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Republican Presidential Candidates to Speak at Key Iowa Dinner; Trump Facing New Charges in Documents Case. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 28, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: New charges a new defendant, and new accusations that Donald Trump wanted potential evidence deleted, the former president now facing additional serious charges, including trying to alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence in the classified documents case. We have the latest details.

Plus, we will take you on the campaign trail, Trump's legal battles on a collision course with the 2024 election. And it's a major day for Republicans in Iowa. In just a few hours, the Republican candidates you see on your screen are going to make their case to voters. So, will Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party weaken?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And get an ambulance here now. A 911 call captures the moment after LeBron James' son Bronny suffered cardiac arrest during basketball practice.

We are following these developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: New charges and stunning new details coming to light in Donald Trump's classified documents case, the special counsel now charging the former president with three new counts, including one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional counts of obstruction.

Prosecutors say that Trump, along with two employees, tried to alter, mutilate and conceal evidence. Longtime aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira allegedly tried to delete security camera footage at Donald Trump's request.

De Oliveira has now been added to the case as a defendant. And prosecutors argue that he told the I.T. director at Mar-a-Lago that -- quote -- "The boss wanted the server deleted."

Trump is now also facing an additional charge for willfully retaining a top secret document about potential attack plans on Iran. That's the document that Trump allegedly was waving around and discussing with biographers during a taped meeting at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, all this as charges could come at any time in the special counsel's other investigation of Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And then there's this new, CNN video showing security barricades

placed outside the Fulton County, Georgia, courthouse in downtown Atlanta. A charging decision against Trump and his allies over election interference is expected there just days from now.

Let's discuss this and more with CNN's Evan Perez and Alayna Treene.

Evan, let's start with you.

What more do we know about this superseding indictment and the details in it?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know the former president is now facing three new charges. There's a 32nd document that has been added to the list of documents that he's alleged to have been willfully retaining, which is against the law.

But we will read you just a part of the -- what prosecutors lay out here. So it's sort of like this very, very detailed picture of the former president and his two employees that they say were conspiring to try to delete, to try to delete surveillance footage after the FBI, after the Justice Department had requested access to that footage, which they knew had a clear view of the storage room where all those top classified documents were being stored.

There is a part of it where De Oliveira is talking to a member of the I.T. team, and he wants the -- wants to know whether they can delete the footage. And he says -- De Oliveira, according to prosecutors, says -- De Oliveira then insisted to the Trump employee that the boss wanted the server deleted. And then he asked: 'What are we going to do?'"

The prosecutors really lay out chapter and verse. They seem to have a lot of information, perhaps from other witnesses, perhaps some of the footage that they have, of De Oliveira and Walt Nauta and some of these other people discussing how to delete the stuff and also how to keep De Oliveira on the team, to make sure that he doesn't turn against the former president.

SANCHEZ: Yes, there was questions about his loyalty.

Nauta, apparently on a group chat with other Mar-a-Lago employees questioning, whether he was loyal or not, and then, according to the prosecutors, just hours later, Trump reaching out to De Oliveira and saying: Hey, I will pay for your attorney.

[13:05:00]

That's astounding.

PEREZ: Right.

They -- the prosecutors detail a 24-minute conversation. Again, this is the former president of the United States talking to his maintenance guy, the guy who's running the property there down there in Mar-a-Lago. I'm not sure how often those kinds of conversations happen, but, certainly, prosecutors seemed to highlight that as an example of an indication of what the former president was trying to orchestrate with his employees there at Mar-a-Lago.

SANCHEZ: And, Alayna, again, Trump attacking the special counsel over the superseding indictment, much like he did for the previous indictment.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. Right.

Well, I think, first of all, just to point out that Donald Trump's team was very surprised by this yesterday. Remember, his lawyers met yesterday with the special counsel in D.C., and they were spending most of yesterday waiting for a potential indictment in the January 6 case, not relating to the Mar-a-Lago case or the classified documents.

