Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Detroit News: Trump Recorded Pressuring Michigan GOP Canvassers Not To Certify 2020 Election; Trump Expected To Appeal CO Ballot Ruling To Supreme Court Next Week; UN Report: Acute Hunger Crisis Affecting Entire Population Of Gaza Strip; CBP: 192,000 Migrants Apprehended Between Ports Of Entry In Nov. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 22, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:42]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: So many calls (ph) of these called perfect, well, this was a not so perfect phone call. Former President Trump recorded pressuring Michigan canvassers to not certify the vote in 2020. What he said in the new details according to the Detroit News, just moments from now we'll get to that.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And new video from the southern border of the United States. A mother and her crying child struggling to cross the Rio Grande River. The Texas National Guard this morning is denying claims that it ignored her calls for help.

SIDNER: And the peak holiday travel rush is underway. I don't have to tell you, the millions of Americans hitting the road for the holidays and the airports. What you must know to save yourselves.

I'm Sara Sidner --

BOLDUAN: Run.

SIDNER: As fast as you can. With Kate Bolduan. John Berman hopefully living a lovely life right now. This is "CNN News Central."

All right, we begin with this new recordings of service the former President Donald Trump pressuring election workers this time in Michigan, a swing state as you know, in his bid to overturn legitimate results of the 2020 vote. The recordings from November 17, 2020, 14 days after the election. And just hours after this meeting were canvassers in Wayne County, Michigan voted not to certify the election. They were then chastised by their fellow election workers and change their votes to yes, that's where Donald Trump steps in. Later that night then President Trump called them personally and continue to claim that the vote was rigged.

And a newly released transcripts of that call from the Detroit News. Trump told the workers quote, we can't let these people take our country away from us. He then went on to say, everybody knows Detroit is crooked as hell. The newspaper report is what after that call, the canvassers refused to come back in to sign the certification. It was ultimately determined their signatures weren't needed in the first place.

CNN has not independently listened to the recordings. But we did report at the time that this call between Trump and two canvassers happened. We just didn't know exactly what was in those conversations. One of those workers named in the Detroit News article spoke to reporters a few days after the call. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONICA PALMER, CHAIR, WAYNE COUNTY BOARD OF CANVASSERS: I received a call from the President. It was after the meeting. And he thanked me for my service. Asked me how I was doing, there was a genuine concern for my safety with what he had heard the threats that were, that were coming in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you saying the President's call had no influence on you recounting your vote?

PALMER: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Trump's campaign is now reacting to the report claiming the call was part of his duty as president, not one that you hear any other president saying.

Let's get straight to CNN's Jessica Schneider. Jessica, what else was said on that call? And do we expect to finally hear all of the audio?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's unclear if that call will actually get released to the broader public because this is a call Sara that reporters from the Detroit News. They've heard it themselves, but they're not releasing the audio. They say they listened to portions of the call, amounting to about four minutes. But the people who shared this call they say don't want it released, at least not right now.

So, here's what the reporter for The Detroit News who broke this story said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG MAUGER, STATE POLITICS REPORTER, THE DETROIT NEWS: There's a whistleblower that possesses the audio of these recordings and the timing of the release and the ultimate decision on whether to release these recordings publicly is up to that person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: All right, so what's new about this call? You know, is CNN did previously report that Trump had in fact called these two Michigan canvassing officials. But now what we're seeing is the details of this call, that Trump was in fact, pressuring these county canvassers not to sign the certification that eventually certified the vote for Joe Biden in Wayne County, Wayne County, of course, home to Detroit.

So, the way the timeline played out these two canvassers, they initially said no to certifying the vote, then after some outrage by the fellow canvassers, they said yes, and after that is when they got this call for Trump and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel urging them not to actually sign the certification. And in that phone call according to the Detroit News, Trump did apparently say how can anyone sign something when you have more votes than people? His statement was false. It was alluding to some claims that the vote count in Detroit was rigged. It was not. But and you know, the emergence of this audio is really important because efforts to prevent certification in Michigan, they are all part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's case right here in D.C.

