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Trump Back in New York Court for Civil Defamation Trial; Navarro at D.C. Court to be Sentenced for Defying Jan. 6 Subpoena; Mother of School Shooter Will Testify in Her Own Defense. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired January 25, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump back in a courtroom just walking in to the courthouse, but his mind on the campaign, of course, once again. We'll see if he takes a stand today.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, a historic trial underway right now that asks the key question, who is responsible for a mass shooting? The mother of a teen shooter is now facing potentially years behind bars if convicted.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Check your calendar and your liquor cabinet. Six days left in dry January. From a medical standpoint, did these days off really help you, and more importantly, me?

I'm the disembodied voice of John Berman, along with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump likes to take his campaign to the courtroom and he's trying to do that again right now. It's not a question of if he'll try to use today's court appearance to his political advantage. The question is really only will he take the stand in this trial to try to pull that off.

He just walked into court moments ago. This is the case where a jury will decide how much it damages if any Donald Trump will have to pay E. Jean Carroll for defamation this time, statements he made about her sexual assault allegations.

CNN's Paula Reid, she's here with me. And, Paula, we've got insight into court. What is happening so far right now and what are we expecting?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: There are no cameras in the courtroom because this is federal court, but our colleagues are inside, Kate, and they are giving us minute by minute updates.

I want to note that there was about a 30-minute delay for court starting. That's pretty unusual. And, notably, remember on Monday, court was delayed for several days because a juror was sick. BOLDUAN: That's right.

REID: There were two jurors today in the jury box who are socially distancing. Now, we don't have any additional details on what they might have, but that is notable. It shows that there could be other potential illnesses and concerns about exposure.

Now, Trump just entered the courtroom, and what's going to happen first today is the testimony of Roberta Myers. She is E. Jean Carroll's former editor at L.

Now, she testified at the trial in the spring. It took her about an hour and a half to two hours. And her testimony is significant because the issue at hand here is damages, the impact that Trump's statements may or may not have had on E. Jean Carroll's career and her earning abilities.

So, it will be interesting to see if this testimony goes the full two hours, like it did in the spring or if they can maybe truncate it a bit, because, of course, the big question after that is will Trump take the stand. Because we expect that would be the end of E. Jean Carroll's testimony, to her case rather, and then they would move on to the Trump side. And Trump is really the only person we expect they could put on the stand.

His lawyers continue to insist he will take the stand. But, Kate, we've seen this before. You get right up to the last minute and he decides not to.

Now, his utility as a witness is pretty limited here because, again, the issue is not what happened in that department store. A jury already found in the spring, the trial he did not participate in, I will note, that he sexually abused her.

And right now they're just talking about damages related to a 2019 statement he made where he denied these allegations. So, it's not a whole lot he can offer. But taking the stand provides him yet another opportunity to sort of manufacture courtroom drama to refuse to follow the rules as he has repeatedly during this case, get into it with a judge and then argue to his supporters that he is somehow the victim of an unfair system.

[10:05:09]

When it comes to the court, right, he has some legitimate constitutional litigation in other cases. This case, it's mostly been him and his lawyers refusing to follow the rules that apply to everybody else and having to manufacture drama, testifying could offer another opportunity for him to do that.

But, Kate, I'll let the judge, Kaplan, he's not going to put up with a lot of this.

BOLDUAN: It's not a lot, yes.

REID: Exactly. So, if Trump does do this, I don't think his testimony will last very long.

BOLDUAN: But then it does not limit him on what he could say, which we know he has, when he leaves court, and what he does with that.

REID: 100 percent.

BOLDUAN: Exactly. It's great to see, Paula. Much more to come. Paula has got insight in what's going on minute by minute in the court. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Just moments ago, Trump's courtroom/campaign collision seeing a brand new 2024 message from Donald Trump, who, while inside federal court, just posted about his upcoming trail plans.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us with more. All right, what are we learning from this? And what are you hearing from those who are running the campaign and putting him back out there?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, so he just posted, and I don't want to shock you, but it's not a message of unity. It is an attack on Nikki Haley, which is unsurprising, given that we know that he is increasingly angry with the fact she hasn't dropped out of the race.

