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Johnson and Trump Met at Mar-a-Lago; Caroline Polisi is Interviewed about Trump's Gag Order; Hostage Deal Could Be Announced Today; Lance Ulanoff is Interviewed about Musk's Lawsuit; Appeals Court Strikes on Voting Rights. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 21, 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]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Him the highest ranking Republican to do so, so far.

Alayna Treene is following this. She's got more on it for us. She joins us now.

Alayna, should people read this as Mike Johnson acknowledging that their political fortunes are now entwined?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Oh, absolutely, Kate. I mean, as you mentioned, Mike Johnson went to Mar-a-Lago last night. I was told that he has been fundraising in Florida, and so that's why he made the trip over to Mar-a-Lago. I'm told that him and the former president met briefly. But as you said, it's still unclear exactly what was discussed.

But, look, Mike Johnson has very quickly learned that he needs Donald Trump's backing if House Republican have any hope of retaining their slim majority in the House. And that's also true with just his maneuvering within the conference itself. We know that many of the most hardline conservatives in Congress wield so much power because of that slim majority. And, remember, they wielded that power by helping oust Kevin McCarthy earlier this year. And so Johnson knows that Trump's support is very much necessary here.

And I think that's also why you saw him come out very early and endorse Donald Trump. He said on CNBC last week, quote, "I am all in for President Trump," and said that he expects him to be the nominee.

Now, just having discussed Johnson with many of Donald Trump's advisers, they told me that, look, they are very happy he endorsed him, he's always seen to be very supportive of the former president, but the two were never particularly close. So, I think this is a lot of relationship building on part of the speaker.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that -- that's pretty interesting.

It's good to see you Alayna, thank you. OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Now this morning we're waiting on a federal

appeals court to rule on Donald Trump's gag order in the federal election subversion case. During what was sometimes a tense hearing, the three judges signaled they may be inclined to keep the order in place but narrow it.

Listen to this exchange between Trump's lawyer and one of the judges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. JOHN SAUER, TRUMP ATTORNEY: The order is unprecedented, and it sets a terrible precedent for future restrictions on core political speech.

JUDGE PATRICIA MILLET, D.C. CIRCUIT COURT: This is only affecting the speech temporarily during a criminal trial process by someone who has been indicted as a felon.

No one here is threatening the First Amendment broadly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, the limited gag order restricted Trump from attacking Special Council Jack Smith, court staff or trial witnesses, but not the Justice Department as a whole.

So, a lot to talk about here. I want to break this down with Caroline Polisi. She's a federal and white-collar criminal defense attorney and lecturer at Columbia Law School.

Good to see you.

So, I just want to start here. Where -- where is the line between intimidation and First Amendment rights?

CAROLINE POLISI, FEDERAL AND WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, that's -- that's the question.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

POLISI: I mean that really -- you know, we heard there quite a lively debate yesterday, went way over the time allotted. We had what lawyers call a hot bench, meaning the three judge panel was constantly peppering really lawyers for both sides, testing the limits of their proposed line. And it really is a line drawing exercise.

What you see are two fundamental rights, right, the First Amendment, versus the court system in administering a fair administration of justice, having a fair trial, not tainting the jury pool, things of that nature. You heard there John Sauer, he was the lawyer for Trump, really coming hard saying essentially that any speech that President -- former President Trump says, because he's a candidate for presidency, is what's known as core political speech, which receives historically the highest level of protection.

Now, the judges pushed back really hard on that, saying, well, there has to be some limit on that. There are competing interests here. I think you're right. I think that the panel will uphold the gag

order, potentially in a more limited fashion.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, one of -- it's -- it's a separate case, but related, one of his co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case, there prosecutors are seeking to revoke the bond of one of his co-defendants after they say he violated his bond by posting on social media in a way that shows, to use prosecutors' words, a -- that he's a significant threat to intimidating witnesses.

