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Defense Witness Says NY AG's Charges Have No Merit; DeSantis, Ramaswamy Target Haley On Debate Stage; Biden Speaks With Israeli PM Netanyahu; Ukraine Aid Package Blocked By Senate Republicans. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired December 07, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Just moments ago, Donald Trump returned to a New York courtroom in his civil fraud case, describing the trial as corrupt, insisting he did nothing wrong. Now, the defense called an expert witness and things got testy. We've got details when we take you live outside the courthouse in just moments.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And as U.S. aid to Israel remains stalled on Capitol Hill, today marks two months in the Israel-Hamas war. We'll be speaking to an Israeli government spokesman more for update - an update on the fighting.

And the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania facing intense scrutiny and even some calls to resign after their Hill testimony on anti-Semitism on their campuses. Now, a House committee has launched an investigation into these three schools.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: Right now, former president, Donald Trump, is inside a New York courthouse watching the $250 million civil fraud trial that threatens his business empire. Trump is expected to take the stand next week, but today the defense called an expert witness to testify, a New York University accounting professor named Eli Bartov. He's been pushing back hard at the New York attorney general's allegations.

Let's go live outside the courtroom with CNN's Brynn Gingras,

So Brynn, what did this expert witness talk about? Explain this testy moment that he had, too, with one of the attorneys.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris. So the former president wanting to be at the defense table while this witness was on the stand and there was a very tense moment before the lunch break. They are back now from lunch and this testimony is continuing.

But about that moment, this, again, witness is an NYU accounting professor and he essentially has been the defense's strongest witness to back up the defense's claim that the financial statements of condition were not fraudulently inflated to benefit the Trumps and the other co-defendants. And at one point, the state's attorneys objected to the line of questioning of this witness, saying it was out of the scope of his expertise. And the witness, this professor, really snapped back, saying this to the state's attorney: "Shame on yourself, talking to me like that. You make up allegations. I'm here to tell the truth. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Now, prior to that exchange, this witness on the stand has essentially said that those financial statements of conditions, he's looked at them, looked thoroughly through them and has found no evidence of fraud, has found that there was no violating of standard accounting principles. So, again, the strongest witness for the defense's claim.

Now, keep in mind, the judge in this case has already ruled that the Trumps and the other co-defendants are liable for fraud when it comes to inflating the values of their properties to get better loans. So, we'll continue to see how this line of questioning goes and it'll be interesting, of course, to see when the state's attorneys get their turn to cross-examine to ask the questions. You can only imagine it'll be a very robust line of questioning, but we're not there just yet.

But this is the last full week of testimony. This is the second-to- final witness in this two-month-long, so far, civil-fraud trial. And, as you guys said, next week, the former president takes a stand as the final witness in his defense before this trial wraps up, guys.

KEILAR: All right. Brynn, thank you so much for that report.

Let's talk more about this now with former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.

All right, it's pretty interesting, this expert ...

ELLIOT WILLIAMS:, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

KEILAR: ... testimony and then it got very testy as well. What did you think, though, of the substance of what he's saying on the stand?

WILLIAMS: Look, broadly speaking, he's correct. There is some subjectivity to the valuation of real estate, but that's about as far as it goes. Because if you're estimating what real estate properties are going to be worth, some of these things were overvalued by a factor of three.

[15:05:01]

And so there's plenty of evidence of fraud on the part of the Trump Organization here. But is he fundamentally correct in his experience as a - the legal standard is education, training and experience as an expert. Is he fundamentally right that there's some subjectivity? Sure. I think that's as far as it goes.

SANCHEZ: Donald Trump was outside the courtroom earlier today, making in the case that the judge was ignoring decisions made by an appellate court.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Doesn't sound like he was a hundred percent accurate with what he was saying.

WILLIAMS: He was not and I don't like to generalize, but this is a common practice by the former president, where he takes a legal issue or technicality, misstates it, plants it in people's heads, and then runs with it and that's what happened here. What he said - what that prior court had said is that claims against Ivanka Trump cannot be brought in and claims prior to 2014, for transactions that happened prior to 2014, can't be brought into this trial.

