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New Day

Soon, Derek Chauvin Trial Resumes after More Dramatic Testimony; Sources Say, Justice Department Pursuing Allegations Rep. Matt Gaetz may have Used Cash and Drugs in Dealings with Young Women. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 02, 2021 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. John Avlon is in. Great to have you here on this Friday.

The Derek Chauvin murder trial resumes this morning after another dramatic day in court. Jurors heard from paramedics who testified they could tell that George Floyd was dead by the time they arrived. The prosecutors played never before heard audio of Chauvin speaking with his then-supervisor giving his version of what had just happened, but not mentioning the fact that he had pinned Floyd's neck under his knee for nearly ten minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEREK CHAUVIN, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICER: Yes, I was just going to call you and have you come out to our scene here. Not really, but we just had to hold the guy down. He was going crazy, wouldn't go in the back of the squad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay. Well, that supervisor took the stand on Thursday and explained the correct use of force.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN SCHLEICHER, MINNESOTA SPECIAL ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Do you have an opinion as to when the restraint of Mr. Floyd should have ended in this encounter?

RETIRED SGT. DAVID PLOEGER, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Yes.

SCHLEICHER: When is it?

PLOEGER: When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint.

SCHLEICHER: And that was after he was handcuffed and on the ground and no longer resisting?

PLOEGER: Correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN AVLON, CNN NEW DAY: Also developing this morning, truly stunning details in the scandal surrounding Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. Federal investigators said to be looking into whether Gaetz used campaign funds to pay for travel and expenses for young women he was allegedly involved with. And sources tell CNN Gaetz was bragging about his sexual exploits with fellow lawmakers, showing them nude pictures of women he claimed to have slept with on the floor of the House of Representatives. More on that ahead.

But we begin with CNN's Josh Campbell live at the courthouse in Minneapolis. Josh?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning to you. Yesterday, another day of testimony, prosecutors interviewed a senior officer who was in charge of use of force investigations. He was there on the scene after the death of George Floyd. And he dealt a serious blow to the defense. What the prosecutors tried to ask this senior officer was his view on the technique that Derek Chauvin had used against George Floyd, this restraint. The defense objected. They tried to stop that line of questioning.

At one point, the judge dismissed the jury so they could hash that out. The judge ultimately allowing for very limited questioning. The prosecutor ultimately asked this senior officer about that neck restraint. The senior officer said that the use of force against George Floyd should have stopped when he was under control. Again, a serious blow there to the defense.

We also heard yesterday some emotional testimony from the former girlfriend of George Floyd. Her name is Courteney Ross. And it really served two purposes. She provided the human side of George Floyd, talking about him as someone who loved his children, talking about his future, his hopes, his dreams and the like.

She also talked about a very personal topic for them and that was Floyd's past drug use. That brought up by prosecutors. Take a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COURTENEY BATYA ROSS, GIRLFRIEND OF GEORGE FLOYD: We both suffered from chronic pain.

Addiction, in my opinion, is a life-long struggle. So it's something that we dealt with every day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And going forward to May of 2020, was there a time when you thought he might be using again?

ROSS: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMPBELL: Now, people might wonder why the prosecutors would bring up George Floyd's past drug use. The question here the defense attorneys have been trying to raise is whether George Floyd died on the scene from that officer's actions or whether there was some type of pre- existing condition. Maybe he was under the influence of some type of drug. The prosecutors took that issue head-on in this exchange with the girlfriend.

The ultimate result was the prosecutor essentially saying that, look, yes, George Floyd may have used drugs in the past, but he never died from it. And it was, in fact, that incident in May of last year when he found himself on the pavement, under the knee of former Officer Derek Chauvin that ultimately resulted in his death and not drug use.

So very gripping, emotional testimony there yesterday, the trial continues today and, of course, we will continue to follow it. We will continue to bring you the very latest. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Josh. I could have listened to that woman, Courteney, all day. I mean, she just really gave us a window into what her and George Floyd's life were like.

[07:05:01]

Thank you very much.

