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Trump's Rivals To Face Off Without Him At First GOP Debate; New Video Shows Raid On Kansas Newspaper Owner's Home; Mark Meadows Files Emergency Order To Avoid Arrest In Fulton County; Sheriff's Staff Threatened Ahead Of Trump Surrender; Trump Expected To Surrender Thursday In Georgia. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 22, 2023 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: So do you basically have to choose and move forward. You can't try that path.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: I think you can go after Trump but there's a very skillful and meticulous way you've to do it, with a scalpel, not with a sledgehammer. You know, Chris Christie, I think he's standing out and he's getting, you know, a lot of support. Particularly from people who aren't going to vote in the Republican primaries. But that's not the way to do it.

And DeSantis, who talked about listless vessels the other day. You're never helped by insulting the potential voters. I think what you do is to make the case that Trump can't win. That Trump carries too much baggage. That he's too concerned with the past and not with the future. Having said that, everybody's done it and he leads by 46 points.

So you know, I'm not sure at this point there's any way to break through and beat Donald Trump. And maybe the only person who can is Donald Trump.

SCIUTTO: Quickly, you've moderated debates before, including on Fox. A key question you would ask.

WALLACE: Well, I think the first thing you got to ask is, who won the 2020 debate? And secondly, you got to ask, what happened on January 6th? And if people aren't willing to answer those two questions truthfully, I don't see how they ever beat Donald Trump. I understand there are a lot of people in the Republican Party who, voters who feel, who go with Trump on all that. But unless you're willing to kind of stand up and say, here's the truth. And more importantly focus and say, we've to stop talking about 2020. Let's talk about your future in 2024. You're just not going to win.

SCIUTTO: Let's see if that question gets asked or answered. Chris Wallace, thanks so much.

After the debate, get the critical context and political analysis you need. Anderson Cooper and Dana Bash, they host the Republican presidential debate -- post debate analysis. Live tomorrow night, 11:00 p.m. Eastern time right here on CNN -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Up next, new video shows police searching the home of the 98-year-old co-owner of a Kansas newspaper. Why her son believes the stress from that raid actually contributed to her death the very next day.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're seeing new security video posted by that small Kansas newspaper we told about last week that was raided by police. This is it. This is inside the home of the Marion County Record's, 98-year-old co-owner, the mother of the editor of the paper, Joan Meyer. Now, Meyer died the day after this raid. Her son believes that stress from the raid contributed to her death. The video shows her confronting those officers, telling them exactly how she feels about them being inside her home. CNN's Whitney Wild joins us now. So Whitney, what did she say to the law enforcement officers? Where does this case now stand?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, she was very clearly upset. When you watch this video you see how she was interacting with police. We have a clip of that video to show you. And again, it exemplifies how distraught she was over the search of her home August 11th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOAN MEYER, CO-OWNER, MARION COUNTY RECORD: Don't you touch any of that stuff!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am --

MEYER: This is my house. You're a (BLEEP) police chief. Police chief? You're the chief? Oh, god. Get out of my house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many computers do you have in the house ma'am?

MEYER: I'm not going to tell you. Get out of my way! I want to see what they're doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: New today, the information that police brought to a judge to try to secure those search warrants has been made available. These records have been unsealed. They include again, the information used to obtain that search warrant as well as itemized lists of the devices that were seized, Boris, from the offices of the Marion County Record, from the home of a local city councilwoman, as well as Joan Meyers' home.

The information the affidavit follows closely with what we've heard from Eric Meyer. Which is that this may have been -- at least Eric Meyer believed, and this anecdote is noted in the affidavits as well, that there was an incident August 1st at a local coffee shop, a local restauranteur asked Meyer and the reporter to leave a meet and greet with a local representative. Later on, Meyer and his reporter received this information about this local restaurant owner. That's what kicked off this entire investigation. Boris, we now know that the county attorney has pulled back those search warrants and returned those devices. So many more questions to ask. Again, those records, newly unsealed today which are getting fresh insight into how this all happened.

SANCHEZ: Really a fascinating case. Whitney Wild, thanks so much for the reporting -- Brianna.

KEILAR: We are following some breaking news from the Fulton County Courthouse having to do with the indictment of former President Trump and several other alleged co-conspirators. We have CNN's Katelyn Polantz there following all of this. You have news involving Mark Meadows, Katelyn. What can you tell us here?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Brianna, there is tension building and that is because Mark Meadows and the district attorney's office appear to be in a bit of a stand-off because he is trying a legal maneuver to try and get his case from state court into federal court.