He essentially said that he heard that Nikki Haley, and calling her a nickname, which I'm not going to read, totally bombed last night in South Carolina, saying why the surprise? She just bombed in Iowa and New Hampshire. And we can just stop it there, because he goes on to talk about Nevada, which she's not competing in.

The point of this is that he is still very angry that she hasn't dropped out. And there are several reasons why. One is they want to move on to the general election. They don't want to be spending time in places like South Carolina and Nevada. They don't want to be spending money in those various areas. They want to be building out their teams in places like Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and she's now standing in the way there.

The other part of this, and this is something else that he posted that I thought was very interesting, is that he pushed back on this idea essentially threatening people, that if they gave any money to Nikki Haley or contributed to her in any way, they would be blackballed from MAGA world.

Now, this is a tactic that we have seen Donald Trump and his team used before, but there's something very different about telling people that if they go work for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, they can't then work for Trump versus talking about actual money. Because there are people within the campaign, the people who actually pay those campaign bills, who would like to see some of those big dollar donors come in. And, in fact, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott said as much on Fox yesterday, essentially saying, that after South Carolina, they're hoping those big dollar donors come in.

They thought it might come after Iowa, since they'd all gone to Ron DeSantis instead. That money shifted to Nikki Haley. Now, they're hoping after South Carolina, it will come to them.

But, again, all of this larger issue, as Donald Trump has just fixated squarely on Nikki Haley.

SIDNER: Threats, retribution, nasty language, we're used to it, but it is very stark when you see him attacking Nikki Haley this way, who is still in the race at this point.

Thank you so much, Kristen Holmes, for all your reporting and for that new information. John?

BERMAN: All right. Paula Reid is back with us, also with us, former Assistant Special Watergate Prosecutor Nick Akerman and former Federal Prosecutor Shan Wu.

Paula, you're following the play by play of this. We're a few minutes in now since we last heard, a few many updates?

REID: A few. I mean, I want to remind people this is federal court. So, there are no cameras in the courtroom. We are relying on our colleagues who are inside, giving us minute-by-minute updates.

A few notable things. One is that there was a 30 minute delay to the start of this case today. That's notable, because this is federal court. It usually starts on time. Trump only sat down at the defense table a few minutes ago. There were a lot of questions. Where is he? Is he preparing for possible testimony?

Also, two jurors are currently socially distancing, right, very 2020, in the jury box. Now, earlier this week on Monday, court was adjourned because one of the jurors was sick, that we don't know what that individual had. So, today, two jurors socially distancing. The judge didn't say anything beyond that.

And now, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer is getting underway with their first witness of the day, Roberta Myers. She was Eugene Carroll's editor at L. So, she'll be speaking to potential damages, the impact that Trump's statements had on E. Jean Carroll's career. She was also witness back in the spring. Back in the spring, her testimony took about an hour-and-a-half, two hours. We'll see if it takes that long today, because, of course, then the big question is, the Trump defense case, will he or won't he?

BERMAN: All right. On that point, first a poll for Nick Akerman and Shan Wu, just tell me yes or no and then I'm going to ask you why. Nick, first to you, do you believe that Donald Trump will testify, yes or no?

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: No.

BERMAN: Shan Wu, do you believe that Donald Trump will testify, yes or no?

SHAN WU, DEFENSE LAWYER: Yes.

BERMAN: Okay. Nick, do you want to play, Paula? REID: I always want to play, John.

BERMAN: And your answer?

REID: Yes, I do.

BERMAN: Okay. Nick, first to you. You say no.

AKERMAN: Well, there is absolutely no upside to him testifying. He can only testify to one real damage, which he has no knowledge of. He could testify to maliciousness, which goes to punitive damages, which he would be absolutely insane to testify to, because the plaintiff would be able to take him through every single statement he made about Jean Carroll for the last few years, including statements that were made yesterday.

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There is no upside to it. All it's going to do is add tens of millions of dollars to a judgment that's going to be large to begin with.

So, there really is no point to it. Plus, I think this judge, Judge Kaplan, is going to make Donald Trump, if he wants to testify, give a proffer beforehand to understand what it is he could even say, which I don't think there is anything, which may keep him off the stand, period.

