Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Now: Trump Back On The Stand After Clashing With Judge; Judge Tells Atty To Control Trump: "This Is Not A Political Rally"; Trump Finishes Testimony In NY Civil Fraud Trial. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 06, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:34]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Welcome to a special edition of CNN NEWS CENTRAL. I'm Brianna Keilar with Boris Sanchez here in Washington.

And we are tracking Donald Trump's historic and chaotic testimony in his New York civil fraud trial. Right now, the former president testifying in his own defense in the face of a massive fraud case. He's been under oath now for more than three hours today and he's spent much of that time railing against the judge.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And that is remarkable because the fate of Trump's company is in that judge's hands. There's no jury in this case. And Judge Arthur Engoron already found Trump liable for fraud, so this trial determines the penalties, what that fraud will cost Trump. That could mean the judge stripping The Trump Organization of its business certificate.

Let's take you now live outside the courthouse with CNN's Paula Reid.

Paula, what is the latest coming out of the courtroom?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, in the past few moments, the assistant attorney general questioning Trump has focused on questions about his net worth, because at the heart of this case is an accusation that Trump lied about his net worth to get more favorable terms on loans for certain properties, as well as also allegedly lying to insurance companies to get more favorable terms.

So these questions focused on his net worth are significant, and he has testified that he was worth around $2.5 billion. They also suggested his net worth could be even more than that. But the Attorney General is accusing him of actually having a net worth that is much less than what he disclosed in these loan applications.

He also talked about how much cash he had on hand. For one loan, he said he had $50 million, boasting that he had quite a bit of cash at that time. He suggests that his net worth was exactly what it needed to be. He's also emphasizing with some loans that they were paid back, that there was no victim. And he said on the stand a short time ago, the reason he is in court right now is because of "politics." Now, the past hour or so has been much more focused, much more productive for the Attorney General's office than the earlier part of the day, which was quite chaotic as the judge continued to interrupt Trump, insisting that he give yes or no answers, admonishing him for what the judge described as speeches and essays, which then set off disagreements between Trump's lawyers and the Attorney General's office.

After a short break, the judge really took a different approach to today's testimony. He's no longer interrupting Trump, letting him talk. Sometimes his lawyers might feel at his own peril, but things are moving along and they're going down the list of properties that are at the heart of this case.

KEILAR: What are the considerations here for an appeal? And Paula, does that have anything to do with how Trump is acting in court?

REID: Well, it does appear that there is a strategy to help them on what appears to be an inevitable appeal. The Trump lawyers have suggested they will appeal the outcome of this. The judge has already found Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud. They're focused now mostly on the penalties, what he will incur for this alleged fraud. They've said they're going to appeal this.

But what you saw today was likely the former president trying to really get the judge to interrupt him enough to then try to argue that he didn't get a chance to talk. He didn't get a chance to testify fully. He didn't get a chance to answer the questions accurately. It did appear, especially in the morning half of today's proceedings, that he was trying to debate the judge. And it did appear that it was working for the first part of the morning, where the judge continued to interrupt him, even threatened to kick him out of court, and say he would draw the most negative inference possible, which means he would conclude that the testimony went as poorly as it possibly could for Trump.

Remember, there's no jury here today. It is just the judge who is overseeing. And again, we expect whatever happens here will ultimately be appealed. And the former president has been answering more questions this afternoon, but he has also taken shots again at the Attorney General who's sitting there in court, as well as the judge overseeing his testimony.

KEILAR: You have quite the day in court, Paula. Thank you for that report.

I want to break this down now with our expert panel.

What do you think, Gloria, about what you've seen play out so far?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think what we've seen play out today is really much more of a political strategy than a legal strategy.

[15:05:04] I mean, what Trump is saying outside the courtroom, he's saying inside the courtroom. He's saying that he's a victim here, that this is a witch hunt, that the judge really effectively didn't know him and was trying to embarrass him and said, look, this is - there's no victims to this, so why is there a crime. The banks all got their money, what's the problem here.

And so, we've seen a lot of drama. If the lawyers were trying to tell Trump to shut up, they failed, but they probably weren't at this point because he's going to do what he's going to do. They're going to appeal. They're trying to egg on the judge and they succeeded at some point. So they could ask for a mistrial.