POLISI: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Is that similar to the concern that we're seeing here in -- in the federal subversion case here in D.C., that if he is not narrowed in scope or limited to this gag order that he would be intimidating witnesses by his posts?

POLISI: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, witness intimidation is a tricky issue. It in and of itself is not protected speech in that it is a federal crime to intimidate witnesses. However, I think the question here is, well, what does that cover, right? Oftentimes Trump will use sort of ambiguous language that has plausible deniability, non-direct threat -- threatening language. However, we saw right after he made that Truth Social post, if you come after me, I'm going to come after you. You know, the judge received a death threat. And so --

JIMENEZ: And he's one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

POLISI: Exactly.

JIMENEZ: Leading candidate for president.

POLISI: Exactly. Words have power. And so I think, again, you're seeing these two issues come up against each other. The -- Jack Smith's office, you know, likening it to this -- this phrase we sometimes hear, won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest.

[09:35:05]

You know, a famous line from Henry II, not coming right out and saying, you know, I'm directing someone towards violence but the implication is there. And the judge said that, you know, the intended consequence of your words, what could naturally flow from them is the intended consequence.

So --

JIMENEZ: Any -- yes, go ahead, sorry.

POLISI: No, it --

JIMENEZ: Yes.

POLISI: So, Trump knows that he's goading on his supporters.

JIMENEZ: Yes. POLISI: And that could be inferred on him that those -- that can be witness intimidation.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, when you look at -- look at this case, obviously we're dealing with a specific issue in a specific case, but the implications of it could be much wider depending on what this appeals panel decides here.

POLISI: Yes.

JIMENEZ: We've got to leave it there.

Caroline Polisi, great to see you.

POLISI: You too.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us this morning, Elon Musk is suing. Well, Elon Musk's X. I'm just going to say Elon Musk is suing, because it's so hard to say. Why he's mad at a media watchdog over the advertising exodus that Twitter has suffered. Does Musk think his own comments could have anything to do with it.

And we're also continuing to follow the breaking news out of Israel. A deal to release a significant number of hostages held by Hamas terrorists could be announced very soon. The Israeli war cabinet just announced a meeting. We have the latest on the delicate and painstaking developments here. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:42]

JIMENEZ: We want to bring you back to our top story this morning. Sources tell CNN that a deal to release hostages taken from Israel into Gaza in exchange for a pause in fighting could be announced in the coming hours. Now, multiple sources say the deal would call for the release of 50 women and children and a four to five day pause in fighting. Three Palestinian prisoners in Israel would be freed for every civilian hostage released.

So, joining me now is CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Sderot, Israel.

Jeremy, look, we expect the Israeli war cabinet to meet in the coming hours. If it gets through that meeting, what are the next steps that we should be expecting, and is there a sense that this is a done deal or something that could fall apart?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I've been warned by U.S. and Israeli officials multiple times in recent days that this deal will not be done under it is fully, fully done. But, that being said, the Israeli cabinet would not be convening if this were not in the very final stages of this negotiation.

And in about an hour and 20 minutes, the Israeli wartime cabinet is set to convene at the prime minister's request to review this potentially deal. An hour from that, the security cabinet will meet. And then an hour after that, the full cabinet, which is known as the government here, will convene to potential approve this deal.

And I'm told that in following that, this could be as little as 24 hours before this deal officially goes through as there is a period of time for the Israeli supreme court to review any potential appeals, particularly on the side of Palestinian prisoners being released as a component of this negotiation.

So, again, we are very close to the finish line, it appears, but nobody's going to call this game until it is fully done.

In the meantime, though, what is clear is that these families of hostages are very anxious about these negotiations. They have been watching anxiously for weeks now as there have been reports about the potential release of dozens of women and children as part of this deal. And now they are waiting to see which ones, which names of those hundreds of hostages who are being held by Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza will actually be released.