BERMAN: Counterpoint, Shan Wu.

WU: Well, Nick's analysis is exactly correct. The problem is that Trump is not following regular legal analysis. The upside for him is he gets to either rail on his regular points, which is he's trying to deny things, even though he can't really deny his liability here, or also helpful to him is the judge puts him back in his place, doesn't let him talk about the stuff he wants to talk about, and then he uses that in his campaign and public relations strategy. So, in that sense, it's a win-win for him. But I completely agree legally, it makes no sense for him, but that's not where the strategy is.

BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE) cleanup, Paula Reid.

REID: I completely agree. The reason I think he'll take the stand is not because it makes any legal sense, whatsoever, it's because it's an opportunity to spar with the judge. And one thing we saw when voters were coming out of the primary in New Hampshire, is that people are buying this argument that he is a martyr, the victim, right, of an unfair system, because they're not paying attention to whether he actually followed the rules that the federal judge set out for the parameters of his damages testimony. They want to know that, oh, he was stopped, he was deprived of the opportunity to tell his side of the story, which, of course, he didn't show up for the trial in the spring when they were actually talking about sexual abuse.

It's all about being a loud martyr for him politically, even if, legally, that makes no sense. I don't think he's worried about the damages. He's trying to regain the White House and he truly believes that this is an opportunity to once again frame himself as a victim. So I think he will take it, but I think it will be brief. I don't think the judge is going to allow it to go on for too long.

BERMAN: So, Shan, to that point, the suggestion from Team Paula and Team Shan here is that Donald Trump will take the stand not worried that this whole testimony will blow up, but hoping that it will blow up. How does that play out with Judge Kaplan?

WU: I think he may be forced to make a proffer to the judge, so the judge is satisfied that this is going to at least have some relevance to what they're trying to determine. The proffer is really not worth the papers written on because he'll just blow through whatever the proffer was and do what he wants.

If the judge really constrains him, he has a number of ways to constrain him. He can interrupt him, he can tell the lawyers to try to control him, he could offer to even sanction him if he continues that, or he could just stop him from testifying. So, there's ways for the judge to control Trump, and I think that the way it plays out is Trump just wants as much time as he can in the limelight there to be doing his thing, to be railing against the judge.

BERMAN: Nick?

AKERMAN: I think the judge has already got the marshals lined up. If this guy steps one iota out of line, he's going to be taken out by the marshals.

BERMAN: And then who wins, Paula Reid?

REID: Former President Donald Trump, politically.

BERMAN: Because it's a political event and because he's there for just this reason.

Nick Akerman, Shan Woo, Paula Reid, thank you all very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And moments ago, a former adviser to Donald Trump's White House, Peter Navarro, he arrived in a federal court in Washington. He will soon be sentenced for defying a congressional subpoena in the January 6th investigation.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is watching this one for us. She joins us now. Katelyn, what is Navarro facing?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Kate, it's possible jail time. That is what the Justice Department is asking for. They want Peter Navarro to be sentenced to six months in jail and also fined $200,000. That's what they asked for Steve Bannon, the other person who was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for not showing up for testimony, not turning over documents in the House select committee's January 6th probe.

And with Navarro, the Justice Department is asking for six months in jail and hoping he gets jail time because they say he was completely defiant of this inquiry by Congress, that whenever Congress subpoenaed him, he was never interested in negotiating with them to potentially show up for testimony, he never turned over a single document and at the same time was out there publicly writing a book about the 2020 election, talking about it.

Now, on Navarro's side, he has a couple different claims that he's arguing to the judge right now. One, that there was executive privilege, that he believed Donald Trump did not want him to show up or turn over documents, and so that's why he didn't, that he should have some sort of protection there.

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He also is claiming that he did take some sort of responsibility, would never do something like this again.

We'll see how far that goes with Judge Amit Mehta over at the federal district court in Washington today, but this is a pretty significant sentencing in that this is a situation that played out like Steve Bannon's, where Congress just didn't get anything out of somebody that really wanted to contest the election. It was a political player for Trump after the 2020 election, but different in that Navarro was actually serving in the White House as a senior adviser. He's very likely to appeal whatever jail sentence or not he receives today.

