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Protest Over War In Gaza Sweeping U.S. Universities; Columbia: Clear Encampment By 2PM Today Or Face Suspension; Hush Money Trial Resumes Tomorrow; Gag Order Hearing Thursday. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 29, 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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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Campuses cracking down on pro-Palestinian protesters as tensions ratchet up across the nation. And at the same time, an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in southern Gaza killed 20 people. And Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is in Saudi Arabia for ceasefire talks. We're following all of these developments here and abroad.

Plus, standing by for a ruling. At any moment, the judge in former President Trump's hush money trial could decide whether to hold him in contempt for violating his gag order.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And he's on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, accused of terrorizing an entire country. Now, one of Haiti's top gang leaders is speaking with CNN about what he wants for Haiti. We're following all of these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: And right now, we are watching a tense and escalating situation unfolding at Columbia University. Just minutes after school officials announced negotiations with pro-Palestinian protesters had failed, the school is now warning those protesters that by 2:00 p.m. today, they must clear out of their encampment and disperse or face suspension.

MARQUARDT: And at the same time, a pro-Palestinian student group, which has now been suspended by the school administration, is calling on students to reject the ultimatum and show up at the encampment.

CNN is live from college campuses all across the country today. I want to start with CNN's Omar Jimenez at Columbia University. So Omar, we have this deadline at 2:00 p.m. We are less than an hour from that. Do you have any sense of what may happen?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So we're getting some reports from inside campus right now from what the students are doing in reaction to this deadline that's now coming in an hour. They took a vote essentially at the encampment on whether they would defy this order. And it does appear that many of them voted to actually stay and defy that 2:00 p.m. order. Obviously, the university has said. if they do that and don't sign on

to university policies, they will face suspension, and they will be ineligible to finish the semester on good standing. So of course, those are the stakes here.

Now, that said, obviously, with this 2:00 p.m. deadline and the news of it, it is prompted some outside protesters, outside agitators has been -- New York Police Department has described in that point to, at the very least, be aware of the situation, even schedule some protests outside of the campus. It may be part of why we've actually seen a good -- a large law enforcement presence that just got to outside of Columbia University within the last few minutes or so.

So those are all factors we're continuing to watch. But of course, all of this is coming hours after the University President, Minouche Shafik, announced this morning that negotiations between the student protesters and the university had failed to come to a resolution after days, really, since last week of good faith negotiations as the university described them. That means that the university will not divest from Israel, which, of course, is one of the central points of why this encampment began in the first place, almost two weeks up to this point.

Now, moving forward, we're almost two weeks -- more -- a little more than two weeks to graduation. And the university has said, they will have a commencement here. Now, how they deal with the encampment or resolve the encampment as they describe, we will have to see. But clearly, they intend to have that commencement in a little over two weeks time.

KEILAR: All right. And Omar, standby for us because we'll be back to you within the hour as this deadline approaches here. Let's go to Gabe Cohen. Gabe, you're there at George Washington University here in Washington, where some student protesters actually toppled police barricades as the encampment there was expanded. What are you seeing?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna. Now, day five of this camp here at G.W. And things have calmed a little bit since that tent scene early this morning that you reference where protesters ripped apart and piled up all of these barricades that had been around this, a small section of the camp by which I'm stand -- near which I'm standing. There were about 20 protesters who were left here.

But as we spin around, you can see how many more of these tents have popped up in the hour since all over the yard, dozens of them, as well as several in the public street on the public street behind me.

[13:05:09]

Up until this point, there really has been no indication, no effort from D.C. police to forcefully remove the tents or the protesters. And I want to actually bring in one of those protesters now.

Moataz, thank you so much for joining us. You are a grad student here at G.W. You've been here since the beginning. The school has said, you and the other G.W. students who are here are facing suspension, potentially arrest eventually, and yet, you're still here. Why are you still part of this protest?

