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Trump To Testify In His Defamation Trial; Trump Being Sworn In To Testify; Court Adjourns After Trump Briefly Takes Witness Stand. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 25, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, a busted deal for the border Republicans spending weeks demanding one slamming the White House for not having one and then working to negotiate one ultimately, though any deal may be dead because of former President Trump. The latest from Capitol Hill.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And no more empty nest more young adults are living with their parents and putting a pause and starting life on their own ruin to take a look at the reasons why. One big one might be that it costs less.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

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

Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar with Boris Sanchez here in the nation's capitol. President Biden about to tuck up his record from a key battleground state in the Midwest. And he is buoyed by a new economic report that crushed analysts expectations on how much U.S. production has grown.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, former President Trump going scorched earth on his loan rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley. He's promising to target her donors.

SANCHEZ: And once again, the former president is choosing to take his campaign to the courtroom where he may take the witness stand even today. As a matter of fact, we have breaking news to CNN, and Paul Reid has a details from court.

Paula, are we anticipating an imminent appearance from Donald Trump on the witness stand?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That could be. Because of course there are no cameras in federal court, but we're relying on updates, minute by minute updates from our colleagues inside the courtroom. So, I'm looking at those right now.

Trump's lawyer Alina Habba just said that she only has one witness left and that is former President Trump. Now it might take a couple of minutes before any possible testimony starts. It's unclear what the judge is going to do here, if he's going to try to rehash some of the rules that he's already laid out for the former president. If he could also potentially ask Trump to proffer before this goes in front of the jury.

But yes, at any moment now, we might see former President Trump take the stand. Court has just adjourned after a short lunch break. The defense called one other witness, and then former President Trump would be their last witness and his lawyer is indicating that he is intending to take the stand.

KEILAR: Pretty amazing Paula, because there have been many times where he has said that he would or -- or even just insinuated that he would take the stand only to ultimately not go ahead and do that.

REID: Yes, that's why we're caveat in this. We just got an update. I'm going to look down here. I want to -- I want to clarify, Trump is of course not on the stand yet. The judge right now we're learning from our colleagues is clarifying with both sides how this is going to go. So, as I said, the judge had previously set out some restrictions for what Trump can and cannot testify to here, right. He can't re-litigate what happened in this department store in the 1990s. Those allegations of rape where a jury found him liable for sexual abuse. Those were litigated at a trial back last spring that Trump did not participate in at all.

Right now, this jury is just considering damages for defamatory statement that Trump made in 2019. So, his utility as a witness is pretty narrow. And the judge is reminding him of that. They're saying that Trump cannot offer any evidence or make any arguments before the jury disputing or attempting to undermine what the jury found last spring. He could have done that last spring. He opted not to.

So Habba, interestingly, she says she has three questions for Trump. So that's interesting, because you would think that he might try to drag this out for a while potentially get into it with a judge. But Alina Habba suggesting that this is going to be pretty narrow. Now, if it is indeed only three questions that she is going to ask him, the E Jean -- E Jean Carroll's the other side, E Jean Carroll's lawyers will have the opportunity to cross examine him. So, this could be pretty quick, if she indeed only has three questions. And of course, if her client during those three questions can stay within the guidelines laid out by the judge.

Right now, the jury is not in the room. So, the two sides lawyers for E Jean Carroll, lawyer for former President Trump and the judge are just having a discussion about how this is going to go down. And the reason they have to have all of these discussions is of course, the former president has showed a habit when he has taken the witness stand in recent weeks of not abiding by the rules of the court, using the witness stand as an opportunity to hold sort of a campaign event, to rail against cases, to paint himself as a victim of an unfair judicial system. But that is absolutely not how anyone else would be allowed to behave certainly in federal court. His last appearance was of course in state court. But right now, his lawyer Alina Habba says, he is -- he Trump is going to say he stands by his deposition which is played in court. So that was previously recorded deposition that he gave in this case that he did not make the statements to hurt E Jean Carroll and that he had to respond to the accusations and deny them.

[14:05:10]

So that's what she says. He's going to say when he takes the stand. But of course, we know only former President Trump is in control of what he says.

SANCHEZ: Right. Paula, please stand by as you gather the very latest from our team inside the courtroom. We have CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams here for some perspective.