That does not mean that the judge had ruled that this whole case was nonsense. It just means that the judge had limited the kinds of evidence that could come in and he's sort of twisting the facts there a little bit. There's plenty of valuable evidence here. Prosecutors have to be careful with what they bring into court, but the president's just wrong, plain wrong.

KEILAR: He's playing a different game in the court of public opinion ...

WILLIAMS: Of course.

KEILAR: ... than his lawyers are playing in court. You have Letitia James, in a way, also, I think, participating a little bit in that, because it is confusing what he's saying. She said that her office has already proven the former president committed a massive scale of fraud. She seems to recognize there's a need to point out the fraud is not in dispute. There's something else here that the judge has decided.

WILLIAMS: I think nothing involving Donald Trump as a defendant follows the standard playbook. And what you're seeing here is a prosecutor speaking out in a way that prosecutors do not typically. But again, this is not a typical defendant.

Now, a prior court or this court has found that there is fraud, and what they're deciding on in this case is what the damages will be, what they will - the Trump Organization will have to pay on account of the fraud. So, again, another person with her, she's sort of correct. They did find fraud.

Now, the extent of it needs to be worked out. There it is.

SANCHEZ: So, Trump said to take the stand next week. Do we anticipate fireworks?

WILLIAMS: I think so. But you just never know, Boris, what's going to happen when someone gets into court. If you look at his two sons, they - at least, Eric Trump was not a bad witness for his case. And the former president might not be a bad witness, if he sticks to what his lawyers tell him and doesn't fight with the court and actually answers truthfully and so on.

Now, look, we've all seen the tweets. We've all seen the public statements and it's hard to know how he's going to behave on the stand. But when you're a defendant, at your own peril, you go into that court and start acting the fool and start causing trouble. And if he does that, it could mean $250 million.

KEILAR: Yes, there's a lot on the line for him. A lot of money, his identity as well.

WILLIAMS: Totally.

KEILAR: Elliot, thank you.

So, here in just over a month, a selection process will begin in earnest for the Republican presidential primary. The Iowa caucuses are just 39 days away, if you can believe that. And candidates who are not named Donald Trump - there are some - they're running out of time to make an impact on voters.

Last night was one of those moments. Four of them debated as the frontrunner, Trump, skipped out once again. Plenty of fireworks here, but did anyone emerge?

SANCHEZ: Yes, let's discuss with CNN Senior Political Analyst and Senior Editor at The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein. Also with us, we have Republican strategist Alice Stewart. Thank you both for being with us.

Ron, I think it's safe to say that the main target on the stage last night was Nikki Haley. She's become the focus of many of the attacks. Did you think any of those attacks actually landed? Is her status as second place to Donald Trump any diminished by what you saw last night?

RONALD BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I actually think it was a difficult night for Nikki Haley. I mean, she's had an impressive few months, but she has grown in the Republican race so far, primarily by consolidating the voters who are most resistant to Trump. Moderate voters, college-educated voters, suburban voters, that's not enough to win and everybody understands, including her campaign, that eventually she's going to have to reach beyond that base to - into the coalition that is supporting Trump, including more conservative voters, if she's really going to be able to challenge him eventually.

And I thought it was a difficult night for her on both fronts. She didn't really make a strong case against Trump at all. Hardly mentioned him until her closing statement and she didn't really have great answers to the tag team of DeSantis and Ramaswamy who are arguing that she was insufficiently conservative.

Her response mostly was, Bob Dole's book on 1988, you're lying about my record, rather than kind of presenting a different view of where the parties should go. So I think it said to me that she has some more work to do, even if she gets down to the one-on-one with Trump, where she does seem to be on track, better than DeSantis, to eventually reach that point. If she couldn't handle DeSantis and Ramaswamy, what's it going to look like when she has to go one-on-one with Donald Trump? KEILAR: Alice, there did seem to be some policy distinctions. There were some disagreements where you could see, okay, these candidates fall into different categories here. Specifically, we saw that on the divisive issue of transgender rights. Let's watch a couple moments from that.

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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nikki disagrees with me. She opposes the bill that we did to ban that. She said the law shouldn't get involved with it.

NIKKI HALEY, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not.

DESANTIS: They had a bill to try to say that men shouldn't go into girls' bathrooms and she killed that bill, and she bragged that she killed that bill. Even to this day, she bragged that.