And so this really caught Trump off guard, and he's very frustrated by this, I'm told by many of his aides and allies and advisers. But, publicly, you're right, he's still using the same playbook that we have seen him use time and time again when talking about his mounting legal troubles. He had an interview last night with Breitbart where he railed against these charges.

He called it election interference, that he's the target of political persecution, and also directly attacked special counsel Jack Smith. Let's listen to that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: What is your response to it?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just heard it as I'm sitting down.

This is harassment. This is election interference. I wouldn't keep him.

QUESTION: OK.

TRUMP: Jack Smith, why would I keep him? He is deranged. Look, he's gone after other people, been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court. He's destroyed a lot of lives.

What he's -- what he's done is just horrible, and the abuse of power. It's prosecutorial misconduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, really interesting there.

He mentioned that, if he's elected president in 2024, he would fire Jack Smith. I also think a notable thing from that interview last night was, he talked about how this is helping his poll numbers and how he's getting a political boost from a lot of these charges.

And he also -- he spoke with FOX News last night as well and said that he wants Republicans to do something about this. And, clearly, you're seeing a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill, people like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, coming to his aid, trying to rally people around him.

And I think you're going to continue to see Donald Trump use these comments. He will be in Iowa tonight. He's going to be in Erie, Pennsylvania, tomorrow to hosting a rally. I will be there. And I think you can expect him to use this -- these same types of attacks in his public remarks.

SANCHEZ: Yes, blending the legal battle with the political campaign, as he has done in the past.

PEREZ: It's one strategy.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

PEREZ: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Definitely.

Alayna Treene, we look forward to your reporting from that event.

TREENE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Evan, we look forward to more reporting coming potentially at any moment.

PEREZ: At any moment.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, let's dig down on the legal aspects here.

Senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, good to have you both here.

Two essential elements of these -- this new superseding indictment, one, an alleged effort to delete evidence of a potential crime, and, two, some more details about this highly classified document he allegedly waved in front of people without security clearance.

Paula, first, on the specific evidence, or at least the implication here, that he, in conjunction with one of his aides, tried to delete video surveillance footage showing that they were presumably trying to get rid of some of these documents here, what's the significance and what do we know, based on what we learned last night?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's being charged here with trying to obstruct his own obstruction.

The surveillance footage is key for prosecutors, because that footage shows these boxes moving around the Mar-a-Lago property at key times during this investigation. It's really at the heart of prosecutors' case. Who do you see on their surveillance footage? Well, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

And the big question was, well, who was directing them to move these boxes, particularly one instance on this surveillance footage where they moved them out of a storage closet right before Trump's own lawyer went in there to look for classified documents?

So the fact that not only is the former president being accused of trying to, again, obstruct his own obstruction. He also has a new co- defendant. And that's significant because it raises the possibility that the government could possibly get a cooperating witness here. There's been a lot of pressure on Carlos, just like there was on Walt Nauta, to cooperate with the government.

So far, both of them have refused to do that. They both have lawyers who are paid for by a Trump-affiliated political action committee, and one of Trump's biggest tasks over the next year, not only is he trying to get back in the White House, but he's got to keep these two in the fold.

SCIUTTO: Andrew McCabe, the other piece here is, there's been a lot of discussion for some time about whether Trump was waving a highly classified document about Iran war plans in front of folks without a security clearance.

[13:10:00]

He claims he was just waving some sort of news article here. Now we have something added, in effect, to the indictment against him. What would be required to add this to the indictment here? What do you -- would the special counsel need someone in the room to have said, yes, I saw him waving the document, by the way, that was a classified document?

Based on what you can see -- and, again you don't know exactly what evidence this has, but what would be the standard to add that to the indictment?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So there's a couple of things, Jim. First, they'd have to find it. It's clear that they did find -- they did find it in their possession. They have now added it to the indictment.

Interestingly enough, they have described this document as having been in Trump's possession until January of 2022, which is also the time he returned 15 boxes' worth of material back to the federal government. So it's likely that they found this document in those 15 boxes.

Second, they'd have to get the intelligence community to approve the use of this document in the public prosecution, this procedure. It appears that they have now secured that approval. And, finally, you have to authenticate it by having someone, a witness who was there in the room, identify the document.