Joining us now, CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson, he's criminal defense attorney. Also with us, CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Charles Ramsey, he's the former Philadelphia Police Commissioner and former Washington, D.C., Police Chief. Gentlemen, great to have you here.

Let's just start right there, Joey. As I said, Courteney, George Floyd's girlfriend, gave us a window into what he was like as a person, how much fun they had going out to dinner, that he loved food, she loved food. I mean, it was -- we use the word humanizing, but you really got a picture of what he was like. And she spoke plainly about their substance abuse. Do you think that that ultimately hurts the case against Derek Chauvin or helps the case against Derek Chauvin?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, Alisyn, good morning to you. Good morning, John. Good morning, Chief Ramsey.

Look, what you have to do as a prosecutor is you acknowledge every aspect of your case. It's not about hiding the ball. It's about being transparent and explaining. Are you not going to put his girlfriend on and then you're going to have the defense bring her up and then savage her? I think the prosecution did a very good job, not only as to that humanizing but also explaining why he was on the use of drugs, right? She talked about the issue of him having an injury. She talked about as a result of that injury, he developed a dependency upon opioids. Isn't that something that the universe can connect with? And so this is not a person, right?

Remember very clearly, Alisyn, there are three pillars to this case. The one pillar of the case has to do with the cause of death. The second pillar has to do with the use of force and its propriety. The third pillar has to do with demonizing George Floyd. Let's start with the bottom. You want to demonize him? This is not some druggy out there just popping pills because he had nothing better to do. He developed a dependency, and it happens to people. We could relate to that happening.

Let's go briefly to the pillar. When you look at the cause of death, the prosecution establishing, yes, he used drugs. But if you look at how he appeared in the Cup Foods, Alisyn, he appeared pretty well. He was milling about. He was speaking and everything else. He was dancing a little bit. He seemed to be pretty normal. So if you're going to argue that he would have been dead, what, 10, 20, an hour later, right, then certainly he would have seemed a little worse there. But, you know what? Not so much.

And then when you get to the use of force issue, listen, I just think that the officer, I'm sure Charles Ramsey will address this, I mean, having an officer say that he should have -- it should have stopped when he was under control, it's over right there. I thought the girlfriend was a compelling witness and thoughtful witness and I think really got out there what needed to be gotten out, which is the drug use.

AVLON: Chief Ramsey, let's get to that. I mean, we hear about the blue wall of silence. We see very often officers rallying around each other. It is a tough job, sometimes thankless. But in this case, to date, we've not seen any members of law enforcement, EMTs defending Derek Chauvin's actions. How unusual is that? How significant is that?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT: Well, it is significant, because -- I mean, but his actions were so far away from anything that even remotely resembles training or policy, and no one is going to stand up and say that that's okay. I mean, I do a lot of work with police departments across the country on, you know, reform issues and so forth.

And one of the areas we always look at is use of force policy, training and so forth. I have never seen, and I would argue that there's no department in this country that allows for the use of force once a person is already submitted and the resistance has ceased. I mean, that's why we call it excessive force. It's that force that's beyond what's necessary to affect an arrest. And that's what you see here.

I mean, George Floyd, for at least four or five minutes, there was just no motion. There was no need to continue the pressure. There was no need to do any of that. And that's the problem that the defense is going to have. How do you justify that?

CAMEROTA: Commissioner, one more question to you. When you were police chief, if one of your officers had called you in this after incident phone call, after something bad had happened on the scene, and omitted the detail that he had kept a knee on the neck of the suspect for nine minutes and 29 seconds, what would that tell you about that officer?

RAMSEY: Well, obviously, he's trying to cover himself right now, but even more importantly, and the knee aspect is certainly critical in this case, but the fact that the body was limp when the paramedics arrived, we heard testimony yesterday, they couldn't get a pulse. I'm sure that was probably whispered or said at some point in time. I mean, he knew this guy had been seriously injured if not dead. And so to not mention that, the gravity of the situation, that is important. That is critically important. And I would expect to get that kind of information.

