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DOJ Sues Texas over Immigration Law; Ousted Harvard President Speaks Out; Judge and Officials Attacked in Courtroom. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired January 04, 2024 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Endorsing Donald Trump before we even see a single vote cast. What are your thoughts?
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND ANCHOR: That's what -- that's what drives me crazy. I mean, look, this is a robust field. Donald Trump is in poll position clearly, but he's not a frontrunner like past frontrunners. This isn't the second return of Grover Cleveland, you know, you know, just to drop the kind of nerdish reference that I'm fond of. This is somebody who tried to overturn an election in the United States on the basis of a lie. And the fact that the Republican leadership is all rallying around him, including Tom Emmer, the whip, who Trump savaged just a few weeks ago.
SIDNER: Seriously. Yes.
AVLON: It shows a lack of confidence in the voters, it shows a degree of cowardice, they're all trying to get on the Trump train, ahead of a single vote. And it means that they're enabling and complicit in Trump's attempt to whitewash history regarding his actions to the Constitution.
SIDNER: I want to talk to you a little bit about DeSantis in Iowa. And there was concern -- he brought his young son and there was these negative ads. He told -- basically people were like, look, your son is parroting ads after watching like football games for the last couple of holiday weekends, and he asked DeSantis how to clean up politics so that it can teach his son to do better. What's the answer?
AVLON: Look --
SIDNER: Negative ads work, right, though?
AVLON: Negative ads work.
SIDNER: Yes.
AVLON: And people from Richard Nixon on down will tell you that people vote out of fear not out of love. But I think that is what -- we should aspire to something higher.
SIDNER: Yes. AVLON: You know, I think something for everyone to keep in mind is the responsibility of citizens and to vote for candidates who set an example for young folks, to connect the best of our history with current politics.
SIDNER: Yes.
AVLON: And I think when you have that sense of the civic firmament that connects our politics, realizing that politics is history in the present tense, then it kind of ennobles the entire debate. When you have people that just treat you to smash mouth politics and see who can out-fearmonger the other --
SIDNER: Right.
AVLON: That denigrates our history. That denigrates American democracy. And so I think it's about us all responding, calling to our own higher -- better angels of our nature, but also rewarding the candidates to speak to our hopes and not our fears.
SIDNER: Yes, the polarization gets worse and worse. There's lots of violent rhetoric that happens. I mean it just deteriorates, right?
AVLON: We see it every day.
SIDNER: Last and very, very quick question and a quick question because I'm -- I don't have as much time as I want.
AVLON: Yes. Shoot.
SIDNER: The -- John, hush. OK, John's over here laughing.
AVLON: All right.
SIDNER: I'm taking it up. Immigration.
AVLON: Yes.
SIDNER: This is a huge issue.
AVLON: It is.
SIDNER: It's a polarizing issue. It is a real issue that needs to be dealt with.
AVLON: It is a real issue.
SIDNER: Point blank, Democrat, Republican, independent, doesn't matter what you are.
AVLON: A hundred percent.
SIDNER: The Republicans in the House in particular, you see the Republicans working with the Democrats. You see the Democrats making concessions with the Republicans in the Senate. But the House is a different story. House Republicans making all of these demands, saying the Democrats aren't playing ball. Do the House Republicans want this to go through, because it's not going to go through as it is.
AVLON: I think our own reporting and Jake's interview with Speaker Johnson the other day indicates that they would rather have the issue than to solve it. And I think Democrats have come around to the fact that they have to deal with it and they've got to change asylum laws. It's not just throwing money at the problem.
SIDNER: Right. You said the issue -- and to solve it, they don't want to solve it, but they don't want to solve it right now, correct, during the Biden administration?
AVLON: They don't want to solve it with a -- with a Democratic president because they're afraid he might get credit, which says that they're concerned about the urgency of this issue, which is real and urgent.
SIDNER: Yes.
AVLON: They're willing to play politics with it and let it continue to fester in order to get a political win rather than dealing with it, which is really what, remember, folks are elected to do. Deal with the problem. Don't just demagogue it.
SIDNER: And it's been going on for decades and decades. Every single president going through this.
John Avlon, thank you so much.
AVLON: Thanks, Sara. (INAUDIBLE).
