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Weisselberg to be Sentenced; Nick Akerman is Interviewed about Weisselberg; Zelenskyy speaks about Weapons to Ukraine; Biden Comments on Arizona Abortion Ban; Abortion Ban on Hold on Appeals. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired April 10, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hours and now these men get to face these other men in court today.

Now this - what's different about this case is for the first time we get to see this play out because this will be on video. Cameras will be allowed because, as you know, in federal court sometimes cameras obviously are not allowed. But today we'll hear the men give their statements. There will be victim impact statements. They will talk about the torture. They will talk about how they felt and how their lives have been pretty much ruined. They don't even want to work anymore because they've been traumatized by all this.

And let's not forget, one of the officers, one of the deputies, took a gun out, put it inside the mouth of one of the men, and pulled the trigger, lacerating his tongue. He's had to learn to re-speak again. All this has played out and this community wants to know what happens next. They're wondering if the sheriff's department, which is just behind us, can continue the way it is. They're calling for the leadership to step down. There will be a rally here later on this afternoon of the weather holds up. But people say they want to see action and they want to see it now. Serious charges ahead.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Ryan Young, you've been there for all this. Thank you for being there again today for us.

We are standing by for the sentencing of a key ally of Donald Trump. A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

From Trump Tower to a jail cell. One of Donald Trump's closest allies about to be sentenced for lying in a case against the former president.

And breaking this morning, a possible huge blow to ceasefire negotiations. Hamas says they do not have the 40 hostages needed for a deal with Israel.

Five times Masters champ Tiger Woods saying his body aches, but he may still have one more left in him. Now, there are many, many, many other golfers in Augusta, but let the annual frenzy about Tiger Woods commence.

Sara Sidner is out. I'm John Berman, with Kate Baldwin. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Any moment now one of Donald Trump's closest allies will be heading back to jail. Allen Weisselberg is set to be sentenced for perjury after he admitted to lying under oath to prosecutors. He was once Trump's CEO. A fiercely loyal aide who oversaw the Trump family's business finances for decades. Now, he's one of the names that continues to come up in cases against the former president. He lied to the New York AG about Trump's apartment being way overvalued. This was part of the civil fraud trial that Donald Trump lost. Weisselberg is also at the center of Trump's hush money criminal trial. Court documents showing that he was involved. He wasn't - he was involved in arranging the payoff to Stormy Daniels. That trial starts Monday.

CNN's Kara Scannell is outside the courthouse in New York with much more on today and beyond.

Let's start with what is expected to happen today.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we're waiting for Allen Weisselberg to arrive for his sentencing. He pleaded guilty last month to two felony counts of perjury and that was for lying during the New York attorney general's civil fraud investigation into Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and Weisselberg himself. Prosecutors say, and Weisselberg admitted to lying during the investigation about the size of Trump's triplex apartment and how they value that apartment on his financial statements that were at the very center of the case. And as you said, the judge found Trump and Weisselberg and others liable for fraud in that lawsuit and fined that massive judgment against the former president. So Weisselberg, once he arrives today, he will face the judge and be sentenced.

Now, under this deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to plead guilty to those two felonies, prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence of five months in jail. That would be Rikers Island. This notorious jail in New York City.

But this is the second time Weisselberg has pleaded guilty. He previously pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges and also served a five- month sentence that ended up being about 100 days in Rikers Island. So that is the expectation today. Though, of course, it is up to the judge to ultimately decide how much time Weisselberg will serve. I mean, as you said, he is a longtime ally of the former president, and he is at the center of the hush money case. But as part of this deal, he is not cooperating with prosecutors. He is not expected to make an appearance at the trial that, for now, is scheduled to start on Monday, even though he played a central role in how this hush money payment was arranged and then how it was treated in the company's books and records, which is at the center of the criminal charges.

But Weisselberg, we're expecting to see him today. He will walk through that hallway. And we expect that he will leave today and then surrender at a future date. But certainly, you know, another moment for Weisselberg, this longtime aid of Donald Trump's. He has never cooperated against the former president despite facing these challenges to his freedom. And the former president has continued to rail against prosecutors for going after Weisselberg, who's in his late 70s, saying it's prosecutorial misconduct.

[09:05:07]

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, Kara, thank you so much for being there.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, Nick Akerman.

Nick, Allen Weisselberg about to go to prison, or jail -

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Right.

BERMAN: For the second time.

AKERMAN: That's right.

BERMAN: For things connected to, in one way or another, Donald Trump.

