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Democratic Governor Andy Beshear Reelected in Deep Red Kentucky; Abortion Rights Again Prove to be Winning Issue for Democrats; Five GOP Presidential Hopefuls Debate in Miami Without Trump; Ivanka Trump at New York Court to Testify at Father's Fraud Trial. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 08, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:15]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The voters have spoken. The message they are sending now today to Republicans and Democrats alike after last night's big election.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is debate day in America. Donald Trump is skipping, but the five candidates who are showing up, they are already planning sharper attacks. Which candidate absolutely needs a knockout punch?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib censured over her comments about Israel. How she's responding to the rare and stunning rebuke?

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: Forget reading the tea leaves anymore, forget analyzing polling data. This morning we have new and concrete data from the voters themselves who went to the polls in multiple states. Democrats appear to be breathing a sigh of relief. Republicans maybe some of them left scratching their heads about what this means today.

One issue that voters seem to speak with a loud voice on yesterday is abortion rights. An increasingly conservative Ohio, even voters from districts that have supported Donald Trump, moved to approve a constitutional right to access to abortion, and, remember, this is a state that voted twice for Donald Trump.

In Virginia Democrats won control of both the statehouse and the state Senate, and that means the Republican-controlled legislature that the Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin was hoping for is not happening. Abortion a key issue in those races as well.

In Kentucky, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear locked in a second term in that deep red state. And despite millions of dollars of super PAC money stacking up against him, all of this means a lot for today and could also offer important insights for tomorrow, and by tomorrow I mean 2024.

Let's start with CNN's Eva McKend. She's in Louisville, Kentucky, for us this morning.

It's great to see you there, Eva. What is the reaction? What are you hearing after the big night last night for Andy Beshear?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, Democrats are waking up this morning in this state elated that they are still viable in a state this red. They weren't as successful, though, in down-ballot races but they really attribute Governor Beshear's victory to a number of factors. One of them being he spent the critical final weeks of the campaign speaking directly to Trump supporters in rural pockets of the state, including in places like western and eastern Kentucky. And he spoke to that strategy, that spirit of inclusivity during his victory speech last night. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): This election shows who we are as Kentuckians. We are a proud people who take care of each other. We believe in the Golden Rule that says we love our neighbor as ourselves and the parable "The Good Samaritan," that says we are all each other's neighbors, no exceptions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: Now, another potent issue in this race was the issue of abortion. Beshear really centered this issue. There is a near total abortion ban in this state, and he talked about how Republicans really pushed for no exceptions for rape or incest. And if Beshear could be successful in a state like this one, centering this issue, no doubt Democrats across the country are going to try to replicate this strategy as we head into 2024 -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Eva McKend in Louisville, thank you. John.

BERMAN: Well, let's talk more about abortion rights because in Ohio they voted to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution by a margin of 13 points. That is particularly significant because Ohio is a state that voted for Donald Trump by eight points. So an eight- point Trump victory and a 13-point victory for abortion rights.

Let's dig a little deeper there. Let me show you counties that Donald Trump won. Every county that's colored here orange or green is a county that Donald Trump won. The green counties are counties that voted for abortion rights. So you can see these are counties that voted for Trump and abortion rights. It provides a little bit of a target for Democrats as they run around the country.

[09:05:03]

And there is a little more information we can glean from this. Let's talk about the suburbs here. I think analysts look at the suburbs as a key battleground, maybe the key battleground in 2024. Again, every county that's colored here is considered a suburban county. These counties, I'm going to circle them, voted for abortion rights in Ohio.

And I just want to show you these green counties voted for abortion rights, if we go back to the presidential election, these suburban counties, many of them voted for Donald Trump. There is a little blue in there, but there is a lot of red. A lot of red Trump counties in the suburbs are supporting abortion rights.

You can bet Democrats are looking at this map, Kate, and they are considering how to adjust their campaigns in 2024.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And that map is visually extremely informative. Let's talk more about this. CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon is here.

Let's start where John just left off. What, then, from what we see in these districts -- John, please come over. What then that we see in these districts --

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, join us.

BOLDUAN: Should be the instruction for Republicans in Ohio and beyond, and also Democrats in Ohio and beyond when we're talking about the issue of abortion?

AVLON: Look, I think Berman laid it out graphically so well because it's the suburbs. Look, it's swing voters that make swing states and suburbs are usually the swing. With the overturning of Roe that was done, you know, not through any, you know, voting process, but through the judges, many of whom promised it was stare decisis, would stay in place, all of a sudden the issue of freedom I think got recast in Democrats' favor. Reproductive freedom.

