Impeachment Suggestions on Capitol Hill; Schumer Calls to Delay Kavanaugh Hearings.
KING: Welcome back. Republicans today putting political survival ahead of any interest in finding the truth or their own party's credibility. Again, it's important to note the Trump Justice Department asserts in court papers that the president, as the Republican nominee, directed an illegal campaign finance scheme. That's a big deal, right?</s>SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: Naturally, it makes you very concerned. But, you know, the president shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of people that he's trusted.</s>SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: What about Michael Cohen?</s>QUESTION: He's accusing</s>GRASSLEY: He's -- he's -- he's plead -- he's plead guilty and that's the way the Constitution works.</s>QUESTION: So what about</s>GRASSLEY: So -- so what else -- so what else -- so what is -- what is there about him to worry about?</s>SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: Mr. Cohen's credibility is going to be challenged. I don't think the full story has been written yet.</s>KING: The top GOP leadership, silent so far. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to respond to questions. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he needs more information. Among Democrats, there's across the board outrage, but mixed opinion over how to channel that outrage. Some saying everything should be on the table, including impeachment, even indictment. Others say, let's be a little more cautious.</s>SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Protect Robert Mueller. Let him finish his investigation. And when we've got that, then we can make a decision on what the appropriate next step is.</s>SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D), ILLINOIS: I don't think that we should be talking about impeachment.</s>SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: At the very minimum, we should be withholding this decision on the Supreme Court nominee until the air is cleared.</s>SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: We should talk about all the remedies. Every single remedy, including indictment of the president, should be on the table. The president can be indicted.</s>KING: Let's get straight to CNN's Phil Mattingly, who's been racing around Capitol Hill. And interesting day up there. Phil, what's the most surprising thing, if anything, that you're hearing?</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the most surprising thing is that nothing's really surprising right now based on kind of trolling the hallways for the last 19 months, generally trying not to be scooped by Seung Min over there, the kind of reaction here is similar to what we've seen. Dramatic, seemingly cataclysmic moment for the administration x (ph) occurs and then the next day or the -- couple hours later you go talk to Republican senators. Some have concerns. Some didn't see it or don't have the information on it. And others outright defend the president. And that is exactly what has happened this morning. And I don't think you're going to see any shift. The red line has always been, John, and we've talked about this a lot, the firing or efforts to get rid of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Anything short of that, you're just not going to see many people bite. The one interesting element obviously you heard from Senator Richard Blumenthal, what I've picked up from Democrat after Democrat is, nobody wants to go anywhere near the impeachment question and they're aware of kind of the political problems with that on their side. They want to talk about Mueller finishing his investigation. But on the Republican side, this is very much aligned with the rhythm that we've seen on Capitol Hill from Senate Republicans and House Republicans over the course of the last 19 or 20 months.</s>KING: The grand ostrich party I would call it. Phil, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, says delay Brett Kavanaugh's hearings for the Supreme Court nomination because of this. Connect those dots for me.</s>MATTINGLY: So basically the way Democrats are putting it right now is when they talk -- when they've gone through the record of Brett Kavanaugh, when they've gone through what he did with the Starr independent counsel, what he's done in his judicial ranks, that his view on executive power doesn't align with a president that's currently either been implicated or perhaps under investigation. Here's the reality here. That's their push right now. You already had Senator Mazie Hirono, Judiciary Committee, cancel her meeting with Brett Kavanaugh, her one-on-one meetings. Cory Booker saying they need to postpone the meetings, instead hold hearings on the Cohen issue. The reality is, in talking to senior GOP aides, as one told me, this train is moving. It's not going to stop. Democrats, as you know well, don't have power to actually stop anything on their own and they don't have the power to block the nomination on the Senate floor without help from Republicans who, as it currently stands, that's clearly their position. They're trying to get grassroots and the base riled up to put pressure on Republicans there. But at this moment, it doesn't look like anything of that sort is going to go their way, John.