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U.S. Charges Russian-American Political Pundit with Violating Sanctions; Hunter Biden Offers to Plead Guilty in Tax Trial Without Deal; Trump Gives Economic Speech a Day After Harris Outlined Her Plans; Kansas City Chiefs Begin Quest for Historic Super Bowl Three- Peat. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 05, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New today, the Justice Department has unsealed criminal charges against this man, a Russian American, Dimitri Simes, a political pundit who was in contact with key members of Trump's campaign team during the 2016 election. According to the indictment, Simes was paid more than $1 million from a Russian news outlet in violation of U.S. sanctions. Details of the charges coming one day after the DOJ announced sweeping efforts to counter Russia's influence in the upcoming elections.

We have CNN national security reporter Zach Cohen here with details on this. All right, what are you learning, Zach, about these wide-ranging actions by U.S. officials?

ZACH COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, it's been a busy couple days for the Justice Department. As you mentioned, prosecutors unsealing an indictment against Dimitri Simes, who you may remember all the way back from the Mueller report. His name is mentioned several times in connection to his contact with members of Trump's inner circle back in 2016, including people like Jared Kushner, who he was trying to push information about Russia, talking points about Russia, too, back then.

Now he's once again in the news facing criminal charges in connection to a different Russian influence operation targeting the 2024 election, trying to sow that discord, that broader objective of the Kremlin.

Now, prosecutors say that Dimitri Simes was in direct contact with Vladimir Putin himself and that he was receiving a million dollars to really cast his show on RT, which is the Russian state-owned media arm of the Kremlin, cast the narrative of a pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine narrative with the objective of sort of swaying public opinion in that favor.

And that is a theme of what we've heard from the Justice Department and other U.S. agencies over just the last two days, but also the last several months, that Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin overall are trying to wage this broad disinformation, broad influence campaign, both targeting the U.S. election in a pro-Trump sort of a way. But also trying to do so in a way that bolsters their own security

initiatives. And the primary one is trying to erode U.S. support for the war in Ukraine. And that is something we saw yesterday with the indictment of two Russian nationals, a connection also with RT, that Russian state-owned media organization.

And the Justice Department outlining a very sophisticated influence campaign that involved a Tennessee-based -- on U.S. soil, a Tennessee- based media company that's linked to several right-wing social media stars with hundreds and millions of subscribers on both YouTube and other social media platforms. These Russian individuals were allegedly really trying to shape that coverage of that U.S.-based media arm, trying to sow and implant that narrative, that pro-Russian narrative, in the minds of Americans without them really knowing about it.

KEILAR: All right, Zach, thank you so much for the latest on that -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have breaking news into CNN on the Hunter Biden trial, his tax evasion trial. Let's get straight to CNN's Evan Perez, who's outside of court for us. Evan, we understand that Hunter Biden's attorneys have now adjusted.

Earlier, they were asking for this Alford plea to strike a deal with prosecutors. Now they've moved away from that. Now they're saying that Hunter Biden is prepared to plead guilty to the nine tax offenses without striking a deal with prosecutors.

[15:35:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris. Look, we are getting a lot of twists and turns now in federal court. The court hearing is still ongoing.

But at this point, what Hunter Biden's attorneys are offering on his behalf is for him to plead guilty to all the counts. He's facing three felony counts for tax evasion, six misdemeanor counts for failing to file and pay his taxes on time. And under this scenario that they have now floated, he would accept to plead guilty, but it is not part of a deal with prosecutors.

We expect that as part of this hearing, as it continues, that prosecutors are still going to object to some parts of this. But this is the latest gambit that Hunter Biden is trying to pull to essentially try to avoid a long trial. We expect that this trial would go about five weeks. It's a very expensive thing.

Hunter Biden, of course, was already on trial in Delaware earlier this year, and he was found guilty on those gun charges. So what prosecutors -- what Hunter Biden's attorneys did first this morning was to offer that Alford plea, where he would proclaim his innocence, but accept whatever punishment would come for these charges, acknowledging essentially that the government has enough evidence to prove his guilt in this courthouse.

So at this point now, they've changed tactic. And this new attempt is, again, avoid a trial, but in this way, he would plead guilty, accept a guilty plea on all of these counts, but it would be not part of a deal with prosecutors. It's another twist in this very kind of bizarre day, frankly, that we've had here.

I should note, there's still 120 jurors sitting there. They're in the cafeteria having lunch just a few minutes ago. Some of them waiting to hear whether or not we're going to have voir dire, whether we're going to have jury selection on this case, which was supposed to start earlier today.

