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First Ever Criminal Trial Of A Former U.S. President Starts Tomorrow; Biden Urges Senate To Quickly Pass Foreign Aid Bill; FBI On Alert For Threats To The Jewish Community On Passover; How Trump's Charges Compare To John Edward's Indictment; Reckoning Among Arizona Republicans After National Uproar Over State's Ban On Nearly All Abortions. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired April 21, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: Tomorrow opening arguments are set to begin in the first ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Trump is facing dozens of charges in New York related to an alleged hush money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels. That was in the lead-up to the 2016 in election. But tonight, Trump is lashing out at the judge, calling for the gag order to be removed ahead of a hearing on Tuesday. Prosecutor said last week that Trump had already violated that order seven times.

CNN's Marshall Cohen joins me now.

So, Marshall, what can we expect? What are we going to be learning over the course of the next few days as this historic trial gets underway?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, heavy dose of history in New York City. This has never happened before in our country. For the prosecutors, they can start telling their story to the jury with their opening statements. And they've got a story to tell, Alex. In their opening this is an election interference case going back to 2016. Their indictment frames this as a scheme to falsify business records, that hush money payment to Stormy Daniels routed through Michael Cohen, reimburse through the Trump Organization.

According to the prosecutors, they say that Trump and his company basically cooked the books to hide this payment in violation of New York state law.

MARQUARDT: A lot of legal experts are saying it's a terrible idea for Donald Trump to take the stand, that he would only hurt himself in doing so. But who else could we expect to see up there?

COHEN: He's been sort of playing with some fire here in the last few days saying that he wants to do it. He did testify in some of those civil trials earlier this year, but this is a totally different situation. His personal liberty is on the line, not just money, but potential incarceration if he is ultimately convicted. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The prosecution goes first and they have a pretty big lineup of some heavy hitters.

Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney to Donald Trump turned Trump enemy, they will be squaring off we don't know exactly when, but he is definitely a big one. There's also Stormy Daniels. She'll have an opportunity to tell her side of the story. You can see on the screen here some other figures. Hope Hicks, who was a campaign official back in 2016. David Pecker also on the bottom right. He's not necessarily a household name, but he's super important.

According to the prosecutors, it was Pecker and Trump who agreed to use Pecker's news outlet or more of a tabloid really.

MARQUARDT: Right.

COHEN: But the "Nationally Enquirer," to use that company to catch and kill damaging stories that could have harmed Donald Trump, to buy the rights of those stories and bury them so they never saw the light of day.

MARQUARDT: And so much has been made of this schedule because you have all these different trials and different cases. But of course at the same time this is a man who is running for president yet again. So how are we expecting this trial to play out and for how long?

COHEN: So the estimate is probably about six weeks. That gets us through April, May, and into June. But sometimes these things have a way of going a little faster, a little slower. I think a lot of people thought that jury selection might take longer than it ultimately did. But yes, Donald Trump, he has to be in court.

Just like pretty much any American citizen charged with a crime, you have to attend your trial. That means he won't be on the campaign trail as much as he would like to be. Four days a week, he will have to be in Lower Manhattan in court.

MARQUARDT: Certainly not a place he is used to being and not having any control over the proceedings, really.

Marshall Cohen, we know you'd be watching closely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Let's discuss. I'm joined now by Scott Jennings and Shan Wu. Shan is a defense attorney and a former federal prosecutor. He served in the Clinton administration as a counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno. And Scott Jennings is a CNN senior political contributor and a former special assistant to President George W. Bush.

Thank you both for joining me.

Shan, I want to start with you. As a former federal prosecutor, how would you approach these opening statements? As Marshall was just saying, this is a chance for them to start telling a story for both sides.

SHAN WU, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I would keep it very simple to them, which is, this is a story about payments and then the covering up of the payments. And you're going to hear from people who will explain the documentation for following the money. And you're going to hear from people who were there talking about that money trail. And that's just going to bring it to life for you.

