Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Takes the Stand in Civil Fraud Trial. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 06, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:35]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Dana Bash with Wolf Blitzer in Washington. It is the top of the hour.

And we're tracking this historic and quite chaotic Donald Trump testimony in New York. The former president is taking the stand in his own defense, facing a civil fraud trial that could determine his future as a businessman and his political prospects.

Court is in recess for lunch. So far, Trump has been on the stand for nearly three hours.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And, Dana, he's used much of that time to filibuster and rail against the judge, and that's very significant.

Trump keeps attacking and disobeying the judge, even though the fate of Trump's family business is in that judge's hands. There is no jury in this civil trial.

We have CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Kara Scannell. They're outside the courthouse for us in Manhattan right now.

Kaitlan, bring us up to speed right now on this -- this testimony that has already gone on and what we anticipate.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Yes, Wolf, I mean, it has been tense, to say the least, inside that courtroom. There was a brief period where the judge was not as frustrated with Trump as he has been throughout the morning.

But, for the most part, there has been a lot of frustration coming from the judge's comments, saying that he wanted Trump -- wants Trump to stop going on his sides about oil capitals of the world being in Scotland and why he exaggerated his worth to where he did and said just giving the attorney general's office yes-or-no questions.

That has not really happened. That is obviously not Donald Trump's style. And, of course, the question here, though, is how much of an impact that could have on what the outcome of this testimony is, because, Wolf, as you noted, there is no jury here. It is simply the judge who is the decision-maker.

He has already found Trump liable for fraud. And that clearly is at the heart of a lot of the frustration here, because, at one point, Trump lashed out at him. And, for more on this Wolf, I mean, Kara Scannell was actually inside the courtroom as all of this was happening.

Kara, can you just tell us -- we have been reading your dispatches, but what was it like to actually be in the room?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, the real moment of tension came just around noon, right?

So, in the morning, the judge had been telling Trump, answer these questions. Don't just answer and then give a speech, but just answer the questions, no speeches. But things really got tense around noon. And that is when the assistant attorney general was asking Trump specifically about these financial statements and saying -- the attorney general's office has said that these statements are false, misleading. Do you disagree with that?

And Trump lost his cool then. He really just became more animated. He raised his voice. And that is when he was saying that the attorney general is a political hack, calling her a disgrace, and then attacking the judge, not looking at him. Trump is still facing the attorney who's questioning him. The judge is off to the side, but saying, he ruled against me, he called me a fraud, and he doesn't know anything about me.

That is when we saw Trump get the most animated, the most emotional, and look, frankly, angry that he was being called a fraud. So that seemed to really tip the balance of where he lost his cool. Otherwise, even though he was, as the judge said, giving speeches, he kept a very straight demeanor.

He wasn't showing any kind of emotional reaction. But that is what set him off, saying that the judge had called him a fraud and didn't know anything about him, kind of hitting right to the heart of his reputation and his 50 years of being a businessman in New York.

COLLINS: And how did the judge respond? And what was he doing while Trump was attacking him, but not looking at him?

SCANNELL: So the judge has kept -- other than the moments where he has asked Trump to speak, when Trump is attacking him, he's just looking kind of straight ahead. He's not reacting at all, compared with the other moments, where the judge was more irritated, raising his voice, saying he's kind of fed up with this.

Answer the question. He said, if you don't answer the question, I'm going to excuse you from the witness stand, and I'm going to hold this against, which is the whole point of Trump testifying here, to try to get his point on.

Trump's lawyers are saying to the judge, these are his brilliant answers. These answers are brilliant, that he should be allowed to give these long answers because it's his way of showing that there was no intent to defraud here, because that is a key element of these claims that remain that they're on trial for right now. COLLINS: Surely, his attorneys can't actually think these are

brilliant answers, since they're infuriating the judge this much, and it's the judge who is going to decide what he has to pay here.

I mean, but there was a point where -- between the judge and Trump's attorneys, it got quite testy as well.

SCANNELL: Right.

I mean, this is all because the -- what was interesting is, it was the judge who raised this first. It wasn't the attorney general's office saying that Trump's answers were too long. The judge out of the gate, it was about -- I mean, it was like right when they got to one of the questions about the financial statements, so, really, in the early part of this, the judge laying down the law, saying, I want you to answer the questions. I don't want speeches.

