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Transcripts For CNNW Erin Burnett OutFront 20171129 00:00:00

these aircraft come in close proximity to one another. >> all right, ryan brown reporting from the pentagon. thanks very much. >> remember, important programming note. stay with cnn later tonight for a very timely debate on tax reform. that's coming up, 9:00 p.m. eastern. that's it for me. thanks for watching. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, breaking news. north korea firing what could be its most powerful missile yet, one that could reach washington, d.c. plus, the president's reality show. today, trump staging a white house meeting like an episode of "the apprentice" playing roulette with a government shutdown. and trump going after senator elizabeth warren, raising questions about what he said about his own heritage. why did he say he's of swedish descent when he actually isn't? let's go "outfront." good afternoon. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, breaking news. north korea with a record breaking missile launch that potentially puts washington, d.c. in range. kim jong-un launching a missile today, one that secretary mattis said went higher than ever before. the ballistic missile traveled about 620 miles, airborne nearly an hour before landing in the sea of japan. tonight, president trump responding, saying the united states will, quote, take care of north korea. >> as you probably have heard, and some of you have reported, a missile was launched a little while ago from north korea. i will only tell you that we will take care of it. we have general mattis in the room with us, and we've had a long discussion on it. it is a situation that we will handle. >> we will handle. well, will ripley has been inside north korea 17 times. knows that regime better than any other reporter. he's "outfront" in seoul tonight, and will, just moments ago, another warning from north korea. an official telling you that another nuclear test could be coming, even after the one we just saw hours ago? >> reporter: that's right. because what we saw was this missile launch. this demonstration to the trump administration by north korea that they have in their arsenal a missile that could effectively, and you heard the defense secretary say this, reach anywhere in the world, including anywhere in the mainland united states. new york, washington, chicago. what this north korean official reiterated to me, something he told me also in october, north korea also feels they have more to prove, and what they need to prove is by conducting an above ground nuclear test. it would be their seventh nuclear test. north korea's foreign minister has made this threat, a senior diplomat in pyongyang said that threat should be taken literally, and this official saying north korea is not done demonstrating to the united states what their capability is. also saying they have no interest in diplomacy until they have proven that they have rounded off their nuclear program in their words, erin. >> sounds like no interest in diplomacy until they have proven they can strike a u.s. mainland cities. that would be the clear message there. the timing of this test, the one we just saw of this missile that would possibly be able to strike washington, d.c. was unusual because of the time of day, right? this happened a couple hours ago in the middle of the night. >> reporter: that's right. they rolled this missile out around 3:00 a.m. local time. there was almost no advanced warning, as far as we know. the only indication that a missile launch might be coming was from radio chatter detected by the japanese in the last few days. this is north korea showing the united states that they can launch an intercontinental ballistic missile with very little notice which is very troubling if the u.s. were going to try to do some sort of pre-emptive strike. they wouldn't have time to do that if a missile already fueled up was rolled out and launched. noteworthy this has happened just after north korea was placed back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. i would say this probably has less to do with that and more to do with other strategic reasons for this regime. they didn't launch the missile when president trump was in asia, they didn't launch it in ongoing naval drills. they like the element of surprise, maximum impact. >> will ripley, thank you very much. obviously, dire warning tonight. >> let's go straight to the state department now. michelle kaczynski joins me. experts saying, and this could be a significant thing to say, giving the ramp-up in testing we have seen, this could be the most powerful missile yet from north korea. >> yeah, just one more step incrementally towards them reaching their goal of being a nuclear state. we see them with each launch over the past several months change something or advance some of the technology, moving forward. so even though when there's a pause in these launches like we have seen here for two and a half months, that gives the administration sometimes some cause for optimism, saying that they haven't done anything in a little while. that sanctions appear to be working. then we see something like this. so what we're hearing is that this one flew higher and farther than others in the past. china has made north korea a real threat. because we're not worried about north korea's longest range missile, because that takes weeks to transport, assemble, fuel, and test. we can destroy it with nothing more sophisticated than an f-16, but when you have mobile missiles, they can do all sorts of things, and we cannot, with any degree of assurance, kill them on the ground. >> spider, let me ask you, the president today, his response. okay, when he first heard about this, the breaking news, said the united states would handle it, right? those are the words he used, take care of north korea. this is language, frankly, it was reminiscent to me of what we have heard him say before. we looked, and indeed, he has. here is president trump going back to february. >> north korea, we'll take care of it, folks. we're going to take care of it all. >> north korea is a problem. the problem will be taken care of. >> we'll handle north korea. we'll be able to handle them. it will be handled. we handle everything. >> i will only tell you that we will take care of it. >> it is a situation that we in that amount of time. so economic solutions, depend t diplomatic solutions can be put in place, but they're not going to be sufficiently aggressive in a truncated amount of time for the united states to, quote, take care of it. what we're doing is we're monitoring it, we're watching it, we're developing our anti-missile capabilities, our terminal high air altitude capabilities are quite aggressive and quite good, and we can monitor these shots. we can see them when they launch at night. we've got the capabilities, intelligence, signals intelligence and imagery intelligence to track this, but this can be done, but we have narrowed the options in terms of handling it. >> the question, of course, general, is whether our missile defense would be able to do anything about it with the warning they would get after a launch, still. >> true. >> all right, thank you both so very much. i appreciate it. next, president trump producing a sigh show while ripping into chuck and nancy. is he playing games with life and death issues affecting millions of americans? 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ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! the world is not flat. you can't just pinch it, swipe it, or scroll it. sure, you've seen the mediterranean. but have you? how warm is brazil in february? what color is dusk in san francisco? there's a whole world out there and no other card lets you experience it tonight, trump's reality show. the president today ripping into democratic leaders for canceling a meeting with him at the white house. that meeting was cancelled by chuck schumer and nancy pelosi after the president tweeted, and i quote, meeting with chuck and nancy today about keeping government open and working. problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our country unchecked, are weak on crime and want to substantially raise taxes. i don't see a deal, exclamation point. the deal he's talking about was intended to keep the government running past the december 8th deadline, which is, of course, next week. president trump always the showman, an executive producer at heart, did not waste an opportunity to turn this situation into political theater, complete with empty chairs and name cards for senator schumer and congresswoman pelosi. if you think this looks familiar, yeah, well, on the left is the president today, and on the right, the tight shot, almost the same one of the president from "the apprentice." the board room from today with the empty chairs, same sort of set-up from "the apprentice." the president with ample space on each side. they're all jammed in and his plenty of space. the only difference today was nobody was technically fired. >> chuck schumer and nancy pelosi did not show up for our meeting today. i'm not really that surprised. we have a lot of differences. they're weak on crime. they're weak on illegal immigration. they want the illegal folks to come pouring into our border, and a lot of problems are being caused, although we have stopped it to a large extent, as much as you can without the wall, which we're going to get. >> the president also leaving no doubt that he's pointing the finger for a potential government shutdown right at schumer and pelosi. >> if that happens, i would absolutely blame the democrats, if it happens. >> jeff zeleny is out front at the white house tonight, the scene of that "apprentice" like meeting, the president seemed to orchestrate every bit of today. >> well, erin, it definitely started with that tweet that he sent out this morning that put things into motion there. and the democrats in one respect called him on it. and in this case, tweets have consequences. but the reality here is, the political math of washington, the president and indeed republicans need democratic votes in the house for that end of year spending bill. so at some point after these antics are over, indeed from both sides of pennsylvania avenue, there's plenty of childish behavior to go around, and the fact that voters out there are electing people to do their work, the reality is that they need democratic votes more than likely on this end of year spending bill. so that is something that is still going to be playing out. december is going to be a key month here for so many things. but that spending bill is so important. but erin, i was struck by watching this, first and foremost, democrats never sit next to the president because they are not in power. the republicans would be sitting next to him, normally, and the meeting was supposed to be in the oval office, as you said earlier. of course, there are no place cards in the oval office. it was moved to the roosevelt room, some staging there, no question. it's the president's prerogative to do that, but at the end of the day, nothing advanced to ball toward keeping the government open. the president said democrats will open, we'll see about that. speaker ryan and leader mcconnell know republicans indeed need to keep the government open because they run the government, and one more thing. senator mcconnell said he would never refuse a meeting from president obama. actually, we found out that he refused a couple. i remember one back in 2010, he declined to come here to the white house to meet with president obama. he said he was too busy for that. again, a lot of antics today. not much progress on anything. >> he said he couldn't imagine ever turning down a meeting at the white house. as jeff points out, facts show he did so indeed at least twice. "outfront" now, dana bash, chief political skraunt, david drucker, and margaret taliv. david, look, putting the scene there of the tight shot and the board room and the space next to the president, next to "the apprentice." this was clearly choreographed by him. the tweet he sent out, there's going to be no deal, sort of betting they weren't going to come, then the empty seats. he knew what he was going to get. >> he did. and i think that there was nothing wrong with the stagecraft that the president rolled out. it's something we have seen before in politics. we knows. it might actually work. it was very interesting, erin, because the last time the president had the leadership down to the white house, he double crossed the republicans, his allies, and he forged a deal with democrats. and he immediately met with a lot of blowback from his base. it seemed like he was trying to set this thing up to not land him on the wrong side of his voters. i would also point out that while everybody needs to participate on the hill on keeping the government open, because democrats don't run the house or the senate, technically, they're not necessarily going to be on the hook if the government shuts down. i think they know that. and that's why they can afford to play a little hardball. >> which is -- that's of course the scary thing, whether the president realizes it or not. dana, look, he baited pelosi and schumer with that tweet, said meeting with chuck and nancy. then he ends with, i don't see a deal. which put them in the position, he's going to say that. if they come to the meeting after a tweet like that, they look pretty weak. if they didn't come to the meeting, they also risked looking weak. did they fall into trump's trap? >> in some ways, yes. but here's the unfortunate reality now, which isn't that different unfortunately from what was happening yesterday and the day before. and that is everybody is playing base politics. by that, i mean what donald trump did just like david said, was try to very aggressively avoid what happened the last time the bipartisan leadership came to the white house. where the president really wanted to make a deal, and he just did it right then and there with the democrats, undercut the republicans, which did get him a deal and got him some headlines about getting things done, and that kind of thing, but it got him in a whole lot of trouble with the base. this did the opposite. standing up to chuck and nancy, sending out the tweet, having the stagecraft as he did, pretending they would actually sit next to him in the first place, all of that perfect for the base. the base, which is, you know, the group that still believes in him. same goes for the democrats, erin. the democrats also are all about making sure that their base knows that they are standing up to donald trump, that they're standing up to republicans, that they're united in doing so, and so this even though i think all of them look childish, in this sort of raw politics prism of this, it worked for both of them. >> margaret, that's the thing, to dana's point. schumer and pelosi, right? we look again at that stage' craft, and then pelosi tried to fight back, and frankly, you know, the same sort of childish language that the president used. she tweets,@realdonaldtrump now knows his verbal abuse will not be tolerated. his empty photo upshows he's more interested in stunlts. poor ryan and mcconnell, relegated to props. sad, exclamation point. trying to be like