AVLON: So, Joey, we've heard Derek Chauvin on body cam on the radio frequency explaining basically his actions in close to real-time, and he's trying to paint a picture of George Floyd as out of control, scary. And yet the videos we've seen don't bear that out. George Floyd was afraid.

[07:10:01]

He was anxious.

JACKSON: Yes. So any defense you have, John, has to be consistent with the facts. And you could give an indication about this whole drug use. Just to address something very important that we have to talk about is the issue of what the drug use means, how it impairs or affects behavior and how we actually saw that behavior play out.

Now, you can argue that all you want that, you know, he was on drugs and he exchanged drugs with someone else and he took new pills a couple of weeks before he died and stopped taking them. What we have to understand is that, legally, the knee on the neck has to be a substantial cause of death, not the only cause. There could be a number of other causes as long as that was the cause. It becomes problematic for you as a defense.

Turning to the issue of any behavioral issues, as it relates to drugs, if you look at that tape, he was, yes, very emotional. But can you say that he was fighting with the officers, that he was combative to the officers, that he was attacking the officers, kneeing them, kicking them, doing anything else? And so it's very troubling.

And final point, the defense appears to be going after two things. One is the issue of the crowd distraction. He was so distracted by the crowd. He didn't know what to do. The body cams give an indication that there was no concern amongst the police about the crowd at all. They were talking about get on the sidewalk. That's about all they said. Get on the sidewalk, please remove yourself. They weren't saying, we got to get out of here.

Second point, in the event that the paramedics came to the scene and they immediately, what's called a load-and-go, took George Floyd and got him out of there, they were concerned about the crowd they testified. Hey, officer, if you were so concerned, why didn't you get him out of there instead of remaining with your knee on the neck?

Final, final point, you talk about this issue of they're going after, he was on drugs. If he regained consciousness, he could become violent and belligerent, right? That's a stretch. He's motionless for minutes. Isn't there a point in time where that exceeds reason? That's where we're at. I just think it's a very difficult and uphill thing to explain. And to date, the testimony has been damning and that is to say the least.

CAMEROTA: Joey Jackson, Commissioner Ramsey, thank you both very much.

Now to this story, seven detention officers at a Texas jail have been fired after an eighth and an eighth resigned after a man died in their custody. 26-year-old Marvin Scott died last month about four hours after arriving at the jail in Collin County, Texas. The cause of his death has still not been released. But the sheriff says the officers violated well-established policies and procedures in their treatment of Scott who was arrested for just possessing less than two ounces of marijuana.

Meanwhile, sex, drugs and photographs, more on the stunning new allegations against Congressman Matt Gaetz.

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CAMEROTA: Okay. Developing this morning, more details about the Justice Department's investigation into Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. Sources tell CNN that federal investigators are looking into whether cash, drugs and campaign funds were used to pay for the travel and expenses of young women the congressman was allegedly having sex with. The New York Times reports that a local Florida politician introduced multiple women to Matt Gaetz who the women then had sex with both men for payment.

Joining us now is Katie Benner, The New York Times Reporter who broke this story. So, Katie, when he had you yesterday, there were still a lot of questions between the nexus between payments and the congressman and these women, now those things seem to be coming into focus. What have you learned?

KATIE BENNER, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Sure, that's correct. So, according to the testimony that's been given to the FBI by some of these women, what we believe is that Joel Greenberg, a local politician in Florida, who is very good friends with Congressman Matt Gaetz, he had meet these women online on a website called Seeking Engagement, which was basically a site that reported to match wealthy people with others who wanted to have relationships that involved gifts and travel and other luxuries, I guess, quote/unquote, is how the site would put it.

He'd meet those women and then introduce them to Congressman Matt Gaetz. They would have sex with both men and they would receive cash afterwards, either payments that we saw receipts for payments from Apple Pay, we saw receipts from payments from Cash App, which is a payment app.