[13:05:12]

And then, at this point, it was not still -- this is usually something that the attorney general's office has brought up repeatedly. And, in this instance, the judge was saying it, kind of setting the tone. And that is when Trump's lawyers were saying, Your Honor, he needs a chance to answer these questions because you have to understand his thinking here. And he's trying to give this answer.

The judge was saying, no, he needs to answer these questions. I don't need a speech. I need an answer to the question.

COLLINS: And how was the attorney general, the lawyer for the attorney general's office -- I mean, he's the one doing all the questioning here.

But did they -- were they -- did they want it to keep going in the hopes that maybe his rambling could actually be helpful to them?

SCANNELL: That is what happened at the end.

So he was letting Trump speak. And the judge was asking at one point, do you want it -- do you want some of this nonresponsive part stricken from the record? And the assistant attorney general said, no, I'm happy to keep it. I like some of what he said.

So they think that some of the things he is saying about his knowledge of these properties, his knowledge of the values of these properties, they think that's useful to their case. So, even though he is saying things that are not answering the question that's posed to him, they think what he's saying is actually helpful to them.

COLLINS: And so -- what's their own break now? Trump hasn't actually spoken outside the court, which is kind of remarkable since this morning. What's next?

SCANNELL: So, this afternoon is kind of a short session. I mean, the bulk of the trial is in the morning. So court breaks at 4:30. There's one other break. So we're really going to have only about two hours and 15 minutes of questioning.

And while they have gone through a number of these properties, Mar-a- Lago, his triplex at Trump Tower, which he said there was a mistake, it was overvalued, they have gone through a lot of properties, but they focused on different years. They kind of were bouncing around.

This allegation goes back as far as 2011, 2014. Been bouncing around. But they still have two-and-a-half-hours of him on the stand, where they try to get in all of the questions they want to ask him at the center of this.

COLLINS: Yes.

Well, Dana, I mean, clearly a lot going on there. Fascinating to hear from Kara, who's inside the courtroom watching all of this play out.

BLITZER: Kaitlan Collins, Kara Scannell, thanks to both of you very much. We will continue to stay in very close touch with both of you.

All this is happening, of course, just a year out from the 2024 presidential election. And Trump didn't waste any time using today's testimony as a fund-raising opportunity. Earlier, his campaign sent an e-mail to supporters attacking the trial as -- quote -- "election interference" and talking up his latest poll numbers.

CNN's Kristen Holmes, Dana, is watching all of this unfold.

BASH: That's right.

And, Kristen, this is probably one of the least surprising things that has happened today, that the Trump campaign is using what is happening inside the courtroom to try to benefit him outside the courtroom, particularly on the campaign trail.

I mean, going in, you were talking to all of your sources. I spoke to some people in Trump world. His political strategy is almost superseding his legal strategy and trying to take advantage as much as possible of what is happening inside to use the terms that we hear over and over, primarily witch-hunt.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dana, that's right.

And I do want to note one thing. Just while he's been in a lunch break, Donald Trump has posted on TRUTH Social a picture of the judge and a quote from this morning that he essentially says that the judge says, "No, I'm not here to hear what President Trump has to say," which was one of the quotes when they were having their sparring back and forth earlier today, essentially taking this quote out of context and using it to campaign off of.

The fund-raising is no surprise. This is a strategy that is not only working for them, but it's one that they have to use. We have to remember here he is still running a presidential campaign. He is not going to get to choose when he testifies or when he goes to trial. So they are taking this, these trials, these legal problems, and trying to make the most of them by turning them into a political campaign. Donald Trump is running on the messaging that this is election

interference, that they want to stop him, Democrats, all of his opponents, rivals want to stop him from being president again, being elected in 2024. And what he has done here, what we have seen is, he's actually taken that messaging from the public sphere and moved it into the courtroom.

That's what you saw this morning, potentially at different times saying, you said I was a fraud, you didn't know anything about me, talking about election interference. They are taking this messaging to a whole 'nother level here.

