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Potential Juror Dismissed Over Post Calling For Trump To Be Locked Up; Biden Hits Trail In Pennsylvania To Pitch Economic Message; Sources: U.S. Expects Limited Israel Military Response To Iran. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 16, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Face-to-face with the man they'll judge, prospective jurors in New York are seeing Donald Trump in that courtroom for the first time. And the former president is hearing from the judge with a warning: "I will not have any jurors intimidated in the courtroom."

Threat of a wider war as Israel prepares for a possible strike against Iran. And Iran tells Israel even the "smallest action" would lead to a fierce response by Tehran.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And here we go again, and another Republican appears ready to oust the Speaker of the House. So will Mike Johnson have to look across the aisle and connect with Democrats if he wants to keep his job?

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

It is day two of jury selection in Donald Trump's historic hush money trial and it's in full swing. The judge just admonishing Trump and his defense team after saying Trump was "audibly uttering and gesturing at a potential juror during questioning." The former president is facing 34 felony counts for an alleged hush money scheme to conceal potential damaging information from voters back in 2016. He's also facing dozens of potential jurors.

Right now, the focus is on a subset of 18. And as expected, some social media posts by those prospective jurors are now in play. Let's check back in with CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst, Laura Coates, who's been outside that courthouse all day long.

Laura, it seems like they came back from lunch and things have gotten heated.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: They absolutely have, Jessica, thinking about all that's at stake here. Now, for anyone who thought that social media posts were not going to be a part of this selection process, well, then you are sadly mistaken. They have been now a pivotal role at this point in time. It's almost like a tale of two or three different social media posts because, one by one, jurors have now been called to task about posts that they have made either recently or in the distant past.

And I'll turn to Kara Scannell here on this because the first one we heard about was a juror who was a woman who apparently posted something on Facebook of a celebration in the year 2020. We don't know whether it was around the election time or what. She was questioned about whether it was biased. She said, no, it's just a celebration. She was filming from afar in New York. She was not released. But the second juror, different story.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That second juror is a male juror and he - they had found, the Trump's team had found posts from him back in 2017. On one of the posts, he was criticizing the travel ban and the lawfulness of it. And another, he said, "lock him up." And so the judge said that he didn't have a problem with his post about the travel ban, but he said because he's saying lock him up, and that is exactly what could potentially happen in this case, he decided to strike that juror for cause.

But it was also in this process that the judge said, we're not going to do this with every juror. You have to - to Trump's team - you have to find a respectful way to bring this up during the questioning of the jurors. If you know their identities, what have you found about them and find a way to ask them about some of these posts so they don't end up going through every single juror's social media history here.

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I mean, there was a third post that came up where a different - this juror had - her family member had posted several years ago about a photo of Trump and Obama in which the caption was, orange - this isn't what I thought they meant when they said orange is the new black. The judge saying then in that case, this is not this juror - this wasn't the juror, this was the juror's husband. And he said, if this is the best that you have on this person, I think they can be fair and impartial.

So the judge really trying to - try to prevent this from becoming a runaway train where they go through everyone's social media history. But he did agree to strike one of the jurors for cause. And as he said, if you have the goods, he wants to see it.

COATES: Interesting, because you think about this tension between wanting to individually pull jurors aside outside of the presence of other jurors, asking about deeply personal or things they don't want to express in front of others. Some of the judge now is saying in the interest of time and the judicial economy, we're going to have you address this in the already preselected amount of time, 20 minutes in round two now about these questions.

But just think about this, this is information that these individual prosecutors and defense attorneys would have about these jurors. They must know their name, their social media handles as well to be able to look through all these things. They are going to that level of granular detail to figure out, do they have a stealth juror among them.

SCANNELL: Right, exactly. They want to know if this person is privately expressing views that they're not willing to publicly say in the courtroom among their peers, because that's where the bulk of this questioning is taking place, sitting side by side someone and having to say in front of a full packed courtroom, knowing that there are also reporters there, can you be fair and impartial as someone going to say that they can't.

It's interesting for one of the jurors, the one who was excused, he was asked about the post and he said he didn't remember posting it now, about seven or eight years ago. But the judge still finding it was not appropriate that he served.

COATES: And then he could put his feelings aside, he said as well, which, of course, is the criteria. Normally the judge is usually asking, well, in spite of this, can you put your feelings aside and follow the law and the instructions? The judge did not seem to have it for that one because the phrase lock him up, which is an ironic thing to say because Trump campaigned primarily on lock her up that time, meaning, of course, Hillary Clinton.