MOATAZ SALIM, GEORGE WASHINGTON STUDENT & PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTER: We're here, first and foremost, to be in solidarity with Gaza to remind the world of what's going on in Gaza, that there's still a genocide, that there's still bombing Gaza even at this very moment. And so that's why we're here. We're steadfast just because what's going on there is absolutely horrible. And we want to be here in support of them.

COHEN: And we've heard from protesters who are part of this saying that they're calling for G.W. to divest from corporations with any ties to the Israeli government or the Israeli military. Has there been any conversation with the school? Any indication that you are even remotely close to having the school meet those demands.

SALIM: Sadly, there has not been any sort of discussion or indication that they're willing to come to the table and talk to us about our demands. In fact, they have been -- they've tried to crack down on us. I mean, they setup the barricade. We were barricaded in for the first four days. They increased the police presence. And, you know, we know that there have been at least two requests for the MPD to come in and arrest us. And the MPD itself actually declined those requests. So it's been a negative response so far.

COHEN: All right. Moataz, thank you so much for joining us. And as I said, at this point, there has really been no indication that police are going to do anything today. I've spoken with sources who told me that the police department, the city doesn't want the optics of arresting protesters forcefully removing these tents. But of course, things have escalated now with this scene overnight. The question, Brianna, Alex, is, will MPD -- will the police change their posture at all?

As of this morning, a source telling me the escalation last night, not enough to have them change anything and arrest or forcefully remove these protesters. But we'll see what the day brings.

MARQUARDT: All right. Gabe Cohen at George Washington right here in the Nation's Capital. Thanks very much. Let's get straight to CNN's Nick Valencia, who's at Emory University in Atlanta, where faculty is pushing a vote of no confidence in the school's President. And that comes after more than a dozen protesters were arrested there last week.

Nick, we've seen a fair bit of violence there on campus. And I understand that there's a new statement from Emory's President. What does it say?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is a new statement here from Emory's president. They're talking about the unprecedented situation that happened here on Thursday, sort of trying to recontrol the narrative. Initially, they've said that that protest had nothing to do with the university. Of course, that was not accurate. 28 people arrested, 20 of them had ties to the university, either professors, students, faculty, some sort of connection. The action continues here at Emory University behind me. This is a leftover crowd from a walkout of faculty that happened at 12:00 p.m. It's ahead of another 2:30 plan at demonstration. But I talk about that fallout after the action on Thursday, the violent arrest of 28 people. One of them that was detained was a professor here, the Chair of Philosophy, Noelle McAfee.

And I caught up with her a short time ago and I asked her about the concern that Jewish students have here. Some have expressed the hostility has just been too unsafe for them to return to campus. I asked her if the demonstrations that are going on here at Emory are at their core anti-Semitic.

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VALENCIA: Do you feel at the core any of this has to do with anti- Semitism? Or what's your reaction to those feelings from those Jewish students?

NOELLE MCAFEE, EMORY PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY: I'm really sorry. And I -- but I understand when people feel like that, feel attacked. We live in a culture that doesn't allow space for grieving, and mourning, and nuance. And so it's easy to read a political position as a personal attack.

I think that's a lot of clarity among people who are working on the issues of what's happening in Gaza that are -- it's not anti-Semitic. There's a huge distinction between what our leaders do and what's going on among the people.

The administrator's job is to make the trains run on time. And they overstep when they think they need to clear a quad in order to run a commencement ceremony. That is just so wrong. We need to -- the first priority should be places for students and learning, and spaces for dialogue across differences. And that'll help both sides.

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VALENCIA: Noelle Mcafee, one of the protesters detained, one of the professors, I should say, here at the university. And we're also hearing from university officials that they are in negotiations with defense attorneys of those arrested on Thursday to potentially drop all charges against those who were arrested.

Meanwhile, back on campus here, there's still large crowds. It is, though, respectful and peaceful for now. Alex?