[09:05:31]

So, this recording this audio if it's released, or if Jack Smith and his team get his hand -- their hands on it, it really couldn't be part of the case in this election subversion case out of -- out of D.C. the federal case. Sara?

SIDNER: And this certainly because there are so many people that are involved in that case, this doesn't just implicate Donald Trump. Has there been a response from Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. Head of RNC, also cause Michigan home. And you know, according to the Detroit News, McDaniel said on the call, apparently urging those canvassers not to sign the certification, she said that she said, if you can go home tonight, do not sign it. We'll get you attorneys. And then Trump said, yes, we'll take care of that.

So, McDaniel did respond to the Detroit News, Sara, and what she said is, what I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on November 21, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit.

So, Ronna McDaniel defending some of her statements, but it's it remains to be seen whether or not we'll ever hear that audio recording and whether or not the people who possess it might at some point release it. Sara.

SIDNER: You got to wonder if Jack Smith has it or was going after it.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

SIDNER: There are a lot of questions there. But that could certainly be used potentially, in court if the judge allows it. And Jessica Schneider, thank you so much for all of that reporting this morning. And thank you the Detroit News. They did a great job on that one.

BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely. And the word from Trump world today is essentially nothing to see here. Though his campaign in the next breath (ph) continues to push the false narrative about a stolen election in 2020.

Let's get over to CNN's Alayna Treene. She's tracking this side of it in Washington. Alayna, what else are we hearing from Donald Trump's campaign and team now that this -- with in light of this new reporting?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, I spoke with the Trump team last night shortly after this story was published and they're clearly frustrated. This is definitely just another piece of critical evidence that Special Counsel Jack Smith can use potentially in the federal election subversion trial against Donald Trump, which is currently slated to take place during the height of primary season in March. It's unclear if that time where we'll hold.

But look, Donald Trump's team is pushing back pretty hard on this. We got a statement from a Trump campaign spokesman. It reads, quote, all of President Trump's actions were taken in furtherance of his duty as President of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity.

Now, Kate this audio which we have not obtained here at CNN, but the Detroit News has, it's really critical because it fits into a broader pattern of Donald Trump calling up election officials across the country and pressuring them to try and block the certification of the election results. And I know we have a graphic to showing some of these other calls that Donald Trump had made in the lead up to and after, you know, January 6, when the election was certified on Capitol Hill. Perhaps most notoriously, Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, asking him to, quote find the votes necessary to overturn the state's election results. There was also a second call in Georgia made in December 2020 to then Georgia House Speaker David Ralston attempting to get him to call a special legislative session to overturn Biden's victory in the state.

There's a couple other calls there, as you can see, and now this call in Michigan, with these, with these local county officials. And it's unclear, Kate, if the Special Counsel is, you know, has this audio himself. If he doesn't, I think there's no question that he wants to get it. And it's still unclear if they'll use this in the trial. But this is just another piece of evidence against Donald Trump that they could potentially use.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Alayna, it's great to see you. Thank you so much.

TREENE: Thank you.

SIDNER: All right. I'm joined now by CNN senior legal analyst and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Elie Honig.

Ladies and gentlemen, he is back again with more for you. This tape is says a lot. It is evidence that is sort of a pattern by Donald Trump the fact that he was willing as President to reach out to people who were really at a ground level not, he was already talking to the high- level folks, but he's trickled down to those making the decision to sign something or not. What does this say about the level of left -- for lack of a better word desperation on his part?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Sara, I think this is exactly why this is such compelling evidence potentially, for prosecutors. First of all, prosecutors love tapes, here's nothing better than a tape. You get to play the jury exactly what happened, they can hear the exact words, they don't have to rely on somebody else's memory or characterization of it. They can hear the tonality of the people speaking.

[09:10:12]

And in this case, in particular, it sounds like based on the reporting, that tape is actually going to sort of undermine, to some extent what the witnesses have said the canvassers have received these calls, because it sounds like they tried to shake things in Trump's favor and say it was innocuous.

