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President Joe Biden And Donald Trump Making Final Preparations For CNN Debate; President Joe Biden Prepares For "A Very Disciplined" Donald Trump To Show Up At Debate; Three Days Until Joe Biden And Donald Trump Face Off In CNN Presidential Debate; Donald Trump's Lawyers Argue Special Prosecutor Is Unlawfully Funded, In Push To Get Case Thrown Out; Supreme Court Ads Two Additional Opinion Days This Week As Blockbuster Term Nears End. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 24, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:41]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Just three days (AUDIO GAP) former President Trump (AUDIO GAP) in a CNN primetime debate, Trump hitting the trail and testing out some potential debate strategies. The Biden camp says the president is preparing for many different versions of Trump.

Plus, the second of today's hearings in Trump's classified documents case set to take place in minutes. The special counsel's office will be calling for a gag order on the former president, and we're live outside court with the latest.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And the death toll climbing after attacks on places of worship and other targets in southern Russia. We'll tell you who the Kremlin thinks is responsible.

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

KEILAR: The countdown really is officially on. In just three days, President Biden and former President Trump will face off in CNN's primetime presidential debate, which is the first major showdown of the 2024 race, and it is the earliest general election debate in U.S. history.

Right now, both candidates are honing their strategies. President Biden getting ready for different versions of his predecessor on Thursday's debate stage, including a more disciplined Trump.

Well, he has been preparing all weekend at Camp David.

SANCHEZ: Trump meantime taking a different approach. He's holding private policy discussions with advisors and allies, and he spent a chunk of his weekend on the campaign trail.

Let's get the latest from the White House with CNN's MJ Lee and CNN's Kristen Holmes who's live for us in West Palm Beach tracking the former president. Kristen, let's start with you. What more are you hearing about Trump's plans for the coming days?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPDENT: Well, currently the former president is in Bedminster on his golf resort. He'll be at a fundraiser in Louisiana later today. And then he comes here to Palm Beach where he'll be hunkered down for the next two days until that debate, holding various policy sessions, having financial calls, meeting with his top advisors as they really try to hone his messaging ahead of Thursday's debate.

And I talked about Biden preparing for potentially two different or multiple different versions of Donald Trump, so are his advisors, they have stressed to him that it is important for him to focus on the issues like the economy, like immigration, things that he does well on in polling, but as you know, Donald Trump is tough to keep on message.

In fact, his team says they don't even use the word preparation with him because it's likely that he'll veer off course instead, as you said, they refer to it as policy sessions.

Now, Trump was on the campaign trail, as you noted, and he told the audience, the crowd at one of his rallies as to how he should handle the debate, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How should I handle him? Should I be tough and nasty? Or should I be -- should I be -- she's saying no. Should I be tough and nasty and just say, you're the worst president in history? Or should I be nice and calm and let him speak?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And just a reminder that Donald Trump's team and former president himself both agreed to the terms that those mics would be muted after they're finished answering the question, so he doesn't really have an option on letting President Biden speak.

[14:05:01]

However, his advisors will hope that he will be calm, that he will be measured. And then again, he will focus on that messaging, particularly around immigration and the economy, things he does well at a polling, but of course, you never know which Donald Trump is going to show up.

KEILAR: Yes, we will see. Kristen, thank you. Now to MJ Lee at the White House. MJ what are you learning about how President Biden is preparing?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we certainly don't expect to see much of President Biden in public the next few days as he is hunkered down at Camp David, and joined by more than a dozen of his top aides to prepare. That intensity certainly underscores the high stakes moment for the Biden team going into Thursday and just how much energy the team is pouring into preparing for this face off against former President Trump.

But the bottom line is, nobody on the Biden team knows exactly what version of Donald Trump is going to show up Thursday night. And a senior adviser is telling me that they're preparing for really all options, including the possibility of a very disciplined Donald Trump, this advisor was saying that so far, they think the former president 2024 campaign has been a lot more disciplined than the 2020 campaign or even going back to 2016.

So, that is a possibility that they are preparing for, and they think that this could all translate to the former president being just a little more restrained, a little bit more on message certainly compared to the Donald Trump that we saw on the debate stage in 2020, when he really unleashed a torrent of insults, and there was some name calling and a lot of sort of rambling answers that the moderator had a hard time keeping in check.

