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Supreme Court Meets Amid Ballot Challenges; Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is Interviewed about Foreign Money Going to Trump Businesses; Gypsy Rose Blanchard Speaks Out; 25 Million Under Winter Storm Warnings. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 05, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:28]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, just 30 minutes from now the Supreme Court will meet for the first time since Donald Trump asked them to decide whether he should be allowed to run for president again. He's asking the justices to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling kicking him off the state's primary ballot. He was also removed from the primary ballot in Maine, although that one is pending. And in the last 24 hours, voters in two more states, Illinois and Massachusetts filed similar cases claiming Trump should be disqualified under the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause.

CNN's Zachary Cohen is with us now from D.C.

There is a very tight timing on this. The clock is ticking. Colorado expected to certify their primary ballot today. Do we think the justices are going to jump on this fast?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, today is certainly the first day that the Supreme Court could say whether or not they're going to take up this case. But that remains to be seen if they will or if they'll continue to deliberate over this matter, because it is a complicated one and the stakes really couldn't be higher. But there's been calls for urgency from both sides. Trump's team saying they want the Supreme Court to take this up and do so quickly, as have the challengers trying to remove him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine and other states.

And, look, Trump's lawyer has been out publicly trying to project confidence about the Supreme Court -- their chances with the Supreme Court if the court does take up this case.

Listen to what Alina Habba, one of Trump's lawyers, said yes when asked about Trump's chances in this case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALINA HABBA, LAWYER AND LEGAL SPOKESPERSON FOR DONALD TRUMP: I think it should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he'll step up, those people will step up, not because they're pro-Trump, but because they're pro-law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: You know, it's notable that Habba is name checking one of three Trump appointed justices, Brett Kavanaugh, there. Obviously, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett are the other two.

But, look, at the end of the day, if the Supreme Court takes this case up, they're going to be dealing with unprecedented constitutional questions, and it's anybody's guess how that would shake out.

And as you mentioned, too, in the meantime, two more states are facing calls to remove Trump from the ballot. They're going to have to weigh that at the state level because until the Supreme Court does weigh in, this is a live issue across the country and we could see even more challenges pop up in the meantime if the Supreme Court does not come out today or in the near future and say they're taking this case up.

SIDNER: Yes, it's really interesting because we know what they did with Jack Smith, who requested the justices to make a decision on Donald Trump, and they declined to do so.

[09:35:03]

We will see what happens in this case, because this really involves voters and voters' rights as well.

Thank you so much, Zachary Cohen. Appreciate it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, which just release a report on foreign money going to Trump businesses while Trump was president.

We'll get to that in just a second, Congressman. But first, since you were a constitutional law professor, let me ask you about this case that the Supreme Court might take up. What specific question do you want the court to address in terms of states and the ability to invoke the 14th Amendment to keep Trump off the ballot, and do you trust these nine justices to do so?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, the text of the Constitution is unambiguous. It's -- it's just perfectly clear. If you swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and you violate that oath by engaging in insurrection or rebellion, you are never allowed to hold federal or state office again. And the purposes behind it are clear, which is to prevent people who have proven themselves from be untrustworthy in office from getting back into a position where they could also threaten the constitutional order again.

So, I guess my major question is, given the comprehensiveness and the airtight logic of the Colorado decision, why would there be any reason to depart from the clear text of the Constitution and from the original purposes? And I would pose that specifically to the so-called textualists and originalists on the court. BERMAN: Congressman, as I said, the Democrats on the Oversight

Committee released a report yesterday which documented how Trump businesses took in more than $7 million from entities connected to foreign countries while he was president. You issued that report. Like I said, there was documentation to prove it. What is Congress now going to do with that? What are the Republicans who run the committee doing with this new information?

RASKIN: Yes, it's 150-page report with 750 footnotes. And as far as I know, nobody has questioned a single fact that's in there. It's based on a seven-year investigation that began with my late beloved colleague, Elijah Cummings, who originally blew the whistle about this when Donald Trump entered office and said he would not divest himself from more than 500 businesses and would not establish a rule that he wouldn't take money from foreign governments. And so the White House was open for business and we've been able now to document with the receipts $7.8 million that came in from 20 countries, the leading country being communist China, and after that the royal crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman and a bunch of other unsavory regimes that are a part of it.

That -- the report just scratches the surface. It's a two-year period. And it's just four of Trump's businesses out of more than 500. And it's just 20 countries out of 195 in the world. So, a lot of people have expressed surprise that he took only $7.8 million, but we're trying to show people that it was just a snapshot because the Republicans on the Oversight Committee have done everything in their power to sandbag our investigation and to shut it down. When Chairman Comer came in at the beginning of last year, he told Trump's lawyers to tell Mazars, the accounting company, basically to stop complying with the court order.

