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IL & MA Voters Ask Election Board To Take Trump Off Ballot; Now: Supreme Court Meets Amid Ballot Challenges; Blinken Arrives In Middle East As Fears Rise Of Wider Conflict. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 05, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:19]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, standing by for news from the Supreme Court. They are meeting right now and we could hear very shortly about whether they will take up the issue of Donald Trump being banned from state ballots.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: At any moment, the U.S. top diplomat will land in the Middle East again as tensions reach new heights in the region. What Secretary Blinken is hoping to accomplish on this trip.

BERMAN: Campaign kickoff, President Biden due to give a major speech on threats to democracy, how and why the Biden campaigns thinks this is a winning strategy.

Kate is away. I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner. And this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, at any moment, the Supreme Court could decide if they will weigh in on Donald Trump's eligibility to run for president in states that have removed him from the ballot. The justices they are meeting for the first time right now since Colorado and Maine took action based on the 14th Amendment's ban on insurrectionists. The Trump legal team seems to be publicly pressuring Supreme Court justices by name.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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 how to get into place, he'll step up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Interesting to hear that, voters in Illinois and Massachusetts they have filed their own suits in Oregon and decision is still pending. That could come at any minute. CNN's Joan Biskupic, who's been in Supreme Court all morning joins us and CNN's Paula Reid is here as well. Paula stand by for a moment. Joan, first, lay out what the justices are doing what we're expecting to hear from them and maybe when. JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure, you know, I was just up there at 10 o'clock, they all took the bench, all nine of them, for their first session together since the start of the year, and since all these Trump controversies broke. And they handle the scores of routine bar admissions. And then, you know, that process took only about 10 minutes, they left the bench. They were starting to shed their robes. And they are meeting now in a private conference, just the nine of them looking at cases that have been pending on recent weeks trying to decide which ones to take up and when to schedule them.

And among those are the Trump disputes. Now, it's not an easy question, John, of just take a single case with a single question. There are several questions baked into these appeals that have landed on their doorstep. As a strong threshold matter, it's whether this question is too political for the justices to even handle if it's something that should be beyond the domain of the judiciary, something that's called a political question.

But then there's an issue of whether President Trump would even be covered by this. As you know, the trial judge in Colorado had originally said, had said that the presidency is not covered by this provision that would bar anyone who engaged in an insurrection, it would cover other office holders. Now the Colorado Supreme Court rejected that. But that could be another question that could be a hurdle for the Supreme Court.

So what they're deciding, John, is not just whether to take the cases, but on what specific issues, and then the timing. And let me just mention two final things on timing. The parties to the cases have all stressed urgency. That's Donald Trump, the original Colorado voters that have challenged him and the Colorado Republican party that's already also in this case. And the voters have said, Please decide by February 11th, which would be the day before the ballots in Colorado are set to be mailed out.

The Colorado Republican Party has said, you know, just please decide it by March 5th, which is Super Tuesday, when about 15 states have primaries, and Colorado balloting would be completed then. So that's the kind of the broader timetable. But then for what might happen today or early next week. Today is the start of an in person discussion among the justices about whether and how to take up these cases. They could give us an order as soon as this afternoon, John.

But when I step back and think of the complexity of these questions, they might want to take a little bit more time to refine what they would decide, you know, this is all about deciding what to decide, and also to set a briefing schedule, which would be the filings that would then come in, and then oral arguments, of course. But nothing is a given with this court. They have discretion on what cases they take up. But I think we all know that this is a question that only the justices can decide and it's in their lap now. John?

BERMAN: Complicated issues but we could hear as soon as today so we're on alert on standby. Joan Biskupic, do not go far from a camera.

[11:05:04]

In the meantime Paul Reid, new cases arising on this front in Illinois and Massachusetts, what's going on here?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, well, they're proliferating until the Supreme Court weighs in here, we can expect more and more challenges to be filed. Now, these new challenges in Massachusetts and Illinois, they rely on the same argument that has been litigated in multiple states over the past several months. And that is the argument that Trump should be disqualified from appearing on the 2024 ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This is the post-Civil War provision that bars insurrectionists from holding future office.

