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Trump Flying To New York Ahead Of His Arraignment; Chinese Spy Balloon Able To Transmit Info Back To Beijing; OPEC+ Producers Announce Surprise Output Cuts. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 03, 2023 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Good afternoon and welcome to a special edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kaitlan Collins live outside of Trump Tower here in New York.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Phil Mattingly alongside the one and only Dana Bash here in Washington. And we are watching and waiting for a historic moment in American history unfolding at this very moment. For the first time, the former president is preparing to face a judge as part of a criminal indictment.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And Donald Trump departed his home in Florida a short time ago. He's now on his way to New York ahead of his arraignment in Manhattan tomorrow. The details of the indictment are still under seal but sources say he will face more than 30 counts related to business fraud.

COLLINS: As we wait for that to be unsealed, Trump is expected to arrive at the LaGuardia Airport in about an hour from now. We saw him take off from Mar-a-Lago earlier. From there, he is going to head here to Trump Tower behind me in Manhattan. That is where he is going to spend Monday night before tomorrow.

Already, security is tight in anticipation of the former president's arrival. There are many trucks and New York police from the trucks around the city on these blocks. New York officials today did make assurances that right now there are no credible threats, though, at this time.

MATTINGLY: (INAUDIBLE) on the security preparations. Meanwhile, Trump's legal team is drying up his defense telling CNN they will challenge every potential issue related to the indictment. Now, those charges stemmed from an investigation into Trump's alleged role in a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election.

BASH: Now, let's go to the courthouse. CNN's senior climate justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz and Senior Legal Affairs correspondent Paula Reid are both there. Paula, I want to start with you because several media outlets, including CNN, petition the judge to unseal the statement early and also allow cameras in the courtroom. What can you tell us about the status of that? PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Dana. There has been this push for more transparency from media organizations. We wanted the indictment to be unsealed ahead of tomorrow's arraignment. What it is historically usually revealed for the force -- the first time.

And also there's been a push for cameras in the courtroom, arguing that yes, while they're not usually cameras in Manhattan courtrooms, that there is no greater public interest than when you're talking about the arraignment of a former president of the United States.

Now, the judge gave both the prosecutors and the defense until 1:00 p.m. today to weigh in. And the prosecutors took no stance on this. But surprisingly, the former president's legal team is opposing cameras in the courtroom.

Now, they're really leaning into the idea that this is a security without risk. They're saying that this could potentially contribute to a "circus-like atmosphere in the courtroom." And they're also saying that having cameras in the courtroom would go against the former president's right to a presumption of innocence.

But, Dana, this is somewhat surprising for someone who's, of course, a very successful reality star. But look, this judge historically has not been in favor of having cameras even in high-profile cases. So, now that the defense has come out against that, it's looking less likely that we will get this access.

BASH: Yes. I mean, in some ways, it's surprising. And other ways, since he is a candidate to be president again, not as surprising. The images of the motorcade going to his plane and his plane taking off, those are the images I believe we're going to see in a -- in a Trump ad if there's going to be one. He doesn't necessarily want one in the courtroom. Speaking of the courtroom, what can you tell us about the changes to Trump's legal team?

REID: Well, now, that indictment has been filed even though it's under seal, the former president has added an attorney to his legal team. This is not unusual, particularly in these ongoing investigations. We see people coming and going from the team.

In this case, it's attorney Todd Blanche. He has been added to the defense team. But a lot of people speculating about what that means for Joe Tacopina who has really been the most forward-facing member of the defense team.

I spoke to Joe a short time ago, though, he said he's still on the team. And he says he will be the lead counsel during the hearing tomorrow.

[14:05:05]

MATTINGLY: And, Shimon, I want to turn to you. There's been a lot of concern, a lot of speculation, a lot of trepidation related to what could be coming from a security perspective. What's your sense of things right now, in terms of what the NYPD is prepared to do both today and tomorrow, kind of the whole assessment of things going forward?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, certainly, securing the former president and making sure he gets inside of the building here behind us, that's going to be the number one priority. Getting him in there and making sure no one tries to interrupt the proceedings. But the issue now is like if they're not going to have, Phil, cameras in the courtroom, every image that we could possibly get of the former president is going to be important.