trump. they did appear to be props. mcconnell and ryan, right? fighting him on things like roy moore, and here they are, basically playing the game, being his puppets today. was there any winner? >> everybody in the situation is a prop to the president's political move. i think the democrats concluded that they weren't going to win whether they went to that meeting or not, so they might as well try to draw a line in the sand and discourage this sort of behavi behavior. if you go to the meeting after the president says there's no point for the meeting, after the president has already laid down a marker and said essentially it's going to be democrats' fault if there's a shutdown, what's the point in going to the meeting? they figure if he's going to attempt to sort of blame them no matter what anyway, better to draw the line in the sand and push back a little bit. while ryan and mcconnell sort of did what any republican leaders would do and went along with the president in terms of blaming the democrats. you can imagine what a terribly frustrating position it was for them since they're ackohl hoping to just have a meeting with the president and the democrats and see if there was anywhere to go. >> you think they moved over when the cameras left? you think they move over and sat in those chairs? >> looking at that shot, it looks like he likes to have plenty of space, whether there's a chair there or not. maybe they just removed the chairs. i don't know. david, the president had other wins today. this was a significant one. he won the battle over who runs the consumer protection agency. mick mulvaney called the agency a joke, says he wants to eliminate it. he's going to be the acting director. that judge ruled. how big of a win is this? >> it's a big win. i don't think it's surprising. it's an executive agency, and i think trimp was going to have the upper hand in the court here. and look, if there's one thing that trump has been very successful at doing, and he's done very aggressively, it's a lot of deregulation. and it's the kind of deregulation that any republican president would have done, any one of trump's competitors would have been just as aggressive here. the republicans never believe in the cfpb. they held up the appointment of a director for several months. in fact, elizabeth warren is only in the senate because republicans blocked her appointment by president obama so she ended up running for senate. this is something that should have been expected. i don't think it's that big of a deal politically. >> so dana, it may not be a big deal politically. i'll tell you something that may be. the tax reform bill, right? passed the senate budget committee. if he can get that win, obviously, overall, that is huge. party line vote in committee, but it was not assured. now he's got that. does that mean game over? tax reform is in the bag? >> not at all. not even close. because even the two senators who voted, who were on the fence before this committee meeting today, voted yes with promises. the promises have to be kept throughout this process. and the senate republican leadership, they're hoping to get this vote done this week, erin. and it is still unclear whether or not they have not just those two but maybe about a dozen, half a dozen to a dozen other republicans who have a whole host of issues and many of those issues, if you fix one side, then it causes problems for another. so it's going to be legislative jujitsu for the next two days. >> and it's pretty interesting when you say that, if you do something for one side, it causes problems for the other. i remember that happening with, oh, right, obamacare. that ended up in failure. thanks to all three. >> tonight, dana along with jake tapper are going to host a crucial debate, four senators going head to head on tax reform. bernie sanders, ted cruz, tim scott, and maria cantwell, live at 9:00 only on cnn wlrk you'll see dana there. next, the senate's tax plan heading for that vote. so, you hear dana laying it out. is this all going to come down to the person who torpedoed obamacare, the obamacare repeal, john mccain? and trump siding with accused child molester roy moore, and attacking his opponent. he says he's soft on crime and immigration. so what is doug jones? is he an extreme liberal like the president says? the facts coming up. the ford yd sales event is here. i can guide you in. no, thanks , santa. i got this. santa: uh, it looks a little tight. perfect fit. santa needs an f-150. that's ford, america's best selling brand. hurry in today for 0% financing for 72 months across the full line up of ford cars, trucks and suvs. for a limited time, get an additional $1,000 cash back on top of 0% financing for 72 months. get these exclusive offers during the ford year end sales event. get these exclusive offers well, what are you doing o take care otomorrow -10am? but... staff meeting. 3:45? tai chi. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios the automated investing solution. where do things stand there? >> it did. we're looking at a vote before the entire senate later this week. this was a big hurdle getting out of the senate budget committee, and looking at a number of republicans who had looked like they were on the fence when it came to this bill. you had a couple of them in the committee, bob corker of tennessee who was worried this would add to the deficit, saying he feels after a talk with president trump that he got assurances it won't. he voted this out of committee. you also had ron johnson who was worried that small businesses would not get the same tax breaks that corporations would get, saying he was also getting assurances. helping clear that major hurdle, and looking towards this vote before the full senate, susan collins, another republican who had been really iffy on whether she might support this, sounding much more optimistic. she wanted to see more in the way of property taxes being deducted. and she after lunch that the gop senators had with president trump, felt that she had some assurances. now you're looking at a procedural vote tomorrow in the senate, a full vote, the big deal vote here at the end of the week, friday would be the expectation for that. but that's not the end of it, erin, because there is some big differences between the senate bill and between the house plan. the state and local tax deduction, the estate tax, the number of tax brackets. so much to be hammered out so that's still something that could hang this up. >> thank you so much, brianna. >> the president went to capitol hill today to meet with senate republicans about the tax plan. later raving about how well the meeting went. here's how he put it. >> we had a good day today. we had a phenomenal meeting with the republican senators. we had -- it was very special, that meeting. in many respects, i wish you could have been inside that room. it was very, very special. the camaraderie, somewhat of a love fest. >> "outfront" now, republican senator john kennedy of louisiana. he's a member of the senate budget committee, and you were there, sir. i see you smiling. it was special, it was very, very special. it was somewhat of a love fest. was it a love fest? >> well, i wouldn't call it a love fest. there was a lot of self-love in the room. but i wouldn't call it a love fest. we had -- we had a very professional discussion. lighthearted at times. clear to me from the meeting that everybody on my side of the aisle is trying to get to yes. the president demonstrated a pretty clean grasp of the details of the bill, which i appreciated. he'll have plenty of time for questions. i asked the first question. i asked point blank, i support the idea of getting rid of the affordable care mandate in our bill. i don't think it's right to punish people for not buying insurance they can't afford, but i asked him in light of that where he stood on senator alexander's bill. i heard the president say he would be supportive of that. we had a very frank discussion. i thought it was a productive meeting. i wouldn't call it a love fest, but it was a productive meeting. >> so in other words, sounds like you're saying you were glad you could get it done, but there are still areas of sincere disagreement. >> well, erin, the difference between where we are right now with tax reform and where we were with health care is night and day. i mean, at this point, on health care, it was -- it was dysfunction junction. people were mad and slamming doors and giving ultimatums. it's not like that on tax reform. you have a lot of folks, and this will continue until we vote, offering ideas, trying to improve the bill. nothing wrong with that. but we need to vote, and we need to vote this week. i thought we should have voted last week when we got the bill out of the finance committee. i thought we should have kept going. i was in the minority on that. i'm not fussing at senator mcconnell. i think he probably would have liked this to keep going, too, but we are where we are and we need to vote. it's time to vote. >> on this issue of time to vote, this is going to be a huge change for every single person watching. their taxes are going to change. that's a big thing. their personal finances are going to change. >> this will be a generational vote, if you will. >> it is. so the stakes are incredibly high. the promises have been incredibly high as well. one of them that this is tax reform, it's about closing loopholes, getting rid of all the kind of, you know, underhanded dealing that seems to be in the system, right? i wanted to ask you about one of the loopholes. both the house and senate are going to keep this one. it's carried interest. it helps some of the wealthiest people in this country and it's something that the president of the united states vowed to close. here he is. >> i would take carried interest out, and i would let people that are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay some tax because right now, they're paying very little tax. >> we are, as an example, getting rid of carried interest, which is the darling of wall street. >> we're getting rid of carried interest provisions. >> they're not. it is a loophole that benefits the wealthy, senator, as you know. two of the wealthiest men in the world, americans, benefitted from steve schwartzman, worth more than $12 billion. henny kravis, both of them donors to crump's inauguration funt. is this cronyism at its best? >> let me make a couple points. number one, i think our bill will simplify the tax code. right now, it's 10 million words. you can stand on the thing and paint the ceiling. that will be simpler. number two, it's not a perfect bill. my guess is you will see an amendment on the floor that will address this carried interest loophole, if you will. >> but if you can't get it in the bill itself, how would it get through in an amendment? >> i happen to agree with you on that. but i just speak for me personally, i'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. i think this bill will add at least half a point, maybe a point, to gross domestic product. i think it's going to increase foreign direct investment by 50%. i think it's going to help middle-class americans. the last time anybody around this place did anything to help ordinary people was like never. and i think this bill will do that. can you point to things in it that you would like to change? sure, i can. there are a couple things i would like to change. but overall, i think it's going to be good for the american people, but you're right. this is a once in 25-year effort. >> yes, it is, and look, one of the things you say this is going to help middle-class americans. that entire premise is built upon this corporate tax cut that's going to cause money to come home, foreign direct investment, as you are betting on, and that that is going to increase wages. the president has specifically said the typical american household is going to get a $4,000 raise because of this bill. okay. and today, the president again promised all this money is going to come home to do that. here he is. >> money offshore that's stagnant, that companies are just not able to bring it back, so i think it's going to be a number over $4 trillion. corporate will be able to compete now against the world. >> senator, $4 trillion is a lot of money. apple alone, apple, $250 billion of that is their money. they have had that money overseas. for example, recently, they had it in ireland. taxes were zero there. they went up to 12%, and apple went and moved somewhere else, where they are zero percent. the chair of council of economic advisers, kevin hassett, he said you all were working on rules to enforce to mock sure these companies were going to bring this money home and were going to actually use it for things like wage increases. and not just take their word on it. are you putting enforcement mechanisms in there? >> um, i suspect there will be enforcement mechanisms through rules promulgated by treasury. but let me answer your question. the critics of this bill pretend that tax policy has nothing to do with economic growth. and i don't know what planet they parachuted in from. nobody who says that is in good faith. now, i will be the first to admit that it is complicated. and tax policy impacts your economy, so does demographics, so does how your trading partners are doing, so does monetary policy, but this is what i believe. if you want, i'll cite you a couple studies, but this is what i believe. i believe that the american economy is not where it ought to be. and i think democrats and republicans can agree on that. i believe that we tried everything possible to get it back to where it ought to be. we tried monetary policy, lower interest rates. we tried stimulus spending. we have done quantitative easing out the wazoo. what we haven't done, which is what we should have started with, is allowing business women and business men and ordinary americans to keep more of the money they earn because i happen to believe, some disagree with me, they can spend the money better than government can. we are a consumer-driven economy, 70% of our economy is consumer driven. if you let people keep more of their own money, they're going to invest it. and/or they're going to spend it. if you let business people keep more of the money they earn, they're going to spend not all of it but a lot of it on new plants, machinery, equipment, software. it's going to create new jobs, increase productivity, and wages will go up. i believe that. >> all right, well i appreciate your time, sir. i wish i had more time to talk to you about that "wall street journal" forum last week when they were asked that and not many raised their hands. this is a conversation i hope to be continued. thank you, sir. and next, republican roy moore scrambling for support in the wake of sexual abuse allegations, and so is his democratic opponent. the high stakes campaign entering the final days. and a baseless trump tweet causing an international incident. and in this case, human lives are at stake. why do you do it? 