Bannon is on hold. Bannon got four months ultimately. He is appealing as well. So, there's a lot of legal questions around this. But we're watching what the judge does here because it is very difficult for Congress to enforce their subpoenas and see some sort of fallout for when somebody doesn't show up.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we've seen that over and over again. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

Control Room just tells me this sentencing hearing is now underway. We'll bring you updates as they come. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Opening statements just wrapped up in a potentially unprecedented trial in Michigan. We are learning that the mother in this case of the convicted school shooter may take the stand in her own defense. All of that is ahead.

Also, from the outside, stepping in, how former President Trump is standing in the way of bipartisan immigration legislation.

And just days left, for those who kicked off the New Year with a dry January, what are the pros and cons of ditching drinks for a month? We'll have that too.

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SIDNER: We just heard moments ago from the attorney of the mother of a Michigan school shooter that she will testify in her own defense. Jennifer Crumbley and her husband are the first parents to be prosecuted for their child's actions in a mass shooting. They're being tried separately.

In his opening statement, the prosecutor says they will show evidence Jennifer ignored warning signs. Listen.

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MARK KEAST, OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN ASSISTANT PROSECUTOR: Despite her knowledge of his growing social isolation, despite the fact that it is illegal for a 15-year-old to walk into a gun store and walk out with a handgun by himself, this gun was gifted.

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SIDNER: Jennifer and James Crumbly are both charged with involuntary manslaughter after their son shot and killed four students at Oxford High School in 2021.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been following the story throughout. This is potentially a legal precedent setting case, is it not?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. It truly is. And we want to tell you that the first witness is just about to take the stand, Molly Darnell. This is one of -- she was an educator at the school, but she was a shooting victim. Defense fought to not have the victims on the stand, because this is emotional testimony, and she was at her job. She didn't pull the trigger. Her son did it, but this is a homicide case. They are charged with causing the deaths of those four students. And she, Molly Darnell, who will take the stand, is one of the victims.

You know, the defense really had another slant to this, that Jennifer Crumbley was the best mother she could be. She would take her son to soccer practice, to basketball practice. She'd take him to the doctors when he's needed. She had never had any idea.

I want you to listen to Shannon Smith, that is the defense attorney, in her opening statement.

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SHANNON SMITH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And she did not have it on her radar in any way that there was any mental disturbance that her son would ever take a gun into a school that her son would ever shoot people. The evidence that trial is going to show you that Jennifer Crumbly did the best she could, as a mother to a child who grew up into a teenager and had no way to know what was going to happen.

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CASAREZ: The defense also said in their opening statement that the prosecution is going to give little tidbits, and they're going to give a bigger picture to give context, that you can't judge them on just one small thing. You have to look at everything that was going around at the same time. So, this is a case where the devil is going to be in the details. You got to listen to the small points. That's going to tell the story. But it's up to these juries, jurors, who are parents, many of them are, to determine whether, beyond a reasonable doubt, they, the parents, committed this involuntary manslaughter or homicide because of their gross negligence.

SIDNER: It is such an interesting case. And because we've also seen the text messages, the public has seen those, and I'm sure the jury will too, where the mother, not knowing that it was her son who committed the shooting says, Ethan, don't do it.

CASAREZ: Yes.

SIDNER: But her attorney is saying she could have no idea that he was going to bring the gun to school.

CASAREZ: That's state of mind right there. It's one of those little details that's going to be very important because they had just gotten the gun that weekend, and then it happened at his school. And so what was her state of mind? Prosecutors will use that.

SIDNER: They will go for it.

Thank you so much, Jean Casarez, for covering the story. It is a fascinating one and also obviously a tragic one. Kate?

BOLDUAN: The president is hitting the road today to talk about the economy and the latest read on the economy just out this morning. It shocked some analysts. Biden's top economic aid is joining us.

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Hopes are dwindling on Capitol Hill over the long-evasive, much- debated, quietly-negotiated talks over immigration and border security, deep divisions among Senate Republicans. We've got details.

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BERMAN: So a huge development that might spell the end of hope for a bipartisan deal on the border.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who just -- well, that's Donald Trump -- who just days ago had been pushing hard for a deal, saying it was Republicans' best chance for tougher.