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Trump Holds Edge Over Biden In Polls; Letitia James Speaks About The Trial. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 06, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Right out of the water in these six battleground states, leading, at least according to this one poll. So, the fact is, hey, Nikki Haley has a real argument to make on electability.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, there's a debate Wednesday night. And when Nikki Haley gets up on that stage and says, I am the most electable against Joe Biden, I do better than Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, the fact of the matter is --

ENTEN: The fact -- that is exactly the fact of the matter. That is exactly what's going on. And if we have this, you know, federal election trial, right, if Trump is convicted and sentenced in the federal election trial across the six battleground states, look what happens, now Joe Biden -- yes, your head went shaking like that.

BERMAN: Yes.

ENTEN: He goes up by 9 percentage points. And we're still a year out from the election. So, there's a lot that can change. So, I think that Nikki Haley argument, hey, I'm electable - more electable than Donald Trump, this poll makes the suggestion, hey, that could really be the case.

BERMAN: So, right now Trump leads Biden by 3, right, by plus 3. But, if he's convicted, Biden's leading by 9?

ENTEN: It's exactly right. That's what the poll tested. It's obviously a hypothetical at this particular point. But this hypothetical is something that I think will get a lot of Republicans talking, or it should anyway.

BERMAN: That is a huge swing there.

Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: There is a lot to talk about in this.

Let me bring in CNN political commentators Alice Stewart and Jamal Simmons and CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

So, Jamal, let's start with David Axelrod.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Top Democratic strategist. His take on this has been getting, deservedly so, a lot of attention. He says there's a lot that - this is their -- no matter that it's a year out, there is reason to be concerned. Let me put up this first tweet. He says, in terms of Biden, "he's defied conventional wisdom before but this will send tremors of doubt through the party, not bed wetting but legitimate concern."

Are you legitimately concerned?

SIMMONS: Of course. We should always be legitimately concerned a year out from Election Day. The Democrats, the way the Republicans and Democrats run elections right now are always head-to-head, they're always nail biters. I think you've got to be concerned.

But let's just take a step back and think about this from some perspective here. First of all, Donald Trump's numbers here, 48, 49 percent in all the polls, we just did in these states, that's exactly where he was at Election Day in 2020. So, it's not like Donald Trump is actually going up or going down, it's Joe Biden is the one who's lost some traction with some Democratic voters.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but, I looked back - I looked back at "The New York Times" polling of registered voters in some of these states one year out from the 2020 election, it showed good signs for Joe Biden in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Arizona. That -- and then that spoke to how things landed on Election Day 2020.

SIMMONS: Well, it didn't quite because Donald Trump did better than people thought. Joe Biden didn't perhaps do as well as people thought but he won that election.

Let's just keep in mind, 49 percent in Georgia, he ended up with around the same place.

Lastly, if you think about Nevada, which is the one place where the president is losing to Donald Trump, kind of getting smoked by Donald Trump in this poll, right?

There's something about it that's a little peculiar. John Ralston (ph) is sort of the dean of Nevada politics.

HARLOW: Yes.

SIMMONS: Has said, if we take a look at these numbers, Clark County, which is two-thirds of the voters in Nevada, I've done some work out there, two-thirds of the voters in Nevada are in Clark County. It's a plus 8 Democratic county, right? Democrats win by eight points. They've got Trump up 46-40.

Now, if you saw that kind of wholesale movement from Donald Trump in a place like Clark County, that would happen all over the country. It wouldn't be like a 50/49 race, it would be like a 54/48 race for Democrats.

BERMAN: It's not a 50/49 race according to these polls. So, it's not -- it's not as bad as you're saying, but it's actually a fairly sizable Trump lead, particularly in Nevada and also in some of these states.

SIMMONS: But it's a year out.

BERMAN: I get it.

SIMMONS: We haven't had any advertising from the president's campaign.

BERMAN: That's not true. There's been a lot of pro-Joe Biden advertising around the country. In fact, one of the notable things they've been advertising on Bidenomics and other things and it hasn't really had an impact as of now.

SIMMONS: Right, but you haven't seen them going after Donald Trump in the way they're going to go after him.

BERMAN: That's very fair. That's right.

SIMMONS: This is going to be a very negative campaign over the course of the next year.

