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Tropical Storm Idalia Targets Florida; Mark Meadows Seeks to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court; Trump Gets March 4 Federal Trial Date. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: March 4, 2024, that is the latest trial date for former President Donald Trump on charges alleging he worked to overturn the 2020 election. And that's just one day before Super Tuesday, a crucial date in the next election's nomination race.

Meantime, in Georgia, more legal drama, as the former president's co- defendants try to move their cases out of state court.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Hate crime probe.

The feds launch an investigation into the deadly shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, as the mayor there pleads for an end to the hate. Any moment now, we do expect to hear from University officials where the gunman was thankfully turned away.

And a strengthening storm takes aim at Florida. Tropical Storm Idalia could soon grow into a Category 3 hurricane. And the record heat in the Gulf means the storm is even more likely to intensify.

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

KEILAR: The date is set, a federal judge just ruling that former President Trump's trial date on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election will begin March 4 of next year.

And this comes after a heated hearing today where Judge Tanya Chutkan warned Trump's legal team to -- quote -- "take the temperature down a little."

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is outside of the courthouse for us.

Evan, Judge Chutkan rejecting both the special counsel and the Trump team on this, but, in the end, a little closer to the prosecution on their request.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna.

The judge certainly was very clear early on that she was not going to give the former president and his legal team two years to get ready for them to go on trial. That's the date they had set. They had asked for a date in 2026.

Jack Smith, the special counsel, had asked for a trial to start in January. And John Lauro, who is one of the former president's attorneys, said that the prosecution was not looking for a fair trial. What he said what they were looking for was a show trial.

That's when the judge, Judge Tanya Chutkan, asked him to bring the temperature down just a little bit. One of the things that he was complaining about, John Lauro, was complaining about was the fact that there's about 12.8 million pages of discovery, of documents that the government is turning over for them to -- for the defense to get ready for trial.

About 47,000 pages of those are what they called key documents. The judge pushed back on the fact that the former president not only has three other indictments, but he also has a political campaign to run in the next few months.

So what she said was, setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant's personal or professional obligations. She said that the public had a right to a prompt resolution of this matter.

Again, that's something before the 2024 election. She compared it, Brianna, to a sports star who, having to answer charges in federal court, doesn't get to say, well, the fact that they have to play in professional games does not allow them to get out of having to go on trial -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, what a day to pick here, Evan, a day before Super Tuesday, though.

PEREZ: That's right.

It's -- what we have here is now the prospect of the former president is going to be spending all a lot of weekdays or most of his weekdays right after that period, right after Super Tuesday as he's facing other contests in other states where he's going to be spending his weekdays here at the courthouse in Washington.

Of course, that's something that is legal team is not very happy about the drug, but the judge said that she gave it a lot of consideration and that she also even called the judge in New York, the state court judge in New York who is overseeing one of the former president's other trials, and consulted with him before picking this day -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, very interesting point there.

Evan, thank you so much live for us outside the court here in Washington -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Also today, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has taken the stand in a key hearing in the state election appearance case against former president in Georgia.

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Meadows is trying to get his charges there moved to a federal court. He argues anything he did related to Georgia's election results was part of his job in the executive branch. The prosecution, of course, disagrees.

A key piece of evidence is the phone call that Trump made to Georgia's top election official after Trump lost the election in Georgia to Joe Biden, a phone call that Meadows was on.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Facts show otherwise.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is outside the courthouse in Atlanta.

Katelyn, do we know what Meadows said in court today under oath?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Jim, I was just in there for Meadows' testimony of nearing three hours.

And what he is trying to do is walk a very fine line to say that what he was doing after the election. Even if he was getting campaign advocates for Donald Trump involved, personal lawyers involved, talking about things that were of the interest of the president as a candidate, that that, he believed, was part of his job as chief of staff because of the general interest that he had in making sure the trains ran on time for President Trump and making sure that the federal government had some confidence in the election.

Some of the testimony near the end of this three hours just came out. I am not sure if he's still on the stand. It's very possible he is. He said he was dealing with the president's personal positions on a number of things and that, when he was pressed by the prosecutors over and over and over again, he grew a little bit exasperated, to the point where the prosecutor said, well, where does the line end here?

What is outside the scope of your responsibility as the chief of staff? And he said, well, the example he could give was getting up on a stage and campaigning for Donald Trump. But everything else, even the campaign's goals and objectives, at times, he believed that there was a role for the chief of staff to advance that.

