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Trump Hush Money Sentencing Delayed; Trump Files Appeal in E. Jean Carroll Case. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 06, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:32]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Between the courtroom and the campaign trail, today, a familiar juggling act for former President Donald Trump. His legal team is fighting to get one verdict tossed, while the judge in another case is set to weigh in on his sentencing, and the former president lashing out about the issues he's facing.

Plus, a dramatic court appearance for the 14-year-old accused in that Georgia high school shooting, and his father also charged with murder. Meantime, the victim's families just feet away inside the courtroom.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a CNN exclusive: the risk of Russian sabotage to key undersea cables, a potential threat that could cripple global communications carried out by a secretive military unit.

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

SANCHEZ: Right now, we are awaiting a judge's decision on a potentially historic move that could make for a September surprise unlike anything we have seen before in politics.

Judge Juan Merchan is deciding whether to postpone a sentencing date in the hush money case against former President Donald Trump. His own team is admitting that this could, in theory, lead to the -- quote -- "immediate incarceration" of the former president.

But that's not the only legal battle we're following today. Trump was in court fighting a different case today.

CNN's Kara Scannell has been following this all in New York.

So, Kara, walk us through what transpired earlier today in court in the E. Jean Carroll case.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, so Donald Trump appeared in court today.

The whole session was less than 30 minutes. And he was not required to attend, but he chose to show up for this oral argument. This was him appealing the verdict where the jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million and found that Trump sexually abused her and then defamed her when he denied that she that he raped her, said he didn't know her and suggested that she made up the whole story to sell copies of a book.

So he walked into the courtroom today. It's a small courtroom, pretty narrow. He walked right past E. Jean Carroll sitting in the front seat of a table. There was a seat across the aisle that was empty at Trump's table. He chose not to sit there and walked to the other end to take the seat furthest from E. Jean Carroll.

At no point that I see any eye contact between the two. The focus, though, was on the attorneys in this relatively quick court hearing. Now, his lawyer John Sauer began by telling the judges that this was a quintessential case of he said/she said and that this was funded by Trump's political enemies.

So one of the appeals court judges cut him off then and said, this case is about your arguments here about the evidence. So let's focus on those arguments. And he also reminded Trump's lawyer that it is very difficult to overturn a jury's verdict and asking him to really focus in on that.

And what Trump's lawyers argued is that a testimony from two other women who both accused Trump in the past of sexual assault should not have gone before the jury, arguing that it wasn't even a crime when one of these women testified that in the 1970s Trump groped her on an airplane. He said that wasn't even illegal then. It shouldn't have come in into this trial to -- last year.

Now, Carroll's attorney got up and said in fact it was a crime to assault anybody on an airplane, even if it wasn't a sexual assault. So that was one of the technical legal arguments they were making. Another one was that they said the "Access Hollywood" tape should not have come in. That was Trump's lawyer saying that he shouldn't have been able to play that before the jury.

Carroll's lawyer said it was essentially a confession when Trump said on that tape caught on that mic about how he would just grab women because he's a celebrity. He said they let him do it.

Now, no decision today. Trump left without answering questions from reporters. Of course, he went then to Trump Tower and spoke a lot about this court hearing today and what he thinks of the trial and the allegations by Carroll -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: And, Kara, we also at any moment could get this decision from Judge Juan Merchan. This is in the hush money case. And it has to do with the timing of Trump's sentencing.

What are you expecting to see?

SCANNELL: Yes, Boris, we're standing by waiting for this decision to come down. Judge Merchan has informed both Trump and the Manhattan DA's office that he would issue this decision today.

We're more than halfway through the court day, so we're expecting this decision any moment. Trump's lawyers asked for the sentencing, which is currently set for September 18, to be delayed until after the November election. [13:05:04]

One argument that they made is they said that this was election interference if it were to go before the election. They also are saying that the judge has to rule on their claims that Trump should not have -- this trial, this verdict should have been thrown out because of presidential immunity.

