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Trump to be Sentenced for Hush Money Conviction; Ten Dead and 10,000 Structures Destroyed in L.A. Fire. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 10, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

DIOSDADO CABELLO, INTERIOR MINISTER OF VENEZUELA (through translator): Affairs of other countries. I have some Dominoes from my show. I can give them to you. What do I know? Go play something. But don't play meddling in Venezuela.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Almost scorning the other countries who take a stand on Venezuela.

Now, we know that the Venezuelan situation has massive impacts, Sara, across the entire western hemisphere. More than 8 million migrants have left Venezuela under Maduro's rule. Many of them arrived at the U.S. southern border. And this is why this is proving to be an early test of the upcoming Trump presidency in Washington, D.C.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, the fury about what is going on there is very clear in the streets.

Stefano Pozzebon, thank you so much.

A new hour starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we have a lot of breaking news going on right at this moment.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to officially become a convicted felon shortly. Just ten days before he is set to be sworn into office for a second time. A hearing is about to kick off. Trump will be sentenced in the New York hush money case, where he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying documents. The Supreme Court refused to step in overnight. It was a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, they voted with the Democratic-appointed justices.

Now, this morning, Trump's appearance will be virtual. He will not be there. But there will be an audio recording and a forum for Trump if he wants to rant. We should note that he is appealing this verdict, but that will not keep it from being rendered today, the sentencing. Let's get to the courthouse. CNN's chief legal analyst Laura Coates

standing by outside.

Laura.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: A day that Donald Trump thought would never come or perhaps hoped would never come. We remember that it was now months and months ago when a jury actually convicted him of 34 felony counts. He has tried to kick this can down the road, appealing to even the highest court, trying to ensure that he will not convert from a person found guilty to officially a sentenced convicted felon.

But here we are in New York City, Manhattan, where, frankly, the prosecutor said it all began on this falsified business records case. The catch and kill, prompting the allegations about what has transpired.

Now, he continues to fight back. But here we are today in one of the strangest of sentencings. Normally a defendant literally can't phone it in. They've got to be present. They're not necessarily aware of what their sentence is going to be. They have no idea whether it will be a jail or a fine or some probationary period. Here this judge, Judge Merchan, who Trump has accused of being biased against him, has already signaled to the president-elect that he will not serve jail time, will not get a fine, and won't have some constrained probationary period. And yet and still, he has to appear to jump start not only the end of this trial period with the official sentencing, but to really preserve and maximize his ability to now appeal, which he continues to do.

So, here we are, in a kind of moment of truth. What will this judge ultimately say? How will he address the contempt violations and beyond?

I want to bring in CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Elie Honig, who is here with us this morning.

Elie, here we are, New York. It's about to go down in terms of the sentence. We know a little bit about what he's not going to get. But walk us through, set the stage on why we're here.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Laura, Donald Trump fought to the bitter end to try to prevent this from happening. And in a dramatic ruling that came down last night, the Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote, said you can go ahead with this sentencing.

We saw an interesting cross-ideological majority where conservatives, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined with the three liberals to say, go ahead with the sentencing.

Now, when we last convened in court, seven months ago, Donald Trump had just been convicted by the jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records. And just to refresh everyone's memory, what happened there, the underlying conduct was, in 2016, Donald Trump made hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Now, the crime comes in, in the documentation. The allegation found by the jury is that Trump falsely had those payments labeled as attorney's fees or retainers.

Now, the crime that Donald Trump has been convicted of is a class e felony under New York state law. That's the lowest of the five levels of felony. The maximum penalty for a class e felony is four years. Now, the vast majority of defendants who do get convicted of class e felonies do not get prison time. They may get probation. Some do get prison time, a minority. But Donald Trump's not going to prison. In fact, we have a pretty good sense of what the judge is going to do here, because last week, Judge Merchan issued an opinion, and in it he said that he intends, not for sure, but intends to sentence Donald Trump to an unconditional discharge.

[09:05:08]

And what that means translating the legal jargon is nothing. No prison, no probation, no fines, no restitution, no community service.

Now, here's what's going to happen today over this Zoom that we will apparently get audio of after the fact.