Based on the reporting it was not so innocuous, because, as you said, it shows first of all, that Donald Trump was engaged. This was a pattern. This wasn't just a bad day, a one off a spur of the moment type of incident. He was calling people consistently throughout those desperate weeks after he lost the election.

And the second thing, it shows just how deep he's willing to go. I guess it's one thing it's not a good thing. But it's one thing to call up the Secretary of State of Georgia, to pressure the Vice President. When you're on the phone with canvassers directly as President, I think, I think that speaks to a real level of desperation. So, prosecutors are going to be very interested in this.

SIDNER: It will be interesting, because it seems like it goes beyond the scope of what a president is supposed to be doing. But again, that's for the courts to decide.

So, we're going to go back and let you put your prosecutor hat on. Say, you got this information. You saw this in the Detroit News, who did a great job breaking this story. What would you do with it?

HONIG: So first of all, prosecutors absolutely do read the newspapers, they do look at the media. It's a great source of leads. I used to do it quite a bit. The first thing I do if I see this story in the newspaper in Detroit, is pumped my fist because it's great news. Then I issued three subpoenas if they haven't already done this, two, to each of the canvassers one each, because they're now witnesses. And then the third subpoena, you can subpoena evidence as well, to both of them to get the actual recording. That recording is admissible against Trump assuming his voice is on it.

The way you would put it in evidence at a jury trial is you call under a subpoena, if necessary, one of the canvassers or both and you say, is this your voice? Is this a phone call that you had? Do you know who the other person was? And there you go, it's in evidence. So, if prosecutors have not already done this, then I assure you their desks knocking out subpoenas right now.

SIDNER: I was going to ask you about the admissibility of it, because I think we are having a conversation saying, would this be hearsay. But it's Donald Trump's own voice on tape, and he is a defendant. So that makes it much easier for the judge to bring in if they can get the cooperation of the witness.

We are waiting on the Supreme Court to decide about what they're going to do on the Colorado case, whether they take that up. And there are so many cases affecting the presidency right now that are really worth keeping a close eye on. When, when do you think we'll hear from the Supreme Court on whether or not they're going to take the case in the first place and how that might progress?

HONIG: So, the one that we're watching for today is the immunity defense that Donald Trump has raised in Jack Smith's federal indictment of him. Just to refresh everyone's memory, Donald Trump claimed he had presidential immunity. He lost at the district court, the trial court level and then Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case directly to skip that middle layer, the Court of Appeals. All the briefing is now in.

So, the next words we will hear will be from the U.S. Supreme Court telling us whether they're going to take the case directly or whether it's going to go through the court of appeals that matters a lot because of the trial date and the calendar and the schedule. As for when the Supreme Court could do that, any moment. Let's just say I'm going to be at the airport today. I'm going to have my phone on me. And every time I get one of those push notifications, I'm going to look at it with sort of my heart beating to say that could this be it.

So, could be today? I think it'll be soon. You can't promise when the Supreme Court will do anything but, but stay close.

SIDNER: All right. Well, we already know that the case is probably not going to go March 4th or 5th when it was scheduled. But could be sooner depending on what they do. Elie Honig always great to see you. Thank you for coming in this morning.

HONIG: Thanks, Sara.

BOLDUAN: And coming back for us, video released of a migrant woman carrying her child pleading for help as she was trying to cross the Rio Grande River. How the Texas National Guard is now responding to accusations that they stood by and watched and should have done more.

Plus, as Israel pushes forward to take out Hamas terrorists with their military operation. The staggering human toll in Gaza. The UN warning the entire population is now on the verge of famine.

And police in Prague are releasing new body camera footage as they responded to that campus mass shooting yesterday that killed 14 people.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:44]

BOLDUAN: New we have learned this morning, an Israeli-American man who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th, he has died while in captivity in Gaza. Seventy-three-year-old Gadi Haggai was on a walk with his wife on the morning of October 7th, when he was shot and then abducted by Hamas terrorist. His wife was also wounded in the terror attack and also a hostage being held by Hamas still. According to a statement from the missing persons families forum, a guy's body is still being held in Gaza.

