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Biden Touts Veteran Health Care Benefits Under PACT Act; Report: Inflation Made Finances Worse For 65 Percent Of Americans In 2023; Lawyers In Trump Trial Hold Meeting On Jury Instructions; NFL Launches New Push To Help Minority, Women-Owned Business. Aired 3:30- 4p ET

Aired May 21, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:34:36]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: President Biden is back on the campaign trail. Just moments ago, he arrived in Boston, where he's set to hold a pair of fundraisers after seeing a big dip in donations last month.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Earlier today, the president campaigned in New Hampshire, where he talked to veterans at a VFW hall about his support for the PACT Act. That's a law that expands health care benefits to veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxins. CNN's MJ Lee is joining us now.

And MJ, that PACT Act and the burn pits, that is a topic that hits very close to home for President Biden.

LEE: Yes, that's absolutely right. The president is spending...

[15:35:00]

DEAN: MJ, that PACT Act and the burn pits, that is a topic that hits very close to home for President Biden.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's absolutely right. The president is spending some time up in New England today, and we just heard him delivering remarks in New Hampshire about this so-called PACT Act. This is legislation that the president signed into law back in 2022 that expanded health care services available to veterans that were exposed to toxic substances like burn pits and like Agent Orange.

And what the president announced at this event was that more than one million claims have now been granted to veterans since that act became law. Now, this issue, as you say, is of deep personal significance for this president. The president has often talked about his belief that burn pits were responsible for the brain cancer that ultimately took the life of his late son, Beau, who, of course, served in Iraq.

And we heard the president talking a little bit about that in New Hampshire. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My son Beau was one of those veterans. So this is personal to me and my family, and to his family and his children, and so many of yours. So when I took office I determined that come hell or high water, we're going to protect the heroes and protect our nation. We learned a terrible lesson after Vietnam, as those harmful effects of Agent Orange took years to manifest and left too many veterans without the care they deserved because they had to prove that every illness they had was a consequence of Agent Orange, which is often too hard to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And just a quick note about the state of New Hampshire ahead of November. You know, this state doesn't necessarily fall in the category for the Biden campaign of the toughest and most competitive battleground states, but I think Biden allies would certainly argue that the fact that he is making this trip up there goes to show that the Biden campaign is reticent to take any state for granted at this point. I will also note the president has now arrived in Boston, where he is going to be participating in two separate fundraisers, coming, of course, after the Biden campaign's April fundraising numbers showed that it lagged behind the March numbers.

The Biden campaign's war chest is still significantly greater and bigger than the Trump campaign's, and that is a cash advantage that the Biden campaign certainly hopes to continue having as we head closer to November.

SANCHEZ: And, MJ, the White House says that President Biden is going to address a video that Donald Trump shared referencing a United Reich if Trump is reelected. Has Biden said anything about that post yet?

LEE: Yes, the president is expected to address that video in some form at these two fundraisers that I just mentioned up in Boston. A reporter did ask him about that earlier today, and he sort of laughed it off and said it would take too long for him to address that in great detail. We do have the White House and the Biden campaign have both addressed the posting of this video.

The Biden campaign, for example, saying in a new statement that this video is part of a pattern of Trump's praise for dictators and echoing anti-Semitic tropes. He is a threat to our democracy, the statement says, and Americans must reject him and stand up for our democracy come this November.

You know, this statement actually came after the video was finally removed from online, and the campaign, I think, is asking the question of why was it posted in the first place.

DEAN: All right, MJ Lee, for us at the White House, thanks so much for that reporting.

Former President Donald Trump, meantime, is tripling down on the trade war he started with China during his first term in office with a plan that calls for aggressive new tariffs. The former president saying his proposal is a way to protect the working class, but a new report out this week suggests it would actually do the opposite.

SANCHEZ: And CNN's Matt Egan has more on this new research. Matt, walk us through what's in the report.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris and Jessica, remember Donald Trump loves tariffs so much that he nicknamed himself the tariff man, and he's vowing to go even bigger if he gets reelected. He's floated a 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports. That is massive.

It would hit everything from toys and furniture to iPhones. He also wants a 10 percent tariff on all U.S. imports, all of them. Now, new research from the Peterson Institute finds that really, consumers would be the ones paying the price, that there'd be $500 billion in annual consumer costs. That is 1.8 percent of GDP.

Some context, it's almost five times the size of the cost from the last trade war. And for a typical family, this would amount to at least $1,700 a year in additional costs.

Now, I say at least because the researchers say that this is really just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't even account for almost definite retaliation from our trading partners. If you recall, during the last trading war, everything from American crops and Harley Davidson motorcycles to Kentucky bourbon was hit in retaliation. There's no reason to think that our trading partners would take it lying down this time.

[15:40:05]

Now, we should note that President Biden is relying on tariffs too, right? I mean, he just announced tariffs on steel, aluminum, computer chips, electric vehicles, and solar cells, all of that from China. The difference, though, is that Biden is targeting $18 billion of Chinese goods, and Trump is targeting all $3 trillion of U.S. imports. So Biden is taking a surgical approach. Trump's would be more of a sledgehammer.