[15:40:05]

He's already filed the paperwork to do that. And he is also saying he wants to not be arrested by that deadline on Friday because he has a hearing on removing his case. So what is happening here is that his attorneys have tried to communicate that and negotiate with the district attorney Fani Willis here in Georgia related to his arrest to try to prevent him from being arrested. And they're not having it.

According to court filings that we're now getting in this federal case, my colleague Tierney Sneed has been following these very, very closely, and these filings are reflecting that Shafer essentially breaking down. That the district attorney's office is telling Mark Meadows that if he isn't arrested by turning himself in, negotiating bond just as these other defendants in this 19-defendant case are doing, that he will have a warrant issued for his arrest on Friday if he does not go through this process like the others.

Now Meadows' position is that he doesn't need to. Because he was a federal official working at the behest of Donald Trump when Trump was in the White House around the election in 2020 and then after in January 6th. And he's saying that he filed his paperwork in court to get some protection so that that case could move to federal court because he was a federal official.

He's citing the constitutional protections there and saying that just by filing that paperwork alone, the Georgia prosecutors, everything they want to do, should be put on hold. But now we have to wait and see how this plays out. Is a federal judge going to get involved more soon than Monday when he is supposed to have a hearing? Would he be arrested on Friday if he doesn't go through these bond negotiations and then over to the jail here in Fulton County like other defendants including Donald Trump are planning to do? This really is a development here that adds quite a complexity to what

is going on in this case. And we're going to have to follow blow by blow, filing by filing, defendant by defendant, as these things develop. Mark Meadows is certainly a pretty important defendant among all of them here who is fighting the charges so far from the district attorney in Georgia related to the 2020 election.

KEILAR: Katelyn he's not the only person in this case among these 19 co-defendants who is asking that their proceedings be moved to federal court. But are there other people involved who are making this same case, sort of saying, hey, I don't want to proceed with what you are saying, that I need to turn myself in until this is all settled?

POLANTZ: They haven't gone that far. Although, one of them, Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official, he had said in a court filing in federal court sort of insinuated that he didn't believe he could be arrested in this case, because he's filed this paperwork in federal court to get what the Georgia prosecutors are doing moved from state court to federal court.

But it is something that is really piecemeal right now. Each defendant is coming in and approaching this their own way. And so, Jeffrey Clark has removed his case to federal court. Mark Meadows has removed his case to federal court. David Shafer, that top GOP official in Georgia, he has removed his case to federal court. And a judge in federal court is looking at those filings and going to have to determine, is that the right thing to do here? Do the cases stay in federal court? Or do they go back to where Fani Willis wants to try this, in Fulton County at this courthouse behind me?

And there is an outlying question of what happens with Donald Trump? All of the arguments around this are about these people being somehow connected or protected by the mission of the federal government. Things that they were doing either in David Shafer's case as an elector. In Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark's case, as people who were top administration officials working on behalf of the president.

But then there is Donald Trump himself. The president of the United States at that time, and all of them are trying to invoke this clause. This law that allows them to say we would like to take this over to federal court because that's where we can do this. Because we were federal officials at the time regarding these allegations that the prosecutors are making here. And so, how that plays out and what the law is going to be here, we're really in uncharted waters in so many ways, with a case like this against the former president.

KEILAR: Yes, we certainly are. Thank you so much for that breaking news. Katelyn Polantz live for us from the Fulton County Courthouse. We'll see, Jim, if this really is up to Mark Meadows if a judge does not step in.

SCIUTTO: With us now to figure out what's going on here, Norm Eisen. Listen, this court proceeding, there are going to be a million motions. But we've known about this attempt to move to federal court.

[15:45:00] Is this emergency motion different from anything we've seen to date?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jim, what's going on here is, Mark Meadows is so far relying upon the fact that he's done his initial removal motion in order to freeze the proceedings. But the thing about removal is, it doesn't -- when you do this, when you ask the federal court to stop everything in the state trial court, states are considered to have a very strong interests in enforcing their own law when there are serious alleged crimes like here.

So unless Mark Meadows gets a judge, and I predict he's going to run to do this soon. Unless he gets a judge to issue an order saying you do not need to turn yourself in, the matter is frozen, he is going to be subject to having an arrest warrant put out on him if he doesn't meet the Friday deadline.