SIDNER: This morning, it has been 11 weeks of war in Gaza now. According to the Hamas Controlled Health Ministry, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7th. These scenes that people mourning over the bodies of their loved ones played out over and over again and has played out over these many weeks.

And just look at how it compares to past Israel-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. The historic death toll now 10 times more than any time in the last 15 years. And part of that is because Benjamin Netanyahu declared war that has not been done many times before. It's a part of the result of the types of weapons that Israel is using there in Gaza. A new analysis by CNN found that in the first month of the war, the IDF dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza. This is of course after the October 7th attack in which 1,200 Israelis were killed, as well as some people who are from outside of the country.

[09:20:13]

Those bombs though that Israel is dropping capable of wounding or killing people more than 1,000 feet from where the bomb lands and they are four times heavier than the largest bombs United States dropped on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq.

Experts say the use of those munitions is such -- in a such a densely populated areas, one of the most populated areas in the world means it could take decades to recover from all this. The UN says those who have survived in Gaza, more than 2 million people are now all facing acute hunger. Parents choosing to go without food so their children can have what little there is to eat. And officials warn the entire population is on the verge of a famine.

Joining me now is Sean Casey an emergency medical teams coordinator with the WHO, who visited the makeshift hospitals in northern Gaza this week.

We have seen some of the pictures which are extremely disturbing. We've seen some of the fighting around hospitals as well, both from Israel trying to, you know, root out Hamas and Hamas responding with rockets. Can you give us a sense of what you saw when you went into those hospitals at this stage in the war where this has gone on for a very long time and taking taken now about 20,000 lives according to authorities there.

SEAN CASEY, WHO EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM COORDINATOR: Thanks, Sara. I've been here for a few weeks now and I visit hospitals across Gaza every few days. This week, I was in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which is the largest referral hospital here, as well as Al-Ahli (ph) Hospital, which is a smaller hospital that last week was functional, and this week has about 80 patients who appear to be waiting to die. They have no power. They have no water, they have no food. Most of the doctors and nurses have gone. It's a horrific scene.

Al-Shifa Hospital, was the biggest hospital here. And it's, it's just a trauma stabilization point. They can -- they can't perform surgery. They can barely care for the hundreds of patients who come through their door every day. And both of these facilities, key hospitals here in Gaza were attacked within the last week and people were killed on the grounds at Al-Shifa hospital earlier this week.

It's a horrifying scene, we see that no hospital is functioning effectively in northern Gaza. And here in southern Gaza where I am at the moment, the hospitals are running at 200 or 300 percent capacity with 25 percent of their staff in some cases.

So, people are not able to access care. There are million a million displaced people here in Rafah. People are moving all over Gaza with white flags, trying to flee, to choose some kind of safety. And there's not enough food, there's not enough water, and there's makeshift shelters popping up all over. It's a really horrifying scene.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about the makeshift shelters, because some of those makeshift shelters are actually the hospitals where people have just come in feeling that that is the safest place to be. When you -- when you look at those pictures of people just covering the floor in the hospitals who are not sick, but are seeking shelter. What kind of difficulty does that -- does that create for the teams who are still there trying to work on people who are very badly injured from some of these physicians or are on the verge of dying?

CASEY: The hospitals are very, very densely packed with people. So, Al-Shifa was a 750-bed hospital. It's currently getting hundreds of new cases every day. But it has thousands, tens of thousands most likely internally displaced persons on site and its surgical building and its words camping out in the, in the, in the yard of the hospital. And that's the same situation in European Gaza Hospital, which is one of the biggest hospitals here in the south, which has IDP camps within the hospitals.

And even as I walked through the corridors and walk up and down the stairs, there are people living there, there are people living in every free space and they do seek safety there. Hospitals should be a safe place. Unfortunately, they're still not here in Gaza.

SIDNER: Yes, we've seen some of the -- we've seen at least one reason why the Israeli military showing that they found munitions and tunnels under some of them or near some of them as well. But when you look at the amount of damage that has happened in Gaza, and we're looking at some of the pictures that Getty has taken, but also that the WHO is taken while you were there, you gave us kind of a look inside of just the enormous amounts of damage.