Reached out to the Trump campaign about this research. They're pushing back. They're saying Americans don't need to hear from so-called experts and research to know that Bidenomics has failed and that they'd have more money in their pockets if Trump is returned to the White House.

Listen, I do think that at the end of the day, what is clear is that tariffs are not going anywhere. Republicans and Democrats, they don't agree on much. Trump and Biden don't agree on much, but they do agree on using tariffs to stand up to China and to show voters that they are tough on China. That's despite the fact that a lot of economists warn that it's actually consumers that would be paying the price.

DEAN: And, Matt, new data shows inflation made things worse for most Americans last year, even though it actually slowed down in 2023. How does that all square?

EGAN: That's right, Jessica. This is new research from the Federal Reserve. It finds that about two-thirds of adults say that their financial situation was made worse by the cost of living. 31 percent said no impact. 4 percent said -- just 4 percent said that their situation was made better. Another telling finding is that about one in six adults say that they could not pay their bills in the prior month in full.

And the problem, of course, is that people are spending more than they're making. Only 48 percent, right, less than half, say that they spent less than they made in the prior month. That's pretty low.

32 percent, about a third, say they broke even. Of course, if you break even, that leaves nothing left to save for a raining day or save up for retirement. And 19 percent said that they spent more than they made. Of course, that is not sustainable, and that speaks to the increased use of credit cards.

I think at the end of the day, these findings do speak to the gloomy mood that we hear on Main Street and also to the cumulative impact of inflation. I mean, prices are no longer skyrocketing, but there is this snowballing effect after three years of high prices. And clearly, Americans are still feeling that impact.

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thanks so much for the update.

EGAN: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Just into CNN, the NFL making a big push with diversity, equity, and inclusion, but it says the initiative is in no way related to that controversial speech by Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. The details, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:47:19]

DEAN: Right now in Donald Trump's criminal trial, they are hashing out what is going to be the jury instructions and that means both sides, the defense and the prosecution, are arguing over many fine points.

SANCHEZ: Yes, fine points indeed. Let's get with Elliott Williams and get some perspective. Elliott, right now the parties are debating language about the jury's requirement to find prosecutors proved Trump was part of a conspiracy.

This ties back to that meeting in 2015 between Trump, David Pecker and others about how they were going to handle potentially negative news about Donald Trump going into the presidential election. As Jessica alluded to, these are very fine points. So we're getting into the weeds on this. How does this fit into the broader context of the case?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Into the weeds, but also to use, you know, stormy weather as it were. It starts getting a little bit tricky here because the question is, are you accusing the defendant of an additional crime by saying he's part of a conspiracy? And this is the kind of area that all parties need to be careful about what they do. Now the question is, as they're debating, was Trump a part of a conspiracy at the time that he engaged in this, allegedly engaged in these acts? And how do you instruct the jury as to what his actions were?

Now the judge's question is, if there's nothing criminal at all -- which is what he puts to the defense -- why does it matter if I put it in an instruction or not?

And my gut here reading this is, the judge probably lets this in because this is a question for the jury to decide whether you think he committed a crime or engaged in something unlawful. So it's hard to see where they're going to land on this, but it's really big picture. Jury instructions become fraught with peril when you start assigning or accusing the defendant of additional things.

That's where you start running into trouble on appeal because the words that the judge gives to the jurors might suggest more criminality than is actually there.

DEAN: So that underscores why this is so important. We're also getting this update, that Judge Merchan said to the defense attorneys, what you're asking me to do is change the law and I'm not going to do that.

And so, just to give everybody kind of a clue, and I'll just read what our reporting has been, which is that arguing for another deviation from the standard criminal jury instructions language, the defense attorney, Emil Bove, asked that Judge Juan Merchan be as specific as possible when describing the statutes as they applied in this case, noting the importance of the case and that there's not much of a precedent for the way these statutes are being used in this case.

And that's when the judge said to him, what you're asking me to do is change the law.

WILLIAMS: A few things happening here. So when we speak about this standard jury instructions, just about every state has model or standard instructions for everything, whether it's reasonable doubt, the role of the jury, the role of the judge, the role of your notes, and so on. They're standard.

[15:50:00]

And they can modify them based on what the parties in a given case think, if a case is truly unique.

Now, something many viewers may not know is that the law is very ambiguous in most areas, including, particularly as I've been saying for a month, this one. Now, the question is, how much additional language ought they put in? Now, the judge has made clear several times during these proceedings today, we have standard instructions on most things. And every single thing you ask me to add tampers with a century of New York state law. So please make a compelling case to me as to why I ought to deviate from that.

And so, again, he doesn't seem to really want to. SANCHEZ: I wanted you to expand on something we were discussing earlier about the way that jury instructions work in New York state. I'm hearing there, we just got a live feed of Donald Trump walking out of the courtroom. It appears that the proceedings may have come to a pause, if not a conclusion.