SCIUTTO: OK, you have said this is already a long shot. This attempt, not just by Meadows, but by other defendants in this case to try to move to federal court. Do you still believe that? And does your assessment change based on the way is now going about this?

EISEN: I think there are three defendants who have tried it so far. Mark Meadows, former Chief of Staff. Jeffrey Clark, former DOJ lawyer, and then the third is David Shafer, former fake elector. And they go from long to longer to longest, OK. Mark Meadows has an uphill battle. Because it's a two-part test, Jim, and he has to prove first that this was an official act. And second, that he has a federal defense. But it can't be official because the White House has no role in counting votes in Georgia.

SCIUTTO: That's the point. This was a call to Georgia state officials about Georgia's election to change the results in Georgia. I mean, for folks at home who are not lawyers, is that how they should understand this?

EISEN: Yes. The Constitution says, presidential vote counting is left to the states. And they say that for a reason. The founders and framers were worried that some day a president might try to tamper. There is no official duty -- legal term is the outer perimeter of White House duties. This is beyond even the outer perimeter. That vote had been counted, recounted, signed, sealed, and certified. On January 3rd. Come on! So there's not a very strong legal argument here.

He also says Constitution Supremacy clause, but there's a long line of cases saying when you're involved in a criminal conspiracy, those constitutional defenses don't really apply to you when you know better. Meadows knew better.

SCIUTTO: All right. Now it's up to a judge. Norm Eisen, thanks so much.

And we'll be right back. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:52:40] SANCHEZ: So there are growing security concerns in Atlanta ahead of Donald Trump's expected surrender at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. A source telling CNN that a sheriff's office employee has been -- or rather sheriffs office employees have been the targets of threats. CNN's Nick Valencia is live outside the jail for us. So Nick, walk us through the nature of these threats that employees I flies I want any are receiving.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris, this seems to be the norm when it comes to this case in the Trump investigation here in Georgia. First we had death threats to the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Then we had death threats to the Fulton County jurors. And now the sheriffs deputies are receiving direct death threats themselves.

A law enforcement source with knowledge of the situation tells me that leadership at the Fulton County Sheriff's Office has received threats including death threats as well as threats to their personal homes. So not only are they having to coordinate the logistical nightmare of 19 defendants turning themselves in, the sheriff here, Pat Labat, also has to worry about the safety and security of these deputies who are just doing their job.

We understand that the investigation into these threats is ongoing. As is the investigation into the threats of those jurors. We should tell you that authorities do not mention this publicly or officially because they don't want to jeopardize any leads that they have in the separate cases.

Here outside the Fulton County Jail it has been a very active scene here when 2 of the 19 defendants in this investigation having turned themselves in. We expect, again, the former president to do so sometime on Thursday -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: And Nick, have you heard anything about protests or rallies? We've seen demonstrations the other times that Donald Trump has headed to court.

VALENCIA: That's right, and he was on the Truth Social platform promoting a peaceful rally outside of the jail, the Fulton County Jail here, when he turns himself in on Thursday. We don't have a finite time on when he will do that. But it is also worth noting, Boris, that he was calling his supporters to come out to the Fulton County Courthouse, and the time that we were out there, in the weeks and weeks that we were out there, we only saw two people -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Significant detail. Nick Valencia reporting outside the Fulton County Jail. Thanks so much, Nick.

Obviously security a concern even though this is now the fourth time that Donald Trump has walked into somewhere to be processed on charges.

SCIUTTO: And interesting that folks have not yet answered that call to show up in great numbers outside those locations.

KEILAR: Yes, we'll see maybe if that changes. But what a big day we've seen here today.

[15:55:00]

10 bond agreements for these 19. So still nine to come, these 19 defendants.

But also this interesting development with Mark Meadows, right? Where he is saying, as he's seeking for his actions in Georgia to be kicked over to federal court. He's asking that if he doesn't turn himself in by Friday that an arrest warrant isn't issued for him.

SANCHEZ: Potentially testing the waters for other codefendants. No?

SCIUTTO: Yes, for sure. And there are going to be a lot of motions like that at every step of the way, right? Folks are going to -- lawyers are going to lawyer as they go through this.

KEILAR: And it's going to get messy I think when you have 19 people involved in this for sure.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts after this short break.