And one of those images could come here on Hogan place. This is where the district attorney's office is. This is where we expect the motorcade with the former president to drive down. We expect that he's going to come out of the car and then walk through the doors of one Hogan place, which is here to my right, and walk in and surrender to the district attorney's office. And then essentially, he will be under arrest.

And at that point is when the arrest processing, the fingerprinting, and all the paperwork that comes along with that will take place. But he will walk into these doors. He will be met there by district attorney staff, the investigators on the case. Those are the people that will be making arrest -- the arrest and then they will take him upstairs, where they will do the processing.

But right now, as they prepare for tomorrow, we're seeing a lot of barricades here today. Certainly, we're seeing several more officers, court officers, and NYPD personnel. And tomorrow what we expect is that this entire street is going to be closed off as they bring the motorcade through here. But then also the streets surrounding the courthouse because there is some concern for protesters.

MATTINGLY: There's a lot of choreography going up -- going on right now.

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Certainly, a lot to watch tomorrow as well. And Shimon is going to be there for all of it. Shimon Prokupecz and Paula Reid, thank you so much. I want to get back out to Kaitlan outside Trump Tower. And I'd like her opinion on whether it's a regular thing for the president to be against creating a circus-like atmosphere from a media perspective. Kaitlan, do you have any thoughts on that?

COLLINS: Yes, there'll be some questions about that. Of course, that is coming from the Trump legal team we should note. We are here outside of Trump Tower just a few blocks away from where Shimon is. We have CNN's chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny, and CNN's senior legal analyst and Elie Honig, both with us. Elie, the idea that they don't want cameras to be in the courtroom, you know this office -- this courthouse very well. Are you surprised by that?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No, I'm not. I think that's what I expected. So, ordinarily, in New York State courts, and that's where we are, we're not in federal court, we're in state court, the rule is no cameras in the courtroom. However, the judge does have discretion. The judge can say, I'm going to allow them. Now, what the judge has to balance is, on the one hand, the need for transparency and the public interest, which is not just high here BUT I would say unprecedented in terms of how high it is. On the other hand, the need to protect the presumption of innocence of the defendant. And the thinking there is well, the image of somebody standing at a defendant's table, even if not in handcuffs, even if not in prison garb still could be influential on our jury pool.

Let's remember, our whole jury pool is watching. So, I think it's not at all surprising that the defense does not want cameras in there. I mean, an image of a person standing at a defense table could be even more prejudicial than a mug shot, if you think about it. So, we will see what the judge decides.

And this is important to keep in mind. Tomorrow's arraignment is going to last no more than 10 minutes --

COLLINS: Yes.

HONIG: -- maybe as short as five minutes. So, the judge will make his decision on tomorrow. Ultimately, it's going to be a much bigger question about does the judge allow cameras in for the trial.

COLLINS: If there is a trial, right?

HONIG: Yes.

COLLINS: And what does this judge have a history of doing when it comes to cameras?

HONIG: Yes. So, this judge historically has not been open to the idea of cameras. He denied a request to have cameras in the Trump Organization trial, which happened last year. He did allow still photography in the room when Allen Weisselberg was sentenced. But that's just a still photo. That's not a live feed.

COLLINS: Yes, Trump's chief financial officer who is serving the final days of his prison term. Jeff, we just heard from Jason Miller, who is a campaign adviser to Trump. He is on the plane with him right now on the way here to New York.

