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Day 2 Of Jury Selection In Trump Hush Money Trial; Sources: U.S. Expects Limited Israel Military Response To Iran; Israeli War Cabinet Holds 5th Meeting On Response To Iran Attack; Massie To Co- Sponsor Effort To Oust Speaker Johnson. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 16, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: He's just a dude. That's how one prospective juror in Manhattan described coming face to face with Donald Trump. Jury selection in a hush money case against the former president is moving forward and finding 18 impartial people willing to sit in judgment of the former president is no simple task.

Plus, ready to respond. Israel could strike Iran at any moment. What U.S. intelligence reveals about the IDF's plans as Iran is warning that any retaliation will be met with a, quote, "severe, extensive, and painful response."

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And student silence. She finished at the top of her class at USC but the school now says it's too dangerous for her to give her valedictorian address to graduation. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: It is now day two of Donald Trump's historic criminal trial in Manhattan. Today, more potential jurors were shuffling in and out of the courtroom and a small group of 18 was just questioned for about an hour by prosecutors and Trump's defense team. So far, though, no jurors have been seated and dozens have been dismissed.

In addition to jury selection today, District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a motion asking the court to penalize Trump for violating the judge's gag order. Next week, there's going to be a hearing on that issue.

Now, we have reporters inside and outside the courtroom covering all of this for us. Let's start with CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates.

Laura, you actually spoke to one of the potential jurors who was dismissed. She described Donald Trump as just a dude.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, that was an extraordinary moment -- among extraordinary moments, Boris, because here we are talking about an historic day, a former president of the United States on trial, a criminal trial in Manhattan. And I had a chance to speak to one of the dismissed jurors who came

outside, was confronted by the press that was there on an otherwise, you know, simple day. And she talked about this dynamic at play, this dichotomy between the idea of the gravitas and, of course, him just being a regular guy in a court. And listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARA MCGEE, POTENTIAL JUROR DISMISSED FROM NY HUSH MONEY TRIAL: You get in there and it's -- it's fascinating because you get these two very contrasting kind of senses at -- at the same time, which is on the one hand, it's -- it's this very like massive sense of gravitas and importance because you -- you know that this is history in the making and whatever the outcome of this is, everything going forward will be affected by it. And at the same time, you -- you walk into the courtroom and you see Trump sitting there. I had never seen him in person before. You see him sitting there and it's like, oh, it's just a guy. He's -- he's just a dude.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: And yet, Kara, he's not just a dude. He's a former president of the United States. He's sitting in a criminal courtroom. It's not voluntary. He's got to be there. And perhaps the most extraordinary thing today has been there was a unicorn found, apparently. Tell me about this unicorn.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So Trump's lawyers were questioning the jury. You know, they have that 30 minutes to talk to the 18 jurors in the box. And he asked them, you know, to raise their hand. Does everyone know about the other cases that Trump has been charged in. And nearly every hand in the box goes up. There was one juror who said she was unaware that Trump has been charged in any other case.

Now, some other of the questioning from our colleagues that were in the in the courtroom were telling us --

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: I hear what you're saying, Kara, but I think there's somebody who has no idea that there are multiple jurisdictions that have charged the former president of the United States. And this is the first they're learning of it.

SCANNELL: Yeah. I mean, she said that she doesn't care for news. She doesn't watch the news. She's not into politics. She said some of her friends have, you know, strong views on this. But she said she just doesn't listen to it.

And so this was apparently news to her today, sitting in the courtroom, potentially sitting in judgment of the former president, unaware that he's facing these other crimes.

COATES: Don't you wonder how that's going to play for either the prosecution or defense? I mean, do you want the person who is completely unaware as long as they're impartial? Or do you want someone who you could be persuaded either way? That's going to be a big question. It's not -- it's not a requirement to be totally ignorant of the details, right?

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SCANNELL: Right. And one of the jurors, actually a different juror, was said at one point in response to a question from the prosecution. You know, I don't know all the facts in this case. I haven't really heard the details. Is that a problem? Do you like do you want someone who's more read in, essentially? And, you know, the prosecutor saying, no, you know, you're just supposed to judge what you learn in this courtroom, because, as you know, that's the issue.