The DA's office will get to make its statement. Alvin Bragg is the DA. He won't be the one making the statement. It will be someone from the prosecution team. Most importantly, Donald Trump, any defendant has a right to speak at his own sentencing. So, if Trump wants, he can speak. He can say whatever he wants. The final word will be Judge Merchan.

Laura, as you noted, an important thing will happen at the end of this sentencing. It will become official. We will have what we know as a judgment of conviction. At that point, his conviction will be official, but not quite necessarily final. As you said, Donald Trump still has his appeal rights.

Now, we are in the trial court. In New York they call it the New York Supreme Court. Very confusingly. I didn't make the names. But Donald Trump then has the ability, he has the automatic right to appeal up to the appellate division, maybe to the highest court of New York, the court of appeals.

And ultimately, Laura, we could end up right back where we were last night with the U.S. Supreme Court. We'll see if they take it. That's a long way down the road. So, today we're focusing back on the trial court, where you're sitting outside of, Laura Coates.

COATES: And, of course, the idea that it was a 5-4 decision, we might not even been at this moment. He has been pushing not to have it sentenced. And now the court is saying you can go forward. A lot of people wondering why he would fight so hard given the fact that he's not going to get much more than maybe a verbal slap on the wrist. But he is very angry about this case. He always has been. Even as recently as this week.

I want to bring in chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid.

Trump has sounded off on how he has felt about this entire process, and why he continues to fight. You have been talking with sources this very morning. Tell me how that Trump team is feeling even heading into this today?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I will say that his lawyers are feeling a lot more optimistic than the president- elect. Even though they fought to block todays sentencing, they believe that it's a huge win that their client, having been convicted on 34 felony counts, is only going to face an unconditional discharge that is less than the consequence for a speeding ticket.

Now, Trump, of course, he has, as you noted, he has always been angry about this case from the start. And today's sentencing is symbolic of his conviction. That anger is what has driven these zealous appeals that we've seen really since the case started, but especially in the past few days. But his lawyers believe that this is really just checking a box so they can move forward with their appeals.

And if you zoom out and look at the big picture, they're like, hey, he was facing four criminal cases, some of which were very significant earlier this year. And now the two federal cases have been dismissed. The Georgia prosecutor, Fani Willis, has been disqualified for now. And then this case is only facing an unconditional discharge. So, they believe that overall this is an enormous victory for him. And, they point out, he gets to be president again.

So, today, they expect this will last around 45 minutes. We will, as Elie - Elie noted, we'll hear from the judge, we'll hear from prosecutors. Todd Blanche, one of Trump's defense attorneys, he will speak. But at this point I'm told it's unclear if Trump will address the court.

COATES: And, of course, Todd Blanche, someone who will go into the Justice Department after the inaugural process, of course, for now the 47th president of the United States, Paula. And recall, they have been making the argument ever since the Supreme Court handed down an opinion about immunity of what a president could be held immune from for so-called official acts, the Trump team has been fighting very hard to suggest that some of what came in, in this underlying trial was about conduct relating to official acts. The judge has been unconvinced by this premise, but certainly they are hoping for the Supreme Court ultimately to still have their appellate insight into all these matters.

Paula, when you're looking at this case compared to, say, the Jack Smith involved matters we've heard about earlier in the week, this is one of the cases that no matter whether he is the president or not, he has no pardon power here. He can't make this go away.

REID: Yes, that's exactly right. And that's one of the things that frustrates him.

But you talked really about what's going to happen next, which is they're going to continue to appeal this based on the Supreme Court's decision about immunity, that presidents cannot be charged for official acts. But there was another really key part of that decision, which is you can't use official acts as evidence to support other charges. And the Trump team really seized on that for the Manhattan case, arguing that certain pieces of evidence, for example, conversations that he had with Hope Hicks, should not have been able to come in under that decision.

And while that has not succeeded so far, Laura, the fact that they were able to get four justices to agree last night to say that, yes, we would have probably stopped this sentencing, that was really surprising because most legal experts thought this was a long shot, way too soon for the Supreme Court to get involved.

[09:10:04]

But if they can get four justices, two of whom he appointed, on board with that, it is highly possible that they might be able to get one more justice on board with the idea that this conviction should be overturned based on that immunity case. So, this is something they will continue to pursue. Might take a while, but they're feeling pretty good.