He is now saying -- and, of course, which you know, this is what he is saying it's not from an FEC filing that they've raised $7 million since the award of the indictment came down on Thursday. Initially, we were told $4 million in about 24 hours. And so, we do know that right now they're saying Trump's not going to speak while he's here in New York. We don't actually know if that's what's going to happen. What we do know he is planning to speak tomorrow night back in Mar-a-Lago.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: He is. He's going to be delivering an address in primetime from Mar-a-Lago once he returns there and really to do it on his own terms. So, it's seen in a way as doing a -- you know, his rebuttal of this. And his speech will surely go longer than the 10 minutes that he's going to be arraigned tomorrow. So, this is -- he wants something more dignified, we're told, something that's not standing outside of the courthouse. [14:10:00]

So, yes, he wants to gain politically from this in the short term, raising money, getting his rivals to sort of circle behind him, but he also wants to sort of frame this in a way that -- you know that he can do it as a former president. And he's inviting friends and allies to Mar-a-Lago. He wants to be surrounded by them. So, that is how he hopes to put an exclamation point on this first court appearance, I guess.

So, again, a short-term political benefit. The $7 million, we should point out, if that's true, that's from small-dollar donations, like selling all kinds of variety of things like indictment merchandise and just people sending support because they think he's wrong. But again, the long-term benefit of this, we will just have to take our collective press. This will be with this presidential campaign likely throughout the Republican primary, if not beyond.

COLLINS: Yes, it's reshaped the state of the field right now. Elie, tomorrow, Trump will be before this judge that we should know he's been trashing claiming that he hates him. He's also obviously going after the district attorney here. We've seen that. There's a chance the judge could dismiss this potentially. We don't actually know what the judge is going to do.

HONIG: Yes. So, it's never a good idea to talk negatively about the judge or the prosecutor. Although you're entitled to do that. You do have a First Amendment right.

But there's two lines that we have to watch here. Number one, at a certain point, the judge can issue a gag order. Meaning I officially ordered you to stop speaking publicly about this case. And if that happens, and Trump violates it, then you can get into serious trouble.

The other thing that we have to watch for is if it crosses a line where it gets into that realm of threats. Then there could be a charge here, potentially, I don't think we'll see one, but it's possible. At a certain point, threats to a prosecutor, threats to a judge become illegal. Now, that's a matter of judgment for the prosecutor. But if it -- if it gets to a point where it appears that Trump is calling for physical violence or making a physical threat, then that's a possibility.

COLLINS: Yes, of course, he -- you know, backpedaled on some of the criticism --

HONIG: Yes.

COLLINS: -- after he was criticized for his post next to Alvin Bragg with the picture of the baseball bat as well. Elie and Jeff, stay with us. We'll check back in with you. Dana and Phil, obviously, we're waiting to see what -- how this plays out.

Dana, you know, as well as anyone because you spoke with a Trump attorney yesterday that they're still waiting to see what the details of this indictment look like. They don't even fully know the details of this.

BASH: No, not at all, which is why Joe Tacopina yesterday on State of the Union was reluctant to say anything about any motions that they would put out tomorrow with the indictment, even a motion to dismiss even though he said eventually, they will do that, the Trump team. They've been talking about sort of what's going to happen in the courtroom, you, Kaitlan in New York, and her panel up there.

I want to switch for a moment to the raw politics of this because, Audie, like we were talking about earlier when it comes to Donald Trump anytime, but particularly now because he's not just a former president. He's a candidate to be president again. The combination of politics and this legal jeopardy that he's in are everything is opposite world when it comes to him or an upside-down world or whatever you will call it, but it is very much proven in CNN's new poll today. Right, Gloria?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I think it -- what's fascinating about CNN's new poll is that it's just common sense. A majority of people say that they approve of this indictment, but a majority also think it's political. And people are not sure like most -- like everyone, whether it's -- what he did allegedly is ethical, unethical, or is it just -- or is it illegal?

So, people are confused. They -- we don't know what's in the indictment. They think it's fishy. Trump did something wrong, 10 percent -- only 10 percent of the people in this country think he's totally blameless on this. So what does that tell you?

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But to be clear, I mean, when you, of course, get down into the partisan numbers --

BORGER: Right.

CORNISH: It's a completely different picture, right?

BORGER: It's split. Yes, it's absolutely split.

CORNISH: You have many Republicans feeling as though he is being unfairly targeted, that this is a political prosecution. But, of course, the reason why we're bringing it up is because of those numbers of independents, right?

BORGER: Exactly.

CORNISH: Those are the ones that are right now saying looks bad, we should look into it, that's sort of the tone.