BERMAN: All right, John Avlon, as long as we were talking about David Axelrod before, I want to read another part of this tweet from -

SIMMONS: We did.

BERMAN: This is tweet number two. This is on whether or not Joe Biden, the president of the United States, should run for re-election, John. And David Axelrod says, "only Joe Biden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise. Whether it's in his best interest or the country's."

What about that, John?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND ANCHOR: That's tough stuff coming from David Axelrod, who, of course, was instrumental in the picking of Joe Biden to be vice president back in the '08 campaign with Barack Obama.

Look, I think what this poll shows, among other things, is that Joe Biden's biggest problem is something he can't do anything about, which is his age, and perceptions of vigor around that. Can Democrats do a better job trying to sell his accomplishments to the American people? Yes. They clearly have not done a good job doing that to date. But there are fundamental problems for him in this poll that don't seem to be true of a generic Democratic candidate.

It's late. It's always later than you think. I don't think Democrats should be dismissing this. I don't think most are. But, you know, one of the things you hear the White House say is if Trump wasn't running maybe Biden wouldn't be getting in. [09:35:05]

You know, this decision does need to be made soon definitively. And there are signs that Biden is somewhat a drag on the ticket right now. Doesn't mean it can't be turned around. Democrats have a very good special election record.

But on issue after issue they're trailing Trump where they really shouldn't be, including on the issue of democracy, by the way, where Biden's only leading him by 3 points. And if you want to make that the centerpiece of this election, which I believe it should be, you know, objective facts would suggest he should be blowing him out of the water on that one.

BOLDUAN: It is -- still, it is -- I guess I would put it as wild to think, hearing from David Axelrod -

AVLON: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Only Joe Biden can make this decision. And also - oh, let's go over to the courthouse very quick. Apologies.

Lower Manhattan. This is New York's attorney general, who's bringing this civil case against Donald Trump today.

Listen.

LETITIA JAMES, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: Trump Organization (INAUDIBLE). Mr. Trump has repeatedly and consistently misrepresented and inflated the value of his assets. And before he takes the stand, I am certain that he will engage in name calling and taunts and race baiting, and call this a witch-hunt. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers. And numbers, my friends, don't lie.

Thank you.

BOLDUAN: All right. Facts and numbers. Numbers don't lie. They're headed into the courtroom. The attorney general is -- seems to be ready for this day to come, as she's waving and heading up the stairs.

This, we're going to continue to track. Donald Trump is at the courthouse as we saw him enter a short time ago.

Alice, back to the politics.

Well, honestly, the legal and the politics, they collide.

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

BOLDUAN: And John and Harry were just highlighting what the polling looks like if Donald Trump is convicted and sentenced. There is a 6 percent swing amongst voters towards Joe Biden, so they say, so far in this poll. That's not good.

STEWART: That's not good. But what the Trump team is looking at right now is, how does this impact his base and the Republican in the primary election? They're just really looking at the primary right now, which I think is very short sighted. We need to be looking at electability in the general election.

And what we have seen so far is, as his legal woes grow, so does his political power with the base, because as Letitia James just said, Donald Trump, as we all know, will come out there today and say this is a witch-hunt, this is judicial prosecution, this overreach by political adversaries. And his base and viewers on conservative television, and in conservative media, that is all they're going to say, time after time after time, and his folks believe that and they believe he is being unjustly charged. They believe he is taking one for the team because he -- if they would go after him, they will go after them. They believe that.

And that really solidifies his support with the base. The problem is, that's not true. And independent voters and rational Republicans realize that's not true. They are going to unfold a very serious case of fraud in this case and people are going to take notice and say, we can turn the page. We have other options. We have a strong Republican primary field that is out there campaigning, which should be our nominee moving forward and certainly to take on Joe Biden.

And look, I think what David Axelrod is saying about Biden is accurate. There should be some red flags and concerns about his electability in the general election. We heard the same thing from James Carville, the Clinton -- the mind behind the Clinton campaign. He said a month ago that Democrats need to wake the "f" up on the risks of Joe Biden in the general election. I think we're going to potentially see some names potentially come in because, you know, Axelrod was clear, Obama's poll numbers were about the same at this point in his re-election, but Obama was 50 and Biden is in his 80s.

BOLDUAN: All right, guys, much more to come. Please, stand by.