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KEILAR: All right. Nick Valencia, thank you so much for that report and to all of our reporters at these universities across the country here. Let's talk a little bit more about this now with our CNN Senior National Security Analyst, Juliette Kayyem. She's the former Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

And Juliette, obviously, each situation is different, each university is different. The cities that they're in, they're different. But when it comes to state and local police being called in, under what circumstances should college administrators engage or not engage outside law enforcement as they're balancing free speech with campus safety and operations?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's exactly right. That is the balance. And it is not one-size-fits-all. So basically, I think we're at a sort of pivot point of these colleges and universities beginning to learn because remember what started this was just, you know, peacefulness. And then all of a sudden, the police department is arresting students who are essentially just protesting.

There's, you know, they weren't, you know lighting things on fire. They were just protesting. I think what you've seen colleges and universities learn over the course of the week is that protest is a natural part of college and university experience that in most instances, although there are outliers, the students are not going to be disruptive to schools or to graduation. So you want to keep the temperature down if you're a university or college leader. You bring the cops in and you know -- we know exactly what's going to happen, the numbers increase. People who may not even feel allegiance to the Palestinian cause will become involved.

And then the third thing that I've been urging on air and elsewhere is, you know, you provide a forum for students. This protest is allowable. You give them off ramp, so you're starting to see colleges and universities do that either dialogue or as we heard that professor say, you know, in other words, you bring people together and then outcomes. And then eventually, there will have to be some action whether it's law enforcement or not, we don't know. It could be suspension.

We're in a funny period. I'm at a university, not right now, but I teach there. It's sort of that dead time between classes and graduation. And there's no need to make a decision in most of these instances until you're sort of closer to graduation if this might disrupt the building of capacity to have the graduation.

MARQUARDT: Juliette, you mentioned the temperature. That is probably about to go up at least as far as Columbia University goes. You know, we're about 45 minutes away from this 2:00 p.m. deadline. A lot of students have indicated that they plan to defy this request from the administrators to voluntarily disperse. What are you hoping to see from police and other security forces?

KAYYEM: Yes. Yes, in any case, I mean, I just, --I don't think that law enforcement is appropriate as a first stance. We saw a lot of people with a lot of energy, people outside of the safety and security realm, you know, making recommendations that you just throw the cops. And we see what happens in that regard.

And also we do have a first amendment rights. We do have protest rights. And these are, you know, they're not children. But on the other hand, it's that kind of energy that, you know, I think reflects the 20 somethings. So that -- since that's the case, the kind of consequences that

colleges and universities can do short of arrest is essentially those related to their academic status. And that is going to hurt them. I have no problem with that if we get to that moment you cannot disrupt graduations. I think, for example, USC overreacted. I think it was -- this was a -- USC canceled its main graduation. You have to let Jewish and other students feel protected and safe. But I'm not sure, canceling an entire graduation is good for either side because people become more divided.

So if I sound calm, it isn't that I am, it's just that part of this is just buying time. Before you're -- you see some of the disruptions that might be or police actions that might be inevitable at a limited number of colleges and universities, but no one should go first in in the way that we saw originally last week with law enforcement.

MARQUARDT: Well, it is a very tense day at campuses all across the country. We know you'll be watching carefully. And we'll have you back very soon. Juliette Kayyem, thank you very much.

There are new developments in the Israel-Hamas war. Right now, the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, he is in Saudi Arabia meeting with key Middle Eastern leaders, as well as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This comes as Hamas considers a new deal that calls for the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Now, Blinken is saying that Israel has presented Hamas with a proposal that is extraordinarily generous. And he is urging its leaders to accept it.

KEILAR: Let's go live now to Saudi Arabia. And CNN International Anchor, Becky Anderson. And Becky, you have reported for months on the outline of what this second ceasefire, what a pause in the fighting could look like.

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Do you have any sense that the sides are actually closer to a deal today?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: I think we're as close as we've been in months. This has been months of deadlock. But at this stage, it does feel as if we are getting close to an agreement from both sides, which would be a major step towards ending this conflict.

