Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Republican Debate Winners and Losers?; Trump Set to Surrender in Georgia. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 24, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:38]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A county jail is now center stage for one of the most high-profile legal battles in history, law enforcement on high alert across Atlanta, because, hours from now, former President Donald Trump is surrendering.

The former president will leave his New Jersey golf club for the Fulton County, Georgia, jail, where he will be booked on charges that include conspiracy and racketeering. And in a last-minute shakeup, Trump replaced his top Georgia defense lawyer. And we're following all of those details, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: We are also outside the jail where Trump supporters and protesters have begun to gather, along with an increased police presence.

And we have learned that security has ramped up at the prosecutors' offices as well. We will have more on those precautions.

But, first, CNN's Katelyn Polantz has some breaking news on a potential trial date for Trump and his co-defendants.

Katelyn, what do we know?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: We just saw a filing from the district attorney here asking for an October 23 trial date, a special request that they're putting into the court just today, because one of the defendants in this case, Ken Chesebro, he had said that he wanted a speedy trial.

That would have put things around November. But now the DA's office is coming into court, and they want to move fast. Quite clearly, that would be a very aggressive timeline, but one that they seem to be prepared to argue would be within reason, for them, at least, to get to trial for these 19 defendants.

Now, of course, trial dates move even once they're set by a judge. And there's a lot of things that would go into the questions on whether the trial would actually happen at that date, if it were to be set that fast. It's really sprawling case with 19 defendants, a lot of arguments to be made, potentially a really aggressive jury selection that would take a lot of time to get through.

And so all of this remains to be seen how it would play out, but they are asking for October. Right now, that's what's on the books in court.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

POLANTZ: Also today, we are getting additional information about Mark Meadows. He just reached his bond agreement and has agreed to turn himself in, to self-surrender to jail, as one of the defendants in this case, by noon tomorrow.

His bond agreement is $100,000, a six-figure agreement, like others who were top attorneys and other advisers around Donald Trump after the election. So, now we're waiting for Meadows to turn himself in, the former White House chief of staff to be arrested here in Fulton County, as well as Donald Trump.

And all of this is underneath an overlay of there being a hearing Monday about this case too. There are so many moving parts, a lot of news coming at us. There will be more developments this afternoon, I'm sure.

SCIUTTO: As you say, a former president, a former White House chief of staff arrested. They're going to be arrested.

As you know, Meadows tried to head off this responsibility to surrender. He lost that case in court. But his role in this is central going forward, given he was president for some of the most telling moments, including that phone call of Trump to Georgia officials attempting to find the votes.

POLANTZ: Yes. So, as Meadows -- yes, as Meadows here is trying to argue to have his case moved from the state court to the federal court, heading into a hearing on Monday, the DA's office is lining up witnesses, including the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.

Raffensperger has been subpoenaed to appear at that hearing, along with three others who would have been privy to that phone call that Donald Trump made to the state of Georgia asking them to find votes after the election that could flip the state in his favor, though he had lost it.

It's important at this phase, because Meadows is trying to argue he was acting as a government official. The DA's office is trying to say this wasn't part of his job at all as a government official.

Here's one of the things that Meadows was heard saying on that call to Raffensperger.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: What I'm hopeful for is, is there some way that we can find some kind of an agreement to look at this a little bit more fully? The president mentioned Fulton County, but in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead.

[13:05:08] And so, Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there -- there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that's less litigious?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

POLANTZ: So, there will be some legal theater on Monday, the ability for Brad Raffensperger to testify under oath on how he felt about that call, what he perceived it to be, as it gets worked out.

And that hearing is going to be really important, because it's not going to be just about Meadows, ultimately. There are other officials who worked for Trump, maybe even Trump himself, who could try to argue that this case should be in federal court without cameras, rather than state court.

SCIUTTO: And it was important for you, Katelyn, to play that sound again, not just what the former president said, but Meadows as well.

These were the results that were confirmed. There was no evidence of fraud. Those things had already been explored, and yet they were asking, in effect, to overturn those results.

Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much.

Let's go to the Fulton County Jail. That's where our Paula Reid is, the Fulton County Jail. That's where the former president is going to have to surrender himself today.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Jim.