Elliott, when you hear that that Alina Habba says she has three questions for Donald Trump. What do you imagine those questions are going to be that will help him in this case?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's the thing and that will help him in that case is the very important one. Because so much of what the President has done in this matter is tried to attack the underlying sexual assault allegations that were already proven by a jury, and so on. This is really just about damages. So perhaps she could ask about do you understand what this individual's financial standing is? Do you believe she has been harmed in any way financially? Did you defame her in any way? And maybe get them to say yes or no.

But short of the Monty Python (ph)? What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color? I don't know what the three questions could be.

KEILAR: And in terms of an actual legal practice of these questions.

WILLIAMS: Right.

KEILAR: Which I think you would expect in another case. We have seen Alina Habba eliciting reactions from the judge. Not always in good faith.

WILLIAMS: Right.

KEILAR: I think we can say. So, with that in mind --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- what do you think we may be seeing?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. And Judge Kaplan has run a very tight ship as far as courts go compared to some of the other ones we've watched on television playing out. And the judge really is not going to suffer through parties carrying on with funny business and trying to get nasty comments out in front of the jury, and so on. So, I would think the judge would cut it off. That is why and it's not very common for a judge to be this prescriptive, before a witness takes the stand about these are the things you are allowed to ask about. These are the things I will not allow. And we'll see, you know how closely he sticks to that.

SANCHEZ: As Paula alluded to Donald Trump is the only person who knows what is going to come out of Donald Trump's mouth.

WILLIAMS: Right.

SANCHEZ: Right? So, if he goes there with the judge, and you're saying the judge is not going to tolerate nonsense, what is the response then look like? What -- what are the potential consequence?

WILLIAMS: Removed from the stand, you don't have to allow this individual to testify? And he's -- he's violated rules of the court. Now, I think people think, well, we'll pull them in contempt or find them, it would have to be really bad to find a witness or hold them in contempt of court. You just take them off and just say, you know --

SANCHEZ: Could kicking him off helping appeal?

WILLIAMS: No, because the defendant would have violated --

SANCHEZ: I see.

WILLIAMS: -- the rules of the court. Now, if it were a criminal case. And the defendant really said that this is necessary for me to be able to zealously advocate on my behalf and the judge didn't allow it, then of course, you'd have a much better chance of an appeal. But here it's civil case where the guy doesn't have to be in the court in the first place. Doesn't have to be given a right to testify is being given a favor by this judge. No, the judge -- it's not really going to come up the case.

KEILAR: Let's bring in our Kristen Holmes who has been tracking this. He doesn't Kristen have to be in court. But he has relished being in court. We've seen him have a back and forth with Judge Kaplan here, where essentially Judge Kaplan said, you know, I don't want to kind of have to kick you out of these proceedings. And I think Donald Trump said something to the effect of oh, I would love that. Right. So that gives you an idea of how this might all go down.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And I do want to say that and at the risk of obviously having to later put my foot in my mouth. He's going up there and testifying, he has been briefed by his attorneys on what exactly he can and can't say and where the line is. Remember, this is at the end of the day going to be about damages and money, which is something that Donald Trump cares deeply about. And he's going to focus on not crossing any of those lines the same way that he has been once he was fined $10,000 for breaking a gag order, he actually started going all the way up to the line, but not quite crossing it. I cannot imagine that his attorneys have not given him an explicit rundown of what exactly he can and cannot say. Again, I might be putting my foot in my mouth later, but knowing that they are letting him do this.

Remember, this is not the first time Donald Trump has said that he wanted to testify. It's not even the first time in E Jean Carroll civil case that he said that he wanted to testify just to ultimately be convinced by his attorneys that he should not be doing so that this was a mistake that he at some point could cross the line and make things worse. However, the fact that he's actually doing this today to me says that there has been an extensive amount of preparation.

The other part of this that is very interesting to me about this case, is the language that Alina Habba used, saying that he's going to say he needed to respond to these claims. That's actually something I've heard from sources that Melania Trump told Donald Trump about this case in particular, that he needed to defend his name, that he needed to stand up for himself and respond to these claims, not necessarily in the way that he did, but that she had told him that in the past and that he has told others that he wants to defend his name he wants to testify.

[14:10:06]

Again, it is surprising to me that his attorneys are actually letting him do this, as Paula said, as you reiterated, Donald Trump is the only one who knows what Donald Trump is going to say. And there's so much risk putting him up on the stand because of that. However, they've clearly come to some conclusion that he needs to be up there, in order to, you know, have this at this case ended here. But it is fascinating to me that this is actually happening now.

