Standoff over Senate Trial; Trump Talks about Impeachment
NOBLES: And right now in southwest Florida, President Trump -- or southeast Florida, I should say, West Palm Beach, President Trump just after discussing the holiday season with members of the military, he did start to begin to take questions from the press. And he said quite a bit about impeachment. He's talking about many of these different things going on in Washington. We're going to show you a bit of that sound in a second. But, first, I want to bring in our panel to talk about this. "Washington Post" White House reporter Seung Min Kim and CNN political commentator Errol Louis. Before we get to that sound, Seung Min, I want to ask you about the articles of impeachment, the fact that Speaker Pelosi has decided to hold on to them. Do you view this as a smart strategy from Speaker Pelosi or does this give Americans a chance to refocus from so-called impeachment fatigue? How do you view it?</s>SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We'll see after the next couple of weeks whether it was a successful strategy for now. But what Democrats are doing here are a couple of things. And they've had to kind of explain why they're doing this because this kind of came out of nowhere on the night that the House actually impeached him. On the one hand, Speaker Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, are saying, we are holding these back as leverage until we can see what kind of a Senate trial Mitch McConnell and President Trump and Senate Republicans will put up. Speaker Pelosi, I had a tweet I believe yesterday saying she doesn't want to name House impeachment managers until she sees what kind of defense the -- and what kind of a trial that Republicans will set up over in the Senate. And what Democrats are trying to do here broadly is to try to take some of that public attention and put it on the fact that, as they keep hammering away at the fact that -- as Republicans keep hammering away at the fact that they haven't sent over the articles of impeachment, the fact that -- or their view that they believe Republicans aren't going to have a fair and full trial. So that is kind of the strategy that Democrats are trying to do here. But, at the same time, Republicans have gone after them saying, you've talked several times about the need to do this expeditiously, that the president's actions are potentially a critical issue before the 2020 election. Now you're delaying the process? That doesn't make a lot of sense here. So Democrats have also had some explaining to do on their end about this latest strategy.</s>NOBLES: So let's talk about how the Republican senators are responding to all of this, Errol. Yesterday, Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham tweeted this, quote, this case should mirror the process used in the Clinton impeachment and should come to an end in weeks, not months, which there's a variety of things that we can unpack about this. We thought the White House wanted to do this quickly. Mitch McConnell said he wanted to do this quickly. Now Graham suggesting it should take a long time. But also, Errol, if we go back to the Clinton impeachment, we do remember the president at that time sat for a sworn deposition. Does that mean, if we're playing by Lindsey Graham's rules here, that President Trump should as well?</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right. Look, if Lindsey Graham is held to his word, and we go back to the pattern that was set in the Clinton impeachment, there were all kinds of witnesses. There were several depositions that were taken. And the idea of bringing in new witnesses to continue the evidence-gathering process, even in the middle of the impeachment trial, is exactly what happened in -- in -- back in that trial. So if -- if Lindsey Graham really wants that, he might want to coordinate a little bit more closely with the White House because I'm pretty sure that's not what they want. You know, whether it's done in person and, again, in the Clinton impeachment they decided they didn't want the spectacle of people standing on the -- on the Senate floor, you know, speaking in that manner. But senators from both parties were able to direct questions to them. There were videotaped depositions. There was, in fact, a debate, although that was a closed door debate. It could be far more robust than I think most of us realize when even a partisan like Lindsey Graham says let's follow those old rules.</s>NOBLES: Yes. So, Seung Min, I wonder if Republicans are perhaps opening the door here to a conversation about potential witnesses that that could then bring in witnesses that perhaps Democrats don't want to hear from, maybe Vice President Joe Biden, perhaps Hunter Biden. Could that be a part of this negotiation process if they even open the door to the idea of witnesses coming forward in the Senate trial?</s>KIM: I mean it could be, but Republicans have been making clear privately and also to reporters for some time now that they don't see the need for witnesses on the Senate floor. I mean -- and despite what the president has said about bringing people like Hunter Biden or the whistleblower whose complaint triggered this whole impeachment inquiry to the Senate floor for President Trump's trial. And McConnell has told members privately and he's also said this publicly too, I believe, that if you get a -- kind of go down the rabbit hole of witnesses, it would be mutually assured destruction because to give -- to get the witnesses that Republicans and that President Trump wants, you're going to have to give Democrats what they want, too. So I think what McConnell is trying to do now is try to -- you know, if you -- if you go back to the 1999 model, the -- kind of the case that he's been making to the public, to his Republican senators is that back at the time, you know, Trent Lott, Tom Daschle and the 98 other senators agreed to at least start the trial, do an ample amount of opening statements and question time on either side. And the actual vote on witnesses, because that was such a contentious issue also back then too, didn't come until weeks into the trial. So that's what he's going for right now. We'll see if that's the -- that's what actually happens.