AKERMAN: And not only connected, but to covering up for Donald Trump. And refusing to testify against Donald Trump. So - and, on top of all that, he was also fined $1 million by Judge Engoron in the fraud case, which is ironically the same amount of money that Richard Nixon approved to keep the Watergate burglars quiet.

So, the main significance coming out of all of this is that because Allen Weisselberg, who is being sent to jail twice because of not cooperating against Donald Trump and doing things for Donald Trump, what all of that means is, if Donald Trump is convicted in this upcoming case starting on Monday, I think it's almost impossible that the judge in that case, I will not send Donald Trump to the presidential suite at Rikers Island.

BERMAN: Let me come back to that in just a second here. First on Allen Weisselberg. As a prosecutor, how frustrating is it? Yes, you get convictions, in this case two against Weisselberg, and that's what you always want as prosecutors, you want justice, but convictions is what you're after there. But dead ends. You are not getting any cooperation. Zero. How frustrating is that.

AKERMAN: Super frustrating. I've had that happen a million times and a lot of times. It happens. Some people just will not testify against very close friends or people that are paying them off, like Allen Weisselberg with his $1 million. Donald Trump has really covered his back straight through on this. And I think that if I were the prosecutor, I'd be super frustrated. BERMAN: And what you said before, you think that the Weisselberg

convictions and jail time for these cases connected to Donald Trump indicates that if there's a guilty verdict here in New York, you really do think that Trump would have to serve time or be sentenced to it at least.

AKERMAN: Oh, I think he'd be sentenced and he'd have to serve time. There's no way that the system is going to allow an Allen Weisselberg to serve time twice in Rikers Island, eight months in total, and then have the guy who he's reporting to, that he's taking the fall for, not go to jail. It's going to have to be - I mean just based on that alone, if Donald Trump is convicted, he's going to serve at least eight months in Rikers.

BERMAN: And this all starts on Monday. And you've actually, if I got this right, you've filed a letter trying to get the transcripts of what happens each day released to the public.

AKERMAN: That's right. I think it's really important that the public have total insight into the accuracy and the truthfulness of what's going on. There is no reason why the public shouldn't, every day, be able to read exactly what happened in that courtroom without any kind of filtering, without any kind of spin from social media, spin from any of the parties. The actual transcript is precisely what transpired. The court reporters take down what each witness says. They take down what the judge says. They take down what the lawyers say.

And by reading that on a daily basis, the public can actually follow along and very much put themselves in the shoes of the jurors to actually try to compare testimony, understand the testimony, and understand what's really going on based on the real facts.

BERMAN: It will be compelling reading. Nick Akerman, thanks so much for being with us.

AKERMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, speaking to CNN this morning, Ukraine's Presidents Zelenskyy is making a new plea to allies for more weapons for Ukraine, warning that without them we could see Vladimir Putin drag the entire world into world war three. Zelenskyy also says he is open to hearing what Donald - hearing what Donald Trump has to say about his plan for a possible deal to end the war with Russia. A deal that would reportedly essentially force Ukraine to cede territory to Russia for good.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): First and foremost, those signals were on certain media platforms. I haven't heard that directly from Trump. His ideas in detail, I did not have an opportunity to discuss them with him and to discuss these - his ideas on how to end the war. If I have such opportunity, I will, with pleasure, listened to them and then we can discuss the top (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, President Zelenskyy was speaking this morning to CNN's Fred Pleitgen in this interview. And Fred's joining us now.

Fred, tell us more about what President Zelenskyy told you.

[09:10:07]

FREDERICK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kate.

Well, one of the things that we, of course, made a pretty big deal out of it when we spoke to President Zelenskyy was the fact that the U.S. military aid is, of course, still locked up in Congress. The House Republican leadership still sort of blocking down that - that aid to Ukraine. The Ukrainians are saying that they need that aid badly. In fact, one of the things that the Ukrainian president has said just in the past couple of days, that if the Ukrainians don't get further military aid from the United States, they could very well lose this war.

Now, I asked him what exactly losing means, how bad that would be for Ukraine, whether Ukraine, as a nation, could survive. And he then became more combative. He said that he does believe that things have stabilized right now, but they need weapons and they need them quickly.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are at war and the enemy is serious. But let's be realists and not pessimists. Let's be realists. Now the situation is stabilized. Once we have weapons and concretes, political steps from our partners, we will break Putin's backbone.