In the meantime, though, what we are still seeing, though, Omar, is continued fighting in the norther part of the Gaza Strip. We just saw several explosions, bombing happening in northern Gaza. The city of Betanun (ph) is right behind me here. And that thick cloud that you can see kind of settling down in the distance is a smokescreen that was deployed maybe about 15 or 20 minutes ago, indicating the movement of troops and materiel, potential movement for battles.

One thing that we do know is that before ceasefires, truces, pauses in fighting actually go into place, what you typically see is an escalation. So there could be tonight, before this pause in the fighting actually kicks in, there could be an escalation in the fighting on both sides potentially.

So, we're going to stay here to continue to monitor that. But that's certainly something to look out for.

JIMENEZ: And it just gives you a sense that as much work as is being done on the diplomatic side of things, across multiple countries, there is still an on the ground reality that you, Jeremy, are witnessing firsthand there as you see some of those explosions.

Stay safe. Jeremy Diamond, thank you, as always.

BOLDUAN: This morning, Elon Musk and X are suing the progressive watchdog media group Media Matters for defamation. This after a damning report by Media Matters highlighting anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi content on X, and also an exodus by some major advertisers on the platform that followed, including Disney, IBM, NBC Universal and CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. All of that coupled with the recent post by Musk himself promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that were condemned even by the White House has added up to mean this seems a pivotal moment for X and its future, whatever that may be.

Joining us right now for more on this is the U.S. editor in chief for "TechRadar," Lance Ulanoff.

Thank you so much for being here.

What -- first and foremost, what do you see in this lawsuit?

LANCE ULANOFF, U.S. EDITOR IN CHIEF, "TECHRADAR": Well, look, Media Matters went on the site and they basically found that major advertisers were appearing next to content on Twitter, on X, that is pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic. And, you know, they're saying that X is not doing enough to protect advertisers and to protect consumers from this kind of content on Twitter. Now -- X.

Now understand, Musk has been in control for a year.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ULANOFF: And during that time what we've seen is a rise in hate speech, trolling, yes, anti-Semitic content.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

[09:45:03]

ULANOFF: You know, people have seen more of it. The whole complexion of the platform has changed. Musk has presented himself as a free speech absolutist and has tried to un-so-called shadow ban people who were pushed down and weren't hurt on the platform. The problem is, he's cut out a lot of the safeguards that might have protected content and protected advertisers from their content appearing next to this kinds of content.

Now, on the X side, they say that Media Matters did things like endless scrolling just to sort of support their theory. And, you know, so they're going back at them and saying, this is fraudulent, you are misrepresenting and you are hurting our business. But, you know, most people who are on X today will tell you that, yes, they occasionally run into this kind of content. And, sure, it can sometimes be followed by an ad from a regular advertiser.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but, and, Lance, I mean if -- if X is upset that advertisers don't want to be next to Nazi or anti-Semitic content, if you will, is there any commentary from X or response from X or Musk on any responsibility that he might feel with his own --

ULANOFF: Not --

BOLDUAN: I mean forget what might pop up in your algorithm, for his own posts.

ULANOFF: You know, the thing is Musk -- Musk will not apologize. He refuses to apologize. His CEO, Linda Yaccarino, says, hey, that's not us. We don't do that. They're -- this is being misrepresented.

But here's the really interesting thing. Musk put Linda Yaccarino in place, but he has not ceded control. He continues to tweet whatever he wants. And sometimes when he sees something, where something would see to (INAUDIBLE) anti-Semitic information, he's like, yes, he kind of just tweets out his instant response.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ULANOFF: And I know for a fact that he has said, he tweets in the middle of the night. He doesn't think this stuff through. He has had problems with tweeting in the past.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but I don't tweet -- just because it's in the middle of the night, I'm not tweeting out anti-Semitic content.

ULANOFF: But this is the thing, he is -- I can't tell you what's in his head.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ULANOFF: All I can tell you is he's reading these things and is having instant reaction and then throwing his support in, not thinking about the business. And for whatever reason, Linda Yaccarino is not stopping him and asking him to take a pause, a month, a week, a year. I don't know.