We expected him to go out to the cameras and do this, but he is also doing this behind the scenes in the courtroom as well. And one telling part of this is that I have spoken to a campaign adviser, who says that they actually really do think he's doing a good job and they like the way that this is unfolding, the back-and-forth here in the courtroom, that they believe he is winning at messaging here.

That is what this is all about to Donald Trump. How can he message this?

[13:10:01]

Now, of course, I do not want to separate the fact that we know that this case in particular, that this trial in particular goes to the very core of who Donald Trump is. We talk about this a lot in terms of his personal brand, how he built his business, but it also is part of his political brand.

He spent years telling American voters that he was successful, he was this rich businessman. If he could do it for himself, he could do it for the American voter as well. He could run this country like the business he ran. And now he is being accused of fraudulently running that business and overinflating his wealth.

That would go to the very core of his messaging politically, as well as personal branding. So there is a lot at stake here for Donald Trump. But, as you can see, they are trying to make the most of this in terms of how to actually use it to their benefit for 2024 and the political campaign.

BASH: Yes, Kristen, Elliot was making an important point earlier about the fact that, yes, this is a very specific, very narrow legal issue that he's embroiled in. It's only civil, and he's already been found liable. It's a question of how much money he's going to spend.

It is quite different -- how much money he's going to have to give. It's quite different from the criminal charges that he's facing, both federally and also in Georgia. But, politically speaking, which is just what we're talking about here, what the Trump campaign is doing is lumping them all together and saying, look, they're against me, the they, the Democrats. Pick whoever you want to define as they.

And I spoke to somebody who said that, if you look at the poll numbers among Republicans in the presidential primary and caucus electorate, he certainly has a lot of very substantial, hard support, sticky support, but that there's still like 15 to 20 percent of Republicans who say that they could vote for Donald Trump, but might not, and that they believe that what we're seeing in New York today could help harden the support for Donald Trump in the short term during this Republican primary process.

It's amazing how connected, intentionally connected what you're seeing in the courtroom is, from the perspective of the Trump campaign, to the actual political strategy.

HOLMES: Dana, I just want to add one thing to that because I think what you're saying is spot on.

And I also think, when you talk about those voters who aren't sure about Donald Trump, I hear from a lot of them. I'm not just talking about at these Trump rallies, but at various events that I go to for the Republican candidates. And I do hear one part of this messaging over and over again, that there is a two-tiered justice system.

Even if they do not support Donald Trump, there is something about his messaging that is getting through to at least some Republicans outside of his core base. And that is what they are banking on. Now, of course, we have to point out this is completely unprecedented.

Even his own allies have concerns over what this means for a general election, how this would actually play out with voters, what it would mean to have trial after trial after trial. Will that cause Trump fatigue? But what they do believe now is, in the short term, that this is working.

And I will tell you, they looked at those "New York Times" polls from over the weekend, and that's what they spent most of yesterday talking about, not that he was going to go to court today, that he was going to testify, but about how good his poll numbers were over the weekend.

That is what they are focused on. And when they see those poll numbers, that's not going to help them shift their strategy in any way. It's actually going to keep them doubling down on that.

BASH: Kristen, thank you so much for your excellent reporting, as always.

Stay with us as we follow all the breaking news on Donald Trump's civil fraud trial. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:53]

BASH: We're back with our special coverage as Donald Trump takes the stand in the civil fraud trial against him in New York.

And things have been quite tense in the courtroom, as we have been reporting all day. The former president spent most of his time attacking the judge, the trial attorney and the attorney general of the state of New York. All of this prompted the judge to reprimand him repeatedly.

Let's bring in our panel.

Laura, Coates you have been in courtrooms before. I don't know that you have -- I don't know. You tell us. I mean, have you ever been in a situation where the witness who is supposed to be testifying on his own behalf to try to limit the damage, as he is here, because he's already liable, does what he's doing on the stand?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I have had my fair share of hostile witnesses, but, normally, the attorneys would counsel them, when there is a bench trial, when the actual fact-finder is the judge himself, who is accustomed to the antics.

But, in this instance, he is well aware that there is bait, that they're trying to suggest, if I can just upset you enough, Your Honor, maybe you will be less professional. Maybe you will walk right into my appellate arguments.

