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Michigan Supreme Court Rejects Effort To Ban Trump From Ballot; Blinken, Mexican Pres. Meet Amid Migrant Surge; Rep. Tony Gonzales (R- TX) Discusses About U.S.-Mexico Immigration Plans And Border Protection; U.S. Navy Shoots Down Missiles, Drones Fired From Yemen. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 27, 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: Still on the ballot. The Michigan Supreme Court rejecting an effort to remove former president, Donald Trump, from the state's 2024 primary ballot. The justices' legal reasoning and what it could mean for a future Supreme Court case.

And right now, top U.S. officials are in Mexico urging their counterparts to take action to drive down border crossings. The latest on those talks amid a migrant surge.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And fears of a wider war in the Middle East now reaching a new level as the U.S. military intercepts a barrage of drones and missiles fired from Yemen.

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

A major Constitutional debate is heating up as Michigan becomes the latest state to keep Donald Trump on the ballot for its 2024 primary election.

SANCHEZ: Yes, today Michigan's Supreme Court agreed with three other states in rejecting efforts to remove the former president from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban. It comes just a week after Colorado's justices ruled the opposite, allowing Trump to be kicked off in next year's primary ballot in that state.

CNN's Paula Reid joins us now with the details.

So, Paula, why are we seeing these dueling decisions?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, the U.S. Constitution means different things to different judges, which is why we have a Supreme Court to be the final word on what exactly that document means, but we're not there quite yet. Right now we have this question of ballot eligibility litigated through several different states. And here in Michigan, this is more of a procedural decision, how they came to decide that he can remain on the ballot, at least for the primaries. But last week, the Colorado Supreme Court really surprised a lot of people when they said he can be removed from the ballot. And that was a surprise because lower courts in that same state had ruled, look, even though we had a trial, we found that he did engage in an insurrection, this particular portion of the 14th Amendment that we're talking about doesn't specifically say that this applies to presidents. So we can't keep him off. That's why that Colorado decision was such a surprise and that's the big question here. It's a constitutional question.

The 14th Amendment says that officials who engage in an insurrection should be banned from holding office going forward. And it lists several specific offices, but it omits the president or the presidency.

Now, the former president, he is expected to appeal that Colorado decision to the Supreme Court, and if they don't weigh in, it's possible we're going to see this whole issue bubble up again, even in states like Michigan or Minnesota, where they've already decided he can't be kept out for the primaries because they left the door open to litigate all of this again in the general election.

Now, we're also waiting for decisions on this issue in states like Oregon and Maine. And we just saw the former president's legal team weigh in trying to get the secretary of state of Maine to recuse herself from that case. Maine is unique for many amazing reasons, probably my favorite state.

But legally speaking, the secretary of state is actually the first person to hear arguments in an issue like this. So now it's a little late stage to make this request, but they're saying they've only recently found some comments that she made about January 6th and they'd like her to recuse herself. It's unclear that's going to happen, though.

DEAN: All right, so more to come on that. Before we let you go, let's talk about the federal election interference case, the one here in D.C. Jack Smith made a new filing and then his team, tell us more about that.

REID: They've been busy in the holidays.

DEAN: I know.

REID: This case is on pause, okay.

DEAN: Nobody ...

REID: This case is officially ...

DEAN: ... nobody goes to holiday break.

REID: ... exactly, on vacation until appeals are heard on some of the larger constitutional questions on this. But the special counsel, they continue to make arguments. They continue to file things that they need. They hope they will be successful on appeal and that they can still proceed with this trial in the spring.

So they continue to make this filing here. They are arguing against any prospective defenses that Trump might make, specifically arguing that they don't want him to make any arguments. That he is the victim of political persecution. Specifically, they don't want him to say, for example, that he is being prosecuted because Biden wants him to be prosecuted for political reasons. They don't want him to use this as a forum to air political grievances and in any way influence the jury to depend on those political arguments as opposed to the facts of this case.

SANCHEZ: We'll see how it plays out in the new year. Potentially filings right up until New Year's Eve. They never stop.

REID: All filings all the time, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

REID: That's why I'm here all the time.

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SANCHEZ: Paula Reid, thank you so much. We do appreciate it.