Now in Maine and Colorado, this was successful in removing him from the ballot. But in other states like Minnesota and Michigan, they never even got into the merits. They decided to keep them on the ballot just based on procedural grounds. So the door is still open for those to be reopened. Now, the other issue here, in addition to the question of how those -- that particular section applies to Trump, the other question is, well, who should be enforcing this? This is another question that has been proposed to the Supreme Court.

And here they file these challenges to the Massachusetts ballot commission and the Illinois Board of Elections. Now, there are arguments from the Republicans in Colorado and former President Trump, that this should not be up to the states that there is a role for Congress to litigate these issues of who should and should not appear on the ballot. Now, both of these new challenges were filed by people for free speech for people, they have been behind many of these state challenges, and they've signaled they're not going to stop. Let's take a listen.

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RON FEIN, LEGAL DIRECTOR, FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE: This is the time to file a challenge in Illinois, and we will file additional challenges in additional states, because unless and until the U.S. Supreme Court issued a final ruling, this is a live issue everywhere in the country.

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REID: So the one area of consensus across former President Trump, Republicans in Colorado, the challengers, is that they need the Supreme Court to weigh in here. And until that happens, we will continue to see new filings like this.

BERMAN: All right, urgency here. Joan Biskupic and Paul Reid, thanks to both of you.

BISKUPIC: Thank you.

SIDNER: And because of the urgency I want to bring in former Manhattan prosecutor, Jeremy Saland. Let's take another look at the map showing the 14th Amendment challenges against Donald Trump. There are so many of them, that we're looking out. Now, you see the key colors there. And some of the decisions have obviously been made. There are some more that are coming up. Oregon, I think is coming up as well. You know, we've seen so many of these. Can you give us a sense of understanding these petitions, who filed them, what they intend to do with them. And of course, there are Republicans in some of these states who have already challenged this trying to get the Supreme Court to weigh in.

JEREMY SALAND, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, we know now that there's at least five for free speech for people, which as we just heard was Oregon, which is the outstanding one that predates Illinois, Massachusetts, but they failed procedurally in Michigan, before and Minnesota, pardon me. So these are people that have some voters and you try to get the spectrum across. It's not just Democrats, you have a Republican, you have an unaffiliated, or an enrolled voter, to petition the court to say the things we've heard before a little bit of Groundhog Day, a little bit of Bill Murray, of he is not fit because, why, he is an officer. He was involved in an insurrection. And it's not up to Congress, the states can decide these.

SIDNER: And what's so interesting about the 14th Amendment is it doesn't say the word convicted, it doesn't even say the word accused, like it's an interest -- it's interesting, because it's a little bit -- I don't know, if nebulous, I should not be commenting on the Constitution as I'm not a constitutional lawyer. But this is something that Supreme Court, don't you think, is going to pick up? I mean, this is becoming an issue of voters' rights as well. As you look at this, if you say this person cannot be on a ballot, you are affecting a huge voting population.

SALAND: I mean, there's some folks who will just say, listen, the voters should decide if they want that person or not. But this is a deeper issue. And I can't fathom a situation at this point in time when the Supreme Court does not step in and do something. It would be such a disservice. Now, it shouldn't be as Trump's attorney was speaking before that Kavanaugh because Trump went the battle for him that therefore he should vote in making a decision in his favor. But they have to render a decision on the merits. Is this Congress's choice? Is he an officer? Is this the process by which we follow to eventually say, there was an insurrection? That has to happen.

SIDNER: I'm no lawyer, but I would be shocked if they said that he wasn't an officer. I mean, the President of the United States, an official, that would be a very interesting decision.

SALAND: When you look at the strict language, it doesn't say the president but at the same time, you look at these Supreme Court justices, many of whom are called originalist or text, you know, textualist. You know, they're looking at the intent at the time. And is it reason to believe that the president would not be included post- Civil War would be any previous officeholder who was engaged in an insurrection. So I think practically speaking and the intent would include that but we'll see from the Supreme Court justices.

[11:10:04]

SIDNER: You know, it can happen any moment that they pick up this case and I'm just curious lastly. If they pick the case up and you have all these pending cases, do those judges in those cases, say, hold on a minute. Let's see what the Supreme Court says here.

SALAND: Well, all these things have to move forward, and they have to proceed.