SIDNER: John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'll remind people, if you want a reminder, Governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley take questions directly from Iowa voters in back-to-back CNN town hall events. The town halls moderated by Kaitlan Collins and Erin Burnett air live tonight starting at 9:00 Eastern Time. Don't miss.
So, the Biden administration's new lawsuit against Texas. The latest fight over the southern border.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:38:08]
BERMAN: This morning the Department of Justice is suing Texas over its controversial immigration law that gives local law enforcement the authority to arrest migrants and gives judges the ability to remove migrants to Mexico. The DOJ argues this law undercuts the federal government.
CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, at the White House, where this happens in the middle of this back and forth between the White House and Republicans in Congress and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, it just goes to show, John, that border politics is going to e key in this election year.
But aside from that, this is a lawsuit that comes on the heel of the Justice Department threatening to sue Texas if they didn't back down from this controversial immigration law. Texas didn't do that. The DOJ filed their lawsuit just yesterday. Their argument is that this law, as you mentioned, undercuts federal authority because it is the federal government that enforces immigration law. It is solely their authority. And in this lawsuit that's the point the Justice Department is saying by saying, quote, "Texas cannot run its own immigration system." It goes on to say, quote, "its efforts through SB-4, that's what the measure is called, intrude on the federal government's exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of non-citizens, frustrate the United States immigration operation and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations. SB-4 is invalid and must be enjoined."
In other words, the court should block this measure, which is set to take effect in March. And on that point about U.S. foreign relations, Mexico also applauding the Justice Department for taking this measure because they too were angry about it happening to begin with.
But zooming out here, John, this is part of the ongoing dispute between President Biden and Texas Governor Greg Abbott over the handling of the U.S./Mexico border. The Texas governor has launched his own border mission without any coordination with federal authorities. And that has been a major issue for those on the ground and also for the Biden administration, which has been alarmed by some of the actions that Texas has taken.
[09:40:05]
And I'll also note that this is the second legal action that the administration has taken this week against Texas. They also went to the Supreme Court with an emergency ask to allow the administration to cut razor wire that Texas had put in place along their shared border with Mexico and has been causing issues operationally for Border Patrol agents.
So, all of this just goes to show that this dispute between the Republican governor and the president is going to start playing out in the courts.
BERMAN: Priscilla Alvarez, at the White House watching this for us. Priscilla, thank you very much.
SIDNER: The president of MIT is laying out a four part plan after heavy and harsh criticism of her congressional testimony on anti- Semitism. Is it enough to keep her job as two others have lost theirs.
And a Nevada judge is recovering after a defendant attacked her in the -- look at this -- good gracious -- in the middle of a hearing. The shocking video and the new charges the suspect is facing this morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:45:06] BERMAN: All right, today Reverend Al Sharpton is set to lead protests outside Harvard donor Bill Ackman's office in New York. Ackman was a vocal critic of ousted Harvard President Claudine Gay and her handling of anti-Semitism on the Harvard campus and her initial response to the Hamas terror attack in Israel. Gay spoke out for the first time since her resignation this week in a "New York Times" op-ed acknowledging that she made mistakes during her congressional testimony last month and making clear that she believes the campaign against her was driven, at least in part, by her skin color. This is what she wrote, "my inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I've been called the n-word more than I care to count." She also defended, for the first time, her academic writings against plagiarism allegations.
CNN's Matt Egan following all of this for us now.
Matt.
MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: You know, John, this is Claudine Gay punching back against her critics, arguing that they relied on lies and insults instead of reasoned arguments. And this is a not-so-subtle jab at billionaire Bill Ackman, who led this campaign to end her presidency, a successful campaign we should note.
Now, remember, Gay was the first black president in Harvard's nearly 400 year history. And clearly she believes that race played a role in also making this the shortest presidency in Harvard's history. Of her critics she wrote, and I quote, "they recycled tired racial stereotypes about black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence."
Now, meanwhile, there are new question being raised about the Harvard Corporation. Now that is the powerful but secretive board that really calls the shots at the university because clearly the past few months have been a nightmare for Harvard and there's a lot of people wondering about how the Harvard Corporation allowed it to go this badly.
I spoke to Yale Professor Jeff Sonnenfeld. He told me that the Harvard Corporation deserved a failing grade and he called for a membership shakeup there.
