CNN 2020 Poll: Gap Between Trump and Dems Narrows; Evangelical Publication Calls for Trump's Removal from Office
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A status update and an important new development in the progress of impeachment. First of all, the president has been impeached. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi --</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's still true.</s>BERMAN: That is still true.</s>CAMEROTA: Got it.</s>BERMAN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will not transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate until she is convinced they will have a fair trial. And the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, says fine, so don't. The biggest new development, though, is the president doesn't like it. He wants the trial and he wants it fast. So let's bring in Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary under President Clinton and a CNN political commentator. And, Elie Honig, a federal -- a former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst. And Joe, that last point, to me, is the most important and perhaps explains everything. There's a lot of questions about why is Nancy Pelosi doing this, what does she want to get out of it. It might just be that the endgame here is to rattle the president and to an extent, triangulate -- create opposition between the president and Mitch McConnell.</s>JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I think there -- it's a -- there's -- she's seeking some leverage here to try to get some witnesses. I think she's also trying to keep this in the news on her terms over the Christmas break. But you're right about the main point, which is everybody has their own equities here. The Democrats are together. They want to get John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney under oath. I don't think they care whether it's on camera in a deposition, like 1998, or on the Senate floor. Mitch McConnell wants to protect his senators. He wants to stay majority leader. He wants Cory Gardner not to have to take a hard vote. So he wants this done fast in a short trial. The president, for whatever reason, wants a reality show that vindicates him. And right now, she has driven a huge wedge between the majority leader, and these vulnerable senators, and the White House, and she's going to enjoy her Christmas season because of that.</s>CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, Mitch McConnell may want to do this and want it over fast, but what he's saying publicly is I don't see how it punishes us to never deliver something that we don't want.</s>ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, NEW JERSEY DIVISION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: And so, if Nancy Pelosi doesn't want a Senate trial because she doesn't want -- she wants to deprive President Trump of that moment of the gavel -- acquitted -- and Mitch McConnell doesn't want it, then maybe we're just here forever.</s>HONIG: Right. I mean, I agree. That's why I'm skeptical of this move by Nancy Pelosi. I applaud and understand the end goal here, which is let's have some witnesses, let's have some facts and evidence. But I don't see a path to victory legally or tactically with this idea of withholding articles. The Constitution says nothing about actually serving notice of the articles one way or another. What the Constitution does say is the Senate has sole power -- sole power to try all impeachments. And so, I think McConnell's countermove is one of two things. Either one, fine, keep them -- I don't want them. Let them die there. Or two, I'm just going to start the trial anyway. You can go to court, Speaker Pelosi, and try to stop me -- and good luck with that.</s>BERMAN: Can I just say what you have here two of the best poker players in the world playing the highest stakes game of poker you can have. But the thing is there's a joke in the deck, right, and it's the President of the United States. And I think it's the only explanation for why this is worth the fight for Nancy Pelosi because she can pit the president against Mitch McConnell. I think you're all right. Mitch McConnell has no f's to give on this. He says --</s>CAMEROTA: Wow.</s>BERMAN: -- you don't want the trial, don't bother -- don't come here. But the president doesn't feel that way and that's what complicates it.</s>CAMEROTA: Because he wants that moment --</s>BERMAN: Yes.</s>HONIG: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: -- of the president has been acquitted.</s>HONIG: I don't necessarily agree, though, that just because it will tick off the president it's the right thing to do automatically. The other thing I would say -- keep in mind -- it doesn't look good just from a process perspective. I mean, the put the shoe on the other foot. What if the Republicans stepped in here and said we're going to try to stop this from coming to the Senate, for whatever reason. We don't want a trial so we're going to go to court. We're going to say we don't want these articles and we're not going to -- we're not going to take them, and we're not going to have a trial. People would be flipping out the other way.</s>LOCKHART: Well, it sounds a lot like the White House strategy but --</s>HONIG: Yes.</s>LOCKHART: -- there you go -- and they are Republicans. I -- the poker analogy is great. It's a little like the three of them are playing and Trump's leaning over and saying McConnell -- oh, you've got a pair of kings there. That's really good. Yes, you know, that's great. There's nothing legal or process about this. This is politics. This is trying to get an advantage. The real leverage that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have is that 71 percent of Americans want to see live witnesses -- want to see people who know. And what Pelosi has done here is to make sure that we debate this between now and when the Senate comes back, about live witnesses. If she had not done this, Mitch McConnell could have quietly started a trial on January sixth.</s>BERMAN: Right. And there's another major note we want to get to and we don't have much time left, which is this op-ed in "Christianity Today," which is a magazine that was founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham. And in this magazine, which has a large evangelical reader base, it says, "Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election -- that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the creator of the Ten Commandments." In other words, as a matter of faith, the president should be removed, Joe. This is coming from an evangelical magazine.</s>LOCKHART: Yes, and when I saw this last night, not being that familiar with these -- you know, how influential these magazines are and that group, I checked around and this is very influential. So this is a very big deal. They called for President Clinton to resign or to be removed on the same basis, you know, from a faith point of view and from a moral point of view. This is a crack in the most reliable voting bloc that Donald Trump has -- evangelicals. They made what I would call a deal with the devil back in 2016. They said give us judges that restrict abortion and we'll overlook your sins. They are now saying -- at least one sect is saying we won't overlook your sins anymore.</s>CAMEROTA: I think that everybody should read it because they talk about that. They say we understand what we get out of this president, we understand why people have supported him for so long, but what has happened is immoral, and they make the case in a pretty dispassionate way. So everybody should read this in "Christianity Today."</s>BERMAN: We're going to have the writer of this op-ed later in the show. We're going to speak to Ben Howe, who has written a whole book on this subject. A lot more to discuss on that front. Elie and Joe, thank you so much --</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you.</s>BERMAN: -- for being with us. There was this debate last night at a very crucial moment in the Democratic race. The first state to vote will be Iowa. We sat down with Iowa voters and watched the debate with them. What did they say?</s>CAMEROTA: But first, as consumers increasingly shop online, a company called Caper is developing smart shopping carts that are packed with artificial intelligence to bring those online shopping conveniences offline. Watch this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, grocery stores are facing competition from the biggest names in online retail. That's why a company called Caper is making a shopping aisle staple smart.</s>AHMED BESHRY, CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF BUSINESS OPERATOR, CAPER: We thought we'd take a conventional tool that everybody knows how to use and pack it full of technology and sensors. Right now, you could basically throw in weighted good, like your fruits and vegetables, and the cart will actually weigh it for you. It will recommend you particular items based on where you are in the store. It will help you check out. So we have these bagging hooks inside of our cart to allow customers to bag their groceries as they go, so that after they're done paying they could just grab their bags and walk out of the store.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That kind of grab-and-go technology is already in place at Amazon Go stores. There, a complex system of cameras, sensors, and A.I. track every product a customer interacts with.</s>BESHRY: So we wanted to make that as a customer walks into the store they could just grab our cart and go. That being said, we're working with the grocery stores right now. And you can log into their -- your loyalty program within that store so we have a better idea of who you are, how your purchase, and to really compliment you as that end-user. Basically, the ultimate vision in what we're building towards is that a customer walked into the store and they grab something off the shelf, and when they throw it in the cart all the sensors and the technology in the cart will immediately identify what that item is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For now, Caper's carts are still in the pilot stage.</s>BESHRY: There's a lot of different tech solutions that will take somebody away from a brick and mortar location, so what we're building is the technology that makes the experience and the convenience that you'd see online back offline.