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Biden Convenes Cabinet, Touts Summer Legislative Wins; Trump Gets Court Win After Special Master Appointed For Docs Case; Trump Operatives Seen Entering GA Elections Office On Day Of Breach; Uvalde Students Go Back To Class For First Time Since Shooting. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 06, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN Newsroom. Alisyn is off today.

Right now, President Biden is huddling with his Cabinet at the White House. This is the first time they've been together since March. Now the President is touting a series of legislative accomplishments scored over the summer on health care and climate taxes and jobs. The President is hoping these winds will help Democrats keep control of Congress. You know, voters start to cast their ballots and for the midterms in about nine weeks.

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Phil Mattingly joins me now. Phil, over the weekend, the President talked a lot about the former president, but now he's putting himself the record of this administration front and center as we get closer to the midterms.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's no question about it, Victor. And that's because White House officials, the President included believe they have a record to talk about, a record to hold up as they head into these final 60 some odd days before that midterm election. And as you noted, it is a record that has been bolstered over the course of the last nine weeks by a real flurry of legislative victories. Some of the President's key economic agenda items, key climate agenda items, key healthcare agenda items all moving through Congress throughout the course of this summer.

You combine that with what we saw from the Supreme Court related to striking down Roe versus Wade, and there is no question about it. Democrats politically feel like they're in a very different place. But Democrats policy wise, also acknowledge that right now, given those legislative victories, the President's legislative accomplishments are significantly more substantial than they were just a couple of months ago.

And it's now the process of implementing those accomplishments showing people that walk out through Congress can actually deliver now that it's being implemented, that the President really wanted to focus on today, as he huddled with his Cabinet. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to lower the cost of prescription drugs by letting Medicare negotiate prices with the drug company. So I've been -- we've been proposing that for a long time. We're going to reduce the cost of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act because of actually we've taking a basket about $800, a premium this year, first in this year. And we're going to hire more teachers, we're going to create millions of good paying jobs, union jobs and manufacturing.

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MATTINGLY: Victor, kind of a long laundry list of accomplishments the President running through there. And I think what you saw yesterday in both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania we're seeing today in the White House is a bit of a split screen of what you're going to see over the course of the next eight or nine weeks. The President here at the White House, touting those legislative victories, the President on the road trying to push Democratic candidates to kind of upset what has traditionally been a very difficult election cycle for any first term president, those midterm elections.

Democrats feel like if they don't necessarily have the wind at their backs, they certainly don't have the headwinds they were facing. President trying to capitalize on that right now, Victor.

BLACKWELL: President trying to make the case. Phil Mattingly for us at the White House. Thank you very much.

Let's move now to the latest in the FBI investigation of the classified documents found inside Donald Trump's Florida State. The Justice Department and Donald Trump's legal team now have until Friday to negotiate the duties and the limitations of the special master and submit a list of potential candidates. Yesterday, a federal judge in Florida granted the Trump team a big win ordering that independent third party, the special master, to help oversee the sensitive documents the FBI sees from Mar-a-Lago.

Now this is a move that the judge had signaled would be likely since late August. Her ruling also pauses federal prosecutors from using some of the key evidence as they continue their investigation.

Elie Honig, CNN Senior Legal Analyst, former Federal Prosecutor is here. Ellie, let's start here by just walking through this judge's reasoning.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Victor. So the main practical outcome is we now have a special master in place. When you think about a special master. Think of it as a legal filter, like the way you might have a water filter on your faucet or your refrigerator. It takes out all the bad stuff we don't want in there and just leaves you with a clean glass of water.

Here, what's going to happen is the documents that were seized in Mar- a-Lago are going to run through the special master who will then review for privilege, attorney-client privilege, executive privilege. If documents are privileged, the special master will filter those out and the remaining clean documents will go through to the Justice Department.

Now, in the ruling, the judge said, quote, "There has not been a compelling showing of callous disregard for Trump's constitutional rights." Meaning, the judge said I don't find that DOJ did anything intentional or over the top to violate Donald Trump's rights, but the judge did say there are some things that we need to take note of here.

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First of all, in the search, DOJ, FBI seized some personal documents of Donald Trump, medical, tax, accounting. Now that happens, Victor. This is a search for documents, you're not going through each one, you're grabbing folders and binders. So you're going to get some of that kind of information.