SIDNER: OK.

SALAND: But at some point, it becomes sort of a waste of time, because that's belittling it. It's not what I'm saying. It becomes moot, correct. Because they're going to have to render a decision from the Supreme Court and say, this is what we're doing now, we're going to follow. So they're still going to proceed and keep going until there is a decision in an affirmative one, one way or another, by the judge of the Supreme Court.

SIDNER: Can I get some props for the moot a little, you know, get a lawyer language?

SALAND: Yes. That's good. That's very good. I'm impressed.

SIDNER: I also know what a vexatious litigant is but we'll get into that later. That's my other small legal term, never went to law school. But thank God you did, Jeremy. That's why we have you here today. Thank you so much for explaining all that.

SALAND: My pleasure. My pleasure.

SIDNER: John?

BERMAN: The vexatious litigant.

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: I love that. I can't wait for the break.

All right, Secretary of State Antony Blinken just landed in Istanbul for his fourth trip to the Middle East in three months. That's amid rising tensions in the region. President Biden on the campaign trail making the pitch that Donald Trump poses a major threat to democracy.

And more than 25 million people facing winter storm alerts this weekend, how and where to prepare for heavy snow and treacherous ice?

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SIDNER: Just now, Secretary of State Tony Blinken arrived in Istanbul for a multination trip to the Middle East. It is his fourth trip to the region since the October 7th Hamas terror attack on Israel. And it comes at a critical time amid concerns of a widening conflict in the region. Overnight, the military says it struck -- the Israeli military says it struck more than 100 targets across Gaza.

Officials said they were targeting operational command centers and military sites. But there have been reports, of course, the civilian casualties too. CNN's Alex Marquardt is joining us now. Alex, what can Blinken hope to accomplish? He has been in this region more than we have seen in officials in a very long time go so many times. What will he try to accomplish?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara. His fourth trip to the region since the war broke out following the horrific attacks on October 7th. He's making nine different stops. The centerpiece of this trip really is going to be his meetings next week with Israeli officials. But there are really two main buckets of things he's trying to accomplish here to prevent the war from spreading more widely. We've seen a whole rash of incidents over the course of the past few days and really the past few months but also ratcheting up the pressure on Israel.

There are several areas of significant concern of conversation. And the State Department says that these are going to be tough conversations with Israeli leaders. Some of the stuff is quite repetitive because more progress the U.S. says needs to be made. Here's a little bit of what the State Department spokesman, Matt Miller, had to say yesterday.

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MATTHEW MILLER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The Secretary believes we need to try to make progress on getting humanitarian access in. The secretary need -- believes we need to make progress on minimizing harm to Palestinian civilians. He needs -- believes we need to make progress on continuing to try to keep the conflict from escalating, which is why he's returning to the region because I think it's important to be there face to face and engage in these diplomatic efforts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So Sara, we continue to see the number of civilians in Gaza killed, we continue to see the lack of humanitarian aid for the civilian population in Gaza. That is going to be a major focus for Blinken, as well as trying to figure out when Israel plans to transition from what they've been calling a high intensity phase, the heavy fighting that we've seen over the course the past few months to a lower intensity phase, which would be much more targeted strikes by Israel, which of course would have far -- would be far less harmful for civilians on the ground. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes, they've been asking for this, the Biden administration for quite some time now and not a lot has changed. So I'm sure there's going to be more pressure in the background, if not publicly. Alex Marquardt, thank you so much for all of your recording. Appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: We're going to go live now to a news conference from Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is talking about certain crime rates falling over the last year. Let's listen.

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: And second, prosecuting and deterring those who would criminally threaten public servants, including law enforcement personnel, members of Congress, judges, and election workers.

First, with respect to violent crime. We know that hard fought progress can easily slip away, and we must remain focused and vigilant. That said, we are encouraged by the data we are seeing indicating a decline in homicides.

The FBI has reported that the number of homicides fell over 6 percent nationally between 2021 and 2022. And the Major Cities Chiefs Association has reported a double-digit decrease in the number of murders across 69 major cities through September of 2023, as compared to the same time period during 2022.

This is not a time to relax our efforts. We have so much more to do.