Now, this is also just one of the big reasons why mock debates are so important for the Biden team. Aides have said that the important thing that they see about these mock debates is trying to give President Biden sort of the experience of going up against Donald Trump, including replicating how relentless he can be on the debate stage, we certainly know that they are also preparing for really a wide range of policy issues that could come up, including reproductive rights, the economy, threats to democracy, really any topic that could potentially come up on Thursday night, they certainly want the president to be prepared for.

KEILAR: All right, MJ, thank you so much for that, we appreciate it.

Many voters have made it clear that they just don't like the choices, either choice for president this cycle. And it's not clear if Thursday's debate is really going to do anything to change their minds on that.

Joining us now is CNN Chief National Correspondent John King. All right, I mean, that's the truth of it. It's kind of sad news. But I wonder what you're watching for on Thursday.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, one of the big challenges in this big debate, you get the largest audience in the campaign so far, my biggest question is, do they just spar each other, they don't like each other. They don't like each other, have been in the same room that close in a very, very long time. So, does that take it over? And it just becomes nasty?

Or do they -- are they disciplined enough to deal with their biggest weaknesses? For President Biden, that is questions about his age. So, is it a spirited, is it a lively performance?

More importantly, I would argue, it's questions about do you have a plan to deal with the cost of living. The president gets defensive sometimes, he says, look at the numbers, the numbers are better. But in my travels around the country, rents are going up, families --

growing families can't sell their own home, even if the value has gone up because they can't get a mortgage to buy in the same market. Grocery sticker shock is still pretty high. What does the president say about that?

For President Trump, fascinated. One of his problems in the suburbs is getting like a Nikki Haley voted to come back over. They don't like January 6th, how does he answer the question? You know President Biden's going to push him on January 6th.

Is he still going to say I would pardon those people? Or does his tone change there? That's one of his biggest weaknesses, the tone and the threat to democracy. So, how do they deal with their biggest weaknesses?

SANCHEZ: To Kristen's point, we've been hearing these rumblings about a very disciplined Donald Trump, I think it's fair to say many folks are skeptical. Many observers are skeptical.

Going into the preps at Camp David, how does Biden prepare for either scenario, because as Kristen said, you don't know what Trump you're going to get.

KING: Some of this becomes -- I've been at this a long time, forgive me. And some of this to me becomes Washington silly season.

Because if you -- if you watch a Trump rally, watch a Trump rally. It goes on for like 90 minutes, right? They can go even longer than that. There are many, many Donald Trumps that's who he is. He sometimes comes in with a focus, sometimes he sticks to the teleprompter. Sometimes somebody in the audience gets his attention, he goes off on a tangent. Sometimes he disappears into stories, it's like, where are we going here?

That's just who he is. He's an entertainer, and he's a politician. Sometimes he's disciplined. Sometimes he's not, sometimes you think he's being disciplined. And suddenly he goes off on a tangent.

So, I think the idea that you think which one is going to show up, no, several are going to show up, because that's who he is. That's -- it can be his biggest weakness sometimes, but it's also part of his appeal to his base, that he is different and unpredictable.

And so, that's what you have to prepare for. He is unpredictable.

KEILAR: Let's talk about one of the logistical details of this, which is that if it's not your turn to speak as a candidate, then your microphone is going to be muted.

But I was thinking about it and I thought, you know, your microphone might be muted. But if you're speaking, the audience may not hear you, but you could still be distracting to the person next to you whose microphone the audience could hear. I mean, what do you think this could create?

[14:10:02]

KING: I think this is a really interesting experiment in the sense that you're right, because you know, you can't hear me as well. But people can still hear me if I raise my voice.

And so, this, you know --

KEILAR: And you're distracting me to if you're talking. So, you know, so there's one of the candidates and the odds are this would be Trump, trying to say the media is trying to silence me. They don't want me to have a spirited debate. So, they turn my mic off so that I can't answer him.

I would assume that the format often becomes an issue -- an issue too. The candidates will each come in with a strategy if things aren't going well. And you need something to complain about. It's usually about the moderator.