So they likely have a witness who saw this document, then was shown the document by prosecutors, and said, yes, this is the document that I saw in his hand.It really closes the circle on this episode, and turns it into a very, very daunting thing for Trump to try to defend against.

SCIUTTO: Big picture, the superseding indictment, how much more serious does it make the collection of charges against Donald Trump just in the classified documents case?

MCCABE: So I don't think you can overstate how much worse this indictment is for Trump now, and for two reasons, one, the document and the charge that we were just discussing.

That is a really devastating charge because of the audiotape that they will play in front of the jury and the visceral nature of having witnesses. But, more importantly, number two, charging Trump with actively being engaged in the effort to suppress or destroy or conceal the videotapes shows a level of guilty knowledge.

People don't actively, personally get involved in obstructing, destroying evidence in an investigation of them unless they know that that evidence is likely to lead to their conviction of a crime.

SCIUTTO: Right.

MCCABE: So, in addition to being a charge, in and of itself, it brings the specter of guilty knowledge to the prosecution, and that is -- that's devastating.

SCIUTTO: Paula, in the indictment, it suggests at least that this third now defendant in this case, Oliveira, said -- quote -- "the boss" told him to get the security footage deleted.

How exactly do we know that?

REID: Well, this comes from conversations, texts and Signal conversations exchanged between multiple employees at the Trump organizations.

Now, this is Mar-a-Lago in particular, but there were also conversations between employees at Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Organization in New York. So, much of what they know about these conversations comes from that evidence. There have been questions about exactly how, for example, who forgot to wipe their Signal messages and things like that.

We know that, for example, Carlos' phone was seized by investigators, and there are other people who have sat down and answered questions. At this point, though, it's unclear exactly how they obtained all of these text messages.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

Well, not the indictment many were expecting yesterday, but significant nonetheless.

Paula Reid, Andrew McCabe, thanks so much to both of you -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Trump's legal troubles are not getting in the way of a key event on the campaign trail today, Republican candidates gathering in Iowa.

The big question, who can break through the Trump noise? Can anyone? We're live in Des Moines after a quick break. And President Biden making his own pitch for reelection in just minutes. He's touting Bidenomics, keeping the focus on the economy. We're going to monitor those remarks and bring you the highlights.

And more proof of just how extreme the heat is outside right now. Even the hardy cacti in Arizona, they're dying.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just moments.

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[13:18:27]

SCIUTTO: It could be a pivotal day in the Republican primary race.

Front-runner Donald Trump and several other candidates will swing through the first caucus state of Iowa to speak at an important annual GOP dinner, the Lincoln Dinner. It will be Trump's first appearance since getting hit with new federal charges in the classified documents case.

It will also mark the first time he shares the stage with rival Ron DeSantis, at this Iowa event.

CNN's Jessica Dean, she is in Des Moines.

And, Jessica, I wonder, given these new charges here, is anyone going to directly challenge Trump and his positions, particularly with -- position on his classified documents case, particularly with what we learned last night?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the big question, Jim. And we just simply don't know until they show up on that stage.

But what we do know is, on the trail, we have not really heard anyone going directly after him on that specific issue. I talked to a number of voters yesterday. They're very focused on who can beat Joe Biden in 2024. The word indictment did not come up a lot. There is Trump fatigue, that's for sure.

But they're trying to figure out who can win. And if it's Trump, they seem open to that possibility. Governor Ron DeSantis is in the middle of a campaign reset. He's here on a bus tour in rural Iowa. He had several stops yesterday, more stops today. He did talk a little bit about taking on the former president, but not on the stump, only when asked about it by the media.

It's kind of that delicate thread that -- the needle he has to thread. It's tough because he has all of these voters that likely voted for Trump in the last two elections that he wants to convince he's the better option this time.

[13:20:03]

We have a little clip of him talking about that yesterday. listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In Florida, he won by three. I won by 20. We're winning independent voters by double digits.