Going forward and thinking about this, this is really a quickly moving process now where the judge is trying to make sure that this is a very tight line that's walked. But I'm most intrigued by what Donald Trump's reaction has been to all of this, because earlier this morning, of course, Jessica, he saw a potential juror who was excused because he thought he could not be impartial and was leaning in favor of Donald Trump. Now he has one juror excused because of a lock him up posting that he doesn't recall. And two others as bookends here that had posting that he wanted to have that person struck, but were not.

You wonder how he's feeling in this courtroom, like an average defendant waiting to figure out who will choose and decide his fate.

DEAN: Yes, his fate is in their hands.

All right. Laura Coates and Kara Scannell for us in New York outside the courtroom. Thanks so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss all of this with CNN Legal Analyst and a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA's office, Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Karen, thanks so much for being with us.

First, your reaction to the judge's warning of Donald Trump. What do you make of how that transpired?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So for judges in general, the third rail is if anyone starts to make the jury feel any kind of intimidation whatsoever, the jury has to be protected at all costs and not just for safety reasons, but also you want to make sure that their verdict is not influenced by anything other than the evidence and the facts of the case. So you saw that Donald Trump touched that third rail by making gestures and utterances within 12 feet of the jury and the judge gave a stern warning. And that you'll see that over and over again. Trump can make comments about the judge, about the court, about the DA, but you do anything involving the jurors, you're going to see a very swift reaction.

SANCHEZ: Obviously, cameras are not allowed in that courtroom, but it seems that Trump was reacting to questions that the juror was being asked about her social media post shortly after it was announced that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. She described that as just a New York celebratory moment. She did not believe that that revealed any kind of bias.

The judge said that he believed that she provided reasonable explanations. Do you agree with Judge Merchan there?

AGNIFILO: Absolutely. That's the thing. I think one of the jurors said or Josh Steinglass, the prosecutor, said believability versus likability, right? And that's what you want a juror. It doesn't matter if you like someone or not. You want to know whether they can believe a witness, right? Or believe the evidence and the facts.

One of the jurors said feelings are not facts. And that's the kind of juror you're looking for, is one who can put any feelings aside and look at the facts.

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And so just the fact that they were celebrating a New York moment certainly doesn't show anything, the judge found at least, about a bias that would make it so that they can't be fair and impartial.

SANCHEZ: You've been involved in a lot of jury selections in Manhattan and I'm wondering what you think is unique about jury pools there that might play a role in this selection process.

AGNIFILO: Well, look, it's no secret that Manhattan skews highly Democrat and Trump has been making many motions to recuse the judge and change the venue, because saying he can't get a fair trial because of the Manhattan jurors. And when you look at what happened during jury selection, they called a hundred people in, roughly, and about half of them said, I can't be fair and impartial.

And the rest are really, I think, surprisingly honest and saying, I don't really have these strong opinions that make it so I can't be fair. So much so that these challenges that are happening, that there are two types of challenges. There are the ones that are for cause, meaning that through questioning, they will be excused, and those are unlimited, okay?

So that's why people - that's where you're going to see the lawyers fighting to get someone challenged for cause. Meaning, they've expressed some bias that makes them not be able to be fair in this case. And the lawyers on both sides want for cause challenges because you don't want to waste your peremptories, which are your, no - for no - no matter what, for whatever reason, you want challenges.

And you only get 10 of those each. And the prosecutor here did something very interesting. In the first 12 jurors, they didn't have any for cause challenges. So for them, that kept the 12 jurors in the box, and they didn't have any perempts. So they were saying, you know what, I'm good with these 12 jurors.

That's a chess move on their part because it forces. It forces the defense. They only have 10 challenges. If they don't like those jurors and they don't get any for cause challenges, you could have two jurors right there, so, right, that they could use all 10.

And then they're stuck with those two and then whoever else comes in who could - you could like even less. So there's this whole gamesmanship as, I don't like this guy, but I don't know who's coming down the pike, so I don't want to use them all up because I want to be able to save them for the future panel.

We're going to have a jury this week, I think. It's going much faster than I thought.

SANCHEZ: Oh, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, we appreciate the perspective. Thanks for being with us. Jessica?

DEAN: While Donald Trump is stuck in that Manhattan courtroom, President Joe Biden is campaigning in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Last hour, the President pitching his economic plan in his hometown of Scranton by drawing a sharp contrast between his economic views and those of his Republican rival. Biden also zeroing in on how he differs with Trump on tax policy by insisting that Trump's, what he calls Mar- a-Lago vision, is out of touch.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We know the best way to build an economy is from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down because when you do that, the poor have a ladder up. The middle class does well and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well. It's a stark contrast from my opponent.

