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Fed Scrutinizing Giuliani's Business Ties to Indicted Associates; Fact-Checking President Trump; Police in Mission, Texas, Step Up for Fallen Officer's Family. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired October 11, 2019 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:33:09]
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Got more breaking news on this Friday afternoon. How about this? A federal judge has just ruled that President Trump's use of emergency funds to build the border wall is unlawful. That judge appears poised to block the use of those funds.
Also today, President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is at the center of the fallout involving the president in Ukraine. Now Giuliani is coming under more scrutiny.
The feds are taking a closer look at his business ties to these two men after their arrest on charges of violating campaign finance laws.
And a company founded by one of these men who hired Giuliani on retainer, that the name of that company -- Fraud Guaranteed. Not making it up. Fraud Guarantee is the name of one of these guy's company's.
Also, just at began to photos emerge of President Trump and these Rudy Giuliani associates, the president is distancing himself from Rudy Giuliani.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somebody said there may about picture at a fundraiser or somewhere. But I have pictures with everybody. I have -- I don't know if there's anybody I don't have pictures with.
I don't know them. I don't know about them. I don't know what they do. But I don't know. Maybe they were clients of Rudy. You'd have to ask Rudy. I just don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are you concerned about being indicted in all of this?
TRUMP: I hope not. I don't know how he knows these people.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They're his clients.
TRUMP: What? UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They're his client.
TRUMP: OK. Well, then they're clients. I mean, he's got a lot of clients. So I just don't know. I haven't spoken to Rudy about it. I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Larry Nobles is the former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission and a CNN contributor.
Larry, good to have you on.
(CROSSTALK))
BALDWIN: Despite some of the behavior we have seen in recent months, let's remind everyone that Rudy Giuliani is a seasoned prosecutor. He has to know better. So what are the kinds of things that these investigators are looking for? What kind of legal jeopardy might he face?
[14:35:11]
LARRY NOBLE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: First, the indictment that came down describes actually a pretty intricate scheme to funnel foreign money into our elections to give illegal contributions to candidates at the federal and state level. To give $325,000 to Trump's super PAC.
This is not something that happened at random. These people knew what they were doing or were told what to do.
One of the things they'll look at, where did they get instructions? How were they old what to do?
Prior to 2018, they seemed not to be that involved in U.S. politics and, all of a sudden, develop a company. Come up with a global energy producer, and they start making contributions when the company really has no money?
There's something that's going on here where they were, I suspect, guided at least in some way how to do this. And one of the questions, how involved was Rudy Giuliani in all this?
BALDWIN: Right. Then as far as the president, we've heard the defense in the past, I didn't know. I didn't know. Notably when you think of that payment, $130,000 to Stormy Daniels.
If it turns out Rudy Giuliani was acting on the president's interests but without his knowledge, Larry, does that exonerate the president on this single detail at least?
NOBLE: Well, if he truly had no knowledge about this --
BALDWIN: Yes.
NOBLE: -- it might. But keep in mind that, you know, Giuliani also has a relationship with
the campaign. If he was doing this on behalf of the campaign, then at least it implicates the president's campaign in illegal activity. So it is not just the president himself.
But it's hard to believe that the president, that President Trump claims as a business person he was very on top of things, a representation to be a micromanager at a sense had no idea what was going on here and no idea who Giuliani was talking to, because frankly the two people in the indictment, Fruman and --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Parnas.
NOBLE: Yes, Parnas. -- especially Fruman considered one of Giuliani's fixers in Ukraine.
BALDWIN: Right.
NOBLE: These are people important to the campaign, important to the whole scheme to try to involve Ukraine in the investigation of Joe Biden. So it's hard to believe that they had no idea what was going on.
BALDWIN: All of this is swirling, Rudy Giuliani may in pure Giuliani fashion could not being to talk to talk to journalists. If you were representing him, what would you advise him to do right now?