They need to be careful as in any prosecution, you don't want to overly dramatically present the opening. It's really, here's what the evidence is going to show you. It helps set the tone for the jury to really just keep your eye on the ball, just follow the evidence, and also, you don't want to over promise. You don't want to be bragging that you're going to hear this from such and such a witness, they're going to cover everything for you, then it turns out to be a problem with that witness. So you want to be a little bit minimalist. Stick to the facts and keep it very simple for them.

MARQUARDT: And Scott, politically, Trump has spent the last few years telling everyone that he's the victim in all this, in all these cases. The image of Trump appearing in court, is that still a rallying point for his base or do you think that some of his voters can start to tire of all this legal drama?

[19:05:10]

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, we've got more legal drama to go for the rest of the year. This particular case in New York City, I think virtually all Trump supporters and basically most Republicans think that it's a dog, that it's a partisan case, that the prosecutor is grinding a partisan act, that this has been contorted into a felony, that the Justice Department and the -- decided not to pursue. And so he's been obviously using that and using it to rally the base.

I think this case is different politically, truthfully than the January 6th case, or even the documents case because this ones in New York, this one is sort of lurid and it's, you know, again, it's novel. I mean, this is something that other people looked at and decided to take a pass on, but I suspect you're going to see Trump go right after -- go right after the politics of it and use it to get his base all on a froth over it. Absolutely.

MARQUARDT: And Scott, as you note, this is a New York trial, and Shan, sitting in that jury box will be not just New Yorkers, but Manhattanites, in particular. There are 12 of them who have been selected plus six more who are serving as alternates. And they are going to be meeting as a group for the first time on Monday morning and this is an interesting group of people. We know a little bit about them and about their news habits, for example.

We know that they are highly educated and informed. Two in particular are lawyers, two are engineers, many with master's degrees. So what does that tell you do you think about how they're going to handle this case?

WU: Well, from a prosecutor's standpoint, you like well-educated, savvy jurors because you feel they won't be daunted by emotional issues. They can follow it. Personally I don't like engineers in a jury. I feel they're a little bit too mechanically oriented. They want certainties like having a mathematician on the jury.

MARQUARDT: Right.

WU: Lawyers are fine as long as they're not criminal defense lawyers or prosecutors because then their expertise may interfere a bit with their objectivity and also cause other jurors to look too much to them. But generally the legal training is fine. Generally higher education is very fine.

They're meeting together for the first time. It's going to be a very important moment really. They're getting eyes on each other. We're going to be living on this case for a while. And I think the one area that's been underestimated by the court and prosecutors is the amount of pressure on these jurors. I think Judge Merchan did a great job in going through the selection process fairly quickly. But we're seeing the stress on these folks and they may be dipping into that alternate pool faster than they think.

MARQUARDT: There is the question over sequestration. Do you think that's something that's going to happen?

WU: I don't think he wants to do that, but I think he needs to reconsider, particularly with that terribly event that happened, you know, on Friday, there. He's got to think about what effect the publicity is really having on them. I think it'll be smart to sequester them for deliberations certainly. Problem with sequestering them now is none of them planned to be sequestered. You hadn't told them that and you might lose a couple, saying I just can't do that for family work, whatever obligations there are.

But with this kind of pressure with people, are you saying after they made it through the voir dire that I'm feeling stressed, I'm too anxious to do this, I think he needs to reconsider it.

MARQUARDT: And Scott, there are questions about whether Trump will testify. He said that this is something that he's considering. There are a number of legal experts who say that's a terrible idea. I was speaking with Norm Eisen who said that his lawyers should throw themselves in front of Trump to prevent that from happening.

This is not a trial that's going to be on camera. The most we're seeing from inside the courtroom are sketches. But the perception of him testifying in his own defense, does that have political benefits?

