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Mar-a-Lago Witness Changed Testimony; Trump Surrenders Tomorrow; Trump's Absence Looms over Debate; Maui Officials Identify Eight More Victims. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired August 23, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:33:10]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Just chatting here together.

Just moments ago, former Trump campaign lawyer Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro, the architect of the Trump campaign's fake elector plot, have both surrendered to the Fulton County Jail. You're seeing the live pictures of that opening there where they drive through and go into the jail to be booked and getting their mug shots taken. This as former New York City mayor and ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is on his way to Georgia to surrender at this very jail, one day ahead of the former president.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He shows up there tomorrow. We know that for sure.

SIDNER: That is right.

BERMAN: And we're getting reporting it will be later in the day, afternoon into the evening.

SIDNER: OK. So, we're watching all that as the special counsel's office is looking into whether Donald Trump's employees actually lied to a grand jury regarding another case, the classified documents case out of Florida. There's a lot going on.

BERMAN: Yes, look, prosecutors believe that an IT worker, who has not been charged in this case, and a property manager, who has, that they falsely testified about efforts to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago. Jack Smith's office says at least one of those workers changed his story after switching his lawyer away from a Trump affiliated lawyer.

With us now, an encore performance, CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

We're talking about Yuscil Taveras, right, who was the IT -- head of IT at Mar-a-Lago. Goes into the grand jury the first time and says, I don't know anything about, you know, altering security camera footage. Was never talking about it. Nothing. Changes lawyers, moves away from a Trump lawyer to a public defender, and then goes in and says, I know a lot about all this.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. This happens all the time. And this is a really important strategy here. Unfortunately for prosecutors, not every witness comes in and gives it to you fully and cleanly.

What happens a lot of times, especially in these scenarios, where there's a potential conflict of interest with lawyers, right.

[09:35:02]

So, this person, Mr. Taveras, goes into a grand jury. He's being represented by a lawyer being paid for by one of Trump's political action committees. You can see the conflict of interest. If he implicates Trump, he's going to lose that lawyer. Potentially he's afraid to do that. Apparently doesn't have enough money to pay for his own, because now he has a public defender. And when you shake free from that lawyer, often that enables the truth to come out.

And this is not new. Think of Cassidy Hutchinson, right? Cassidy Hutchinson, January 6th Committee, she gave some of the truth but she later admitted she lied in some respects because she didn't feel like she could come clean with the Trump-appointed lawyer, gets a new lawyer, comes clean and gives really important testimony.

SIDNER: Talks to the committee and we've all seen what she said.

I do want to ask you about whether this will have a ripple effect because once one person does this, and other people see that, uh-oh, maybe there is a conflict of interest. Maybe I'm going to end up taking a huge part of this blame. Will this sort of impact others in the case? This is what the prosecution has been hoping for.

HONIG: I think that could absolutely happen because I think if others -- in any of these cases, by the way, not limited to Mar-a-Lago, are in this situation, they may not even honestly realize that, hey, I can get rid of this lawyer, even if I can't afford a -- lawyers are ridiculously expensive, I can still go into court and get a public defender appointed and I can do what I have to do to, a, not break the law and to, b, help myself get out of this.

SIDNER: Right.

BERMAN: It has an immediate impact on the Mar-a-Lago documents case because the lawyer who was representing this guy is still representing people who were charged. And that creates a real problem, Elie.

HONIG: Yes. And prosecutors have now called this out. And they said, judge, you need to be aware. And, most importantly, the various charged individuals need to know if their lawyer has a conflict of interest because, first of all, you have to make your record. If you're a prosecutor and you know one lawyer is representing two people who may have adverse interests against each other, you absolutely have to call that out. You have to at least bring it to the attention of the court. And the judge has a responsibility at a minimum to say, OK, you two, you have the same lawyer but your interests may be against each other. Do you understand that? And if you need a separate lawyer, just tell me and I'll get one for you. It's an important part of the process.

SIDNER: The judge can't make that happen, though, can't make a decision. This is up to the defendants, correct?

HONIG: It's primarily up to the defendants, but at a certain point the judge may find this is not tenable, I'm not going to allow this.

SIDNER: OK.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you. I understand a lot more about that now.

HONIG: Inside baseball.

SIDNER: Right. Yes. We like it.

BERMAN: All right, Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up for us, eight Republicans will be on the stage. For the handful of Republican candidates who did not make the cut, is their path to the White House about to hit a wall? Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger weighs in next.

And CNN is also learning new details about the plans around Trump's surrender at the Fulton County Jail. What that is going to look like for the former president of the United States.

We'll be back.

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[09:42:02]

BERMAN: All right, moments ago, Donald Trump made it official when he will surrender in Georgia. Tomorrow. Trump just posted on a social media page that is when he will, as he put it, be proudly arrested.