Some evidence won't come in. There's a lot of evidence that will come in. And the jury is supposed to make their decision on that evidence, not anything else they might hear.

COATES: Now, some jurors today have been dismissed because they said that they had scheduling conflicts, length of the trial, others for cause. One at least came back to say that he didn't think he could be impartial. That was somebody who was leaning towards Trump.

SCANNELL: Right. This was a juror who's originally from Dallas, Texas. He said a lot of his friends are Republicans. And he said he thinks that he -- he was afraid he had like an unconscious bias and he wanted to bring that forth to the judge. And that was the reason why the judge dismissed him. I mean, what we're also seeing from some of these jurors, there's one juror who's a corporate lawyer.

And he said that he was a big fan of "The Apprentice" show when he was in middle school. And he said he agreed with some things that Trump did while president, disagreed with others. You know, that really just they're all we're just learning a little bit more about who all these people are.

COATES: We have -- we know there's a prosecutor among them, someone with a law degree as well, willing to think about how that's all going to play out. And you bring up the age. I mean, watching "The Apprentice" in middle school, there may be some jurors who are possibly on that jury pool who eight years ago. And when (inaudible) would take came out and beyond, they were not read in. They were maybe not even a voting age yet.

SCANNELL: Right. They wouldn't have known the details or perhaps even paid attention to the details where Trump is confronted on Air Force One about the hush money payment. And he said, you know, you'd have to talk to Michael Cohen, my lawyer.

And just then, Michael Cohen, months later, his -- his home is raided by the FBI. He then ultimately pleads guilty. There could be a number of jurors here who were in high school or college and just not paying that close of attention to the policy politics at the time, because maybe they weren't a voting age, you know, or they were just not really that tuned in. So people will be coming to Donald Trump with different histories in their lives. I mean, a lot of people here are lifelong New Yorkers. There's a man here in the jury box who immigrated from Mexico. He's become a citizen. You know, he said he became a citizen while Donald Trump was president. You know, a lot of people will come in here with different views.

Some people may remember Trump from his tabloid fixture days when he was the real estate developer, "The Apprentice," or some people might have only known him as the former president.

COATES: It also means, of course, Boris and Jessica, that there could be each of these witnesses could be blank slates. People like Stormy Daniels, people like Michael Cohen, just to name a few, David Pecker. And remember, you've got jurors who are in the box right now, 18 total. None of them have been officially chosen to actually be on this jury pool, but they're being questioned a second time now to figure out, in addition to this actual jury questionnaire, whether they are truly going to be impartial. We have a little bit of ways to go still, but we have at least 18 people in the box. Will they stay is the big question in this historic moment.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see which way the attorneys go if they favor that sort of blank slate person that doesn't know the details or if they rely on someone who says they can be impartial. Laura Coates, Kara Scannell from outside that courtroom. Thank you so much. Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Great analysis from outside there. We know President Trump is back inside the courtroom and now legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney Michael Moore is joining us to talk more about this.

Michael, I'm curious just to start off, what stands out to you so far on this second day?

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, well, I'm glad to be with you. You know, one thing we see is that this has just taken a long time and that's expected. You know, and frankly, this is just the way cases work. They don't always get resolved in a -- during a TV show or a movie length. You know, there's a long time to pick a jury. I mean, there's a case in Georgia where the jury took almost a year to pick the jury. So this will take a little bit of time.

But I also want to point out that the idea that it's Trump's lawyers that are trying to basically really sift through and listen for other motives or other reasons people may want to be on the jury or not be on the jury. The prosecution has to do the same thing. Because they're also having to sort of use the art of the jury questioning process to find out, does -- do these people have a bent toward the defendant? Is there some reason that they may have a reason to dislike the state in a case? Have they -- have somebody in their family been prosecuted by the state? And so they may not be a good juror for us aside from the Donald Trump case.

And so all of these things will be going on and all these machinations will be happening. This is a little bit of an art. It's not just a science as you have to listen carefully and it'll be up to some skillful questioning to sort of ferret out those places where there may be biases for or against the defendant or for or against the state in this case.