JENNINGS: Well, the political benefit is obviously why he's saying that he wants to do it, is that, hey, I got nothing to hide. I did nothing wrong. I'm happy to answer your question. So the political benefit of at least saying you'll do it is obvious. I'm not a lawyer, don't take legal advice from me. Call Shan if you've been in an accident, but I -- but I would just say it strikes me as fundamentally dangerous to put them on the stand and put them under oath.

And after all, there is a reasonable chance he's going to avoid a conviction here. It only takes one juror, of course. And so you wouldn't want to put him in a position just for political purposes that would hurt the prospect of him actually beating the case. So politically, though, I mean, you can easily see why Trump would say that because you want the public I got nothing to hide, this is a witch hunt, I'm willing to say that under oath.

And so, you know, that's what he's doing right now I think is stoking that image of a man who is being persecuted and is more than willing to tell his own for it.

MARQUARDT: And Shan, in terms of the witnesses, the prosecution so far has refused to reveal their witness list with the defense. They've talked about Trump's previous tweets about witnesses as a pretext for that. We know that there are some members of Trump's inner circle who we could see testify. Marshall laid out some of those big names.

[19:10:00]

Who do you think is going to take the stand and when can we find out?

WU: Well, I think the former "National Enquirer" publisher, Mr. Pecker, may be taking a stand early and that would be a smart witness to start with because he can really lay out this question of the strategy involved and why they wanted to catch and kill these bad stories. And that plays right into the campaign aspect of it. And also he's a less volatile witness to start with. It kind of sets the framework for not as much baggage perhaps as Michael Cohen.

And we'll certainly hear from Cohen. Ultimate insider who can talk about how if there's a defense being raised and maybe Trump wasn't aware of what was going on, you'll hear from Cohen that's impossible. Trump was a micromanager and knew all these things. And I think Stormy Daniels will be a very powerful witness. She comes across I think very sympathetically. I think the jury is really going to love her. And the prep for her is you just want to keep a very focused on just actually what happened.

And I think those are the three main people that you're going to hear from.

MARQUARDT: And Scott, we saw the former president trying to campaign over the weekend. He was supposed to be in Wilmington, North Carolina, yesterday and then that rally got canceled at the last minute because of weather. So we heard Marshall say that the president -- former president is expected to be in the courtroom four days a week. How much is that going to hurt? Obviously it'll hurt his campaigning, but how much does the lack of being on the campaign trail actually hurt his chances at getting elected?

JENNINGS: Well, look, I have maintained that this is a strange election in that you've got two presidents who are fully known, basically fully vetted by the American people. I've wondered, you know, is there a single TV ad that's going to make a difference? Is there a single rally that's going to make a difference? People know how they feel. So I don't actually think it's going to diminish his chances to get reelected if he doesn't have a few rallies. I don't think so.

Now, you noted he was supposed to be in North Carolina this weekend, and obviously that's become a battleground state. I do hear that it's pretty close down there. So if you're Trump, you'd rather be able to do things than not do them. But at the end of the day, I do think Trump and Biden are both going to end up winning or losing this race based on their records, which are both really fresh in the minds of the American people more so than, you know, a rally that happened, you know, a few months before the November election.

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, I know you'll both be watching very closely tomorrow. Those opening statements happen in that New York courtroom.

Shan Wu, Scott Jennings, thank you both for joining us.

And CNN will have special coverage tomorrow starting at 9:00 Eastern Time just before those opening statements get underway. You can watch that here on CNN or stream it on Max.

Work fast. That's the White House's message to senators who will take up a $61 billion aid bill for Ukraine as the director of the CIA warns that Ukraine could lose the battlefield by the end of the year without more help. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:17:35]

MARQUARDT: President Joe Biden is now urging the Senate to move quickly and passed the massive $95 billion foreign aid package that finally cleared the House yesterday after months of delays. Senators will have to come back from recess this week to vote on it before Biden can sign the package. And once it has Biden's signature, it will greenlight $61 billion for Ukraine, much of it in desperately needed military aid, along with billions more to Israel and allies in Asia, particularly Taiwan.