BORGER: That much?

CORNISH: But not sure.

BORGER: But not sure --

CORNISH: Yes.

BORGER: -- whether it's illegal, right?

BASH: But you say it's common sense what we're seeing in this poll. But I just --

BORGER: It is.

BASH: But I also just wonder about the idea of yes, definitely, there's a partisan split. But this is beyond the partisan split when you see that 60 percent of Americans approve of the indictment, and three quarters say it's politics.

BORGER: Right. I'm not so --

BASH: So, are they -- are the Democrats approving of it because it helps -- they believe it helps them politically or it's bad for Donald Trump politically? Ultimately.

BORGER: Well, they don't like Donald Trump. You know, it's a bit -- I mean, you can't separate it from how people feel about Donald Trump himself.

BASH: Yes.

BORGER: And his -- you know, his approval in this is -- you know, was unfavorable in this poll is 58 percent. So, that's pretty high.

BASH: I just want to correct myself I said bad for Donald Trump politically. That is absolutely not the case in the short term.

BORGER: In the short term.

BASH: I was talking about the long term. Go ahead.

MATTINGLY: Let me ask you -- I actually extend this to both of you since you're the actual lawyer and you know, all the lawyers. That's sort of you're just good -- being good at what your job.

BASH: He just plays one on TV.

[14:15:07]

MATTINGLY: Yes. We were trying to put something on break. And I hope we're not blowing you up by talking about -- what we were talking about during break that we always think through the lens of the former president controls everything, right?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And that has always worked to his political benefit. He is now for the first time moving into a venue where he controls nothing.

WILLIAMS: Nothing.

MATTINGLY: Maybe he can control the speech he gives afterwards. But on the day-to-day of what happens inside the courtroom, he does not get to control the pace or the timing or what comes out of it. WILLIAMS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Is that a fair assessment, Elliot?

WILLIAMS: It's a really fair assessment. And not only that trying to take back that narrative in the courtroom will work against you. You can be silenced by a judge, you can be fined by a judge, you can be thrown in jail by a judge if you speak out of turn or out of line, and also, there's any number of steps along the very long and very slow and not like it is on TV process of a criminal trial where you're just not in control, where you're waiting, you're sitting around and actually kind of being embarrassed by the judge.

It probably was a very good decision on the part of Donald Trump's team to not want cameras in the courtroom because he just simply as a political candidate or public figure, is a minor figure in the courtroom. And really, the judge is the only person in many respects whose opinion matters.

MATTINGLY: And, Evan, on that. Look, you've covered every investigation that has involved the former president since he took office. There's about 7 billion of them.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And you have all the documents and stories. But I think the interesting element here is we always try and figure out OK well, is this going to help him politically -- everything helps him politically. Having covered all of these, what makes this different than perhaps some of the other ones that you have covered especially since we don't actually know what's in the indictment yet?

PEREZ: Yes, we don't know yet what these charges are -- entail. I think it's a completely different game he's playing now. His legal team is well-practiced. Everybody around him as well practice in trying to play delay game.

You know, there's a reason why Donald Trump announced when he did, right? He thought that this would help him if the -- with all the investigations going on, and would help emphasize his victimhood, right? It ended up getting him a special counsel, right, which is something he did not want.

So, you know, everything that he thinks, all the strategies that have worked for him so well when he was president, which was delay, delay, delay, make sure you're -- you find a way to obstruct in public and in -- like completely within plain sight and in that way, almost, you know, prevent the Justice Department from doing anything. And now, none of that works because he's no longer president, he doesn't have any of those powers anymore, and judges -- you were seeing judges right now move with speed to try to tackle some of the big legal questions like getting his lawyers --

BASH: Yes.

PEREZ: -- to come before them and provide a testimony. These are things that normally he's had the advantage of being -- of being able to delay things. He -- it's not working.

BASH: He can't anymore. And we should also note, as you're talking, I'm just thinking about the fact that as a private citizen, before he got into politics, he had so much experience in trying to navigate --

PEREZ: Yes.

