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New York AG Makes Case to Enforce Subpoenas; Elliot Williams is Interviewed about the Trump Subpoenas; Biden Answers Questions on Russia and Ukraine; Biden's Comments on False Flag Operation; Many States Lifting Mask Mandates; New Jersey Police Video Sparks Outrage; Racist Texts Revealed in Arbery Trial. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 17, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump as part of the AG's civil investigation into the Trump Organization. Prosecutors are trying to determine whether the Trump family business misled insurers and lenders by manipulating the value of properties.

CNN correspondent Kara Scannell joins me now.

So, Kara, what exactly can we expect to hear in court today?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bianna, it's certainly going to be both sides squaring off here. The New York Attorney General's Office wants to have Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump testify under oath as part of this civil investigation.

And here's what we know. This investigation is focusing on and includes allegations that have already been made that the Trump Organization had inflated the value of many of its assets, various properties over the years. And they want to question both -- all three of those people about what they knew about those inflated valuations.

Now, the Trump Organization has said that this is selective prosecution. And Eric Trump, earlier this week, even tweeted out a video that they submitted as evidence in court of past statements from the New York attorney general, Letitia James, where she has commented about her efforts to investigate the Trump Organization, even when she was a candidate for that office. So, they're certainly going to argue that this is selective prosecution.

And their attorneys have previously said on Monday that Donald Trump didn't know enough about these financial statements to answer these questions. Well, the AG, last night, filed a brief in court saying that actually Donald Trump put out a statement on Tuesday night where he talks about his financial statements. He says that he had a lot of cash on hand. That these statements, which the AG's office say were inflated, actually could have been much higher if it included other valuations, such as his brand value.

So, all that's going to come into play today when both sides appear in court in just about a half an hour from now.

Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: No doubt the former president has a history of, shall we say, embellishing his net worth and property values that he owns.

Kara Scannell, thank you.

And I'm joined now by former federal prosecutor and deputy assistant attorney general Elliot Williams.

Elliot, great to have you on this morning.

So, what's the likelihood that these subpoenas will result in the former president testifying?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, this is -- of all the questions that come up around this matter, the likelihood of testimony, I think, is the most straightforward. Likelihood of a subpoena. And here's why.

Look, it's a relatively straightforward civil case, Bianna, about, did this organization inflate or devalue assets in order to -- to deal with lenders and so on. That's quite straightforward. These are executives of the company. And the question is, are the subpoenas valid. Now, again, there's other stuff, and we can talk about that too, around the politization of the whole thing. Those are a little more thorny and complicated. But on the straight legal question, are they to testify, or at least provide interviews, I think it's relatively straightforward.

GOLODRYGA: Well, does the politization of it all --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Elliot, just stand by. We're going to hear from President Biden right now on the White House lawn on the crisis in Ukraine.

QUESTION: How high is the threat of a Russian invasion right now?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's very high. It's very high because they have not -- they have not moved any of their troops out. They've moved more troops in. Number one. And, number two, we have reason to believe that they are engaged in a false flag operation. They have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have is they're prepared to go in to Ukraine, attack Ukraine, number one.

Number two, I've been waiting for a response from Putin from my letter, my response to him. It's come to that and Moscow (INAUDIBLE) there are facts (INAUDIBLE) -- not facts (INAUDIBLE), (INAUDIBLE). I have not read it yet. I cannot comment on it.

QUESTION: Have you (INAUDIBLE) in any way?

BIDEN: Oh, yes.

QUESTION: Do you (INAUDIBLE), sir? Is it your sense that this is going to happen?

BIDEN: Yes. Not -- my sense is this will happen within the next several days.

QUESTION: How many days are we talking --

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)?

QUESTION: Is there any diplomatic paths still available (INAUDIBLE)?

BIDEN: Yes, there is. There's a clear, diplomatic path. That's why I asked senator -- senator -- Secretary Blinken to go to the United Nations and make his statement today. He'll lay out what that path is. I've laid out a path to Putin as well on, I think, Sunday. And so there is a path. There is a way through this. (INAUDIBLE) --

QUESTION: Are you going to call Putin?

QUESTION: Mr. President --

QUESTION: Will you speak to Putin again?

QUESTION: Are you going to call Putin?

BIDEN: I am not calling Putin. I have no plans to call Putin right now.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Would that -- would that be your (ph) final decision, sir?

SCIUTTO: The president there speaking just moments ago. Perhaps the most notable comment about Ukraine is him saying his sense, in his words, is that Russia will carry out this invasion within the next several days. So, consistent with that urgency we've been hearing from U.S. officials going to last week when they, in effect, moved up, Bianna, the timeline, based on intelligence of when they think Russia might attack. Again, with the proviso that they believe Russia has not yet made that decision.

But, notable comments from the president there, who's been briefed on all the latest intelligence to say, Bianna, that his sense is that they still have the capability and might very well act on that capability within the next several days.

[09:35:02]

GOLODRYGA: Yes, also notable that the president said we have reason to believe they are engaging in false flag operations right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Clearly, we have seen the developments overnight in the Donbas region there, the shelling. Ukrainians there blaming the Russian separatists for that. And, of course, we know there's a history of these false flag operations.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Let's bring in Jeremy Diamond at the White House.

