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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Trump Says He's Reached An Agreement To Debate Harris On September 10; Trump & Harris Campaigns Hit Battleground States, Prep For Debate; New Trump Indictment In Election Subversion Case; Source: Trump Team Surprised By Timing Of New Indictment. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 27, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Simon and Garfunkel --
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah.
KEILAR: Right?
SANCHEZ: A lot of good memories of Simon and Garfunkel. I remember cruising in Miami with the windows down as a teenager. My card is trying to get attention, blasting "Sound of Silence".
KEILAR: I am a rock, I am an island.
SANCHEZ: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That is a total joke.
KEILAR: That is interesting.
SANCHEZ: I know none of their music. I know none of their music.
KEILAR: Oh, really?
SANCHEZ: I just like saying Garfunkel. It's a cool name.
(LAUGHTER)
KEILAR: You want to see Simon and Garfunkel, right, Lisa?
LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Of course. You guys have great taste in music. We have got to party together. That's all I'm saying.
SANCHEZ: You're welcome anytime up here to "NEWS CENTRAL", Lisa. Aalways great to see you.
KEILAR: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts now.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Isn't there some kind of famous quote about elections in the economy?
THE LEAD starts right now.
We're just 70 days until the presidential election and both campaigns are putting your wallet front and center today, trying to make the case that only they can lower costs and make living more affordable. It's something they'll surely debate in their first face off, which we just learned new details about.
Plus, have friendship bracelets and your best concert fits. Swifties are finding a way to make their voices heard in this election just as the Harris campaign announces a new plan to target young voters and colleges across the country.
And, finally free. Israeli forces rescue a hostage in Gaza after more than 325 days in captivity. The latest on his condition and what this could mean for the more than 100 others still being held by the terror group Hamas.
(MUSIC)
MATTINGLY: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Phil Mattingly, in for Jake Tapper.
Today marks 70 days until the 2024 election. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, they're hitting key battleground states while also preparing for the September 10th debate and we're at least pretty sure that the debate is actually going to happen now. Trump just announced he would agree to the rules after the 24-hour burst of back-and-forth that will apparently include microphones muted when it's not a candidate's turn to speak. More on that in a moment.
The Harris campaign today once again insisting she will schedule a sit-down interview by the end of the month. For those counting, that's only four days away. And her campaign emphasizing, that's just scheduling the interview, not necessarily sitting down for it.
But tomorrow, Harris and Tim Walz will kick off a Georgia bus tour while Trump's VP pick, Senator J.D. Vance deliver remarks on the economy in Michigan today, blaming Harris for not fixing the inflation crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala Harris is the candidate of American decline. She cast the tie-breaking vote for the inflation explosion act. She cast the tie-breaking vote to send interest rates and mortgages through the roof. Start talking about what you are going to do right now because you're the vice president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Now, Vance may be Trump's running mate, but there's a good chunk of buzz today in the political world about two new members of Trump's transition team, RFK Jr. and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
We lead things off with CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is following the Trump campaign. I want to begin Kristen, with that September 10 debate on ABC. Trump
says he's agreed to the debate rules. What are the rules and is this settled now?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I wouldn't say anything is completely settled until we for sure here from the Harris died as well and until both of them show up on that stage on September 10, but it does feel as though Donald Trump is accepting the terms of the debate, which were the same rules of the debate that we saw in last month or two months ago now and it was Donald Trump versus President Joe Biden. He's a top of the ticket on CNN.
That means no studio audience, that means no crib sheets. And, of course, that means that those mics will be muted while the other candidate is speaking. As we reported yesterday, the campaigns had appeared to come to an impasse over this issue. Harris's team saying that they did not agree to the mics being muted Donald Trump's team saying, we always said all along it was going to be the same rules as the CNN debate. And we want those mics muted.
Now, Donald Trump is saying that they have come to an agreement. We are told by sources outside of Donald Trump's campaign that those mics well be muted. So now the big question is how are they preparing? Which of course we're diving into right now, trying to find out from our sources and to whether or not they both show up on stage.
MATTINGLY: This has been a weird 24 hours. We all know they're going to debate you, talk about the preparation. One person involved in that as you've reported, is Tulsi Gabbard. I guess one of the questions that I've had today is in the grand scheme of the election, how big of a deal is it that RFK Jr. and the former congresswoman are now on or at least honorary members of Trump's transition team?