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[burke] that's one way to fire up the crowd. but we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ new tonight, the real world consequences of a presidential tweet. president trump's jabs about fake news are now having a real effect on human lives. this weekend, trump tweeting cnn international is still a major source of fake news, and they represent our nation to the world very poorly. the outside world does not see the truth from them. these are words, and they are now impacting human lives. here's how. last week, our ownnema albag raw from cnn international filed a report on human slave auctions in libya. human slave auctions right now in libya. let me show you part. >> one by one, men are brought out as the bidding begins. 400. 500. 550. 600. they admitted to us there were 12 nigerians who were sold in front of us. and i -- i honestly don't know what to say. that was probably one of the most unbelievable things i have ever seen. >> it's one of the most unbelievable things she's ever seen, and perhaps many of us have heard happening now. gives me goosebumps to hear it. and tonight, a libyan media outlet is questioning that report with an article titled "trump says cnn lies. what about the slavery report from libya?" just take a moment to think about that. it just sort of defies belief. i want to bring in former ambassador to nato, nick burns. nick, it leaves me speechless to even think about this. he tweets that, and you now have in libya trump says cnn lies. what about the slavery report from libya? where you just saw 12 human beings sold at slaves. >> well, erin, you're right to be angry because these tweets, these persistent tweets by president trump attacking cnn and other media news outlets, it's un-american. it's contrary to the first amendment of our constitution. and it's having a pernicious effect right now because as you say, the libyan government of national accord and perhaps the libyan media are now going to see these reports should be doubted. i have read through your reports and they seem to be highly credible. they need to be investigated. but if the libyans get off the hook by saying, well, president trump believes that cnn is fake news, then there's a major disaster where we're letting down our obligation to help people avert human slavery. as you know, erin, slavery and trafficking of human beings is a real problem in war zones, and libya is a war zone. i think what president trump needs to do is order the state department to work in the united nations security council to pressure the u.n. government, the u.n.-backed government in libya, national accord, to investigate these charges. it's the least the trump administration should now do given the irresponsibility of his tweets. >> nick, that article, the headline of which i read, let me read it again, trump says cnn lies, what about the slavery report from libya, question mark. it's from libya 218, the news organization. then it goes on in that article to suggest that international courts could start to sue cnn for its reports. reports like this one. that's a game changer. if you're going to talk about something like slavery that has been exposed, that the response would be to sue and to shut that sort of thing down, is that what the president wants? >> well, i think he's really playing with fire here. and i can't, erin, remember a single american president who's launched such an attack on the american press, in this case cnn. it endangered the lives of cnn journalists overseas if people think this is a disreputable organization because the president attacks it. it's contrary to our views and interests, contrary to what we want the world to see in the u.s., that we're a democratic society, that our government can be questioned by the press. in this case, and you have gone to the heart of it, there are human lives at stake people being trafficked and maybe sold on a modern slave market. if america should stand for anything, it's against that. >> i have been in a country where when you say you work for cnn, they think you work for the cia. i don't know if the president realizes how important a free press is, how precarious it is, and how important that the leader of the free world back it. we can only hope he's saying this out of cluelessness as opposed to something much more sinister. ambassador, thank you. >> thank you, erin. next, roy moore and his supporters making some extreme claims about his challenger, so we went and fact checked them. that's next. and president trump's changing family ties. should he be challenging anyone's self-proclaimed ancestry? and so am i. like how when you buy the amazing new iphone 8 you get another one on us. see we give you more phones and more spokespeople. are you guys doing a spokesperson thing right now? yes. awesome, can i be in it? well, it's kind of like a two-phone deal. so two spokespeople. got it. k. thanks. at&t it's time for more. it's time for more. buy the amazing iphone 8 at at&t and get a second one to gift, on us. no matter what it brings. every day. or where he is. and pain doesn't hold him back. thanks to dr. scholl's running insoles. the only ones proven to relieve and prevent pain from runner's knee, shin splints and plantar fasciitis. dr. scholl's. born to move. it was like a security blanket. it made me feel good, it really did. i would doubt myself that i could actually quit, but with chantix i did it. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. i'm so proud to be a non-smoker. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. many insurance plans cover chantix for a low or $0 copay. president trump going after roy moore's opponent in the alabama senate race. he's called doug jones a puppet, weak on crime and of the second amendment. he shifted the focus from the sexual abuse allegations against moore, including from a 14-year-old. that, of course, would be pedophilia. allegations that moore, of course, has denied. cnn is "outfront." >> in what has turned into a grueling, high-stakes race, the president has made clear he preferred the prospect of an accused child abuser in the senate than a democrat like doug jones. >> i can tell you one thing for sure. we don't need a liberal person in there, a democrat, jones. i have looked at his record. it's terrible on crime. it's terrible on the border. it's terrible in the military. >> trump has emphasized that moore has denied all of the accusations, but those views are repeated by supporters of roy moore, like conservative activists ann ubank. >> conservatives do not believe in open borders, and conservatives believe a child's life is more important than a woman's choice. >> today, jones defended those accusations. >> how do you respond to the president and roy moore and his supporters who say you're terrible on crime, terrible on immigration? >> i tell people to look at my record. and see what i have done. you know, as a former assistant u.s. attorney, a former u.s. attorney, we have prosecuted tons of people. look at my record. don't just listen to a tweet. don't just listen to somebody make a statement. >> when it comes to crime, jones made his name as a u.s. attorney, prosecuting one of the most tragic attacks in alabama history. the bombing of the 16th street baptist church in 1963 that left four young girls dead. two members of the ku klux klan were convicted. jones is more conservative than many democrats in washington, but for alabama, he's about as left as they come. under fire from many alabamians for his views on abortion. >> i'm a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body. and i'm going to stand up for that. >> moore supporters jumped on jones for saying he wouldn't back legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks. later walking it back, saying late-term abortions should only be for medical emergencies. on immigration, he has criticized the president's plan for a wall on the mexican border and has supported the so-called daca program for the children of undocumented immigrants. he calls himself a second amendment guy, but has called for more stringent background checks for gun buyers. all positions that trump and moore have seized on and which columnist john archibald says jones hasn't done well in communicating to potential voters. >> i don't think he's really done a good job of coming out and saying this is what i stand for in a way that the people of alabama, as a majority, can understand. >> cleary, i think what he believes and his campaign believes he needs to do is sit back and hope that roy moore implodes. i think as we get closer to election day, that's probably not going to be enough. >> well, roy moore is clearly not imploding, and his passionate base of support will turn out to vote in this special election two weeks from today. if doug jones is to win, he needs moderate republicans, white women, and african-americans all to turn out in large numbers. and that, erin, will be a real challenge. >> that's a tall order. thank you very much, alex. also tonight, the white house silent as criticism grows over president trump calling senator elizabeth warren pocahontas at an event that was to honor native american war heroes from world war ii. trump's son don jr. firing off his tweet after warren called that a racial slur, saying really? interesting, out of curiosity, what would you pretend calling something you're not for financial gain? other than fraud, of course? what about trump's own claims of heritage? jason carroll is "outfront." >> they call her pocahontas. >> donald trump's attacks on senator elizabeth warren for claiming she's part native american, raising some questions about what trump has said about his own heritage. in the 1987 autobiography, "the art of the deal" trump claimed his grandfather was swedish. he wrote, fred trump was born in new jersey in 1903. his father, who came here from sweden as a child, owned a moderately successful restaurant. turns out, his grandfather was not from sweden but germany. in 1990, trump was vague about the issue, telling vanity fair, my father was not german. my father's parents were german. swedish and really sort of all over europe. >> when i met with him in 2015, we tried to unravel this. >> michael deantonio, author of the book "the truth about trump" gave us a recording of his exchange with trump about his heritage. >> there was a short period of time when your dad and then you talked about being swedish. instead of being german. >> well, there is some swedish in there someplace. >> do you think he was sensitive to -- >> could have been. i never asked him that question, but my father was german. >> the family lore trump talks about is similar to warren's own description of how she says she learned of her heritage. >> my brothers and i learned from our mother and our daddy and our grandparents who we are. >> in 2016, one of trump's cousins said the family hid its german heritage in part to make it easier to sell apartments to jewish tenants. that cousin, john walter, telling the boston globe, you don't sell apartments after the war after you're german. when reached by foun, a representative for walter told cnn he would not discuss the family heritage. in 1999, trump was grand marshal of the german american parade in new york city. and in recent years, has spoken openly about his german roots. >> my grandfather frederick trump came to the united states in 1885. he joined the great gold rush, and instead of gold, he decided to open up some hotels in alaska. i'm a proud german american. enjoy the parade. >> deantonio says given trump's own revised history -- >> it's hypocritical for anyone whose own story about his background has been confused at best and manipulated at worst, to criticize anyone else who may have been mistaken. >> i mean, obviously, open about it now. but his version has changed over time of what he's claimed. of course, as he criticizes her. you actually have the census. >> this is a copy of the census report from 1910, which shows trump's grandfather being from germany. i think a lot of people looking at this would say, look, a lot of this can be settled by doing what a lot of folks do at home. you go out, you get the dna test. it will solve a lot of your problems, but warren and trump disagree on a lot of other issues so i'm sure they would

Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Fox News Night 20180105 08:00:00

comes in mark meadows and xerox may live when he thinks. a follow-up the stories i hear. >> potentially dozens of criminal cases that languished. >> shannon: we will talk to a former dea agent in the middle of investigations. said the obama administration undermining critical task force to target hezbollah as a president pursued a nuclear deal with iran. hello and welcome to "fox news @ night." i'm shannon bream in washington. newsnight: fox news confirming that the justice department is opened a new inquiry into the clinton foundation. fbi agents in little rock, arkansas, taking the lead, focusing on one of the clinton foundation engaged and pay to play politics and other illegal activities while hillary clinton was secretary of state. fox news has also learned investigators are looking into whether the clinton foundation violated tax laws. also new details tonight on special counsel robert special counsel robert mueller's inquiry into president trump firing a former fbi director. former chief of staff reince priebus has handwritten notes about how president trump called comey to urge him to say he was not under investigation. also went to lengths to prevent jeff sessions from recusing himself. we'll have more with congressman mike meadows, calling on sessions to resign among the growing number of leaks like it appears "the new york times" is gone. more news on the book "fire and fury," featuring explosive statements from steve bannon. bannon talking about running for president himself. and much more. it appears to be too much for his allies. one g.o.p. donor and influencer appears to be breaking with the antiestablishment star of the g.o.p. kevin corke is working late. >> great to be with you. yesterday, the president had died out. any talk of imitating the clintons are hillary clinton. >> both things can be true. you would know this. we have probably 98, 97 districts, federal district court to the united states. each of them has united states attorney. the one in the eastern district of arkansas has been a hotbed of this kind of stuff for decades. where the clintons have been and where the clintons i'm gone, controversy and scandal has always followed. the u.s. attorney out there is named cody highland, i believe his name is. he's a mike huckabee veteran. he was working for mike huckabee when the clinton machine was trying to take him out as governor. old blood feud stuff. deep down arkansas delta business. what you see is this u.s. attorney's office, this fbi field office has the -- whatever the justice department wants to do our base it has to be approved in washington, but if this prosecutor out in little rock wants to take good look at with the clintons between what was going on, i don't think there's probably much to stop it. you and you think it goes anywhere? we been told before there's nothing to it. there's no smoke, no fire. >> if you love america and i'm told reliably you do, even though you beat me at trivia today. >> shannon: we are not going to talk about it. too soon. >> still smarting. it's reasonable to want complete answers about what went on with the trump campaign and also complete answers about how the clinton machine, the operation clinton incorporated, how it operated, what