BASH: -- and push back on legal challenges. I mean, years and years of experience. And we're going to talk a lot more about this and many other things in a bit.

But after a break, we're going to talk about the Chinese spy balloon that the U.S. military shut down, and new information about the fact that maybe it was able to transmit intelligence back to Beijing. And also ahead, OPEC unexpectedly cuts oil production sending prices surging, how this will impact all of us? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: New today. Sources tell CNN that the Chinese spy balloon that cross over the U.S. earlier this year was capable of gathering intelligence and pictures from sensitive U.S. military sites and transmit that information in real-time back to Beijing.

BASH: CNN national security reporter Natasha Bertrand is at the Pentagon. So, Natasha, what are you hearing from your sources?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Dana. So, we're told that this Chinese spy balloon that transited the U.S. back in February, it was actually able to capture some images and some signals intelligence from some of these military installations across the United States. Now, the U.S. is saying at this point that they do not believe that the Chinese spy balloon was able to collect anything more sensitive than say a Chinese satellite would, that is constantly kind of orbiting above these sites.

But there are important caveats to that. Namely, that the U.S. government still doesn't know how much it doesn't know. And that is because the Chinese spy balloon back in Beijing, though people controlling it, they were actually able to wipe a lot of the information on that spy balloon kind of remotely erase it before the U.S. government was able to examine it, of course, after shooting it down.

And so that raises a lot of questions, of course, if the Chinese government was able to remotely erase the content on that balloon, then what kind of intelligence was it able to gather that the U.S. does not yet know about?

Now, the Pentagon has faced a lot of questions about this today and depending on the press secretary or Deputy Press Secretary, I should say just took some questions on this. And she suggested that the balloon's path was in fact, deliberate. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SABRINA SINGH, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: We do know that the balloon was able to be maneuvered and purposely driven along its track, but not going to get into specific sites. It was able to hover over. But what we did do is take precautionary steps to limit the intelligence value that it would be able to collect. And, you know, again, we took steps to protect our own military installations from foreign intelligence collection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So, this is key. The U.S. arguing that they were able to mitigate some of the intelligence value that Beijing would have been able to collect from that spy balloon. But again, a lot is still unknown here as the FBI continues to investigate the balloon and importantly try to figure out, of course, what it was ultimately able to gather, Phil and Dana.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Definitely, a lot of unanswered questions still. Natasha Bertrand, thanks so much.

Now, oil prices are surging today after OPEC Plus announced an unexpected cut in oil output. Now, this move could threaten amongst many other things, the Federal Reserve's ongoing efforts to curb inflation.

[14:25:02]

BASH: CNN's Anna Stewart is in London. So, Anna, what drove this decision?

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well, that depends on who you speak to. If you go to Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, they say this was a precautionary measure and it's to stabilize the oil market. The suggestion being that perhaps there'll be some sort of decline in global oil demand.

Now, speaking to some analysts today, there's also the more skeptical view that this is a way to shore up oil prices and increase revenue for those big oil-producing nations. And you saw that today. Oil prices at one stage were up 8 percent on this news because they're taking supply off the market pushing up those prices. And some analysts actually think you could see all prices returning to one hundred dollars a barrel by the end of the year.

Now, I think it's really important to note that this sort of move would be less likely if OPEC was worried about market share if they were worried that more oil could come onto the market from the likes of the U.S. for instance. But as low down on us shale has kind of put paid to that. Plus, looking at the U.S. Strategic reserves, well, they're at their lowest level now since 1983.

The White House, of course, not happy afterward say it was muted displeasure. In terms of the reaction, they said they thought this was inadvisable, and this muddies the outlook for the economy and also for interest rates because this will be likely push up inflation. Back to you, guys.

BASH: Just what Americans and people all over the world really in need when it comes to putting gas in their tanks. Anna Stewart, thank you so much.

MATTINGLY: OK. Ahead of Trump's arraignment, it's what -- it's what we've been talking about, right?

BASH: Does something happening in New York?

MATTINGLY: That's coming tomorrow, right?

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: The former president makes a major shift, hires a new lead counsel. What this says about his defensive strategy? Coming up next.