The judge said he will issue that decision the 16th. Trump's lawyers say they need more than two days in order to go to the appeals court if they're going to appeal that. Now, the DA's office, they have not opposed delaying the sentencing. Instead, they're leaving it to the judge. And we're waiting to see what he says -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell outside the courthouse in Manhattan, please stand by for that decision. Thanks so much, Kara -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Former President Trump wasting no time after attending the appeals hearing in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case speaking from Trump Tower in New York.

CNN's Alayna Treene was there.

Alayna, what did he say?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, first of all, I just want to note, Brianna, that this was dubbed as a press conference following his attending that hearing this morning, but he did not take questions from the press, something I know left many reporters, including myself, pretty frustrated.

But, look, this was Donald Trump coming in and trying to defend himself. We know that in many of these legal battles, Donald Trump always sees himself as his own best defender. And he took to the podium today to really air some of his grievances, specifically about the Carroll case, but he also went into a litany of other cases against him as well.

And one notable thing is that he actually went into explicit detail about some of the allegations against him made by multiple women about sexual misconduct, not just E. Jean Carroll, but other people as well. He called them all scams.

And, of course, we heard many of the language that Donald Trump likes to use when he's talking about his legal cases. He attacked the judges. He attacked and demeaned the women who have made these allegations. He argued that the Justice Department was behind these cases. Of course, we know that the E. Jean Carroll case has nothing to do with the Justice Department.

It is a civil case, but he made that claim anyway. And he really went on to just argue that all of these were false and that they were election interference.

But one very notable moment that I took away from this, Brianna, was when he was standing up there. He had many of his legal attorneys and legal advisers behind him, and he noted that he's actually very disappointed with them. I want you to take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I feel sad that I have to come up here and explain it. I have all this legal talent, but legal talent cannot overcome rigged judges.

They can't overcome a 4 percent Republican area. And I'm disappointed in my legal talent, I will be honest with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Brianna, I think one big question that many people have is, why does Donald Trump do these type of events?

I can tell you that, again, apart from him thinking that he is his own best defender and him wanting to get up there and air his grievances, he also believes there is a political benefit. Of course, we are closer to the election now than when we went through a lot of his legal battles in the past few months.

But part of this is because he recognized that many people fund-raise for him, donate to his campaign, and it can energize some of them when they hear him talk about these cases. So that was a big motivation for this as well today -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you for that.

Let's talk more about this now with former Trump campaign adviser David Urban and former Biden White House director of message planning Meghan Hays.

David, I do wonder what you think about that, is, he looks sometimes obviously to capitalize on this and he's really able to do that. In the past, he said, look, my poll numbers go up and it's worked for him. Do you think that is true for this phase of the election, where he is looking to win over some of the later breaking, undecided voters?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, so, Brianna, I'm not quite sure of the president's motivation here, other than he is just -- he's very angry. He's angry that he's got to be facing -- his opinion -- bogus charges.

He's angry that the court is -- kind of feels that he stacked -- the judges are stacked against him, the charges are stacked against him from Alvin Bragg on the way through. And partly -- you're partly correct there in that, as you may recall, if we press the way, way back machine, Donald Trump was struggling way before Alvin Bragg filed those first charges.

And when Bragg filed the charges against Trump, it kind of galvanized the Republican Party against him, saying like, wow, this is really lawfare. Many commentators, some on this network and others, said that if his name wasn't Donald Trump, the charges wouldn't have been brought.

And so -- and these cases wouldn't have been tried. And so I think he's just reminding people of that. But I'm not quite sure that's exactly his motivation for doing it today, other than that he's very angry and he feels he's his own best defense.

SANCHEZ: Meghan, I'm curious about how Democrats approach this. You can argue that using Trump's legal woes against him, it's kind of already baked into the equation, especially with undecided voters.

[13:10:05]

I don't think there's many people out there that don't realize he's facing a lot of legal issues. But we haven't really seen Democrats even before today really go after him for this. President Biden sort of stayed away from it. Kamala Harris seems to stay away from it as well.

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yes, I think that's like woe is me act that Donald Trump keeps playing, I don't think that's helping him with undecided voters in these battleground states, which is where this election is going to be won.

So I think this is great for him to go out and galvanize his face and to raise money and to use these sort of moments of raising money and drawing attention to that.