He looks at the economy from Mar-a-Lago, where he and his rich friends embraced the failed trickle-down policy as it failed working families for more than 40 years. Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values. These are the competing visions for our economy and they raise questions of fundamental fairness at the heart of this campaign that I want to talk to you about a little bit today.

Folks, does anybody really think the present tax code is fair? Raise your hand if you think it's fair. I'm not joking. Well, neither do I. I'm a capitalist. If you want to - you're able to go out and make a million bucks, fine, that's okay. But just make sure you pay your fair share in taxes.

A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make this country strong, health care, education, defense and so much more. But here's the deal, for more than 40 years, our Republican friends have promised that the best way to grow the economy is from the top down.

But here's what they don't tell you, it's never worked. The benefits don't trickle down. And the very wealthy pay less in taxes. We have to borrow more and invest less in the things that families really need, from schools, hospitals, health care, roads, bridges and so much more.

Think what happens when the factory closes in Scranton or anywhere around the country, when a school is underfunded, when inequity grows larger and larger.

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It puts the middle class further out of reach, and rips the dignity and pride and hope out of communities all across the country, including right here in Pennsylvania.

Folks, trickle-down economics failed the middle class. It failed America. And the truth is, Donald Trump embodies that failure. He wants to double down on trickle-down. His failure starts with his $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest and biggest corporations and exploded the federal debt when he was president.

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DEAN: CNN's White House Correspondent Arlette Saenz is live on the trail in Pennsylvania. She was there with the President as he was speaking.

Arlette, this is the first stop of many in Pennsylvania, no accident. This is a place that gave President Biden the presidency in 2020, and one he's going to return to again and again. What was interesting today is to hear him kind of circling back to what we heard from him in 2020 when it was then Scranton versus Park Avenue, now Scranton versus Mar-a-Lago values.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jess.

President Biden really opened some new lines of attack against former President Donald Trump here in Scranton today as he sought to draw this economic contrast with his predecessor. Now, it's worth noting that while the president was out campaigning today, former President Trump is in a courtroom in New York City as he faces criminal trial, really setting up a split screen that could continue in the weeks to come.

But President Biden today really tried to zero in on the differences that the two men have when it comes to tax policies. The president tried to argue that the former president is on the side of the wealthy and billionaires while President Biden is trying to lower taxes for the middle class.

Now, this all comes as the President has also been trying to move the needle with voters who have pessimistic views about Biden's handling of the economy. Some things that he was trying to lay out today were how he would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and pointing to the fact that Trump has pledged to donors to extend the 2017 tax cuts, which did offer tax cuts to all Americans, but benefited the wealthy much more.

Now, Biden really tried to frame this, as you mentioned. Back in 2020, he had this argument that this was a - that was a choice between Scranton and Park Avenue values. Today, he laid it out in different terms, saying that it's Scranton values versus a Mar-a-Lago approach, referring to the former president's residence down in Florida. And the president really tried to argue that he sees the economy from the middle class, from Scranton values, while the former president adopts those of Mar-a-Lago.

Now, Pennsylvania, as you noted, will be critical in the upcoming election. President Biden won here back in 2020, including here in Lackawanna County, where Scranton is based. There are some counties in the surrounding area where Trump won, but the president is hoping to keep this very close race, as we've seen in the polls, as the current state is.

DEAN: All right. Arlette Saenz for us on the trail in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Thank you so much.

And let's turn now to CNN Economics and Political Commentator, Catherine Rampell. She's also an opinion columnist for The Washington Post.

Catherine, great to see you. I feel like every time I see you, I'm going to ask you this question, but it's one that I and still think we're all trying to understand, why do Americans still feel like this economy isn't working for them?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I knew you were going to ask that, because you always ask that. I think there are a few things going on. One is that, obviously, inflation was very painful, has been very painful, continues to be painful, even though it has come down quite a bit.

We've already seen a lot of built-in price growth over the past couple of years and people are still experiencing sticker shock whenever they go to the grocery store. Their wages are now outpacing inflation, but for a lot of workers, reasonably, they interpret wage increases as something that was due to them because of their merit, because they deserve those wage increases as opposed to inflation, which is something that was foisted upon them.

Now, they're both related to the same kinds of factors, but people interpret them very differently. So I think that's largely what's going on.