Jeremy, you actually asked the president this question, which led to these comments. Also striking that he said he has no plans, at this point, to talk to Vladimir Putin.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Bianna, make no mistake, this was the most direct and the most dire warning from the president of the United States about the threat of a Russian invasion. We have heard this word imminent being thrown around for several weeks, but there's no question that now U.S. officials appear to be believe that a Russian invasion is indeed imminent with the president saying that every indication that we have is that they are prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine, he said. His sense is that that -- that a Russian invasion could happen within the next few days.

I asked the president right off the bat how high is this threat of a Russian invasion, and he said directly, very high. Those were the two words that he said at the very beginning of that exchange.

The president also saying that while the U.S. has received Russia's response to U.S. proposals as it relates to security guarantees and the situation in Ukraine, that letter was delivered to the U.S. ambassador in Moscow. The president, though, said that he had not yet seen that letter, so he couldn't comment on it, but he said that it was being sent over to Washington as we speak.

He also said that he had no plans to speak with the Russian president. But when I asked him in a follow-up, is there still a diplomatic path open, even as he is warning of this potentially imminent invasion, and the president said, yes, there is a path, and he said that that's why he sent the U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken to address the United Nations Security Council today. Again, making very clear how concerning, how dire this situation is. But the president here still saying that he is holding out hope for diplomacy, but warning at the same time that it appears Russia is perhaps putting into place this false flag operation that the U.S. has been warning about now for the last couple of weeks.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that important because the U.S. believes a false flag could be used as a pretext by Russia for further invasion into the country.

Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much.

And just to recap, the president speaking just moments ago, no letup, it seems, from the U.S. view that an invasion of Ukraine remains an imminent threat. The president saying his sense Russia may act within the next several days. It's something we heard from the NATO secretary-general, in fact, as well. Similar urgency just a few moments ago.

We're going to continue to bring you all the latest developments on Ukraine. We'll be back right after a quick break.

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[09:42:25]

GOLODRYGA: The list of states and schools getting ahead of the CDC on mask guidance keeps growing. In Virginia, a judge has now ended the mask mandate in Loudoun County Public Schools effective immediately after approving an injunction filed by three parents.

Also, Michigan's health department is no longer urging schools and other indoor settings to require masks.

Now, this all comes as Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that lifting school mask mandates right now is risky.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me.

So, you have Anthony Fauci on the one hand saying that it's still risky and yet we continue to see more school districts and counties lift these mandates.

Why is this happening right now and should we be worried?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Bianna, there does seem to be a disconnect between what people like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky are saying and what states are actually doing.

Let's take a look at what the CDC says. The CDC official line. If you take a look at this map, everything in red is a community of high transmission. Guess what, almost the entire country is in high transmission. And the CDC says, look, if you meet that metric, if you're a community of high transmission, we think you ought to be doing masking indoors. But as we've seen, states have, you know, basically defied that. I think states are feeling a high level of pandemic fatigue. I think that they're feeling like, hey, cases and hospitalizations are coming down.

But on the other hand, let's take a look at this. If U.S. schoolchildren were highly vaccinated, if there were high rates of vaccination, it would be easier to say go ahead and rip those masks off. But you can see, for ages five to 11, it's only 24 percent fully vaccinated. For ages 12 to 17, it's only 57 percent fully vaccinated. So you're saying take masks off when the children are, you know, largely speaking in many communities, those numbers are even lower.

So, let's take a listen to what Dr. Fauci said recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Now, we could get lucky because the trajectory right now is going way down. And it very well may be that if you take masks off the kids, in the next week or so it's going to keep going down. But you've really got to be careful. You know, you don't want to say it's an absolutely wrong decision. It's understandable why people want to take masks off the kids. But right now, given the level of activity that we have, it is risky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, I want to dissect a little what Dr. Fauci just said. He wasn't definitive. He wasn't like masks should stay on. And he's been definitive in the past and he wasn't definitive just now.

[09:45:04]

What he said was it may very well be that in the next week if you take masks off children that cases will still go down. Based on what we've seen Dr. Fauci do, the sort of telescoping that he does, I think he's trying to project that maybe there will be guidance that it's OK for children to take masks off in the next week or so. I think it may be that he's laying the groundwork for that change.

Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, clearly -- and clearly he's sensing the frustration.

COHEN: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: And as you've said, just Covid fatigue throughout the country right now, though those vaccination rates among children still so stubbornly low.

COHEN: Right.

GOLODRYGA: Hopefully we can see that start to move up in the days and weeks ahead.

COHEN: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks, as always.

COHEN: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: Well, still ahead, a fight between two teens in a mall goes from bad to worse. Why the arresting officers sparked outrage over how each teen was treated.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:22]

GOLODRYGA: A video showing police officers breaking up a fight between a black teenager and a white teenager at a New Jersey mall is sparking outrage today. You can see here, the police separate the boys by pushing the white teenager to a nearby couch, but then they pin the black teenager, identified as 14-year-old Kye, to the ground and then handcuff him.