SANCHEZ: Elliot, I want to get your reaction to an exchange, we're actually just getting the (INAUDIBLE) now live of the exchange in court. And so, Judge Kaplan at one point tells Alina Habba, we're going to do it my way. Habba says he's going to stand by his deposition talking about Trump that he had to respond to accusations and deny them. Kaplan asks that's 100 percent. She says, I'm not testifying for my client. The judge then asked the legal team for E Jean Carroll, to hear their opinion, to hear their side and Roberta Kaplan says quote, just now Mr. Trump said under his breath, he's going to say he never did it.

So, I mean, this is a real risk the defense's taking.

WILLIAMS: It really is that and if it's never did it, I assume that the sexual assault --

SANCHEZ: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- that the jury has already found. That it really is and is it a risk, though, that's the thing. If this were a sensible world in which people adhere to the rules of court and follow it and behaved along, of course, this would be a real risk. The upside here to the former president is thumbing his nose at a system that he believes is fundamentally illegitimate, and that his supporters believe is out to persecute him.

As a legal matter, it's disastrous. But this isn't completely a legal matter. And I think we're, you know, it's -- it's tragic that these things are so blurred together right now, but that's where we are with this particular defendant.

KEILAR: So, Paula Reid, if we take a former President Trump and his word, if that is what he said, according to what E Jean Carroll's lawyer heard there, you know, if that's what he wants to say, how does it play out? If he does go ahead and -- and make that case that we know he would like to make?

REID: Brianna, I'm actually going to pivot to some breaking news that we have right now. We're getting minute by minute updates from our colleagues inside the court. So instead of trying to predict what could happen, let's talk about exactly what we know right now is happening. So right now, Alina Habba and the judge, they're going back and forth. And this is getting a little bit heated, because the judge obviously anticipating that former President Trump could take the stand and go outside the boundaries of what he's allowed to talk about in this case. Is trying to get Alina Habba to really specify and layout exactly what is going to happen here. She says she's only going to ask him three questions. He's only going to speak to three issues. And the judge said look like he is going to be bound by what you're saying. You're laying out a plan and he needs to follow it. Now Trump is apparently we're according to our colleagues getting a little more agitated as this goes on. There's no jury in the courtroom right now.

Now, Alina Habba says she wants to ask Trump these three questions. First of all, she'll ask him to quote, confirm that he stands by all the testimony of his deposition, and that he made the statements in response to E Jean Carroll's accusations. Now those of course her accusations that she was raped in a department store by former President Trump in the '90s. Now a jury consider those allegations and found him liable for sexual abuse of E Jean Carroll defamation and awarded her $5 million in damages. But here they're only talking about, this jury is only considering damages related to a statement that Trump made in 2019.

Now Habba says she will also ask Trump, if he ever did -- that he never instructed to hurt Ms. Carroll in his statements. And apparently, he will say that he did not intend to hurt her. Now the judge and Habba they've had -- they've had a lot of tense interactions during the course of this trial, and that's playing out here. We're getting these live updates. They're jumping a little bit. But the Kaplan -- so Trump actually interrupted his own lawyer, Alina Habba. This is not normal for federal court, to say, I've never met the woman. I don't know who the woman is. I've never met this woman. Trump was that admonished by the judge who said, I'm sorry, Mr. Trump, you're interrupting these proceedings by talking loudly while your attorney is permitted to talk.

So, when you're in a federal court, you only get to speak when you're recognized by the judge. And right now, Alina Habba is talking with a judge about how she expects the testimony of her client to go down. Trump is disrupting that which is again, highly unusual. But along the lines of the pattern that we've seen with former President Trump during these proceedings, the rules that would apply to any of us inside a federal courtroom, he does not appear to be willing to abide by us. It's creating a little bit of tension between him and the judge. We're continuing to get these updates. Let me tell you what's going on.

[14:14:58]

So, the judge and Alina Habba are continuing to debate the specific questions she's going to ask her attorney -- her client. The judge said, Ms. Habba all decide what he, Trump has a right to do. That's my job, not yours. Now, Judge Kaplan said there will not be an open-ended question. He then clarified, if you were to ask an open-ended question, there's likely to be an objection and it's likely going to be sustained. So, he's telling Alina Habba, you can ask your client open-ended questions. The reason he's likely doing that is because he's trying to prevent former President Trump from going outside of the restrictions that he has set out in terms of what he can say.

