House and Senate battle over next steps in impeachment process

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House and Senate battle over next steps in impeachment process

Pelosi demands trial rules before sending articles of impeachment; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' all-star panel.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," December 23, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The papers have to be physically brought over to the Senate, and we can't go forward until -- until the speaker does that. I'm not anxious to have this trial, so if she wants to hold onto the papers, that's -- go right ahead. What we need to do is to listen to the arguments, have a written questioning period, and then decide whether we need witnesses or not.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: It's hard imagine a trial not having documents and witnesses. If it doesn't have documents and witnesses, it's going to seem to most of the American people that it is a sham trial.

[END VIDEO CLIP]

Bret Baier, anchor: Senate majority and minority leaders talking about the next steps when, and I guess if, they'll get these articles of impeachment. The House speaker Tweeting out, "The House cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct. President Trump blocked his own witnesses and documents from the House and from the American people on phony complaints about the House process. What is his excuse now?" And there's where we are.

And with that, let's bring in our panel: Chris Stirewalt is politics editor here at Fox News; A.B. Stoddard, associate editor in Real Clear Politics; and Kimberly Strassel, a member of the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal. Chris, first to you. We assume this will come to an end at some time after the new year, but what about this back and forth and how both sides have played it?

Chris Stirewalt, Fox News: Well, you know, maybe impeachment is now like other things from the 1970s, Star Wars movies, premarital sex, open-collared shirts at the office place. Maybe it's just something that nobody cares about anymore because maybe it just doesn't have the -- it doesn't have the punch that it once did. This is sort of a fitting end to a -- to sort of a process that I don't think is going to move anybody's heart one way or another.

Bret Baier: A.B., is -- are the Democrats waiting for another shoe to drop, do you think? And how, you know, Chuck Schumer played it today with the press conference, trying to keep the pressure on.

A.B. Stoddard, Real Clear Politics: Well, Bret, I do think that they are winning. They think that in this interregnum, they're going to have two things: The wish that more revelations surface and that Trump is driven so crazy he acts badly, like the Tweets we saw today. So Trump does not want to hear majority leader McConnell on Fox & Friends saying, "I'm not anxious to have this trial anyway, so she can take as long as she wants." Trump wants the trial yesterday. He wants it to be over, and he wants the clean acquittal and the vindication, the exoneration so he can go run around saying that everything was terrific. McConnell is really -- I think he makes a good case, right? Why -- why is the House holding the articles? And they must not like the case that they have. What are they doing? They don't have leverage. I think that he muddies Pelosi's, you know, sort of tactic pretty well. I think the public is confused about all this talk about witnesses and documents. And the president, you know, it is true, he formed a blockade against the House investigation. But they, too, did not take the opportunity to adjudicate this in court and wait to hear out the end of the process on some of the witnesses. So the public's confused. They're apathetic about this, you know, by and large. There is some political pressure to exert on Senate Republicans during a trial. But this period between now and the week of January 6 is sort of confusing people who are on holiday. I don't know where it really gets the Democrats to pretend that they can't start the trial and know which witness -- I mean which managers to pick until Mitch McConnell gives them specifics.

Bret Baier: And, Kimberley, I asked this to Brit Hume. I said, you know, with this time, does it increase the hand for the Democrats or decrease it? Do they lose some kind of leverage that they have in this, you know, standoff with the articles?

Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal: Well, McConnell is right, and Brit is right, that she has no leverage to force McConnell to do a trial the way that she wants him to do it. But look, Nancy Pelosi is also a tactician, and she doesn't usually do things without purpose. And there's a growing sense that she's holding onto these impeachment articles because it denies the president the ability to have an acquittal; it, potentially, gives Democrats more time to try to dig things up; it hangs it out over his head -- goodness knows, potentially, for how long, potentially months. And so, there has been some growing pressure on McConnell to, potentially, even change the Senate rules and have the Senate name House managers, and do this, and put it on the Democrats, and say, "Look, you wouldn't move forward with the normal process, but the Constitution demands a president who's been impeached at least has a right to a trial to decide whether or not he's acquitted or convicted."

Bret Baier: Chris, meantime, Politico ran a piece saying, the headline: "House counsel suggests President Trump could be impeached again, a second Justice Department brief in a related case. The Judiciary Committee's demand for Mueller's grand jury evidence suggests, without basis, that the Judiciary Committee's decision to advance articles of impeachment on the Ukraine scandal have effectively ruled out any effort to impeach the president based on Mueller's evidence, therefore rendering the matter moot," suggesting -- Democrats are -- that there could be other things to fall here. Senator Graham tweeting out a response: "Democrats are treating impeachment as an open bar tab."

Chris Stirewalt: [LAUGHS]

Bret Baier: "Time to cut them off, take their car keys away --

Kimberley Strassel: [LAUGHS]

Bret Baier: -- put GOP in control of the House and end this insanity." Senator Lindsey Graham.

Chris Stirewalt: Well, I figure if Trump gets reelected and the Democrats hold the House, which I would say is probably the most likely scenario that I can think of for the 2020 election, if that were to happen, I assume he would get impeached in his second term. I would imagine that would be how things would go. I think, for Pelosi, she -- Kimberley talked about the tactician. Well, the tactician did make a tactical error, which was, she decided that she needed to get to impeachment now, not before the courts had adjudicated the questions in front of them about what the powers of the Congress are when it comes to who has to testify, who doesn't have to testify, what are the powers of the president? They kicked that all to the side and did a "giddy-up, hurry up," impeachment vote. And, now, she wants to hold the ball, right? She wants to hold the ball, so that they can maybe let the courts move a little bit, let a little bit more happen. I don't know who the pressure falls harder on here. And I don't know how it builds on McConnell, over time. But I do know that this is all a result of her decision to go for the impeachment without letting the process work its way through.

Bret Baier: Last thing, A.B. I've got 30 seconds here. We come to the end of this year. The president, despite being impeached by the House, even though the articles have not moved over, is feeling a little political, you know, sowing his political oats. He's got some approval ratings ticking up. He's got an economy that's booming, at least as we head towards the end of the year. He has a lot to talk about that went positively for his administration, even legislatively.

A.B. Stoddard: Right. I think it was really smart not to have any bumps with the spending bills, to get the -- to get family leave for federal workers over the line -- something to tout with female voters -- and, of course, both of the trade deals. And, as you point out, really a good boost in his approval rating. It's good to be productive. And I think that the president should take that and integrate it for the rest of the rest of next year. It was the most productive spurt since, basically, the vote came to the Floor or was, at least, being counted in the House a couple of weeks back.

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