DEAN: Yeah. Another analyst before we came on the air was talking to them and they were saying, you have to remember for each side, you want to stack this deck as well as you can on both sides once it -- once it's set up to favor them.

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How much are the attorneys, as they're going through this process, looking at something like body language, right? Like the body language of them seeing the former president, of how they're reacting to the questions, things like that.

MOORE: I think they're probably looking at it a great deal and paying good attention to it. You usually would have a jury consultant helping you in this -- in this kind of case and that person would be advising you like, look, you know, these people seem to be put off by some of the questions or they maybe are sitting there with their arms crossed and they seem to be defensive when either the defense lawyers or the state attorneys may be questioning them or they seem to be evasive in their answers or we saw them laughing at an inappropriate time or at a joke that one of the counsel has made or maybe they're making eyes at some of the lawyers in the courtroom. And so somebody is watching this to read that language to see if there may be some inherent feeling for or against one side or another.

It may not be necessarily about the facts of the case, but that sort of subliminal messaging is always key. And you're -- if you think about it just sort of from basic psychology and how people react and do they look you in the eye? Do they seem to be welcoming?

You hear about people when they're a fight, they may cross their arms and get defensive and protective. They're looking to see the jurors answer the questions like that or in that posture. And so all of those things come into play almost as much, I think, as some of the questioning that they'll be getting because, you know, people -- people want to inherently say, look, I can absolutely be impartial because people want to be good, right?

They want to do the right thing. They don't want to admit that they may have some bias because they think bias is a negative term somewhere. So all of these things factor together as both sides try to -- try to go through these jurors as they're brought in for further questioning.

DEAN: It is an interesting exercise in human psychology for sure. We also know that they've just broke in for lunch. So we are keeping an eye on that courtroom as well.

Michael Moore, always great to see you. Thanks so much for being with us.

MOORE: It's great to be with you. DEAN: Still ahead this hour on "CNN News Central" is the world awaits Israel's response to Iran's missile attack. We're learning new details on what U.S. officials think it may look like if it happens.

Plus, the Supreme Court hearing arguments on a critical case that could overturn hundreds of capital riot convictions.

And growing backlash after USC tells its valedictorian it is not safe for her to give her commencement speech because of her pro-Palestinian views. We will hear from her later this hour.

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SANCHEZ: A source tells CNN the United States is expecting that Israel's military response to Iran's weekend attack will be limited in scope. But Israeli officials have yet to give the U.S. specifics about the plan, including when that strike will happen.

Meantime, Iran's president isn't backing down, warning of a severe, extensive, and painful response if his country's interests are targeted. With tensions rising, this issue surely will come up when Secretary of State Antony Blinken joins his G7 counterparts in Italy.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is live for us in Tel Aviv. And Anderson, Israel's war cabinet met again today, the fifth time since Iran's attack. Do we have a read on how officials are in the timetable of getting close to a decision, where they are?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We do not have any kind of an official readout. That meeting lasted for more than five hours today. As you said, it is the fifth time that they have met. There's obviously divisions within that war cabinet about how to proceed, both the -- in terms of the pacing of it and when that might occur, and also the scale of any kind of response.

There is certainly among the Israeli population, you know, a strong belief that Israel must respond in some way. The question exactly is how and when. But we have not been given any official indication, nor probably would we, before any kind of strike by Israel on Iran.

And clearly, they're trying to figure out how to calibrate any kind of response. They don't want to provoke a larger than retaliatory strike in return. They want to send a message largely to Iran and to other actors in the region that you can't have a missile attack on Israel, particularly a direct attack from Iran, without there being some sort of retaliatory response.

SANCHEZ: Anderson, you mentioned the views of the Israeli people. You were in Israel shortly after the October 7th attacks. I'm wondering where you sense public opinion is now, nearly six months or so later, in light of everything that's happened and now in light of increased tensions with Iran.