So right now, we don't know what the judge is going to do, whether he's going to accept this latest attempt. Earlier, the Alford plea, the judge said he was not ready to accept that and he would spend some time thinking about it. So it appears what Hunter's trying to do is leave this building with some kind of deal, whether prosecutors accept it or not, we will find out.

SANCHEZ: And Evan, we know that on that Alford plea, prosecutors on David Weiss's team said that they would not, under any circumstance, accept one or agree to one. Do you think that they're more likely to now, if Hunter Biden is saying that he's willing to accept a guilty plea effectively, work with the defense team on a plea deal? How would this move forward?

PEREZ: Right. I mean, that's now what the Hunter Biden team is essentially doing is calling the bluff of prosecutors who, as you pointed out earlier today, said, no way, we're never going to accept this. This is against Justice Department policy in general to accept these Alford pleas where you still pretend -- you still proclaim that you're innocent.

And so what they've decided to do now is throw a new twist into this. Now, it is possible that this could satisfy prosecutors in the end, because in the end, what they want is for Hunter Biden to admit that he committed these crimes. By the way, he was ready to plead guilty to this last year before the plea deal fell apart at that courthouse in Wilmington last year.

So it is clear that they're trying to make sure that they walk out of this courthouse trying to resolve this case without going to trial.

SANCHEZ: And Evan, quickly, part of the reason that original plea deal fell apart last year is because there was an open question as to whether or not Hunter Biden could face more charges. Do we know where the investigation into him stands? Is that still a possibility? Could that come up again as he tries to strike a plea deal now?

PEREZ: Yes, you know, that is a great question. I think prosecutors have tried to leave that open. According to the sources we've talked to, that case is not going anywhere.

It's not likely that he will end up facing those charges on foreign lobbying charges. But it is something that prosecutors have held over his head, so to speak, to try to force him to admit to these charges. It is still an open question -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Evan Perez, live for us outside the courtroom in Los Angeles with breaking news in the Hunter Biden trial.

Stay with CNN. We're taking a quick break. We'll be right back.

[15:40:00]

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SANCHEZ: Former President Donald Trump is promising dirt cheap gas prices, massive tax cuts, and the slashing of federal regulations if he is reelected. But it may not be so straightforward. Today, Trump unveiled his new economic plans.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Kristen Holmes, who was there in New York as he was doing it. Kristen, walk us through what Trump said.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, this is really the most extensive kind of plan that he has laid out. Generally, he just talks about how his administration was better than Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's administration. But now he actually had some proposals.

So some top lines from that here. I think we have it up on a screen. I can go into a little bit of detail.

One was, as you said, tackling government regulations. At one point, he said that he would get rid of 10 regulations for every new regulation. He also said that Elon Musk had already agreed to lead a government efficiency commission, something that there's already been an enormous amount of pushback on. This would be a commission that looked at fraud and waste within government spending.

[15:45:00]

He said that they would draw unspent funds from the Biden administration. And he doubled down on this idea of sweeping tariffs on imports, he said -- and this is something we've heard from economists -- that it wouldn't hurt inflation. It would actually help with the inflation. Economists have disagreed with that.

He also embraced cryptocurrency, something we've seen him do a lot of lately. At one point, he said he wanted to make America the world capital for crypto and for Bitcoin. He also doubled down on his tax cuts, saying he wanted to make them permanent.

Of course, one of the things people are going to really hone in on is something that you said, which was those dirt cheap gas prices. People are still paying quite a bit at the pump. And that's something that really matters to him.

Economists are weighing in on this plan. There is a lot of pushback, but also a lot of people saying that some of this is doable. So a little bit of both here, obviously, as we look at these two plans.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, thank you so much.

Let's get some analysis now with CNN economics and political commentator Catherine Rampell. Catherine, thank you so much for being with us on set, I should note.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Lucky me.

SANCHEZ: Yes. What are your takeaways from Trump's speech?

RAMPELL: To the extent that he said things that were coherent and some of it was just sort of words randomly chosen out of a dictionary, I think. To the extent that he said anything that was coherent, it was kind of what we would expect. It was a promise of more income tax cuts, higher tariffs, which, by the way, tariffs are taxes.

And if you look at the distribution of what he has proposed, most people would see more increase in taxes through tariffs than they would see tax cuts through income tax cuts. So some of that, yes, it more than gets wiped out. So you heard tariffs, taxes.

You heard this government efficiency commission, which I think at best will probably do nothing. We've had lots of blue ribbon panels before. At worst might help Donald Trump identify more enemies whom he can weaponize state power against and then kind of more of the same deregulation, which he tried to do in the first term.

SANCHEZ: I'm curious about the distinctions between what he's laying out as an economic vision and that of Vice President Kamala Harris, because you had Goldman Sachs come out today and in large part because of his promise to jack up tariffs, essentially say that her plan would be better for stimulating the economy, getting the economy going, helping folks that need help than his. How do you see it?