CNN's Alayna Treene is near Trump's Bedminster golf course in New Jersey.

Alayna, what's the latest?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right. Well, John, the former president is going to be leaving his golf club here just near where I am in Bedminster, New Jersey, and traveling to Georgia tomorrow afternoon. He's expected to land in Georgia at some point tomorrow evening, travel to the Fulton County Jail. His team expects that the process there will be quick - will be fairly quick. His surrender will happen -- won't take a lot of time really and then he'll get back in his motorcade, travel back to the airport and head back to New Jersey tomorrow night.

Now, I'm also told that his team has been making arrangements for the former president to speak with reporters if he chooses to do so. And those would happen in Georgia if they happen at all. Of course, remember, when he was in D.C. earlier this month and being arraigned in Washington, D.C., around the other January 6th case, he chose not to speak to reporters despite having said that he would do so. So, that's still up in the air.

And then, of course, John, we also have what he's doing tonight. He's going to be in New Jersey while his rivals are on the debate stage, but he does have that prerecorded interview with Fox News's Tucker - or former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. And that interview is going to be airing on Twitter or recently renamed X at around 9:00 p.m., the exact same time that his opponents will be taking the debate stage. So, a lot of news from Donald Trump world in the next 24 hours, John.

BERMAN: Yes, an X interview at 9:00 tonight and then a prime time surrender tomorrow night. No accident at all.

Alayna Treene, in New Jersey, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, tonight, former President Donald Trump, of course, won't be the only candidate sitting out of the first presidential primary debate. Several Republican presidential hopefuls didn't meet the threshold set by the RNC, Will Hurd, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Michigan businessman Perry Johnson and conservative commentator Larry Elder of California were unable to get donations from at least 40,000 individuals, as well as a 1 percent showing in at least one qualifying national poll. Those were the rules.

I am now joined by CNN senior political commentator, and former U.S. congressman, Adam Kinzinger.

Thank you so much for coming on with us this morning.

It's important to note that you hosted a live town hall featuring Chris Christie on behalf of the country's first PAC where you, nor the PAC, you did not announce who you were going to endorse. Do you have any idea now? Can you give us some sense of who might be on your short list?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I mean, I'm not endorsing anybody at the moment. But, I mean, I -- what we wanted to show was, you know, what it's like to tell the truth. And I'm going to tell you, it's refreshing when you're listening to somebody that's just not worried about, you know, how do I walk this line, how do I make the Trump people not upset, but at the same time please -- like Chris Christie is just saying what he believes.

[09:45:10]

That's why it's going to be fun tomorrow I think to watch him in the debate. So, I haven't endorsed anybody but I'd tell you, we had a good time. And I had somewhere like 20,000 to 50,000 people between who was watching live and who watched after the event. So, it was a good thing.

SIDNER: Could I ask you about what you think tonight is going to be about. Obviously you want to hear from some of the candidates like Christie and what they think about Donald Trump, but is this really going to be about who drops off, who actually has to exit this fight for the White House, or is it really going to be about who is in the second place?

KINZINGER: Well, I would love to see people drop out because, a couple things. If you're going to run for president and all you're going to do is like endorse Donald Trump, I mean, there are so many of these people running that will not take him on, pretend like he's not in the race and then also pretend like he's this like political prisoner from the DOJ. They should just drop out and endorse him. I mean you really have a better chance of getting a job in the administration just to get all in on Donald Trump today.

And then, you know, there's still a few people that are kind of in this -- it's not even really the anti-Trump lane, but it's the, we're not Donald Trump and we want the party to go into a different direction lane. That's the one that's going to have to consolidate because you cannot have this splintering of people and splintering of support and expect Donald Trump to lose.

It will be interesting tonight because I think you're going to see a lot of these folks on the debate stage attacking each other because they want to show how tough they are, they want to show that they are, you know, pretty hard core on the debate stage, but they won't actually go after the guy they need to go after, which is Donald Trump. So, I think it's going to be an interesting dynamic to watch. There will be a few that go after him. The rest will take their shots at Vivek or DeSantis or whatever.

SIDNER: OK. Speaking of Vivek and DeSantis, we're looking at what the debate stage is going to look like, that is if Doug Burgum makes it to the debate. He was hurt playing basketball apparently.

But Vivek, number two, Ron DeSantis number one. I want to talk to you about something that Vivek has said just in the last day or so. He is coming up in the polls. He's young. He's aggressive. He raps. He's also floating conspiracy theories. In an "Atlantic" article he questioned whether federal agents were behind the January 6th Capitol attack and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but then denied saying it to our Katelin Collins on "THE SOURCE."

I want to let you listen to sort of what happened between him and Katelin and also "The Atlantic" then released audio.

Here is the clip.

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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Are you telling me that the court was wrong here?

VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Twenty years later. Yes.

