Trump, Emboldened By Acquittal, Attacks: "It Was All Bulls***"; Trump Gets Personal During Impeachment Rant, Attacks Romney For Invoking Faith In Vote: "Used Religion As A Crutch"; Trump Takes Victory Lap By Targeting Rivals In Vindictive Rant: "Evil," "Corrupt," "Dirty Cops," "Leakers And Liars"
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: That was CNN's Lucy Kafanov reporting. What a horrible development all of this has been. And to our viewers, thanks very much for following us. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.</s>ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, the President celebrates his impeachment acquittal by unloading on his political enemies and allies. Republicans claim he's learned his lesson, but he had something to tell them. Plus, the White House ramping up its attacks against Mitt Romney. They have just sent out a whole slew of talking points slamming him. And Pete Buttigieg hits Joe Biden on his biggest talking point. Will it work? Let's go OUTFRONT. And Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, exalting, unrepentant and vengeful. That's Trump today talking, and talking and talking. His victory lap starting this morning at a prayer breakfast with this scene. He was holding up newspapers with the headline acquitted. Funny how he hates that newspaper until he likes it. That simple celebratory moment, though, did not last long. In front of a crowd of ardent supporters in the East Room of the White House, Trump took dead aim and Mitt Romney for his vote to convict Trump and vote for his to be removed on abuse of power.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have some that used religion as a crutch. They never used it before.</s>SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.</s>BURNETT: And Trump's maligning did not stop today with Mitt Romney.</s>TRUMP: We've been going through this now for over three years. It was evil. It was corrupt. They are vicious and mean. Vicious. These people are vicious. Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person. She said, "I pray for the President." But I doubt she prays at all. People are very angry that Nancy Pelosi and all of these guys - I mean, Nadler - I know him much of my life. These people have gone stone-cold crazy.</s>BURNETT: So Mitt Romney uses religion as a crutch and Nancy Pelosi doubt she prays at all. Trump lashing out his enemies tonight, but then he humiliated his allies. The same people who tried to say that his actions were wrong with Ukraine, but not worthy of ending his presidency.</s>TRUMP: Think of it. A phone call. A very good phone call. I had some that said, "Oh, I wish he didn't make the call." And that's OK, if they need that. It's incorrect. It's totally incorrect.</s>BURNETT: It's OK, if they need that. But they are totally wrong because shocker, Trump says his actions were perfect. So who is this they? They. The Republicans who justified their votes to acquit, that's who they are because they said Trump learned his lesson.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are you confident that the President is not going to simply ask another foreign power to investigate a political rival again?</s>SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Yes. I think there are lessons that everybody can learn from it.</s>SEN. ROBERT PORTMAN (R-OH): I think the message has been delivered.</s>SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): The President has been impeached. That's a pretty big lesson.</s>BURNETT: To not learn. Trump clearly did not learned his lesson. I mean, just listen to him today talking about the infamous call.</s>TRUMP: I mean, it worked out. We went through hell unfairly, did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong.</s>BURNETT: Nothing wrong. John Harwood is OUTFRONT live outside the White House. So, John, what is the President's mood tonight?</s>JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, as we saw in that rambling soliloquy he delivered in the East Room today, the President's mood is distressed, he's wounded, he's angry and he's lashing out. We got none of the grace notes that Bill Clinton delivered after his acquittal in an impeachment trial in 1999 when he came to - in front of the American people, apologize to them, apologize to the Republican Congress for putting them through the agony. President Trump thinks he himself is the victim here and so he's lashing out. You made the appropriate point about him mocking Mitt Romney's faith. By all signs, Donald Trump doesn't understand faith. He does not seem to be a person of faith. He does not recognize the values that faith teaches us distinctions between right and wrong. And so for him, this is a primal reaction to people who have hurt him and he wants to hurt them. He made that clear. And what is alarming about it, as you mentioned in the intro, is that Republicans in his audience today we're laughing and cheering along with him, even though as brilliant reporting by our CNN colleagues has shown, Ted Cruz told White House lawyers that 100 percent of senators believe there was a quid pro quo. In other words, they know that he did something wrong, yet they have made clear they're not willing to constrain him. So I think the question going forward is, to what extent is he going to try to use the power of his office to lash out against people, Romney, Biden, anybody else that he might target and will Republicans put any constraint on him, they haven't so far.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, John Harwood. Of course, what they've said is that he's learned the lesson which, at least verbally, he is saying loud and clear he has not learned, because he says there is no lesson to learn other than it was all perfect. OUTFRONT now Tim Naftali, Presidential Historian, former Director of the Nixon Presidential Library, Kirsten Powers, our Political Analyst and USA Today Columnist and Scott Jennings, the former Senior Adviser to the now Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Tim, so you heard what John was talking about Ted Cruz saying a hundred percent of the Republican senators know that there was a quid pro quo. But all of these Republicans who came out and said that the President has learned a lesson from this whole process, that he's not going to do it again, they were wrong. I mean, he is saying ...</s>TIM NAFTALI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: Yes. He's saying he hasn't learned a lesson. And one of the reasons why people were so concerned by the argument that the President's defenders made in the Senate trial about abuse of power was that if the President is given the impression he has a permission slip to abuse power, there's no reason to expect that Donald Trump won't abuse power again, and again and again. And today in two different speeches, he's made it clear that he's learned nothing from the impeachment crisis and that he is more than willing to do what he did before again.