Now, the women have said that the sex -- that the money was for sex. I'm guessing that the men will say the money was simply a gift and was not for sex and that's going to be one of the key things that investigators try to sort out as they moved toward a decision whether or not there are charges to be brought against the congressman.

AVLON: All right. So this is like an oil slick of sleazy scandal. I mean, it just keeps expanding. You're saying you've seen the receipts for the payment allegations. Tell us a little bit more about Joel Greenberg, because he seems to be the crux of this.

BENNER: Yes, it's really interesting. So Greenberg is meeting these women online. Greenberg is also seen in messages basically directing the women, saying, meet me here on this date. We can give you $1,500. I can give you $2,000. You know, so these arrangements are also in text messages that we've seen.

Again, it would be interesting to see what Greenberg and his lawyer have to say about these messages. Should they be having their own conversations with the government? But that is another thing that will be really interesting to prosecutors. They look and say, this is what we have before us. How much of this could be considered illegal if, you know, would be it a state crime, would it be a federal crime? What exactly are we dealing with here?

CAMEROTA: Matt Gaetz's office put out a statement last night to The New York Times, as you know. Here it is. Matt Gaetz has never paid for sex. Matt Gaetz refutes all of the disgusting allegations completely. Matt Gaetz has never, ever been on any such websites, whatsoever. Matt Gaetz cherishes the relationships in his past and he looks forward to marrying the love of his life.

Katie, has Matt Gaetz explained the payments?

BENNER: Well, he hasn't explained the payments. He's only said he has never paid for sex.

Another interesting allegation that came up in our reporting and also in CNN's reporting was the use of drugs in these encounters. So what we know is that the women told the FBI that Gaetz and his -- and Greenberg, they took drugs with them before having sex, and that was very common in a lot of these encounters.

[07:20:07]

Again, I think that the prosecutors will look at that evidence, if they are able to corroborate it, and they will say to themselves, what is this? Is this a federal crime? What does this contribute to in terms of our ability or not to charge?

AVLON: And, again, this comes from one of ex-President Trump's strongest defenders. Talk about a swamp. Katie Benner, thank you very much for all of your reporting.

Now, on to the political fallout from this Gaetz scandal. Joining us now CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, he's co-Anchor of State of the Union. Also with us, Senior Political Analyst Nia-Malika Henderson. It is great to see you both.

So, Dana, let me start with you. What is the atmosphere in Congress around Gaetz? This guy was so tight with President Trump, but it doesn't exactly seem like his Republican colleagues are rallying to his defense.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Not in the least. If you could see my text messages from some of his current and former colleagues, I actually can't repeat what some of them say on morning television. And it's because he has not made himself popular with most of his colleagues.

And, again, we're talking about his fellow Republicans, John. We're talking about people who he has antagonized in the name of being, you know, as beholden and as loyal to the former president, Donald Trump, as possible, in the name of being on conservative media, being on Fox News, being the darling of that.

And the most striking example of that was after the number three in his own party leadership, Liz Cheney, voted her conscience, voted to impeach President Trump, he went to Wyoming and taunted her. He went to Wyoming and had a big rally.

And, look, that was certainly not the first time he made enemies out of people in his own Republican conference, but it was the most recent and certainly the most egregious in the eyes of many of them. And so that is the lack of reservoir of good will that he has at a time where he really needs it because of all of the allegations that we have been reporting on.

CAMEROTA: Nia-Malika, I appreciate Dana's delicate touch with morning television, though with sex, drugs, payments, we've crossed the Rubicon of morning T.V. this morning.

Liz Cheney, how is she feeling this morning? I mean, to Dana's point, there has to be a little schadenfreude happening because Matt Gaetz has been such a flame thrower even to people in his own party.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He has been. He is in very many ways from the buffoon wing of the Republican Party. He's a conspiracy theorist. He obviously likes the cameras more than he likes actually doing his day job, in forming alliances with his fellow colleagues. You heard Kevin McCarthy responding to these allegations and saying, if they prove true, he would remove him from committees.