And this testimony was really astonishing in so many ways, first of all, the fact that Meadows is under oath in a courtroom right now talking about what happened after the 2020 election, after avoiding testifying in the House, after not seeing him for so long, or hearing what his positions here may be.

And he really is emphasizing how much he was doing things believing they were part of his job, because the president was asking to do those things, that he wasn't working for the campaign, and they didn't report to him. But he felt he needed to take certain steps as part of that.

And the testimony elicited so far in court this afternoon has not been just about this Raffensperger call. The prosecutors and Meadows' defense team, they have walked through every piece of the allegations, text messages that he was allegedly sending, a visit he made in Georgia to try and watch an audit of one of the county's elections here, all of that.

They have gotten Meadows under oath to say exactly why he was interested in it. And, many times, he has said he didn't recall reaching out to specific people who would have been on the private or personal side working for Donald Trump or his campaign in setting up these things.

But he over and over again is saying that: I believe that there was a general interest here of the federal government. That's why I was doing what I was doing.

We're going to have to see what the judge says to that and what other testimony might come this afternoon.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

And, as we know, in the federal case, there were efforts he was involved in outside the state of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan. So we now -- relating to the Georgia case, we have a date for the next step in the official process. That is the arraignment.

What is that date? And if you could clarify for folks whether folks involved in this, defendants, actually have to show up physically for an arraignment.

POLANTZ: Well, we are still -- I'm not exactly sure if they're going to have to show up physically for the arraignment, because I just got out of court, where there were no phones and no electronics.

And so many court proceedings are happening all at the same time here, Jim. But I do understand that there is an arraignment date on the calendar. There's a lot of moving parts in this case and others.

SCIUTTO: Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: A group of Republican lawyers and officials echoing the DA's argument in a filing with the court. They say removing the Meadows case from Georgia -- quote -- "would be perverse, as this prosecution arises from interference with state government operations and seeks to vindicate Georgia's voice in a federal election, the very contest from which federal authority flows."

Our next guest signed on to that brief, former Deputy Attorney General Under President George H.W. Bush Donald Ayer, who is with us.

[13:10:00] OK, Donald, thank you for being with us.

Just boil it down, if you could, for us nonlawyers. Why does this matter whether it's state or federal court that Meadows is tried in? And why do you think he should be tried in state court?

DONALD AYER, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, the normal process is that a federal case is tried in federal court and -- or handled in federal court and a state case goes forward in the state courts.

And this is special provision that's been around for almost a couple of hundred years now that allows -- the purpose of it is to protect the functioning of federal governmental roles by officers who are doing their jobs to allow them to remove a case from state court to federal.

And so the question is, does it qualify? They're -- the Supreme Court has decided a number of cases on the issue. And the basic rules are, the basic requirements are that, first of all, the official, the federal official, to remove the case to federal court has to have been performing his job.

He has to been acting within the scope of his official responsibilities. But the second requirement, on top of that, which your -- the lead-in really didn't get into, but it's also a clear requirement, is that the defendant also has to be advancing a federal legal defense that is plausible to the state charges.

So, essentially, it's all about the state's integrity and the state's right pursue the cases it legitimately brings and whether there's some reason for the federal government under this statute to come in and interrupt that and say, no, this has to go to federal court.

Now, for reasons we...

KEILAR: So..

AYER: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

KEILAR: I was going to say, Donald, I want you to respond to something that Meadows said in court today, because he was asked about some of those points that you're making.

In his testimony, he said his duties as chief of staff included frequently meeting with state officials. The prosecutor from the DA's office really tried to pin him down on this, asking him which federal policy specifically he was advancing when he joined a post-election call with Rudy Giuliani, who, by the way, was the president's personal lawyer, right?

This isn't White House counsel. And among Meadows' answers, he said he was the president's timekeeper and schedule manager. He said there was a federal interest in accurate and fair elections. And he said that he, Meadows, could recommend legislative ways to make elections more secure. What do you say to that?

AYER: Well, there are a couple of answers that are pretty clear.

One is that, in general, the federal government and certainly the president and his staff do not have any official role in overseeing the presidential election. That's pretty categorically clear that they don't.

There's another point to be made on top of that was made forcefully in an editorial that came out in the last couple of days, and that is that actually being involved in any sort of political process involving an election violates the Hatch Act.

So it's not only not within the affirmative responsibilities, but it's also contrary to the Hatch Act that says federal officials can't get involved in political activities. So, those are two answers to that point.