he did, what was going on. we remember peter schweizer's book. "the new york times" reported on it, it had a lot of stinky stuff in it. if people thought they were paying for favors from the secretary of state when she was in office, that something we ought to want to know about and we should be able to hold those two thoughts and our minds concurrently. >> shannon: "the daily beast" is reporting the doj, they have information and are reopening a look into hillary clinton's email heard we've seen and judicial watch reported that they have pressed for information and have uncovered there were more classified information, documents, emails, on anthony weiner's laptop. his wife huma abedin, close confidant of the clintons. sounds like there may be some interesting reopening, whether she mishandled classified information. >> may be, there is a rabbit trail here. this has more thickets around the maybe the other one, these questions been explored. people think james comey did it wrong. people think the fbi did it wrong. we have two or three investigations into the investigation of the investigation. presumably we will get to some clarity on this but that will come as one unit, not some specific pull aside about huma abedin. >> shannon: i want to talk about the quotes and speculation in the michael wolff book. it's gotten ugly between bannon and the president. they were once very, very tight. although the presidencies to be downplaying that at this point. >> [laughs] accurate. steve and i will classify that as a go far. michael wolff, author of this. he tweets you can buy it and read it tomorrow. threaten us with letters and losses but your drawing more attention to it. in the copy we've gotten, it bannon was telling people something else. he steve bannon was going to run for president in 2020. he talked about the present was negative peach, resigned or barely make it your winter. >> is much as it pains me to spend any of their syllable my life discussing steve bannon's theses about power, he was talking if trump didn't runner wasn't running, he was going to challenge trump. the bannon stuff here is basically a comeuppance for a guy who over stated, hyped his own game, with the help of the press who loved to make him into this svengali behind trump in controlling trump. there had to be more to it. it could just be red hats and rallies. the need to be some intellectua intellectual, and bannon audition for that part and was granted that by the press and now he goes kablooey. the interesting stuff isn't about steve bannon. it's about how that white house worked in the opening months and what it means about john kelly, what it means about the level of confidence the staff has in the president. i will say, after all the allegations in the book, donald trump needs to give a real interview or hold a real press conference or do something soon to demonstrate to voters that the allegations in this book that he is senile or incompetent are untrue. he needs to get out and lay those dressed quickly or it will stick. >> shannon: there's always an open invitation for them to come. interview with us on fox news at night. it can happen. we will make it happen. good to see you. you may not have heard but there's good economic news happening. dow jones industrial average hitting its seven 1,000-point milestone closing above 25,000 for the first time. this began after president since president trump took office. a new report says private sector job creation surged, companies they will give workers pay raises. president trump weighing in on twitter saying: for days and to the new year their showdowns brewing in washington. a battle looming over immigration reform and democrats continue to insist on a daca deal before funding the government. the trump administration opening up new political battle fronts with plans to expand offshore drilling and ramp up enforcement of marijuana laws. >> with a rapid pace of initiatives and controversies, the trump administration is keeping all monikers on their toes while entering the democrats and even a few republicans are down right angry. first off, as you said, legislatively is daca. mr. trump invited a handful of republicans, john cornyn of texas and tom cotton of arkansas and lindsey graham of south carolina show at houston health crafton immigration policy. >> any legislation on daca must secure the border, the wall, give immigration officers the resources they need to stop illegal immigration and also to stop these overstates and crucially the legislation must end chain migration. >> many democrats say they can't support such an immigration bill, both the house and senate will need some democrat votes before they can get this thing across the finish line. separately today the department of interior announced plans to open up 90% of the u.s. outer continental shelf to oil and gas leases. most of the florida congressional delegation including republicans and other atlantic state lawmakers are deeply opposed, fearing what could happen to tourism if an accident happens. tweeting "the plan is extremely alarming and unacceptable." attorney general jeff sessions rescinding obama euro marijuana enforcement guidelines. sessions is leaving it up to federal prosecutors and states allow legal pot sales with her to crack down on the trade. advocates who witness the benefits of medical marijuana and states' rights conservatives are livid at this decision. colorado republican senator cory gardner said sessions promised him during his confirmation hearings he would not interfere with these state decisions. >> i believe what happened today was a traveling of colorado's rights, its voters, and that's why i will be putting a hold on everything the nomination from the department of justice. until attorney general jeff sessions loads up to the commitment that he made me and my confirmation, preconfirmation meeting with him. >> sessions it's also catching flak from conservatives on a different issue. mark margo's writing that sessions has no control over the premier law enforcement agency in the world. that the time for a new attorney general is now. stay on all right. doug mckelway, thank you very much. republicans will control the house of delegates in virginia and they have got the look of the draw to thank for it literally. it all came down to a single contested state host race which had flip-flopped back-and-forth after recount and raider trickle razor-thin margins. a panel refused to hear shelley "night court"'s arguments. that left it in a tie. state board of elections met today to choose the winner. they pulled a name out of a bowl. david yancey was declared the winner after his name was selected. simonds says she is not ruling out seeking another recount. we will hear from congressman mark meadows in a moment on this call for the attorney general to resign. plus president trump's fitness for office. according to political, lawmakers talk to a psychiatrist who claims he's falling apart. remember the bombshell politico report alleging the obama administration sabotage the dea's investigation into hezbollah? we have an exclusive interview with a former dea special agent in the middle of the controversy. he will be here live to separate fact from when a cold calls... achoo! ...answer it. with zicam cold remedy. it shortens colds, so you get better, faster. colds are gonna call. answer them with zicam! zicam. get your better back. now in delicious fruit drops. and for fast acting nasal relief, for up to 12 hours, try zicam extreme congestion relief and zicam intense sinus relief. for colds and allergies, get your better back with zicam. that's why, at xfinity, we've been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. now, with instant text and email updates, you'll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels, so you don't miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you're looking for - because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. stay on republican senator cory gardner blasting attorney general jeff sessions today, threatening to block all of the president's nominees for the justice department and it's all over the administrations to end and obama era policy which allows states legalization of marijuana to thrive despite a federal law that bans it. senator gardner who want to post the legalization of marijuana supports the decision made by colorado voters. he points to the economic benefit of legalizing marijuana. listen to this clip from a segment about business in seattle. >> 2018 brought to golden state in line with other west coast dates for marijuana retail shops and products. the even playing field may expand the number who want to buy but could undercut any attempt to make seattle a special destination for pot tourism. an add-on rather than a main attraction. >> a lot of the participants want a count of his tour of some sort to be part of their seattle visit. >> shannon: now i multiple state options. a diverse group of critics worried about so-called marijuana normalization. they are praising sessions for allowing the feds to enforce federal law despite states who decided to do their own thing. former obama administration drug policy advisors has doj's move will stop the massive infusion of money going to fund pot candy, cookies, ice creams, and other kid friendly edibles. a mom who lost her daughter to a driver high on pot says marijuana is seen as benign all too often. i hope those days are over. former democrat congressman says the memo had been waved around by pot executives for years. searching for legitimacy among investors and banks. it's time to put public health over profits. the public seems divided. states' rights versus doing what they believed to be the right thing. joining us now, mark meadows. we have many things to talk to you about tonight. we'll start here. gray to have you with us. what you make of this? i want to read it more of a statement we got from senator gardner's office. optical reports that the justice department will rescind their current policy on legal marijuana enforcement are extremely alarming. in 2016, president trump said marijuana legalization should be left up to the states and i agree." what do you think? think of here's what we have inl law. this president has been consistent. he said if there's along the books, let's make sure we do it. just like we are having to deal with daca because we had president obama overreaching on the deferred action, he says it's time for congress to act. i think on this one it really is for congress to rescind the federal law, not an executive agency. cory is a good friend and i understand he is representing his state but there comes a point where you allow states to affect federal policy and set of the other way around, and i think that's troubling. i support attorney general sessions in this move. it really takes effect of congress. now is the time for us to act. if we want to address this issue. >> shannon: other criticisms you have of the attorney genera attorney general. jim jordan, you wrote a piece and say you are tired of leaks happening. no evidence of collusion in it are leaks all the time from places like "the new york times." we have another piece out tonight where they cite multiple anonymous sources with all kinds of of inside information from the mueller investigation from people either in the white house are briefed on things that happen at the white house. you say it's time for the leaks to stop. if sessions can't address it, there's one final question. one of the time for a new attorney general? sadly it seems the answer is no now. >> no one has lost their job yet. the fbi and doj leak more than a 60-year-old boat. we have more leaks coming out every day. critical importing that we address it but not just that. the attorney general needs to do his job. when he recused himself, where it is his recusal start and sto stop? there's a big frustration on capitol hill. we have investigated this russian collusion for 16 months. there is no collusion. there is no evidence of collusion and yet here we are in a situation where we know that leaks are happening. we know based on these reports that he have used a dossier in an inappropriate manner. yet we can't get the very documents to have proper oversight. we are tired of stonewalling. i talked to chairman nunes this evening. he's going to get some documents tomorrow. that's a good step in the right direction. but we have seen this before. listen, i've been an oversight for over five years. what happens is they promise you they are going to get it to you. they give it to fully redacted so a page of just blacked out lines. it's time that we get to the bottom of this and it's time that we hold the fbi and doj accountable to the standard they should be held accountable. >> shannon: we have talked about this. do you think it's a "deep state" problem. are there people in the administration, opponents of the president, who are keeping you from getting the information ine congress is legally entitled to? >> we don't have to look much further than the text messages between peter strzok and lisa page to see some type of bias. whether that carries over into the investigation, we need to look at all the text messages. we need to fully look at that. in my conversations with others, are there people within the higher ranks of doj and the fbi that certainly are not wanting to come forward with some of this information? i believe that's the case. i'm not a conspiracy guy. at the same time, give us the documents. we requested some 15,000 pages of documents. >> shannon: the obstruction, stonewalling, leaks, are you calling on the attorney general to resign? >> i'm calling on him to do his job. if you will do his job immediately and right away and quit making excuses, you had part of the lead up to this, you had attorney general session saying well, it's not time for special prosecutor. when we see the text messages and emails we've already visited, there seems to be some at least appearance of impropriety. it's time that we actually get to the bottom of it and so he's got a very short fuse from my standpoint. if he can do his job, more power to him. we welcome the information. >> shannon: congressman mark meadows. great to have you. lawmakers questioning president trump's mental health. we're going to tell you what one psychiatrist had to say. president trump street blame for unrest in iran? vice president pence says europe and the u.n. are not doing enough to help people there. stay tuned. former u.n. ambassador john bolton joins us. >> when dr. bandy lee finished up more than six teen hours of private meetings, she apparently convinced some it was time to invoke the 25th amendment saying the president was mentally unfit to fulfill the duties of the office. she indicated that getting republicans to sign on would be trickier. dr. lee acknowledges it's unethical for a psychiatrist to diagnose from afar but she believes it's her duty to warn the public about their leaders psychological instability which is why she and 26 of her liberal colleagues wrote the book "the dangerous case of donald trump." the president is compared to an american hitler, showing signs of impulsivity, recklessness and paranoia. here is dr. lee. >> when silence contributes harm to the public health, we have a duty to speak out. and the duty to