It's what the essence of pro-choice and how that's different. These maximalist positions about abortion don't reflect the vast majority of the American people. But all of a sudden people are saying take it away from me, a right to reproductive freedom that they've been told it was theirs for half a century.

BOLDUAN: They felt this way for a while.

AVLON: Yes.

BOLDUAN: But it hasn't been motivating them.

AVLON: No. And now it's motivating them because it was taken away. So all of a sudden even in these sort of, you know, center-right suburban districts people are saying, no, that should not be the government's decision. We're going to preserve that now in the constitution. So it's a pushback against I think the extreme edge of the MAGA agenda. And that's one of the big takeaways from last night.

I think you see over and over again Donald Trump and his policies and the people carrying it forward to its more extreme ends are absolutely toxic to the center of the political spectrum.

BERMAN: How far can Democrats take abortion rights in 2024, and are there any limits if it's Trump who is at the top of the Republican ticket because? Because, remember, Trump -- and I'll let you analyze this, yes, he put all those Supreme Court justices on the court. AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: However, he's got a position on a lot of abortion rights issues in states that is what might be considered more moderate than some of his opponents.

AVLON: Let's be clear. Donald Trump is not a conviction politician, I mean, maybe in the legal sense, but not in the moral sense when it comes to abortion certainly. But he has taken credit for appointing these judges. He has embraced this. You can't nuance that. Nikki Haley, for example, is trying to carve out a broad middle ground, saying that, look, we've got to find some middle ground to come together.

Donald Trump is not in the middle ground business. Donald Trump is in the divide and demonize business. And so that's just -- he's going to have a very hard time hewing that. I think the -- look, Democrats can't make everything about abortion but this is the seventh consecutive election where attempts to further restrict abortion access in the wake of Dobbs have been rejected even in red states. That's a very, very clear message.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I would say after seven times you should start listening. Phil Mattingly this morning, he spoke to Biden --

AVLON: Yes.

BOLDUAN: The Biden campaign's principal deputy campaign manager, asked him to explain the disconnect between Democrats' performance in midterms and last night, and the struggling poll numbers that are facing Biden right now. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUENTIN FULKS, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR PRES. BIDEN: Look, what we saw last night is MAGA extremism fail. We saw MAGA -- the MAGA agenda fall flat on its face. We do not feel like there is a disconnect at all. In fact, we feel like this is exactly what our campaign has been saying in the midst of this, and so I'm extremely excited for the results tonight. I want to applaud all the campaigns across the country who worked their tails off to get this done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The sign of someone who hasn't slept overnight is the sign of someone who this morning still talks about tonight. Right?

(LAUGHTER)

AVLON: Good catch, by the way.

BOLDUAN: But regardless, what do you think of that?

AVLON: I think he's got a point. I think he's absolutely got a point. There were a lot of pundits and analysts who were predicting a red wave in the midterm elections because that's how, you know, the pendulum politics, you know, usually swing. It didn't happen. And we saw again last night, I mean, major tickets -- to be clear, I mean, Andy Beshear shows you can be a red state Democrat, connect with rural voters, but down ballot Republicans did very well.

But he can point -- the Biden team can look at this, it shouldn't cause them to ignore all the polling that says there is a problem with perceptions around the president.

BOLDUAN: OK.

AVLON: That said, as we've talked about, the special election record this year has been decidedly in Democrats' favor, far ahead of the partisan, you know, splay in any specific state.

[09:10:05]

So this is a continuation of that story. So it's really Republicans who should be doing the soul searching right now. What's their problem? I think their problem is a perception they've been captured by extremes as embodied and personified by Donald Trump.

BERMAN: John Avlon, great to have you here.

AVLON: Always, guys.

BERMAN: All right. Sara Sidner, by the way, and welcome back, Sara Sidner.

BOLDUAN: Welcome back.

SIDNER: Thank you. Thank you. It's good to be back. And I'm going from politics to politics in case you guys haven't noticed.

BOLDUAN: So welcome back. Yes, exactly.

SIDNER: Because it's a debate day. Tonight, five Republican presidential hopefuls will take the stage in Miami, but once again, former President Trump he is not going to be there. It's the smallest debate stage yet with several candidates exiting the race and others failing to qualify. So you only have five people on that stage.

Instead of verbally sparring with the other contenders, though, Donald Trump is holding a rally, practically down the street, because he is still the frontrunner in a major way.

CNN's Steve Contorno joins us now from Miami this morning.