</s>NOBLES: All right, so we do now have this sound from President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And he actually talks about this process and the role that Mitch McConnell should play. Let's take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're in a very good position. Ultimately, that decision is going to be made by Mitch McConnell. And he will make it -- he has the right to do whatever he wants. He's the head of the Senate. People remember, they treated us very unfairly. They didn't give us due process. They didn't give us a lawyer. They didn't give us anything. Now they come to the Senate and they want everything. You look back, just two weeks. Just look back at what they did, but over a long period of time, look at what they did. We weren't entitled to witnesses. We weren't entitled to lawyers. We sat in the basement. They would leak everything. They would leak it. We weren't entitled to do anything. They would leak selectively with the sick corrupt politician named Schiff. He's a corrupt politician. No, they -- they treated us worse than anybody has been treated from a legal standpoint in the history of the United States. That's never happened before where you can't have a lawyer, you can't have a witness, you can't have time. Even though recently, when they had the constitutional lawyers, they got three lawyers, we got one. Fortunately, our one lawyer was better than their three and we also had a much better case. We had a -- we have a perfect case. I say it again, we have a perfect case. They had no case. But they had three lawyers. We were allowed one. They had three. Think of that. They had three lawyers, constitutional lawyers, and each one spoke for an extended period of time. We had one lawyer. What do you think of that? So now they get to the Senate. And now we have the majority. And it's up to Mitch McConnell. And we have the majority, and now they want McConnell to do whatever things for them. I mean he's going to do what he wants to do. A very smart guy, a very good guy and a very fair guy. But they treated us very unfairly and now they want fairness in the Senate. They ought to look back at the last year to see how they've hurt this country. Fortunately, we have a president that was able to plow through all of the stuff that went on and goes on. And also tremendous amounts of information are being written about even by the fake news concerning FISA, concerning dirty cops, the people that started this whole thing. What they've done to this country is incredible. And hopefully it's going to be taken care of. The attorney general's working and everybody's working. But if you just go, because I like to stay out of it, and I do stay out of it, if you just go by what you see in the papers, it's incredible what's going on. We had dirty cops. We had people spying on my campaign. They did terrible things. The likes of which have never been done in the history of our country. It's very sad. All right, have a good time, everybody. Merry Christmas.</s>QUESTION: Will you -- will hold this --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, press. Thank you, press.</s>QUESTION: Mr. President, are you going to hold a signing ceremony?</s>QUESTION: Are you worried about the</s>QUESTION: Mr. President, are you going to hold a signing ceremony?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, guys. Guys, we're heading out. Let's go, guys.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks.</s>TRUMP: I will be probably doing that, yes, at the right time. We'll be doing a smaller ceremony. Ultimately we will be having one. The China deal, we will be having a signing ceremony, yes.</s>QUESTION: Will you sign it, you and Xi Jinping?</s>TRUMP: We will ultimately, yes, we will.</s>QUESTION: Do you know where that will be?</s>TRUMP: When we get together, we will do -- but we'll have a quicker signing because we want to get it done. The deal is done. It's just being translated right now, OK? Thank you.</s>QUESTION: Are you worried about</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go, press.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, guys.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're moving out.</s>NOBLES: All right, so that is President Trump just leaving part of his resort in Mar-a-Lago after he had just gotten done with a holiday message to members of the military here. We should point out, he's said that it was proven that his campaign was spied on by the FBI. Even the FBI's own director, Christopher Wray, pushed back on that. And that was, of course, part of the inspector general's report on this particular issue. But, Errol, I want to bring you in quickly on this. You know, the president said a lot there, as he often does. A lot of rhetorical flourish there. But I do want to kind of hone in on the one point he's trying to make here and ask you if you think he's got a -- he at least has some sort of a leg to stand on here. You know, the Democrats had the majority in the House. They could run their impeachment -- their portion of the impeachment any way they wanted. Now Republicans have the majority. Isn't it just as fair for them to operate as they see fit given that they have more votes and can handle this any way they want, just like Democrats did in the House?</s>LOUIS: Well, look, fair or not, Ryan, it is inaccurate to say that Mitch McConnell can do whatever he wants, which is what I heard the president just say. That is simply not the case. I mean he's got -- he's got other -- members of the -- of the 0-- of the rival party who have some say in this. We've got the chief justice of the United States who's going to be presiding over this impeachment trial, if it ever starts. And he's not going to just sit there like a statue. He's going to be weighing in on where things stand. Mitch McConnell also, despite what he personally might want to do, and he's made clear that he just wants to defend the president at all costs, he's got a conference that he has to answer to that includes a number of senators who are up for re-election, whose re-election will be made considerably more difficult if they try and ram this through without any consideration for basic elements of fairness. So, yes, he's going to, I think, have a much more negotiated process than perhaps the president wants. And I would just say finally for -- just for historic reasons, when he says spying on his campaign, the likes of which has never been seen, there's this thing called Watergate, you know. And the last time we encountered this level of spying, it was, in fact, by President Nixon, who paid the price for that.</s>NOBLES: All right, Errol Louis, Seung Min Kim, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you guys so much for being here and rolling with the breaking news as always on CNN. We appreciate that. And we're going to be right back. Stay here.