HOLMES: Well, the big question is what they're going to do for Donald Trump in November in terms of getting voters to the polls. We have long reported that Donald Trump's team wants to expand the electorate and that includes bringing in these independent voters, not necessarily these independents in the general term that we've used in the past as somebody who is not a Democrat or Republican.
But these kind of outside of the box thinkers who would have voted for RFK, would have voted for Tulsi Gabbard, and the big movement here, as you can see with them putting them on the transition team, is taking their endorsement one step farther.
The one thing I've heard over and over again from both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to RFK voters in particular, you don't know if they're actually going to show up at the polls.
[16:05:06]
So, the Trump team wants to fix that. And they specifically want to fix that. So they show up at the polls for Donald Trump. It's one thing to get an endorsement, but it's quite another to say that this person is going to help shape the next administration if I am elected. So they are clearly banking on that, or at least using that as part of
the way to drive these RFK voters who made up at least a somewhat substantial portion of the vote of the polling in states like Arizona and Michigan to the polls in November to try incentivize them to actually cast their ballot for Donald Trump.
MATTINGLY: An important point. Kristen Holmes, as always, thanks so much.
We'll have more on a debate in a moment. But the other major story for the campaigns today like concerns your money. Let's go and take a closer look at why the campaigns are so focused on the economy now, right? Obviously, this is something any campaign is focused on.
But let's take a look at the 2020 map. If these campaigns are being honest with you and most of them are, and if they're not, you can just look at where they're spending or where they're sending their candidates, they care about seven states right now.
They care about Nevada. They care about Arizona. They care about Georgia. They care about North Carolina. And of course they care about the blue wall.
Now, let's look at the polling. The most important issues in each of those states by far, if you look at the latest "New York Times"/Siena polling, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, all seven of those states, the economy is number one by far, the closest other issue, it's usually either immigration or abortion, five, six or seven points behind. That is why you have seen a bare-knuckle brawl breakout over the course of the last couple of days on air in campaign advertisements, why you saw J.D. Vance today in Michigan talking about the economy.
The former president was in Michigan, would be in Pennsylvania, will be back in Michigan, will be in Wisconsin, talking about the economy, other issues as well. But its always the economy that they're focusing on, with their visits, with what they're saying on the campaign trail and with their advertisements.
It's also why you're going to see the Harris campaign in their bus trip, the first trip after the convention, both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the state of Georgia. Now we all know this is a critical state that Joe Biden flipped back in 2020.
This bus tour that there'll be taking, though, is fascinating. The southern part of the state, and it will end here in Savannah, Georgia, in Chatham County, this is a traditionally Democratic county. It is also a county that White House officials and the current administration point to as critical in their economic recovery. And one where the Harris campaign knows they need to turn out bigger voters.
As to what's happening on air? Well, this is what the advertisements look like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bidenomics is working.
AD NARRATOR: That's just not true. Families are struggling with rising prices and Kamala's lying.
HARRIS: As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle-class that advanced their economic security, stability, and dignity. If you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.
Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations. I will fight to give money back to working and middle-class Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
MATTINGLY: And we do have major breaking news. Special counsel Jack Smith has just filed a superseding indictment in the federal election interference case against the former President Donald Trump.
Let's go straight to CNN's Katelyn Polantz.
Katelyn, this is just happening right now. What more do we know?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: That's right. This is the special counsel's effort to get this case back on the road toward trial. This is the January 6 federal election case in court in Washington, D.C. against Donald Trump. The charges, the four charges that Donald Trump has been facing for quite some time now. They're the same in this, what's called a superseding indictment. So a rewritten version of the criminal charges against the former president for conspiracy and other counts related to what he did after the 2020 election.
But what the special counsel's office is saying they're doing here is they needed to go back to the grand jury, Phil, and rewrite those charges so that they would incorporate what they need to say that's in line with what the Supreme Court told them they must do. Remember, the Supreme Court just in June made that decision on presidential immunity, saying that some of the things in this case had to be cut out, such as things that were allegations that may be part of Donald Trump's official duties as president, especially his interactions with others below him in the administration.