We're also keeping a very close eye on the courthouse in lower Manhattan. We're waiting for Donald Trump to -- yep, walk through that hallway and enter into that room right there. Keeping a close eye on it.

We'll be right back.

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[09:43:33]

BERMAN: In just a few minutes Donald Trump testifies in the New York civil fraud case against him, his kids, his family business. He will be on the witness stand before that. He may choose to speak to cameras, which are set up inside the hallways of this courthouse. He rarely misses the opportunity to say something.

And today what he says, perhaps even more important, because it will be literally minutes before he is side-by-side with a judge under oath. Will he attack the judge? Will he attack the case? Will he indicate what he might say on the stand? We are standing by to hear that, which could take place any minute.

BOLDUAN: Yes, you're looking at that live picture of the hallway, which is where we would expect him to walk past.

Outside of the courthouse, standing by for us, Kaitlan Collins, Paula Reid, they're both there for us.

Kaitlan, the attorney general just walked up the steps and spoke right behind you. This is all about to get underway. What did she say?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it was a notable moment to see her. She's not always in court every single day that this trial has been going on, but she is here for the bigger moments. And so she is going to be in that same courtroom with the former president. She was talking about the numbers and the facts and saying that those are important, that they don't lie and how much they matter here.

Of course, she also was talking about the criticism that she has faced, the attacks, from the former president, talking about the race baiting, as she referred to it. That is something that he has singled out multiple times when criticizing her publicly. And that is going to be an interesting factor in the room whenever, of course, they are both in there, to see them both face-to-face given what the judge has said about Trump's attacks on courtroom staff and on what that looks like.

[09:45:06]

The judge saying, feel free to criticize me, but don't criticize my staff. That law clerk that Trump has also been criticizing will also be in the room today.

And, Paula, I mean just to hear from the attorney general, she doesn't have to stop and speak to the cameras, but it was notable that she came out and that she took that moment, even briefly, to do so before also waving to the anti-Trump protesters who were over here across the street.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's a choice for the attorney general of the state of New York to come out and address cameras before a defendant in a civil trial takes the stand, that is unusual. And the comments she made there are also unusual. She tried to anticipate what he would say. And she is likely right, he is going to, either on the stand or right after, try to paint this as a political witch-hunt. But by coming out and addressing cameras, some may ask or significant that she may be feeding into this idea that he is being targeted or political purposes.

She has lawyers in there who will be cross-examining him, who will be direct - actually direct examining him today. And that's really where these questions should be asked. That's where they will be answered. So, to come out and try to get out ahead of his testimony, that is an unusual move, and arguably helps to amplify Trump's argument that there could be some bias or some political motivation.

So, yes, it's a choice for her to come out and address cameras. She's entitled to do that, but that is unusual.

COLLINS: Right, but she's coming out speaking. I mean we may hear from him. He has been - he was late to court at one point because he was outside speaking to the cameras for so long that he actually entered the room late.

I think one thing that is notable here is we are going to hear from Trump today. I mean he could plead the Fifth, but doing so here would actually be more damaging because a judge takes that into account when they're making the final decision here of what the restitution here is going to look like.

REID: That's exactly right. There's no jury. It's just the judge. The judge has already found him and his co-defendants liable for fraud. This is the penalty phase. And when he sat for a deposition in this case, he invoked the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times. But if he does that today the judge can draw a negative inference.

And, Kaitlan, you and I have both covered Trump at the White House. We know this is a test for him to remain composed, concise, and stick to the script that his lawyers would like him to, which is arguing that these valuations were subjective and there were disclaimers in all of them suggesting that banks should do their own due diligence. That's what he should be sticking to on the stand. Then when he walks out of the courtroom, he'll have a sea of cameras and reporters where he can turn campaign mode back on.

But it's so interesting to see this today because he's going to be on the witness stand and his legal and political interests really diverge. And I - we'll all be watching to see which way he goes.

COLLINS: Yes. And, Kate and John, that's obviously an important point because Trump - you know, typically the lawyers are the one running the show and they're telling the client, here's how you should answer this question, here's how you should do that. It's been the reverse here with Trump telling his own attorneys what they should object to and how they should handle this. We'll see what it looks like when he's actually on the witness stand not just simply sitting as an observer in court, as he has been for several days now.