</s>BURNETT: And so, Scott, look, as I described the way he spoke, he was exultant, he was vengeful, all of those words would describe him at various times today as he went on and on. So at one point he said, he doubts Nancy Pelosi prays at all, obviously, an insult among others. He called her vicious and mean and other things. Then he doubled down when he was asked about what he said about her and here's what he said.</s>TRUMP: I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I'm saying things that a lot of people wouldn't have said, but I met every word of it.</s>BURNETT: What do you make of that, Scott?</s>SCOTT JENNINGS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but Nancy Pelosi has been trying to literally throw him out of office for the last several months and her entire conference has been trying to prematurely in this presidency since it started. So I get the President's little attitude today to punch back. And by the way, we're now in the heat of the election, voting has started, the impeachment is over and this is an electoral political battle. And so if this made anybody squeamish today, I'd advise you to look away because the election has just getting started. My suspicion is that this kind of tit for tat between Trump and Pelosi is only going to get worse.</s>BURNETT: Kirsten?</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, let's also remember where he was saying these things. First of all, let me just say, I think it's childish the way he was talking about how he behaved at the National Prayer Breakfast. He's actually bragging to people about talking badly about another person at the National Prayer Breakfast. And the idea that because Nancy Pelosi tried to impeach him that somehow he's justified in the way he behaved at the National Prayer Breakfast, I just strongly disagree with. Bill Clinton, of course, was at the National Prayer Breakfast after Republicans tried to have him thrown out of office and he was contrite and spoke about how he had sinned and he asked for forgiveness. So you don't have to behave the way that Donald Trump behaved. I am a Christian. I'm somebody who takes my faith seriously and the National Prayer Breakfast is supposed to be a place where people from both sides of the aisle can come together and it can be a non- political event and people of faith can sit there together, and what do we have? We have the President of the United States actually attacking the faith of Nancy Pelosi, claiming that she doesn't pray, making quite clear he doesn't understand the Catholic faith. He doesn't understand that in the Catholic faith every week at mass you pray for your leaders, what the Bible says that you're supposed to pray for those who persecute you and bless your enemies, all of these things. And this is the person, Scott, that the Christian right has thrown their support behind.</s>BURNETT: Scott, can I just play what Pelosi has said she prays for the President. She was very angry if anyone question that. She obviously has been a lifelong and very devoted Catholic. I want to play, again, what he said about that today. Here he is.</s>TRUMP: She doesn't pray. She may pray, but she prays for the opposite. But I doubt she prays at all.</s>BURNETT: You're OK with that, Scott?</s>JENNINGS: Look, I don't know what you want me to say. I mean, if you want Donald Trump to go on television after what just happened to him, after what's happened to him for the last three years and say nice things about Nancy Pelosi.</s>BURNETT: Well, I'm just saying you gave him some latitude. I'm trying to understand is that in your 1910 latitude?</s>JENNINGS: I don't know why anyone would expect - I'm sorry, what?</s>BURNETT: I'm saying when you said you gave him latitude today, did you mean that it's OK to say things like that or not?</s>JENNINGS: Look, I'm just saying I don't know who in the world would anticipate or expect Donald Trump to go out today and bend the knee to Nancy Pelosi or say anything nice at all after what she has done to him, what the Democrats have done to him.</s>POWERS: How about say nothing?</s>JENNINGS: It's not just the impeachment. You listen to what Adam Schiff has said, you listen to what these folks have said, they have called him everything but a good milk cow for three straight years.</s>NAFTALI: Yes, but ...</s>JENNINGS: And you want him to go out and make nice.</s>POWERS: And that's exactly what Republicans did to Bill Clinton.</s>JENNINGS: I mean, I don't understand.</s>NAFTALI: I was just going to ...</s>POWERS: It's exactly what Republicans did to Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton was able to stand up there at the National Prayer Breakfast and act like a decent human being. So I don't understand why ...</s>BURNETT: So can I play for that - to your point ...</s>POWERS: ... you think that Donald Trump shouldn't be required to be decent.</s>BURNETT: .. for your point, Kirsten, I want to play, as I said, the President went to the prayer breakfast, he said these things. Then he came and spoke for over an hour, an hour plus and said more of these things. Here's what Bill Clinton said after he was acquitted in 1999. He spoke for two minutes. Here he is in his key part.</s>BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to say, again, to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people. I also am humbled and very grateful for the support and the prayers I have received from millions of Americans over this past year.</s>BURNETT: There are many, Tim, who would never forgive him for what he did or the dishonor he brought to the office and yet how he handled it on the other side is night and day from what we saw today.</s>NAFTALI: Well, it's night and day, and I would like to say that there is no excuse for a politician weaponizing faith under no circumstance. I don't care how angry they might be about how they were treated, there is no excuse. This president at the moment seems to want a cultural cold war. I'm not saying that one exists, but he seems to be feeding anger and to test people's faith on the basis of whether they support them and not, that's horrific. What we're going through now will be remembered as some kind of McCarthy iconic period. We are going to be so angry at the ugliness later when we look back at it.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much. And next, the White House is launching an all out assault against Mitt Romney. CNN just obtaining their new talking points and it is all aimed at taking down the Republican Senator. Plus, the Head of the DNC saying enough is enough when it comes to the Iowa debacle. Will the candidates accept the final outcome? And Joe Biden making a difference in one child's life by opening up about his lifelong struggle with stuttering?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I felt like I have really like a close vibe between us, because he had like that same thing going on.