</s>KING: At this moment. We'll see if tomorrow is like today. Phil Mattingly, appreciate it. A busy day up on The Hill. Let's bring it into the room. It is -- it is a fascinating moment for everybody. But you do get the sense from Republicans, this is bigger than the past Trump crises where they just try to, you know, walk away or, you know, pretend they don't know what they're talking about or duck the questions or just hope tomorrow is a new question. Their calculation now seems to be, there's an election in 11 weeks. We need Trump voters. If we don't have Trump voters, we lose our power. Therefore, we're going to take -- wash our hands of this and try to stay away from it. Is that fair?</s>KIM: Exactly. And I think while the news may seem to be bigger, the Republican reaction really isn't. For example, I spoke with -- I was up on The Hill with Phil earlier and I spoke with Senator Chuck Grassley of the Judiciary Committee and I asked him, all the news from yesterday, what does that mean for the prospects of the Mueller protection bill that we have seen languish in the Senate? And he's like, look, it's up to McConnell. And I don't see the calculus changing before the midterms at all. And you talked about Trump voters at the rally last night. It was as if this news hadn't even happened. And we heard the chants of "lock her up," but that was not in reference to anyone connected in Trumpland. It was to Hillary Clinton herself.</s>KING: Yes, the president's personal attorney pleads guilty. The president's campaign chairman is found guilty and Trump voters say "lock her up."</s>KUCINICH: The only -- the only, I guess, thing that could happen on The Hill, you had Warner and Burr come out shortly after the Cohen plea deal was announced and say that they were going to -- they wanted Cohen to come back in because it was clear that he wasn't telling them the truth. So will that happen? We'll have to see. Cohen seemed open to coming to The Hill and testifying in public. I don't see that happening. That's -- that is the one bright spot in a whole flurry of ostriches, I think.</s>KING: Right. It is foolish to expect or ask for consistency, but I covered the Clinton White House when he was impeached. I mean it had nothing to do with Whitewater, which is where Ken Starr began.</s>COLLINS: Exactly.</s>KING: I don't remember Republicans jumping up to Bill Clinton's defense saying, how dare you, Ken Starr, that has nothing to do with Whitewater. So now when they say it -- and we don't know where Robert Mueller's going to end. We just know we're in the early chapters of the Mueller part. And so when the Sean Hannity's and members of the United States Senate say this has nothing to do with Russia, why are we doing this --</s>SHEAR: You know, it's interesting, you haven't -- you have, for the next, you know, number of weeks before the election, you have an interesting PR battle. And we're going to see which side wins, right? On the one hand, the Republicans that you saw there are betting that they can make the PR case that they can undermine the credibility of all of these people. You saw them trying to undermine, well, Cohen's going to have trouble. He doesn't have any credibility. The same way they've been consistently trying, with the help of the president, to undermine the credibility of Mueller and the angry Democrats and all of that. On the other side, the Democrats are going to -- are having -- been given a gift of, you know, being able to describe a culture of corruption, right? And that's what their message is going to be. And the question is, which of those --</s>KING: Not just with the administration. Two Republican congressmen, one yesterday, one a couple of weeks ago indicted as well.</s>SHEAR: Absolutely. And all of everything else, Scott Pruitt, and Zinke and everybody else. And so you've got these two competing messages that are going to play out over the next 10 or 11 weeks and the question is, which one is going to be more powerful. You know, are the -- and the Republicans right now are betting that they're going to be able to sort of destroy the credibility so by the time the voters get there, they sort of shrug.</s>COLLINS: Well, and the defense of there's no Russian collusion is not exactly rock-solid messaging for them when the -- in the wake of what happened yesterday. But I do think some of the president's allies over the last, you know, 16 hours or so are worried of what they're hearing from Republicans because they may not be coming out and condemning what happened, condemning Michael Cohen, but they are saying that these are really serious allegations, that they're very concerned or either they're not saying anything at all, like Mitch McConnell. And I do think they're worried that this could come out, that they're not immediately defending the president or defending anything, anyone he's surrounded himself with, and I do think that they fear that that could eventually turn on them because as soon as the voters turn on the president, the Republicans on Capitol Hill will turn on the president, too.</s>KING: And they --</s>KUCINICH: That's very true.</s>COLLINS: All they care about is --</s>KING: To the Republicans on Capitol Hill, they keep getting surprised by the news. They keep getting surprised by what's happening in court and they don't trust what they're hearing from the White House. We'll continue the conversation about the politics in a moment. Up next, though, the special counsel with new validation and now some say fresh leverage over Paul Manafort.