Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

. Trump Pleads Not Guilty In GA, Asks For Case To Be Severed From Co-Defendants Seeking Speedy Trial; McConnell "Medically Clear" After Second Freezing Episode; Justices Thomas, Alito Release 2022 Financial Forms; Pope Francis Criticizes "Reactionary Attitude" Among Some American Catholics Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 31, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:01:25]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Four indictments and now four not guilty pleas, Donald Trump pleading not guilty in the Georgia election interference case. Why he now wants to cut off his case from his 18 co-defendants who are also facing charges in Fulton County.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Sen. Mitch McConnell looks to reassure allies and donors that he could still do his job, this after freezing in public for the second time in weeks. What the Senator's doctors now say is going on. This as President Biden weighs in on concerns over whether one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington can and should stay on the job.

Plus, travel on a GOP donor's private jet, a paid trip to Rome. New disclosures from Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito revive Supreme Court's - Supreme Court ethics concerns. Now lawmakers are responding to calls for congressional action.

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

KEILAR: We've been watching a lot of movement from Donald Trump's defense lawyers today having to do with his Georgia election interference case. This morning the former president formally entered a not guilty plea to the raft of state charges he is facing. He is the fourth defendant to plead not guilty and that means that 15 others have yet to enter a plea.

Also today, Trump's lawyers filed to splinter his case from the co- defendants who are requesting a speedy trial. The District Attorney wants that speedy trial to begin in October. Trump's team saying they need more time.

We have CNN's Katelyn Polantz here with us following all of this.

All right, Katelyn, walk us through the new filing here to sever Trump's case from the others.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, the filings are coming in fast and furious here in Fulton County, Georgia and we are watching what the Trump team is doing here, because it's going to set up the major fight, the first major fight in this case. How exactly will this case be organized when it goes to trial, will it be all 19 defendants or not?

The District Attorney wants to keep all of the defendants together if they all do ultimately go to trial. And what Donald Trump's team is saying is that they don't want to do that. They need time. They're busy. It's a really complex case.

There are some defendants like Ken Chesebro, Sidney Powell, two lawyers who are charged as co-defendants here that want this trial to happen very fast, this year even. And so they want to split out. Trump doesn't want that at all.

He, in this strategy and his other indictments, wants things to be pushed back. And in the filing, his attorneys are writing: "Lead counsel will not have sufficient time to prepare President Trump's case for trial by the October 23rd 2023 scheduled trial date. Respectfully, requiring less than two months preparation time would violate President Trump's federal and state constitutional rights to a fair trial." That's going to be up to the judge, though.

KEILAR: October's really fast, unless you want it to happen in October. So this not guilty plea that we saw Trump enter here, maybe not totally expected. This is going to spare him from this arraignment process next week. He wouldn't have had to be in person anyways, but now he's out of that, right?

POLANTZ: Yes. I mean, everyone needs to enter their initial pleading in any criminal case and so this is the formality of Trump. Finally, after his bond has been set, after he's been arrested, processed, released on bond, he now says, I am not guilty. And that is a very important moment in any case, because it kicks off all of these other things that have to be discussed.

[15:05:07]

Trial dates, how the case is organized, what gets into the trial, what doesn't, legal arguments. And so now that we have that from Trump, we are waiting for the other defendants to do something similar by next week. And then we're off to the races and we are going to be waiting to see exactly what happens as we lead up in the coming days to this October trial date as of right now for some defendants in Fulton County.

KEILAR: It's right around the corner.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much. Jim?

SCIUTTO: We're joined now by Anna Bower. She is the Fulton County correspondent for Lawfare.

Anna, good to have you.

So I wonder, what is the practical effect of Donald Trump not showing up in person for his arraignment? Is there any?

ANNA BOWER, FULTON COUNTY CORRESPONDENT, LAWFARE: Well, I think that there is a practical effect to some extent, and that we know now from an order that was just handed down by Judge McAfee today that all of the proceedings in this case will be livestreamed. And so by not showing up in person, Donald Trump will not be arraigned in front of everyone in the country for the first time.

And in these other proceedings, as everyone knows, it's been in federal court where there isn't public access through electronic media recording, and - whereas in Fulton County and in Georgia, in general, courts are much more willing to allow video streaming and media recording. And so by not showing up, people don't have the opportunity to watch a former president being arraigned. And so I think that that's the big practical impact of that.

SCIUTTO: Understood, it certainly sets up quite a spectacle when the trial starts, because that'll be streamed as well.

Trump is now asking the courts to sever his case again to give his lawyers more time to prepare for trial. The DA wants an October start date. She wants all 19 defendants tried at once. I hate to accuse the former president of attempting to delay things, but this is a tactic he's used for many years, both before and after being president.

Is this a delay tactic and is it one that's likely to succeed to some degree to push things out a bit?

BOWER: Well, look, as you - as everyone knows that Trump's favorite legal strategy is delay. However, I have to say that here I think that his defense attorney does have a point. This is a sprawling case and I think that any defense attorney would be hard pressed to prepare for it in the two months that we have now until that October trial date.