And that's really the formula that you need to be able to beat Biden and to be able to beat the Democrats. We're not getting a mulligan on 2024. You either go, you get the job done, or you don't. And so I will get the job done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And, Jim, that's what we're hearing more and more from Governor DeSantis is his pitch to voters on electability, that he can win in 2024, based on what he did in Florida, as a blueprint for what he could do across the country in a general election.

But the fact remains that the former president continues to have a very stronghold over this Republican presidential primary, despite everything that's going on.

SCIUTTO: Jessica, there's been a lot of talk about DeSantis for some time. He hasn't delivered on those expectations. But there are a lot of other candidates in this race, as you know, sitting senators, current and former governors, folks with some national profile.

As you have been speaking to voters there, is there any one of the other challenges that's getting talked about?

DEAN: I think there's certainly -- the voters seem certainly open to seeing all of these people.

Senator Tim Scott's name has come up, Nikki Haley. Different names come up. It's about going and seeing them and kind of ascertaining for themselves who they think can take on President Biden in 2024. And that's why events like tonight are so important, especially for everybody not named Donald Trump, because, in this crowded field, they're all looking for that breakout lane.

They're all trying to find whatever the edge might be. I actually obtained a memo from the super PAC that is supporting former Vice President Mike Pence, and they were talking about how what's happening with DeSantis' campaign could present an opportunity for them, that they -- he wants to take a more aggressive stance in the coming days -- or coming weeks, rather, leading up to the debate -- the debate.

And he hasn't yet qualified to be on the debate stage. So there's so many of these candidates looking for what that edge could potentially be. That's why tonight is important. Some of them have higher name identification than others, but really pitching themselves to voters.

But what happens, Jim, and what could happen tonight, we're going to see, we're now going to see the former president come into town with all of this news about his legal issues surrounding him. It'll be the first time that we're seeing him in public since all of this happened in the last 24 hours.

And the question for these other candidates is, can they draw the attention of the voters, or will Donald Trump suck up the oxygen in the room? And how do they deal with that? It actually is kind of fascinating, and we're going to watch it play out in real time tonight.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And if there's any lesson of previous cycles, it's that prepare yourself for surprises.

Jessica Dean in Des Moines, Iowa, thanks so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Let's expand the conversation now with CNN political analyst and White House correspondent for "PBS NewsHour" Laura Barron-Lopez and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Alice Stewart.

Alice, under normal circumstances, if you're talking about a candidate that's been indicted twice, a potential third, maybe even a fourth indictment looming, accused of endangering national security by mishandling classified documents, accused of obstruction of justice, that would be a slam dunk. And yet it seems like more Republicans are supporting Donald Trump at this point in the race.

Why do so many Republican voters stick with him?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you said under normal circumstances.

Normal circumstances, that person would be gone and out of the out of the race, and would do so voluntarily, if not being forced out by others. But the reality is, what Donald Trump says is what his base beliefs. They are not looking at the facts and the substance of any of these indictments, none of them. They don't care what is in them or the volume of them or if there comes one every day until the Iowa caucuses.

They're not concerned about that. They are looking at this more as a weaponization of the DOJ. They say Jack Smith has it out for Donald Trump. And they truly believe that Donald Trump is a victim of the justice system, and that there's a two-tiered justice system and it's going after Donald Trump.

And no matter how any rational person cannot see it that way, that's what they believe, and they're going to continue to stand by him. The problem is, there are other people that actually look at the substance of this and look at the concerns of trying to overturn an election, mishandling of classified documents, and the whole litany of indictments, and they're realizing, we don't need a nominee for our party that is going to be tied up in the courtroom.

We want someone out in the cornfields of Iowa talking about issues that are important to us. And so many people in Iowa tonight and moving forward are looking for that alternative that is going to fight for them and not for their own past grievances.

SANCHEZ: The concern for those voters is whether what works in the primary will work in the general election, right?

One thing that is really stunning, Laura, isn't just Trump's resilience among those voters. It's also his resilience with so many Republican lawmakers, especially on Capitol Hill, whose lives he put it risk by sending his supporters to the Capitol on January 6. They're sticking with him.

[13:25:05]

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: A number -- a lot of House Republicans actually are sticking with him. I'd say more of House Republicans than Senate Republicans.