HALEY: Ten years ago, when the bathroom situation came up, I - we had maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue. And I said, we don't need to bring government into this, but boys go into boys' bathrooms, girls go into girls' bathrooms and if anyone else has an issue, they use a private bathroom. I was against that.

DESANTIS: I signed it, you didn't. I killed it. I signed it.

HALEY: We didn't ...

DESANTIS: I stood up for little girls. You didn't do it.

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KEILAR: You also saw moments, this idea of parental choice coming in, making a distinction, Alice, between them. But when you look at these moments, I mean, we should be clear, this is a fight that is aimed at Iowa evangelical voters 39 days away from the caucuses. What did you think about this?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that specific back and forth, Brianna, was more about Ron DeSantis flexing his muscles on what is known as the culture war, about the culture wars and what he has done in Florida with regards to transgender youth, as well as bathrooms and many of those issues. And he was basically trying to say, I have done more on this issue than anyone on this stage and really holding her feet to the fire.

But she was able to push back on some of what he said with regard to - she wanted to make sure that parents have the opportunity to have a voice in some of these issues, which I think is really important. She's also separated herself from this field on the abortion issue. All of the candidates on these stages are very pro-life, but she's had a distinction in past debates where she talked about, let's not demonize people on both sides of this, and let's find a more nuanced approach to abortion, where let's talk about abortion limits as opposed to abortion bans.

So she is separating herself somewhat from this field. She also actually took some time after push by Chris Christie making distinctions with Donald Trump, saying that he actually added to the debt in this country. And she also said, look, with me, with my candidacy, there will be no drama, no vendettas and no whining. So she's really trying to separate herself from Donald Trump, but doing so in a way that doesn't alienate his base and the support that she needs so desperately.

But no disputing the fact she was attacked last night, and that's because she has the momentum and a lot of the wind in her sails right now, 40 days out from the Iowa caucus.

SANCHEZ: Ron, I think the distinction that Alice is making is really significant, because three of the candidates on stage last night tried to present themselves as non-Trump candidates. Only one of them really came out as an anti-Trump candidate.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: What did you make of Chris Christie's rhetoric? Will that be successful, given that we haven't really seen him get any traction in polling?

BROWNSTEIN: No. Well, look, I mean, there's only a limited audience in the Republican primary for that direct attack on Trump. And I thought Christie was more succinct and forceful in making the case that Trump is fundamentally unfit to be president and a threat to American democracy than he had been in any of the earlier debates. I think that is - he made arguments that are more likely to be quoted going forward by Democrats than by other Republicans.

Obviously, DeSantis and Haley don't want to go down that road, and they are criticizing Trump at best - kind of obliquely. He's lost his fastball. Father Time is undefeated. There's too much chaos that attracts him, that's around him, as Haley said, rather than saying he produces too much chaos.

Look, they are focused right now primarily on which one of them will come out of Iowa and New Hampshire, seen as the principal alternative to Trump. So in that sense, it makes a certain amount of - there's a logical consistency than focusing mostly on each other. But eventually, they are going to have to give a better argument than they've been willing to do so far about why some of that nearly 60 percent of national Republican voters who want Trump should switch to them. And each week that goes by, obviously, the window narrows on their ability to do that.

KEILAR: I want to look at a moment - this is a comment that Ron DeSantis made.

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DESANTIS: The commander-in-chief not only has a right, you have a responsibility to fight back against these people. So we're getting ...

HALEY: And does that mean shooting first?

DESANTIS: ... it means you're going to categorize them as foreign terrorist organizations and we will identify, just like we would anywhere, when I was in Iraq, the Al-Qaeda wasn't wearing a uniform. You'd see anyone walking down the street, they all had man dresses on. You didn't know if someone had a bomb, an IED attached or not.

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KEILAR: Alice, what's happening here? I mean, I tried to wonder, what does he gain here by mocking traditional garb? What does he - I mean, he's a guy with, like, a lady's shoe problem, so why is he talking about man dresses and bringing attention to this?

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STEWART: Look, clearly, he's trying to really mark his territory on securing the border and immigration, making the case that a lot of people coming into this country are coming through the southern border and we need to do a better job of identifying them.