The judge also said there are 500 plus pages of potentially attorney- client privilege documents, those are going to need to be reviewed. And finally, DOJ itself put in its own internal filter team, but the judge said DOJ has acknowledged that filter process was imperfect because at least two documents that should not have got through the filter -

BLACKWELL: Yes.

HONIG: -- did get through the filter. And bottom line, the judge just said the country is served best by an orderly process that promotes the interests and perception of fairness. Essentially, she said, let's be safe rather than sorry.

BLACKWELL: OK. So let's talk about what happens while this filter is trying to get us to a clean glass of water.

HONIG: Exactly.

BLACKWELL: What is this entail? And how long is this filtration process?

HONIG: So first things first, as you said, before the parties have to figure out who is going to be this special master -- that's a question mark -- who is this person going to see?

BLACKWELL: I see it?

HONIG: Yes.

BLACKWELL: OK.

HONIG: The judge gave them until Friday to try to agree on somebody. Now, it's got to be somebody who has a high-level security clearance or can get there fairly quickly. I think it's likely to be a retired judge, maybe a retired high-level FBI, or a DOJ veteran. Now, what's going to happen when -- how long could this take? We do have some prior data points. The Michael Cohen case involves a special master, retired federal judge. That special master took about four months, April to August 2018. But that was millions, literally millions of documents. Here we're talking about tens of thousands. Rudy Giuliani had a special master that was appointed in June of 2021. The last we heard from that special master was in January of this year, six months later, that's still going.

But again, these cases involve cell phones, laptops, millions of documents. I think that they can get this done in about a month or so. That's actually what DOJ estimated that it would take. Now, important to know, the judge has said, DOJ, you cannot use these documents until the special masters done in your investigation. But intelligence parts of our government, you can still use these documents, rely on them when you're trying to do a damage assessment and correction.

BLACKWELL: So let's now approach what's the next step for DOJ?

HONIG: Well, they have to decide if they want to appeal. Important to know, here's where we are in the federal courts. We are at the District Court, which is the trial court level. If they want to take an appeal and DOJ can, they will go up to the Court of Appeals.

Now we're in the 11th circuit, Victor, that is one of the most conservative courts of appeals in the country. It's actually seven current active judges appointed by Republicans, six of them by Trump, four by Democratic judges. So DOJ may want to do that. But the appeal itself could actually take longer than the whole special master review.

If DOJ appeals, if they win, whoever wins at the 11th circuit, the other side can then try to get the case taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court. It's up to the Supreme Court if they'll take the case. But if there's an appeal, we're looking at months and months of delay. So DOJ has to decide, do we want to pursue that? Or is it better to just get the special master process over with?

BLACKWELL: Are the decisions of the special master subjected to appeal?

HONIG: Yes. So, if the parties can agree, that the special master can agree, they can appeal to the federal district court judge who has the case. And if possible, if the parties want to, they can try to appeal individual documents to the 11th circuit. But frankly, that's pretty nuanced. That's pretty fine grain to try to get up to the 11th circuit.

BLACKWELL: However, if the strategy from one team or another, we're not saying which, is to delay, then if you want to nitpick over a single document, that's a way to do it.

HONIG: Exactly. Look, it's always in the interest of prosecutors to move quickly. Defense lawyers often try to delay if that's the strategy here and appeal is going to play right into the delay strategy.

BLACKWELL: Elie Honig, always good to have you help us understand it.

HONIG: All right.

BLACKWELL: Now there have been a lot of claims from Donald Trump of ballot tampering in the 2020 election. Well now, in a new video first obtained by CNN, one of his diehard supporters is seeing giving unauthorized access to an election's office in Georgia. Recording, this is from January 7, 2021. That's the same day of voting system there was illegally breached.

CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin is with us now with this story. Drew, the woman in this video, a former Republican County Chairwoman who is also under criminal investigation for taking part in the plot to overturn Trump's loss. What else do we know?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, breaches of voting machines in swing states are under investigation now across the country. This one happened in Coffee County, Georgia, which I know you know where it is, it's in the middle of Georgia. Very rural, very Republican.

CNN obtained this surveillance video. One of the offices where voting machines were breached at the behest of Donald Trump's attorneys. This is Cathy Latham. She is the former chairwoman of the Coffee County GOP. Already under investigation, this woman is, proposing is one of those fake electors you've been hearing about who signed documents that declared Donald Trump the winner of 2020 instead of Joe Biden.