With that said, we don't yet know exactly when Trump wants the trial date set for. Will he be reasonable or if the past is an indication, he may ask for something years in the future.

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

BOWER: And here, though, I think that it's important to point out that it is the burden on the defendants to show why it would be prejudicial for them to not be severed. And courts have said in the past that the judge should take into account whether or not the defendant would be tried alongside people who have requested a speedy trial, whereas that defendant does not.

So I think that's something certainly that Judge McAfee is going to take into account. And I think that he's going to be reluctant to force any defendant to go to trial in two months for a very large case like this.

SCIUTTO: Understood. There's also, of course, this decision on Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, his attempt to move the case to federal court. As I understand it, you were in the courtroom for this earlier in the week. And I was speaking to one lawyer who was reading the judge's demand that attorneys for both sides come back with briefs on the - on this case.

As a judge being aware that there's a lot of vision put on his decision here and he wants to prevent an eventual appeal, right, if - depending on how he decides and I wonder how you read the judge in the courtroom on this.

BOWER: Right. I - Judge Jones said at the end of the hearing, after an eight-hour day of hearing witness testimony from Mark Meadows and Secretary of State Raffensperger and others, he said, I'm going to try to make a decision as fast as possible.

But this is an area of law that doesn't have a lot of precedent. It's going to set precedent for future cases and so I got the indication that he's going to be very careful about writing this decision. He also pointed out that there's very few cases where a former federal official has tried to remove and a judge has rejected that.

[15:10:02]

So I think that if he's going to reject Meadows attempts to remove, he's going to make sure that it's a very well-constructed opinion, that it is something that can withstand appeal, so I think that we might be waiting for some time to see that opinion.

SCIUTTO: Interesting, got to dot his Is, cross his Ts.

Anna Bower, thanks so much as always.

BOWER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Brianna?

KEILAR: Some new updates when it comes to serious health questions surrounding one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington. President Biden says that he has spoken to Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, after he froze during a news conference yesterday. And the U.S. Capitol physician says McConnell is now medically cleared after this second episode of freezing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Running for re-election in 2026?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Oh, that's a ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you hear the question, Senator, running for re-election in 2026?

All right. I'm sorry, you all. We're going to need a minute. Senator - Benny (ph)?

BENNY: Yes. Want to head outside, sir? Want to come with us.

MCCONNELL: I'm okay. Okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: CNN's Melanie Zanona is live for us on Capitol Hill.

Melanie, what more are you hearing from the doctor? But also, we heard President Biden talk a little bit about his conversation with the minority leader.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes. So Mitch McConnell's office just put out a statement moments ago from the Capitol physician who said he consulted with Leader McConnell and also conferred with his neurology team. I want to read you the rest of that statement from the Capitol physician.

He said, "After evaluating yesterday's incident, I have informed Leader McConnell that he is medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned. Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery. It can also be expected as a result of dehydration."

Mitch McConnell, of course, suffered a concussion earlier this year at an event, he tripped and fell. Not a whole lot in this statement, but Brianna, I think it's notable that Mitch McConnell's office even released the statement to begin with, because after the first freezing episode, which occurred in the Capitol, they wouldn't even say whether or not Mitch McConnell received treatment or saw a doctor.

So clearly his team is trying to be more transparent here and trying to tamp down this continued speculation about both Mitch McConnell's health and his political future. And notably, he also received some backup from President Biden a little bit ago. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I spoke to Mitch, he's a friend, and I spoke to him today and he was his old self on the telephone. It's not at all unusual to have the response that sometimes happens to Mitch when you've had a severe concussion. It's part of a - it's part of the recovery. And so I'm confident he's going to be back to his old self.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZANONA: Of course, Biden himself is facing questions about his age as he plans to run for reelection, but this issue is not likely to go away for Mitch McConnell. There are serious questions about whether he will continue to serve as a Republican leader past 2024 when his current term as leader expires and whether he'll run for election when he is up in 2026.

And Congress is out right now, but the Senate returns next week from their August recess and I suspect that these conversations are only going to intensify. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes. He was actually being asked about that very thing when he actually had this episode.

ZANONA: Right.

KEILAR: And we don't know. We don't know what he was even going to say.

Melanie, thank you so much for that report. We appreciate it. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, we are live in Florida, surveying the damage from Hurricane Idalia. The President says he will visit there this weekend to survey it for himself.

And later, Pope Francis with strong words about conservative American Catholics, his warning about the "backward views of those who oppose change."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:18:17]

KEILAR: Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas releasing their 2022 financial disclosure statements. Both have been accused of ethics violations and a lack of transparency involving luxury trips and other personal transactions.

We have CNN Supreme Court Reporter, Ariane de Vogue here with us.