But - so, what we're seeing is, I think, what we expected to see. The only problem here or the interesting difference here is that both of the sons were saying we didn't have anything to do with this stuff. We didn't know about this stuff. We just signed these papers. That's what accountants are for.

And Trump, who, of course, took this more personally because this is so definitional for him as to who he is, said, yes, I made suggestions and I knew things and everything I did was right. And so there's a big difference between the way his sons were talking and the way Donald Trump is talking, because he says he ran a successful and he's being persecuted for it.

SANCHEZ: And Nia, to Gloria's point about this being a largely political exercise for the Trump team, Trump's team has told CNN they feel good about the way that things have gone. They're actually fundraising off of some of the statements made by the judge in this case.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: I mean, also a very Trumpian thing to say, right? I mean, they always feel good about everything. Everything is always perfect and going well for Trump and team Trump. And even in this testimony, he is saying, this person about real estate, these forms that I filled out were absolutely perfect.

I mean, that is Trump's defense about everything. I mean, if you think about the impeachments, it was a perfect phone call. This is just Trump's strategy, it's sort of bluster and braggadocio. And listen, his biggest, most ardent fans believe him. They think this is a witch hunt. And that is what he's stating on the stand there.

I think it would be more effective politically if this was televised. The fact that all we are getting at this point of this sort of not really flattering artist renditions of Donald Trump, means that it's not as effective because it's not televised. But for what Trump wants to do, I think it is effective.

KEILAR: Not as effective for him.

HENDERSON: Right, exactly. Exactly.

KEILAR: But certainly, like you said, the people who are very supportive of him are going to love this. The question is what about those other folks that he will need to win over, not just those in his base?

HENDERSON: Yes. Listen, it is early. I know there are all sorts of polls out at this point that has Democrats sort of wetting the bed. Democrats are always wetting the bed, particularly folks who are in leadership.

But listen, there are so many things that are going to happen over this next year. There actually is no campaign yet, right? I mean, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it hasn't started.

BORGER: This is the campaign.

HENDERSON: At some point, it'll start.

BORGER: The trial is the campaign.

HENDERSON: Well, not yet, right? I mean, at some point, you'll have ads on the air. At some point, you'll have a real sort of race for the White House. It hasn't started yet.

SANCHEZ: Well, there's the political and then there's the legal. And for that, we have Laura Coates.

Laura, what stood out to you about Trump's testimony other than the bluster and braggadocio?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the bluster seemed to be his defense. He is looking at this politically when, legally speaking, he has to realize. The questions that he's answering do not go to what is left to be decided.

Remember, there was already a summary judgment motion, a fancy way of saying, I've already told you how I feel about this issue. And what the judge has said is: you have fraudulent documents. All that's left now is how expensive it's going to be for you: a quarter of a billion dollars, will you retain your licenses and certificates, will you have a conservator over your empire and businesses.

But the trial that Donald Trump thinks he's in is whether he lied. The value of his assets, that's already been decided. Now, why that's so important to him is really what you're talking about. Because for Donald Trump, his business acumen and his empire is his political currency as much as his own actual currency. And so he's trying very hard to thread a needle that he believes is a wide open eye, when in reality, it's much more narrow for this judge.

SANCHEZ: Laura, I wanted to ask - actually ask you something that just came down through the wires. We have folks in the courtroom right now passing along slips of paper and funneling every bit of information that they can to our teams on the ground. Apparently, he was asked by the Attorney General, Kevin Wallace, whether he maintained accurate records going back to 2014. And Donald Trump on the stand said, "I hope so. I didn't keep them myself. I hope so."

COATES: Here's why it's time for at least two reasons.

[15:10:01]

Number one, I'll - just the whole, like, are you kidding me moment. But the reality is this, number one, it's - he is an officer of a company. There are certain duties that you have to have as a part of a corporation, including you have to be responsible and know what you're handing over and representing. There's a duty involved for Donald Trump Jr., for Eric Trump as well as an officer of a company.

So you can't get away with having reckless disregard for what's out there. Not if these are material facts, you want someone to rely on to give you loans or to have tax depreciation value. That's number one.