COATES: And, of course, Judge Merchan wanting to have this buttoned up because that is what is the catalyst for being able to go through your full appellate rights. Of course, this is not the ordinary course of affairs, is it?

Thank you so much.

I want to get back to Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much for the update there. And we will be waiting to see what happens in court. We will be able to hear eventually what is said.

Now, to the deadly wildfire disaster in Los Angeles. A new fire exploded overnight. This hour, as the sun rises, the scene of flames and destruction once again greeting residents. This morning, the death toll has jumped to at least ten people, with thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods wiped out.

Let's get right to Stephanie Elam.

Stephanie, you've been in both of the major places where this destruction is just unbelievable and unprecedented. Where are you now and what are you seeing as the light is beginning to peek through?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sort of starting to peek through. I say that, Sara, because it is so smoky out here right now that I think it should be a little bit brighter than it is right now. But it's thick because just on the other side of the ridge from me, the fire is burning out towards the wilderness. But where I'm standing right now is in Altadena. And this is up against a foothill.

So, last time I spoke to you, I think - or not last time, but two days ago I was over in the Palisades Fire. Now I'm here. And look at this. It's the same situation. And I wish I could just say that it was just this house. I wish I could say that it wasn't that house and that house and that house across the street. Entire blocks just completely devastated.

And it's almost unfathomable that there is this much loss at this time to see this here, to see what we saw at the Palisades Fire. It looks almost like a movie set of what they would say a town would look like after Armageddon. That's what it looks like.

You've got so many people, eight - 100 - 80,000 people who are forced to evacuate, another 200,000 who are in evacuation warnings still.

What's also noteworthy is that we're getting alerts on our phones, and they're buzzing and they're going off, saying, you are in an evacuation zone, which, OK, right now I am. But one just went off. One of our team got it. Two of us didn't get it. Yesterday there was an alarm that went off about the Kenneth Fire, but it went to all of L.A. County. They immediately sent out a correction. All of this has people on end.

So what I'm - what I'm - would say is that for people who didn't even find themselves in this situation where they've lost their homes, or they think they may have lost their homes, there's this overall just edginess that people are going through because of what we are seeing. People are skittish, people are jumpy throughout L.A. County.

Now, for the people who live here, this is still an evacuation zone. The National Guard is blocking off the roads now. There's 8,000 personnel, including firefighters, who are out here fighting these blazes and stopping people from looting because some people were arrested for looting at this time when people are living through the worst days of their lives.

With all of this combined, the stress levels are high. People don't know what they've lost. But then for some other people, they do know what they've lost, and that's a loved one. We only know of 20 people now, but we're expecting that number to go up.

I want you to take a listen to one woman who discovered her father.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMIKO NICKERSON, FATHER KILLED IN EATON FIRE: This is where we've been our whole life. And my son tried to get him to leave. And my neighbors and myself. And he said, he'll be fine. I'll be here when you guys come back. And he said his house would be here. His house is here, and he was here, too. He was in his bed when I found him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: I can't imagine discovering your loved one like that. What it feels like for these family members, some who may not know where their loved ones are. It is a devastating amount of loss and pain in a short amount of time.

And for a lot of people, this was their nest egg. This is something they bought years ago. This was their home. It was going to pay for their retirement. And now, nothing.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, to hear her say that devastating information that she found her father dead in that home, it is a painful reminder of when firefighters say to get out, when people say to evacuate, that there is the possibility that you just don't make it.

[09:15:02]

Stephanie Elam, we've been talking about the big one for 30 years, and we're always talking about the earthquake. The big one turned out, in this case, to be the fires.

Thank you so much for just walking us through all of this devastation. And I know you're hurting, too, as are all of our crews there, because our friends and families have been in danger for quite some time.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And fueling all of those flames, the winds, of course. Firefighters have a narrow window it appears of calmer winds before they pick back up again. We'll have the forecast for you.

And also ahead for us, TikTok heading to the Supreme Court next hour, taking on the U.S. ban that's about to set in against the social media platform. Free speech versus national security is the central focus. The justices now left to decide.