KEILAR: But that's - Alice, but that's not what he's doing. He's - man dresses, I mean, that's - why?

STEWART: That clearly - I think it's inappropriate and he shouldn't be saying that, but in his view, that's playing to the base. That's what the base resonates with and that's clearly some of the rhetoric that we've heard from Donald Trump, and he feels, though, that's a good inroad to securing that language.

I don't think it's appropriate. I think it's wrong, but that's clearly what he's doing, is trying to play to the base.

KEILAR: Yes, it just seems like a strange way to get to his point. Thank you guys so much.

SANCHEZ: Yes, Alice Stewart, Ron Brownstein, thanks so much.

BROWNSTEIN: Sure.

SANCHEZ: So, we just heard from several people that have declared they are running for president. Later today, we may be hearing from one who has yet to declare, potentially as a third-party candidate.

Today at 5 PM Eastern, former Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney, joins our colleague, Jake Tapper, for a one-on-one interview. Be sure to tune in for that. It's on "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER", starting at 5 PM.

Earlier today, President Biden spoke to Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And coming up, we're going to speak to an Israeli government spokesperson to get details on their conversation and requests from the United States that Israel do more to protect civilians in Gaza. Plus, calls for resignations, an emergency board of trustees meeting and now a House investigation inside growing backlash over comments by Ivy League leaders at a hearing on anti-Semitism.

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SANCHEZ: CNN has learned that President Biden spoke to Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, today. Exactly two months ago, Hamas' brutal attacks in Israel left 1,200 people dead. Israeli defense forces say that they've breached several Hamas "defense lines," including in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

A staffer from a local hospital says the wounded are now overwhelming that facility, which is already critically short on medication, space and supplies. The Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry says more than 17,000 people have been killed in Gaza, another 46,000 wounded since October 7th.

We want to bring in Avi Hyman now. He's a spokesperson for the Israeli government.

Avi, thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. I want to start with the call between the two leaders today. U.S. officials have repeatedly called for Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, also to allow more aid into the enclave. Do you know if that was part of the conversation between the President and Prime Minister?

AVI HYMAN, ISRAEL GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: Boris, thank you very much for having me on and a happy Hanukkah to everyone celebrating. That call, I'm sure they discussed the ongoing movement in the war. I'm sure that they discussed the situation in Gaza vis-a-vis the humanitarian crisis that Hamas has brought upon their people by invading Israel's borders on October 7th, raping, burning whole families alive, dismembering limbs of children and leaving them to bleed.

We know who Hamas are, but we're doing our utmost to go after Hamas to free Gaza from Hamas while minimizing civilian casualties. And I believe that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the American administration on that and we thank them for their continued support.

SANCHEZ: Avi, I want to get you a read on reports that the IDF shelled Rmaych, a town in southern Lebanon, with phosphorus. CNN obtained this video showing columns of white smoke above the outskirts of that town. It's very close to the border with Israel. I'm sure you know it's a violation of international humanitarian law to fire phosphorus near civilian areas or civilian infrastructure. The IDF has previously denied similar reports.

Can you confirm whether the IDF targeted Rmaych with phosphorus?

HYMAN: Boris, this is something that comes up over and over again, not just in this war, but in crisis before. And the IDF consistently says we do not use white phosphorus. There's a lot of psychological warfare out there and misinformation going around. The IDF is a very targeted surgical army. We're going after the terrorists in Gaza. Our focus is Gaza. We hope to deter, with the help of the American administration, to deter Hezbollah. We saw missiles coming over from Lebanon today. We returned fire to the place of fire. And also, unfortunately, we lost one of our civilians to a missile.

Missiles continue to rain down on Israel. A lot of people don't realize that as the war goes on, missiles are raining down on Israel. Just the other day, I had to run for shelter myself in Tel Aviv.

SANCHEZ: Avi, I do want to be precise. The IDF has said that it does use white phosphorus in certain circumstances. I'm wondering whether you can confirm or not that white phosphorus was used in that most recent attack on that town near the border with Lebanon.

HYMAN: I can tell you categorically from the beginning of the war that the IDF has said that they have not used and will not use white phosphorus. I can't speak to ongoing operational activities. I am not a spokesman for the IDF.