How difficult is it for getting aid into Gaza? Because the Rafah border has been the sort of the point in which all of it's been coming in but there is talk from Israel of opening Kerem Shalom where they've been checking trucks first and then sending them back to the Rafah border. If that opens, if it is available, if you're able to get things through there, without change things in any noticeable way for those who are hungry and thirsty and need medicine.

[09:25:09]

CASEY: Well, we absolutely need more aid coming across. Even prior to this conflict, there were hundreds of commercial trucks that would come across Rafah every day. And our aid trucks are not even close to matching those numbers. So, there's very few commercial trucks coming across, there's not enough aid coming across, it's a slow process. And we do have challenges once it comes in. There's still fighting all over the Gaza Strip, nowhere here is stay, there's massive destruction. I mean, our trucks, just this week, when we were driving up to northern Gaza blew up tires, we have to cross fallen cables, go across roads that are that are covered in rubble.

So, it's challenging to move. Everybody here is desperate. Everybody's looking for food. And actually, even when I'm in a convoy transporting medicines to hospitals, people rush our trucks and run up. And we have to say on a loudspeaker that this is not food, because people are so desperate, they would jump on a moving truck trying to grab food.

So, there's many challenges of moving aid, but we're moving it almost on a daily basis, we're providing medicines to the hospitals, we're going to be providing full -- fuel and food in a convoy this weekend to Northern Gaza.

So, we're advancing it, we're moving it out as quickly as it comes in. But we definitely need more. And we need the access to be able to deliver it. We need to have safety, to be able to move and to be able to deliver the aid to the people who need it the most.

SIDNER: Yes. And that is one of the hardest things to, to create right now. Because there is an official war going on. I've been in many of these conflict zones, watching humanitarian aid come in around the world. And that's always a danger to you and your team, to those trying to bring things not only from bombs flying from the sky and rockets coming from the ground, but also because you look like someone that can help and people will flock to you to try and get that help, no matter the consequences because they're just simply different -- desperate.

Sean Casey, thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you to your team, for taking chances to try to help as many people as they can. Appreciate it.

CASEY: Thank you, Sara.

BOLDUAN: Now we are also expecting new numbers to be released today on what's happening at the U.S. southern border. Border authorities apprehended about 192,000 migrants between ports of entry in November.

And amid this surge in crossings, the Texas National Guard is responding this morning to video released showing a woman with her child in her arms struggling to cross the Rio Grande River. Now the guard denies allegations that it ignored the woman's pleas for help. Here's video of the encounter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now this video was taken by an immigration activist who was in the area at the time, who also said that the woman eventually did make it safely to the Mexican side of the border. Now in a statement to CNN, The Texas National Guard says this quote, soldiers apprehended I'm sorry, apologies. Soldiers approached by boat and determined that there was no signs of medical distress, injury or incapacitation. And they had the ability to return the short distance back to the Mexican shore.

This also comes at a time when Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is making a renewed push for a crackdown on border security, publishing a letter to President Biden calling on him to take executive action on the matter.

Let's go over to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. She's at the White House for us. Priscilla, what is Speaker Johnson really pushing for in this letter, as we've just kind of displayed what a real crisis there's -- there still is at the border.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: While the Speaker -- the Speaker here is digging in his heels and saying that more needs to be done on the U.S.-Mexico border and proposing a return of a series of Trump era policies. But Kate, there are limits to what the White House can do in a situation like this. And they have floated some of those stricter border measures in those border talks to try to get a supplemental request through Congress. And in a statement the White House is reminding Republicans of just that saying, quote, when President Biden presented Congress with another supplemental request for border security in October, House Republicans refused to take it up. It goes on to say, if Speaker Johnson and House Republicans want real solutions, they should provide DHS the resources it needs not seek to defund it. That supplemental request Kate, includes $14 billion for border security.

But there's no doubt that the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border currently is untenable. Current and former homeland security officials telling me that it's at a breaking important as they see consecutive days of 10,000 migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

[09:30:05]

Now to give you some context, I have some new numbers here. The seven- day average reported.