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Taiwan's President Tsai, Speaker McCarthy Meet In California; National Security Officials Tell Special Counsel Trump Was Repeatedly Warned He Did Not Have Authority To Seize Voting Machines; House GOP To Investigate Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 05, 2023 - 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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ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Erica Hill. Thanks for joining us in the CNN NEWSROOM.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

A major display today of democratic solidarity and China is watching it all. Right now, in the outskirts of Los Angeles, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen is meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other bipartisan leaders. It comes as Taipei's relations with China steadily crumbled and U.S.-Chinese tensions continually rise over aggressive spying in Beijing's support for Russia.

HILL: But the U.S. does remain steadfast in its support for the tiny island nation. Next hour, we do expect Speaker McCarthy and President Tsai to deliver joint statements from the Reagan Presidential Library and we will bring those to you live.

Joining us now is CNN's senior international correspondent Will Ripley who's in Taipei and CNN chief White House correspondent Phil Mattingly. So, Will, the last time that Tsai of course met with the house speaker, we know the reaction there. Beijing launching extensive military drills in response. What are the concerns today about a similar retaliation?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, so far, the Taiwanese defense ministry is not detecting a huge uptick in Chinese military activity around Taiwan, although there was an aircraft carrier group that was apparently heading out towards the Western Pacific that they're monitoring very closely. At this stage, a lot of analysts believe that this will probably not be as severe of a response as we saw last August after Nancy Pelosi took off from Taipei and China kicked off unprecedented military drills, including firing missiles over Taiwan, not to mention simulating a blockade of the island, which would be the first step that China would take theoretically if there were an actual invasion.

Of course, it was clearly an attempt to not only intimidate Taiwan but warn the United States that these kinds of high-level exchanges are just not acceptable to the Communist Party leadership because they don't want to see the third in line to the U.S. presidency, the House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, meeting with Taiwan's president because they don't think that Taiwan's democratically elected government by the 24 million people who live here is actually legitimate.

The CCP, the Communist Party thinks that they should be the ones in control this island. They've claimed it for more than 70 years, ever since the end of China's civil war, but they've never actually controlled it. But China has a lot to lose if they actually do -- you know, stage these large-scale military drills. That could further alienate the West. It would distract from Xi Jinping's meeting on Thursday with the French president and the president of the EU Commission who are in Beijing.

And so, the -- you know obviously, China and his military might feel that they have to do something to show, you know, defiance and anger about this visit. But will they go as far as they did less than a year ago? That is the very big and open question right now.

GOLODRYGA: It is fascinating how all of this is choreographed because this meeting has been planned for a while and yet China feels that it has to respond in some way. Phil, over to you at the White House. The Biden administration is urging China not to overreact here. What else is the administration saying?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): You know, the most fascinating in all is that Will does a great job of laying out the balancing act on the Chinese government's side. The U.S. is also facing its own balancing act, the one they've really faced since 1979 when the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Taiwan and the U.S. and China basically did a 180 to some degree here. The fact that there's a transit or a visit through the United States with the Taiwanese President is not in and of itself some dramatic rarity. It happens and it has happened fairly regularly.

However, meeting with the Speaker of the House on U.S. soil will be the highest-ranking official since the shift in the diplomatic relations of that a Taiwanese president has ever met with. Still, U.S. officials -- Biden administration officials have repeatedly over and over throughout the course of more than a week tried to send a very public message to China that this should not be viewed as any type of escalation. This should not be viewed as anything different than what they've seen in the past. It's something Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated today. Take a listen.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Beijing should not use the transit as an excuse to take any actions, to ratchet up tensions, to further push at changing the status quo. And our objective remains the same, to have peace, to have stability across the Taiwan Strait.

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[14:05:09]

MATTINGLY: And, guys, there's public communications, there have also been private communications to Chinese counterparts trying to reiterate the same point. But you underscored, Bianna, a reality here. The choreography. This isn't officially to be called a visit.

That use of the word transit is very intentional to make through -- make clear that in the mind of the U.S. officials in the official dome, I guess if you will, of what's actually going on here, the Taiwanese president is actually going through the United States not having a visit directed at the United States. I think it's those dynamics when you put it into the full context of a bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, that has been just at heightened tensions that only seem to be accelerating over the course of the last several weeks that you reach this point where they are out right now and where U.S. officials are watching very closely for that response that they've been urging Chinese officials over the course of the last several days not to actually engage it.

GOLODRYGA: All right, Phil Mattingly and Will Ripley, thank you so much for joining us.

And for more on this, Josh Rogin is joining us. He is a columnist for the Washington Post and the author of Chaos Under Heave: Trump, Xi, And The Battle For The 21st Century.

Josh, always good to have you on. So, as we just heard out from Phil, you have the United States in Thai play -- Taipei downplaying this visit, calling it a transit stop. Is that an effective and value-added approach at this point in the relationship between the two? I mean, you know that China's going to react the way that it has and said that this is unacceptable. Does it bring any added value to sort of tiptoe around it?

JOSH ROGIN, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right, it's a great question. I think it's clear that both the governments in Washington and Taipei do see some value in not being as provocative as they could be when these types of visits which are a regular occurrence do what happened. And that means Tsai is not making a lot of speeches. She's not giving any press interviews. They call it a transit stop when everybody knows it's a visit, not a transit stop.

