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Proud Boys Leader Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison; Mitch McConnell's Health?; Trump Pleads Not Guilty in Georgia. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 31, 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: Pleading not guilty. Donald Trump enters his plea in the Georgia election interference case, waiving his right to appear in person in court next week.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And serious questions today about Mitch McConnell's health and his future in the Senate after the minority leader froze mid-press conference for the second time. What is next for one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington?

And Idalia's wrath. The storm lashes the Carolinas after carving a path through Florida and Georgia. Survivors now face the work of rebuilding, after some of them lost nearly everything they own.

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

KEILAR: Former President Trump has officially pleaded not guilty to a stack of racketeering and corruption charges in Fulton County, Georgia.

It's Trump's fourth time entering a not guilty plea in a criminal case, now twice in federal court, twice in state courts, New York and here in Georgia. Trump is the latest of several defendants in this specific election subversion case to enter a not guilty plea, and that means that he's skipping next week's in-person arraignment.

I want to bring in CNN's Zachary Cohen and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti to talk about this.

All right, Zach, this is what we expected, but walk us through the mechanics of this.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, on its -- on a big picture level, though, four times, Trump has entered a not guilty plea in response to criminal charges against him since leaving office just a few years ago.

And, look, in Georgia, that means that he had a right to waive his first appearance. We won't see him in court next week. That was the deadline the judge set for these defendants to show up for their arraignment, but Trump waiving that right in this case, along with some of the other defendants we have seen who have also pled not guilty, notably, Sidney Powell, a lawyer who was working for Trump on his post-election challenges.

She entered a not guilty plea via court filings yesterday as well, so Trump following that trend and his sort of trend since leaving office in the various criminal cases that he's been involved in.

KEILAR: Renato, any advantage to doing it this way?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, one thing he avoids is the media circus that would surround his first appearance in court.

I think he has made a calculation that he gets most of the benefit and less downside from not appearing personally, not paying a bunch of lawyers to be there for an appearance that's generally perfunctory, where you plead not guilty and the judge sets some deadlines.

The bottom line is that he's got a long road ahead. Unlike these other defendants, he's not interested in a speedy trial. So I expect this matter to drag on for quite some time.

KEILAR: Yes, to that point, you have the DA, Zach, still pushing for all of the defendants to go to trial in October, the ones who want a speedy trial, sure, a couple of them.

But it's really hard to see that happening with the others. What are you expecting here?

COHEN: Yes, Fani Willis has been consistent on this since the indictment dropped a couple of weeks ago. She wants to try all 19 of these defendants together, and she reiterated that position yesterday as well.

But, like you said, we have different defendants going different ways. Two of them, Sidney Powell, the lawyer we just talked about, and Ken Chesebro, another pro-Trump attorney, they want to hurry this process up. They want a speedy trial. And that is the opposite of what Donald Trump wants. He's made very clear he wants to delay this as long as possible.

So -- and you also have Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff, who's still trying to get this case moved to federal court, so a lot of different moving pieces here, but, at the end of the day, it does raise a lot of questions about, can Fani Willis try all 19 of these defendants together, as she wanted to, or she's going to have to maybe make a compromise in some way?

KEILAR: What do you expect, Renato, and what are the challenges with juggling multiple trials, breaking some off from one another?

MARIOTTI: So, first of all, I do expect the judge ultimately to let some of these defendants have a separate trial.

It's not easy to have a trial with that many defendants in the first place. And, as a practical matter, the judge could be in a difficult position when you have some defendants exercising their right to a speedy trial, which is unusual, but I think a valid tactic here for some of those defendants, and you have others who are going to say they need more time to prepare for trial.

So I think that the judge is going to let them have that separate trial. And I think it's actually going to put Fani Willis in a bit of a challenging position. It'll create some obstacles for her, because, first of all, does she want to show all of her cards in the early trial, when she has still got the big fish, Donald Trump and some of the others that she's really very focused on, in the second trial?

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So, that's one challenge. Secondly, she's going to have to refocus her story and how she puts everything on in that first trial versus the second. In the second trial, she's going to put on this entire RICO case about this sprawling RICO enterprise.

Are you going to do that in a trial of, let's say, Ken Chesebro, who really wrote a memo and gave some legal advice, but otherwise had a small role? So I think she's going to have to refocus her evidence and potentially refocus the case.

And, of course, a very narrow, targeted set of proof against Chesebro then, of course, is going to draw arguments from his lawyers of why he's part of this very broad indictment. So I do think it presents some challenges, not that she can't overcome them, but there's a reason why the defense is doing this.

KEILAR: Zach, what are you looking for with this deadline today at 5:00 p.m. for Mark Meadows? The judge wanted more information from him as he's trying to take this out of state court into federal court.