For more on what this means for Ukraine in particular, let's go to Kyiv and CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Alex. Well, look, as far as the Ukrainians are concerned, these ammunition and the weapons from the United States can't come fast enough. They acknowledged that right now the situation for them on the battlefield in the east of the country and also in the south of the country is extremely difficult.

They say that they're outgunned as far as artillery ammos concerned, but they also have a huge problem with air defense missiles as well. On the frontlines where they say that the Russians are much more effective at using their air force, but also in cities like the one that I am right now. Of course, one of the things that we've been reporting on is in the past couple of weeks, the Russians have drastically stepped up their aerial campaign, especially against energy infrastructure here in this country.

And so therefore, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he came out today and he said that in general from when political decisions are made to give aid to Ukraine, to those weapons actually making it here to Ukraine, that process needs to be sped up drastically.

Also here in Kyiv today, I was able to speak to Vladimir Klitschko, who is of course the former World Heavyweight Boxing champion. He's also the brother of the mayor of Kyiv, and he's also still very much involved in the defense of this country. And he told me why he thinks this aid package is so important.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR KLITSCHKO, FORMER WORLD BOXING CHAMP: Today has a great potential to change the frontline. So we can in Ukraine defend us better. It sends also very important signal to Putin's Russia that you're not going to win this war. This senseless war that has been started over two and a half years ago, almost two and a half years ago. It sends a message of motivation for us Ukrainians, that we are not alone.

It did send also for Republicans and Democrats in the U.S., in this critical moments, to stand together and make this decision together to protect democracy in this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[19:20:04]

PLEITGEN: Now the Russians for their part, Alex, are criticizing the United States, accusing the U.S. of using Ukrainians as what the Russian say is cannon fodder. The Ukrainians, of course, take a very different view of that. They say for them right now this is absolutely key to their survival. Of course the leadership of this country has said in the past that if this aid package hadn't gone through that there's a real chance that the Ukrainians could lose this war.

Right now they believe that they have a real chance to fight back and possibly even turn things around on the battlefield -- Alex.

MARQUARDT: Fred Pleitgen in Kyiv. Our thanks to him for that report.

And joining us now is Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder and chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and author of the soon-to-be released book, "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century."

Dmitri, great to have you with us. Huge congratulations on the book.

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, SILVERADO POLICY ACCELERATOR: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: I do want to start with Ukraine and pick up where Fred left off. You speak all the time with Ukrainian officials and their supporters. What do you think this injection of aid is going to mean in practical terms for Ukraine, defending their cities and for those troops on the frontlines? ALPEROVITCH: Well, first of all, this is a huge morale boost for them.

We've heard stories of troops in the frontlines watching the votes in the U.S. Congress, and yelling, yes, when the vote was concluded. And the reality is, though, you cannot have the Ukrainians go on the offensive this year. They do not have the capacity to do so. So we're talking really about trying to stabilize the frontline, prevent further losses of Ukrainian territory, and maybe next year they can get into a position where they can try to take back some of the territory.

MARQUARDT: You do believe that there is a scenario in which it's not just about defending, but going back on offense? Because they just try to counteroffensive and it didn't work out very well.

ALPEROVITCH: It didn't work out. I think they're going to try to go back and actually train the troops. The problem was that they didn't have sufficient training. They didn't have all the capabilities that they needed to go on the offensive. But the other thing that they're doing is these deep strike missions against the energy infrastructure in Russia. We just had an incredibly powerful strike mission against the naval port of Crimea, Sevastopol, where they sank the only deep sea submarine recovery vessel that the Russians have in the Black Sea that will make the submarine operations in Black Sea incredibly risky for them because if something happens, they'll not be able to do a rescue mission.

MARQUARDT: And on that point, one of the biggest ticket items that Ukrainians have been begging for for a very long time are these American missiles called ATACMS. And now it looks like they're set to get the longer range version around just shy of 200 miles, I believe, according to Senator Mark Warner.