Remember, though, that on top of all of that, in order to remove this case, there has to be some sort of a plausible federal law defense being advanced. And that isn't even seriously being talked about. The only thing that's really been put forward on that is the crazy idea that Donald Trump has made and argued really throughout his entire administration and now that, because he was president, essentially, he's absolutely immune from being challenged for pretty much anything he does.

And that's a foolish and silly argument too. So I think he probably clearly loses on both parts, both of the requirements.

KEILAR: Yes, and very interesting points that you make that are really informative, and, to your point, Fani Willis arguing the -- or the DA arguing the Hatch Act in court. So that is very telling as well.

Donald, great to have you. Thank you so much for taking us through that.

AYER: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Jim.

SCIUTTO: State of emergency. Evacuation orders are now in place for parts of Florida as the state braces for Idalia, emergency officials warning of a storm surge that could swell to more than seven feet, also the possibility of tornado activity on Florida's Gulf Coast, this as we are minutes away from another update on the storm's expected track.

And we're live in Jacksonville, Florida, where federal law enforcement just opened a civil rights investigation into a shooting that killed three black people. We're following the latest.

[13:15:07] Plus, a dramatic scene out of South Florida where a fire rescue chopper goes into a tailspin, crashes into the roof of a building. We have an update regarding those on board.

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SCIUTTO: In moments, we will hear from a campus security officer who confronted this killer before police say he went on a racist rampage in a Jacksonville, Florida, store, gunning down three African- Americans.

Jerrald Gallion was 29 years old, had a 4-year-old daughter. Angela Carr was 52, killed in her car. And store employee A.J. Laguerre, he was just 19 years old.

The Justice Department has now launched a hate crimes investigation into Saturday's attack, which ended when the shooter killed himself, this according to Jacksonville police. These images show the AR-style weapon found in the Dollar General store. So familiar to see that weapon involved in a shooting like this.

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Another photo shows swastikas on the gun. About 20 minutes before the shooting, multiple people saw this gunman on the campus of Edward Waters University.

CNN senior law enforcement analyst Charles Ramsey is here. He led police departments here in Washington, D.C., in Philadelphia as well.

I have asked you this question countless times. That weapon, should someone be able to buy that to give them the opportunity to carry out a crime like this?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No. People shouldn't be able to buy assault weapons, no matter what they intend to use it for, in my opinion. They should be banned.

These are military-style weapons. They have no business in the public at all. If you want to handle an AR-15, join a military. Otherwise, it just doesn't need to be in our society, in my opinion.

SCIUTTO: As so often happens after this -- and this is not a bad thing -- we know the Florida governor has just given a million dollars to Edward Waters University, where this gunman was initially turned away from, to beef up its security.

There are several other historically black colleges and universities in Florida. Based on what we know about hate crimes figures, organizations in this country, which, of course, the FBI defines as the greatest domestic terror threat, should this be a national effort to protect schools and universities like that?

RAMSEY: I think so.

I mean, security is essential. And, obviously, this really highlights the need for that. The security officer that we will hear from shortly did a very good job. I don't know what he observed, but something drew his attention to this individual that caused him to confront him.

And we all know that many of these active shooters are really cowards. And they don't want confrontation with anyone. They want to be able to go into a soft target. How much courage does it take to walk into a Dollar General, where you have unarmed people and they're just simply shopping, and you have an AR-15 and you gun them down?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RAMSEY: So, whether it's a college campus, some of these other businesses and so forth, everyone needs to take a look to see what kind of security they have to protect themselves and their customers or students.

SCIUTTO: It's now a hate crimes investigation. The targets both appeared -- historically black college to begin and then this store where the three victims were African-American.

The gunman is dead in this case, killed himself following this shooting. What's the significance of making this a hate crimes investigation now after the fact?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, it's pretty clear it was a hate crime.

I mean, he left a lot of information behind and manifestos and so forth, swastikas on his Glock. I mean, it's no secret that this was definitely a hate crime. But it's important to have an investigation now to really uncover some more in terms of this individual's motivation.

They will go into his social media. They will interview family. They will interview friends. Was he part of an organization? Not that organization necessarily was an active part of this particular crime, but are there others out there that could be plotting and thinking the same thing?

So they're going to look at everything that they possibly can. Just because he's dead doesn't mean the investigation is over. They need to be very thorough in order to try to prevent something like this from happening in the future.

SCIUTTO: Yes, was he in communication with others like him involved in groups where there might be other plots?

RAMSEY: Right.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this again, in the wake of these things that we have to cover almost on a daily basis.