NOBLE: A long time ago, I would have advised him to shut up. To stop talking on TV.
BALDWIN: Two words.
NOBLE: Right. But that's not going to happen with him. In some sense, he's the gift that keeps on giving, because you have a sense he'll appear on TB and will probably contradict himself two or three times in an interview. But in that, say things that are, that describe something that's illegal.
You never really know whether it's because he doesn't understand the law, or he doesn't care, or he just thinks he can so confuse things nobody will keep track of it. But he has a lot of explaining to do about this situation.
Keep in mind, he had lunch with these two the day before they were leaving -
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: The day of, hours before going to Dulles to fly out of the country on a one-way ticket.
NOBLE Right. Raises the question, any advance notice this would happen? There are a lot of questions that U.S. attorneys will want answered. BALDWIN: Larry Noble, thank you very much. Good to have you on.
NOBLE: Thank you.
BALDWIN: The insults are -- and false claims, flying at a campaign rally in Minnesota. This last night. President Trump ranted about political opponents in Washington in a long airing of grievances, some old, some new. Many flat-out wrong. Let's fact check, next.
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[14:43:25]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I love you, Peter!
I love you, too, Lisa.
Lisa, I -- Lisa -- Lisa -- oh, god, I love you, Lisa!
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: And if she doesn't win, Lisa, we've got an insurance policy, Lisa. We'll get that son of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: That was the president mockingly imitating two former FBI agents at his rally in Minneapolis last night. It was, by the way, the longest rally of his presidency yet.
It was wild and fact-free. Trump making at least a dozen false claims before he even got off the stage.
And CNN's Daniel Dale is very busy fact checking.
Daniel, welcome to you.
Start with the president defending his actions in Syria, but he wasn't exactly honest about it.
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Highly dishonest, Brooke. Both before and during the rally. Listen to two comments made first to reporters and then to the rally crowd
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have no soldiers in Syria. We've won. We've beat ISIS. Beat them badly and decisively. We have no soldiers.
We don't have any soldiers there, because we left. We won!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: There are American soldiers in Syria, 1,000 American soldiers in Syria. The pentagon confirmed they're still there. The defense secretary confirmed it today.
And so this is the president saying there are no American troops in a place where there are 1,000 American troops. This is egregious deception -- Brooke?
BALDWIN: OK. Daniel, to your next point, that the president has been railing at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over this whole impeachment inquiry and did it again last now he says she's really on his side?
DALE: This was confusing. Trump has been blasting Congressman Adam Schiff for a confusing paraphrase that Schiff in front of a congressional committee but he did his own paraphrase of Nancy Pelosi. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[14:45:18]
TRUMP: So Nancy Pelosi upon hearing a false story from a whistleblower that had no clue what was going on in that call or somebody gave very bad advice. But also hearing it front Shifty Schiff.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Nancy Pelosi said the day before seeing the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian president, we better impeach him. We have to impeach him. And then she saw the call and then said to her people, what the hell, nobody ever told me this was the call.
(SHOUTING)
TRUMP: But she keeps going any way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: That is not what Nancy Pelosi said after the White House released the rough transcript of the call. Her statement on the call was that Trump undermined national security, undermined the integrity of elections. She compared it to a shakedown attempt.
This idea that she saw the transcript and was, oh, my gosh, I was wrong all along, has no basis in fact.
BALDWIN: Lastly, you have an ear for certain lines or phrases from the president, that what he's about to say is not entirely true. What is it that he says?
DALE: My favorite Trump tale is when he an unknown person calls him sir, it's almost false in some way. He told another story last night at the rally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When I took out our military, we did have ammunition. I was told my a top general, sir, I'm sorry, sir, we don't have ammunition. I said I'll never let another president have that happen to him or her. We didn't have ammunition.
DALE: Trump told this story multiple times, sir, we have no ammunition. There was, indeed, a short of certain ammunition early in the Trump presidency because of the intensity of the anti-ISIS campaign. But the American military had no ammunition was nonsense.