COHEN: Yes, really interesting question raised by the judge here. He wants both prosecutors and Mark Meadows' lawyers to come back with arguments about whether or not, if one of the acts that Mark Meadows allegedly committed falls under his role as chief of staff -- right?

That's his big argument as to why this needs to be moved to federal court. If one of them qualifies as a responsibility of chief of staff, is that enough to move the entire case to federal court? And so, 5:00 p.m. today, he wants to see arguments from both sides.

And, ultimately, it raises questions, will the judge decide had on this matter before next week, when Mark Meadows is supposed to show up for his arraignment, or will that be extended beyond that?

KEILAR: Signaling that some of what he did clearly did not fall under that purview, certainly.

Zach and Renato, thank you so much to both of you.

MARIOTTI: Thank you.

KEILAR: Jim.

SCIUTTO: This just in to CNN.

Joseph Biggs, a leader of the Proud Boys who led the far right organization's infamous march on January 6, 2021, was sentenced a short time ago to 17 years in prison.

CNN's Evan Perez is with us.

Evan, looking at this here, was this sort of sentence expected in the range for the charges he was convicted of?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, look, this is a pretty stiff sentence.

This is just the second longest after a member of the Oath Keeper, Stewart Rhodes, who got 18 years. And the judge really listened to the defense. He listened to Joseph Biggs, who tearfully said that he wanted another chance. He said: I'm not a violent person. I want to get a chance to be able to take my daughter to school.

He said he was sorry for what happened and that he is -- January 6 was the last time that he was ever going to do anything as a member of the Proud Boys. Of course, the judge said that this was a very serious offense, that one of the things that the members of the Proud Boys did on January 6 was that they broke the tradition of peaceful transfer of power in this country, something that is forever lost as a result of what happened that day.

One of the things the judge said, Judge Kelly, said from the bench: "The nature of the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive that it deserves a significant sentence."

The prosecution had requested 33 years for Joseph Biggs. They did not get that, obviously. But this is just one of a number of Proud Boys that we are going to see sentenced here at this federal courthouse in the coming days.

You have Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean. All of them are going to be coming through this courthouse hearing their sentences. One of the things prosecutors have argued is that the members of the Proud Boys were vanguards of political violence for a number of years, and that's one reason why they believe what happened, the violence at the Capitol, which is, of course, just a few hundred yards from where I'm standing, deserved to be treated this severely.

Seventeen years is what the judge ended up deciding on -- Jim and Brianna.

SCIUTTO: And, of course, the open question is, Donald Trump now on trial for his involvement, will he face consequences?

Evan Perez, thanks so much.

Turning now to health questions surrounding one of the most powerful men here in Washington. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is now privately reassuring his allies and donors that he's fine, this after he froze during a news conference yesterday, the second time this summer this has played out in front of the cameras.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) QUESTION: Running for reelection in 2006?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): That's...

QUESTION: Did you hear the question, Senator? Running for reelection in 2026?

MCCONNELL: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. I'm sorry, you all. We are going to need a minute.

[13:10:01]

Senator.

Benny? (ph)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Want to head outside, sir? Want to come with us?

MCCONNELL: I'm OK.

OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Deeply concerning to watch.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us now from Capitol Hill.

And, Manu, as you have noted in this incident, going back to July, you have witnessed -- and others have witnessed this -- a number of incidents. And you have always asked McConnell's team, what's happening here? Are you concerned?

Have their answers changed over time? Have they grown more serious? Have they expressed any increasing seriousness about his health?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They have provided very little information, Jim, in fact, about what happened here, other than saying that he felt lightheaded at the time and he paused.

That is the same reason they gave for the 30-second pause that happened in July. What has not been explained is the underlying reason, the medical reason for this, and whether it was tied to his recent fall that occurred in March. He hit his head, suffered a concussion.

Mitch McConnell, as a childhood survivor of polio, walks with a slight limp. He's had incidences of falling in the past. Whether it has anything to do with that, it's really just unclear what has happened. But he has tried to move behind the scenes and tried to reassure his allies and his donors that he is fine. He went to a Republican fund-raiser yesterday. He talked to a number

of top Republicans as well who reported back saying that he sounded like his normal self. But there are still some major questions about Senator McConnell.

I spoke to one Republican Congressman, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, about what he witnessed yesterday, and he said it appears that things are worse for McConnell than it seems.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Did you see Mitch McConnell yesterday? He froze up. What do you think about that?

(CROSSTALK)

REP. KEVIN HERN (R-OK): I think it's tough. Obviously, the fall he had was more -- if that's what it's connected to, was more damaging than most people thought.

RAJU: Yes.

Do you think that he should stay leader of the Senate Republican Conference?

HERN: That'd be for the Senate to figure out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And the big question is, how long will Mitch McConnell continue to stay as Republican leader? That is a question that remains in the hallways here in the Capitol.