One person who has come out to support him, Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think Jim Jordan also came out to support him. So those are sort of his bedfellows at this point. But you've certainly not heard a chorus of support for him given these allegations, which are quite serious, quite damning. And we'll see where they go.

We've seen a response from him, an absolute denial of most of the allegations that are made. But with each passing day, it seems like there's more information to come out as these reporters really dig into these allegations and this FBI investigation.

AVLON: So, Dana, Nia-Malika just mentioned the buffoon wing of the Republican Party, which frankly has been fairly bulletproof in recent years, at least when it comes to the base. But we have an extraordinary new excerpt from John Boehner's upcoming book published in Politico, in which he really addresses how this problem in the Republican Party predates President Trump. And I want to read you just one expert that gets to the heart of the power of the buffoon wing.

He says, these guys wanted a hundred percent every time. In fact, I don't think that would satisfy them because they don't really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades. A lot of them just wanted to blow up Washington. That's why they thought they were elected.

Obviously, that's a huge condemnation from a former speaker of the House to the base of his political party that has led to people like Matt Gaetz. What's your take?

BASH: That's exactly right. I mean, he is talking about what happened when he became speaker with the help of the tea party. And he talks in that extraordinary excerpt, you're exactly right. I mean, this book is going to be remarkable. He talked about the fact that so many people who were elected didn't understand how Washington and legislating worked, didn't care when he talked to them.

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He said it went in one ear, out the other.

And it is so apt and so timely given the fact that it has only gotten worse, only gotten more intense and that dynamic has become so consuming of the Republican Party. And when I say the dynamic, it is playing to -- not just the cameras, but playing to the conservative base and conservative media.

And bringing it back to where we started the conversation, Matt Gaetz is, at this point, exhibit A of that kind of person. As you -- you used the word, buffoonery, I mean, I think John Boehner uses words that are even more --

AVLON: More anatomical?

BASH: -- illustrative of what he's trying to put across. And that's what I'm hearing from people about Matt Gaetz, that they feel that these are Republicans that he just wants to be on T.V. He wants to be a conservative media darling, and he doesn't have a huge appetite for legislating.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And that -- you need a conduit to the cameras. And John Boehner in his book mainly talks about the Fox News channel and how he watched get more extreme and fringy and conspiratorial and paranoid. I mean, he just lays it right out about how Roger Ailes was just becoming more paranoid after 2008 and how Fox, he talks about the homegrown talent and what they were doing at FNC.

Besides the home-grown talent at Fox, with their choice of guests, they were making people who used to be fringe characters into powerful media stars. One of the first prototypes out of their laboratory was a woman named Michele Bachmann.

HENDERSON: And the biggest media star out of Fox News was Donald Trump, remember, right? He was the one who was going on Fox News early on to test drive some of his messaging, but to also borrow from Fox News.

We kind of think of Donald Trump as a sui generis figure, as somebody who kind of felt where the base was. He was really borrowing what he was hearing on Fox News and knew that that resonated given the kind of ratings that Fox News was able to amass among a certain segment of the population.

So we talk about Matt Gaetz. We talk about Michele Bachmann. But Donald Trump is right in league with those folks, the conspiracy theorists, was a fringe political figure for many years before he ran for president in 2016 and obviously won.

So I think Fox News brought us sort of the apex of the buffoon wing of the Republican Party in Donald Trump. He was sort of the head of that, and now you have the Republican Party dealing with that identity crisis.

Who are they? Are they the party of Matt Gaetz? Are they still the party of Donald Trump? It certainly seems like it and it certainly teams like a lot of the folks in the Republican Party still very much beholden to Fox News, not as interested in legislating, much more interested in conspiracy theories, in wedge issues.

AVLON: On Holy Week and Passover, perhaps a biblical phrase applies, you reap what you sow.

Congressman Charlie Dent is going to join us to talk about this more in the next hour. Thank you very much, guys. It's great to see you.

BASH: Thanks.

AVLON: All right. Highly contagious variants are raging across the U.S. Health officials concerned that Americans are giving up on staying safe. The latest on the pandemic is next.

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