One of the fears by the Biden administration in giving those to the Ukrainians was provoking Vladimir Putin and escalating the conflict. Do you think that the Biden administration is getting a little bit bolder when it comes to confronting Putin?

ALPEROVITCH: I think they were pushed into this action because Congress actually authorizing this aid package for the Biden administration to provide ATACMS or at least come back and explain to Congress why they're not going to do that. The reality is that you can control the Ukrainians from striking Russian territory, which would indeed be escalatory, but use U.S. weapons to do so, but they can use those weapons to strike further into Crimea, further behind the frontline to hit Russian logistics. I think it's really important.

MARQUARDT: Obviously Mike Johnson had been against -- opposed Ukrainian aid packages and then he came around. One of the reasons we're told is because he got a detailed briefing on all these global issues from the CIA director Bill Burns, and my colleagues reported that Johnson became increasingly convinced that the fate of Western democracy was on his shoulders.

Not just on Ukraine, but let's broaden this out to China and Taiwan. What do you think it is that Burns told Johnson that convinced him that he had to bring these packages to the floor? ALPEROVITCH: I think he explained what's at stake on Ukraine. The

reality was that Ukraine was losing the war without the, say, they can't fight a war without ammunition, they can't fight a war without air defense. So you could see a situation where the Russians troops would once again one day appear on the outskirts of Kyiv and try to change that government. That would change the dynamics, the security dynamics in Europe and would be very -- would make things very dangerous for NATO and the United States.

In Asia, you also have a devastating situation unfolding. As I write in the book, you have a looming conflict, a conflict that's not going to happen this year or next, but in the next 48 years, you can have China tried to invade Taiwan and bring the United States into a devastating war with China.

MARQUARDT: So it's $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. If Taiwan is now trying to build up their defenses, what does that mean? Again, in practical terms for Taiwan?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, it's actually considerably more. It's $4 billion directly to Taiwan in foreign military assistance, but it's actually a lot of the money for the U.S. Military to build up submarine bases in the Pacific to secure Guam, to build up capabilities across that entire region. Really, really important because the reality is, I've walked the beaches of Taiwan. This is a very difficult operation for the Chinese to pull off, probably one of the most complex military operations in history.

And we can absolutely deter them from doing so. And if we can do that, we can stabilize this conflict that I believe will be much more devastating than a war in Ukraine.

[19:25:03]

MARQUARDT: We just have a couple of moments left, but what do you think goes through President Xi's head when he sees these, you know, billions in support for Taiwan?

ALPEROVITCH: I think he's very concerned because he is trying to build up the capabilities of the PLA as quickly as possible to prevent a situation where the United States, Taiwan, Japan are going to be ready for this invasion.

MARQUARDT: All right. Dmitri Alperovitch, always appreciate your time and your thoughts. Congratulations on the new book coming out April 30th, "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century." We appreciate it.

ALPEROVITCH: Thank you, Alex.

MARQUARDT: The start of Passover has federal authorities extra vigilant this week as the Anti-Defamation League warns of a sharp rise in threats to the Jewish community since Hamas' October 7th attack on Israel. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:30:09]

MARQUARDT: Many Americans are preparing to celebrate Passover, starting at Monday evening at sundown as the Jewish holiday nears. The FBI is saying that it is on high alert for antisemitic threats.

Last year, there were more than 8,000, almost 9,000 in fact, reports of antisemitic incidents including harassment, assault, and vandalism. That is according to the Anti-Defamation League and they say it is the worst they've seen since they started tracking data 45 years ago.

Just last week, FBI Director Chris Wray said that threats to the Jewish community have tripled since the October 7th Hamas attacks and the war that has followed, protests are still going on at Columbia University in New York City.

And today, an Orthodox rabbi associated with Columbia is warning Jewish students they should "return home" until the campus is safer.