If you look at consumer sentiment numbers, they have been improving. They're still sort of strangely low relative to some of the numbers we see on paper, whether you're talking about ultra-low unemployment rates or strong GDP growth, but they are improving. So I think we'll be watching if American consumers start to get - if not exactly rosy on the economy, less negative as we head towards the election. DEAN: Yes. And it's interesting to note, the IMF chief economist said that the U.S. economy is overheated, was the way he described it, but also said, "Astonishingly the U.S. economy has always surged past its pre-pandemic growth trend."

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So you have these two things that are kind of happening at the same time, how do they all go together?

RAMPELL: Right, exactly. Like I said, on paper, the U.S. economy looks quite good. And that's according to a whole bunch of different framings you could put on it. If you look at the U.S. economy today, relative to, let's say, 2019, or most other periods of time over the last few decades, it looks as good or better on everything except for inflation.

So if you look at, for example, unemployment being very low, GDP growth being strong, it also looks quite strong relative to pre- pandemic forecasts, that's what the IMF economist you just cited was referring to. The fact that if you go back and looked at what the International Monetary Fund expected the size of the U.S. economy to look like today, back when they made their last pre-COVID forecast, and I think it was January 2020, we're besting even that.

And all of these things are related, right? We've run a very hot economy. That characteristic explains the low unemployment, the strong job growth, the strong GDP growth and high price growth. Those are all about demand being really, really strong.

Now, the trick is to get sort of the good things out of that strong demand and not so much the bad things, which means maybe we don't want the economy to be quite as hot as it is. We want there to be strong job growth but not quite as fast price growth, and hopefully we're getting there.

DEAN: All right. Catherine Rampell, as always, great to see you. Thank you so much.

Ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, much more on the historic criminal trial of Donald Trump as his attorneys challenge potential jurors based on their social media posts.

And Israel's war cabinet just met for the fifth time since Iran's weekend attack. Are they any closer to deciding how and if they'll respond?

Plus, the Fed have launched a criminal investigation into the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse as a fourth body is recovered from the wreckage. Those stories and much more all coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:26:33] DEAN: We have breaking news out of Manhattan now. Three jurors have just been seated in the trial of former President Donald Trump. The selection following some dramatic moments in court as defense attorneys used social media posts to challenge prospective jurors. But again, now three jurors have been seated. We'll have more on that in just a moment. Boris?

SANCHEZ: The world is watching and waiting for Israel's response to that massive attack over the weekend from Iran. Today, the State Department said the U.S. hasn't received any details about Israel's plans, but a source tells CNN the U.S. believes the response will be limited in scope. Iran's president is warning that even the smallest Israeli action would be met with a severe and painful response.

Let's discuss with retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. He's the former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

General, great to have your perspective. Thanks for being with us. Israel's war cabinet is obviously mulling a response to this unprecedented attack by Iran over the weekend. As we noted a moment ago, U.S. intelligence believes that the response would be limited in scope and inside Iranian territory. I'm wondering what you think that might look like.

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET.), FORMER U.S. SECURITY COORDINATOR FOR ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: Hey, Boris. Great to be with you this afternoon. Well, I think there's a number of options available, as has been discussed really since the attacks that took place on Saturday evening, anywhere from a significant lethal response and the deployment of Israeli attack aircraft all the way to cyber operations or some type of further down the line covert operation.

But I would - what I would assess that Gen. Gantz and the Minister of Defense Gallant are discussing with the Prime Minister is what was fired or launched at Israel over the course of Saturday evening and what poses in their view the most significant threat as a result of what they saw play out that evening. And so going after ballistic missile test sites or ballistic missile storage sites and the same with the cruise missiles which have a far greater capability than the unmanned vehicles that were launched and many of those failed. I think that would be probably very high on the list of what the security cabinet is looking at.

SANCHEZ: General, Iran's president has vowed that even the smallest action against Iran's interests will be met with a response. Do you see an off ramp here? Is there a realistic scenario where escalating retaliation from both sides doesn't end in war?

SCHWARTZ: Well, it's extremely tense as I think all of us realize right now. But I do believe that had one of those ballistic missiles made it through the air defense and the defensive - overall defensive joint umbrella that was established Saturday night, I think we would be in a conflict just as you mentioned right now. And the United States would probably be compelled as a significant ally if not the strongest ally to Israel to be involved in that. So it's difficult to say, but I think if Israel elects to go after infrastructure or weapons production capabilities and they can mitigate the risk of loss of human life, I think that may still cause tensions between the two.