So, given all of this, what's going to happen now? Well, you know, if Donald Trump had any shame he would return the $7.8 million to the U.S. Treasury. That's money he's not allowed to accept without coming to Congress first. And we would get together on a bipartisan basis, as we've been urging the Republicans to do, to establish very strict rules about how public officials, like Trump, who are taking money from foreign governments, have to immediately report it to Congress and then give Congress the opportunity to say whether or not they can keep it. That's what the Constitution says.

I cite in the report Abraham Lincoln, who got two elephant tusks he liked very much from the king of Siam, and he brought them, in 1862, to Congress and he said, can I keep these, and Congress said, no, you can't keep them, turn them over to the Department of Interior, and he promptly did that. Compare that to Donald Trump, who's been pocketing millions of dollars from foreign governments, and then says it's OK because he didn't take his presidential salary. That's all he's allowed to take. The reason why the Constitution fixes the president's salary is so that he will be loyal and faithful only to the American people, not to Saudi monarchs and Chinese government bureaucrats.

BERMAN: So, Eric Trump didn't seem impressed with the report. He said, what a joke. All foreign government profits for stays at our hotels and other properties while my father was in office were voluntarily donated to the U.S. Treasury. Your response to Eric?

[09:40:00]

RASKIN: Yes, I love that excuse because what he's saying is, well, trust us, we'll go through all the numbers. And they put in, I think, a half a million dollars, which kind of gives the game away. They know they're taking millions of dollars in unlawful, unconstitutional foreign government payments, but he says, trust us, we'll do our own accounting. We're not going to show it to you, but we'll give some money back.

The Constitution doesn't say that you can't keep profits from foreign governments. The Constitution says you can't keep any payments at all without going to Congress to have it accepted. And we're talking about an unbroken line of presidents accepting that and always coming to Congress to say, we received some trinkets, we received a statue, we received a painting, whatever it is, and then it's up to Congress to decide what to do with it. Only Donald Trump has arrogated to himself the decision of whether or not he can keep the money and then he will deign to give us back what he calls the profits. It's an outrage. It's absurd.

BERMAN: All right.

RASKIN: He's got to give the entire $7.8 million back to the American people.

BERMAN: Congressman Jamie Raskin, we do appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us.

RASKIN: You bet.

SIDNER: And coming up, now out of prison after she pleaded guilty to helping her boyfriend kill her own mother who was abusive, Gypsy Rose Blanchard sits down with CNN. What she says she would say to her mother today if she were still alive.

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[09:45:35]

BERMAN: New in morning, brought to a breaking point. Gypsy Rose Blanchard is speaking out after serving eight years in prison after pleading guilty to helping kill her abusive mother. Blanchard was the victim of Munchausen symptom by proxy, a mental illness involving a caregiver who fakes her induces illness in a child to get attention.

CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister recently sat down with Blanchard after her release from prison. Elizabeth joins us now.

What did she have to say?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

I sat down with Gypsy Rose Blanchard yesterday, and she says that when she went to prison, that was the best day of her life. Not something that I had ever heard. She said that it was her first taste of freedom. But I also asked her what life would be like if her mother was still here today. This is what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARD, RELEASED AFTER SERVING EIGHT YEARS FOR SECOND- DEGREE MURDER: I think that if my mother were still here, I would still be under this abusive -- medical abuse that I was going through. I don't think that there would have been an end in sight for me. I honestly think one of two things would have happened, either she would have eventually got caught, but too late to save me, or I would have been killed from all of the medical malpractices, the surgeries, the medications.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Now, with all of that, Gypsy Rose does still say she does regret her role in orchestrating the murder of her mother. She says that she forgives her, and she says that with all of the trauma care that she has received now, she has a greater understanding of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARD, RELEASED AFTER SERVING EIGHT YEARS FOR SECOND- DEGREE MURDER: I would tell her that I'm sorry and I forgive her. I'm coming to a place of forgiveness. It's going to take time. I would say that I understand. Like, I see her. I see her in the way that she was not an evil woman, she was not a monster, she was just a sick woman and she would have needed a lot of mental health care. I see her for who she is now, or who she was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: That's what Gypsy said when I asked her what she would tell her mother if she were still here today.