While the former president is not expected to be here for at least another six hours or so, you're already seeing demonstrators, both in support of the former president and those opposed, coming here to survey the scene and to gather. It's nearly 100 degrees, and he's not going to be here for quite some time.

But people still gathering here, along with the world's media, ahead of this historic surrender. Now, the former president is expected to travel this afternoon from Bedminster, New Jersey, here to Georgia to surrender to the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, which means he will go inside the building and be processed just like any other defendant.

The district attorney is adamant that, even though he is the former leader of the free world, that he will be treated just like everyone else in this case. That includes fingerprints and possibly expected -- right now, it is expected that he will have his mug shot taken.

That's significant because, in his federal cases and in his Manhattan cases, he did not have a mug shot taken. They decided they didn't need it because they're usually used if someone goes on the run to identify them. He's obviously one of the most famous people in the world, and they wouldn't need it for that. But here, at this point, we do expect to have a mug shot taken. He's

only expected to be in Georgia for about two hours, before getting on a plane back to New Jersey. There's already an increased security presence here, Jim, and our colleagues are reporting that we expect more resources from the surrounding areas, including additional SWAT teams, to come here to help with any potential problems they may have ahead of this surrender.

SCIUTTO: Well, we have witnessed a lot of remarkable things in the last few years. This is certainly going to be one of them this afternoon.

Paula Reid at the Fulton County Jail -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Joining us now, we have CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig. He was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

So, Elie, Fulton County DA Fani Willis at this point now requesting an October trial date, which is right around the corner. Is that too aggressive? Do you think that's going to happen?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: That's absolutely unrealistic. That's not going to happen.

And, to be clear, when we say October, we mean 2023, not 2024. That is two months from now. Here's what happened in this case. We have 19 charged defendants. One of them so far, Mr. Chesebro, has invoked his speedy trial rights, meaning he's entitled to have his trial start by November or so.

And what the DA said today is, fine, I'm going to try all 19 of you together in late October. The problem is, while any defendant certainly has the right to say, I want my speedy trial right, you can't realistically force the ones who don't want that speedy trial right to go to trial that quickly.

This is a case involving millions of documents, all sorts of video surveillance. There's no realistic way any defense lawyer can be forced to go through all that in less than two months.

KEILAR: So how does she break him off from the rest of the cases?

HONIG: So, this is a legal concept called severance, which happens all the time in multidefendant cases, where the prosecutor gets to give his or her view of how the defendants should be divided up.

The defendants really have more of a say here, get to say how they would like to be split up. Ultimately, it's up to the judge. But the problem with forcing defendants to trial way before they're ready is, you start to run into constitutional problems. They have a Sixth Amendment right to fully prepare their defense.

If Kenneth Chesebro thinks he's ready in two months and wants to go, that's his prerogative. But you can't realistically force those who don't want to go that quickly to go quite that quickly. KEILAR: Yes, I mean, that makes sense.

We see Trump shaking up his legal team here just hours before his surrender. He's replaced his top Georgia lawyer, Drew Findling, with Atlanta-based attorney Steven Sadow. What does that tell you?

[13:10:05]

HONIG: Well, it has to be either some sort of disagreement over money, which happens. Sometimes, they don't have the terms set out straight initially.

Could be a disagreement over strategy. This happens sometimes. Lawyers want to be more or less aggressive than the client. Or it could just simply be personalities didn't match up. So now we are 10 days into this indictment, and we are on defense lawyer two.

I will say that's not wildly unreasonable. That's not completely unusual. But, if I'm Donald Trump, I want to stick with one person from here on out. You don't want to change a third time.

KEILAR: Third time is not a charm, as it were, here.

So, an attorney for Rudy Giuliani, Brian Tevis, was on CNN last night. Listen to what he had to say about their defense and the timeline of a trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN TEVIS, ATTORNEY FOR RUDY GIULIANI: It's very premature to be saying, what is the defense going to be?

I mean, you look at this indictment, it's very complex. Racketeering, in and of itself, RICO indictments are very broad. They're very general. They leave themselves open to a lot of attacks to be made on the document itself. There's been some discussion about this scheduling order of, could this case go to trial in March?