COLLINS: But are you telling me that your court is wrong here - RAMASWAMY: I am telling you the court's wrong actually.

COLLINS: Because it says how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers.

RAMASWAMY: I am, actually. And I actually asked - yes, when I - when I actually - and this is just lifting the curtain on how media works again. I asked that reporter to send the recording, because it was on the record. He refused to do it.

I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Like, I think we want -- maybe the answer is zero, probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we're doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 Commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So, he seems to want to relitigate what happened on January 6th, trying to intimate that federal agents were in the crowd and may have something to do with it, and 9/11. Who is he trying to -- what is he playing at here?

KINZINGER: Well, first off, let's just - let's look at the ridiculousness of saying, are there federal agents on the airplane. OK, let's say there were federal agents on the airplanes on 9/11. They're dead. They're dead now. Is that really what Vivek is trying to do is somehow disparage federal agents who are now dead on the 9/11 planes? Or does he think that federal agents particularly went on the plane and said, let's ride this out to a suicide mission against our own country because of some thing.

Here's what he's doing. He doesn't believe any of this. He knows January 6th was launched by Donald Trump. He knows 9/11 wasn't an inside job. But he's just asking questions. And that's what they do. Oh, I'm just asking questions. Maybe the 9/11 report should have looked into this. The January 6th Committee didn't answer this question. Of course, we did answer the question. The 9/11 Committee looked into everything.

But when you just ask questions, you get that 5 percent or 10 percent conspiracy base and you win them over. That's what he's doing.

Vivek has wanted to be famous his entire life. He tried to start a podcast that failed. He decided to run for president to become famous. Unfortunately, he's becoming famous. And when he's on television, and he doesn't allow anybody else to speak, I hope that, you know, he either changes the way he debates on TV or is never invited back on any show.

SIDNER: You think this might play with just a certain percentage of voters, people who are -- conspiracy theorists, QAnon members, is that what you're -- that's what you're saying?

[09:50:01]

KINZINGER: Well, it does, it plays with that group but it also -- what he's also trying to do is just show like, I can take on the media. I'm the tough guy. I'm the one that doesn't trust government more than Donald Trump or anybody else doesn't trust government.

I can't tell you why this is an answer I don't have as a Republican. But for some reason this idea of not trusting government and conspiracy theories have become like new currency in the GOP. People have to push back against this. Others on the stage have to push back against this tonight.

SIDNER: We will be watching to see what happens.

Adam Kinzinger, thank you so much. It's great to have you on.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, in Maui we are learning the identities of more of the victims from those deadly wildfires, just as there are now more questions about the number of people who are still unaccounted for two weeks later.

And, you're looking, we're going to show you, live pictures of the Fulton County Jail. More of Donald Trump's co-defendants turning themselves in today, filing new legal requests as well around the cases being built against them.

Stay with us.

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BOLDUAN: Maui officials are now releasing the identities of more wildfire victims.

[09:55:01]

The number of people who have died in the fires remains at 115, though authorities are now saying that they really can't project what the final death toll is going to be.

And we're also now hearing that the number of people who are unaccounted for from the fires may actually be going up, not down.

CNN's Natasha Chen, he's following this. She joins us now.

Natasha, more than 1,000 people still unaccounted for now two weeks on. That's the latest number before it was believed to be 850. What are you learning about this discrepancy?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, according to the officials at a press conference last night, the reason for that is that there are new agencies they've been talking to which provide more information. So there's an influx with perhaps new numbers of people to add to the list. It doesn't necessarily mean, they say, that more than a thousand people are missing. It's that someone somewhere submitted information, sometimes partial information, thinking that someone is unaccounted for. They did clarify, though, that every day they are clearing more people off of that list.

They also said that there are fewer family members coming forward to provide DNA samples compared the other disasters and they don't really know the answer to -- why that is, only pleading that people please come forward to do so to help them out.

Overall, you're sensing a skepticism of authority and an anger amidst the trauma. We saw that in last night's council meeting when people came up and spoke.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have nothing left but our hometown in Lahaina, its memories and our pride. If you don't know the history, most especially -- sorry. If you don't know the history of Lahaina, I urge you to research that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: That was the first city council meeting since this tragedy. So, a lot of people very emotional.

A reporter also asked authorities at the press conference about children found among the remains. And authorities said it's hard to say exactly because they're not finding whole remains. And so this is just tragic and a lot of frustration there, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Natasha, thank you so much.

John.

SIDNER: It's me.

Right now --

BOLDUAN: Sara, I'm sorry.

SIDNER: It's all good.

Right now Rudy Giuliani is on his way to Atlanta to turn himself into jail in Fulton County, as we are learning new details about the times of Donald Trump's surrender tomorrow. A live report from outside of that jail as more people are turning themselves in, next.

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