Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Allies, Supporters Blast Colorado Ballot Ruling; Trump Asks Supreme Court To stay Out Of Immunity Dispute For Now; Source: Biden Frustrated With Slow Rollout Of Major Projects Funded By His Legislative Wins In Congress; Older Weight Loss Drugs Making A Comeback Amid Medication Shortages. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 20, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But even if he doesn't appear in the general election, he was never going to win Colorado anyway. Colorado is a deeply blue state.

And unless every other state engages in this, which may -- a couple of them may, it's going to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden in the end.

And this will also help, by the way, to mobilize the Democratic base, who does see Donald Trump as -- and the election of Donald Trump as an extinction level threat for the future of our country.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Maria Cardona, Scott Jennings, thank you, both. We do have to leave the conversation there because we have breaking news just into CNN.

Former President Trump actually does not want the Supreme Court to decide right now whether he has immunity from federal prosecution for the alleged crimes that he committed while in office.

CNN's Joan Biskupic is breaking this down for us.

Joan, we anticipated that they wanted the Supreme Court to weigh in on this. Not the filing that we anticipated.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: No, no. This is right, Boris. And you were exactly right when I saw you an hour ago. You thought we would be getting it soon.

But we knew, for this stage, Donald Trump's lawyers do not want the Supreme Court to weigh in at this point. They want it to go slower and have a federal appeals court hear it first.

This response that we just got a few seconds ago, Boris and Brianna, is response to Special Counsel Jack Smith's request last week to the Supreme Court to intervene immediately.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has said the question of whether a former president is immune from prosecution, from criminal prosecution for election subversion should be decided right now. It should not wait to be decided by a lower court and then the Supreme

Court. He clearly wants an answer to this. He was looking, in fact, at March 4th, when the trial of former President Donald Trump was going to start.

So now what we have is Donald Trump's response to that, saying, no, Supreme Court, do not intervene at this point, wait until you U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit actually hears it first.

And then, in due course, let it go up to the Supreme Court for the immunity question to be decided.

What we are probably going to see -- this really tees this case up as opposed to the Colorado one that I know you and Brianna have been speaking about all afternoon.

This tees up the immunity question, which is a very important one, about whether Donald Trump will go to trial this spring, facing all the charges that the special counsel has brought about his election interference, including the events from January 6, 2021.

What's going to happen next is that the Supreme Court will now tell us within, you know, maybe a couple of days, maybe another week -- I would hope it would be in a couple of days just so that we have some clarity here -- whether it will hear this case out of order.

But because of its importance, hear this case, set a schedule, and be able to resolve the important, unprecedented constitutional questions of immunity from criminal prosecution for the former president of the United States.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Joan, how does the court weigh this? If the Trump team doesn't want this, how much bearing does this have on what they decide to do?

BISKUPIC: Well, what they will have to do is figure out, is Jack Smith's -- the federal government essentially, because he's in the shoes of the Department of Justice here -- is his request compelling enough for the court to take this case out of sequence?

And frankly, the Supreme Court has taken cases out of sequence before for lesser matters. And this is so important.

As the special counsel wrote in his initial filing last week, this is whether a former president is going to be held accountable for his actions arising from the 2020 election subversion.

So it's a really important case question. And the judges will have to decide it no matter what, Brianna. The justices will have to answer that question at some point.

So the question is, do they do it now at a point where they can resolve it, you know, and have enough time for a trial to occur before we get too deep into the 2024 election cycle, or will they insist that it go first to the appellate court, which is where it is now. So, first to the appellate court and then up to the Supreme Court. And

if it goes right to the Supreme Court now, then we are going to have -- you know, it'll be resolved in the next couple of weeks.

If it goes first to the appellate court, we won't have an answer to this perhaps for months.

KEILAR: Wow. Joan, thank you so much. We will track this more, obviously, throughout the day.

[14:34:54]

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back to CNN NEWS CENTRAL where we are tracking more breaking news.

Former President Trump does not want the Supreme Court to decide right now whether he has any immunity from federal prosecution for the alleged crimes that he committed while in office.

KEILAR: That's right.

Maria Cardona is back with us right now.

What do you think about this? Not what we were expecting to hear from his team.

CARDONA: I think this is another tactic of his to continue to delay, delay, delay.

For a couple of reasons. The first one is what we were talking about before, which is anything with talk of the Supreme Court or the courts jumping in and either keeping him from ballots, which is what the Colorado Supreme Court just did.

[14:40:00]

Or even talk of whether it's Democrats -- and Democrats really have nothing to do with this -- but other third-party groups who are trying to make the case that I made earlier as well, that Donald Trump is not above the law.

Even if was a former president of the United States and president of the United States when he was involved in the insurrection, he is not above the law.

This is not political. But we have values in this country. We have the rule of law. And the president is not above it.

So anything with that kind of talk, for Trump supporters -- and we just saw it in the clip that you put in earlier -- they think of it as persecution. They think of it as everyone trying to go after Donald Trump. And it really plays into the role that he has down pat, which is that of a victim. The victimization of Donald Trump, I think, is one of the biggest tactics that he will use in the 2024 election.

SANCHEZ: What risks are there for the White House to go after Donald Trump on this, to sort of weigh in on the matter?

Because we've seen President Biden essentially saying, this is up to the courts.

CARDONA: Yes.

SANCHEZ: But on other issues before the Supreme Court, he has been more vocal. And he did say that he believes that Donald Trump, without question, aided in insurrection.

CARDONA: Yes. I think comments like that, I think, are fine. They help with his base because, frankly, his base believes that Joe Biden should be a little more aggressive in making the contrast of Donald Trump being a danger to our democracy.

So Joe Biden commenting on how he believes, which the majority of the country believes, that he was aiding and abetting an insurrection, that's playing out in the courts.