DEAN: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper now on that Michigan ruling and what it means. Joining us, former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti.

Renato, thank you so much for being with us.

Unlike in Colorado, this Michigan lawsuit actually never went to trial, dismissed early on procedural grounds. How much of this decision do you think is based on the preference of individual judges versus a difference in state law?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Great question. I think I'll - it is very much based on how each individual judge is looking at this issue. Because, Boris, no court has ever considered this issue before. We've never had a president accused of engaging in insurrection before, so it's a unique situation. An issue of what they would call an issue of first impression for these judges.

And here in Michigan, you have the judge basically say this is a political question. There's actually a doctrine where courts can say, hey, if this is a political issue, this is better left for the political branches, they can essentially punt and that's really what the lower court judge did here and that's why we have that decision in Michigan.

I will say I wouldn't be surprised if the United States Supreme Court does something similar.

DEAN: Okay. So that's what I wanted to ask you about. How much of this could be a preview of what we see from the Supreme Court? MARIOTTI: Yes, in Colorado we - you've mentioned that there was a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court. All seven of those justices in the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democrats and it was a 4- 3 decision.

Here in the United States Supreme Court, you've got nine justices and I think rather famously, not only are six of them appointed by Republicans, but three of them of those six are appointed by Donald Trump himself.

So I just - I won't be surprised that the Supreme Court ultimately affirms the Colorado decision, not based on the merits necessarily, but just because I suspect that those judges may look at this as a political issue that they want to try to find an off ramp or a way out from making a decision, which is what that that judge in Michigan did as well.

SANCHEZ: So the judges in Michigan left the door open for a lawsuit that could remove Trump from the general election ballot. They didn't hear a case related to the GOP primary ballot. What might be the difference in that kind of lawsuit for the general?

MARIOTTI: It'll be interesting to see whether or not there's a different result there. I think it depends on which judges it's in front of and whether or not there's essentially a factual record that's put out to establish, for example, that Trump engaged in insurrection, which - that was established in Colorado.

But ultimately, I think that move in Michigan was basically the judges just trying to say as little as possible. In other words, the question of whether or not he should be on the general election ballot technically is - was not before them, so they did not want to rule on that question or on that issue in advance before that was in - before the court.

DEAN: Yes, could be major in the general election in a state like Michigan. I also want to talk about the other issue we talked about with Paula, which is this new filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith and he's seeking to place essentially parameters around the former president and his team to not allow them and he's - quoting here: "A forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation." It's very specific. What's your reaction to this filing?

MARIOTTI: Well, when it comes to the federal rules of evidence, Jack Smith is right. All of that information, all of those allegations, all of those opinions from Trump and his team would be totally irrelevant and prejudicial and shouldn't be allowed.

That said, prosecutors often try to keep defense attorneys from saying things that are inappropriate at trial and defense attorneys find ways to say them anyway. And it'll be interesting to see how that plays out at trial.

My suspicion is that Judge Chutkan is going to try very hard to shut down these irrelevant arguments and assertions that have nothing to do with the facts of the case, specifically in whether or not he's guilty as charged. But I think it'll be harder for her to actually rein in the defense counsel. And I suspect that they are going to push against her and get out what they want to get out in front of the jury, even if it means drawing the ire of the judge.

DEAN: Renato Mariotti, 2024 is going to be quite a year for all of us.

MARIOTTI: It is.

DEAN: Thanks so much, we appreciate it.

We have some new video just in as two of President Biden's top advisers meet with the president of Mexico for what the White House promises will be robust conversations about the migrant surge at the border. You see Secretary of State Antony Blinken right there. And to his left, the Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. They're both expected to ask the Mexican president for more help in easing the influx.

They're also going to ask Mexico to move migrants farther south to control the railways that migrants use and to offer them incentives not to travel to the border including visas.

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The number of border apprehensions meantime has skyrocketed. One day in early December, there were 10,000 encounters in one single day. Yesterday, they were 6,000, so a bit of a difference there.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Eagle Pass, Texas. It's a border town on the front lines of the crisis.