COOPER: Yeah. Well, as you know, Boris, I mean, there have been increasing divisions among the Israeli population. We've now seen increasing demonstrations in the streets here regarding the hostages. Many of, obviously, the hostage families are, you know, desperate to have their loved ones returned and want that to be priority number one.

Certainly, among people I've talked to here, among former officials and others, there is an unanimity of there needs to be some sort of response to Iran. This was an unprecedented attack in terms of being a direct attack from Iran on Israel. That is something they say cannot go unanswered.

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But of course, as I said, they don't want to do something that provokes then a larger conflagration. So, there's certainly a deep desire that there be some sort of a response to project strength to show that this is and respond to what they believe is a game-changing event with the direct response by Iran.

SANCHEZ: We also got some new reporting that Hamas has changed its demands for a hostage-for-prisoner deal, the proposed ceasefire deal. You've been in contact with hostages' families. And I imagine that it has to be heart-wrenching to hear that there are more setbacks now in these negotiations?

COOPER: Yeah, that reporting came from our CNN's Jeremy Diamond, from an Israeli official close to the negotiations. It is -- it is a huge setback certainly for hostage families. Anytime you hear that Hamas is now changing the demands that they're making, saying that they will only give up 20 hostages in a particular category as opposed to 40, which was the number previously being discussed, as well as wanting more Palestinian prisoners who are serving life sentences and in jail currently more prisoners released, fewer hostages actually being released. That clearly is both a setback for Israel, the negotiating table, but for the hostage families. I mean, it's really devastating. Anything that delays even for, you know, a minute or an hour, the length of time with which their loved ones are being held.

And you have to remember most of -- most of these hostage families have no idea if their loved one is still alive. It's not as if Hamas or any of these groups, as long as Jihad or others, has given a list of all the hostages' names of those who are being held. So, there were people who were -- there were people who were taken who were badly wounded, and their family members are, you know, are not even sure if they are alive or still being held.

SANCHEZ: Anderson Cooper, live for us in Tel Aviv. Thanks so much, Anderson. Jessica?

DEAN: Let's talk more about all of this with retired U.S. Army Colonel Peter Mansoor. He's the former Executive Director to General David Petraeus during the war in Iraq and now a history professor at Ohio State University.

Colonel, great to have you with us. Thanks so much for being here. Sources say the U.S. believes Israel's military response will be limited in scope. What do you think a limited response could look like?

COL. PETER MANSOOR, U.S. ARMY (Ret.): Well, a limited response could be a covert response, say a cyber-attack against Iran. That would be probably the best of all worlds, because it doesn't force Iran to retaliate.

Another way to strike at Iran would be to strike at its proxies or its operatives around the region and refrain from attacking Iran directly. I think the worst of all possibilities is an Israeli attack on Iran, which could then cause Iran to retaliate again, and then you have this tit-for-tat, which could lead to a full-blown conflict.

DEAN: Right. And to that end, President Biden and his administration are now walking this very fine line. You know, U.S. air defenses shooting down Iranian drones headed for Israel on Saturday, at the same time defending their ally, at the same time trying to avoid this spilling over and becoming a wider conflict. So how does he successfully walk that line?

MANSOOR: Well, those air defenses did their job. They prevented a mass attack on Israel. There was very little damage, one young girl seriously injured. But other than that, the air defenses worked. And this really gives Israel the opportunity just, as President Biden said, take the win and move on. You've already killed the two Iranian Quds Force operatives in Syria. You've achieved your objective, and you've parried Iran's retaliatory blow. So I really don't think that Israel has to do anything, but for some reason, they feel like they must.

DEAN: And the Israel -- Israeli War Cabinet we now know has met five times since the Iranian attack on Saturday. Is there anything to take away from the fact that they have not acted yet?

MANSOOR: I think they're deliberating very carefully their response, because they realize that this thing could spiral out of control pretty quickly. And as I said, any direct response from Israel aimed into Iranian territory would do precisely that. So I think what they're trying to determine is, what can we strike that's a big enough target to reestablish deterrence and yet not force Iran to come back at us?