Listen to what Jeff said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SONNENFELD, YALE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND HARVARD GRADUATE: Harvard is a critical global beacon of truth and, of course, a national treasure. And for them to be so tone deaf to criticism was remarkable.
They have damaged the brand significantly. So, they deserve a generous D.
They need to go through some change there in terms of the membership of the board. That they perhaps need some more diversity of thought in there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EGAN: Now, Sonnenfeld called out in particular Penny Pritzker, who leads the Harvard Corporation. Remember, she's a democratic donor. She's a current Biden official. And he said that her silence over the last few weeks has been, quote, "deafening." Bill Ackman and other Harvard donors have called for Penny Pritzker to step down. But Harvard says that Penny Pritzker is rejecting those calls. She has no plans to step down.
BERMAN: What's happening down Mass Ave. at MIT because the president of MIT was also part of that controversial congressional testimony.
EGAN: That's right. You know, it was almost exactly a month ago three college presidents testified before Congress about anti-Semitism. Right now only Sally Kornbluth, the president of MIT, is the only one who still is in power. And within minutes of Claudine Gay's resignation hitting the news the other day, Bill Ackman put out a tweet saying, "et tu Sally?" Clearly trying to turn the attention to the MIT president.
Now, she is detailing efforts to address anti-Semitism and tension on campus. She put out a new memo acknowledging that the Israel-Hamas war has caused, quote, "deep pain around the world and at MIT," and says it is an ongoing source of tension at the school. She wrote, quote, "I am working to use every lever able to address conflict on our campus, enhance the tenor of our discourse and help us to find improved ways to live and work together here at MIT."
She did lay out four new steps that they're taking, including efforts to understand the ways to address free expression versus hate speech, also trying to get a better sense for how students feel about safety on campus and making sure that diversity programs effectively meet campus needs. But nothing that she put out in this memo is going to silence her critics, John.
BERMAN: All right, Matt Egan, following this from the very beginning.
Matt, thank you. Good work on this.
EGAN: Thanks, John.
SIDNER: All right, coming up next, what started as a normal day in court taking a dramatic turn, all of it on camera. What happened and the new charges the defendant is now facing.
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[09:53:28]
SIDNER: This morning a Nevada judge and marshal are recovering after a brutal courtroom attack that was all, as you might imagine in court, caught on camera. Now the defendant, accused of beating them, and you'll have to watch what happens here as a judge is talking to the defendant. All of a sudden, out of the right side of the camera, you are going to see what happened as he jumps across the table -- excuse me, the judge's bench and attacks her.
Let's get to CNN's Mike Valerio.
Mike, walk us through the video that we are about to see?
MIKE VALERIO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, what did you say before the break, good golly miss molly? I don't think, though all the "Law and Order" episodes that we have seen, through all the court cases we have covered over the years, we have witnessed anything like this.
So, this man, a 30-year-old, who's a three-time felon, Deobra Redden, he is being sentenced for alleged battery. The defense counsel is saying, you know what, we'd like our client to have probation. The judge says something to the effect of, well, I think that your client needs a taste of something different. And this is what happens.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDGE MARY KAY HOLTHUS, CLARK COUNTY DISTRICT COURT: History. In accordance with the laws in the state of Nevada, this court --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa. Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge (EXPLETIVE DELETED). (INAUDIBLE) (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALERIO: And it goes on, Sara. It goes on. You can see, look at that, punches flying on the right-hand side of the screen.
[09:55:04]
I think it's important to note, we were talking about this before the show, this isn't just any judge. This is a veteran of the Nevada state court system, Judge Mary Kate Holthus, who presided just over two weeks ago over the fake electors scheme with six individuals charged of submitting fraudulent documents on behalf of President Trump, saying that he won the election in the state of Nevada.
So, where things stand now. Injuries were bad enough where the court security bailiff had to go to the hospital. Listed at last check in stable condition. The judge here is fine. And this guy is going to be back in court 9:00 our time, Sara.
SIDNER: That video was just -- I've never seen anything like it. It is incredible. And I'm sure there will be changes in that courtroom and for his life at 30-years-old. After doing that, you're going to face a lot more charges.
Thank you so much.
VALERIO: No problem.
BERMAN: All right, we have new development for Donald Trump in his legal battles, taking the ballot fight right to the Supreme Court.
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