Standoff carries on, it is still up in the air when that trial will begin. Its one week since the house voted to impeach President Trump on obstruction of congress and abuse of power and the articles of impeachment remain in the hands of House Speaker nancy pelosi. And we are learning that the speaker sent a lead tore the Democratic Caucus just before the holiday calling last weeks floor vote, quote, inspiring and overwhelming. Lets begin with Cnn National Correspondent Kristen Holmes in West Palm Beach this morning following the president. Tell us this morning what is on tap for the president today. Reporter good morning, brianna. Merry christmas. The president is spending today like hes spent most of the holiday behind closed doors with no Public Events and on top of that today as you can see is turning into the most Beautiful Day we have had since he came down here for his holiday and he will not be going golfing. As of now, they have dismissed the press pool and wont be leaving the resort to head anywhere else, to the International Golf club or anything else like that. I do want to note just because we dont see President Trump doesnt mean we wont hear from him. He is tweeting saying merry christmas. This is a pattern we have seen even though we are not laying eyes on the president and at r maralago and impeachment is on the top of his mind. Tell us about this message that the speaker sent to the Democratic Caucus. What else did she say . Reporter so, it was really an end of the year letter but, of course, the most interesting part focused on impeachment. Im going to read part of this to you. Vote on the floor was wholing and inspiring. And then the number of people who want to be managers is indicative of our strong case. Now, of coursing talking about managers shes talking about the House Democrats that will represent their case, present it to the senate. That case against the president for impeachment. But we are still at a standoff here. Mcconnell would like to see and republicans, excuse me, would like to see the articles of impeachment actually transmitted to the senate and right now we dont have a timeline for that actually happening. Kristen, thank you so much. And lets discuss this now with the experts. We have alex little with us, Daniel Strauss and josh rogen. Alex, the speaker seeming to suggest there are lots of democrats who want to be impeachment managers. I wonder if she says its because its a good case. This is an indicator they have a strong case. Do you think thats what it is or do you think its that its very politically advantageous for the districts theyre in to be in a visible position in this impeachment . It is historic. Going to congress and theres not a lot of impeachments in congress and if youre a manager thats a huge deal historically. It is obviously playing in the districts, important for constituents to see theyre pressing the case against President Trump but i dont think you want to be a house manage we are a weak case and the democrats feel rightly they have a strong case against the President Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial. I would be interesting to know who doesnt want to be an impeachment manager. I suspect that there are some people because there were a lot of fresh men who came in turning red districts or ppu districts districts blue. If youre in a district of a mixed electorate, not sure if the impeachment thing is a good political move or not, then you want to stay as far as possible away from this. Adam schiff has been charge in of this the whole thing and done this before and led impeachments as a manager in the senate before but in the end the impeachment manager decision seems minuscule in comparison to the decision of how the trial is run and that seems to be squarely in the hands of Mitch Mcconnell and despite Nancy Pelosis refusal to transmit the articles so i think that will have a much more Significant Impact on what we see whenever this trial does begin. Its becoming so clear that its really a statement theyre making more than a deal trying to strike here. Daniel, over the weekend, we saw Kevin Mccarthy saying that he would pick jim jordan, doug collins and Jon Radcliffe to represent the president. They were some of the most dramatic parts of the hearings in the house. If that plays out, is this just going to be a total dramafest . Or, does the senate trial play out a little different where were not just gong to sing to repeat of what we saw in the house . From this members of congress you mentioned, it does sound like this is something that republicans are interested in making a slugfest. These are extremely partisan members of congress who are favorites of President Trump. They are not the ones who are trumpeting a fair impeachment trial in the sense of saying lets stick to congressional rules, hold up tradition. Some of trumps most ar dant defenders here. The same with democrats, too. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has continued to demand for more documents and more high profile members of the administration to be witnesses and something that Mitch Mcconnell has shown strong opposition to right now. I dont see a lot of impartial ground here. It is a divided event between democrats and republicans. I want to ask you all about something that just came in here to cnn. One of our affiliates reporting that alaska gop candidate murkowski said that she was disturbed to hear Mitch Mcconnell say he was working in total coordination with the white house. She said this confused the process even further. What do you think of that in terms of having murkowski, someone that caucuses with republicans say really what democrats have been saying about mcconnell . What do you think . I think theres three main people in the senate that mcconnell needs to look out. Murkowski, romney and collins who may say, listen, we care about the procedure, the institutional interests of the senate. And i think one of the things of invitding in those house managers is if its a partisan slug fest that could lose more senators. Unlike the clinton impeachment, the grounds for impeachment against the president are really substantial in a very different way and republican senator who is deeply if they could theres reports if this was done behind closed doors about the vote to see 30 republicans vote to impeach the president. There are some real danger zones for the president and the Senate Majority leader. I just have to slightly disagree there. I dont think that the republicans are going to lose any senators and i think we have seen over the course of the last three years the socalled moderate centrists, republican senators, express concern and feel very disturbed about a lot of things that the president does or Mitch Mcconnell does and then they fall in line in the end and relatively sure thats what you will see across the board. The bigger issue is why its disturbing and because the Senate Majority leader said he will be as close to the white house as lips and teeth through this whole process and seems like a corruption of the process to the average viewer. The question really is what does President Trump want . Does President Trump want it to be a circus or to be a quick trial . Right now all indications is of a circus and if thats what he makes clear, mcconnell will fall in line. Despite being disturbed and concerned theyll fall in line. Thats my prediction. If they fall in line, what a mess that is, right . What a sad state of our democracy. Thats true. Yeah. But guys, look, same time, murkowski, collins, romney, they all stamp their feet, they all make a big show of things but then usually the impact is not as big as what they promise it to be. I think thats going to be the same situation here. We know collins in particular likes to make a big show of Senate Procedure and usually falls in line in republicans here and on the showy trial point, mcconnell has indicated that he does not want a super showy trial while President Trump true to his form wants it to be a big splashy event. Made for tv event. Ripped from the headlines. So, josh, at the center of this is Rudy Giuliani facing backlash over details on the facebook page. He falsely claimed he was a government official. Okay. Reminder, he is the president s personal lawyer and claimed he was a former attorney general of the United States when, no. Yeah. Whole, he was the former associate attorney general. What do you make of this . Add it to the pile of lies and other crazy things that Rudy Giuliani has said over the last few months as hes run around the world representing the United States in a shadow diplomacy that has apparently been endorsed by the president and thrown u. S. Policy, especially in ukraine, but not only ukraine, is utter chaos. Remember the time that he gave pompeo a file of smears against a u. S. Ambassador . It said white house on the top of it. This is a pattern of Rudy Giuliani pretending to be a u. S. Government diplomat. Okay . You could say that since the president endorsed this that i guess in a sense he is representing the United States because the president gets to make Foreign Policy but as we have seen in this impeachment process, rudy is skrits friendic and seemingly corrupt shadow diplomacy did nothing but confuse Foreign Countries and interject a lot of chaos into the Foreign Policy and i think this is just the latest example of that. All right. Josh, thank you so much. Josh, damaniel and alex. Happy holidays. Thank you. Still to come, while President Trumps mind is focused on impeachment trial, threats is growing. What should be on the president s radar heading into 2020 . Also ahead, an infant in texas reunited with her father for christmas after being kidnapped. We have that story coming up. And christians around the world celebrate the Christmas Holiday today. The pope gave the christmas message to a crowd in sait. Peters square. We will have that for you coming up. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol®. Laso you can enjoy it even ifst youre sensitive. Se. Yet some say it isnt real milk. I guess those cows must actually be big dogs. Sit i said sit while the president s mind is on impeachment theres a whole lot of other stuff happening around the world. North korea is bolstering its Missile Program and threatening to send the u. S. A Christmas Gift and we are still waiting to see what that means. In russia, president Vladimir Putin saying his is the only country that has hyper sonic weapons. He told the top military brass that russia has an edge in that technology. In syria, dozens of civilians killed in russiansupported air strikes by assad against opposition forces. How will President Trump handle the issues going into 2020 . Joying me now to discuss is sean turner, National Security annual ig ist, a former director of national intelligence. Good morning to you and very merry christmas. Good morning. Merry christmas. Thanks for having me. Its so nice to spend this holiday with you talking about impeachment. The president , obviously, consumed with it even on this holiday. Theres a lot going on at the aim time that can impact the National Security. This is what happened, too, with bill clinton. I know the democrats say he juggled the work and juggle the impeachment but so much attention even then on his impeachment. What should trump be focused on going into this new year . Well, look. This is one of the great frustrations for the National Security community for quite sometime because the distractions do keep the president from focusing on what he needs to focus on. As we head into an election year, and considering the fact that very little is done to deter them, russia has top at the top of the list and two things the United States needs to be concerned about here. The first is that we understand, we know that russia has an ongoing and continuous desire to sow discord in this country and to divide us within and i have repeatedly said we have to look at this through the lens of National Security because that effort means that russia will try to build up candidates, tear down other kanld dates and the result of that is that we will have election that is do not reflect the will of the american people. That is a serious and ongoing National Security threat that the president needs to focus on. The other issue is russia is the broader issue of russia global expansion. We know russia is doing a lot to kind of wield political and political tear influence over the world and that has serious implications for ow relationships with partners and allies and looking at just russia alone a lot of serious implications to focus on and the big concern i have from my background in intelligence is seeing over the past couple of years that the president is not focused on russia. I would add to that list were seeing this precipitous rise in domestic extremism, violence here in this country. Kind of related to with whatted with russia and Going Forward and people think about the issues of outside of the United States. But i think that this is one of those really serious internal issues to focus on because a lot of these groups, white extremist groups and other groups are, taking are cues from some of the foreign terrorist organizations. Those two top my list and as you said in the beginning we have syria, china, a wide range of things in the National Security space that the president needs to focus on. North korea, this Christmas Gift that they promised, the president said maybe its a nice pent. Maybe its a present where he sends me a beautiful vase opposed to a missile test. I say vase. The president said vase and why im quoting him. He is down playing that. Should he be . Yeah. You know, listen. One of the thing that is we were really concerned about as the president engaged with north korea is this idea that by engaging north korea the president was going to give north korea a lot of credibility, raise their stature on the global stage and then north korea was going to take that credibility and walk away from the table. This idea that they north korea, has a gift for the United States, we all understand that it has to do with the continuing effort to develop their nuclear capability, to marry up with a weapon with a Nuclear Warhead and declare a fully capable nuclear power. They havent gotten there yet but thats the direction theyre going so this is a serious issue for the president to focus on and unfortunately the reason its such a serious issue is because the president did give kim jongun credit and bolster his profile when he engaged him the way he did and then walk away without anything to reduce the tension on the peninsula. Shawn turner, thank you so much for joining ounce thus on holiday. Merry christmas. My pleasure. Merry christmas. A stop for pizza turns into a frightening experience for a chicago teenager and little brother. 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