BERMAN: All right, Kaitlan Collins, Paula Reid, down at the courthouse, thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Here with us now, Elie Honig back with us. Karen Friedman Agnifilo joining us as well.

Great to see you.

Elie, one thing that we know is Donald Trump has been doing some sort of prep ahead of time.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

BOLDUAN: You've done prep before when you're talking about a state's witness. This is very different. How are you - how would he be -- what should he have been -- how could - how should have his attorneys been prepping him?

HONIG: Yes, so, first of all, that certainly suggests he will testify and he's not going to take the Fifth.

BOLDUAN: Great point.

HONIG: There would be no reason to spend the weekend prepping if you were just going to say "Fifth."

We do this all the time as lawyers, as prosecutors, as civil lawyers. What you want to do is get that person ready for the worst-case scenario. Get your witness ready for the worst-case scenario. What we used to do at the prosecutor's office is, we would go down the hall and find a particularly tough prosecutor and say, hey, can you do a mock cross exam on this witness? Can you get this guy ready? Can you put him through the worst? We used to say, the prep was usually worse than what actually happened on the stand.

But I imagine, if this prep is going to be any use to Donald Trump, they can't just lob him softballs, this have to try to simulate what it's going to be like right off the bat.

The other thing to keep in mind, usually when a witness takes the stand, the easy part's first. It's the direct exam. It's the witness that that party has called. It's open-ended questions. Then comes the cross. This is the opposite. It's the AG office has put Donald Trump on the stand. We're going to be essentially right into the fireworks right away.

BERMAN: Karen, one of the things that we heard from the attorney general, she said, numbers don't lie. And that jumped out to me when she said it because it gets to something that Elie had said before, which is that, if he were one of the state attorneys, he would go to Donald Trump right away with numbers and say, what can you tell us about the valuation of this apartment or that apartment? How can numbers be used if you are one of the state's attorneys asking him questions?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, FORMER CHIEF ASSISTANT DA IN MANHATTAN: So, I think there are some objective facts that he can be confronted with. The one that everybody keeps talking about is the size of his Manhattan apartment that it says it was 30,000 square feet but it's actually closer to 10,000 or 11,000 square feet.

[09:50:11]

Those are the types of numbers that don't lie, that are objective, that I think they can confront him with and say, you signed this piece of paper you -- that said that it was 30,000 square feet when you know that's three times the size that it was. That kind of a thing. Those are the types of things I think they mean when numbers don't lie.

But when you value a piece of property, it is more of an art than a science. And I think that's going to be one of the things that will be discussed here at length.

Interesting the - the -- Don Jr. and Eric, when they testified, they didn't try to justify the numbers. They didn't dispute the facts. They walked away from them and said, well, I - I don't know what those numbers are, right? That's - somebody else did that. It will be interesting to see what - what Donald Trump does, whether he tries to say, no, this is really worth $1 billion or a high amount, or is he is going to say, well, I don't know, someone else prepared it. So, that's what I'm looking for the see here.

BOLDUAN: Here's one thing, on the - when you're talking about these numbers, it's more of an art than a science, when you're talking about real estate, that's one thing. But when you are reporting value to a lender, to a bank, you have a fiduciary responsibility to report that accurately. So, there is more science to it than - along with the art in terms of when I - you know, all of the smart, financial experts that I talk to. There is - he is off. He is wrong. It is not OK, it is not an art of the deal to say your apartment or your - these assets or 3x, 4x billions of dollars over -- over valuation.

HONIG: There is some art to it, but it's not a free-for-all. And that's a point the judge makes in his ruling that he issued before the trial started. He said, yes, there is some room for subjectivity. Different minds can reasonably vary 10 percent, 20 percent on the value of a property, but people need to understand the extreme variations that we're talking about here.

To give you two quick examples, Mar-a-Lago.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

HONIG: The buildings, the property, that was accessed by a county accessor, neutral party, no interest in it, at around $20 million give or take. The Trump organization claimed it was worth $500 million. That's 25 times more.

I'll give you another example. Seven Spring, the resort in upstate New York, was again valued neutrally by -- at around $26 million. Trump's people tried to claim it's worth $300 million. So, again, we're not talking about 10 percent, 20 percent. We're talking about ten times, 20 time. And to Kara's point, it's going to be really interesting. Is Trump going to go up there with a straight face. And he's even said publicly, not only were our numbers right --

BOLDUAN: Here comes Trump right now you guys.