BALDWIN: Sir. Double Sir.
Daniel Dale, thank you very much for all of your fact-checking.
I want to move on to this now. Let's talk California. Thousands of people in southern California are being told to get out as firefighters struggle to contain a fast-moving wildfire. We'll take you right to the frontlines, next.
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[14:52:28]
BALDWIN: Folks on the board of the city of Mission, Texas, remembering the officer, husband and father affectionately known at Speedy. He was the first Mission police officer killed in the line duty in more than 40 years ago. And now the department is going "BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY" for his family.
CNN's Ed Lavandera has his story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even in the predominantly Latino border town of Mission, Texas, people had a hard time pronouncing Corporal Jose Espericueta's name. Instead, he was just known as Speedy.
ROBERTA "BOBBIE" ESPERICUETA, WIFE OF JOSE ESPERICUETA: He was always the first one out there.
LAVANDERA: So it wasn't a surprise Speedy was one of the first to arrive when Mission police were called to the scene, this past June, of a man pulling a gun on his own mother. Speedy was on the phone with his wife when the call came.
ESPERICUETA: I heard a radio call in the background so he told me, babe, I got to go. And I said OK, babe, take care.
LAVANDERA: Those were the last words the high school sweethearts shared. Fifteen minutes later, a friend told Bobbie to race to the hospital. Speedy was shot in a foot chase with the suspect.
ESPERICUETA: And I cried my lungs out and I just didn't want to believe it. I didn't -- I did not want to believe it.
But the doctor did come out and say that he had passed. And I was just in shock. I was -- I couldn't -- I just couldn't deal with it at the time. I was in complete shock. LAVANDERA: Officer Javier Lara was one of Speedy's best friends. A week before the shooting they shared haunting text messages -- a pact that if anything happened, they would take care of each other's families.
TEXT: Bro, if something ever happens to one of us we have to make sure we take care of each other's families.
Bro, I promise I'll be there for you all families, but you all have to promise me the same.
I know -- we need to make a pact.
You guys better take care of my little boy and little girl.
JAVIER LARA, MISSION POLICE OFFICER: It's heartbreaking because it's something that you make as a promise as a friend -- as best friends -- and you're always going to hold your word to it but it just -- you know, now, we're fulfilling it.
LAVANDERA: Officer Lara and others have stepped up for their buddy, Speedy, taking care of his wife and their two children, Brianna and Joaquin.
They recruited dozens of officers to make sure Joaquin didn't walk into the first day of seventh grade alone, a moment so powerful that it left many officers in tears.
They drove Brianna to college and helped her move into her dorm room.
They filled the stands of a middle school stadium to cheer Joaquin on in his first football game where he wore the number 50 in honor of his father's badge number, 350.
And they named a street after him.
ESPERICUETA: I mean, it's literally a family in blue. They've been there with us through everything. They've tried to normalize our life as much as possible.
[14:55:06]
LAVANDERA (on camera): You guys excited about the game?
ESPERICUETA: Yes, super excited.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Speedy and his family were supposed to celebrate his birthday together at a recent Dallas Cowboys game. It was his favorite team. But it was his brothers in blue who brought the family, instead.
ESPERICUETA: We get to honor and share it with my husband in spirit. I know he's here. I've had like so many signs it's unbelievable. I'm just very thankful -- very thankful.
LAVANDERA: The Dallas Cowboys might be known as America's team, but these officers are Speedy's team.
Thank you.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Mission, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: Thank you so much, Ed Lavandera, and that entire department for sharing his story.
We're going to continue on.
More breaking news this hour. A key witness in the House impeachment inquiry pointing fingers at the president. Details on the testimony from Capitol Hill just this morning from that woman there in center of the screen.
Details on the three major legal blows dealt to the president and his administration today on key policies.
We'll be right back.
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