On the other hand, it sounds like he's moving a little bit closer to it wasn't me and I have delegated this role to somebody else, which earlier in the day today, he had a quite a catch-22. On the one hand, he was saying, I'm in control, right? I'm the head honcho. I dot every I, cross every T.

That doesn't help you if the actual trial is about whether you actually had control over fraudulent documents, then it doesn't help you. So his sons, Eric Trump and Don Jr. had already said in earlier testimony that they had done - remember that moment on the courthouse steps when, Don Jr. said wait for it, accounting and delegating the authority. Now he's a little bit more in that territory.

So I wonder what happened during the lunch. Was it a lawyer saying to him, Don, you cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

KEILAR: Well, apparently there is a lot going on and if this were a televised situation there in the courtroom, a televised trial, we would have cut away to go to it. I want to talk to you about this after we get the news from Paula here.

Paula, what's been going on? Tell us.

REID: Brianna, I'm getting second by second updates from our colleagues who are inside the court. And after answering a series of very technical questions, Trump is now playing what they describe as a series of classic attacks on the Attorney General and the judge overseeing this case.

Now, the assistant attorney general pleaded with Trump saying, look, we're very close to the end of this questioning. But instead, Trump attacked the state of New York, saying businesses are leaving because of cases like this. He also attacked a crime occurring in the city and called the case election interference. This has been a common refrain from the former president, insisting that he is a political martyr here, that this is part of some sort of effort to interfere in the election, even though, of course, this investigation and this case have been sort of in the pipeline since 2019.

Now, it's possible this testimony could be wrapping up, but we hear from our colleagues in the courtroom that Trump went on a lengthy monologue attacking the judge and the Attorney General. And the assistant attorney general who's been doing this questioning pleaded with him, saying, "I promise you, Mr. Trump, I'm trying to get you off the stand." Trump foretold, shot back, "Great. I'm sure you are."

Trump then complained about the very hostile judge. He also once again complained that there is not a jury overseeing this case. And then the judge, who was very active early on today, but has been quieter this week and after lunch, said that he feels like a broken record. He again asked the former president to focus on the questions. And Trump complained that the Attorney General's office kept asking him "The same questions."

He doesn't understand it. The subject matter of the case is what Trump is alleging about the assistant attorney general, "because he keeps asking me the same questions." Now, it appears that they have gotten Trump back on track, trying to get to the heart of this case, which are questions about how he estimated his net worth when applying for loans.

But that was a moment where, once again, I mean, this hearing just went off the rails. We saw this earlier this morning. But here, Trump taking this opportunity on the witness stand to attack the judge overseeing the case and the Attorney General who has brought this case. This is highly unusual for any witness on the stand.

Of course, this is an extraordinary hearing. But this is not how witnesses usually conduct themselves.

KEILAR: No, it's extraordinary to say the least.

Paula, thank you so much for the update.

I mean, it sounds like he's falling apart there in the courtroom, Gloria.

BORGER: Well, I think he's - it's same old, same old. As the judge was saying, it's a broken record. Donald Trump is not willing to concede that he did anything wrong, even though the judge has already said that The Trump Organization did do something wrong.

And so he's combative with anyone, with the prosecution, with the judge. And there's no way you're - that you're going to get them to stop being combative. There just, there just isn't any way.

And what Donald Trump will do politically is to say, look at what they're doing to me. They can do this to you. This is this - the deep state run wild. And I'm a victim here. I didn't victimize anybody. The banks didn't lose any money. So are they complaining to you, no. I'm the victim here.

[15:15:01]

And New York State is saying, no, you're not the victim because you provided fraudulent information.

So look, this isn't going to change. And in a way, maybe his lawyers are just giving up. I don't know - you're the attorney here, maybe his lawyers are saying this is okay because we're goading the judge a little bit and trying to get under his skin and we can move for a mistrial or --

COATES: Well, the thing is, I mean, perhaps he believes it's a foregone conclusion of liability.

BORGER: Yes, exactly.

COATES: But what his behavior does is create a self-fulfilling prophecy instead, which are distinct notions here. Because there is still opportunity in front of this judge who did not rule to say everything's been resolved.

BORGER: Mm-hm.

