Political fallout of Democratic efforts to impeach President Trump

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Political fallout of Democratic efforts to impeach President Trump

Democrats at odds over messaging and strategy of impeachment investigation; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," September 13, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: You can't draw up draft articles of impeachment tomorrow, for example. How would you impeach the president? What would you impeach him for?

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, D-TX: In this instance, an impeachment investigation allows to us to have greater authority in the courts. Our job is to present the case and then decide whether articles of impeachment should be written.

BAIER: Headlines from "Politico," they called it a dumpster fire today. CNN said that it's the gang that can't shoot straight. Democrats are already botching the impeachment fight. "Slate" said Democrats can't figure out if they are trying to impeach Trump or not.

LEE: I would take issue with the commentary. We are not here to do a dog and pony show. We are here to do our work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Sheila Jackson Lee, congresswoman from Texas interviewing her last night on "FOX News at Night" in Houston. This as the impeachment talk here on Capitol Hill continues. Democrats kind of working out the rhetoric. Meantime the president weighing in this morning. "How do you impeach a president who has created perhaps the greatest economy in the history of our country, all-time best unemployment numbers, especially with blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women. More people working today than ever before. Rebuilt military and choice for vets," continues on two other tweets along these lines.

Let's bring in our panel and start there, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," and Josh Kraushaar is the political editor for "National Journal."

At the end of this week, Susan, where are we on this, and is this the beginning of what is going to be a muddled investigation as Democrats get their ducks in a row?

SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I think "muddled" is a great word here because Speaker Pelosi is trying to edge them away from the impeachment cliff. She got very frustrated with the press when we kept asking about it the other day. She said I'm done talking about this. She wants to talk about the economy, healthcare, things that are really important, wage inequality, things that -- agenda that's important to Democrats.

But there is another faction of Democrats that's really pushing for impeachment. Jerry Nadler on the Judiciary Committee, he is calling it an impeachment. He had an impeachment proceedings vote outlining how they were going to move forward with it on Thursday. It's like they are outlining two separate paths here. And Pelosi is going to have to figure out where this is going. They don't have that figured out yet.

BAIER: Politically how does it sit? Do we really have a sense yet how suburban voters who maybe voted for a Democrat over a Republican would look at this effort?

JOSH KRAUSHAAR, POLITICAL EDITOR, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": This is a House Democratic caucus that's badly divided. And you have anyone who is in a swing district saying I don't want to even hear the word "impeachment." But even those who support an impeachment, some of those in more competitive districts, they wants to use the word "inquiry." This isn't full on impeachment. We just want to get a little bit of information. And then you have the Nadlers and the hard liberals who basically are already drafting impeachment, the letter. So this is an issue that Pelosi, as Susan was saying, badly wants to avoid. She wants to focus on bread and butter economic issues, but she knows there is a base out there and among her committee chairs that want to pursue that aggressively.

BAIER: I was on Dana's show, "Daily Briefing" yesterday, and she asked about the lead up to the debate, and I said surely this going to come up because it's all over the news today, this question about impeachment or the Mueller investigation or something. Those two words were not used "impeachment," "Mueller."

MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Yes, and also the economy.

(LAUGHTER)

THIESSEN: All the things that the American people care about. This is a disaster for Democrats to go down this path. They are not hurting Donald Trump. They are hurting themselves. Trump is at about low 40's approval rating. After the Mueller report cleared Donald Trump of collusion with Russia, 58 percent said turn the page on the investigations of Trump, 80 percent said Congressional representatives should be working more on infrastructure, healthcare, immigration, than investigations of Donald Trump. They are not listening to the American people.

And there was a DCCC, committee focus groups, showed, the "Washington Post" reported that Americans see them as obsessed with impeachment investigations at the expense of their agenda. That's going to hurt those Republican -- those seats they flipped in 2018 in Trump districts because those people want to focus on the kitchen table issues.

BAIER: And that's how you control a majority, you get those seats.

THIESSEN: Yes. So it's risking not just the White House but their House majority.