I understand that this is not easy and everybody is thinking about oneself and we are grateful to all our partners. But what we have now is not sufficient. If we want to truly prevail over Putin, if nobody wants Putin to drag the war - the world into third world war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: And, Kate, of course, all of this comes as the Russians have seriously ramped up their missile attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, on Ukrainian cities, of course, on Ukrainian front lines as well. One of the things that happened this morning is that there was a big attack on the port town of Odessa, which wounded several people there on an infrastructure facility, and that was really the point that Zelenskyy kept making as I was speaking to him. He kept saying, look, the things that they really need is ammo to try and prevail on the battlefield against overwhelming Russian firepower, but also air defense systems to try and keep their front-line troops safe from these Russian aerial glide bombs that are very heavy, that are causing a lot of damage to the Ukrainians, but also against missile strikes that are having such a big impact on Ukrainian cities, but also on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Fred, thank you so much. An important moment to be speaking to the president directly. Thank you so much for bringing us some for your interview with him.

John.

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. Hamas says it does not have 40 living hostages to release to secure a ceasefire deal.

The door on a June rate cut just slammed shut. That from a top executive at JP Morgan afternoon new numbers show that inflation on the rise.

Three homicides that prosecutors say were fueled by power, sex, money, and apocalyptic spiritual beliefs. A triple murder trial begins.

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[09:17:23]

BERMAN: This morning, new reaction from the White House to that huge court decision in the critical battleground state of Arizona. President Biden now strongly condemning the Civil War-era abortion law that was just revived by the state supreme court. The president called it cruel and extreme. This law, again, that was originally put in place back in the 1800s bans almost all abortions.

CNN's Arlette Saenz on the South Lawn this morning with the latest reaction from the White House.

Arlette.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, well, President Biden's campaign is - believes that this supreme court ruling in the state of Arizona could deeply impacts that race in the battleground state of Arizona. Democrats have - advisors have long argued that abortion rights will be a galvanizing issue for voters heading into November, and they expect that to be no difference in Arizona, especially on the heels of this new ruling.

Now, President Biden condemned the ruling yesterday in a statement saying, quote, "millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban which fails to protect women, even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest. This ruling is a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's freedoms."

Vice President Harris, who has served as the administration's lead voice on abortion rights, also released a statement where she said, quote, "Arizona just rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote. And by his own admission, there's one person responsible, Donald Trump. That is a theme that Biden's campaign repeatedly turns to, trying to call out the fact that Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade after he had appointed supreme court justices who made that Dobbs decision two summers ago.

Now, Harris will be pressing the case herself as she has planned a trip to Tucson, Arizona, in the wake of this ruling. And campaign advisers that I've spoken to in the recent weeks and months, they have already been looking at Arizona as being a place where they believe abortion will play in November.

That comes as Arizona is one of those states that is considering a ballot measure that would protect the right to an abortion in November's election. So, officials have believed that that measure could serve as a galvanizing force. A way to organize their voters. And there's no question that they will try to capitalize on this ruling from the Supreme Court in Arizona as they're trying to battle out former President Trump in Arizona, especially on the issue of abortion rights.

BERMAN: Arlette Saenz at the White House, where we should note, President Biden will appear very shortly with the prime minister of Japan, hence the mood music accompanying Arlette's report there.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: No, that's just for Arlette.

BERMAN: Yes.

[09:20:00]

BOLDUAN: That's just for her awesomeness. It's just for Arlette.

Joining us right now to talk more about the politics around all this is Maura Gillespie. She's a former press advisor to then Speaker of the House John Boehner, more recently Adam Kinzinger, and CNN political commentator, former South Carolina state representative, Bakari Sellers.

Maura, the Arizona Supreme Court decision, if this Civil War-era ban on abortion does go into effect in 14 days, how much does it help Democrats in the state?

MAURA GILLESPIE, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, BLUESTACK STRATEGIES: Oh, incredibly. I mean Republicans have long had a real problem messaging on women's health, I mean, quite frankly, and especially on the abortion topic. And I'm not really sure who decided that you have to be either pro-choice or pro-life. Two things can be true at once. You can believe in the sanctity of life, but also not want to take away the medical freedom of half the population. And Republicans have really struggled, and you're seeing this now, where people like Kari Lake are turning back on what she has said before a year ago or two years ago on this very ruling that, you know, Arizona is now putting into effect potentially. So, its a real problem for Republicans, and they realize that. And

you're seeing that now with Trump and Kari Lake and people like that who are kind of realizing, they're not going to do well in November if they continue to have these ridiculously strict stances on abortion.

BOLDUAN: Kari Lake on the ballot in Arizona in November as well.