Now tension is running high after several days of pro-Palestinian protests and more than 100 arrests on campus. The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul is tweeting today saying, "The First Amendment protects the right to protest, but students also have a right to learn in an environment free from harassment or violence. At Columbia or on any campus, threatening Jewish students with violence or glorifying the terrorism of October 7th is antisemitism."

CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us now from New York.

So Polo, what's the latest, what's happening today?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So Alex, what we continue to see are two demonstrations that show no signs of stopping here and to be clear, they are demonstrations supporting Palestinian people, both on the campus of Columbia University and off as well, which is the one that you're able to see and hear directly behind me.

This is a demonstration that has essentially walked up to the gates of Columbia University since access to the campus remains restricted, and they have been chanting, already for much of the weekend. Their voices, what they're trying to do is join with an encampment, what's called the Gaza Solidarity Encampment still located on the south lawn as of this hour.

And again, as you'll recall that it was on Thursday that the NYPD was called in to assist by Columbia University officials to help clear out that that encampment and resulted in well over a hundred people being detained, arrested, and even suspended.

So, the question is, just how long will they be allowed to be there? On both sides of the fence that you see behind me, the message is clear. It is a very unified message, which is calling on Columbia University to divest funds for many companies with associations to Israel, but separately in the other vain that you just touched on, a really important one here is that there are growing concerns among Jewish students on campus about being made to feel unsafe while making their way to and from class because of these growing demonstrations.

It reached a point where that rabbi that you just mentioned a short while ago sent a message to about 300 students saying that it is best that they simply go home until more is done to guarantee their safety.

Now, Columbia University responding saying that they are acting on those concerns and they are also assuring that students do have the right to protest, so long as it does not disrupt university operations and it does not intimidate any of the students here.

But we've spoken to Jewish students -- some of the students at Columbia Diversity. One in particular, Noah Letterman who told me, he is a double-major studying here at Columbia, but he is afraid to come back until the university does more saying that he is angry, he is terrified, he is upset and these are the concerns that are being highlighted upfront by university officials, the New York City mayor, all the way to the White House.

But the larger picture here, Alex, important to remind also viewers. This is still essentially equation that campuses and universities throughout the country are forced to grapple with as we are likely going to continue to see these kinds of demonstrations just grow and these universities, of course to walk that very delicate line of making sure that the students on campus feel safe, but ensuring that students the right to free speech and to assemble.

MARQUARDT: Yes, this is not an isolated issue at Columbia University.

Polo Sandoval in New York, thank you very much.

Ahead, the parallels between former President Trump's historic criminal trial and the last time a former presidential candidate ran into legal trouble because of an alleged affair.

That's coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:38:54]

MARQUARDT: Donald Trump will be back in a New York courtroom tomorrow morning for the first criminal trial of a former president, but it will not be the first time that someone running for president has faced legal jeopardy over an alleged affair.

CNN's Jessica Dean has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Donald Trump claims the prosecution against him in the hush money trial is unprecedented.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is an assault on America. Nothing like this has ever happened before. There has never been anything like it. DEAN: While it is true, Trump is the first former president to stand trial against criminal charges, another well-known politician had a similar story play out in the past.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): John Edwards obviously was prosecuted for the same thing, and Justice Department failed, acquitted on one, a mistrial on the others, but they decided not to proceed.

DEAN: In 2011, then failed Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards faced a six-count indictment four allegedly accepting and using campaign contributions to cover up an extramarital affair and hide his mistress and their child from the public while Edwards ran for president.

JOHN EDWARDS, FORMER CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: While I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong.

[19:40:11]

DEAN: The jury acquitted Edwards on one charge and split on the other five in, leading the Justice Department to ultimately drop the case.

TRUMP: Well, it is election interference and it has got to stop. It is a third world country.

DEAN: Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to hide an alleged affair with an adult film star and influence the 2016 election.

Trump denies the affair and has pleaded not guilty, but Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, swore under oath that he made the payments in order to affect the outcome of the election. Cohen though, was convicted of perjury in a separate case.