BOLDUAN: Yes. A breath.

ULANOFF: He needs to -- right, take a breath. He needs to stop. You know, this is a business. And from what I understand, you know, the value of this company has plummeted since he took control. This is not going to help.

BOLDUAN: The same day that he filed his lawsuit, the White House launched Threads accounts for Biden and Vice President Harris.

ULANOFF: Yes.

BOLDUAN: How much of a threat are you seeing Threads is to the -- kind of the dominate that Twitter/X has had in this space? Kind of the public discourse, social media forum (ph)?

ULANOFF: Well, it's been a safe -- it's been a refuge, right, for the people who have -- the exodus from X has been onto Threads. But Threads doesn't have the tools yet.

BOLDUAN: OK.

ULANOFF: It doesn't have -- it's not quite the news destination, although recently it looks like maybe it's starting to find its way. It doesn't even have hashtags so you can find the new stuff.

BOLDUAN: Right.

ULANOFF: But it was very exciting to see White House, POTUS, FLOTUS, all of them hop on to Threads at the same time. It was a big show of support and a reminder that maybe there is some place other than X to get real time news and to gather without worry about hate speech, trolls, anti-Semitic behavior.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean, let's see what happens with this -- with this lawsuit with Musk and with his tweets in the middle of the night.

It's good to see you, Lance.

ULANOFF: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much for coming on. It's nice meeting you.

JIMENEZ: Coming up for us, another landmark civil rights law could be heading to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court struck down a key tool that's been used to enforce the Voting Rights Act. How this could affect millions of voters, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:52:37]

JIMENEZ: A federal appeals court has moved to drastically weaken the Voting Rights Act by ruling against a key tool to enforce it. Now, the ruling by the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would effectively bar private citizens and civil rights groups from filing lawsuits under a key section of the act. The ruling says only the federal government can file a suit.

Now, this decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court, setting up a potential showdown over the landmark civil rights law.

CNN's senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic joins us now.

So, Joan, if this case goes to the Supreme Court, which again appears likely, is there any sense of what justices will do here?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Good morning, Omar.

Well, first of all, the appellate court took its lead from two Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, who had said that it's a very open question whether private parties can bring these suits. Now, for decades and decades lower courts and the Supreme Court had ruled that groups like the ACLU and NAACP could bring suits on behalf of blacks, Hispanics and other racial minorities, trying to vindicate their rights under the Voting Rights Act. This particular section at issue forbids discrimination based on race in voting practices.

Now, here's what the majority in -- at the Eighth Circuit said is it ruled that Congress did not explicitly give a right to private parties. "For much of the last half-century, courts have assumed that Section 2 is privately enforceable." But the judge said, "a deeper look has revealed that this assumption rests on flimsy footing." Now, this is from U.S. Appellate Court Judge David Stras, who wrote for the majority and happens to have been a law clerk to Clarence Thomas and was one of Donald Trump's first appointees to the appellant bench.

On the other side, Chief Judge Lavenski Smith from the Eighth Circuit said, "rights so foundational to self-government and citizenship should not depend solely on the discretion or availability of the government's agents for protection." Now, his point was that, you know, this is such a fundamental landmark law from 1965 that it shouldn't just be in the hands of the federal government to try to enforce it when, again, for decades lower courts and the Supreme Court have allowed private parties to come through. He also included a figure that said, of the 182 successful lawsuits under this Section 2 over the last 40 years, only 15 had been initiated solely by the Department of Justice.

[09:55:13]

So you can see, Omar, the impact of having these private lawsuits go forward. And that could eventually be staunched (ph) by the Supreme Court when it gets up there.

JIMENEZ: Yes, so many people could be impacted here, but we're going to continue to monitor, again, as this case potentially moves forward here.

Joan Biskupic, thank you so much.

BISKUPIC: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: We are also continuing to stay on top of the breaking news this hour. A deal to release a significant number of Hamas held by Hams terrorists could come as soon as today. We have the latest developments just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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