Nancy Pelosi: Impeachment Is "A Possibility"
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: --get to an area like this?</s>PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. And I'll tell you something amazing, Anderson. The first help that arrived there yesterday came from people, regular Bahamians, who came from Abaco, which, as you know, has been destroyed. So, how people will come in a boat with water and gas from Abaco, it's amazing, and it speaks to the strength of Bahamians. But why is it, that these people are coming first--</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>OPPMANN: --rather than the government. Why is it that we can get there but the government can't get there?</s>COOPER: Yes. It is a good question. Patrick Oppmann, thank you very much. The news continues. Want to hand it over to Chris for CUOMO PRIME TIME. Chris?</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, CUOMO PRIME TIME: All right, thank you, Anderson. I am Chris Cuomo and welcome to PRIME TIME. Look who's finally back? Congress. The impeachment drum's beating once again, time to test a Judiciary member about this big vote this week. What about waiting on the people to send a signal? What about waiting on Speaker Pelosi? You hear what she said today about the new push? And did President Trump put one of our top spies at risk with loose lips? Did his tweets and talk about what was going to happen at Camp David blow a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan? For perspective, guess who we have? Valerie Plame. You remember her. She had her cover blown as a CIA spy during all that Yellowcake intrigue. She knows a bunch about deals with bad guys in the Middle East, and what can ruin someone's cover. She's now running for Congress. Wait until you see her ad. She says she has some scores to settle. New week, same call to action. What do you say? Let's get after it.</s>TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.</s>CUOMO: Latest word tonight is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not say if the House is conducting an impeachment inquiry, or just investigating. She keeps saying that impeachment as an outcome is, quote, a "Possibility." She appears to be downplaying the Judiciary Committee's new moves to ready the rules that would guide potential impeachment hearings. Chairman Nadler has scheduled a vote Thursday to define parameters. One of the Members on that Committee, Steve Cohen, has been itching to get this going since the beginning of time, it feels to me.</s>TEXT: ONE ON ONE.</s>CUOMO: He joins us now. Good to see you, Congressman. Welcome back.</s>REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you.</s>CUOMO: So, let's test this. First, what is this vote? We expect it somewhere, maybe around Thursday. Why does it matter?</s>COHEN: It matters because it formally sets up a House Judiciary inquiry into impeachment of Donald J. Trump, and it sets out the same parameters as were existent under the Republican team that had the Clinton impeachment and the Democratic team when the Nixon impeachment came up.</s>CUOMO: All right.</s>COHEN: Same rules.</s>CUOMO: So, two reasons not to do it, just to test the idea. First is, Nancy Pelosi doesn't seem happy about it. She says investigating is enough. The people have not said overwhelmingly that that is what they want, and she seems to have a sensitivity about whether or not this works for you guys, going into the election.</s>COHEN: Well, first of all, my newspaper in Memphis used to be owned by Scripps Howard, and they had some motto about "Give light and the people will see the way." The Congress needs to give light and the people will see the way. We saw the Nixon impeachment hearings, 17 percent approval when they started, over 60 percent when they finished. We need to investigate. We have a responsibility. We have a duty. And we're going to pursue that and do that now.</s>CUOMO: But we were flooded with the Klieg lights of the Mueller probe, and all kinds of things going on, so it's not apples-to-apples where people were during the Nixon administration in those proceedings. But another, maybe little in the weeds, but not for this audience, is that you, by formalizing it and centralizing it, in the Judiciary Committee, you wind up having a lot of these other committees that are looking into all of these different roots of intrigue, surrounding this White House, they have to stop. Are you winding up centralizing it and therefore stopping efficiency?</s>COHEN: I don't know if that's necessarily true. And I don't think they have to stop. And I don't think that we can - that we can - can't incorporate therein hearings into an impeachment report. I think the Judiciary Committee could do that. But the bottom line is there is a cornucopia of instances of corruption and violations of the Constitution. We have a President who shreds the Constitution, has no rule, no law, no commandment that Moses passed down, nothing that will stop him from doing whatever he wants. And--</s>CUOMO: "No crimes. Not an agent of Russia," says Mr. Mueller, who everybody was supposed to respect.</s>COHEN: Not - not a direct agent, but they had several - over 150 contacts with his campaign with Russians. They welcomed the interference. Trump even went on television, "Russia if you're listening," there was a reason he said that because he knew they were listening. They had people who could contact different places. We'll find out. What's in the Grand Jury testimony that was redacted by Barr, Trump's Roy Cohn, may be the Smoking Gun or the Arsenal or the Garrison that breaks this thing free. There's a reason Barr redacted certain testimony, some of it, I think to protect Trump's sons.</s>CUOMO: Well--</s>COHEN: Others we don't know.</s>CUOMO: Or--</s>COHEN: But he took it upon himself to--</s>CUOMO: But, you know, Grand Jury's--</s>COHEN: --redact testimonies.</s>CUOMO: --Grand Jury, very, very sensitive. Let me ask you something though. Here's one--</s>COHEN: Grand Jury's sensitive. But every instance in the past, the Attorney General has joined with Judiciary Committee, and these type instances say "Let them have it." And this time, he's not going to do it.</s>CUOMO: Well Eric Holder--</s>COHEN: They're accepting their--</s>CUOMO: --Eric Holder didn't join about turning certain things over either. It's not unheard of for an A.G. to--</s>COHEN: It was not an impeachment inquiry of--</s>CUOMO: --not want to give Congress--</s>COHEN: --Obama.</s>CUOMO: Fair point.</s>COHEN: This will be an impeachment inquiry.</s>CUOMO: Fair point. All right, now here's another thing that we'll see maybe not as pressing, but to me, every bit is important. The more you guys go down the road of impeachment, forget about the fact it's never going to happen in the Senate, it's almost impossible that anything really happens. I know Nancy Pelosi says that you're legislating, you're legislating, you're getting things done. But you won't get anything done with the Senate, if this is happening, or maybe not at all. At this point, do you believe there's any chance that any meaningful legislation happens in this session - session that started today?