And we're going to get back to the historic day that is unfolding also in a New York courtroom. Donald Trump to learn his sentence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:31]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYA REYNAGA, LOST HOME IN EATON FIRE: I woke up and it was just pitch black. We had no power. And I was just in hell. That's what it felt like. I was just surrounded by flames all around me. And all I could do was just hold my water hose and just - I dropped to my knees and I just started praying, please, God, please just save my house. Just save my house. This is - this is all I have.

SIDNER: How long have you - have you -

REYNAGA: And I just prayed. One of my daughter's longtime friends mother, who passed away, who lives a block away from me, and it's just devastating. It's - I have no words to explain or to express the depth of hurt and pain that were going through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That is one of so many devastating accounts that we are hearing coming out of southern California. So many people grieving for all that has been lost this week.

Officials are saying that they are making some progress against the fires, but that the threat and the danger is very much not yet over. The winds are a huge part of that, of course.

Let's get to the latest forecast. Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is back with us.

And, Allison, what are you seeing in the forecast right now?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right, so there is a bit of good news, and that is, we will have a very brief window - and I cannot emphasize how brief this is going to be, but a brief window where we will get those winds to die down a little bit and allow those firefighters to make some advancements on those containment numbers. Today we are still going to have those strong, gusty winds. That's why you've got the elevated and the critical fire threat existing for portions of southern California.

But tomorrow that really starts to shrink back. And that's because the winds are expected to decrease over the next 24 hours. So, for today, though, still 20 to 40 mph, even a few that could be up around 50 mph. But by late this afternoon and tonight, those wind speeds drop down to single digits in most places. That is fantastic news. That's what the firefighters want to see, because it will allow them to be able to make some advancements in these fires.

The one problem is, though, once we get to Sunday, those numbers go right back up again, 40, 50, even 60 mph. So, it's a very short window here where they will have that time to be able to improve those fires.

And you can also see here it's also the direction that's important. These winds - these little wind barbs, the little white dots you see moving around, that's the wind direction. For most of the day today it will be coming from the north. But at some point it could shift to the west and it could shift to the east. And that makes it very difficult for the firefighters too because it can change at a moments notice. And that kind of alters their plans that they may have set in place on how to fight the fires. So, that also makes it very difficult for them.

You've got the red flag warnings in effect for a large portion here of the coastal areas and mountainous regions of southern California. The air quality is also a concern because even as those winds go away, the smoke does not go away entirely. So, that air quality is expected to stay relatively poor as we go through the weekend.

Here's a look at some of the air quality index alerts. See these red dots? You can see here right outside of Los Angeles. That means it's in the unhealthy group. Now oftentimes when you get smoke it will be unhealthy for sensitive groups, say people with asthma or allergies or even the elderly folk. This is not the case. This is for any average adult that would be outside. You are going to start to have that where you cough, it burns the back of your throat, things like that. Not just today, guys, but even as we go through the weekend.

BOLDUAN: Yes, Allison, thank you very much for the forecast. We'll stick close to you. Thanks.

John.

BERMAN: All right, we are standing by to see if the Supreme Court steps in to save TikTok in the United States. They hear arguments shortly after Congress voted to ban TikTok in the United States in nine days. It takes place in nine days unless it is sold by its Chinese owners. The administration and this bipartisan majority in Congress argue that the app poses a national security risk, that China could collect vast amounts of sensitive and personal data. TikTok supporters say the ban violates their right to free speech.

SIDNER: All right, in minutes, President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced in the New York hush money case. It's the first time a U.S. president will take office with a criminal conviction. What might he say in court? We could hear that. We will take a quick break and be back in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:22]

COATES: Breaking this moment, any moment now, we are going to have a sentencing hearing right here in Manhattan. It's going to begin for the president-elect, Donald Trump, and that hush money case. He was found guilty of 34 counts, as you know, months ago. And we're now ten days from the inauguration when number 45 becomes number 47. He has fought to get the sentencing delayed tooth and nail, frankly, with all the legal angles.

But yesterday the Supreme Court denied his emergency bid. It was split 5 to 4. Many call that a very narrow margin that they were surprised to hear. But here we are with these 34 counts of falsifying business records, all linked to his then lawyer, Michael Cohen, and adult film star Stormy Daniels in that infamous catch and kill story.

[09:30:02]

Joining us now again, CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid, and senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, a lot of people wonder what...