RAMPELL: So to be clear, there are a lot of unknowns about both of their economic plans and what would actually make it into law, depending on who's in Congress, who controls both chambers of Congress anyway. I would say that there are some things in Donald Trump's plan that are obviously bad for the economy, obviously bad for inflation and GDP growth.

So one of them is tariffs. That's only one that would raise costs for consumers or raise taxes, depending on how you look at it. Another thing would be deporting a large share of the workforce. That would likely also lead to higher prices, particularly for the industries that are most dependent on a foreign-born workforce like agriculture and food services.

Politicizing the Fed, also likely to lead to higher inflation and other things that his advisors have talked about, like devaluing the dollar. All of those would be unequivocally bad.

The things like deregulation, it depends on what that actually means. And if you look at his record during his first term, he did some deregulation. He actually increased regulation on certain things, including legal immigration. So I don't know, that might be a wash.

Kamala Harris's plan, again, a lot of question marks there, and some of the things I've been very critical of, like the price-gouging stuff. You know, in fairness, it probably won't become law, so maybe don't worry about it so much. Her other tax-related proposals, I think they're probably unlikely to have a major effect on the economy, in the sense that her increase in the capital gains rate, I know that people who would be paying that gains rate are unhappy about it, but it's probably not going to have a major consequence for the economy.

Many of her proposals would help individual families, even if there isn't a big macro effect, like the baby bonus, her proposal to have a $6,000 tax credit for the parents of newborns. I don't think that's going to have a huge effect nationwide on the economy, but for some particular families, it would be very helpful.

SANCHEZ: Catherine Rampell, great to have you here with us live. Thanks so much.

Still plenty more news to come on NEWS CENTRAL. Stay tuned.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The Kansas City Chiefs kick off their quest tonight for a historic third straight Super Bowl. A three-peat as the NFL regular season gets underway.

KEILAR: The defending champs taking on the Baltimore Ravens in a battle between two of the league's best quarterbacks. CNN's Coy Wire is here with this. All right, Coy, a lot of hype around this game.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Oh, a lot of hype. It's the most wonderful time of the year for hundreds of millions of NFL fans around the world. I already apologized to my wife because for the next four months I will be a pretend GM of an imaginary football team.

It's all good though. It will be the 2024 season tonight kicking off. It's the Swifties, Besties, Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes and the two- time defending champion Chiefs looking to pull off that first ever Super Bowl three-peat.

They're going to face those Ravens and their two-time league MVP Lamar Jackson, their new running back Derrick Henry and their perennially punishing defense emotions will be running high. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK MAHOMES, 3-TIME SUPER BOWL MVP: Obviously, you want to play in the Super Bowl at the end of the year, but this is a big stage as well. And so to be able to get that experience to play a great football team, I'm excited for these guys to get out there and the guys that haven't been here, see what it's like to be on that type of stage.

TRAVIS KELCE, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS TIGHT END: It's exciting. It's the first game of the season.

[15:55:00]

Everybody wants to come out and, you know, show how explosive they are, show how great they or how much better they got from last year. And it's just a great opportunity to be going up against such a great team.

LAMAR JACKSON, 2-TIME NFL, MVP: I'm approaching it like any other game, you know, but it's the start of the season. So we've got to make a great impression for the first game of the season.

Any game I play and I feel like it's a revenge game. So I'm not just I just want to look at this game like a revenge game. Anybody we played, no matter if we beat them or lost to them prior previous years, I just want to win.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIRE: All right, Lamar Jackson is 1 and 3 all time against Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs. And he mentioned that revenge game. This is a rematch of last year's AFC title game that sent the Chiefs through to the Super Bowl.

KEILAR: Revenge game, harsh stuff.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's going to be exciting. Great to see football is back. Coy Wire, thank you so much. Good luck with that fantasy football team, by the way.

WIRE: Let's go, baby.

KEILAR: Sorry, Coy's wife.

All right, still ahead. What started as a joke is now reality. Chipotle is getting in the Halloween spirit. We're going to tell you how.

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SANCHEZ: There are some age-old questions that stump us at times.

[16:00:00]

Burrito or bowl, guac or queso, both is the answer. Trick or treat, now Chipotle has a new boo. Spirit Halloween. They teamed up for what they're calling the burrito collection.

KEILAR: Burrito. And here are some of the options. A foil burrito, a fork, a napkin, to-go bag, even a cup. The drink, though, sold separately, 40 bucks a pop here. Oh, that's accentuating, isn't it? They're building off a running joke online where it posted fake body suits with the caption, found your costume.

Joke's on us, I guess.

SANCHEZ: 40 bucks inflation.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

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