KEILAR: Sorry to interrupt you, Meghan.

Let's go. We have some breaking news. We want to bring in Kara Scannell on this.

Kara, give us the latest here in this legal breaking news.

SCANNELL: Yes, right, Brianna. So Judge Juan Merchan has ruled on Trump's request to delay the sentencing, and he says that he will in fact delay it until November 26.

Now, he also said he's going to delay his decision on presidential immunity. That's Trump's challenge to this whole case after the Supreme Court said that certain evidence of official acts could not come in before a trial. That decision was expected on September 16, a judge saying that he will now do that also in November and not sentence former President Donald Trump until November 26.

So now this whole question of whether this verdict stands, where Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with that hush money scheme, and whether he will be sentenced, and, if so, too have time in prison or not time in prison, that is all now pushed off until after the election. So that is now off the table.

The former president will not be sentenced before the election. His sentencing will now come just around Thanksgiving, November 26 -- Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell, please stand by.

We want to bring in CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid.

Paula, this is obviously something that had been debated for a bit after Trump's conviction when the sentencing would come. Now we know it won't be until after November's election.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This is a big win for the Trump legal team.

They have been really focused on this for the past few months, trying pretty much every legal avenue to try to get this delayed, almost daily appeals and filings in an effort to either get this stayed or delayed.

And this is the second time that Judge Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw that seven-week trial in New York earlier this year, the second time he's delayed the sentencing. The sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11. It was then pushed back to September 18, so that the court could consider the Supreme Court's historic ruling on presidential immunity and how that factored into this case.

Now it has been delayed again. And this is -- this could have gone either way, but it is somewhat surprising because, over the course of this entire case, Judge Merchan has not always been sympathetic to many of the arguments that the Trump legal team has made about how a certain aspect of this case could impact the election.

But, here, this is an enormous win, again, for the Trump legal team. This is something they were trying everything imaginable to avoid. They did not want to have the sentencing before the election. And now, once again, they have been successful.

While he was obviously convicted in this case, this is just another example how the Trump team has overall been very successful in delaying legal consequences for their client.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly.

And, Paula, if you can stand by for us as we're following this breaking news, the judge delaying his hush money sentencing until late into November after the election, I do want to go back to Kara Scannell.

Kara, you have more of the decision that you can share with us.

SCANNELL: Yes, Brianna, that's right.

So this is a four-page decision issued by the judge. He makes great pains to explain in this decision that he is (AUDIO GAP) as any other defendant. He says that this case -- he said -- well, he notes, first of all, that the prosecution does not oppose delaying the sentencing and notes in here that careful (AUDIO GAP) suggests that they are in favor of delaying the sentencing. KEILAR: Kara, I'm going to interrupt you. We're having some problems

with your audio. So we're going to have you fix your mic on that end. We will come back to you.

I do want to bring in Harry Litman to talk with us a little bit more.

SANCHEZ: Harry, your reaction to this sentencing being delayed until November 26.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Paula's exactly right.

It's a momentous victory for Trump, who has tried everything possible and has cited the reputational harm that he would absorb if he were sentenced before. And notice this is the exact opposite of what Judge Tanya Chutkan did yesterday when his lawyer made a similar argument and Judge Chutkan said, I'm not thinking about the election. I'm thinking about a four count indictment.

He's wanted -- he's tried every possible maneuver. There were probably a few left. He was going to try to keep the sentencing from happening. And, recall, when the conviction itself happened, there was a downtick in Trump's poll number. So I think they were very worried about the impact of any sentence.

This is -- and it is also, as Paula says, a mild surprise. The normal thing would have been to just go with the flow and not be affected by the election. I think it's very telling that Merchan essentially says, this is what the prosecution wanted, reading between the lines.

[13:15:15]

Had they -- had the prosecution come out and said, sentence him now, it might have been a different ruling.

KEILAR: Yes, really interesting.

All right, Harry, if you can stay with us, we do want to go back to Paula Reid, because, Paula, the Trump team, is reacting.

REID: That's right.