The Edwards case had its own star witness, a close aide to the former senator who testified to helping Edwards keep that affair secret, but prosecutors did not prove their claim the cover-up was about the election. The woman with whom Edwards had the affair, Rielle Hunter told CNN that Edwards did not want the truth to hurt his wife.

RIELLE HUNTER, HAD AFFAIR WITH JOHN EDWARDS: The issues were, you know, internal family issues.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Trying to hide it from Elizabeth and the kids.

HUNTER: Yes, trying to hide it, trying not to hurt anybody. You know, he didn't want to hurt Elizabeth or his family.

HUNTER: A key difference could be the timing of the alleged affairs and subsequent payoffs, which might help spell out the payment's intent.

Edwards' affair occurred during the 2008 campaign with at least one payment happening after the election was over, long after Edwards dropped out of the race.

In Trump's case, the alleged affair happened in 2006 years before he ran for president, but the payoff is alleged to have been made just two weeks before the 2016 election.

TRUMP: This is political persecution.

EDWARDS: And this is about me --

DEAN: But perhaps the starkest difference is how each man reacted to their cases.

EDWARDS: There is no one else responsible for my sins. None of the people who came to court and testified are responsible. Nobody working for the government his responsible, I am responsible.

TRUMP: This is really an attack on a political opponent, that's all it is.

DEAN: Jessica Dean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: Our thanks to Jessica Dean.

Republicans are struggling to unify on their approach to abortion rights with Arizona set to outlaw nearly all abortions with a law going back into effect, which dates back to the Civil War despite a last-minute Hail Mary effort to repeal it. That's coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:47:16]

MARQUARDT: Arizona's ban on nearly all abortions is set to go back into effect next week, even though it has been on the books since the Civil War era.

Some Arizona lawmakers say they want to prevent the ban from going back into effect, but when it came to a vote, a number of Republicans didn't allow any discussion about a repeal.

I want to bring in Caroline Kitchener, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on abortion last year. She is a national political reporter for "The Washington Post."

Caroline, thank you so much for joining us.

You just got back from Arizona. So does it look like this is going to indeed go into effect next week? Or are there still efforts to repeal the ban?

CAROLINE KITCHENER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It is really hard to say what is going to happen next in Arizona. Last week, I really thought going into the vote that we were going to have it repealed and that didn't end up happening, and that's relatively rare, I think with a vote in the legislature that you truly don't know what is going to happen.

Many of these Republicans, especially in swing districts, are having a really hard time with this vote, having to reckon both with their own personal very anti-abortion convictions, but also the reality that the people in their districts just do not want this.

MARQUARDT: Yes, it really seems like the reaction to this ban caught many by surprise in Arizona, particularly Republicans and so, it does seem like some Republicans are trying to have it both ways, saying that they are against abortion, but also that this ban goes too far. Kari Lake, who is running for Senate coming to mind.

So how are they trying to walk that line?

KITCHENER: Well, I mean, several of them told me when I was there last week that this was going to be the most difficult decision of their careers, and I think you really see -- I mean, what was interesting last week is that you didn't even get to a vote on the repeal and I think that is very much intentional.

Several lawmakers told me that that first vote in order to get to the vote, the procedural vote was actually going to be much more difficult because it was easier for these moderate Republicans to vote against getting to the vote than it would be to vote no on the actual repeal.

That is just -- it is harder to make a political ad saying, you know, so and so didn't vote to get to the vote than it would be to say so and so voted to keep this ban in place.

So I think, it is anybody's guess what is going to happen this week. But I think they will certainly try to bring it up again.

MARQUARDT: And what are you hearing from women in Arizona across the political spectrum?

KITCHENER: I think it is -- you know, it is a very scary and uncertain time.

[19:50:01]

But you know, there has been access to abortion in Arizona until 15 weeks, which is when the vast majority of abortions occur, and now, it is just -- it seems like anytime now, this could go into effect and that could all be wiped away.