SANCHEZ: Sure, sure. We are hearing claims inside Gaza that there was a mosque, the Othman bin Qashqar Mosque, that was destroyed, also that a hospital, the Al-Yemen al-Saeed Hospital, was damaged by shelling. Do you know if the mosque and hospital were IDF targets? Is there evidence that the government has been provided that Hamas is operating in those locations?

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HYMAN: Boris, we know that this is Hamas' raison d'etre, is to attack our civilians from deep within and underneath their civilians to ensure maximum civilian casualties on both sides. We heard a report today of despite the fact that Israel has asked Gazans to move to the southwest to specific safer zones, we're hearing reports of Hamas shooting from those safer zones at our troops. We found weapon caches, we found launching sites in Boy Scout centers, in mosques, in schools.

So it doesn't - it's not a shock to me that Hamas would be shooting from those types of places, which should be off limits according to international law. But international humanitarian law is not front and center for Hamas, a brutal terror organization that is still, I'll remind your viewers, is still holding 137 Israeli men, women, children, even a baby hostage deep, dark in underground tunnels deep underneath Gaza as human shields themselves.

SANCHEZ: Avi, a quick final question on those hostages. There was recently recorded leaked audio from a contentious meeting between people that had been held hostage and Prime Minister Netanyahu. One of them claimed that hostages were shelled by the IDF during their time in Gaza. Are you concerned that IDF operations may be putting hostages in Gaza at risk?

HYMAN: Firstly, especially on a day like today on Hanukkah, on the first night of Hanukkah, I reach out and hug every one of those families. We as Israelis stand together with those families and we have two missions in this war. One is to destroy Hamas and the other is to bring home every one of those hostages. We know that obviously like all Israelis, there are different opinions on everything. But one thing that we're united on is that those hostages need to be released immediately, unconditionally. It is a crime against humanity and we call on Hamas to release them today so they can celebrate Hanukkah with their families.

SANCHEZ: Avi Hyman, thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us. We hope you have a happy and safe Hanukkah.

HYMAN: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Brianna?

KEILAR: Despite President Biden's urgent plea for Congress to resolve its bipartisan battle over funding to Ukraine, Republican senators blocked a multi-billion dollar Ukraine aid package from advancing. The deal would also have sent funding to Israel, but the sticking point continues to be lawmakers' contentious tug of war over border security.

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju, is on Capitol Hill.

Manu, it seems like the White House is saying here that time is running out to help Ukraine. So what happens now?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are real fears here in the Capitol that aid to Ukraine could get punted into the new year, may not even be dealt with at all and could - Israel aid could also fall by the wayside, given that they're all tied together here, given that even if there was little time that the White House is warning that could, without immediate action, Ukraine could be kneecapped in its war against Russia.

Despite that, there is still a logjam over a separate issue dealing with immigration, the issues involving border security. Republicans are demanding significant changes to state to stem the tide of the influx of migrants at the southern border with Mexico. But what they are proposing, Democrats simply will not agree to. So there's - where does this go from here? More talks will continue.

I just caught up with a top Republican negotiator on the issue of immigration. He told me that he believes that they can still try to work out an accord. He said that talks will pick up at the moment, even as he defended the Republicans' approach and suggested they may be willing to give.

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RAJU: He also said that you guys are essentially offering a take-it- or-leave-it proposition.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): Well, we can't see a take-it-or-leave-it operation on this. I know that's kind of the implication that he made on that. We understand full well what the dynamics are. We've got a narrow majority in the House. We're in a minority in the Senate and we don't have the White House on it. I mean, we don't have the poll position to be able to resolve this. We're not going to be able to resolve every area dealing with border security. But based on right now what's happening along the border, we shouldn't just ignore it.

RAJU: ... claim the likelihood of this gets punted into the new year.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): I hope not. I think it's largely up to the Democrats. Clearly, we would like to get this done. I think everybody would like to get it done before the holiday. But that requires them getting serious about doing something on the border.

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RAJU: But at the moment, Congress is expected to leave town next week despite the inability to get a deal on this issue and despite the warnings for action before year's end. So unless something changes significantly on both sides of the aisle, that's where things are headed.

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More stalemate as these wars persist and as these allies are calling for help. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right.