Here, the judge is very clear about that. But take a step back as to why this is so strange. Remember, when the judge is asking questions or the judge is asking the attorneys to make sure they're in line, he's already ruled about the very important consequential notion here of saying, you have already been found liable of fraud. What I want to hear from you is whether you should be fined a quarter-of-a-billion dollars for that fraud, which would mean show some humility.

Maybe you want to suggest you were not the one in control in some respects or otherwise. Instead, you have got hubris. You have got an air of defiance, playing to a court of public opinion. And, most importantly, you have somebody now, the judge, who's saying, OK, I will take a step back and let the attorneys handle this, because he knows about the appellate process.

So, in all of it, have I seen some of it? Yes. But this crazy? No.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: It seems to me that Trump and his lawyers, by Trump doing -- going after the judge, hoping to rile in him, if you will -- hold on one second. They want to listen to -- this is Trump's attorney.

[13:20:03]

ALINA HABBA, ATTORNEY FOR FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: "I'm not here to hear what he has to say."

Then, why exactly am I being paid as an attorney? And why exactly are taxpayer dollars being used in this courtroom? The answer is very clear. Because Ms. James wants to stand right here, like she did this morning, and call my client a liar, call the company fraudulent, and make a name for herself.

She said this morning that the numbers don't lie, and they won't lie in this case. Well, Ms. James, I have a message for you. The numbers didn't lie when you ran for governor. And that's why you dropped out. And the numbers don't lie when President Trump runs for office in 2024.

And those numbers are loud and clear. This country is falling apart. And if we don't stop corruption in courtrooms, where attorneys are gagged, where attorneys are not allowed to say what they need to say to protect their clients' interest...

BLITZER: All right, so that's Letitia -- that's Alina Habba, the -- one of the attorneys representing Donald Trump in this case.

Dana, when we're listening to her, it sounds more like a political statement that she's making, as opposed to a legal statement.

BASH: It's -- it's so transparent. I mean, they're not trying to hide the fact that this is a political moment.

This is a political campaign event that his advisers, along with his attorneys, his attorneys in the secondary or even the third sort of row of that, are putting on. And she just set it right there. It's about 2024.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: She's not talking about the case, right.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BORGER: No.

GANGEL: It's all politics. It also is geared toward one person. She has an audience of one right there, Donald Trump.

She came out. She knew that he would be watching. This is what he wants her to say, because that's what he cares about right now. I don't think we can underscore enough the fact that he has been found liable. And, as Laura just said, now we're talking about the money now.

And absolutely about the appellant case, the lawyers here, know much more about that. But he is on a political attack strategy here. He's fund-raising off of it. And that was part of the fund-raising.

BORGER: Well, you know, it's interesting to me, because it seems, from reading some of the transcripts here, that Trump hasn't answered a lot of specific questions about 40 Wall Street or any of these larger properties.

Instead, he turns and says, you guys want to take my properties way, one time, he said, like they do in communist China. So what he does is, he turns it to the victimization. And you guys are -- they're making a martyr out of them is what -- and he wants to be the martyr. And that's what he's trying to do. And his attorneys are doing it on the courthouse steps.

Now, I'm not a lawyer here, you guys can answer.

BASH: But you play one on TV.

BORGER: I do play one.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: Not a great lawyer.

But you guys can tell me what that means, in terms of he doesn't want to lose the $250 million. Worse of all, he does -- he wants to be able to continue to do business in the state of New York,. I think that is something he does care about.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think lost in all of this is that we, as Americans, have a notion of trials as "Law & Order," the television show, where in 60 minutes or 42 minutes, if you count commercial breaks, everything gets wrapped up, the trial is short, and anything can happen.

Here...

BORGER: It doesn't work that way?

WILLIAMS: It doesn't work that way.

BORGER: Oh.

WILLIAMS: But it's important to note that even rambling and giving long answers can really work against you as a witness.

And that can be the kinds of things that, number one, just bother the judge. And when you have one individual who controls your fates, you really don't want to get on his nerves. It's just -- it's almost a human matter, as much as it's a legal one.

And so the mere fact of the president going off-script talking about all this nonsense really could work against him at this trial. And, again, maybe the money doesn't matter. Maybe it's not a big deal. But if you lose here, you could lose your country.