</s>COHEN: Not as long as Mitch McConnell is the - is the leader of the Senate. Mitch McConnell has said he's the Grim Reaper. He said that's the graveyard. He has not passed or in - even put on the floor for consideration two gun bills that we passed, one on background checks that 90-some-odd percent of the public supports, one on the Charleston loophole, which I imagine is closer to 90 percent as well. He won't even let people vote on it. There's - McConnell wants nothing to happen. He's happy the way things are. He is an aider and abettor of Trump. And someday, down the line, there's going to be a reckoning, and people will see that this was not only the worst President of the United States, but one of the worst human beings to ever face - grace this earth.</s>CUOMO: Well I think that you just answered my question.</s>COHEN: And these people who support him with him.</s>CUOMO: But the idea of, you know, if there's one thing that you can say about this President, he is transactional. But based on what you just said, there's zero chance he will be working with you on anything, because you just broke one of the main rules. You take a shot at this President, there will be no swallowing of any type of bile, he's going to come at you. So, the Democrats, basically, you seem to be saying, Congressman, have zero interest in working with this President.</s>COHEN: There's no way to work with him. He hasn't worked with us on anything. He lies constantly. He has no - his word is zero. I didn't go to his Inauguration. I didn't go to the State of the Union. The man is despicable. And there's no way you can negotiate, just like China knows, and North Korea knows that you can't negotiate with a person who lies, and has no credibility. The United States is not seen on the - on the globe with other world leaders the same way it used to be. People don't have respect for the - for Trump. They like Americans. They can't understand how we elected such an unusual character as our President.</s>CUOMO: So, what is the point--</s>COHEN: The - I mean--</s>CUOMO: --hold on a second. But what is the point of even having a session then right now, if is it just about impeachment for you guys?</s>COHEN: Hopefully we will--</s>CUOMO: Because Pelosi says she's legislating. How is she going to legislate if you guys won't work with the President to get a deal, which would make him say to Mitch McConnell, you know, "Enough with the Grim Reaper bit. It's time to start breathing some life into some laws. Bring me some stuff."</s>COHEN: He - we - we've passed Ethics Reform bills to clean up the swamp. The swamp is him, not us. He got the term. It's him. We've passed healthcare legislation. We've passed legislation on all kind of subjects, guns, you name it, they won't touch any of it. They're not going to touch anything at all. All they want to do is approve judges who will be Right-wing conservative judges who've--</s>CUOMO: But aren't you supposed to be down there to cut deals? Isn't that what you guys are supposed to do? Debate, get angry at each other, but then find common ground, and get something done. That's why you're put there, isn't it?</s>COHEN: To some extent. But there's - that - that was when you had a President who you could find common ground with. There's no common ground with this man. Nancy's gone to him. They wanted to have common ground on our transportation bill, infrastructure bill. And as soon as we said we're going to consider discussions about impeachment, he said there'll be nothing on infrastructure because he comes first in everything, not the country. And anything we've had, he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He doesn't have a - anything to - to replace it with. He wants people not to have insurance. We want to keep the Affordable Care Act and reform it. You can't work with the man. There's no place he goes. He wants to destroy our environmental laws. He took us out of the Paris Climate Accords. He took us out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement. What's the result of that? That we don't show leadership to the world on climate change that threatens the next generation. We don't work on Iran who's now developing a nuclear capability, which they wouldn't have if we just stayed in the agreement. I was just in Australia not long ago. Everybody there said, "You don't go about deals with China unilaterally. You go with your allies as a group, and you go to the World Trade Organization for relief." This man doesn't know what the World Trade Organization is or he doesn't care.</s>CUOMO: But here's the thing. Congressman, I hear your criticisms. However, if you do not win control of the Senate, if you do not win this next election, you guys are going to have some burden on your hands because you're going to have to figure out somehow to justify being in office, if your goal is to get something done. But I hear what you're saying. I understand your arguments. And I appreciate you making them to my audience. We'll see what happens in this vote, maybe Thursday right?</s>COHEN: I'm going to suggest to you, Chris.</s>CUOMO: Yes, Sir.</s>COHEN: And you know this better than me. I think Mario Cuomo would be with me. He would stand up to injustice, and he'd speak the truth to power.</s>CUOMO: Well--</s>COHEN: And that's what we need in this country.</s>CUOMO: Listen, I'm not much in the business of guessing what my dearly departed father would think.</s>COHEN: He was a star. He was a hero.</s>CUOMO: He was a good man. But he was also - he said, "Hey don't put a label on me, except I am a Progressive Pragmatist." He knew he had to get things done. He taught it to his son. You can say a lot of bad things about my brother in politics, it always happens. The man knows how to get a deal done. And hopefully, you guys will do that as well because that's why you're there. Get things done for the American people. Steve Cohen, appreciate the good word about my father. Be well.</s>COHEN: You're welcome. He was one of my heroes. Thank you, Chris.</s>CUOMO: Thank you. Mine too.</s>COHEN: I don't know what he'd think. I try not to think about it, to be honest. Often I feel it would be very condemning of me and my actions. All right, the eve of a very important election for the President, a bellwether of sorts for 2020. That's why the President was down in North Carolina tonight, doing what he can to increase the odds. Key word! What are the odds? What's going on in the 3rd and the 9th District? The Wizard of Odds seeing red or blue, and why do I care, next.</s>TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.