Bakari, you're not in the business of giving advice to Republicans, but what can Republicans do to counter this and try to make what even Donald Trump admits is a political loser of an issue for Republicans into potentially a winner or less of a loser.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not much you can do right now. I mean, I think that this cake has been baked. Donald Trump, when he put three conservative justices on the Supreme Court, when he's running around taking a great deal of pride in overturning Roe, and now you have this iteration in Arizona.

You know, one of the things Republicans have to do in the long run is nominate better people for office from president of the United States to Kari Lake. I don't think you'll talk to any Republican with good sense who will tell you that Kari Lake is a quality candidate. And I think you're starting to see that she's along the same lines of Herschel Walker.

And so, when you have those Herschel Walkers, when you have those - you remember Dr. Oz? Yes, when you have Dr. Oz and Kari Lakes of the world, you don't have a good, quality bench out there running for office. You have people who are not able to message properly, or who are not able to put up a good fight on issues such as this.

BOLDUAN: OK, let's talk about - let's talk about messenger on a different front. Bakari, I'm going to start with you on this one because on the Democrats' strategy, President Biden's former chief of staff, Ron Klain, he is offering up a very unvarnished kind of take on Biden's strategy right now that essentially Biden is focusing too much on bridges, literally, but it also encapsulates missing the point on strategy.

This is from "Politico," who obtained audio from Ron Klain speaking at a private event last night. Here's what Klain says to this group, in part. "He does two or three events a week where he's cutting a ribbon on a bridge." He goes on to say, "if you go into the grocery store, you know, eggs and milk are expensive. The fact that there's an f-ing bridge is not. He's not running for Congress. I think its kind of a fools errand."

Agree? Disagree?

SELLERS: No, I agree. I mean I agree with Ron Klain. I know he is kicking himself right now that those comments got out. He's going to find himself in the same boat as our good friend David Axelrod. He's probably going to get a button that says pricks (ph) for Biden in the mail soon.

But one of the things that Ron Klain was correct about is the simple fact that we have to focus more on those issues of bread and butter issues. And I don't think it's a - I don't think it's an either or. I think it's a both and. I think Joe Biden can talk about roads and bridges because we have an antiquated infrastructure system. But like I tell people often, my dad has never been more incensed than he was recently about the political process when he went to Piggy Wiggly and the price of whiting was higher than he'd ever seen before. He likes to fry whiting with his grits in the morning. And that drove him nuts. And I think a lot of people are having trouble with the price of milk, grocery, eggs, and whiting.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

Maura, "Political" also reports that they did a follow-up interview with Klain once they got this audio in that Klain did - I think it's to the both and that Bakari is talking about. He did note that he did speak glowingly of Biden's accomplishments, but he's not backing down from this main critique that he says it's up to Biden and his campaign to make the election a debate about the future, not a referendum on what they've done. Who's got the upper hand on that because you know that a lot of the messages, you don't - is about the past from the Biden campaign because they're talking about the past presidency of Donald Trump.

GILLESPIE: Right. I mean a lot of it, from both sides, have been backward-looking and we really need someone who's forward-looking. And -

BOLDUAN: That was exactly what Nikki Haley was talking about, most of her - her short-lived campaign.

GILLESPIE: Exactly. Most of her - exactly, because both Biden and Trump have been so obsessed with the past that its leaving the rest of us behind.

[09:25:04]

We don't know what we're supposed to be looking forward to. And you're feeling that. You're feeling it at the grocery store. You're feeling this, you know, anger and this disappointment and kind of this lethargic - what - what comes next? You know, where are we as a country?

And I will say that the Republicans are playing into that. They're playing into our fears about not knowing what the future holds and capitalizing on it in a very aggressive way, obviously, but one that's proving to be effective. I mean take polls as you will, but it's showing that Trump is winning because of the fact that he is playing on our fears. So it would behoove the president to show us what he's going to do in the future and why he's even running in the first place. And I think that is - is the message that really needs to come out in this next stretch.

BOLDUAN: Good news for everyone as we have months and months and months and months to go for everyone to start talking about the future and a little less about the past.

Maura, it's great to see you.

Bakari, thank you so much. It's great to see you always.

Coming up for us, more than 30 million people across the south are facing severe storm threats this morning. Big rains from Texas to Georgia. People could be looking at some major flooding. We're going to bring to you where the biggest alerts are being put out this morning.

And it looks like it will be a wet and windy start to the Masters tournament in Augusta, but the only thing, forget the weather, you don't need good weather to play golf very clearly says everyone who goes out to play golf in the crappy weather. The only thing everyone is talking about is that man, Tiger Woods, and his 26th appearance now at the tournament.

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