In May 2021, we launched our violent crime reduction strategy aimed at addressing the spike in violent crime that occurred during the pandemic. Central to that strategy has been the importance of our partnerships, partnerships among federal law enforcement agencies who are assisting in the fight against violent crime, partnerships with the state and local law enforcement agencies tasked with protecting their local communities, and partnerships with the local communities themselves.

As part of that strategy, we have been bringing to bear our technological tools, including advanced ballistics analysis, firearms tracing, crime gun intelligence centers, and local fusion cells, to support joint law enforcement investigations to identify the principal sources of violent crime in specific local communities.

We have also been bringing to bear our federal statutes and prosecutorial tools to arrest and convict the repeat offenders and criminal organizations that are the principal drivers of violent crime.

[11:20:08]

In addition, we are making good use of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, known as BSCA, which expanded our authority to prosecute firearms traffickers and straw purchasers who buy guns for those barred by the law from possessing them. We have already charged over 300 defendants under that authority. And we are continuing to implement the enhanced background check requirements of BSCA for purchasers under the age of 21.

Today, we are announcing that in the 19 months since the Act's passage, those checks have already kept 527 firearms out of the hands of young people who are prohibited from having them.

We have also been utilizing our grantmaking authorities to support the local anti-violence initiatives being led by both our law enforcement and our community partners.

In this regard, we have focused on strengthening Project Safe Neighborhoods, which puts community partnerships, community trust, and violence prevention at the center of anti-violent crime efforts. We are also funding community violence intervention initiatives that we know save lives.

In light of the encouraging results we have seen in many parts of the country in 2022 and 2023, we are meeting today to build on those efforts. We will evaluate which local initiatives are working, how we can reinforce them, and how we can replicate those successful initiatives in places that have not yet seen the same improvements. One such place is Washington, D.C., and we will be sharing more about our additional efforts here very soon.

As I said at the outset, we have so much more work to do. Violent crime is not just a threat to people's physical safety. It is a threat to their ability to freely go about their daily lives. Violent crime isolates people and their communities. It deepens the fractures in our public life.

And when it is not addressed, it can undermine people's trust in the government and in each other. This Department, and our state and local partners, will not rest until every community in our country is safe from the scourge of violent crime.

At the same time that we are seeing an encouraging downward trend in violent crime, we are also witnessing a deeply disturbing spike in threats against those who serve the public.

In just the final months of 2023, the Department investigated and charged individuals with making violent threats against FBI agents, federal judges, including a Supreme Court Justice, presidential candidates, members of Congress, members of the military, and election workers.

Just this week, several bomb threats were made against courthouses across the country. The U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, and our state and local partners are aggressively investigating those bomb threats, which constitute serious offenses.

And just yesterday, we arrested and charged an individual with threatening to kill a member of Congress and his children. This is just a small snapshot of a larger trend that has included threats of violence against those who administer our elections, ensure our safe travel, teach our children, report the news, represent their constituents, and keep our communities safe.

These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten the fabric of our democracy. Over the past several years, the Justice Department has dedicated itself to combating these threats. We are meeting today to determine how we can double down on those efforts in the new year.

Before beginning our meeting, I want to take a moment to recognize that tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the January 6th --

BERMAN: All right, you're looking at the Attorney General Merrick Garland here delivering a news conference in Washington, really speaking about two things, one, marking new data, new federal data, which shows a drop, a year to year drop in most violent crimes, pretty significant talking about homicides and other things, which is something that they have seen in the data over almost all major cities, not all but many to most major cities. So he was celebrating the drop in violent crime. They'll make it clear the work is not done yet.

And the second part of this news conference very interesting, talking about the increase in threats to officials, both federal and state officials in office and running for office and he was talking about what a danger that is to society, of course he's doing that on January 5th. Tomorrow is January 6th, the anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol, probably not a coincidence the timing of this speech. Again, that was Attorney General Merrick Garland.

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We have much more news. Be right back.

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BERMAN: Moments ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Istanbul. You can see him here. This is part of a nine stop journey. Part of the goal of this mission which he will travel all over the region is to keep the war between Israel and Hamas from spreading. You see him seeing the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, former U.S. Senator Jeff Flake right there. He is there again to try to keep the war between Israel and Hamas from spreading to the wider region.

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