But, even so, you don't hear a lot of Senate Republicans out there hammering the former president or encouraging other candidates to really break from him. And part of why voters view these indictments as a weaponization of the government is because the former president continually attacks the justice system that way, but also the other candidates.

You have seen Ron DeSantis, you have seen Tim Scott and others question what the Justice Department is doing. And that feeds that among the GOP voters, which, still, about six in 10 Republican voters believe that the 2020 election was stolen, because that's what Republicans are making a lot of this election about.

SANCHEZ: Right, to Alice's point about a rational person not totally ascribing to the same set of facts, right?

So, Alice, if you are strategizing with these other Republican candidates, for example, at tonight's big dinner in Iowa, how are you suggesting to them that they not only take on Trump, but then court his voters who are so dedicated to him?

STEWART: Look, there are people that aren't supportive of Trump, and they're not going anywhere. There are other Republicans that are not supportive and they're looking for an alternative.

They are not going to lose any sleep or not support someone if you directly attack Donald Trump, because they feel the same way. My recommendation, having been on a campaign against Donald Trump, is, you have to go right at him and you have to call a spade a spade. We're going to get that tonight from Chris Christie. I would assume Asa Hutchinson will do the same.

I have talked with other campaigns. They're going to focus more on issues that are important to Iowa. Vivek Ramaswamy's team says he's going to focus on the economy, DeSantis looking at the more optimistic vision for the campaign and this country, and, Tim Scott, a new visionary outlook for the future.

But Republican voters in Iowa, speaking with leaders and evangelical and party leaders, they're looking at the long game. They're not looking at who's the best to win the Iowa caucus. They're looking at who can win the general election. And Iowa has the distinct responsibility not just to pick the party's nominee, but to winnow the field to who is the best candidate to win in the general election.

And that's what many of them are looking for, and, hopefully, more Republicans as we head into these early states -- I will tell you, the person I feel sorry for tonight at this dinner -- each candidate has 10 minutes to speak. I feel sorry for the one who has to turn off the mic on Donald Trump, because he's going to keep on talking.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: They're not going to have a good time, I bet.

Speaking of Iowa setting the tone and the early tone in a primary season, Laura, Ron DeSantis has now been trying to change the tone of his campaign for at least a couple of weeks, talking about a reboot, getting rid of more than a third of his staff. What does he need to do to distinguish himself?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, I was just talking to Republican strategist about this who says that, when DeSantis is going places, his events are very small and he's not getting that many -- that big of a draw to these places, compared to Trump, and that he's also surrounded more by Floridians than he is by any of the local state Republicans, which could be a problem for him when he's trying to win voters.

Also, I think, speaking to what Alice and I have been talking about, which is that he's not going directly at Trump. He will occasionally sometimes take a small punch at the former president, and then he steps back. He also waffles on some of his policies. We saw that recently when he said he would put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the CDC and then, a few days later said, never mind, I wouldn't do that.

And so it feels as though he still is desperately trying to figure out what exactly he can say that will bring the Trump voters to his side, because, no matter what, there are a set of Republican voters that Alice is talking about that certainly want a totally different nominee.

But in order to win the primary states, you have to get a big chunk of those Trump voters. And we see that DeSantis is trying to figure out the way to do that, and not doing it very well.

STEWART: And tonight's dinner will be a unique opportunity, because Donald Trump doesn't normally like to share the stage or the room with other candidates. And he's doing so tonight.

So any of these chances these candidates may take to punch Donald Trump, they're going to get booed. And that will be a headline tomorrow if they do that. So they're going to -- that will be a difficult balancing act for them to do, because that will be the result of it.

SANCHEZ: It's going to be a risk.

STEWART: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Alice Stewart, Laura Barron-Lopez, thanks so much for the conversation. Appreciate it -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, peak heat? We hope. The sweltering temperatures baking the Northeast could be at their worst today, 150 million Americans impacted. When is it going to get better? We're going to let you know.

And the show won't go on. The Emmys are postponed, as actors and writers remain on the picket line.

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