BAIER: Let's go to the debate. I mentioned the debate. We saw, and a lot of coverage of the confrontation between Julian Castro and former Vice President Biden. What a lot of people didn't see was Cory Booker on CNN later asked about that exchange and how he kind of phrased it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There is a lot of people who are concerned about Joe Biden's ability to carry the ball all the way across the end line without fumbling. And I think that was Castro has some really legitimate concerns. There was a lot of moments where a number of us were looking at us on our stage when he tends to go on sometimes. At one point he is talking about people in communities like mine listening to record players. But there are definitely moments when you listen to Joe Biden, and you just wonder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That is essentially what Castro was saying up there, and he got all the heat. Cory Booker said that.

FERRECHIO: It's the big story about Joe Biden. Can he carry it across the finish line for Democrats if he becomes the nominee? And the other story is, if you are going to take out Biden, this is one way to do it. And so all the Democrats taking shots at him over his memory, over stumbling. That's a legitimate line for them to try to go after him. And now they are saying it's rude or low class or whatever, Biden, the way he defined it. But he is an older candidate and he has had these stumbles, and there are some questions. He is going to apparently release his health information fairly soon, and that's going to probably help contribute to his success here if it's a positive one.

BAIER: Josh, he started out strong with the healthcare pushback of Warren and Sanders, but some of those answers were meandering. The Iraq- Afghanistan answer went on forever, and he said he wanted to split up Afghanistan. His policy in office was to split up Iraq. I don't think he wants to split up every country that we're talking about. And then he went from Venezuela to record players to -- it was kind of all over the place.

KRAUSHAAR: It is the elephant in the room. And he did well in the first hour, like you say, Bret. But his answer on race relations, too, was also a clunker his base is African-American voters, and if there is any concern that he doesn't represent their interests effectively, and he didn't seem to understand the question about what he would do to deal with racial inequality, that's a big question. And a lot of Democrats privately are worried about it.

I will say what his strongest moment was, which is that he challenged Warren and Sanders on healthcare, and I think there also are Democrats worried that the notion of taking away private health insurance could be a huge general election liability, and Biden, frankly, is the only frontrunner that's willing to say he is going to protect Obamacare and going to protect those benefits.

BAIER: I want to save some time because we have to go down the road to Candidate Casino. And we're going to do it at the end of this first block. Now we have a debate, another debate under the belts. Marc, how do you break it down.

THIESSEN: I put $45 on Biden and $55 on Warren.

BAIER: That's it. That's all you have.

THIESSEN: I think it's going to be one of the two of them.

BAIER: How about it that? OK, Susan you have $100 in chips.

FERRECHIO: Health questions aside, Biden is my frontrunner with $40 and Sanders with $20, Warren with $20. Harris and Mayor Pete split $10.

BAIER: OK. Josh?

KRAUSHAAR: I have Biden with $50, then I spread out the rest of the chips a little more. I've got Warren with $25. I've got Kamala Harris with $10. And then I think Klobuchar and Booker if Biden stumbles, I give them $5 apiece because I think they have a chance to do well if Biden has a bad moment.

BAIER: OK, new felt on the casino table.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: Thank you all. Next up, Friday Lightning Round, Air Force layovers at the Trump resort, U.S. wreaks havoc on Iran, plus Winners and Losers. We will see if we can get to it all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I own a lot of different places. I don't need to have somebody take a room overnight at a hotel.

PELOSI: It seems the administration is having a limbo contest with itself to see how low it can go to divert transportation, whether it's the vice president or our military and the rest, to Trump-owned properties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: The number of investigations ongoing about the emoluments clause, whether the president is capitalizing and profiting from his time in office. But one story deals with Air Force planes that are stopping in Scotland, and the crews overnighting at Trump's Turnberry hotel. The Air Force said "We reviewed the vast majority of the 659 overnight stays of Air Force crews in the vicinity of the Glasgow Prestwick Airport between 2015 and 2019. Approximately six percent of those crews stayed at Trump Turnberry." That's roughly 40 stays total. "The Washington Post," "The stays result from two separate agreements that both predate Trump's presidency. Before Trump ran for president the airport agreed to send visiting crews to Trump's course. And while President Barack Obama was still in office the Air Force agreed to send refueling aircraft to the airport." "Politico" wrote it differently. "The Air Force has significantly wrapped up its overnight stops in Scotland under Trump after a signed contract with the Prestwick Airport situated 20 miles from Turnberry in the waning months of the Obama administration."