I'm in touch with the Trump team. And we actually have a statement from a Trump spokesman Steven Cheung. He wrote -- quote -- "There should be no sentencing in the Manhattan DA's election interference witch-hunt. As mandated by the United States Supreme Court, this case, along with all the other Harris-Biden hoaxes, should be dismissed."

Now, let's unpack that a little bit. Of course, they have tried to frame all of the criminal cases, all four of them that the former president has faced, as part of some sort of larger conspiracy, and here they are also adding in his new opponent, right, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Her name has not previously over the past few years been appearing in these statements. But now they are trying to tie her to what they argue are politically motivated prosecutions. But, of course, in this case, the former president was convicted by a jury of his peers on these 34 counts.

Now, there is sort of a more eloquent explanation of their case and the argument that they were making that they made in a filing. And I want to I want to read this, because this is what the Trump team argued to a different judge about why they believed that this sentencing should be stayed.

They said -- quote -- or should be delayed. They said: "This is to prevent irreparable harm to President Trump," of course former President Trump, "voters across the country and the integrity of the imminent presidential election, because the potential impact on the election includes continued infringement on President Trump's political advocacy and the public's reciprocal right to receive and engage with that advocacy and damages -- it includes a reputable First Amendment violations."

So what they were trying to argue over the past few months as they tried to get this delayed is that this was a violation of Trump's rights. They said that, after the Supreme Court's decision in July on presidential immunity, that they had the right to litigate exactly how that case could potentially impact the verdict in the New York criminal hush money case.

And they said that they were not being given a fair opportunity to allow those appeals to play out before sentencing him in this case. And this is actually similar to the argument that they made throughout this case. They were constantly arguing that this was politically motivated, that this was somehow preventing his ability to be on a campaign trail.

But once the Supreme Court issued their historic decision in July really handing him on this enormous opportunity to revisit this conviction, that has really been how they have framed their arguments. Now, most legal experts do not expect the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity will result in this conviction being overturned.

But, again, the former president and his lawyers, they do have the right to continue, as they have been vigorously doing so, to litigate those questions.

SANCHEZ: Yes, these were actions taken essentially leading up to the 2016 campaign, so it'd be interesting to see how they might try to argue that in court.

Paula Reid, thank you so much.

We're going to take a quick break, and we will be right back as we get more information on this breaking news, a judge in New York delaying Donald Trump sentencing in the hush money case until after the November 2024 election.

Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:22:52] KEILAR: We're returning now to our breaking news.

Judge Merchan has delayed the sentencing in the Donald Trump hush money case until after the election, pushing it back to November 26.

So let's get back now to Kara Scannell.

Talk to us, Kara, a little bit about Judge Merchan's reasoning here.

All right, we're having -- these are audio gremlins that are plaguing us here today.

SANCHEZ: Yes. They come up every now and again.

We do have some political minds to talk about the legal news. Meghan Hays and David Urban are still with us.

Thank you so much for patiently waiting.

Meghan, we had to interrupt you as you were giving us your thoughts. What do you think of this news that now this sentencing for his case won't come until after November's election? I'd ask you about how Democrats should approach this. Given this wrinkle, how do you see it?

HAYS: I mean, I don't think this matters, right? He's still been convicted of 34 felonies. Yesterday, we were talking about how he caused an insurrection. We also have the E. Jean Carroll case happening today.

People understand that it's unprecedented for someone running for president to be in three cases. Every single day, we're talking about Trump's legal woes. That is unprecedented. I think that the American people will see that in November. So I don't think Democrats need to address it. It's very prevalent in their minds. It's very on the forefront.

So I think they just let it play out. And I think that the Harris team needs to stick to what they are doing now, continue to build their momentum and continue to talk about issues and go into a debate and continue to make the case for why that they will be better in November.

KEILAR: David, I do want to get your thoughts.

First, though, I want to bring Paula Reid in to talk to us a little bit about Judge Merchan's reasoning on this.

Paula, what is it?

REID: Well, Brianna, this is a historic decision that he had to make. Never before, right, has a judge been in this position, former President Trump, the first former president to become a convicted felon.