So I'm still going through the superseding indictment documents that we have. It's a 36-page document. And so, what we have here now in this filing is that there are coconspirators listed, but one of those people that we had before that would have been heard by many people on the jury if it had gone to trial, there would have been a lot of information about that official, Jeffrey Clark. He's not one of the coconspirators any more. He was Justice Department official.
Now, it is six different private people, five private attorneys plus a private political consultant. [16:10:05]
Those are the people that are called coconspirators here before the grand jury and now in this indictment against Donald Trump.
MATTINGLY: Katelyn, you kind of walk through the process how we got here on some level. I think my biggest question given how closely you follow this, did you expect this when you're -- and I know you're still going through it right now. You've just started reading through a pretty lengthy document. What about this is surprising based on what we've known coming up to this point?
POLANTZ: Well, what's surprising is the timing here. I mean, we are right before the election. We're not in that window where the Justice Department doesn't want to do anything that disrupts the election. The 60-day period, but we're nearing the end of August. And at the end of this week, we are expecting, Phil, the Justice Department to tell the judge what they want to do for the path forward.
This appears to be one of the steps to take -- to move things forward and to set up the next phase of this case.
And the way the special counsel describes this in sending this out to the public is that they say that they brought this indictment before a new grand jury, one that had not heard about this case before that it approved the statement against Donald Trump previously, that they approved it. That is the process for an indictment. It has to go before a grand jury of more than 20 people, and it reflects the efforts to implement the Supreme Courts holdings and what to do next.
And so, what this does today is it kicks off that next phase so that the Justice Department can continue attempting to prosecute this case in a way that they have said for some time now, they want to happen as quickly as possible as efficiently as possible. They're not waiting to Friday to tell us what they're going to do next. They're saying now, here's the plan, and then we're going to be working forward from that in court -- Phil.
MATTINGLY: All right. Katelyn Polantz, I know you're going to go back to reading what was just filed and talking to your sources as well, please flag when you find new interesting nuggets that we definitely need to focus in on.
In the meantime, I want to bring in CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.
Elie, break this down for us. After the great reporting from Katelyn there going through very quickly this filing, what exactly did Jack Smith do here? Was this expected?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, Phil, what Jack Smith has done here is paired down the original indictment dramatically in an effort to save it. So the original indictment you'll probably recall charged a broad ranging conspiracy that essentially tell a whole bunch of different buckets of conduct by Donald Trump, his pressure campaign on Mike Pence, his pressure campaign on the Justice Department, his attempt to pressure state officials, the fake electors scheme.
Well, in this new indictment, which is called a superseding indictment, and now essentially replaces the old indictment, the part about the Justice Department is out, the part about Mike Pence is out, and all we're left with in this superseding indictment is the charges relating to Trump's effort to pressure state and local officials and to submit false slates of electors.
Now, if you're wondering why would Jack Smith pare back, cut back his own case? The answer is because of the U.S. Supreme Court's immunity ruling, which came down in July. And in that ruling, the Supreme Court said that many of the things that Donald Trump did while he's in office, including specifically his interactions with DOJ, some of his public communications, likely his interactions with the vice president, the Supreme Court said, those things are likely going to be immune and therefore out of this case.
And so, Jack Smith has now made a tactical decision. I'm not going to fight the battle to keep those things in the case. I'm going to take them out of the case. I'm going to focus on the pressure that Donald Trump put on state and local officials and the fake elector scheme. And I'm going to try to move ahead with those pieces of the case still in place.
MATTINGLY: Elie, with full disclosure, I have not read this yet. We've been live on air. This sounds the way Katelyn was describing, the way you are describing it, Jack Smith is essentially testing the proposition put forward by Amy Coney Barrett, where there is the official acts are one thing and then there's some middle ground there, there's some gray area there that there could perhaps be a path forward for this case on it?
Is that a fair assessment of things?
HONIG: I think it is, Phil. I think this is a tactical retreat of sorts. I think Jack Smith has made the decision, given the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, I don't want to spend the time and resources to fight for inclusion of those other parts of the case.
And so, what Jack Smith has done is sort of retreat back to the safest ground, to the part that the Supreme Court actually said is probably okay, is probably not immune. They said it's very likely not the job of the president to interact with and pressure state and local officials. And therefore, Jack Smith has said, okay, very well, I'm going to stay with that part of the case. I'm going to build my case around that.