And Rosa, I love what you said last hour because it helps kind of give context around this, that if your house is flooded at five feet and it goes down by three inches, it's lower but your house is still flooded. It's a really good way to help people kind of understand the situation there right now.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And that's exactly what's happening on the U.S. southern border right now even though there is this dip, temporary dip in migrant encounters, the migrant encounters are still very large more than 6,000, goes to 7,000 in one day, is still a very large number.

Now, I want to set the scene here for you, Jessica, because if you look closely behind me this tells you everything about what's going on right now here in Eagle Pass. You'll see a bridge to my left. Now, if you're an American who simply wants to cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico, traffic is snarled it'll take you about 15 hours that's according to wait times.

Now if you look on the other side over my shoulder on my right you'll see this open field. This is where migrants wait if there is a backup. You can see that it's empty. So you're - if you're a migrant who crossed illegally into the United States, Border Patrol is moving these individuals very quickly out. They're being transported for processing. This as we learn from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that they are monitoring the situation in southern Mexico, that caravan that we've been talking about that had thousands of individuals from Central and South America. The agency warning that usually these large groups splinter before they get here to the US southern border and that's exactly what we're seeing. At last check, that caravan was about you at 3,000 people.

Now, another 11,000 we've learned - 11,000 migrants - are in camps and in shelters in northern Mexican cities. Now those shelter directors tell me that many of these individuals want to do it the right way. They want to enter the United States legally by using some of the legal pathways that have been established by the Biden administration but some of them are losing patience and have decided to enter the U.S. illegally.

Now, again the numbers of apprehensions have dropped but Border Patrol is still stretched very thin and American trade and travel is still being impacted. The Biden administration has closed several ports of entry including one here in Eagle Pass, Texas and it's impacting Americans, it's impacting trade and travel.

And I talked to one resident here who says that politicians should really just talk, make concessions and fix it. Take a listen.

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JESSIE FUENTES, BUSINESS OWNER IN EAGLE PASS, TEXAS: In order to appease everybody, there should be concessions, yes, but reasonable and concessions that are not cruel. And you should - state and federal should work together. It shouldn't be each organization going after the immigrants, it shouldn't be. They should work together.

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FLORES: And Jessica Jessie Fuentes, that man who was just talking, he also says it's great that the Biden administration is talking to Mexico but what about the Biden administration talking to the state of Texas that there needs to be more conversation between Texas and the federal government, because as you know Texas governor Greg Abbott is taking the immigration issue into his own hands passing all legislation first of all here in the state of Texas and also deploying those controversial buoys who are just downriver for me and that concertina wire as well. And, of course, the fight between the Biden administration and the state of Texas regarding border security continues, Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Rosa Flores for us there in Texas thanks so much for that reporting.

SANCHEZ: Let's expand the conversation now with Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales of Texas. His district spans a large portion of the southern border including Eagle Pass.

Congressman, thank you so much for sharing part of your day with us. First, to U.S officials in Mexico today, they're seeking help from the Mexican government to slow down the flow of migrants. They're asking for a number of things. In your mind, what can Mexico do to stop that caravan that we're seeing? What would you like to see come out of the meeting?

REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): Yes, Boris. Thank you for having me.

And it is promising to see Secretary Blinken go to Mexico, that's encouraging. I think there needs to be more of that, but it can't just be talk. Talk is cheap. There has to be some actions. One specific action that I'd like to see come out of that meeting is Mexico reduce the number of humanitarian and tourist visas that they're giving out to people all over the country. Allow me quickly walk you through it.

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You're seeing people from Central America come to the United States, but you're also seeing people from all over the world and what is happening is Mexico is giving tourist visas to people from China, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, you name it. And knowing fully - full well that these people are not coming to Mexico on it - to visit Mexico City. They're using that visa to travel through Mexico legally and then ultimately entering the country illegally.

I'd like the Mexican government and I've had recently asked Mexican officials to help with this to crack down on that, to make sure that the humanitarian visas and the tourist visas that they're giving are indeed in fact for that purpose not to encourage illegal immigration.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, what would be the incentive for Mexico to comply with an idea like that or the suggestion from the U.S that they should decongest the border and move the migrants South or crack down on transportation over railways how do you proceed with someone like AMLO to get him on your side on issues like this?