Steve, what can we expect to see tonight? We've just had the special election. There are lots of things to debate and talk about, but the one person who they're really up against isn't going to be there.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Sara. But with that -- the smaller field and with Donald Trump not there, this could be an opportunity for some of these candidates to get more time to explain and make their case to the American people and the Republican voters, and for them to challenge each other a bit more. And we have certainly seen these candidates suggest that they are going to go toe to toe a little bit more than they have in previous debates.

For example, Nikki Haley's camp put out a pre-debate memo where they called DeSantis a, quote, "sinking ship." DeSantis had his own pre- debate spin. They called Nikki Haley a, quote, "spoiler candidate" who will only help to nominate Donald Trump. So -- and these two especially more than anyone have been on a collision course heading into this debate.

We have seen Nikki Haley rising in the polls, forcing Ron DeSantis to confront her a little bit more. DeSantis, meanwhile, is struggling to maintain his support as he goes into these early nominating contests. So tonight will be critical for them to both make their case that they deserve to be the top alternative to Donald Trump.

For the rest of the field, well, it's their chance to say that they deserve to still be part of the conversation. The debate stage has shrunk after each debate and the fourth debate will be even harder to make. So for Tim Scott, for Vivek Ramaswamy and for Chris Christie it's a chance for them to say, hey, we're still in this race -- Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, it will be interesting to see because with five people you're going to hear a lot more from each of those candidates.

Steve Contorno, thank you so much for that update. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, moments ago Ivanka Trump arrived at a Manhattan courthouse where she is going to be taking the stand this morning in the civil trial against her father and her family. There has been plenty of drama as you well know leading up to her testimony so what to expect from inside the courtroom today.

Also with Donald Trump skipping another debate, what the five candidates who will be taking the stage are going to do about it tonight.

And Democrats divided this morning over a rare rebuke of one of their own, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib censured by the House for her comments on the Israel-Hamas war. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:22]

SIDNER: As we speak Ivanka Trump is at the courthouse in New York. She will take the stand in her father's $250 million civil fraud trial. She will be the fourth member of the Trump family to testify and she will likely be pressed about accusations that Trump inflated his assets to obtain favorable bank loans for the family's real estate empire. She didn't want to testify but the court said she had to.

CNN's Kara Scannell, she joins us now from outside the courthouse in New York.

Kara, what might we learn from Ivanka Trump? She is one of the children who is not named in this indictment -- in this case. I shouldn't say indictment. KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Sara. She is no

longer in this civil lawsuit after the judge had removed her from the case, but her testimony here is something that the New York Attorney General's Office wants because she was involved in some of the deals, the deals at issue in this case. And remember, this is a lawsuit alleging that fraudulent financial statements were given to banks and insurers to get more favorable rates on loans.

And so Ivanka Trump is the one who introduced the Trump Organization to one of their big lenders, Deutsche Bank, and she was involved in several deals including a golf course in Florida, one known as Doral, as well as the old post office building in Washington, D.C. So the questions that she will be facing will involve her knowledge of the financial statements. She has denied having any knowledge of them, as well as what her conversations were with bankers, what representations she made to them and that they may have relied on. So that's going to be the key piece of her testifying today.

Now, when her testimony wraps, and this could go into tomorrow because Trump's lawyers say that they are going to cross-examine her unlike the other Trumps who have testified, when that wraps, which could be tomorrow, that is when the New York Attorney General's Office is going to rest their case. And as you said, they're seeking $250 million but so far what has come out in testimony through expert witnesses, one expert witness said that they had -- that the Trumps had received $168 million in improper gains by getting these better interest rates.

Well, during Trump's testimony there was also some evidence that came in that showed on the old post office building which they sold recently that they had received $139 million. So that brings that total of potential ill-gotten gains now to $307 million. So that is a new knowledge that we are looking at that was kind of overlooked during Trump's testimony, and she may be asked about that today because she really worked on this old post office building project.

So once they rest, though, then it will be Trump's turn. His lawyers say that they will start his defense on Monday and that that could go until mid-December -- Sara.

SIDNER: Kara Scannell, doing the math for us this early morn. Thank you so much for that report. Kate and John?

[09:20:02]

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now for more on this is former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland.

It's good to see you again, Jeremy. She's taking the stand, she will testify, but why do you think she worked so hard to avoid testifying?

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR: You know, we hear this term intimate knowledge and she was involved just like her brothers and there's no doubt that she is a person who has that hands-on knowledge. Again, as we know, she was the person who had to make sure that certain loans were paid. She made some certain introductions with Deutsche Bank. She was highly involved. She made some money on the sale of the post office.