And so I think this is again, a tactical response to the immunity decision, but, Phil, really important to understand, Donald Trump's team is probably not going to even be okay with this. Donald Trump's team is probably going to argue even what's left in the case is immune and they're going to want to litigate that argument in court.
[16:15:02]
And then no matter what, they get to still appeal this up the chain before it goes to trial. So I think this move will expedite the case and expedite the trial. But there is still a zero percent chance at this particular case gets tried in the seven weeks or so between now and Election Day.
MATTINGLY: That was exactly. I think that's the question probably everybody, including both campaigns, including the Trump legal team, wants to know right now is defined expedite. What does that actually mean right now, given the moment were in and the political calendar?
HONIG: So, expedition I guess is in the eye of the beholder. Just so anyone can put aside any thoughts of this, this case will not be tried before Election Day. There is simply no way because in the immunity ruling that came out in July, the U.S. Supreme Court said, Donald Trump has the right to appeal whatever the district court, the trial court finds is in or out of the case.
So, again, this is a big win for Donald Trump. I mean, I think it's a smart tactical move by jack smith. But half of the case or so, maybe more just fell away against Donald Trump.
That said, he's not going to be satisfied. He's still going to argue the whole case should be dismissed. I think that argument will be rejected by the district court, but the Supreme Court said Donald Trump's still can appeal that -- meaning to the D.C. Court of Appeals and then potentially back to the Supreme Court before trial.
So there's no way Phil, that we get through that whole appeals process and still started trial between now and November 5. I mean, that's just not going to happen.
MATTINGLY: All right. Elie Honig, stick with us. We got a lot more to get to on this.
We want to go back to CNN's Katelyn Polantz who's continued digging through this.
Katelyn, what are you seeing right now? What stood out to you as you've had some more time with it?
POLANTZ: Well, Phil, as Elie is saying, one of the things here is that the prosecutors really are trying to refocus this around the private things that Donald Trump was doing, either as a candidate or working with people who were private citizens at the time of the election and after the election. And one of the things that this refocusing of the charges looks like is that it focuses on how Donald Trump was using people in battleground states, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, et cetera, to try and change the electoral votes or deceive the state people, the people in the legislators in those states.
One of the things too that the prosecutors have to do here is they have to be able to show how Donald Trump was doing this. And one way they want to do it is with his Twitter account.
Now, they have to walk a really fine line here. And this is the sort of thing that could very well be adjudicated with the judge, that they're going to need to talk about related to immunity because he was president at the time and they have to right in here. Here's a quote, the defendant Donald Trump, continued to make false claims nonetheless, with deliberate disregard for the truth, including through his Twitter accounts. That's the allegation.
And they say that although he was sometimes using his Twitter account to communicate with the public as president about official actions and policies, he also regularly used it to personal purposes including to spread knowingly false claims of election fraud and try to get his supporters to travel to Washington, D.C.
So, there you see the two sides of the coin that the prosecutors are going to have to have the judge look at and come down on their side, to say, yeah, if we go to trial, we want to be able to use things that Donald Trump tweeted from his account on Twitter while president but we want you to decide that those are personal things he was doing as a candidate and not as the president.
MATTINGLY: OK. Katelyn Polantz, stand by. I do want to bring back in CNN's Kristen Holmes.
Kristen, I guess the biggest question right now is how would Trump and his allies, A, view this in response to it in the minutes, hours, days ahead?
HOLMES: Well, right now, we know the lawyers are going through this document, trying to parse through every word and figure out exactly what this means moving forward.
Now, I think the big question, and this is something that we know has been going on really for months now is what does this mean for a potential trial?
When I talk to his advisors, when I talked to his legal advisors as well, the biggest concern among all of his legal cases, obviously, except for the one that was actually brought to trial, but among the other three was about this January 6th case and whether or not the judge would bring this ahead of the election, as we have routinely reported, Donald Trump's team and their strategy was to delay as much as they possibly could all of these legal matters until beyond the election, particularly the documents case, which has now been thrown out.
I know there has been pushed back on that, but as well as this January 6th case because the idea being Donald Trump then would win the election and could get rid of these cases as they would be brought in his Department of Justice.
Obviously, a lot of things will have to happen for that to happen. Donald Trump would actually have to win the election. And these cases would have to be delayed past that.