GONZALES: Now you're getting to the root of the issue and I've visited Mexico City. I've had conversations with President Lopez Obrador and others. And one of the issues is this, oftentimes in these diplomatic conversations, they'll be pleasantries. "No, you're amazing." "No, you're amazing." "No, you're doing a great job." "No, we're both doing a great job." And round and round we go. I'd like to cut through that noise.

And one of the things that I've been told from the Mexican officials is to go, hey, Tony, if it was such an important issue for you, the Biden administration would be doing more. So in reality, the first step to encouraging Mexico to do more is the United States to do more. And what I've asked for is to surge immigration judges to the border, get cases heard in days not years and if folks do not qualify for asylum which nine out of ten people do not because there's - they're fleeing economic persecution that you return them back to their country of origin via these deportation flights.

You do that just like President Trump did, just like President Obama did, just like President Bush and President Clinton. Literally, every president the last several decades have done, you do that and that alleviates the stress and that also signals to Mexico, hey, America is taking things serious now.

SANCHEZ: Let's drill down on some of the details when it comes to the deal that the Senate was discussing before the holiday. You know them well. Broadly, it seeks to expand deportation such as you're suggesting, also to limit asylum seekers to raise the standard of fear.

Members of your conference though in the House, they've argued that it doesn't go far enough. So I'm wondering what measures you think Speaker Johnson would back that the White House would also agree to?

GONZALES: Yes, I literally have daily conversations. My district is nearly half of the southern border. We've been hit the hardest I would argue but all of America is impacted by this crisis. I just want this crisis to end. So I work with senators on the Democratic side, on the Republican side.

Next week, I will be hosting Speaker Johnson and I would say at least 50 other members of my colleagues it'll be the largest border delegation that has ever traveled to visit it and I think once again it can't just be a visit, there has to be some things out of there.

One of the things that I've been telling - urging my colleagues is yes we've passed HR2 and there are a lot of border security measures in there. But let's take a down payment on border security now and then let's come back for the rest when we win in 2025, we win the next election. But the key is this, the key is America deserves to be safe in our own country. There are some threats along the border that are there, not only people coming on the terrorist watch list but just people that live along the border. Our lives are turned upside down.

So some of the things that I do think make a lot of sense is raising the credible fear standard, increasing the number of deportation flights, adding Border Patrol agents to the equation. These are all positive conversations I think that occur. Next week we'll have that conversation on the ground in Eagle Pass with the Speaker.

SANCHEZ: So quickly to SB4 and similar laws passed by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, they're controversial. One of them would give local law enforcement the ability to arrest people they suspect of being undocumented. We saw something like that play out in Arizona years ago and there were multiple incidents where police mistakenly arrest U.S citizens. Are you afraid that this law might backfire in Texas that we might see seemingly racist incidents like that?

GONZALES: Boris, this is the difficulty with this open border is it creates this rhetoric, it creates this anger among people that live along the border throughout the country and immigration is already a very difficult topic. I've been a proponent of legal immigration. I've been a proponent of work visas and finding solutions but it also creates an opportunity for those to that want to spew rhetoric and whatnot.

The state of - there is no doubt, the state of Texas, the state of Arizona, they're trying to do everything they possibly can to keep their head above water.

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But the state should not be performing federal functions because it won't work.

Once again, this boils down to the federal government, the Biden administration enforcing the laws on the books. We can do that in a humane and orderly process but what is happening right now is neither humane or orderly and what needs to happen we need to come to the table, sit down, work through some things that make sense for the American public and going forward.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Tony Gonzales, we have to leave the conversation there. We look forward to continuing it sometime in the future.

GONZALES: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course, thank you.

So coming up, attacks are escalating over the Red Sea as the U.S Navy says it intercepted a barrage of drones and missiles. We'll tell you what the Pentagon is saying about those attacks.

Plus, the reaction to Israeli officials saying the war against Hamas in Gaza will last for many more months. That's still ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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DEAN: Today, one of the world's largest shipping firms Hapag-Lloyd said sailing through the Red Sea is still too dangerous and it will continue rerouting ships around the Cape of Good Hope. That's coming after the U.S Navy intercepted a barrage of drones and missiles over the Red Sea from Houthi rebels in Yemen on Tuesday.