Well, now Kye's mother is asking why her son was the only one handcuffed and humiliated. And the New Jersey Attorney General's Office has a lot of questions as well.

CNN correspondent Athena Jones joins us from New York.

Athena, this is really disturbing video. What exactly happened?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bianna.

Well, you can see it there. It is disturbing. And it was disturbing even to the folks on site, the young girl who was recording it. They also saw what they believe is evidence of racial bias. Seeing this scuffle ensuing between these two teenagers. The police arriving and pulling -- one of the cops pulling the white teenager off of the black teenager, who he had thrown to the ground, setting him on a couch.

Meanwhile, the other police officer kneels on the back of the black teenager, handcuffing him behind his back. You can see the other police officer coming over to help.

Meanwhile, the white teenager, also involved in the fight, is just left to sit there on the couch without any handcuffs.

So, a lot of folks who see this see evidence of racial bias and point to this being a problem across policing in America, this idea that the black youth is automatically assumed to be the aggressor, is automatically assumed to be the dangerous one.

Listen to how the boy's mother, the black boy's mother, his name is Kye, his mother Ebone spoke to Don Lemon last night. Take a listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EBONE, SON PINNED TO GROUND, HANDCUFFED BY POLICE AFTER FIGHT IN MALL: I keep trying to wrap my mind around it. And in no possible scenario does it make sense to me.

If -- I hate to say this, but if it wasn't for race, then what is it? What made them tackle my son, not the other kid? What made them be so aggressive with my son and not the other kid? Why is the other kid sitting down looking at my son be humiliated and put into cuffs? It just doesn't make sense. And it makes me angry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So it makes Kye's mother angry and it makes a lot of people angry, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who said the appearance of what is racially disparate treatment is deeply, deeply disturbing.

Now, as you mentioned, there is an investigation underway. The Somerset County Prosecutor's Office working closely with -- their internal affairs unit working closely with the state's attorney general is looking into the fight itself and the police response.

But, certainly, this raises a lot of concerns among folks who say, look, this is just yet more evidence of a bias in policing and the NAACP, the New Jersey state conference, says despite all the talk about bias and accountability and training people about bias, you still see this sort of thing happen. This has to change.

Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Listen, Kye's mother asked a good question, perhaps the question, if not for race, then why is it that her son was treated so differently from the other teen?

Athena Jones, thank you so much.

JONES: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: The federal hate crimes trial for the three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery resumes this morning after yesterday's testimony revealed racist, offensive texts and social media messages sent by two of the defendants.

CNN correspondent Nick Valencia joins me now from Brunswick, Georgia.

Nick, how did Arbery's parents react to yesterday's testimony? I know they've been in that courtroom throughout all of this.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, they were sickened. Many people in the courtroom were sickened by the litany of racist and violent messages shared by the McMichaels and their co-defendant Roddie Bryan, but especially the family of Ahmaud Arbery. They sat there and listened to this evidence, occasionally shaking their heads in disbelief. And, actually, at one point, the father of Ahmaud Arbery, Marcus Arbery Senior, had to get up and leave the courtroom, he was so sickened and disgusted by what he heard.

We want to share with you some of these messages read out loud in court. But before I do, I want to warn you that it is extremely offensive, racist language, but it's also an important part of the government's case as to why Ahmaud Arbery's murder was racially motivated.

In a text message sent by Travis McMichael on January 21, 2019, responding to a friend's message that says, this Cracker Barrel up here is full of some other kinds of people. Travis says, need to change the name from Cracker Barrel to n-word bucket.

In another social media post on Facebook responding to video of a mob of black teens beating up a white teenager, Travis McMichael comments, I say shoot them all. Full Saiga would have done wonders. F those GD monkeys.

Another social media post, this time on an Instagram message of a prank being played on by a black teenager on an elderly white man, Travis McMichael responds, I'd kill that f-ing n-word.

[09:55:09]

And yet in another text message on November 2019 a friend texts Travis McMichael that, we used to walk around committing hate crimes all day. Travis responds, LOL.

Now, much of the focus was on Travis McMichael yesterday, but they also brought up private messages from Roddie Bryan to prove that he is also a racist. In a WhatsApp message from January 20, 2020, which also fell on Martin Luther King Day, Roddie Bryan says, happy bootlip day, which is a derogatory term used by racist against black people. I worked like a n-word today, he adds.

And then in another message shared on WhatsApp from February 19, 2020, responding to the fact that his daughter was dating a young black man, he says, yes, she has her n-word now. I've been calling that for a while now. Not surprised.

Now, this is no doubt disgusting language. The defense says they -- the defense says that, of course, their clients did use this language, but that they don't look at life through the prism of race. That is their defense for these clients.

The court resumed later this morning -- the court resumed this morning, I should say, Bianna, and it's expected to last until about 5:30.

Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Those messages, so disturbing. So hard to stomach, really.

Nick Valencia, thank you.

VALENCIA: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Still ahead, on the brink of war. The U.S. is warning Moscow is lying about withdrawing troops from Ukraine's border as officials say Russia could launch an invasion any day now. The president just seconding that. CNN is live in Kyiv with team coverage straight ahead.

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