Now, obviously, in terms of the documents case, that's not happening before. There's going to be no trial or anything before the election. But the biggest concern on this January 6th case, the judge has said she wants to move quickly on it. The question now is what are the next steps the lawyers are going to
take to try and ensure that there is nothing that happens on this case in terms of a trial before that November 5th election.
[16:20:10]
Because again, that has always been their biggest concern was that they might have to face this before voters actually cast their ballots.
Now I will tell you from speaking to a number of his advisors, legal advisors, they don't think that there's anything that can happen in terms of a trial before the election at this point, that things have just been delayed so far back, but that doesn't mean that they are 100 percent certain about that. So as they go through this, we are waiting for a formal response from both the legal team and from the political team, often they are one. We will see who puts out the actual statement, but the concern has always been what does this mean for a potential trial ahead of November 5th.
MATTINGLY: All right. Kristen Homes, I let you get back on the phone to your sources, we wait for an official response from one side or the other, the minutes and hours ahead.
Let's go back to CNN's Katelyn Polantz.
Katelyn, as you kind of walk through this, and I was struck in listening to Kristen kind of walk through, you think about the documents case down in Florida, which was dismissed, has now been appealed. We don't really know where that standing, but it's clearly not moving forward in an expedited fashion. There's this case as well.
We obviously are still waiting for the sentencing, which has been postponed in New York on the felony charges the president was convicted, former president was convicted of. Fulton County still has its case as well.
As you continue to go through this, what more are you learning?
POLANTZ: Phil, there is a fascinating part of this superseding indictment that was a big question. How much if the Justice Department wanted to move forward with this case, how much would it still revolve around Mike Pence, the vice president?
This was something that the Supreme Court did not give a clear answer on and basically said the lower courts were going to have to figure out how much of the interactions between Donald Trump is president and Vice President Mike Pence at the time would be falling under immunity, something that could very well end up back at the Supreme Court. And from what I'm seeing here on these pages, there are several pages that document, Donald Trump's interactions with vice president Mike Pence as part of the key allegations in bringing these charges against Trump and continuing them on.
That means they want Pence to stay part of this case, and they very likely want him to stay a potential witness in this case. The way that they're trying to walk this line is there articulating dates when Donald Trump and Mike Pence either met in in-person or had conversations about what Pence was to do as president of the Senate. So a different branch of government, than what Trump and Pence were doing as president and vice president.
And so they're very likely going to be putting that before, not just Judge Chutkan in the near future, but also very likely appeals courts, even potentially the Supreme Court ultimately, on this question what Mike Pence and Donald Trump talked about every time Trump was berating him, turning the conversation with him to January 6, telling him what he wanted him to do to block the certification of the electoral college votes when Pence would preside over the Senate session.
All of that is very like play going to be something the prosecutors are going to fight to keep in this case. And Donald Trump's team is going to try and argue, we don't want Pence here at all.
MATTINGLY: Kaitlan, real quick? I know you still have a lot more to go through, but essentially, there was and I'm going to shorthand here and I know were probably going to have Joan Biskupic, our Supreme Court expert on a little bit, who will explain this any much more elegant way than I can. But there was a road map laid out on unofficial acts, non presidential acts, if you will, by the Supreme Court that Jack Smith and his team could try and follow, which would essentially lead to challenge accepted. Here are the things that we're now going to put up, and you can tell us whether or not judges here or there, whether or not these are official or unofficial acts.
And that's essentially what's happening here, right?
POLANTZ: Yeah. And one of the things that the Supreme Court said was they were very clear if Donald Trump was giving orders to somebody beneath him in the administration that can't be part of the case that gets protected.
And that is what they clearly cut out here, that this is the discussions between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Clark at the Justice Department, pressuring him to go to Georgia or to pressure -- put pressure inside the Justice Department.
But that's something that was easily removed apparently the Supreme Court was not as clear about what to do with all of these interactions between the president and the vice president. And then on top of that, the Supreme Court ruling said, you're going to have a hard time using some of this stuff is evidence in a case, too. Maybe you can cut it out of the formal pieces of what you can charge, but they also are expanding what they said and said we don't want some of these things that could be immune at trial.