Now this is -- this is arguably, this whole back and forth is very predictable. We've seen this with Alina Habba and with former President Trump throughout these proceedings, having tense exchanges with the judge about the rules of these proceedings, and lest anyone be confused when you're inside a federal court, it is that judge's courtroom and they decide the rule. So, all this pushback, this debate, highly unusual, and not something really anyone else would do. But we'll wait to see if they can come to an agreement about the contours of Trump taking the stand. At this point, he doesn't tend to take the stand or the judge, just trying to keep the situation under control.

KEILAR: Elliot, what do you think about that?

WILLIAMS: It's not uncommon for courts to set the parameters for what can be said. As a general matter in trial, and particularly in criminal trials, but any trial, relevant evidence or information can come in, relevant meaning that see evidence that proves or disproves a central fact at trial. Now, the central facts here are should he be held accountable in terms of the damages that he'll have to pay? Not any of these questions about the legitimacy of this sexual assault that happened years back? You can't make the President not say those words. And this is part of the problem here, the court can set these rules, but if he wishes to keep blurting out, you can't like a little kid put your hand over his mouth or something like that. At a certain point, the judge simply has to say, I will not allow this testimony.

Now, the judge will likely have to document the reasons why he's not allowing the witness to testify that, simply the witnesses (INAUDIBLE) --

KEILAR: Because he do that in front of the jury?

WILLIAMS: He -- no, because I think -- I believe (INAUDIBLE) --

KEILAR: How -- how does work? And what does the jury see in a situation like that if that's how it plays out?

WILLIAMS: The jury sees everybody came into the court. Ms. Habba, probably stood up and said I'd like to call a witness. The judge likely sent the jury out. That's having all this (INAUDIBLE) --

KEILAR: The jury is heading back in, we've heard that. So --

WILLIAMS: But they're not going to fight about this in front of the jury (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: No, no, I understand that. But Trump has been sworn in as we speak. We have just learned. As -- as he testifies --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- if he goes outside the lines --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: -- what does the jury say?

WILLIAMS: OK. Objection. Attorneys, please approach, attorneys would approach they turn the sound machine on to sort of so the jurors couldn't hear, they've probably bicker about it. Now, the former president might keep spouting off.

SANCHEZ: Right.

WILLIAMS: But it would probably be a private argument at the bench outside of the earshot of the jury. But again, you can't control this man (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: No, that's right. But then it's entirely possible that the jury is watching and the Trump show gets turned off and they just never see it.

WILLIAMS: Yes, exactly.

KEILAR: They'll notice that.

WILLIAMS: They'll notice it.

KEILAR: Yes.

WILLIAMS: But they'll notice it. But again, as long as based on the information we have right now, as long as the individual in courtroom.

KEILAR: Well, we are about to find out.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Is there a point Elliott when the judge might determine that the jury has been tainted by what they have potentially heard?

WILLIAMS: Possibly, however, the judge can say can always give what's called a curative instruction to the jury saying what you witnessed is not evidence of this trial. Please disregard everything that you've heard. Now, maybe the jurors might send a note back saying, oh, God, I'm so ruined. I've seen everything here. I don't know what I can do.

But -- but being picked for a jury even at the beginning, you say, I can follow your directions, Your Honor, and I think if they can commit to that, that. Yes.

SANCHEZ: Elliot and Paula please stand by. We understand that Donald Trump is now being questioned by his attorneys.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're not going to want to miss his testimony. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:04]

KEILAR: That was one of the most eventful commercial breaks ever. Because in the last few minutes, former President Trump took the stand, has gotten -- has left the stand. The day of court has adjourned. I want to get to Paula Reid now so she can take us through everything that has transpired here.

REID: Well, just as quickly as he took the stand of former President Trump is now off the stand, the court is adjourned for the day. Here's what happened. Former president took the took the stand he was sworn in. And his lawyer started out with one of the three questions that she said that she would ask him, she first asked him, do you view these allegations? These allegations made by E Jean Carroll about being raped in the department store in the 1990s as false? He said quote, yes, I did. She said something that I considered a false accusation. Totally false. Now it's interesting, even though he stuck to the question that she asked, the judge cut him off. And the judge said everything that he said after -- after yes, I did is stricken from the record. So, it was clear, the judge was going to keep this as disciplined as possible.

Then he was asked if the statements that he may denying this were meant to hurt E Jean Carroll. Trump said no, I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency. Now E Jean Carroll's lawyers, according to our colleagues, who are in the court of giving us these updates, asked him a few brief questions, but then he was off the stand. And the defense has rested. And the jury has been able to go home for the day. They will return it tomorrow to hear closing arguments, get jury instructions. And the judge expects that they will begin deliberating by lunchtime.