warn and the duty to protect is pervasive in our practice. >> not all mental health experts feel that same sense of duty. in fact some say the dangerous case of donald trump is nothing but in fatuous, tawdry tabloid psychiatry. fox's doctor says it's highly unlikely that you are -- saying dr. bandy lee is either an opportunist or a fool. he makes it clear he is not diagnosed her. should be noted the stock market hates uncertainty and instability. today the dow crossed 25,000. >> shannon: it did. joining me now, townhall.com columnist and radio host derek hunter and leslie leslie marsh. assuming we are mentally healthy enough to have this debate, i want to talk more about this. bandy lee admits she has not met the president. she says "we feel that the russia tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable within the pressures of the presidency." derek, seems like he's been the same guy we've seen. we've known. ration bold and off-the-cuff. do you think he's changed? >> no. i have been a fan of the apprentice since the apprentice. it's a weird thing and washington, d.c., that no one speaks their mind. i have to give her credit for her willingness to violate the ethics of her profession in order to sell books. i think a book could be written about the violation of ethics for her profession. spewing she came here in brief people over a two-day period about what would happen. there's been a discussion about the 25th amendment that provides a way for the vice president in the cabinet members to step in if they think the president is unable, incapacitated. to that discussion, alan dershowitz who has not been a conservative ever, says this "the 25th amount would require a major psychotic break. this is hope of reality. if we don't like someone's politics, vote against them. we don't use the system. >> i think it's dangerous to sound like you're making a diagnosis when you haven't actually seen a patient in any area of medicine. i think it's important for the american people to be aware of what's going on with their leader. it's important for this or any leader to have proper medical treatment. for congress to be briefed by somebody who hasn't seen him, to me is not ethical and quite frankly even know i'm a democrat. i've set up before. you've heard me. this is not how the removal of donald trump happens. this is not how it's going to come about because you don't have the vice president. you don't have the cabinet, the republicans. even the one republican that sat down for the meeting. i think this is a waste of time because this individual has not seen him. having said that though he has some tweets that are very similar to north korea leader who many people think is a wing not. he needs to stop some of that behavior. >> can we talk about -- >> shannon: we know he's not going to change his behavior. any -- she's not going to change his behavior. he feels like by using twitter, that's why he won. the left knowing it's highly improbable that any this could happen, the 25th amendment et cetera, do you think it's making them feel better to talk about. >> this is further based. you have members coming out and talking about how the president seems unhinged from afar through somatic admits they are violating the ethics of their profession. it really is scared to go crazy, advocating for policies that have failed the world over. the u.k., their national health system, they have canceled nonemergency procedures because their system can't handle it. many members met with dr. lee who had vacates to bring that sort of system here. i would take 180 characters and crazy over a nationwide policy over 16 of the u.s. economy. >> shannon: leslie, what do you make of derek's assessment that a lot of people just aren't used to plain spoken, straight talking people in d.c. everybody here is a spin doctor. this precedent doesn't do that. is it such a shock? >> no. but i do think that one individual talks about the ability to start a nuclear war which could kill millions of people .. >> if somebody threatens on twitter that my button is bigger than yours and i can press it and it's right here, ts dangerous talk when you are dealing with a very dangerous and unstable leader overseas like we have in kim jong un. that's the type of behavior i think people on my side of the aisle question the stability of with regard to the president. >> shannon: we've got to leave it there. derek and leslie, we will close this out. thank you both very much. as the death toll rises in iran, president trump's tweets are being blamed for the unrest in the streets of tehran and other cities. north korea testing more missiles. we will tell you where to get the latest reaction from john bolton. .. take away tumor related symptoms and prolong life. and lower the psa. my psa is under control. ctca gave me an opportunity to accomplish my goals and my dreams. learn more at cancercenter.com cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. >> shannon: knew tonight from the stand off in the korean peninsula. officials from north and south korea will meet next tuesday to discuss a possibility of north korean athletes participating in next month's winter olympic games. moon jae-in sees a groundbreaking chance to improve relations. will keep you updated. iran's leaders planning president trump on the twitter habits for the deadly protest. they aren't the only ones. vice president pence slamming our european allies in the u.n. nikki haley requesting a security council meeting on iran. former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. john bolton joins us. this meeting ambassador haley called for. >> it's important to continue the discussion about why the people of iran are rising against the regime. i think that's quite significant. i don't expect any substantive action out of the u.n. i think russia and china will block any meaningful new sanctions. honestly i have to say that our friends in europe haven't exactly stood up on this issue. the discussion will go ahead but i don't see anything coming out of it. >> shannon: the vice president said "the united states has spoken clearly and unequivocall unequivocally. unfortunately many of our european partners as well as the united nations have thus far failed to forcefully speak out on the growing crisis in iran. it's time for them to stand up." who are recalling out? >> the european union. germany for, france, great britain unfortunately partners in the deal with iran on the nuclear question. it shows the iranian strategy, the obama strategy work. they sucked us into being able to trade and invest with iran. europe sees the possibility of profits. they are blind to what's happening in the streets of iran. i didn't write that article for mike pence but i wish i had because it's exactly the right point to make. >> shannon: what about pakistan? we got word today from the state apartment we are going to freezing substantial security students we get to that country. a lot of talk talk from this administer ration about the fact that they haven't been reliable partners in the fight against terrorism. >> i remember george bush after 9/11, what he said with respect to terrorism. you are either with us or against us. people said it's terrible. you shouldn't hold nations to account. i think it was the right thing to say then and i think president trump is really going back to that. freezing this assistance i think he is incredibly important to signal to pakistan. we have to remember that in this unstable political environment, civilian government not being all that strong, military in pakistan increasingly infiltrated by radicals. they are a nuclear weapon state. if you push them all the way over to the other side, you risk having those nuclear weapons being dispersed to terrorists who could take them anywhere in the world. that's something we've got to focus on as well. leaning on pakistan, it's about time. >> shannon: looking back on the last demonstration. we are getting confirmation that there's an investigation looking into the clinton foundation, whether there was pay to play, favors done for countries and any connection with bill or hillary clinton. >> i think these questions need to be answered. i am very disturbed. as a justice department alumnus myself, disturbed by the politicization of law enforcement, intelligence. investigations cut off that should've been allowed to go forward. i believe this investigation which is being conducted by the u.s. attorney's office for arkansas is exactly the right way to do it. you don't need a special counsel. this, i trust the career prosecutors and i think we ought to let it go ahead. there's so many things about the foundation that look like tammany hall. let's see what it looks like. >> shannon: all right, ambassador. great to have your thoughts. massive snowstorm following the east coast from blizzard conditions and bitter winds to coastal flooding in some parts. a bomb cyclone update coming our way. first, next was of interview with a former senior d.a. official at the heart of politico's report that the obama investigation derailed investigation into hezbollah's drug >> shannon: a bombshell report by politico alleging the obama administration interfered with the federal investigation into how iran backed chair groups hezbollah turn profits on illegal drugs and weapons trafficking. according to the report the previous administration didn't want anything to get in a way of a nuclear deal with tehran. you remember we spoke with the investigative reporter who broke the story. >> federal investigators were watching in gathering evidence of hezbollah sort of transforming itself from a political power and terrorist organization to one that was trafficking in drugs. they were doing it to raise money to help rebuild after the israel war and help in expansion they were doing globally. they gathered evidence, designated a couple dozen super facilitators as people that were connected by this conspiracy but when they tried to delve deeply into the people, they got shot down. >> shannon: we are bringing you an interview with the former special agent in charge of the dea special operations division quoted extensively in the political report. great to have you with us. i want to read a little bit of what he said. you said there's no doubt my mind now that the focus was the iran deal and our initiative was kind of like a fly the soup. we were like the train that went off the track. at what point did you realize all this until you've you gathered about the millions that hezbollah was laundering even through this country and around the globe, wasn't going to be prosecuted. >> i found it very odd fit in our backyards all over america they were sending used cars back into west africa to sell and the profits of these used cars and drug trafficking money was going to support hezbollah. i found it kind of odd that we didn't have unity of effort to shut it down. i found it odd we didn't have leadership in the administration that would enforce and hold people accountable to bring the agencies to gather to ensure that we can protect the american public. >> shannon: you were in a meeting with attorney general eric holder who seemed to be interested in this. you were told there would be a follow-up, they would be getting back to you. what happened? >> eric holder was very supportive of the special operations division. i was fortunate to be in charge of that for almost ten years at a most every operation he approved and was supportive. in this particular case, we proved eric holder. he was alarmed by the findings of this particular investigatio investigation. the magnitude of money and drugs moving around the world. eric holder was pretty serious about having follow-up meetings with national security team members and the briefing never happen. it was very strange for me sitting there listening to the attorney general of the united states directing his people to have a meeting to get more information from the dea and our interagency partners about this global trade based money laundering scheme and they weren't interested. >> shannon: in the meantime the administration is working on a deal with iran over its nukes. josh meyer, who did the political piece, came to this idea that it's possible that's what this is all about. they didn't want to go heavy on hezbollah because they wanted to get the nuke deal done. is that your impression? >> look, i don't have any information on what was going on behind the scenes on the oral new deal. honestly from my perspective you have this magnitude of money and drugs moving through our country and the banks, that should've been something our government enforced full accountability on all the agencies. it didn't happen. we had significant successes. we had tremendous response from the u.s. attorney's office and southern district of new york. we did a $400 million civil seizure on the bank and 30 businesses. we put 30 businesses in this action but there were hundreds of businesses still operating today. cars going to west africa, car parks are lined up and they are booming. "the wall street journal" article at the end of 2016 talked about how the car parks are exploding all over west africa. they are coming from our backyards. >> shannon: you are saying this is how the money is being laundered. >> it is being laundered. they are supporting hezbollah. they are buying weapons. criminals, terrorists are turning to criminal networks for funding. state sponsorship is down. they need funding to operate, to corrupt government officials. drug trafficking and other criminal activities helping generate hundreds of millions of dollars. the u.n. estimated drug trafficking a few years ago was generating $400 billion a year on the world. terrorists are taking advantage of this opportunity financially. they need the money to operate. >> shannon: i want to let you to reply to a couple obama administration officials who had -- shot down. she used to be at the state department. we will play her. marie harf. >> the politico stories just false. there is no evidence in the story to backup the allegations. they quote a couple low-level ideological sources who clearly don't like the iran deal. >> low-level sources? i was head of the special operations division for over ten years. 30 agencies, three countries, the nypd. that lady didn't work on the operations. she worked as a bureaucrat in washington talking about policy and stuff, but she wasn't involved day today in the operations. she didn't see what we saw every day on the streets of america and in europe, west africa, and so i have a problem with her referring to the low level sources. the folks that spoke about the story were intricately involved in every aspect of the case. as a matter of fact, david asher was the expert in the first action against north korea and helped us put together the patriot act in this case to shutdown the international trade based money laundering scheme. >> shannon: thank you for all of your work. thank you for coming in. >> i would just like to say that this particular photo right here is why we were trying to shut this scheme down. >> shannon: we both tweeted out so people know what you won't see these folks at the post office. they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. get a 4 week trial, plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again.