I mean, we would be able to have motions that will go into March before you ever get to reviewing evidence on a case this size.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So what does that tell you about what the realistic timeline is going to be for these other cases?

HONIG: Yes, I think what that attorney for Rudy Giuliani just said is completely consistent with what I have said before.

He's saying, we're not even going to -- forget about getting through the millions of pages of discovery. We have motions. They do have complicated motions that are going to take months and months to litigate. He's talking there about March of next year, 2024, which, I think -- which is, what, eight months from now.

I think that shows you how utterly unrealistic it is to say we're going to force these people, all of them, to trial two months from now, in October.

KEILAR: Yes.

And then, on Monday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is set to testify at this hearing on former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, his effort to move the Georgia case to federal court. This is coming after last night, when a federal judge ruled against both Meadows and former ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark on whether they have to turn themselves in by tomorrow's surrender deadline without that other stuff totally reconciled here.

What is the impact on the Georgia proceedings if he does succeed in moving his case to federal court?

HONIG: Yes, if Mark Meadows succeeds in getting his case moved over to federal court, that's a good sign for the other federal officials in this case, Jeffrey Clark and Donald Trump, although it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to win if one of them wins, because each of these determinations needs to be individualized.

The key question the judge is going to ask as to Mark Meadows, as to Jeffrey Clark, and I think likely at some point as to Donald Trump, is, were they acting within the scope of their official federal job duties? This is why the DA wants Brad Raffensperger to come and testify.

Presumably, she believes that his testimony will prove, no, they were acting not just beyond the scope, but they were acting, as the DA has alleged, criminally, which is sort of the opposite of what a person is supposed to do in a position like that. But it is possible that one or more of these defendants does make it over into federal court, which puts them on a different time frame, different jury pool, different judges.

So if any of these motions get granted, that's a game-changer.

KEILAR: Yes, that would be a huge development. So we will be watching for that.

Elie, thank you so much.

HONIG: Thanks, Bri.

KEILAR: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Donald Trump gearing up for his surrender at a jail in Georgia, what we're learning about his legal strategy, as well as a new lawyer just ahead.

And talk about a grip on the party. Most of the Republican candidates say they will back Trump even if he is convicted. More on the political fallout of the former president's legal troubles coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:58] SCIUTTO: Soon, the former president of the United States will leave his New Jersey golf club for the Fulton County, Georgia, jail, where he will be booked on charges, including conspiracy and racketeering.

And in a last-minute shakeup, Trump replaced his top Georgia defense lawyer.

KEILAR: CNN's Kristen Holmes is just outside of Bedminster.

So, Kristen, tell us what more you are learning about these changes to Trump's legal team.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna and Jim, well, we're still trying to get details on why exactly this happened. As you mentioned in the previous block, Drew Findling, who was one of the top lawyers representing Trump in this Georgia case, is being replaced by another Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney.

His name is Steven Sadow. Now, Findling had been part of a lot of the negotiations of what we're going to see today with Trump's surrender, with his processing, as well as with that $200,000 bond.

Now, we do have a statement here from his new attorney, Sadow, where he says: "We look forward to the case being dismissed or, if necessary, an unbiased, open-minded jury finding the president not guilty. Prosecutions intended to advance or serve the ambitions and careers of political opponents of the president have no place in our justice system."

And, clearly, here, he is referring to Fani Willis. That is something the former president himself has said, that these charges were only brought against him because she is trying to advance her career. And it should be noted that Trump has not been hesitant in any way to shake up his legal term -- team even in the 11th hour.

We know, back in June, he removed two of his top attorneys after his indictment in that Mar-a-Lago documents case, when he was charged with mishandling classified documents. So, again, this is a last-minute shakeup. We are still trying to learn the details of what exactly happened here.

SCIUTTO: He's got a long history of shaking up his legal team. And, in fact, one of his former lawyers is also charged in the case, Rudy Giuliani, of course, as well as others.

You're going to see Trump's motorcade leaving soon. What exactly is the choreography of getting a former President Trump his club to a jail in Georgia?