She is a person who the former president routinely turns to as sort of the iconic person in that family to be trusted. And I don't think she wants to throw anyone under the bus and she has a little bit of a pristine image as well so she wants to stay away and not be a part of this, even though she's removed from the actual charges.

BERMAN: Yes, it is interesting, in the political sense she has been removed from Trump world. It seems she has tried to do so for the last couple of years.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Years.

BERMAN: She is not a defendant.

SALAND: She is not.

BERMAN: In this case. How does that make her a different and perhaps even more threatening witness to the defense?

SALAND: She doesn't have as much at stake directly. I would argue that she still has plenty at stake because it is her name, it is a family business which she stands to inherit. Could she perjure herself and face charges, do something like that? Certainly, but she doesn't have the same incentive to be as avoidant and bombastic and challenging as her brothers were. So I think that she still has exposure but not the exposure that we think of the actual dollars and the actual liability.

BOLDUAN: I'm just really wondering, do you think she can take that route that Don Jr. and Eric did which is, to sum up, you know, claiming ignorance, claiming below my pay grade? They did that you could argue with, you know, a varying degree of success from the stand. Do you think she can do that?

SALAND: I don't think she does it in the same way. I think that she has put herself out there as someone different. Remember, she didn't go out there and support her father's new campaign, she did not go and say, you know, January 6th, that I believe my father was actually won the election. She's always removed herself. I don't think she's going to take that same offensive and challenging tack.

I think she's going to be a lot more gentle, a lot more calm, but at the same time even though she doesn't have liability she's going to want to corroborate as best she can that it was someone else, it was the accountants who did this. We may be the fiduciaries, but we're looking up from way above, not in the minutia.

BERMAN: I guess the question is, who is we here? Does she testify -- what does she say when asked what did Don Jr. do? What did you see Eric do? What did you see your father do?

SALAND: I think a lot that we saw in the deposition, she did not point blame at her father, she said I don't really know, I don't know what's his and what's mine, I separate it. I don't think that she's going to point the fingers at her siblings. I think she's going to keep that same tune, that same theme of we are here, yes, we have roles, but it's not the thing that you believe it is that we are caught up in actually looking at it and understanding it. That's the accountant.

BOLDUAN: The fact that she is not a co-defendant in this, does the state, does the assistant attorney general approach her differently?

SALAND: I think that you approach her differently only -- first of all, it's on a direct, you're not cross-examining. I don't think she's going to be as hostile. I think it will be a much more formal of what you would expect to see. Because what you have seen or at least what we've heard is not really how a trial unfolds. It's been kind of all over the place. I expect them to be a lot more calm and a lot more assertive and direct with her and I think she'll be a little more forthcoming, a little being the operative word.

BERMAN: Jeremy Saland, great to have you here. Thank you so much.

Of course, Ivanka Trump on the stand very shortly. Stay tuned for that.

Israel gives Gaza residents more time to flee south as Israeli troops are now said to be deep inside Gaza City. And we're getting new reporting in on what the five candidates showing up to the debate tonight intend to say about each other and about Donald Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:17]

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news, moments ago we heard from New York Attorney General Letitia James. She spoke on the courthouse step minutes before we are to hear from Ivanka Trump who takes the witness stand in the civil fraud trial against her father and her father's business. Let's listen to the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LETITIA JAMES, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: Donald Trump, her brothers and the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump secured, negotiated loans to obtain favorable terms based on fraudulent statements of financial condition, and she will attempt today to distance herself from the company. But unfortunately the facts will reveal that, in fact, she was very much involved. We uncovered the scheme and she benefited from it personally.

And Miss Trump will do all that she can to try to separate herself from this corporation, but she is inextricably tied to the Trump Organization and to these properties that she helped secure financing for. So you cannot hide from the truth and the facts would belie the truth and the evidence, and so we look forward to her testimony. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. That was the Attorney General Letitia James talking about Ivanka Trump and her testimony. It's interesting her comments there were actually longer than the comments she made about Donald Trump before he testified. And Letitia James, the attorney general, made clear there that she

thinks Ivanka Trump has benefited from the scheme which the Trump Organization and Donald Trump have already been found liable for. Not letting her off the hook, and not differentiating between her and her family. It will be interesting to see that testimony -- Sara.

SIDNER: It will be, but she is not in this case. She is not part of this case, but she does have to testify in this case.

BERMAN: Important point.

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: She is not a defendant.

SIDNER: Yes.

[09:30:00]