DEAN: And we heard Anderson talking with Boris about the hostages that remain in Gaza. Over 100 hostages remain in Gaza. What does all of this mean more broadly for the negotiations over a temporary ceasefire and a hostage deal?

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MANSOOR: You know, it makes it more difficult, I think, to come to terms and to an agreement with Hamas. They are obviously allied with Iran, and if Iran is entering the conflict rather than stepping back, that gives Hamas hope that they could potentially survive Israeli -- Israel's assault. And therefore they don't need to give in to any sort of hostage for truce negotiations right now. But we'll see.

DEAN: All right. Colonel Peter Mansoor, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

MANSOOR: Thank you.

DEAN: Boris?

SANCHEZ: Turning now to Capitol Hill, where House Speaker Mike Johnson remains defiant, saying he will not resign amid a growing threat to his leadership.

Today, Congressman Thomas Massie, a hardline conservative, announced that he is co-sponsoring the effort by Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove Johnson as Speaker, an idea that Johnson calls absurd.

CNN's Lauren Fox is live for us on Capitol Hill. So, Lauren, what happens next?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Marjorie Taylor Greene has not said exactly or when or if she is actually going to bring this effort to try to oust Johnson, but she now has backup in Representative Thomas Massie. He serves on the House Rules Committee, and he's been very disappointed and frustrated with Johnson's leadership relating to a series of issues, including Ukraine aid and the issue of the renewal of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act last week.

Right now, what we are waiting to see is whether or not they give any further direction as to when they would move to try and oust Speaker Mike Johnson.

It's important context to keep in mind that at the end of the week, Mike Gallagher, a Republican, is expected to step aside from his seat. Once that happens, Mike Johnson will have just a one-seat margin, which means he cannot lose more than one Republican on any given vote.

Now, there were already a number of Democrats who have said that they plan to try and stop the effort to oust Mike Johnson, that they would be willing to help him. Right now, we know of two Senate -- House Democrats, excuse me, who fall into that category. But obviously there's just a lot that we do not know right now.

Now, right after Massie made this announcement in a closed-door Republican conference meeting, he said this to reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: You want him to resign?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE, (R) KENTUCKY: Yes. Yeah, I asked him to resign.

RAJU: What did he say?

MASSIE: He said he would not. And then I said, well, you're the one who's going to put us into this. Because the motion is going to get called, OK? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called, and then he's going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy. REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I am not resigning, and it is -- it is in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It is not helpful to the cause. It is not helpful to the country. It does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And you see there, Speaker Johnson defiant, but it is an incredible moment that you hear the Speaker of the House saying today he's not resigning, right? That question obviously opened up now with the reality that Thomas Massie, joining Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying he would be willing to support an effort to oust the Speaker.

SANCHEZ: Lauren, part of this squabble is over Speaker Johnson's plans for foreign aid to Ukraine, to Israel, and others. Walk us through his plan to get those bills through the House.

FOX: Yeah, we are still waiting on a release of that legislative text. That's when we'll get a lot more details. That's when members will get a lot more details about precisely what he has planned.

Democrats are anxiously awaiting to see whether or not there's about $9 billion in humanitarian aid that would be included in that package, some of which would go to Gaza. So there's a lot of questions right now about what this package will include. But essentially what he wants to do is break up pieces of what was already passed in that Senate bill and try to pass them one by one. Aid to Israel, aid to the Indo-Pacific, aid to Ukraine.

The reason perhaps for doing that is the fact that there are vastly different coalitions of votes in the House that would be willing to support those various bills. You have some Democrats who do not want to support additional aid to Israel if there are not conditions put on that aid. You also have many Republicans, conservatives, who do not want to support additional aid for Ukraine.

So the hope in the mind of Republican leaders is by breaking this up, do you have more success in getting some of these pieces across the finish line?

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Lauren Fox, live for us on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much.

Still to come on "News Central," the criminal hush money trial against Donald Trump is on a short lunch break, expected to restart in less than an hour. Ahead, we're going to break down the new challenges facing both the defense and prosecutors.

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And the Supreme Court case that could lead to charges being dropped against some January 6 defendants and potentially even Donald Trump. Details in just moments. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)