He has indicated, along with his confidence, that they fully expect him to serve as Republican leader through the end of this Congress. He's the longest serving party leader in history, having done it for 16 years as a Senate leader.

But what will happen after the end of next year? That is really the focus among a lot of Republican senators. Will he try to continue in the job afterwards, or will he step aside, which would open up a leadership race among a handful of members who are already eying that position here?

So, a lot of questions about his future. But one thing is clear, Jim. They have been on recess for the past five weeks. They come back into session next week. He will have to answer questions from his colleagues, who are wondering what happened -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Manu Raju on the Hill, thanks so much.

Let's speak now to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.

Sanjay, good to have you on. You're, of course, a neurosurgeon. I know it's difficult. You can't diagnose from afar, but you can look at these episodes. And I wonder, what do you make of them? And do you see them as connected? Because, at this point, there have been a number of issues.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think there probably is a connection between them.

Obviously, this almost exact same thing happened in July and now again just over the last couple of days. We don't know how many times it's happened in between that as well. This is just what we are seeing, Jim.

But I think I see what I think everyone else is seeing, and I think freezing is probably the right term for it. When you watch the video, you see somebody who becomes quite frozen in place, but also frozen in terms of speech, in terms of the face, in terms of the body.

You see someone who's clutching the sides of the lectern really tightly as well. Something else that I noticed as well, when his aide comes up to him, you will see that she's standing on the right side of him and talking to him. He doesn't really look at her.

He does not even -- he can't turn his head. When another person comes to the left side, he's able to turn his head to the left side. So there may be -- that may be another clue here.

I think what is particularly striking, other than the fact that he has these freezing episodes that last about 30 seconds, is that his aides obviously came to his side, but they didn't seem particularly alarmed by it, which gives you the sense that this is something that does happen, may have even been evaluated, and is not that surprising to them, things like a seizure, like a petit mal seizure, it's called, or even medications to treat certain things that are wearing off.

When those medications wear off for things like Parkinson's, you can have a freezing episode. It's a long list, Jim, actually. I have gotten so many e-mails from colleagues, people -- people rendering their diagnoses.

It's hard to do, as you point, via television, via just looking at that video, but there's clearly something going on there. And the sense I get is that his aides and his doctors probably already know what that thing is.

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SCIUTTO: McConnell, as we mentioned, has had several health scares just this year.

Can you walk us through them so we understand?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean, there's been a couple of pretty significant falls going back to February.

And, frankly, Jim, you will remember, even back in 2019, he had a significant fall, where he fractured his shoulder. He had polio as a child, so he's had difficulty walking. But these falls, especially that one in March, was really concerning. He had a concussion there, broke his ribs, was in the hospital for some time.

He's had trouble hearing reporters, has asked them often to repeat questions. It's hard to tell sometimes if it's hearing loss, which is quite possible, versus just losing train of thought again, and then I think, most recently again, these two episodes of freezing.

We hear -- and, again, from Manu's reporting, from Scott Jennings, that it comes and it goes, these symptoms. He can have a pretty quick rebound. And therein lies another clue. That can happen with petit mal seizures, where you have a significant sort of loss of time.

Can -- I would be curious to ask him, does he remember that time? If he doesn't, that's another clue as to what this might be. Bottom line, Jim, I hope he's getting it evaluated. My guess is that he is and that the doctors are already aware of this.

But, if not, it needs to be addressed so that it doesn't get worse or happen again.

SCIUTTO: Yes, understood.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, so good to have your expertise -- Brianna.

KEILAR: It was the strongest storm to hit Florida's Big Bend region in 125 years, and it left a path of destruction and just massive flooding across the Southeast.

Up next, we will speak to a Florida business owner whose restaurant was battered by Idalia.

Plus, important disclosures released by Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito now raising only more ethics concerns. Ahead, what we're learning about expensive trips they took and who paid for them.

And a horrifying situation in South Africa, dozens dead after a building goes up in flames. We will have the latest on the search for survivors.

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SCIUTTO: Some of the areas hit by Hurricane Idalia may never look the same again. That is the word from FEMA officials today, this after a Category 3 hurricane made landfall in the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida yesterday morning.

President Biden has just declared a major disaster in the region, which will make federal funding available to the areas hardest hit. After landfall, the storm dumped record-setting rain in parts of Southeast Georgia, also the Carolinas.

Look at this from just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, just a scary moment when strong winds sent this car flying. Idalia is now a tropical storm as it heads offshore. It is still causing heavy rain and gusty winds on the North Carolina coast.

Vic Micolucci of CNN affiliate WJXT is live in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, one of the hardest-hit areas from the storm.

I wonder, in the wake of this, what are you seeing there?