Unclear right now. I'm waiting to get clarity on that. They're taking a quick break, a producer just mentioned.

The way that jury instructions are handled in New York, the jury doesn't actually get documented instructions from the judge. They would have to come back out and basically ask the judge for clarity on these fine points that are confusing, to say the least. How does that affect the dynamic of deliberations?

WILLIAMS: I'm sure it's incredibly challenging. So when we speak about jury instructions, they can take hours to read. I believe it's Tuesday when we hear them.

We won't hear them, but, you know, it could be half the day where the judge, it's not just saying, this is what your job is. It's, you know, you have anything from a paragraph of text to several pages of text on each legal and almost factual point that are incredibly critical. So the question again was --

SANCHEZ: Just how it affects the process of deliberation, the dynamics inside that room.

WILLIAMS: So many jurisdictions allow jurors to get a printed copy of the jury instructions. And really, there's no reason not to. They're long, they're voluminous, and the law on them isn't going to change.

New York doesn't allow that. What the judge would have to do is call them back into the courtroom, first debate with the attorneys outside of the jury's presence as to what should I instruct them on? Should I modify the jury instructions to give them a little more or a little less information? Or simply say no and say just rely on your memory here.

It doesn't really benefit anybody to not give the jury this big stack of paper as they might in other jurisdictions.

SANCHEZ: To a degree, you could argue it benefits us because we get to find out what the jury's pondering, right?

WILLIAMS: Every single question that jurors come back with gives both attorneys but also people in our position of having to sort of divine what's happening. Those questions provide valuable insight because it shows where they don't understand the law, where they're leaning in terms of conviction or acquittal or hanging. You'll see at the end, invariably, they will come back with a question that says we can't come to an agreement.

And the judge will say, invariably, go back and come to an agreement. And after a few times, it'll give them an opportunity to come to consensus. But virtually every jury I've ever worked on, worked with, came back at one point saying, we think we're going to hang. We just can't come back with a consensus.

So you can read what they're thinking because they're clearly fighting with each other in that room.

DEAN: And just before we let you go, there are these two attorneys that sit on this jury and we keep talking about it. Who knows how much of a role it's going to play? That's theirs to decide.

But when you are talking about some of this, what is rather complicated legalese, does it help for the jury?

WILLIAMS: I'll go with a really hot take here. Really, look, it is a jury of your peers. All citizens have a right -- not necessarily a right, but can sit on a jury.

Attorneys don't really help because people in the jury room will defer to their experience. And often they're not prosecutors or defense attorneys or judges or they could be Food and Drug Administration attorneys.

DEAN: Or not practicing.

WILLIAMS: Not practicing. Someone who went to law school 30 years ago, but they have an air of authority and people want to follow them and listen to them, which may not help.

DEAN: That is interesting. All right, Elliot Williams, thanks so much.

And as we mentioned, court is on a break right now. We will stay on top of this trial. You'll see all the updates on your screen. And we'll have more next hour on "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:58:14]

SANCHEZ: This story is first on CNN. The National Football League is taking steps to level the playing field by promoting minority and women-owned businesses for its biggest events.

DEAN: And today, it's announcing what the league says is its biggest DEI initiative to date, CNN's Athena Jones joining us now. And, Athena, this announcement follows a firestorm of controversy over kicker Harrison Butker's commencement speech, but the league is insisting this is not related. So, tell us what the new initiative's about.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jessica. That's right. The league says that this has been something that's been in the works for years, working on the issue of supplier diversity.

As you mentioned, this new program is being called the most expansive DEI initiative to date by the league because it covers the whole ecosystem of the National Football League at the league level, at the club level. And it's going to allow underrepresented businesses more of a chance to compete for these big, lucrative contracts for things like the Super Bowl, the draft, as well as year-round. We're talking about businesses owned by minorities, by women, by veterans, by people who have disabilities, as well as by people who are LGBTQ+.

And so, up until now, a lot of these kinds of businesses had to rely on having a connection to a team or to the league office in order to get access to bid for contracts at these big events and year-round. This is going to change that. It's a new initiative called NFL Source.

It'll be a centralized website where businesses can go and learn about how they can work with the NFL. It's a way to increase access to these money-making events. At this centralized website, there'll be one set of standards and procedures for how teams deal with procurement, how they deal with selecting people to supply goods and services.

There's even a list on this new website that says exactly what sort of services and goods the NFL is looking for.

[16:00:00]

And I should say that, you know, there may be some people who may be against this sort of DEI initiative trying to make this change, but the NFL says they remain committed to this. They think it's good business. And they say they want to lead in this area. They want to set the benchmark across the sports industry, but eventually across all companies to show that they are paying attention to the need to expand opportunity here.

SANCHEZ: Athena Jones, thank you so much for that report.

Thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. Jessica --

DEAN: Thanks for having me, always.

SANCHEZ: -- thanks for sitting in the chair. Come back tomorrow, please.

DEAN: I will.

SANCHEZ: You do the same, but don't go anywhere because "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.