I don't think, and I don't think you will see him comment on either what the Supreme Court should do, what a decision would mean, or anything that, right now, is in front of the court.

But I do think this is another opportunity for Joe Biden, generally speaking, to make the contrast between what a danger to democracy Donald Trump is and will be if he gets a second chance to get into the Oval Office.

Through Donald Trump's own words, which I just mentioned as well, when he said he would be a dictator on day one. He has also laid out everything he would do if he gets another chance in the Oval Office.

I think those kinds of contrasts, for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, continue to make, I think that'll help in ensuring that his base knows that he is out there fighting.

And then that is going to be a big, big reason for the contrast going into 2024.

KEILAR: Maria, thank you so much for being with us.

CARDONA: Thank you.

KEILAR: We will be back in just a moment with more on this breaking news. Trump asking the Supreme Court to stay out of this immunity dispute, at least for now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:02] SANCHEZ: New numbers are in and confidence is up. A new report shows that Americans are feeling better about the economy. Consumer confidence at its highest level since July.

And today, President Biden is on the road to tout his policies.

KEILAR: Privately though, CNN is learning, as the White House struggles to change public opinion on the economic record, the president expressing some frustration to his advisors.

We have CNN's M.J. Lee with us now on this story.

M.J., you have President Biden speaking here at an event in Milwaukee a short time ago. Tell us how he is addressing this. And how you hear from your sources, the White House is concerned about this.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You were just talking about that newest Consumer Confidence Index. And that's an interesting one. Because that is one that the White House watches closely and puts quite a lot of stock into.

It's one of those data points that makes the White House feel hopeful that the outlook on the economy has been improving and will continue to improve.

But the reality right now, of course, is that the public outlook on the economy is not great. And we see the president taking a hit for it.

If you look at the most recent CNN poll, the majority of Americans, 67 percent, saying that they disapprove of the president's handling of the economy.

And it's why we are seeing the president travel to a place like Milwaukee and try to sell his economic record overall, basically saying, here are all the ways in which the economy is better off under Democrats.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All this groundbreaking work is producing groundbreaking results. Record job creation, historic economic growth.

We have among the lowest inflation rates of any major economy on this earth. We're fighting to lower costs to give folks just a little bit more breathing room, as my dad used to say.

Let's be clear, Republicans are against so many critical actions that help working and middle-class people, especially black Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Needless to say, it's really important for the White House and the Biden campaign right now to try to change the narrative on the economy.

And one thing we reported today is that something that the president is privately frustrated about and has shown the frustration to his senior advisors.

Is that it's difficult to have physical things that he can point to right now when he's trying to tout some of these big, signature legislative accomplishments from the first term.

It obviously goes to show how important he thinks it is to have the ability to physically showcase what is a part of his economic record.

SANCHEZ: M.J. Lee, live from the White House, thanks so much.

Coming up, the skyrocketing demand for a popular new weight loss drug has made it harder to find and even harder to afford. How that has led to a resurgent of some older weight loss medications.

[14:49:44]

We will be back in just a few minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: As weight loss drugs, Zepbound and Wegovy, grow in popularity, that demand is making it hard for many patients to actually get these drugs.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And in a new CNN exclusive, we are learning the problem is leading some people to go on older weight loss drugs.

CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, joins us now.

So, Meg, how hard is it to find those weight loss drugs?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: These new medicines can be almost impossible for some patients to access, even if they qualify based on their BMI.

That's, in part, because of this crazy popularity we're seeing for drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, they've gone into shortage, as well as their high-risk prices.

Insurance companies often won't cover them for weight loss.

If you look at the list prices of these medicines per months, before insurance, they're pushing $1,000 or even more than that for all of these medicines.

[14:54:59]

We talked to one patient, Christy Nguyen, who told us she essentially had prescriptions for each one of these drugs and experienced either insurance hurdles or shortages, or sometimes both with these medicines. I talked with her doctor, who said that 75 percent of her requests for insurance reimbursements for the newest medicine, Zepbound, are currently getting rejected.

So, guys, there's a lot of problems and a lot of frustration trying to get these new medicines.

KEILAR: So what are the older drugs that people are turning to?

TIRRELL: There are a few drugs that have been around really for decades that doctors used before this new class of medicines came along, and are currently using even more now.

Drugs like Phentermine and Bupropion. We have exclusive data from research showing that prescription rates for those medicines are up about 30 percent over the past six years.

And while that's not anywhere near the jump that we have seen for things like Ozempic and Wegovy, it does show that more patients are seeking out weight loss treatment at the doctor's office.

And perhaps, because of those barriers or from even preference for some of the older drugs, we are starting to see prescription rates for those increase, too.

SANCHEZ: So how do they compare to the current weight loss drugs?

TIRRELL: Typically, they have not shown as great weight loss in clinical trials as the newer medicines. But they can be very helpful.

Christy told us her story. She was able to be on Ozempic for about three months. She said she lost about 10 pounds. Then she was able to get Mounjaro for about a year. She lost an additional 10 pounds.

But then she said she lost access. She said, in the following three months, she gained back about 80 percent of the weight that she had lost. She was really alarmed by that pace in weight gain.

So she and her doctor decided to start her on Bupropion. And she said that halted the weight gain. Although now there is a new drug available in that new class, Zepbound. She's been able to get access to that and she's trying that one.

Look, guys, it can be a real journey, a real rollercoaster for a lot of patients. And it is incredibly frustrating.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is. These drugs are incredibly popular.

Meg Tirrell, thank you for that report.

Lawyers for former President Trump, they are vowing to fight this Colorado Supreme Court ruling that could keep him off the ballot there in the primary election in 2024. But what does this mean for other states who have similar cases? We will talk to an official in one of the key states, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)