Brianna, let me just go through what we know to be being discussed at present. Hamas officials with Qatar mediators and Egyptian mediators in Cairo as we speak, considering what is effectively an Egyptian proposal, which has been crafted with the help of the Israelis, but not necessarily completely agreed to.

But it calls for the following. Phase 1, a period of weeks when up to 33 hostages would be released for a period of calm, during a period of calm, a period of weeks, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. That's less hostages than the Israelis had originally been demanding and that was up to 40. This is up to 33 as we understand it.

Phase 2, should that be successful, those first period of weeks? Phase 2 is what is important here. And this is different. Phase 2 calls for the restoration of "a sustainable calm." Now, I spoke to one diplomatic source familiar with the talks who said, that is language which was first proposed by the United States in Doha back in February, which wasn't, at the time, accepted by the Israelis, which effectively suggests a permanent ceasefire without actually calling it that.

This is a restoration of sustainable calm for a period of around about a year, during which the rest of the civilian hostages serving Israeli soldiers and the bodies of dead hostages would be released. That would be a major step forward because this would be a long period of permanent calm.

Now, that's what's on the table. And that is what's being discussed at present, thanking both Qatar and Egypt for their efforts in all of this. Antony Blinken who was here at what is the special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, then an awful lot of diplomatic flurry on the sidelines of this, describe the deal in the following way.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: Hamas has before the proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel. And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide. And they have to decide quickly. So we're looking to that. And I'm hopeful that they will make the right decision.

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ANDERSON: The reason he says they have to decide quickly is this, hanging over these negotiations is the threat of an Israeli offensive on Rafah. And we've been reporting for weeks just how catastrophic that would be for the more than 1 million people who are down in Rafah, right up against the border of Egypt.

Antony Blinken did say that without, and he reiterated today, that without a concrete plan from the Israelis and about how they would protect civilians, that offensive would not get the blessing of Washington. And he said that to date, Washington has not seen a plan.

Tony Blinken is here wanting to talk to regional stakeholders, Saudi, in the first instance, and others around this region, about what happens the day after, what happens after this conflict finishes, what is the next stage for Gaza and the Palestinians? The Saudis have said that there is the option of normalization of relations with Israel. But the caveat here is, they have to see a two state solution on the table for the Palestinians. And that has to be an irreversible path.

Now, Tony Blinken is on his way from here to Amman and then on to Tel Aviv. And he must be hoping that if the Israelis turn up at these negotiations tomorrow because they see fit to do that, that there is a deal and a deal quickly. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching, Becky, very closely to what happens there. Becky Anderson, live for us from Riyadh. Thank you.

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And former President Donald Trump is going to be back in a New York courtroom tomorrow. But hanging over the trial today, questions over whether Trump violated his gag order. What does it signal that the judge in this case has yet to rule? We'll talk about it.

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MARQUARDT: Any minute now, we could get a ruling from the judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial about whether Trump violated the gag order in that case. But today, court itself is not in session, following the first full week of testimony last week. Jurors heard from three witnesses, including two longtime confidants of the former President.

And tomorrow, Banker, Gary Farrow, will be back on the stand.

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KEILAR: He is expected to detail the accounting behind the Stormy Daniels payment, which is really at the center of this criminal case. We're joined now by CNN Legal Analyst and Former U.S. Attorney, Michael Moore, and also CNN's Senior Political Commentator and former Trump Campaign Advisor, David Urban. Thank you to both of you for being with us.

Michael, to you as we are now about to head into this second week of witness testimony, frame it for us what we saw last week, the biggest takeaway from what we've seen so far.

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, I'm glad to be with all of you. You know, this week will be much more of the same. And that is that the prosecution will continue to sort of build on the foundation of the case. I mean, what we saw were some wins for both sides, frankly, last week. I mean, you had some good testimony from Pecker from -- for the state.