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CNN's Oren Liebermann is joining us now from the Pentagon.

Oren, what more are we learning about these attacks and how significant is it that it continues to be this dangerous for shipping operations?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, it's incredibly significant and we'll have to see which way shipping companies decide to go. Just a couple of days ago, Maersk, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, announced they would once again resume going through the Red Sea. But that's clearly not a unanimous decision.

So, again, we'll have to see whether Maersk pulls companies with them through the Red Sea or whether many shipping companies choose to go the long way around Africa. That can have a tremendous impact on supply chains and costs that would ripple across the global economy. Part of the reason that countries have continued - companies, I should say, have continued to avoid the Red Sea is because of the barrage we saw yesterday from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

That barrage included 12 one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land-attack cruise missiles. That barrage intercepted and shot down by the USS Laboon, a destroyer on the Red Sea, as well as U.S. F-18 fighter jets.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Houthi armed forces says they were targeting a ship that was not responsive and carrying out this attack in solidarity with Palestinian people. It is Iran that the U.S. sees as behind this. Largely, Houthis are an Iranian proxy that operates in Yemen. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said Iranian support throughout the Gaza crisis has enabled the Houthis to launch attacks against Israel and maritime targets, though Iran has often deferred operational decision-making authority to the Houthis.

It was not long ago that the U.S. unveiled evidence and intelligence showing that the - that Iran was providing support to these. And even if it wasn't the final decision, it was Iranian support that largely allowed these to happen. At the same time, we just saw an Iranian one- way attack drone target a ship in the Indian Ocean.

So, this is clearly still a major concern for the United States as they're trying to calibrate their response to continue to try to keep the Gaza war from spreading more than it already has.

DEAN: All right. Oren Liebermann for us with that update, thanks so much.

SANCHEZ: Let's talk about this with CNN Politics Senior Reporter, Stephen Collinson.

Stephen, thanks for being with us.

You just wrote a piece on cnn.com titled "Fears are rising of a widened Middle East war and U.S. troops are in the firing line."

DEAN: So, let's talk first a little bit about how much Israel's so far refusal to really scale down the intensity of what it's doing in Gaza is potentially leading to or threatening a wider conflict in the region.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Right. The longer this goes on, the greater the threat that the simmering tensions that Oren was talking about there, they start building up and building and the lid blows off and it creates an escalation into the wider war that the Biden administration has been trying to prevent at all costs, which would be a really disastrous scenario for everyone involved.

So, you can see why some of the U.S. pressure on Israel is to take down the intensity of its operations in Gaza because this is giving incentive to pro-Iran groups throughout the region to increase the pressure not just on Israel, but on the United States as well to try and forge divisions between the United States and its allies. That's one of these things I think that this barrages of shipping on the Red Sea is all about, is to increase the cost to the United States and the West economically and politically of continuing to support Israel.

SANCHEZ: Stephen, initially after October 7th, when Israel first launched its offensive into Gaza, there was a degree of concern about a wider escalation, in part because you saw what was happening with Hezbollah, and it stayed steady more or less up until recently. Why is it that now there's a greater concern of an escalation?

COLLINSON: I think you're right, that great fear after October and when the Israeli forces went into Gaza was that massive artillery barrages and rocket barrages could take place from Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. That could draw in the United States. That could spread the conflict.

That didn't happen and there were signs as well that Iran didn't necessarily want a direct conflict with the United States, but this is a lower intensity of warfare. Iran has spent years seeding the region, countries like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, with proxy groups that it can use to push forward its foreign policy goals, increase pressure, increase the pain for the United States and Israel.

So, this is a war that could expand in the way it is right now without a great deal of cost to Iran. The big dilemma for the administration is, and we saw a raid on Christmas Day in Iraq on proxy Hezbollah forces that was carried out by the United States, is where do you draw the line between deterrence and taking an act that could escalate the situation and cause the widening of the war that the administration is worried about?

DEAN: Right. It's a very fine line to walk.

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And you also write that the situation for the U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria is especially dangerous. Why is that?