Transcripts For FOXNEWSW The Daily Briefing With Dana Perino 20191209 19:00:00

>> [silence]. >> now, turning attention to the ron johnson letter, if i may. >> yes. >> on august 31st, senator johnson is getting ready to travel to the ukraine in september with murphy. johnson called the president and sought permission to be the bearer of good news. >> right. >> the president said i am not ready to lift the aid. senator johnson, he writes a 10 page letter. very detailed. he gives some remarkable details. i would like to read it. it's on page 6. this is senator johnson speak. i asked him whether there was some kind of arrangement or ukraine would take action and be lifted. without hesitation president trump denied such an arrangement existed. and he started cursing. he said no way. president trump said no way. i would never do that. who told you that? and senator johnson goes on to say that president trump's reaction was adamant, ve hement and angry. and as august 31st, the president said you will like my decision in the end." that's very important context on the president's state of mind on august 31st. >> right. he fully expected that the aid would eventually be released after the 55 day pause? >> absolutely. >> i want to thank you all for your presentations. mr. caster, i believe you have been talking for approximately 75 minutes. i want to thank you for that. >> my wife thanks you as well. she likes when i talk when she is not around. >> time permitting today, i would like to cover 4 or 5 areas, distinct areas. there is a lot of facts the american people have not heard. there is a lot of contradictions in certain people's testimony. is that fair to say, mr. castor? i would like to talk about some of the people in this story that have firsthand knowledge of the facts. we have ambassador volker. ambassador sonland and secretary perry. you had the opportunity to talk to two of those three people, correct? >> yes. >> and the democrats' report would like us to believe that the three individuals were engaged in some nefarious venture, but that's not true, is it? >> no. >> in fact these three people were at all relevant times and even today in the best interest of the american people? >> yes, and with the highest integrity. >> that's right. i think everyone testified that ambassador volker is one of the most experienced diplomats in our foreign service. >> across the board. all the witnesses talked about integrity that ambassador volker brings to the table. >> there are a lot of people with firsthand knowledge we did not talk to, correct? >> [silence]. >> now i want to talk about the president's skepticism of foreign aid. the president is very skeptical of foreign aid, is that correct? >> he is deeply skeptical of sending u.s. tax paying dollars into an environment that is corrupt. it's as good as kissing it good-bye. >> is that something new he believes or something he ran on? >> something he ran on and implemented policies as soon as he became president. ambassador hale told us about the review of all foreign aid programs and described it as a zero based evaluation. >> right. you took the deposition of mark sandy a career official at omb? >> correct. >> and he had some information about the reason for the pause, is that true? i think he had a conversation with an individual named rob blair. mr. blair provided insight into the reason for the pause. >> sandy was one of the few witnesses that gave us a firsthand account inside of omb, the reason for the pause related to the president's concern about european burden sharing with the region. >> in fact, in his conversations, the president's conversations with senator johnson, he mentioned his concerns about burden sharing. i believe he referenced a conversation that he had with a chancellor of germany and in fact the whole first part of the july 24th transcript he is talking about burden sharing and wanting the europeans to do more. >> yes. senator johnson and president trump were pretty candid. they believed that allies like germany were laughing at us because we were so willing to spend the aid. >> right. >> hmmm. now i would like -- there has been a lot of allegations that president zelensky is not being candid about feeling pressure from president trump. isn't it true that he stated over and over publicly he felt no pressure from president trump. is that true? >> yes, he said it consistently. said in the united nations september 25th and 3 more news availabilities over the course of the period including last week. >> i wanted to change subjects and talk about something that professor turley raised last week. the partisan nature of this investigation. you are an experienced congressional investigator. >> professor turley is no trump supporter. >> that's right. he is a democrat. that's right. but professor turley cautioned that a partisan inquiry is not what the founders envisioned; is that correct? >> yes correct. >> and our democrat friends are citing the founders and their intent as part of this impeachment process. >> i think that goes to whether this constitutes bribery. you know there is case law on bribery. i am no supreme court scholar. there is new case law with the mcdonald's case what constitutes an official act. that hasn't been addressed and professor turley mentioned that. >> and professor turley said a meeting doesn't constitute an official act. >> and the mcdonald case goes to that. >> and turley pointed that out last week. since this inquiry's unofficial and unsanctioned start in september, the process has been partisan, biassed, unfair. republicans questions has been curtailed routinely. i think we saw that in lt. colonel's vindeman's deposition? >> we were barred from asking him who he communicated concerns to. >> basic things like who, what, when where? >> and this rapid. we are in day 76. it's almost impossible to do a sophisticated congressional investigation that quickly when the stakes are this high. it takes time for the two sides to stakeout their interest and how they respond. with the gowdy probe the first letter was in october of 2017. in december we finally got a witness. it was the following spring in the gowdy probe, after a lot of pushing and pulling and a lot of tug-of-war, we reached a deal with the doj where we went down to doj. they gave us access to documents and access north of 800,000 pages. but they made us come down there. they made us go into a skiff and these documents were not qualified. in may or june we started when the investigation was on-going. that's disappointing. we all wish there was an easy button. congressional investigations of consequence take time. >> right. >> it took, i think, 6 months before the first document was even produced. you had to go down there and review it in cam camera and investigate the death of a border patrol agent. >> yes. they sent subpoenas in february of 2011. we had a hearing in june. with experts about proceedings of contempt. what does it take to go to contempt? that was the first time in june when we got any production. the production was largely publicly available frchltion -- information. we spent most of the year to get information from the justice department. we were also working with whistleblowers who were providing us with documents. the chairman then in october issued another subpoena to the justice department. we talked to whistleblowers and doing interviews to get documents from the justice department through that channel. these things take time. >> right. >> not 76 days. >> if you truly want to uncover every fact, as you should in an impeachment, you have to go to court sometimes and enforce your subpoenas. here we have a lot of requests for information. voluntary information. will you please provide us documents on x, y, z and that's great but you have to back it up, correct? >> the fundamental rule of any investigation you rarely get what you are asking for unless and until the alternate is less palitable for the respondent. you issue a subpoena. you are trying to get documents. one technique you can use it talk to a document custodian about what documents exist. chairman chaff his document production status hearings. you would bring in officials to get the lay of the land. they are supposed to be directly responsible. you can sabre rattle about holding somebody in contempt. oftentimes, witnesses who are reluctant to cooperate and come forward, when you attach a contempt proceeding to their name, a lot of times that changes the outcome. with a contempt proceeding you have a couple of different steps company raise the prospect. you can schedule a contempt proceeding. you can hold the door open for documents or interviews and then push it off. you can go through at the committee level. these are all sort of milestone events which historically are less palatable for the administration that sometimes starts to move the needle. with these times of disputes, once you get the ball rolling, with the gowdy probe we didn't get a witness. once we got deputy director mccabe in, a couple of weeks later we got comey's chief of staff is. once you get the ball rolling, again, you don't always like 100% of the terms. sometimes you have to deal with agency counsel or look in camera. once you get the ball rolling usually it leads to positive results and historically allowed the congress to do its work. >> were any of those things done here? >> no. >> in fact, they decided we are not going to subpoena certain people that are important, is that fair to say? we are not going to court to enforce them so these folks that are caught in the inter-branch struggle. that's an unfortunate position for any employee. >> one concerning thing dr. cupperman who was described as a solid citizen and good witness. he filed a lawsuit in the face of the subpoena. judge leon was assigned to it. the issues were different than the mcgahn issues. he is the white house counsel. cupperman is a national security official. cupperman filed the lawsuit seeking guidance. cupperman was not asking the court to tell him not to testify. he was seeking the court's guidance to facilitate his cooperation. and the committee with drew the subpoena which raises questions about whether the committee is really interested in getting to the bottom of some of these issues. >> right. instead the intelligence committee has chosen to rely on ambassador sonland and his system. i think they rely 600 times in their report. >> i tell you what i did. on this point, yesterday, i opened a democrat report. i did a control-f. >> yes. >> sonland's name shows up 611 times. in fairness, it will be double counted because it's in a sentence and then in a foot note. that's two. but in comparison to the other witnesses, sonland is relied on big-time. >> yes. >> i think dr. hill testified that she at some point confronted him about his actions. >> the record is mixed on this front. dr. hill talks about raising concerns with sonland. sonland in his deposition he does not share the same view. >> there is a lot of instances of that. where ambassador sonland recalls one thing and other witnesses recall another, correct? >> sonland as a witnesses an enigma. he said the security surveillance was not tied to anything. >> i call that the pretzel sentence. >> if that addendum or supplement, he talks to him and her and sonland ends with a presume. it was not any firsthand information. >> right. we don't have a lot of firsthand information, stharis that corre? >> we have a lot of conflicting testimony. we have not been able to get everyone's account, but the investigation hasn't been able to reveal firsthand evidence relating to the president other than the call transcript. >> we already talked about this. ambassador sonland would presume things, assume things, and form opinions based on what other people told him. then he would use those as firsthand, is that correct? >> hmmm. it started with his role with the ukraine portfolio. people in the state department wondered where the ambassador was so engaged with issues with the ukraine. ukraine aspires to join the eu. there are other reasons and mr. turner explored this really well at the open hearing. we asked ambassador sonland. he did a tv interview in kiev on the 26th of july is. he said the president gave he a lot of assignments and assigned me ukraine. but when we asked him in his deposition, he conceded that he was in fact spinning. that the president never assigned him to ukraine. he was exaggerating. >> i think at the public hearings you pointed out in contrast to other witnesses, ambassador sonland is not a note taker. he, in fact, he said i do not recall dozens of times in his deposition. >> let's say it this way. ambassador taylor walked us through his standard operating procedure for taking notes. he has a notebook on his desk and in the coat pocket of his suit. he showed us. when ambassador taylor recounts to us what happened, it's backed up by these notes. ambassador sonland on the other hand was very clear -- firsthand he said he did not have access to his state department records. he said that at the public hearing, simultaneously the state department issued a statement saying that was not true. nobody is keeping ambassador sonland from his emails. he is still a state department employee. he can go -- he does have access to his records but he stated he didn't and stated he doesn't have any notes because he doesn't take notes and he doesn't have recollections on a lot of these issues. we made a list of them. i think at the hearing i called it the trifecta of unreliability. >> yes. and, you are not the only person that has concerns about ambassador's sonland testimony and conduct. i think other witnesses took issue with his