At the same time, you had some good information that came in for the Trump team. And that is information like, well, you know, Michael Cohen was doing this. This is the normal way of doing business. There's nothing unique here in setting this type of story purchase up. We've done it for other politicians and other celebrities. And so that's good information that to get in front of the jury.

But, you know, this is a paper case. It's a -- it's follow the money case. Those could be boring cases for a jury. And so the prosecution's goal needs to be, as they go through this multi-week trial, is to really figure out a way to keep that hook in the mouth of those jurors so that they can stay engaged and stay interested. You don't do that by having a banker up for a long time. So I think you'll see the banker finishes testimony, talking about how

the corporations were setup, how the payments were made, the efforts that went into that, the direction he got about that. And then, you know, you're likely to see some, what I would say, would be a more exciting witness, whether that's Michael Cohen, whether that's somebody closer in to the Trump camp, like Hope Hicks. They're going to have to manage that.

Or else, it's like a -- having your accountant, nothing to get -- nothing, you know, disregard for accountants, but having your accountant stand there in front of you for two weeks explaining a tax code. And that does not keep an average panel of jurors engaged for long. So that's going to be the balance they have to walk going forward.

MARQUARDT: And then David, outside of the courtroom, the way that this is being perceived, we have a new poll that was released last week. And it found that only 13 percent of those who were polled think that Trump is being treated the same way that other criminal defendants will be. So why do you think that so many Americans are seeing these proceedings as unfair? And do you agree?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. So I think to a certain extent, the former President is making the case about, you know, Michael Cohen is, you know, on your phone every night, on some social media app for six or eight hours, taking an axe to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump can't tweet back at him, right? Or he's going to violate his order here, his court order.

So I think that's setting up a little bit of the disparate treatment, perhaps, that people are seeing. They're saying, wait, Michael Cohen can do this, but yet, Donald Trump can't? Now, I know there's lots of legal reasons for that, but do the average American, do they see that? No. They see that as unfair. And they see this look, quite frankly, as an extension of lawfare.

As Michael said, this is a paper case, right? This is a case that's -- a federal case that was passed on by the Department of Justice, and the previous district attorney took a pass on it, and it's being strapped to a state case and being bootstrapped up. And it's an eight- week long case. And, you know, we've -- with this first started everybody, you know, on every network said, boy, this Alvin Bragg case kind of a stinker here, right? And so I think the people in America -- people who are watching that extent people are, I think they see as a little bit unfair to the former President.

I got an email from a friend of mine who said, look, I am -- he left the Trump team a long time ago. And he said, I'm watching this case. I'm back on the team. I mean, unbelievably, right? He's winning people over because they feel like he's getting fair -- unfairly treated.

KEILAR: I wonder just, you know, whether fair or unfair, if you think the judge can even keep up with Donald Trump and the things he says. Because for instance, he has two rallies on Wednesday night. This is ahead of the gag order hearing on Thursday. We don't know what Trump is going to say. URBAN: Right.

KEILAR: But if past this prologue, he's probably going to say something that certainly goes up to the line or maybe crosses the line. Do you think the judge can even keep up with these potential violations?

URBAN: Listen, so I'm not, you know, in the courtroom. I've not dealt with the judge. Ellie (ph) and others who have been there, been with this particular judge think that he's pretty fair and keep things going pretty down the line and keeps moving forward. He's going to have a tough time. He's not going to put Donald Trump in jail, that's for sure. He can keep finding him 10, 000 bucks here and there, but that's not going to -- is that going to stop him in a case that's, you know, could mean the presidency? I don't I don't think so.

So to your point, it's going to be tough for Judge Merchan to kind of keep him in line by tapping him on the knuckles of the ruler every once in a while. He's having a tough time.

MARQUARDT: Well, it's going to a -- it's going to be a remarkable second week. We've got the Banker back on -- Gary Farrow back on the stand tomorrow. And of course, we know that you and all of us here will be watching very, very closely, this historic unprecedented trials, we keep saying.