BLITZER: If you know Trump, the money matters.

WILLIAMS: Maybe. Maybe. I don't know.

COATES: But it's also the why, the why the rambling answers.

I know this is a judge trial, but they're called a fact-finder. So if you were yourselves jurors, and you had someone who had a yes-or-no question posed to them, and instead they circuitously tried to get to an answer that still does not answer it, you are going to assign less credibility to that person.

You're going to assume that what they're saying and why they're giving you the end run is because they're not being truthful. You're not going to assume they're inarticulate. They know Donald Trump too well.

[13:25:02] And so, as a judge, the ruling is about credibility. And why that's so important is that, if this goes up on appeal, for whatever reason, the one thing the appellate judges really can't touch is, what was the firsthand observations of a fact-finder? If I did not find you credible, if there's no reasoning to think I'm biased in that result, then, therefore, the judges are saying, well, do you have an argument in the law?

WILLIAMS: Yes. Yes.

COATES: If not, nothing.

GANGEL: Is that part of the reason that the attorney general counsel, they're saying, leave it on the record?

COATES: Yes. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: It's one thing, though, Laura -- Laura, it's one thing for Trump to be railing against the judge publicly under oath in the courtroom.

It's another thing for a lawyer representing Trump to be railing against the judge, isn't it?

COATES: Well, she serves only one master really, right?

And the idea of you're supposed to have a duty of ethics and candor and respect to the tribunal, the court in this scenario, that seems to be far in the rearview mirror, like it's a little dot in the rearview mirror at this point in time, for the reason that she's talking to an audience of one.

But, also, it does not help you on appeal. It does not help your client in the record. And your job, number one, first and foremost, as the consummate advocate, is to represent your client to the best of your abilities and in ways that are going to self-serve them.

It's not happening here.

WILLIAMS: And even beyond the credibility point -- now, of course, if your witness -- if your testimony is not found credible, the court doesn't believe you, and you lose.

COATES: Right.

WILLIAMS: Also, you can be held in contempt of court for failing to answer questions in the way they're asked.

If it repeatedly keeps happening, you -- either money fines or even being thrown in a jail cell.

BLITZER: That's why, if it's a yes-or-no question, and you get a speech out of that...

WILLIAMS: Over four hours of repeatedly doing that. The court can hold you in contempt.

BASH: Can I just help to answer your very good question, which is why?

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BASH: Why is he doing this?

As we're talking and as we're reading more of what he's saying in the courthouse and on the stand, it's his political -- not just his political speech, but it's his political identity that he is trying to frame all of this through...

COATES: Yes.

BASH: ... as, hey, everybody out there, this is me now, but it could be you tomorrow, and it may have been you yesterday, and I'm standing up for you against the machine, against the they, whoever he considers they, in a way that you want me to and that you would like to do if this was...

BORGER: That's exactly right.

And it also is important, I think, for the judge, because what -- Trump needs enemies. And he's -- his enemy in this case is, of course, Letitia James, but it's also the judge in this case.

And then, in a way -- again, I'm not a lawyer, in a way, the judge backed off being a little confrontational with Trump. Does the judge feel some pressure also to let him go on in terms of what's going to happen next?

BASH: To not take the bait.

BORGER: To not take the bait, yes.

COATES: I think, for the reasons we have articulated, a judge who we are -- we know judges are not going to have the theatrics and the antics.

There are -- they have seen so many things over the course of a career, certainly his own career. That he would be so riled up over somebody being an uncooperative witness is a little bit out of character, number one, but also Letitia James.

I think it's important we focus on what happens when you have somebody who's an elected officer who is bringing charges. One of the reasons people will oftentimes villainize and criticize elected prosecutors is because, during the campaign trail, they often will select a target. To your point, they want a villain.

The one of her choosing was not even Donald Trump. And for that reason, the attorneys with Trump have the requisite amount of evidence and ammunition to suggest that she is biased. And that is feeding into the bias of the base.

BLITZER: All right, everyone, stand by. We have a lot more going on.

We just learned, by the way, that the court is in recess now for lunch until 2:15 p.m. That's about 45 minutes or so from now.

We're following all of these late-breaking developments. Stay with us. Our special coverage will continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:00]