So. the format is, it's just -- it's an old -- it's an age old foil in politics that they take a shot, you could ask Chris Wallace, he was there for Biden and Trump last time, you can go back before that to campaigns before I go.

It is interesting. It's a format that, you know, we at CNN think was very necessary because of just the chaos last time of the shouting over each other. The American people deserve to have answers on all of these legitimate questions.

But we'll see, I mean, you know, you go in with rules, but these two candidates agreed to the rules. They could also agree to break them.

And if that happens, that's an interesting challenge for the moderator. It's not you know, Jake and Dana are very talented, they know what they're doing.

But it is a challenge then, do you say no? You signed a paper to agree to these rules, would you say, OK, gentlemen, are you sure? Because you just ripped up your plan? Go for it.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it'll be entertaining no matter what happens.

John, I'm curious to go back to something you alluded to before and that's what's on the mind of voters right now. You laid out some of the issues that are going to be at play at the debate, which do you think wins out in terms of the attention of the folks that you've been talking to?

KING: Well, so, let me give you an example here, and you'll hear some sound here from a woman named Linda Rooney. She's a Nikki Haley voter. She voted for Nikki Haley two months almost after Nikki Haley get out of the race in the Pennsylvania primary, she wants her party back. She voted for Trump in 2016. She couldn't do it in 2020, so she voted for Biden.

Now, she is so torn because she's a Republican by DNA. She doesn't want to vote to reelect a Democratic president, but she can't stand Donald Trump. And so, just you talked about at the beginning about how so many Americans, so we get this from the far left to the far right, like, really? Is this the best we can do?

So, listen to Linda Rooney with this choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: In terms of your personal politics, you say a caring conservative. You decided to vote for Nikki Haley in a primary a couple of months after she dropped out of the race.

LINDA ROONEY, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Yes.

KING: Why?

ROONEY: I'm sad that we only have these two choices, honestly. And I'm tired of celebrities sort of being in politics. I don't -- I don't like Trump. But I have to say we are -- for us, personally, we were better off when he was president.

I don't like how you can't -- he's so unreliable in some ways. You never know what he's going to do next. I just want a normal person. Like, I just want someone normal. I don't want a celebrity. And I don't have confidence in Biden. So, I feel like I don't have a choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So, I hope people can listen to this podcast because we've stopped listening to each other. And so, if you listen to people talk for five, 10, 15 minutes about their wrestling and their torment about the choices, people with whom you might disagree, but we can learn from each other. Whether you listen to these voters or the thing about (INAUDIBLE) says she cannot forgive Trump for January 6th, but she might vote for him.

I mean, think about that. So, that you -- think about that, because she's a Republican by DNA. So, she's going to be watching the debate. The challenge for President Biden, she says she'll either vote Trump or write somebody else in it, she won't vote for Biden, if you're Joe Biden, she lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, people like her will decide that state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which usually settles the White House.

The president has to convince her, if I can't win you back, write somebody in. Donald Trump has to convince her I'm safe. I'm OK. You might not like my behavior, but I'm a Republican like you. That's the big challenge.

KEILAR: This is the phenomena of the double hater, right? But it's so interesting and I just love how you do it, John, where you bring, you know, they're real people with very nuanced opinions and it's so important you hear from them.

KING: You learn a lot listening from them.

KEILAR: Yes. KING: Again, for people at home, if you're a strong Democrat, strong Republican, you might completely disagree with some of these people we can learn from. It's like scouting the opposition team if you're a sports fan. Listen, we learn when we listen.

KEILAR: That's really wonderful.

SANCHEZ: Always amazing insight. John King, thank you so much.

KING: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: And be sure to listen to John's special All Over The Map podcast series wherever you get your podcast. Episode one is out right now.

KEILAR: And also be sure to join CNN as President Biden and former President Trump meat for their first debate of the 2024 election. Our Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will be moderating all live from Atlanta this Thursday beginning at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

SANCHEZ: Zeroing in on some of the former president's legal troubles, the judge in his classified documents case who Trump appointed Aileen Cannon is holding the second pretrial hearing of the day in Trump's case, this time over the special counsel's request for a limited gag order on the former president.

KEILAR: This is coming after a hearing this morning on Trump's bid to just get the case dismissed where his attorneys argued that Jack Smith's office is being unlawfully funded.