VIC MICOLUCCI, WJXT REPORTER: Good afternoon, Jim.

We are seeing devastation, destruction everywhere. We here in Florida are used to these storms coming this time of year, almost every year. But this is a bad one, especially for people here on the Northern Gulf Coast.

Want to show you some of the history that just washed away. This is a home originally from 1939. It's about a block-and-a-half away from the Gulf of Mexico. And you can see it is just flattened.

Back here, we have the Hall (ph) family. They have graciously let us on their property, allowed us to be here through this difficult process. Today is the first day that they have been back on this peninsula in this coastal town. And they're just looking at the damage.

They said, looking at this, they were hoping that they'd be able to find some mementos from their parents, from their grandparents. It's been difficult. They do have this chair right here, a couple items that they're going to keep, that they're going to pass along to their children.

Other than that, this home is flattened. Now, storm surge here would have been well over my head yesterday. We are talking about 10, 11 feet in some parts. You will see that a lot of the homes are built up on stilts because they're used to tropical weather.

Even those, even those high-up homes built for hurricanes got hit, got damaged, got water inside, so the family members looking around here. And this is a site that we see all throughout this town.

I will tell you, the mayor told me, 40 to 50 homes are leveled. They are just gone. We see the foundation. The good news is, we're not aware of any injuries, no fatalities. I asked the mayor why. He said he and the police officers, the sheriff's deputies, they came around, they knocked door after door, and they told everyone to leave. Only one person stayed.

That person is OK. So I want to leave you with these images. We don't have enough time to show you everything, but, truly, devastation here in this part of Florida, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, for sure.

So nice to hear no lives lost, but you do feel for the families who lose those things you can't replace, mementos, memories of relatives.

Jim (sic) Micolucci, thanks so much for being there for us -- Brianna. KEILAR: Our next guest owns Fiddler's Restaurant and Resort and

Resort, which is a restaurant in Steinhatchee, Florida, which is one of the hardest-hit areas from this storm. Anna King is with us now.

Anna, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

We understand that your home is OK. Your restaurant most certainly is not. What kind of damage are you seeing?

ANNA KING, OWNER, FIDDLER'S RESTAURANT AND RESORT: We got three feet of water in the restaurant, four in the hotel rooms.

I'm right here out in front now, and we have got debris everywhere, three to four inches of just like this silty mud that is awful- smelling. We were very fortunate we didn't have any structural damage, just a lot, a lot of cleanup.

[13:25:14]

KEILAR: So, tell us about that. What is that going to mean for you? I can only imagine, if you have got four inches of stinky mud and drywall and all the like.

KING: We right now have crews here giving us ideas on how we should move forward. Our biggest goal is to be getting -- we have three bars on site.

We're going to try and operate out of our front bar, which is much easier to clean, so we can get some propane cookers and start cooking meals to get some warm food in people. We know there's -- we're going to need a place for people to come decompress and kind of just take a break.

So we're trying to get that operational. We also have a wedding center that we're going to open up and do food out of and use as a command center for people to come in, talk to their insurance agents and just kind of get a break. And it's going to be fully powered with A.C. and everything. We have a generator coming for that as well.

KEILAR: Anna, that is just amazing is, you are doing that as a service to your community, while you're also dealing with your business suffering so greatly here.

Do you have a sense of how much this is going to cost to get the -- to get everything back on track?

KING: Guessing it will be up towards half-a-million dollars, because we're having to totally gut all of our hotel rooms, rip everything out of the restaurant, replace.

I don't -- I really -- I can't even put a number on it in terms of the work, but that's what we're guessing right now.

KEILAR: It's overwhelming. I can tell as I'm talking to you. It's so much to deal with. We know that the president just declared an official disaster. That

includes Taylor County, where you are. Do you know the first steps of accessing the federal funding that will be made available to rebuild?

KING: Not offhand. I have -- I have lived through a few storms where we have actually been declared a disaster. And I know that FEMA will come through, and they will start looking into, like, each property and kind of talking to people.

Well, my family lives on a creek and was flooded, and my granny was able to get FEMA funds to raise her house. So I'm a little bit familiar with it, but we have got some really good people here that are ready to get -- help us get resources for that and to know how to talk to them and handle that.

So we do have a lot of community leaders in place to help us with that and get through it.

KEILAR: Well, Anna, that is good news. I'm sorry that you're dealing with all of this, but it -- it is amazing to see what you're doing to come through for your community.

Thank you so much for talking to us today.

KING: Yes, ma'am. Thank you all.

KEILAR: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Two Supreme Court justices are now disclosing new details about paid trips they accepted. Ahead, we're going to tell you who exactly picked up the tab and explore ongoing ethics concerns for the court.

And is the federal government about to change the way it classifies marijuana? A big shift could be coming.

Do stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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