HONIG: Here he comes. Yes.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) testifying today?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I am.

So, while Israel is being attacked, while Ukraine is being attacked, while inflation is eating our country alive, I'm down here, and these are all political opponent attack ads by the Biden administration. Their poll numbers are terrible. You saw what happened today with "The New York Times" and CBS came out with a poll that I'm leading all over the place.

But it's a very unfair situation. This is really election interference. And so this trial is ridiculous. The numbers are much greater than on the financial statement. And we've already proven that. They said Mar-a-Lago's worth $18 million. Mar-a-Lago's worth anywhere from probably 50 to 100 times more than that. And it's a terrible, terrible thing.

These are political operatives that I'm going to be dealing with right now. And you have a racist attorney general who made some terrible statements. And you've just seen some more that came over the wires today. And it's a very sad situation for our country. We shouldn't have this. This is for third-world countries. And, you know, very unfair. It's very unfair.

But, in the meantime, the people of the country understand it. They see it. And they don't like it. They don't like it. It's political warfare, as you would call it, or political lawfare, another name that got a lot of news worth. But usually it takes place in third-world countries, in banana republics. And nobody's ever seen that to this extent and we've never seen it here.

But we will go along and we will hopefully do very well in every regard and we'll win the election and we'll make America great again. That's what we're going to do, we're going to make America great again. But we have to take it away from the thugs that we deal with and the horrible people that actually must hate our country to do this. But we will - we'll fight very hard for our country.

Thank you very much, everybody.

BERMAN: All right, what you just heard there was a campaign speech from someone about to be under oath on the witness stand. Very clearly so. And I think he would admit it was so. He talked about Israel. He talked about Ukraine. He talked about inflation. He talked about the polls.

BOLDUAN: And we're going to win the election is what he's saying as he's about to go and take the stand.

[09:55:02]

BERMAN: And then he very briefly talked about the case itself. And one of the things he mentioned was the valuation of Mar-a-Lago, which he says is 50 to 100 times more than has been suggested in this courtroom.

Karen, based on what you heard there - first of all, anything you heard there, and a lot's going to happen in the next few minute, I want to be clear about this. We just heard Donald Trump out loud right there. Within minutes, and I'm talking like 10 minutes -

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: He's going to be under oath on the witness stand testifying.

So, does anything that he said there impact what's about to happen behind closed doors in the courtroom?

AGNIFILO: So, first of all, I just want to clarify something. He says this is the Biden administration bringing this. This is New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who is independently elected by the people of the state of New York.

BERMAN: Great point.

AGNIFILO: It has nothing to do with the Biden administration. I just want to correct that.

But this does not impact anything that's going to happen inside. He didn't mention the court staff for example.

BOLDUAN: So no violation of the gag - the limited gag order right there.

AGNIFILO: Exactly. So -- so, I think that's OK. It was predicted that he was going to make a speech ahead of time, which is why I think Attorney General Letitia James made a very brief statement as well ahead of time just to kind of say, this is what's going to happen. Numbers don't lie.

So, he made his statement. This is what he's been doing.

But let's see what he does when he takes the stand, he sits down, he raises his right hand, like everybody else, and swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. He has to be careful about perjury too, right? That's the other thing that could potentially happen, that he open himself up to, in addition to the fact that Alvin Bragg still has a case, an investigation, a criminal investigation open to these exact same fact.

So, the Manhattan D.A.'s office, Alvin Bragg, his team will be watching this as well to see what does he say, what doesn't he say. That investigation has always been open, is still open, and this trial has provided a lot more information for the criminal prosecution.

BOLDUAN: Well, a quick thought.

HONIG: Comments like the one that Donald Trump just made, and he's made several times, they do lock him in. They do narrow his options at trial because he just stood in front of the cameras and said, these valuations that we gave were underinflated if anything. He said it was worth 50 to 100 times more. So, he's not going to be able to push back against that on the stand. He is now arguing these valuations were legitimate.

BERMAN: All right, we will find out what he says on the witness stand in just minutes. Donald Trump under oath.

Our special live coverage continues right after this.

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