[16:25:00]
Now, the Justice Department, that is -- has always been something since that Supreme Court immunity came down where people have wondered, how would they take case like this to trial? Would they even be able to get the witnesses and the evidence that they wanted into a court before a jury if they do take Donald Trump to trial? And it does look like they're going for it.
They're going to want and they're going to need to have someone like Mike Pence on the stand, not just people around Donald Trump in his campaign or in state governments, state electors, fake electors that they do want Pence and the interactions there to be documented before that jury. That is something that is very likely going to have to be looked at by the courts again, once, maybe twice, maybe three times, or more. Who knows, Phil?
MATTINGLY: Yeah. Maybe even more than that. It has been the central questions since the immunity ruling as it relates to this case is, how is Jack Smith and his team going to try and reshape this in a way that they think would work? How far are they willing to go trying to push kind of the levels of ambiguity involved in that decision? We now have our answer.
Katelyn Polantz, we're going to continue to go through this. Keep telling us when you have great new information.
We do have much more on this breaking news ahead, including new statement from the special counsel's team and reaction from my panel standing by watching this break with us throughout the course of the last 20 minutes.
Stick with us. We got much more to come.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:30:25]
MATTINGLY: And we are back with our breaking news.
Former President Donald Trump has just been hit with a new superseding indictment in the federal election subversion case. Special Counsel Jack Smith, filing this today, slimming down the allegations against Trump in light of the Supreme Courts ruling on presidential immunity.
The statement from Smith's office said, quote, today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment charging the defendant with the same criminal offenses that were charged in the original indictment.
Let's bring in our panel.
Nia, we're all trying to digest this and figure this out. And I want to be very transparent about that on some level.
This from a political perspective seem to be kind of in the rearview mirror for the Trump campaign.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah.
MATTINGLY: Elie Honig said, there's probably not going to be a trial.
HENDERSON: Right.
MATTINGLY: But this certainly brings things back front and center.
HENDERSON: That's right. It brings back the bad old days of Donald Trump, right? What was he doing in the final days of his presidency? He was trying to overturn a free and fair election, right? This does not play well with those voters who don't like Donald Trump, but it also doesn't play well with the voters who are sort of the Trump to Biden voters who turned against Trump because of his behavior, goes to sort of character issues. It goes to democracy issues.
It also goes to this idea, and you heard this in Kamala Harris's speech, this idea of if Trump assumes the presidency again, what would a Donald Trump without guardrails be like? What would this immunity ruling mean for a second term of Donald Trump?
So I think anything that's sort of a reminder that maybe Trump's time in office wasn't about of a chicken in every pot, which is what Republicans like to frame it is, is just not good particularly with these independent and swing voters.
MATTINGLY: Shermichael, the flip side of that is, every time this happened to the former president prior, he raised a ton of money.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
MATTINGLY: They co -- the Republicans coalesce behind him. What happens now?
SINGLETON: But I think they're going to do the same thing. I imagined the former president will probably post something on Truth Social, maybe even X, saying this is election interference by Democrats, and Joe Biden's justice department. I think were all used to that language at this point.
On the reverse, I think Vice President Harris and Democrats would probably make the case this is why Trump can't go back to the White House to Nia's point.
Overall, though, I'm not exactly certain, Phil, that this will move the needle one way or the other. You start at the top of the show talking about the number one issue being the economy and everything else been 67 percentage points behind if Trump can stick to that message and not become distracted by this, if Republicans will be in a good position.
MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: If doing a lot of work in, for sure -- I mean, look, there are not a lot of non-lawyers out there who know what a superseding indictment is, but that doesn't mean that that this is going to be something that they're going to ignore because Trump can't help himself. He's going to be talking about this. He's going to kind of rehash his grievances.
And that's not something that even and his supporters like. They want to know, what are we going to do next? What's your plan going forward? Not keep giving me the old hits. I want to know if you're coming out with a new album. And he keeps going back to the well. And the other thing true, too, when we talk about the immunity piece and I know he didn't get all of this in court, but when -- in focus groups, you say that Trump argue that he should have immunity even in cases of murder, which is what they argued. People are shocked.
And so, if we are having that conversation again, it's just going to remind people something that is very core to Trump's brand. He thinks he's above the law. No one should be above the law, not even a president, that's what voters uniformly agree.
And so I don't think this is going to be good for keeping him focus and not being distracted.