Now, this is really an unbelievable story. And since Gypsy has been released from prison, just about a week ago she has over 6 million Instagram followers. She has really become infamous and now famous for this story. And when I asked her what she would like to do with this new found platform, she says she wants to lean into her advocacy. She knows that there are other victims of childhood abuse out there, and she does not want them to end up making the same mistake that she did.

John.

BERMAN: All right, what a fascinating discussion.

Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much.

SIDNER: And just ahead, one of the police officers who fought back the mob on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol is now running for Congress. We'll tell you who and hear about his platform.

Plus, heavy snow, treacherous ice. The trouble spots this weekend as more than 25 million people are going -- John's looking real close. He's trying to see where that -- where that snow's going.

BERMAN: I'm one of them. I'm one of the 25 million.

SIDNER: Face winter storm alerts.

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[09:53:05]

BERMAN: All right, in just a few hours Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Istanbul, the first of nine stops on his latest Middle East tour. He'll also visit Georgia, Qatar, Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Greece. He will discuss humanitarian aid and access to Gaza. He also wants to speak with Israel about plans to transition to the next phase of their war against Hamas.

This year the -- this morning, I should say, the NTSB is investigating a subway collision in New York City that injured 24 people. A train carrying 300 passengers collided with another train that was out of service. This happened on the one (ph) line (ph) 96th Street. Multiple subway lines had to be suspended. Transit authorities say the brakes on the out of service train had been vandalized before the incident.

Former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn is running for Congress. Dunn was on duty and defended the Capitol during the January 6th attack. He is just one of a handful of officers who testified before the January 6th Committee. This morning he posted, quote, on January 6th, I defended our democracy from insurrectionists as a Capitol Police officer. Today, I'm running for Congress to stop Trump's MAGA extremists and ensure it never happens again. Dunn is running to represent Maryland's 3rd Congressional District.

SIDNER: Right now around 25 million people, including John Berman, from the mid-Atlantic, to the Northeast are under weather storm alerts. That could see a mix of rain, there could be some snow, and the unfortunate part, the dangerous ice.

Let's go to meteorologist Derek Van Dam in the CNN Weather Center.

Derek, everyone is voting against me, but I want snow in New York. Can you make that happen?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: We're going to do our best, but it's not looking promising, and that's the reality. But you don't have to go far outside of the city, we're talking 10 miles, and you'll get your snow, Sara, OK?

SIDNER: (INAUDIBLE)

VAN DAM: All right.

Look, there's about 25 million Americans, as Sara said, and any way you slice it, this storm is going to be very impactful over the eastern seaboard, from Saturday right through Sunday. This storm is developing and starting to actually pull in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, currently located across the central interior.

[09:55:05]

A wet weekend for the southeast and then we start to see that rain/snow mix initially for places like D.C., Philadelphia, before transitioning to all rain. More of the same in New York City. Maybe a few wet snowflakes for you. I think up to an inch of heavy wet snow before transitioning to all rain. Maybe some snow on the back side of this.

And the only exception for the major cities along the I-95 corridor, Boston, you'll stay all snow for this event before it all comes to an end by Monday morning. This will certainly be an interior New England snowfall snowstorm.

But I want you to see this as well. The Weather Prediction Center has a marginal risk of flash flooding, including some of the major East Coast cities, New York, Philadelphia, D.C. They're picking up on that signal of rain as well.

This is a broad perspective of where the most snow and rain will fall, but particularly Boston, 3 to 6 inches for you. Further west, into Worcester, perhaps up to a foot. New York City, Long Island stays generally rain. Maybe an inch of that slushy wet snow. And then D.C. to Baltimore, I believe that you will stay mainly rain for this event, with the exception of a few wet snowflakes at best. Rain all the way to the coastline. Can't forget about the ice across western North Carolina and West Virginia as well. Very impactful storm.

Sara.

SIDNER: You have given us some of the bad news --

VAN DAM: Shattered your dreams. I'm so sorry.

SIDNER: But my producer, Randi Ferman (ph), and her dog are very happy to hear that there will not be a lot of snow in New York this weekend.

Thank you, Derek.

VAN DAM: All right.

BERMAN: My snowblower's leaking gas from its carburetor.

SIDNER: OK. What?

BERMAN: I checked it. I check it yesterday.

SIDNER: There's a carburetor on a snowblower?

BERMAN: Yes, I think so. I think that was -- I'm not sure what it was, but it was leaking gas from something, which is bad before a snowstorm.

SIDNER: Oh, boy.

BERMAN: All right, President Biden set to make a symbolic speech ahead of the January 6th anniversary. Donald Trump headed to Iowa.

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