COATES: There are still at least six other counts of fraud including aspects about the (inaudible) liability. There's still a chance there. Now he is not looking at those moments for a variety of reasons I suspect.

But what I hear especially at the idea of a victimless crime so to speak, first of all, anytime you see a case caption for a state-led prosecution or a federal one, it says, United States or New York versus. It's one behalf of society, not an individual litigant.

The reason for that is because they want people who are similarly situated to be treated appropriately and similarly. In an instance like this, if you or I or any of us go out and try to use fraudulent document to secure a loan or depreciate or (inaudible) have less tax liability, that means that I'm getting more of a benefit of a pseudo bargain.

So maybe his creditors were repaid, but the average New Yorker did not have the ability to have tax documents that were forgiven, lessened or have insurance that would be higher they normally would have. That's the problem part of it.

Also, his issue is about the discretion of the prosecutor. Unfortunately, in our society, there is a lot of critique surrounding those who are elected as prosecutors. I was not like that. I was a line prosecutor for federal government. But if you are running for office, you're going to actually target in your campaign certain people. She did just that, giving a lot of ammunition for these claims.

It does not mean, however, that because she campaigned about Donald Trump, that it undermines the actual accuracy of the evidence. He is not proven otherwise.

KEILAR: Still, if we were in a normal era, you could say, with any other plaintiff, this would have likely sunk a political candidate. And instead, Donald Trump is leading the Republican primary by head and shoulders.

HENDERSON: That's right. I mean, you would have thought that inciting an insurrection, inciting people to violence to overthrow a free and fair election would have sunk a normal candidate. That didn't happen. People are emotionally attached to Donald Trump. He's running in some ways as a sort of quasi incumbent. And the Republican Party, basically, the leadership basically fell down before his feet and let him have his way with the Republican Party because he has such a strong hold on the base. Some of that is cultural, some of that is class, some of that has to do with race.

And in so many ways, this case fits into that, right? I mean, it sort of benefits Donald Trump that the Attorney General there is a black woman, right? And that it comes from New York, which is this sort of urban landscape that goes against Donald Trump. This is what he tells his supporters, right? And so it very much feeds into their sense of grievance politics that somehow they are being targeted and their champion in Donald Trump is also being targeted.

SANCHEZ: So we've learned that Donald Trump has just been excused from the witness stand. That's why you're seeing a live picture from just outside the courtroom. We're going to wait for him to emerge, potentially make some comments.

Laura, obviously, as we await Trump's comments, he has a gag order against him in another case. He's been already punished for saying outlandish things in this case. Do you anticipate that perhaps what he said on the stand today, what he may say now, could be used against him?

COATES: I would assume and encourage that any prosecutor who's watching would be leaning in to figure out whether or not what has been stated implicates their own case. That would be a prudent prosecutorial strategy. There are many other cases happening right now across the country. One of the reasons you want to have him on a short leash is not just because of the gag order, although that's a very important one.

But his attorneys want him on a short leash because the other attorneys in the other cases do not want him opening a door wide open so that he is going off on tangents that might talk about how he spends his money, how it's been in campaigns.

Remember Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, has an active investigation criminally and also an active lawsuit involving what happened for the "hush money" payments. You don't want him going off the rails and talking about why he thinks it's a political witch hunt and then going into more detail about who and what he advised on January 6th and before, because there's active litigation events in those things as well. Who he may have entrusted documents to, to show that there was a chain of command that was in state for anything that was very sensitive information because it implicates Mar-A-Lago.

[15:20:06]

Every different aspect of these different cases are going to be a part of this. And so he has to be very cautious about it. And he doesn't want to risk cutting off his nose to spite his litigious face.

HENDERSON: Right. KEILAR: We are watching here this room where Donald Trump is inside. They're taking care, as we understand it, of some housekeeping business right now. He, as of a few moments ago and as I understand, still is sitting there at the defense table. So we're going to take a quick break as we wait to see what happens as he comes out. But he is off the stand. This is the end of some extraordinary, hours-long testimony there in New York. We'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We're anticipating to hear any moment from several key figures in Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, including the former president himself and Attorney General Letitia James.

KEILAR: That's right. Former president, Donald Trump, just wrapped up his testimony. Hours-long ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

[15:25:00]

KEILAR: ... chaotic, I think is the word that we would describe this as.