I think, there is a lot of confusion. Now, actually, the attorney general has said that this actually could not take effect until June 8th, but there is just a lot of confusion. People calling clinics, people don't understand and don't know and they are hearing conflicting things and I think it is just a very -- a very scary and difficult time. MARQUARDT: Caroline, in terms of the presidential race, Arizona, of course, is so important, what kind of impact do you think it is going to have on a national level? What kind of implications for the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump?

MARQUARDT: I think it is going to have massive implications.

I mean, you already have Kari Lake calling these, making direct calls to these Republicans in swing district saying you must vote to repeal this ban, which is pretty remarkable because she was its all in calling this Civil War era ban a good thing until very recently.

So I think that just really speaks volumes. She is now calling them making sure that they understand the political stakes, both for her and for Donald Trump and for the whole Republican Party if this ban continues to stay in a -- goes into effect.

MARQUARDT: And of course, we've seen President Biden seizing on this, playing clips of former President Trump bragging about breaking Roe versus Wade.

Caroline Kitchener, thank you very much for your time tonight. We really appreciate it.

KITCHENER: Thanks for having me.

MARQUARDT: We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

("FOOTLOOSE" VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

REN MCCORMACK, FICTIONAL CHARACTER: Let's dance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Look at that, Students of Payson High School in Utah finally got their wish. Kevin Bacon, the star of 1984's "Footloose" went back to the Utah high school where that classic movie was filmed.

Students spent the last year campaigning pretty hard on social media for Bacon to visit, including flash mobs, hashtags, and more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN BACON, ACTOR: It's been 40 years. I mean, that just blows my mind.

Your desire to have me return and you talked me into it. You know, I think it is great to see that kind of commitment to anything. I also think that it is amazing the power that this movie has had to just kind of bring people together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: And the students at Payson High also contributed 5,000 resource kits to Bacon's foundation, which provides essentials to communities in need.

Sri Lanka is experiencing a unique war, one between its people and local elephants. Due to rapid development, more people are being pushed farther into the wild where the elephants once lived uninterrupted.

Now, tension between both groups, man and animal, is turning deadly.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh traveled to Sri Lanka the document this deadly battle for tonight's episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Alex, although we got to see some of the more beautiful parts of Sri Lanka and some of the most stunning creatures that nature can furnish you with a site of -- elephants.

It is a very dark story, and it is one really that is yes, about elephants and humans clashing over the land they both need to survive, but it is really, I think a metaphor for how crowded our planet is becoming, because while you see elephants clashing with humans here, that sort of tension over land, over space is reflected in the conflicts that you and I cover on a regular basis across the planet. This increasingly lacking in space for the number of beings that are on it.

Now, in Sri Lanka, there are said to be about 6,000 elephants. They are not entirely sure, but just last year alone, 476 of them were killed in confrontations with humans and 169 people were killed through the same sort of violence, and this happens every night in basic farm villages, firecrackers used to kick elephants away from farmland.

Because if people lose their crops, they lose their harvest, they lose their livelihood, their ability to feed their children. It is existential frankly for both sides.

And we got a taste of some of that violence, some of that tension ourselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH (voice over): These are this conflict's weapons, firecrackers, thunder flashes.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE speaking in foreign language.)

WALSH (on camera): Suddenly the numbers have grown from a couple here, possibly to ten, maybe twenty over by the tree line over there possibly coming in this direction.

WALSH (voice over): This is already too close. If they charge, it would all be over.

A torchlight used to always be enough or they were banging pots and pans. Now, nobody wants to risk going soft. So they reach straight from gunpowder.

Usually the elephants just run, but sometimes they charge and it is us who have to run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: And Nick's story on the all-new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper, one whole hour, one whole story, that airs next only on CNN.

Thank you all very much for joining me this evening and all weekend.

I'm Alex Marquardt. Goodnight and have a good week.