[13:20:06]

HOLMES: Well, Jim, I'm told that this is a lot of negotiations between Trump and jail, as well as the Georgia Highway Police.

There are enforcement on the ground, all of them having the same goal, which is to get Trump in and out of Atlanta, in and out of that jail, and processed as quickly as possible. So we will see him here in just a few hours. He will go to the airport, will fly to Atlanta.

Then we will see him take a straight shot to that jail. It is supposed to be a very quick trip. They are telling us it will be in and out. Then we are told to expect possible remarks with the reporters that he is traveling with.

But, again, these were things that were negotiated between Trump's team and law enforcement, as well as Trump's legal team and the jail, with all the same goal in mind, I'm told, to try and get him out of the city without shutting down the entire city of Atlanta.

KEILAR: Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for the very latest there, as we are awaiting what is going to be some pretty historic movement ahead today.

And ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: Eight GOP contenders go toe to toe on the debate stage. So how did they answer the debate's biggest question about the front-runner, who wasn't even there?

And it's been two months since he led an armed revolt against Putin. Did the Russian president just get his revenge? Putin just spoke out about Yevgeny Prigozhin, and we will bring you his comments ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:04]

SCIUTTO: This is a live video feed of the Fulton County Jail, where former President Trump will surrender in a matter of hours.

But at last night's first Republican primary debate, most of the candidates on stage challenging Trump for the nomination signaled that this moment in American history will not affect their loyalty pledge to whoever the ultimate candidate might be, even with a conviction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice?

Please raise your hand if you would.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BAIER: Just -- hold on.

So, just to be clear, Governor Christie, you were kind of late to the game there, but you raised your hand?

FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, no. I'm doing this. Look.

(LAUGHTER)

CHRISTIE: Look, I'm doing this, not this.

BAIER: And I know you didn't.

CHRISTIE: Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: I'm joined now by two CNN political commentators, Van Jones, former Obama official, Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush.

Good to have you both on. Much to discuss.

I want to begin, if I can, with that moment on the stage, but I don't want to purely focus on that moment, because, to be clear, you had several candidates on stage, Pence, Haley, Christie, Hutchinson among them, who called out the president's behavior as unconstitutional. And, of course, Christie was extremely critical there.

Taken together, Scott Jennings, what does not just the audience reaction and that pledge, but the reaction to the former president's behavior tell you about his grip on the party? Is it rock-solid? Is it showing some cracks? Does it endure through this primary process? What do you think?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, right now he is the far and away front-runner. I didn't see anything last night that changed my opinion of that.

I was a little surprised at the amount of support on the stage for Mike Pence on the question of, did Mike Pence do the right thing on January 6? Most people said that he did. Vivek Ramaswamy ducked it, of course. So that did surprise me.

But, overall, you have got people up there raising their hands saying they're going to support a convicted felon maybe. And, honestly, that puts them way out of step with American public opinion. Seventy percent of Americans in a Quinnipiac poll last week said convicted felons should not be eligible to be president.

And that was also 58 percent of Republicans inside of that. So, they're out of step with where most people are. They are not out of step with Donald Trump's voters, but I don't think they have much of a chance of attracting his voters anyway.

So, the strategy of that continues to elude me.

SCIUTTO: Van Jones, you were watching this closely.

I wonder. A lot of this is about playing for second place at this point. Can a viable or somewhat viable contender emerge? For so long, of course, the focus was on Ron DeSantis. A lot of that has faded, including after last night.

Did you see anyone that might emerge as that challenger as we get closer to the caucuses and the primaries?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, not anybody who's going to overtake Trump.

But, as far as second place, I think Vivek Ramaswamy went from nobody to somebody in a couple of hours. Most people never heard of the guy. And to see a 38-year-old kid get up there and body and bully everybody and have the vice president punching down at him and him punching back, I think they really elevated him, and I think probably to the detriment, long-term detriment of that party and of the country, to have someone with as terrible ideas as he has, doesn't believe in global warming, doesn't want to support Ukraine, doesn't want to support Taiwan, doesn't want to support Israel.

He has the worst ideas, but, man, he's got great delivery. And I guess that's all that counts these days.

SCIUTTO: I want to get to some of those -- those issues there.

[13:30:00]