Here, he has this decision whether he wants to sentence him before the election while you have a Supreme Court decision that was issued just a few months ago that could potentially, but not likely, impact this case.

So here in this decision, Judge Juan Merchan says: "This matter is one that stands alone in a unique place in this nation's history. And this court has presided over it since its inception, from arraignment to jury verdict and a plenitude of motions and other matters in between.

[13:25:05]

"Were this court to decide after careful consideration of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump that this case should proceed, it will be faced with one of the most critical and difficult decisions a trial court judge faces, the sentencing of a defendant found guilty of crimes by unanimous jury of his peers."

So there you hear Judge Juan Merchan talking about what a historic decision that he has here in front of them, and he's also contemplating this question of how the Supreme Court's decision could impact this case.

He goes on and he says: "Unfortunately, we're now at a place in time that is fraught with complexities, rendering the requirements of a sentencing hearing, should one be necessary, difficult to execute."

He says: "So thus, in accordance with certain grounds submitted by the defendant," so basically what Trump argued, he has decided to delay this. Especially, he's also taking into consideration the fact that there is an upcoming presidential election.

Again, this is a surprise because the presidential contest has constantly come out throughout this case, and Juan Merchan has not really given that much weight. But here, in arguably the most important decision that he's had to make so far, he's opted to delay the sentencing until after the November election.

SANCHEZ: No one can disagree about fraught with complexities. That's for sure.

Paula, if Trump were to win in early November, he would be president- elect.

REID: Yes.

SANCHEZ: He wouldn't be president until January 20. Is there anything that he can do as president-elect awaiting this sentencing on November 26?

REID: So I want to remind people that because, this is a state level conviction, he cannot pardon himself once he becomes president or can any other president pardon him.

But what I think you would find there is, again, a historic case, an unprecedented situation, where you would likely go to the Supreme Court and ask, for example, if he's on probation or if he is -- we don't think he will be -- but if he's sentenced to prison time, can you send a president-elect to prison? That would undoubtedly be a question that would go before the Supreme Court? So I think it would mostly be up to his lawyers to once again argue extraordinary circumstances and try to get relief for their client, which so far they have been very successful in doing.

KEILAR: And, David Urban, your reaction to this, the judge in Trump's hush money case delaying sentencing until the very end of November?

URBAN: Yes, it seems like it's the first commonsense thing the man has undertaken during the entire trial.

Why would you -- to Paula's point, this is so fraught with peril in so many areas. If you're Judge Merchan, why do you want to subject yourself to even more scrutiny, legal scrutiny, from higher courts and your peers?

So I think he made the right decision here. It's obviously good new (AUDIO GAP) campaign. But voters in America just hear white noise.

SANCHEZ: The technical issues. They just don't want us to be happy today.

KEILAR: Oh, they don't hear David Urban, is really the problem, if they're hearing white noise. We're hearing nothing, unfortunately.

SANCHEZ: I think we still have Harry Litman with us.

Harry, can you just talk about the unprecedented situation, the weight of the situation that Judge Juan Merchan would be engaging in, his decision to potentially sentence a sitting president-elect of the United States if Donald Trump were to win in November, and then he has to sentence him on November 26?

LITMAN: Yes, so two points.

What Paula said, it's obviously he was fraught and really in turmoil over this. I think it could have gone either way. But this is the first time, in my recollection, and I was present for the trial, that Merchan has blinked, in a sense, by recognizing -- David says it's common sense, and maybe it is, but it's typically not a factor what's happening in an election that a judge would take into account.

Second, just to amplify on Paula's point, if he is sentenced after November, she's absolutely right. A president can't pardon a state crime, but I think it's likely that the Supreme Court would see a principle in the federal Constitution saying you can't impose a criminal penalty on a sitting president.

And they would, a little bit similar as they did in the Clinton case, say see you in four years or when his term is over, and then it would follow through. Of course, four years is an eon in Trump time. But I think it's likely that the consequences of the sentence would be stayed during his presidency if he's elected.

KEILAR: Really interesting stuff.

All right, Harry, thank you so much. Stand by for us, if you will.

We have much more ahead. We will be right back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)