Back with the panel. What about this, Marc?

THIESSEN: First we had the Russian collusion conspiracy. Now we've got the Turnberry conspiracy. This is the most ridiculous story I have ever heard. First of all, all the statistics he cited, this predates Trump. There are very few people staying. But also what people don't understand, the president of the United States does not choose the hotel the air crews stay out. You and I traveled on DOD aircraft during the Bush administration all the time. The flight crews choose the airports. And they have per diems. The per diem in Scotland is $166. The Marriott is $161. The Turnberry sometimes offers a government rate of $130, which means the crews have another $30 bucks to choose on airport. They choose their airports, not Donald Trump. So it's an absurd story.

BAIER: They got in a bit of a Twitter back and forth about this issue.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: But the point was that the insinuation and definitely where the pundits took it was that Trump was trying to get the air crews there to prop up Turnberry, his resort.

FERRECHIO: I don't understand the framing of the "Politico" story. It was just disingenuous because it's not about the president or the emoluments clause or some kind of scandal.

BAIER: Which are serious investigations that are going on.

FERRECHIO: They are. And all it did was contribute to the idea that the president is profiting off his presidency, and it got to the point where Nancy Pelosi is talking about it, and the Judiciary Committee has expanded its impeachment inquiry to include this.

BAIER: Trump Turnberry.

FERRECHIO: And it's not even anything real.

BAIER: Pete Buttigieg mentioned last night on stage.

KRAUSHAAR: Democrats are starting investigations on it. It speaks to the dynamic in the Trump administration that the press jumps to conclusions where there's a little strand of information and doesn't investigate the full context. And that seems to be what happened here.

BAIER: Backend, it goes the other way. It's a cycle. It's amazing.

Quickly, Winners and Losers, lightning Winners and Losers.

THIESSEN: My loser is Pete Buttigieg. Jorge Ramos asked him do you think that support Trump are racist, and he said yes. Good way to win Pennsylvania and working class voters in all the states that went to Trump.

My winner is Mike Pompeo, because with John Bolton out, Pompeo is now the unrivaled leader of the Trump foreign policy.

BAIER: The pictures tells 1,000 words right there. OK, winner and loser?

(LAUGHTER)

FERRECHIO: My winner is Senator Ed Markey. He is facing a potential primary against a Kennedy in Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert Kennedy, just got the coveted endorsement today from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That's really going to help him.

BAIER: And your --

FERRECHIO: My loser is Hillary Clinton for the stunt in Venice, reading the emails at the Resolute Desk. Not a good look.

KRAUSHAAR: Winner, Congressman-elect Dan Bishop, a close race in North Carolina. He showed that you can lose in the suburbs as a Republican, in a Republican-leaning district, mind you, but also win big in the rural areas. That's Trump's playbook for 2020.

BAIER: Loser?

KRAUSHAAR: Loser, Castro, former administration official Castro, whose ageist attack against Biden last night fell flat, and also he's not doing very well in the polls.

BAIER: Panel, you're winners. We made it around quickly.

When we come back, "Notable Quotables" on Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, it is Friday. That means "Notable Quotables."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For every American who lived through that day, the September 11th attack is searing into our soul.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For us at the NYPD, the longest day of the year is September 11th.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are coming out of hell and going right back into hell. We have no plan.

TRUMP: They are coming home and they're saying, mom, I want to vape.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, one more day of chaos. One more day of what in the world is going on at the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this national security team a mess?

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: Absolutely not. That's the most ridiculous question I've ever heard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation.

TRUMP: That's a question of being not smart.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome the fantasy island.

O'ROURKE: Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I double dog dare you to do it.

PELOSI: If this bill is not passed, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate and the president will have hell to pay.

TRUMP: She's a smart woman, and I think she knows exactly what she's doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Houston, we have a problem.

TRUMP: Buttigieg is two points up in the state of Texas against President Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could give a crap, OK?

TRUMP: The light is no good. I always look orange.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time for me to look at myself in the mirror and do some real soul-searching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: One week. One week there.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That is it for this “Special Report,” fair, balanced, and unafraid. Make it a great weekend. "The Story" guest-hosted by my friend Ed Henry starts right now with eight extra seconds.

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