Latham can be seen escorting a couple of pro-Trump operatives into the Coffee County Election's Office and including an I.T. specialist who was working with Trump attorney Sidney Powell.

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This all happened on the same day the voting systems in that office were illegally breached, January 7, as you said the day after the U.S. Capitol attack. Text messages, e-mails, witness testimony from a civil lawsuit here in Georgia have connected Latham to the plan to give this group access to the election's office.

Now about a week before the voting machine breach, Latham herself testified before the Georgia State legislature with Rudy Giuliani about alleged voter machine irregularities in Coffee County. Latham's attorney told us despite this, that not acted improperly or illegally, Victor, and she did not authorize or participate in any ballot scanning efforts, computer imaging or any similar activity.

The I.T. specialist didn't respond to our comment. One important note, Coffee County, Republican stronghold, Donald Trump won there by 70 percent, with 70 percent of the vote. And it looks like this Trump connected team just wanted to get access to a elections office where they could find some friendly folks who would open the door. Victor?

BLACKWELL: Drew, let's go back to this video. Who are the men we are seeing behind Cathy Latham? GRIFFIN: So one of them is Paul Maggio, he's the I.T. kind of lead. And the other one is a guy named Scott Hall who's kind of this political helper type of person. But we believe that the I.T. guy is the guy that they wanted to go in there. And later on in the investigation, what we know is we actually have some audio of Mr. Hall saying that they were in there scanning ballots, imaging machines, doing other things with those machines.

So it appears that on this day where there was a breach in the machine, these men were inside. And they were part of this I.T. team sent out by Sidney Powell.

BLACKWELL: To see someone who was under investigation be inside this specific location is relevant. But also this is not the only breach. Where else are these breaches happening?

GRIFFIN: Yes, so we know in several other states, we know at least one of these breaches in Michigan has been connected directly to what happened in Georgia, some of the same people involved. And I want to take a look at this. This is the same building, right? But just about a week and a half later, that is the CEO of the Cyber Ninjas at the county -- Coffee County Election's Office. That's Doug Logan.

Remember, this is the guy that ran that partisan so-called audit in Arizona. He also was named as a co-conspirator in a vote machine scheme in Michigan by the Attorney General there. And now here he is, walking into this Coffee County, Georgia office where these election machines were tampered with. Why? Why would he be in the middle of Georgia? It all points to this kind of coordinated plan to try to overturn the results of the election, Victor?

BLACKWELL: And where is the investigation into all of this now?

GRIFFIN: Well, the various states have their own elections going. The question is, is there going to be a bigger federal investigation? The Michigan Secretary of State told me that their state handed over the evidence to the Department of Justice. They have not heard back, Victor, from the Department of Justice. We know that DOJ has a lot of disinformation. We just don't know if anybody at DOJ is doing anything with it.

BLACKWELL: All right, important reporting. Drew Griffin, thank you.

GRIFFIN: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Well, students and teachers in Uvalde, Texas are now back in school today for the first time since that mass shooting that forever changed their community. We'll hear from a family of a young girl who was at Robb Elementary the day that that shooting happened and we'll hear all about the emotional return to class next.

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BLACKWELL: Three months after the massacre that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, students are now back in school. They are not at Robb Elementary where the shooting happened. Instead, the students and teachers and staff had been reassigned to nearby schools with some increased safety measures. A lot of families still are not ready to choose. They have instead chosen I should say virtual learning for now.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Uvalde. Ed, what are you hearing from the community today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, it's been mixed range of motions, excitement for the beginning of a new school year. But at the same time, all of that tempered with a great deal of uncertainty and confusion as to what might happen in the weeks and months ahead. The campus you see behind me is the new home for the second and third graders from last year at Robb Elementary, who are now third and fourth graders.

Robb Elementary, as you mentioned, not being used anymore. And those students have now been absorbed into other campuses. And, you know, it's -- as we've seen families dropping off children at school today, you could sense that. You see teachers putting on a good face and smiling and being excited welcoming these students back into the classrooms that they haven't been in since that dreadful day back in May when 19 students and two adults were killed.