conduct, is that correct? >> yes, tim morrison talked about instances where ambassador sonland was showing up uninvited. morrison didn't understand why sonland was trying to get into the warsaw meeting on september 1st. and dr. hill told us about issues of that sort and a number of witnesses. you are correct. >> and ambassador reeker and sonland too. >> yes, reeker said he was a problem. >> yes. and dr. hill raised concerns about his behavior and said he might be an intelligence risk; is that correct? >> she did. she had issues with his tendency to pull out his mobile device and make telephone calls which obviously can be monitored. >> yes. >> by the bad guys. >> we talked about how he was spinni spinning certain things. he admitted that. how he was spinning. >> he admitted he exaggerated. also, when it comes to his communication with the president, we tried to get him to list all of the communications with the president. he gave us six. then when he was back -- we walked us each communication with the president. it was a christmas matter and when the president of finland was here. and congresswoman spear asked him the same question and he said he talked to the president like 20 times. the record is mixed. >> i think my time is up. thank you, both. yield back. >> mr. chairman, mr. chairman. i move to recess for 30 minutes pursuant to clause 1-a of 11. >> the gentleman moved to recess for how long? >> for 30 minutes, sir. >> 30 minutes. that's a privileged motion. it is not debatable. all in favor say aye. the no's have it. >> roll call. >> the clerk will call the role. >> >> mr. johnson? >> no. >> mr. richmond? >> no. >> mr. jeffers? >> no. >> we will break in here for just a moment. this is dana perino with continuing coverage of this impeachment hearings. this is the second hearing the judiciary committee has p is having. it's a roll call vote to decide whether to take a break. it's the power dynamics in this hearings. you listened to the counsels from each side. the democrats went first and then the republicans. questioned staffers under oath. we will talk about that process in just a moment. in the meantime, there was other big breaking news. the inspector general report on the fbi, the fisa warrant into carter page came out. the bottom line is the ig concluded that the russia probe was warranted and the fbi and the justice department will undertake an audit to talk about process and proceedings. the ig found 17 significant errors or omissions with that fisa application. that included a question about whether or not senior people would have signed off on it in the first place. there is an audit. the attorney general will oversee that and the u.s. attorney mr. durham is issuing a statement saying he doesn't agree with the ig report and he will have more to say on that in a moment. back to the hearing now with chairman nadler. >> mr. chairman, there are 15 ayes and 24 nos. >> the motion is not agreed too. i yield myself 5 minutes to question the witnesses plchlt goldman, can you explain the difference between vice president biden's request to the ukraine and president trump's request to the ukraine? >> when vice president biden did so with an international consensus as part of u.s. policy the entire european union supported that. and the imf gave the loans he was referring to. he did that as part of the entire international community's consensus. when president trump asked for this investigation of joe biden, all of the witnesses, every single one testified that had nothing to do with official u.s. policy. >> president and vice president biden's request had no personal political benefit and president trump's did? >> yes, the witnesses testified if the corrupt prosecutor general were removed, it would be because he was not prosecuting corruption. so the witnesses said by removing that prosecutor general and adding a new one, there was an increased chance that corruption in ukraine would be prosecuted relating to the barisma company which his son was on the board. >> mr. goldman, explain what happened to the phone records obtained by the intelligence committee. >> i want to set the record straight. this is a basic and usual practice where people involved in a scheme or suspected to be involved in a scheme, investigators seek their records. this is meta-data. only call to, from and length. it's not the content of the calls or the text messages. there is no content. there is no risk of invading any communications with lawyers or journalists or attorney/client. there are no risks for that. for several of the people we subpoenaed and were alegged to be part of the scheme we got records to see if there were additional communications we were unaware of it. we matched the call records up with important events that occurred during the scheme. we looked for patterns. in this case people who were involved president trump's scheme were communicating with the president's lawyer who was also involved in the scheme, a journalist and a staff member of congress and another member of congress. we did not at all seek in any way shape or form to do any investigation on any member of congress. it just happened to be that they were in communication with people involved in the president's scheme. >> everything you did was standard operating procedure for a well run investigation? >> every investigation i did for 10 years we got call records. >> did white house counsel make his view clear and what was that view? >> we never heard from the white house counsel other than the letter which said we will not at all cooperate with this investigation in any way, shape or form. they never reached out to engage in the accommodation process. it was a complete stonewall. not only would the white house not cooperate and not respond to the subpoenas but they said they will direct every executive agency to defy them. >> my republican colleagues said that congress hasn't built a sufficient record to impeach the president. you have spent years building substantial case records. what is the strength of the record here? >> i think we have moved fast and i think the evidence is overwhelming. we have 17 witnesses with overlapping statements. >> and the committee managed to collect such a compelling record in the face of unprecedented obstruction by the president, correct? >> yes. >> and was the obstruction so pervasive that the evidence pointed to a plan to cover-up presidential misconduct? >> yes. >> on october 8th the white house wrote a letter to president trump. the white house counsel wrote that president trump could permit his administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under the circumstances. they were stymied with respect to most of them? >> there were 12 witnesses directed not to appear and they didn't appear. >> thank you very much. my time has expired. i yield to the ranking member mr. collins. >> thank you. an interesting thing. we can put pressure on others if we have the international community behind us. i can extort anybody i want to as long as enough people think it's okay? that's what you just said whether you believe just said. i want to go to the phone record. the phone records -- hear me clearly -- i have no problem with the subpoena power from congress. my problem is taking the meta-data -- you said there is no content. we had that debate in congress on fisa and other things. this committee should be hearing fisa this week. the ig report just came out and we are doing this. it's interesting to see to me that the calls and the meta-data and not the content, the problem i have is this: if rudy giuliani and nunes were the only phone records returned. where were they released? i want to know who ordered it. the committee made a choice. schiff who is not here and thank you for showing up. made a conscious choice to put these records into the report. it was a drive by. you wanted to smear the ranking member or these others because they were in the numbers connected to that. i am not saying you knew the contact. you admitted they were simply contacting these people. if you want to do a professional non-smear report, you could say congress person 1 or 2. reporter 1 or 2. if they didn't contribute to your report, it is nothing but a drive by. that's the problem i have here. i have no problem with you or the report or the subpoena. can you pretty it up all you want. that showed the american people for a moment, the schiff report became a partisan smear against other members we don't like because there are other alternatives for you to do. i have a lot of issues with how this oversight is done want don't make it up and don't not tell me who ordered that. that was nothing more than a smear campaign. to say it's not is being disingenuous this committee. the chairman gave you a chance and you made it worse. and a record got leaked to the "washington post." i don't understand how we can say this is okay. how do we say this is fine? this is how we deinvolved. member of the majority may be members of the minority at some point. if this is the standard of where we are going with these investigations we for deep trouble. this is another thing that the founders and you and others said earlier. the founders were concerned about a lot of things. one of the biggest they were concerned about a partisan impeachment because you don't like his policies. you don't like how he said it. you don't like the way joe biden said it but you blew that off. we are a perpetual state of impeachment. don't come here and be a sworn witness and not answer the question. adam schiff is doing that fine without you. don't come here and say i won't say because you know good and well, in some conference or little room, somebody said hey this is interesting because i have devin nunes phone number and that number matches. we will put it in the report not because we think devin nunes is part of this but because he had a phone call with somebody we are investigating. that's a drive by. it's beneath you and it's beneath this congress. that's why i have a problem with this. then you leaked further information. this is the problem here. we can be righteous about trying to get this president or not. this is why people are turned off by this whole thing. that's the problem we have. are you could have handled this differently. and you mr. schiff. i don't blame the chairman. i hold the one with the pen responsible. he ordered this and said put their names in here and he can't come and defend that. unfortunately he sent you. you have had to take it. that's wrong and this committee deserves better. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. gentle lady of from california is recognized. >> the gist of the question here is the potential of abuse of the president's power to benefit himself in the next election. america is based on free and fair elections. after russia interfered with the 2016 election people the american people want to ensure the next election is free of foreign interference. mr. goldman, ambassador sonland testified that according to rudy giuliani president trump wanted a public statement from president zelensky committing to investigations of barisma and the 2016 election. isn't that correct? >> correct. >> and ambassador sonland testified as the screen in front. you shows that president zelensky had to announce the investigations. he didn't have to do them. >> correct. >> mr. goldman, you are an experienced former prosecutor. is it common to announce an investigation and not actually conduct the investigation? >> no, usually it works the reverse. normally you don't announce the investigation because you want to develop as much evidence while it's not public. if it's public, then you run into problems of people matching up testimony and witnesses tailoring their testimony which is part of the reason where the closed deceptions in our investigation were important. >> what did this evidence about the announcements tell you why president trump would only care about president zelensky announcing the investigations but not actually conducting them? >> one whatever the president claims about his desire to root out corruption, even if you assume the investigations are for that purpose as he stated, it undermines that. he doesn't care in the investigations are done. even if you assume, which i don't think the evidence supports that it's corruption. he is not doing the corruption investigations. he wanted the public announcement. the private confirmation was not enough because he wanted the political benefit. >> this could benefit the president politically because the announcement alone could be twitter fodder between now and the next election to smear a political rival. that's consistent with the findings. president nixon attempted to corrupt elections and his agents broke into democratic party headquarters to get a leg up on the election. then he tried to cover it up just as we have seen obstruction here. even more concerning in this case, president trump not only appears to have abused of power of his office to help his own reelection campaign, he used a foreign government to do his bidding and used military aid as leverage to get the job done. now this aid was approved by congress. it was done on a bipartisan basis for ukraine to fight russia who had invaded them. while this aid was with held, people died while this aid was being with held. some people argued since the aid was released that there was not a problem. mr. goldman, isn't it true that the aid was released only after the president got caught and only after congress learned of the scheme to make this life or death aid conditional on this announcement of investigation of his political rivals? >> there were several things