I want to bring in CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who is outside of the courthouse. What are we expecting, Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Well, we are expecting to hear from the Attorney General herself, Letitia James, who has been seated in the front room - front row of that courtroom for the last several hours, listening to this testimony, at times laughing at some of the answers that Trump had that were directed toward her saying that she didn't know where one of the properties that he was being questioned about was located here in New York. Obviously she is the Attorney General for New York, but she is about to come down these steps.

And it's notable to hear what she is going to say. I can see her staff lining up at the microphones. They have just indicated that she will be coming over to speak to reporters once she is outside of the actual courthouse. She spoke briefly on her way in, and she essentially predicted what the former president was going to say before he walked into the courtroom, including at one point an attack on her. He called her a racist attorney general, something that he has often said repeatedly on social media. She noted that that was likely to come.

So it will be interesting to see what she says once he comes out here, because so much of the focus today has been on the back and forth, understandably, between the judge and Trump's attorneys and Trump himself when he was on the witness stand, which he just left a few moments ago. There was no cross-examination from his own team.

But also on the answers that I think that he has provided to the Attorney General's office as they are trying to make their case here, which has already been determined by the judge. But the question now is the penalties, is they have actually gotten some answers and some acknowledgement from Trump on his own involvement in detailing and putting together those financial documents that are at the heart of what the Attorney General says is fraud here, over-inflating his - or just inflating, period, his net worth and the value of these properties. And so that's a significant step there.

We'll also likely hear from Donald Trump once he leaves the court. That itself - in and of itself would be notable because he did speak briefly this morning going into court. He did not speak in either of those breaks when they were coming out. So that is the question to see what she says. But she will be speaking here in a few moments once they wrap up in court, we are told.

KEILAR: Yes. We saw him sort of motion earlier that he had a zipped lip. But what has been very clear, Kaitlan, during his testimony is that he really did not. And we understand that - we were saying that he was dealing with some housekeeping or the court was dealing with some housekeeping stuff. It's about the gag order. I mean, what are the considerations when it comes to the gag order about how he testified today and some of the things that he said that certainly didn't have any material, I guess, value for his testimony?

COLLINS: Well, and that's a really good point, Brianna, because walking into this, Trump had already been fined $15,000 by this judge. Certainly, that's not a ton of money for Donald Trump, but it's the fact that he was fined for violating that gag order, which doesn't prevent him from attacking Judge Engoron here.

It prevents him from attacking the judge's staff because he had been going after the judge's principal clerk, who sits right to the right of the judge. And then his attorneys last week were raising all these questions about the fact that they were communicating. They were passing notes, which is standard for a law clerk and a judge to do.

And again, as this was ending, Chris Kyes was raising that again, saying he didn't want to violate the gag order, but he did want to bring it up. And the judge push back saying that he was a thousand percent was the number that he provided, a thousand percent sure that the confidential communications between the judge and his clerk was not something that he needed to discuss with Trump's team, saying that that is fine for him to do that.

That's been a huge part of this entire trial, as this has been going on. It wasn't something that Trump himself brought up today, talking about that law clerk, even though she was seated there in the courtroom with them.

SANCHEZ: Kaitlan, stand by.

We want to go to Paula Reid who's also live outside the courthouse as we await the president to leave the courtroom and potentially to make some live remarks.

Paula, I understand you have details about what's happening regarding the gag order Trump is facing.

REID: Yes. Our colleagues are still in the courtroom as this wraps up. And a strange day, Boris, it just gets even stranger. At the end of this hearing, after Trump testified, his lawyers signaled to the judge that there are still some motions that they would like to file. They would like to file a motion for a mistrial and there were also some issues that they want to raise related to the gag order, which as Kaitlan just noted, restricts Trump from discussing members of the court staff.

But the judge encouraged them not to file any such motion and then said that he was ordering them not to file that motion. That is highly unusual for a judge to preemptively tell a legal team that they can't file something. Now, of course, the Trump legal team shot back, saying, "You can't respectfully reject it before you've seen it," which is fair.

[15:30:02]

It's just so unheard of to have a judge tell a team of lawyers, no, I'm ordering you, you can't even do that.