MATTINGLY: OK. So, put a pin in the politics for a second because I named check to you, when this was all breaking -- I'm very hopeful. Joan Biskupic set and can explain this to everybody. What's your read of this?
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: This is a very big deal. It's an attempt by Jack Smith, special counsel to regain this case after the Supreme Court on July 1st, essentially diminished the hand he had, made it look almost impossible that he was going to be able to proceed here.
As you remember, you know, we had the dissenters saying that you've completely put former President Donald Trump above the law. Even one of the justices in majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, an appointee of Donald Trump, said the way the majority at handled this opinion, it made it hard to go forward because the majority essentially didn't give a real game plan to, for the trial judge to figure out what would be official acts that could be shielded and immune from criminal prosecution. And what would be acts of candidate Trump? That wouldn't be criminally liable here.
And what Jack Smith has done is sort of create his own roadmap here.
[16:35:02]
He's tried to rewrite the charges that he had originally -- that originally had come down to divide them between candidate Trump and former President Trump, and to already take out things to kind of get a jump.
I think this could be a very effective move. Now, we all know we're not going to have a trial before the election no matter what, just because of the way things are going. But this at least reframes things. And acknowledges that the Supreme Court has reached at the terms and tries to go forward on the Supreme Courts terms.
I think it's a way for Jack Smith to kind of take back the case, even though so much of this and other cases are bound to be back at the Supreme Court at different points.
MATTINGLY: Okay. Everybody, stick around. We are continuing to get new updates. Much more on this breaking news, Donald Trump hit with a new indictment, a superseding indictment. A former Trump Organization lawyer will join me, next.
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MATTINGLY: We are back with our breaking news coverage. Moments ago, special counsel Jack Smith just filed a superseding indictment in the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
Let's bring in criminal defense attorney Bill Brennan, former lawyer for Trump Organization.
[16:40:01]
Elie Honig joins us as well.
Bill, to start with you. What do you make of the decision to move forward with these slimmed down charges in this superseding indictment?
WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, FORMER TRUMP PAYROLL CORP. ATTORNEY: Hello, Phil, Elie. How are you?
Phil, it's not uncommon for a prosecutor to do this. It's actually a smart move with the trouble that he's having with the now former, but as of an hour ago, current indictment, he now supersedes, he streamlines and he tries to take that indictment further.
I mean, it really is a smart move on Jack Smith's part. Whether it will survive is unclear right now, but it is a slick move.
MATTINGLY: To that point, how do you think Trump world would react to this now that it's out?
BRENNAN: I think that the former president's lawyers are all very competent, will file a motion saying we basically got the same old indictment shined up reportedly as something new, that this case has been a ruled on already, that this shouldn't change anything. And it really probably will come down to whether or not what's remaining in the superseding indictment is outside the perimeters, you know, the heartland of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on presidential immunity.
I mean, that's really where the rubber hits the road here. If there are charges that bring in presidential immunity, it's going to be a problem for Mr. Smith if there are charges that don't go into that territory, then he may survive.
MATTINGLY: You know, Elie, to that point, is this just inevitable that this case ends up back at the Supreme Court on some of those questions? I think it is inevitable, Phil, and here's what's going to happen from here.
As Bill said, what we have here now is a superseding indictment. So it replaces the original indictment, the original indictment was about 45 pages. This new one is about 36 pages.
And what DOJ has done is take out those items that the Supreme Court specified are now clearly covered by the immunity ruling. Most obviously, the allegations that were in the original indictment relating to Trump's effort to pressure DOJ. Those are gone. Those are essentially deleted out of the new indictment. The allegations relating to Mike Pence remained in the new indictment. They're changed a little bit as Kaitlan said before there's sort of more focused on his role as president of the Senate than his role as vice president.
But here's what's going to happen next. They're going to go into court within the next few weeks. Donald Trump's team is going to say, great, they got rid of the DOJ stuff. We agree with that, but we also think everything that's still in the indictment should be immune as well.
Judge Chutkan will make a decision. If Donald Trump loses that, he'll appeal to the court of appeals. And then if he loses that, he'll try to get it back to the Supreme Court.
MATTINGLY: All right. Elie Honig, Bill Brennan, appreciate it in this breaking news moment. Thanks so much.