So this is pretty interesting. We see Clarence Thomas has reported a controversial real estate deal, both justices disclosed trips that they previously had not.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN U.S. SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right. Clarence Thomas in the spotlight again. But this time it's him. He's disclosing the fact that he took these rides on these jets from that mega donor and that is because he released his financial disclosures along with Alito. Both men had asked for extensions and they got it.

But the Thomas disclosures here are really interesting, because he says he took a private jet to do a speech and also to go on this luxury vacation with Harlan Crow. And he hadn't disclosed it before.

And we know that news outlets, mostly ProPublica, have said that for years. Thomas has been taking these luxury trips and he never disclosed them. But here, what happened last term is he said, look, I took these trips. I didn't think I had to disclose them because of the rules. The rules have changed and so now going forward, I will disclose.

So we got that today, but we also got something very interesting in that he amended his 2014 report. So that's a long time ago to say that he and Harlan Crow had engaged in a real estate transaction together and that Crow had actually bought Thomas' house where his mother still lives.

So all this is going on and it comes at a time when all eyes are on the Supreme Court on these ethics questions.

[15:20:02]

KEILAR: Yes, really interesting.

Thomas' attorney issued a statement. Tell us about this.

DE VOGUE: So Thomas and some other conservative judges have said - have told me, they said, look, the rules weren't clear, right, so now they've been clarified. And Thomas in particular, not so much Alito, but Thomas said none of the people that he took these trips with over the years had business before the court and he said that now he's going to disclose.

But what was unusual today is he also had his lawyer issued sort of a scathing statement. And here's what the lawyer said in this letter that he said. He said, "The attacks on Justice Thomas are nothing less than ridiculous and dangerous, and they set a terrible precedent for political blood sport through federal ethics filings."

But that is in large part because this court is now being considered political by a lot of people because of the Roe v. Wade decision, because of the Second Amendment. So now the justices are beginning to be looked at through a political lens.

KEILAR: Yes. Political or not, they're talking about these interactions of high value with stakeholders in the process, right? So that's also important here. What's the reaction on Capitol Hill?

DE VOGUE: So congressional Democrats have said, look, we want the justices to develop a code of conduct that is specific to them, to the Supreme Court justices. And so far, the justices have said that they're not going to do that. And some of them, like Alito, have pushed back on the notion that Congress even has the authority here to enforce or force the justices to make a code.

So the term is going to start the beginning of October. They've been off all summer for their summer recess, but all this still is making a lot of headlines.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is and we'll continue too. Ariane, thank you so much for that.

DE VOGUE: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Pope Francis, he's known for taking a more generous approach, particularly when it comes to social issues. And today he is taking on the Catholics who disagree with him with a warning for the most conservative American Catholics. All that just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:26:55]

SCIUTTO: A split within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis using some sharp language towards American Catholics who oppose changes in the church and church teachings, and who have openly publicly criticized his leadership. During a private meeting with Jesuit priests in Portugal earlier this month, the pope warned conservative critics against backward thinking.

He said, "Doing this, you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies," in the Pope's words, "replace faith."

Joining me now to discuss is Father Edward Beck. He's a Roman Catholic priest and a religious commentator.

Father, good to have you on.

FATHER EDWARD BECK, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST & RELIGIOUS COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So this split, particularly between American Catholics and this Pope, has been going on for a number of years. It's getting more bitter. It's getting more public here. I mean, these are American bishops openly challenging the Pope here. Is there any way to resolve these differences?

These go to core social issues: divorce, homosexuality and how this pope sees them versus how Catholic bishops see those issues.

BECK: Well, again, it's a minority of Catholic bishops in the U.S., Jim. But you're right. I mean, it's kind of unprecedented. You have an archbishop of San Francisco, Cordileone, who has vocally opposed the pope. You have some fringe bishops like bishop of East Texas, Strickland, who has come out vociferously against the Pope.

So they are riling some of the more traditional elements here in the United States who don't really think that the direction of this pope is a good and healthy one. And so there's been a lot of criticism that's been very public. And you're saying, can anything change those perspectives? I think the pope has chosen to kind of just move on and move through it.

He's continuing with what he wants to do, he's saying what he wants to say and he's turning a deaf ear to even some of this leadership. I mean, someone like Archbishop Cordileone in San Francisco should have been named a cardinal by now. He has not been named a cardinal.

SCIUTTO: And it's, of course, broken into politics. You have some of those American bishops saying, for instance, that Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden, they can't take the Eucharist because of their positions on abortion here.

I wonder, in your view, how much this reflects the current makeup and the changes of the makeup of the Catholic Church here in the U.S. as attendance at church has declined. In many instances, the folks who remain are a more conservative set.

BECK: Well, that is true, except my experience, Jim, is that there are a lot of progressive Catholics who are fighting for the vision of Pope Francis. We have what's called a synod coming up in October.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BECK: And for the first time, Pope Francis is letting lay people and women vote at this synod. Usually, bishops could only vote. Now, he has the ultimate decision as to what is approved or not from this synod. [15:30:01]

But I think the progressives are really pushing ahead with their agenda despite some resistance.