And, you know, many people also sharing the first day of school pictures kind of a yearly tradition among parents. But we were struck by just a short while ago, the family members of one of the victims Uziyah Garcia, his uncle who's -- had been raising him as his own son posted this picture. This was what he described as his first day of school picture and it was a picture of the urn in their home holding Uziyah's ashes inside their living room

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Brett Krause, we spoke with just a few days ago and he talked to us about just how dreadful this first day of school is for his family.

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BRETT CROSS, UNCLE AND LEGAL GUARDIAN OF SHOOTING VICTIM UZIYAH GARCIA: The school says that they're doing certain things, but then you look around and they're not done it. This is something that terrorizes you daily and nightly. I close my eyes, all I see is my son, I hear the gunshots. You know, it's something that doesn't ever go away.

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LAVANDERA: And Victor, Brett Cross has four other children who are attending schools here in Uvalde. They were still trying to figure out whether or not they should go in person or go through virtual learning. In fact, more than 130 families have chosen to go virtual learning not returned back here to the classroom despite the security measures that Uvalde school district officials have implemented including the high fences and increased school monitors and campus officers across campuses here in the city. Victor?

BLACKWELL: Yes, and everyone can understand why. Ed Lavandera for us there in Uvalde. Thank you.

Joining me now is Marcela Cabralez, she is the grandmother of fourth grader Jalissa Ybarra. Thank you so much for spending a couple of minutes with me. Your family decided to send Jalissa back to school, to the classroom. Sending her off this morning, what was that like?

MARCELA CABRALEZ, IBARRA: It was emotional, different and just nervousness.

BLACKWELL: What were the conversations like this morning?

CABRALEZ: She -- Jalissa was excited. Her first day is school. But at the same time, she was nervous. And as we walked hand in hand to the front gate of her school, you know, we just -- we're kind of reassuring each other that it was going to be OK. And that we, you know, we would get to this this day OK.

BLACKWELL: It's interesting. You said you were reassuring each other. Of course, we understand the grandmother, reassuring a fourth grader, but what was she saying to you?

CABRALEZ: It wasn't what she was saying. I think it's just knowing as the summer went by, knowing how she had been feeling and some of the traumas and obviously knowing that, you know, this is our first day back to school since that tragic day, it's just, you know, we know there's a lot of emotions.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CABRALEZ: And so we were just reassuring each other that, that we're going to be OK, we're going to get through this.

BLACKWELL: Ed Lavandera just told us that they're more than 100 children who are choosing virtual lessons instead of going back into the classroom. Again, not at Robb Elementary, but into any of the classrooms there in the district. Why did your family choose to send Jalissa back into the school building?

CABRALEZ: Well, for me, as a parent, you know, I obviously want to do what's best for her. And I don't want to raise her feeling. I guess like she can't handle situations. I want to be able to, to help her cope with such situations, face the fears that she may have. And so, you know, I also -- I was born and raised in Uvalde. I went to school here.

And so for me, I want to have this hope and disbelief that, you know, even though there were many errors that were made, that day that, you know, something good come out of this, that things could get better for our district.

BLACKWELL: Now, the district says that they are trying to make things better adding security measures, but the fencing at the school that Jalissa is now attending, that's not complete, far along the road, but not complete. Not much progress on cameras, or securing the entrances there, according to the website. How much of that is a concern for you?

CABRALEZ: I guess to be honest with to you, you know, I'm just -- I'm trying not to focus on that. I always been -- I try to be more optimistic. And just I reassure myself that she's going to be OK. I try by telling myself that anything can happen at any time at any place. And so I'm not trying to focus too much that she is in danger, I rather try to focus that that she's going to be OK and, you know, just hope the school district can hurry up and get the fencing done. And, I mean, it hasn't been easy for the community --

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CABRALEZ: -- you know, to move on.

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BLACKWELL: None of these -- it's an easy decision. I can hear in your voice that you are kind of going back and forth on sending your granddaughter back in. But I know that you and all the parents they're doing just the best that you can. Our best to you, Marcela Cabralez and to Jalissa now starting the fourth grade. Thank you so much for your time.

CABRALEZ: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right. Russia is turning now to North Korea to refill its weapons stocks. How this could impact the war in Ukraine? We'll talk about that next. Plus, a manhunt happening right now for one of the two remaining suspects accused in a stabbing spree in Canada. We have a live update on that search.

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