CNN has brand new reporting on how Trump's defense team is reacting to this new indictment. That's next.
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[16:47:15]
MATTINGLY: Back to our breaking news this hour, a new superseding indictment against former President Donald Trump in the federal election subversion case. Special counsel Jack Smith filing a slimmed- down version of the charges after the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity dismantle parts of the original case.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz is back with us now.
Katelyn, you have new reporting on how Trump's defense team is reacting. What are you hearing?
POLANTZ: Yeah, Phil, I did speak to a source that has some ability to have insight into what that defense team is thinking right now. They were expecting a rewriting of the charges against Donald Trump like this, following that Supreme Court opinion around presidential immunity.
So, not a surprise there. However, the timing -- that's a surprise. There was an expectation it might come later in the fall, especially after there is a deadline on Friday in a hearing set for next week in this case to figure out the path forward. The fact that it's coming before those things happen, that was a surprise.
The other thing is that Donald Trump's defense team didn't get a heads up from the special counsel that they were going back to the grand jury in federal court in Washington, D.C. today to approve this new set of allegations and the rewritten charges, even so with this here, before them, it's something that the defense team is going to be able to look at, demand more about what was said to the grand jury in Washington, D.C.'s federal court as they were looking at the rewritten charges and asked to approve them.
So more evidence potentially to go forward to the case and then also, there may be a lot to contest here still in court that the defense team can try -- Phil.
MATTINGLY: All right. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.
We are back next with our panel on what they see as the most critical takeaways from this surprising breaking news.
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[16:53:12]
MATTINGLY: We are back with our breaking news, just 70 days from the election, former President Donald Trump has been hit with a new superseding indictment in special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case.
Our panel is back to discuss.
Joan Biskupic, to you first. What's the biggest thing you've taken from this new indictment?
BISKUPIC: Well, just to bring us back to July 1st, when the Supreme Court ruled it did two things. First of all, it said there was a presumptive, if not absolute immunity for the former president, for his official acts. It also very broadly defined what would be an official act that could be shielded.
What Jack Smith has done in this new -- this new document is to try to narrow that idea of what's official and brought on what candidate Trump would have done.
Here are some examples. He stresses that the January 6 rally that led to the attack on the capital, that that was a candidate Trump doing that, he was in no way in an official capacity. Twitter statements that, you know, involve misstatements about the election in a private capacity, his dealings with then Vice President Pence for the certification of the election on January 6.
The new indictments stresses that those were part of ceremonial, not executive branch actions of the former vice president. So, that would also be liable what Trump did with the Vice President Pence.
MATTINGLY: All right. Well, I know it's too early to have a definitive conclusion. That's exactly I'm going to ask you all for a lightning round.
Will this indictment matter to voters? You talked to 'em?
OMERO: Well, there are certainly some voters who justifiably are mad that there is a president -- the only president we've had in our history, who is a convicted felon. And bringing this up is just going to remind them of that.
They're going to be some voters who connect to the election differently, and maybe the topic we thought were going to talk about today, what's Taylor Swift going to do.
(LAUGHTER)
[16:55:04]
MATTINGLY: That's good.
SINGLETON: It will matter to some, but overall no, because as James Carville said in the early '90s, is still the economy, stupid. Most Americans think the country has gone wrong direction. Pew Research, 81 percent says a gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to expand. That's still a strong area for the former president.
HENDERSON: There's a poll out today that shows that Kamala Harris is actually narrowing the gap on the economy. I expect that to continue. She obviously talked about the economy at the DNC, has a new ad out.
So, all of this other stuff that sort of messing drama of Trump, I think it will matter going forward as -- as voters think about what it would mean to have another Trump presidency.
Those were all really smart points. It's very impressive from our lightning round. Thank you guys very much for hanging out. I know it's been a bit of a wild hour.
We're back with more on our breaking news in a moment.
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MATTINGLY: We're the following the breaking news this hour, a brand new indictment against Donald Trump from special counsel Jack Smith, a reworked, superseding indictment in the 2020 election interference case.
The indictment doesn't drop any of the four charges initially brought against Trump. But it does carve-outs some of the alleged conduct. We are standing by for reaction from the Trump campaign and the former president himself.
Stay with CNN throughout the hours ahead for coverage of it all starting the Situation Room, which starts right now.
