements that they want to dig into that this question looming sort of makes it hard to keep sort of pouring on.</s>KING: And underestimate the speaker at your peril, but is there a point where she cannot control this? She wants to say, keep investigating, keep investigating. She doesn't think impeachment is a winner for the Democrats in the area of public opinion heading into the election.</s>KING: How can -- but is it going to hit a point where she can't stop it?</s>HULSE: Well, about that report that I'd say, vote on committee ground rules is a lot different than a vote in the House to begin an impeachment inquiry. So, to me, the Democrats are trying to look and posture like they're having an impeachment inquiry without having a formal impeachment inquiry, which they know and Speaker Pelosi doesn't want to do. I do think that as they go through the next few months here, they're going to have to figure it out. It just -- the leadership attitude has been, it's going to be really hard to move forward in a presidential election year on impeachment. They look pretty good right now in holding onto the House and things are shaping up for them. I don't think they want to blow that. However, I will say, you know, if it turned out the errant forecast was a crime about Alabama, so maybe they can add that to the list of things they're investigating. There is some kind of criminal statue on that.</s>KUCINICH: Well, and this is without knowing the top of the ticket yet, because that will even bring an additional pressure if you have a top of the Democratic ticket going after it, who is running against Donald Trump, who is supporting impeachment. What do you do then when you actual have a functional leader of the party? We don't know that yet and we don't know who is going to be there, but that's something that you know Nancy Pelosi has to be preparing for.</s>PHILLIP: Yes. Well, one thing I do think you're starting to see among the Democrats who are running against Trump is that the environment of the last couple of days with the stories about the Air Force stopping the plane near his resort in Scotland, about the vice president staying at his resort in Ireland, about, you know, all of these stories are creating an environment where Democrats are starting to talk more and more about corruption. I was in New Hampshire this weekend. Several candidates brought up both of those stories. And it was kind of a big hit, particularly among Democrats. So there is this fine line between sort of illuminating some of these stories that, frankly, the Trump camp is worried about, and going full force into an impeachment inquiry. If you -- if you thread that line carefully, it could be beneficial to Democrats. And it's clear, based on the president's tweets this morning, he's a little bit worried about some of these stories. He's been disavowing them all morning.</s>KING: And the question for Democrats is, do you want to air it out on the campaign trail and let voters be the jury, or do you move ahead with some sort of more formal inquiry? I think you're right. I think they're trying to thread the needle right now and pretend they're doing it or show that they're doing parts of it but not get all the way there.</s>HULSE: And some of that is in response to their base.</s>KING: Yes. Right.</s>HULSE: Their base wants and some of these people are facing primaries now. They have to be for impeachment, but that doesn't mean that the party leadership really wants to go ahead.</s>KING: And so the -- so then the question is now, you had four more shootings during the Congressional recess. Democrats, including leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, sending a letter to the president, your urgent, personal intervention is needed. You now have an historic opportunity to save lives simply by indicating your support for H.R. 8, the House-passed universal bipartisan background check legislation. We believe -- this is to the president -- you have a unique opportunity to save American lives by giving political cover to your fellow Republicans. The president is not going to endorse the House passed bill because it goes beyond where Republicans want. But there is talk, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate says if the president is clear, if he is specific and if he is consistent, I will do something like background checks or something like red flag laws. Will we get that as Congress comes back, pressure is on the president to say, what will you do? Or nothing.</s>VISER: It's interesting that the president looks -- sort of looks at Congress and Congress is looking at the president, you know, for leadership on this.</s>KING: Right.</s>VISER: But it is kind of interesting. So much of these issues today are breaking down into partisan lines. Background checks and red flag laws have 80 percent support. I mean those have not really moved in partisan ways that you typically have on divisive issues. And so there does seem to be, you know, at least in the public, sort of an effort and eagerness to address the issue. And, again, as you -- as you have a couple of months before things turn toward 2020 completely, there's a chance to sort of do something and look at suburban voters in particular from both parties.</s>KING: To that point --</s>KUCINICH: And you're seeing that with --</s>KING: Let me just jump in, as you jump in. To that point about suburban voters, "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, who do you trust more to handle gun laws? Look at the numbers among women. Democrats in Congress, 59 percent of women trust the Democrats in Congress more. Men are more split on the issue. If you're the president and you're trying to rebuild your shattered support among suburban women, here's an opportunity. But, on the flip side, his own advisers tell him, yes, globally, as Matt notes, background checks test off the charts. They're worried it would demoralize his base, back to the question, both parties thick about the base.</s>KUCINICH: And that is the question for the president. But to your point about the support for background checks and for other measures, look what -- look what you're already seeing in business. Look what Walmart did. And you're seeing -- and you saw it reflected in other businesses saying, you know, if -- we're -- this is an open carry state. Please don't open carry in our stores. You're seeing American business take -- take the ball where you're not seeing Congress do it. And, you know, perhaps that's where we'll see more movement before the end of the year.</s>KING: That's a great point. And do lawmakers come back -- Mitch McConnell is watching the president. How many of his members come back and say, we've got to try to do something. We will see. Or maybe not. We'll see. That's the question. Up next, the new plan that Kamala Harris hopes will ease progressive voters' minds about her background as a prosecutor.