I just want to say well, a lot of intelligent legal minds, our debating today, will he take the stand? Won't you take the stand? The one thing that everyone seemed to agree on is that if he got on the stand, he likely would not be able to stick with the program and stay within the guidelines that the judge had set out. But it appears again, just based on these real time updates we're getting from our colleagues in by the court that Alina Habba and Trump did stick within the judge's rules, she appeared to only ask him the question she said she would and his answers appeared to stick within the boundaries of what he is allowed to say.

[14:25:12]

So that might be the real news today.

SANCHEZ: Elliot, your reaction to hearing?

WILLIAMS: Again, it's important to think about what the point of this proceeding was. And it's not to re-litigate the sexual assault that happened in the Bergdorf Goodman bathroom, the department that a jury found --

SANCHEZ: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- to have happened in the Bergdorf Goodman bathroom years ago, it is simply to assess the question of damages.

Now, any questions that any attorney puts on have to be relevant to that point, if the witness is going to start wading into other areas, the judge has every right to cut him off. And that's not because of the charged nature of the charges here or this individual. The simple fact is that's not what the case is about. And all the parties have agreed to stipulate to the facts that were proven or at least established by the jury before. I think that's where this fell apart here. And I don't think anybody should be surprised.

SANCHEZ: We also have with us defense attorney Misty Marris who has appeared before Judge Kaplan multiple times.

Misty hearing is very brief, maybe a minute and 32nd testimony from Donald Trump. What is your reaction to this?

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, well, look, he was staying within the parameters are set by Judge Kaplan and I think Judge Kaplan and again, I've been in his courtroom many, many times. He keeps a tight courtroom, if they're the rules are very strict. He knows how to manage the attorneys, the witnesses, and he's well known on that front. So, the answers, you know, were within the parameters. The questions were very, very limited. I, you know, I predicted that Donald Trump would not take the stand because of those limitations.

But I do agree the relevancy of the testimony and its actual impact, ultimately, on these damages only case, I think, is quite minimal. But, you know, we didn't see the fiery exchanges that we might have anticipated when Trump took the stand, because Kaplan really keeps that courtroom under control.

KEILAR: Yes, no, he certainly does. It's, I don't know, it's I wonder what you think a jury picks up from these moments.

MARRIS: The only possible relevant aspect is relating to what could be potential punitive damages. Because remember, the determination that these statements were false and defamatory. That's already been addressed. I would think the jury might be confused, especially given the opening statements that make it very clear what their role is and what the assessment is. And it's what if any damages were incurred by E Jean Carroll because of these defamatory statements?

One thing I think the defense can point out in closing, is that the very the question of when you made these statements, did you believe that they were false? And Donald Trump says, yes, I did believe that they were false, I think they'll try and wrap that up into an argument against what's called punitive punishment damages. And that's how I see it coming into play from the defense perspective. But overall, I don't think the testimony itself is too impactful on the actual issues at hand.

SANCHEZ: So, Missy, what are you anticipating from closing arguments tomorrow?

MARRIS: I think there's going to be on the on the plaintiff side, we're going to see all of those, we saw some terrible e-mails, we saw some threats to E Jean Carroll's life. And we're going to see all of that being laid out and applied to the law. There's different categories of damages. Some of that will relate to loss of business opportunities. Some of that will relate to emotional distress. And some of that will relate to those punitive damages that we spoke about. We're going to see the plaintiffs go through and talk about why the award should be millions and millions of dollars and justify that using the evidence that was set forth in the trial.

The defense perspective is going to do the exact opposite and talk about how and point to evidence about the undercutting E Jean Carroll's damages claims and especially attacking the prospect of punitive damages being assessed in the case.

KEILAR: Let's go now to Kara Scannell. They're at the courthouse for more as we are getting really this minute by minute, Kara of what happened as the former president took the stand. What can you tell us?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brianna. He was on the stand for maybe five minutes in total. And before he testified, the judge spent about 10 minutes going back and forth with the attorneys over what he would permit the questions to be. It was during that moment before the jury was in the room that Donald Trump spoke more than he even did on the stand. And he said audibly out loud, I never met the woman. I do not know who this woman is. I was not at the trial. I don't know who this woman is. The judge told him to keep his voice down.

[14:30:03]