CNN's Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is outside of court. He's with us now. So, Evan, what more should we be expecting from the gag order hearing?

[14:15:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we will see the president make -- the former president make the argument, his lawyers will make the argument that any kind of restriction on his speech is a violation of his first amendment rights. And of course, they will also raise the idea the fact is that not only is he campaigning, but also he is scheduled to be on a debate stage later this week. And how could it be that a judge can impose any kind of gag on the former president when the person who he believes put him -- has brought these charges against him is going to be opposite him on the -- on the debate stage. That's going to be one of the arguments you're going to hear from the defense team this afternoon.

Now, the prosecution over the weekend really added some of the language that they believe is of concern and why they're asking the judge to make a gag order as part of the defense -- as part of -- as part of his release conditions. One of the things they brought up is the fact that people have been making threats, including against an FBI agent who was involved in the Hunter Biden investigation, that person made a threat against FBI agents saying that they were going to be slaughtered and hunted down. And the prosecutors also said that the former president does a lot of things to incite his followers and takes absolutely no responsibility for some of the consequences of those actions. That's part of their argument to Judge Cannon.

Now, of course, you guys know that. This is probably a very tall order for the -- for the prosecution to get any kind of restriction from this judge who views the former president as somebody who deserves a lot of deference.

SANCHEZ: Evan Perez live for us from Fort Pierce, Florida. Thanks so much for the update.

Let's discuss the case now with retired Judge George Grasso. He served on the Queens County Supreme Court in New York.

Judge, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. What do you make of the argument from the defense that the special counsel holds too much political power without sufficient accountability?

GEORGE GRASSO, RETIRED JUDGE, QUEENS COUNTY SUPREME COURT, NEW YORK: Great to be with you.

So, objectively, if I would just look at it using the normal rules of stare decisis, meaning that precedent should be a guide to how we're going to rule.

Now, I wouldn't make much of it. We have a history going as far back as 1974 in U.S. v. Nixon, where a unanimous Supreme Court forced Nixon on the request of a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to turn over key tapes in the Watergate case, which spelled the end of the Nixon presidency.

Since then, we've had special prosecutor laws that have been upheld, right, through -- we saw it with President Clinton. We've seen -- we've seen special prosecutors over the decades.

But the rules of stare decisis don't seem to matter as much to this particular Supreme Court. Let's look at Roe v. Wade 1973, 7-2. Now, it's no longer the law of the land.

I just use that as an analogy, because I think in this particular case, with this hearing, there's no reason objectively that Judge Cannon needs to be doing this huge hearing. And letting you know, Amicus says -- people filed amicus briefs, friend of the court, a warrant actually even parties to the case come in and to a hearing.

Now, a lot of people are attributing a lot of legal scholars who I respect, or it should -- well, she doesn't really know what she's doing. This just shows how incompetent she is.

Well, I'm kind of looking at it as another angle. I think, you know, listen to what she's saying, listen to the question, the probing questions that she's asked, she may be very well getting ready on the basis of this hearing to strike down the current statutory scheme, and recommend that the case be dismissed on those serious procedural grounds.

Now, I believe as mostly everyone else does. If she did that, the 11th Circuit would come down very hard and probably rather quickly overruling her, but then we also know the Trump team is going to go right to the Supreme Court at their first opportunity. And I now know that justices like Thomas and Alito, just to name two obvious suspects off the top of my head, might not embrace these theories, at least to the point that this case would go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Furthermore, it's particularly ominous, because that kind of a ruling and that kind of a procedure, and what we call the Mar-a-Lago case, the documents case would also have the potential to undermine -- would undermine Jack Smith's ability to prosecute the January 6th case, because you know, that the -- that the Trump attorneys would jump right on that.

At a minimum, if the Supreme Court took the case, it would just create more chaos that would go on indefinitely, as we sit here tonight, still not getting a ruling from the Supreme Court on the immunity case.

[14:20:06]

So, I say take this quite seriously.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And as you point out, it would up end some 50 years of precedent. Judge George Grasso, we have to leave the conversation there. But we appreciate your perspective, sir. Thanks.