You will have, I don't know if they're competing proposals, but sometimes they are, beef up security or make it harder to get the guns. And, of course, you have folks who are gun rights advocates who will just focus on the security aspect, others perhaps on the other side. You have run police departments. You know what works and what doesn't, what impacts crime rates, violent crime rates. What -- if folks were seriously committed to making something like this less likely in the future, what combination of things would you need to see be done?

RAMSEY: Well, you have to think about all those things, because each one will have an impact, some greater than others, but they will all have an impact.

We need to be able to sit down and have thoughtful discussion on this whole issue of gun violence. We're talking about this. Obviously, it was a hate crime, a horrific crime that took place. It got a lot of attention, but we have people being gunned down on streets of cities every single day.

And it may not qualify as a mass murder, but it happens. And AR-15s, other semiautomatic weapons, we have to find a way to be able to protect the Second Amendment, but, at the same time, keep guns out of the hands of people that do not need to have them, be mindful of the kinds of weapons that are available for purchase.

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Something like an assault weapon, there's no need for that sort of thing. It wasn't long ago legislation was trying to get pushed through quietly to make the purchase of silencers legal, silencers. Now, can you imagine people being able to go buy silencers, on top of everything else?

I mean, it is absolutely insane. And we need to be able to sit down and have discussion, but we need elected officials with the courage and the backbone to actually do more than just talk, because that's all they do, is just talk, and they do absolutely nothing.

Thoughts and prayers, if that worked, we'd be the safest country on the planet. We need action. It's what we need.

SCIUTTO: We will be looking for it.

Chief Charles Ramsey, thanks so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Right now, we are keeping our eye on the Gulf Coast, particularly the state of Florida and Tropical Storm Idalia.

The storm's path appears headed right for Florida's west coast. It's expected to make landfall as a major Category 3 storm by Wednesday. Governor Ron DeSantis said that Idalia is going to be a major impact and urged anyone in the storm's path to get ready and to be ready to not have power.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is closely watching the storm's track here.

Chad, how strong is this storm looking? How close is Idalia at this hour?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right now, it's still south of Cuba and it's really kind of a discombobulated mess, 65 miles per hour.

And that's the great news. Had this already been a circulating, breathing, live hurricane, we would be really ramping these things up even more past Category 3. Hurricane warnings are already in effect all the way from south of Tampa just to the north of Fort Myers, all the way around the Big Bend there.

So, here's the storm, 65 miles per hour just to the east of Cancun. Still going to make a pretty big impact on Pinar del Rio in Cuba, but then gaining strength in this very warm Gulf of Mexico water. We have been talking about this water all season long, about the coral problems along the Keys and the like.

This is the warmest water we have really seen here with a hurricane in the water; 115 miles per hour right now is the forecast landfall wind be. Where is that going to be? Well, I know you're looking at the cones at home, but the cone itself is designed and created to only catch 66 percent of the hurricane eye wall landfalls, a sixth on one side and a sixth on the other.

So just because you're not in the cone, but if you're close, you need to keep watching, because look how close very big cities are, all the way up here, Apalachicola. Yes, this is the cone, but here is only 66 percent. Another 33 percent will miss it at this point because things are not perfect. Computer models are obviously not perfect.

We do know that the storm surge is going to be a huge problem. We also know that, if it's 115 miles per hour, comes on shore up here, many of these areas, looks like land, but that's not land. That's a mangrove swamp. That is going to continue the effect all the way to Lake City, to Tallahassee, possibly all the way to these bigger cities.

Along the coast here, not very populated, just inland where this storm is still going to be going, very populated. So we're going to have to watch out all these college towns and such, for sure, lots of rainfall, and wind coming on shore, even for Savannah, Jekyll Island, all the way up toward Myrtle Beach.

This thing isn't going to be over by the time it gets there, and some spots in the Carolinas could pick up six inches of rainfall. We know what happens when that happens, Matthew, great example of how much rainfall can come down. Freshwater flooding can kill more people than storm surge, because people know to get away from the storm surge.

Some people just don't know they're in the way of all that freshwater flooding -- Brianna.

KEILAR: That's such a good point.

We also know that you're tracking Hurricane Franklin, so we will check in with you a little later on that as well, Chad. Thank you so much -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: We are keeping a close eye on the Fulton County courthouse, where Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is making his bid to get his case moved from state to federal court. And we have new details from court.

A key player from this case joins us next to talk about all the major developments.

Plus, Spain's soccer federation holds an emergency meeting over the group's president suspended after the kiss he gave one of the team's star players unwanted. The Spanish government is now getting involved.

New details ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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