that made the president realize that was coming to a head and could not be concealed. the whistleblower complaint circulated around the white house. the congressional committees announced their own investigation. and then the "washington post" op-ed linking the two. and the inspector general notified the committee there was a whistleblower complaint that was being with held by the trump administration. >> correct. i made it clear throughout this investigation that i don't want to be part of a 3rd impeachment inquiry but the direct evidence is very damning. the president hasn't offered any evidence to the contrary. we asked and subpoenaed and invited the president. nothing has come forward if he had evidence of his innocence, why wouldn't he bring it forward? this is a very serious matter. it strikes at the heart of our constitution. it's a concern that we are here, but i heard over and over again that this is too fast. well, miss jackson lee and i were both members of this committee during the clinton i. that took 73 days. we are here on the 76t day. we need to prosowed. -- proceed. we thank you. >> the hearing will stand in recess for 15 minutes. >> now we have a break in the hearing. we have the judiciary committee. there are 5.5 hours in. this concludes our coverage for this fox station. analysis will continue on fox news channel and satellite. i am dana perino in new york. bret baier and chris walls and martha maccallum and andy mccarthy. andy explain the process. how unusual this was. when the latest 2.5 hours started it was confusing how the republicans questioned how this was set up. staffers questioning other staffers. >> it's so peculiar. we had someone who barry burke, it seemed like he was a witness but he was not sworn. there was a motion about him early on where the chairman of the committee said he was a witness. then changed his mind he wasn't. to see him go from the witness chair to back up at the podium where he was asking questions to the other witnesses and you had staffers questions staffers under circumstances where one is under oath and the others are not, it's a peculiar proceeding. it's something that would not be allowed to go on in a courtroom where you have rules against people conducting themselves as unsworn witnesses or acting as advocates or witnesses in the same proceeding. >> ken starr, you have staffers who were under oath. and congressman collins of georgia kept reminding david goldman the lawyer for the democrats about that. >> yes, exactly. it's very unusual. it may be unprecedented. it's another in the long series of things that have been unprecedented in this impeachment process. beginning with the speaker's announcement rather than having a debate on the floor. i would say the one key thing that i think the republicans accomplished today was to say that the record is muddled. the record doesn't point in one direction. it's a rich record with an enormous amount of exculpatory information. people will believe what they want to believe. another key thing was to identify in the 300 page report that ambassador sonland was in fact the democrat's star witness. i think that's a weak read on which the democrats are relying for the reasons articulated this afternoon. he was a bit muddleed in his system. he changed his testimony and so forth. he's been proven to be someone who is willing to spin and exageerate his own role. he is not like ambassador volker who is renowned for his integrity and ability. it's been a good afternoon thus far for the republicans. in is a matter of interpretation. you can take the record one way or another way. that means bottom line, there is not a compelling factule case to justice the impeachment of the president. >> going to chris walls a next. we will get remarks from president trump from the white hous house. he committed on the ig report being released with the fisa applications and carter page. chris, a chance to comment on what you saw in the last couple of hours here in in part of the hearing. the staffers interviewing the staffers and members yelling at staffers on this afternoon. >> well, everything has been said but it hasn't been said by everyone so we will continue. i am not sure we accomplished a lot all day. certainly in the last couple of hours. you could make the argument that in his opening statement that dan goldman the chief counsel for the intelligence committee laid out the case for 45 minutes for the case against president trump and the reasons 3 should be impeached and steve castor the counsel for the intelligence committee for republicans made the case why he should not impeached. i hand it to andy and mccann because they saw a lot more in the last couple of hours as to what new light they shed on it. i feel like we know the case against the president. the case in defense the president. i am not sure we are changing any minds here. it seems likule of the democrats -- every vote here when they have a procedural vote about calling a witness, it's 24-17. there are 24 democrats on the committee and 17 republicans. my guess is if you said among this group should the president be impeached it would be 24-17 along party lines. >> and martha maccallum, we had roll call votes about whether to go to recess. everybody wants to be on record. they will come back and there will be 5 minute member rounds. what else do you expect? >> that's funny. what other organization say do you want to take a break? . the other side accuses them of trying to prolong things so let's take a vote. a lot of americans watch this and checked out to finish up their christmas shopping. i don't think we are seeing a lot of new ground as chris wallace said. the reason is this is being rushed through. collins had a feisty back and forth with goldman. he said this is about the calendar. it appears it is. we know as we were just discussing as we were watching this is not a watergate hearing. you are not seeing the people who were privy to the president's intent. you don't have the big witnesses who were more privy to the president's thinking. you can't get any further than we are getting right now. we will have a vote over the course of this week. >> bret baier, one of the things that the ranking chairman man collins was frustrated about and said to goldman. he wanted to have adam schiff the chairman of the intelligence committee in the chair answering ges but goldman had to answer questions. and goldman at a lot of points didn't have a response and sat there stone faceed. >> that was some of the collins's best questioning. specifically on the phone records and what was used in the report. this did not come up during the hearings we saw. it came up in the report. it was listed with specific names attacked to the numbers. not the numbers and to doug collins's point and not to congress 1 and 2. it said devin nunes and rudy giuliani and john solomon. it had a list of the names. you don't have to do that. if you are trying to get the number and the phreakers. -- frequency. that's a point for republicans. we are back to the math. there is no math on this committee that will change. 24-17 has been the vote. i think it was 24-15 when 2 republicans were in the restrooms. >> because they had to take a break. >> [laughing]. >> yes, but that number won't change out of this committee. it's doubtful that number the change in the senate as well. >> juan williams a couple of other things happened. we had the ig report from michael horowitz and the justice department come out saying that the fbi probe was warranted and justiced. although there were 17 records of errors or omissions. there might have been a break through on the trade deal that the president has been trying to get through. they are talking about the changes there. that might go forward. and the president planing to have an event on paid family leave and child care costs. yet you have the congress spending all of this time and getting all of this attention on this plowing old ground. your thoughts. >> one of the arguments that the president and republicans made you have a do nothing congress. they are preoccupied with impeachment and they should be doing the people's work. here you have progress not only on the trade pact which would replace nafta with protections for workers in terms of the content of car manufacturing and the like. but also change some of the rules for unions in mexico to have real representation of workers to drive up wages south of the border. you have the u.s. unions putting pressure on democrats. this is an important deal. it's of value to them. unions being a key democratic constituency. the overall argument pall democrats are up to nothing looks weaker. on the other hand the political people would say do you want if you are a democrat to give the president a victory which he will tout as his own. it's a political game we are watching but it's very important. maybe more important than what we are seeing right now. it's pretty clear in terms of the votes, the votes are there on the judiciary committee for advancing articles of impeachment. after the durham -- sorry the horowitz report you referenced a moment ago, i think there is now less concern about well, can we expand it? can there be additional articles of impeachment about what the president testifyed to robert mueller during the mueller report? in addition to the argument we have seen play over here this morning and afternoon with regard of abuse of power by trying to pressure the ukrainians to investigate former vice president biden. >> while we wait for the president's remarks any moment. sound bite number 7. andy, this is where dan goldman talks about the issue of obstruction. i want to get your thoughts. it keeps coming up over and over again. play that please. >> this investigation moved swiftly as all good investigations should. to the extend that other witnesses would be able to provide more context and detail about this scheme, their failure to testify is due solely to the fact that president trump obstructed the injury and refused to make them available. >> andy, you think when they write up the articles of impeachment on the democratic side obstruction will be one of them. have they made that case? >> well, they made the case that goldman outlined. the president instructed people not to testify. they complied with that. therefore he is responsible for the fact that the committee doesn't have the benefit of their information. i must say, i was struck -- i don't think much happened today that was note worthy. we are dealing with a set piece and investigators are testifying instead of fact witnesses. i was struck when collins question goldman and asked about the manner in which the investigation was conducted and goldman said i won't tell you. that i won't testify about how the investigation was done and what choices we made. it's odd under the circumstances where they are filing an article of impeachment against the president for refusing to pride information from congress and he said if they don't feel like answering questions they will rely on investigative privileges and other privileges. what makes them think that perk is available to a lawyer for the committee but not available to the president of the united states? >> chris wallace, how do you think people are viewing this today. not a lot of change in the polling except for in the battleground states where president trump is doing better than in the recent pass. >> that's a good question. which is a bigger political risk for democrats? going ahead with impeachment? or deciding to back off and not impeach the president? on the one hand, as you point out, there hasn't been big partisan by in. a lot of those key swing states that will be crucial on election day in 2020, the support is now underwater. more people oppose impeachment and removing the president than support the idea of doing that. on the other hand, for the base this are a lot of democrats -- for nancy pelosi to come out in mid september and spoken directly to the cameras and said we will proceed with an impeachment inquiry and then to take it to the floor and get it passed with two democratic defection this is week. she stood in the house speaker's hallway and authorized the committees to go ahead to write articles of impeachment. i don't know whether in her heart of hearts she or some other democrats think i wish we had not made this commitment in september. i don't see how they can back off of it. i think they are all in. i think it would be damaging for her and the democrats and her standing as the house democrats for her to say, oops, never mind. >> bret baier, what juan mentioned about the other possibilities, for example, the trade deal might have movement in congress. how can pelosi keep that train moving while she does impeachment? is it possible to do both at the same time? >> i think it is. i think there is a lot of want inside her caucus especially in the moderate districts that they get a w. that they get a win sometime. even if they have to give a hat tip to president trump and administration they go home with something tangible. i think that's probably going to happen. >> if you are a democrat and one of those 31 districts, you can go back and say impeachment is important, we have to do our duty, but that doesn't mean we can't also do our job as well. we have one minute before we get to president trump's remarks. anything you expect the president can do to show this juxtaposition? >> i would imagine he's going to try to do exactly that. he will focus on the fact that they are moving closer to this usmca deal. he's been saying let's get this thing over and move forward, go

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