GRASSO: Thank you, Borris. Appreciate the opportunity, sir.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still ahead, new details from the Supreme Court. The court is adding two opinion days this week as this blockbuster term nears its end, what this could signal. Could we see a ruling on immunity this week? That's ahead.

Also, protests outside your Los Angeles synagogue turning ugly as police struggled to keep pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators separated. How President Biden is responding and how quickly this issue is becoming key for this presidential election.

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[14:25:32]

SANCHEZ: News just into CNN from the Supreme Court, justices have announced that they've added two new dates to issue opinions on cases this week and there are some major decisions that they haven't gotten to yet, so this could be a big week.

KEILAR: It sure could. Let's get straight to CNN's Joan Biskupic who is gearing up for the week to end all weeks. OK, so the quarter already planned issue opinions on Wednesday. Now, Thursday and Friday are on the calendar. So, tell us more about this. JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Yes, it looks like they've got more of a chance now to finish everything this week, there is still a possibility that the final case or cases could come next Monday.

But right now, they have about a dozen cases left, having a full three days of opinions issued at 10:00 a.m. All those -- all those dates beginning with this Wednesday, kind of increases the chances that they'll be done.

It also increases the chances that they're going to give us something fairly exciting on Thursday, the day of the presidential debate.

But these justices have a rule that they try to finish -- announce their cases when they're actually done. They say that they don't pay attention to what's going out on in the real world.

But I have a feeling they're very mindful of the Thursday debate. And that could influence whether we get Trump related cases on Thursday. It might not. But I would think that there's a greater chance that we'll get the most important case that we've been waiting for. And whether former President Donald Trump is shielded from criminal prosecution for actions taken in 2020, which will dictate whether he's subject to any kind of trial before the 2024 presidential election.

I have a feeling that the chance is we're more likely to get that on Wednesday, on Friday, or possibly the following Monday, but nobody knows right now.

And the other thing I just want to add, they -- some of them don't even know because see this all -- they're writing -- they're writing, they're exchanging drafts, they're making amendments, they're having little duels in the footnotes.

So, they're not -- you know, they know how they've decided cases, they just don't know yet how they've completely finalized the rationale. They're not sitting around with a stack of papers just ready to hand them out like tonight.

SANCHEZ: Well, what does that look like practically, those duels in the footnotes as you put it?

BISKUPIC: Oh, it's exciting, because I know that from seeing justice's papers, once they go into archives, such as at the Library of Congress, and it's like, you know when you're finishing a big news project, you know, you type something out, you get it all finished, and then some editor or producer, in their case, another justice comes in and says, oh, I think we should tweak this this way.

But as they accommodate tweaks by one justice, they don't want to alienate any other justices who are part of the majority, they've got this thing called holding five. Holding five refers to a five justice majority, which is the bare minimum for any decision.

So, all these little requested amendments have to be sort of accepted by everyone who's in the majority on one of these hotly contested opinions, not just the author. And they do it, they still do everything on paper, they all have computers, of course.

But once they finish a successive draft of an opinion, it gets circulated by a messenger in an envelope, although they do work by computer too.

So, and then when the whole thing is done, it has to go to the print shop. And you know, citations are checked. So, it's a -- it's a long process. But really, it shouldn't go down to the wire like it does every year, and they want to finish by the end of June. That's kind of their goal. But this year, we'll see.

KEILAR: Who are we to ping someone for working under deadline? You know, it's funny that we're kind of nerding out on the process.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's fascinating.

KEILAR: It's fascinating.

BISKUPIC: It is. It's so interesting to see the kinds of changes that go on at the last minute. Occasionally. Occasionally, there's a switch to vote, a switch vote in June, there have been a handful of switch votes in June, which is, you know, the end of the line here.

But I can't think of any time where I learned of a switch vote in the last week in June. So, hopefully that won't happen. And we'll get all our biggest decisions by Friday.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's a fascinating glimpse at what happens behind closed doors and at least with the immunity case when that could potentially redefine the presidency.

Joan Biskupic, thanks so much.

BISKUPIC: Sure. Thank you.

KEILAR: And still to come, NASA calling off a spacewalk at the last minute, it is the second walk to be canceled in the last few weeks. We'll tell you why, next.

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