The problem is that over the years, the Chinese Communist Party has been less and less willing to understand those gestures and respond in a similar way. And actually, what they've done is they've ramped up their aggressiveness, they've ramped up their coercion of Taiwan, and they've taken those concessions as weakness and used that to escalate and change the status quo, vis-a-vis, China and Taiwan's military to military relationship. And this is a huge problem because if you think about it, their -- Tsai is in an impossible position.

She needs to do these visits. They're important for democracies. They have to talk to each other. They have to talk to people in all of these countries in order to be a healthy functioning democratic country.

At the same time, they have no interest in provoking outright conflict with China. And that's the balancing act that Tsai is engaged in right now, especially in California. HILL: There's also the balancing act that the administration is engaged in, right? So, to Bianna's point and to Phil's point about the very, very clear use of language, John Kirby, even earlier today, going out of his way to say, look, this isn't uncommon. This happens.

But also, by the way, it's not official, wouldn't address whether there were perhaps discussions with the administration with Speaker McCarthy pride or -- prior to heading out to California. But he was very clear, Josh, to say that the administration -- that members of the administration did make clear to China how they felt about potential overreaction. How is that choreography helping, if at all?

ROGIN: Right. Well, I think it's actually much better coordination, frankly, than it was last year when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan because, at that time, the Chinese didn't believe that the Biden administration didn't want her to go because she was in the same party as them. At least now, they see that Kevin McCarthy as the head of the opposition, is probably not doing this on behalf of the Biden White House.

At the same time, I think both the administration and the congressional leadership have been very measured and very careful to craft this in a way that they can defend it as a -- as a diplomatic gesture that doesn't go too far, that doesn't seek to provoke China. At the same time, like I said before, it's not clear that it -- the Chinese leadership even really cares about that kind of stuff anymore because as they -- we've been carefully managing these interactions, they've been escalating, they've been building up missiles, they've been coercing Taiwan on a daily basis, and they've been flooding our information space with a lot of propaganda saying that oh, Tsai Ing- wen is a separatist, that she's trying to secure Taiwanese independence that the U.S. is trying to use Taiwan to contain China.

None of that is true. She's a leader of a democratic country, in a sober and sophisticated and strategic one at that. But right now, what's actually happening is that the Chinese government is trying to escalate and we're trying to keep that from happening. And we're failing. And it's not because of anything Tsai Ing-wen or President Biden -- Leader McCarthy did, it's because the leaders in Beijing want to change the status quo and coerce and pressure Taiwan into joining China or possibly reserving the right to attack Taiwan sometime in the near future.

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GOLODRYGA: And on that point, Josh, you know, we've been focused, and of course, rightly so it is very prudent to focus on a possible military attack from China on Taiwan. And that has been the focus -- bipartisan focus really in the administration here and amongst Democrats and Republicans.

But you write about the threat that's non-military towards Taiwan, and that is a campaign of political, economic, and psychological aggression that you think and it looks like President Tsai also believes could be actually the biggest threat coming from China, and their possible number one option before going to military. Can you explain that?

ROGIN: Well, yes, that's exactly right. I -- you know, I think a lot of times in Washington we can get caught up in seeing Taiwan as just some sort of irritant in the U.S.-China relationship and not an actual country that hasn't a functioning healthy democracy that's under attack not militarily right now but in lots and lots of other ways. We're talking about massive political interference, economic coercion, information, warfare, cyber warfare. It's not a coincidence that China invited the former Taiwanese president from opposition party to counterprogram against Tsai's trip to the United States. And this is a real threat but it's a harder one to talk about because we're not good at dealing with disinformation and cyberattacks and political interference.

And the Taiwanese are saying we need to focus more on that and less on the attack because if China can secure control over Taiwan without attacking, they will. That's what they're going to try first. And then if that fails, then they reserve the right to just invade and kill a lot of people, which would be horrible. But we can't just focus on one and not the other. We have to focus on them both because they're both threats that the Taiwanese people are facing every day.

HILL: Josh Rogin, always great to have you with us. Appreciate your expertise and your insight. Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks, Josh.

ROGIN: (INAUDIBLE)

GOLODRYGA: Well, once again, scenes of devastation out of the Midwest where tornadoes have ripped through towns like this one in Missouri. Search and rescue operations are currently underway, and we'll take you there.

HILL: Plus, former top Trump national security officials testifying to a federal grand jury about what the former president was told when it came to seizing voting machines, and the subsequent actions. CNN's exclusive new reporting is next.

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GOLODRYGA: Now, to a CNN exclusive. Former top national security officials under former President Trump told a federal grand jury that they repeatedly told Trump and his allies that the government did not have the authority to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.

HILL: So, these officials were asked earlier this year about discussions inside the Trump administration about the DHS seizing the devices. CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen joining us now with more on his exclusive reporting. What more did they reveal?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Through our sources here that several former national security officials, these are top Trump administration, national security officials testified behind closed doors to a grand jury in the federal criminal probe related to Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the election. They told the grand jury that the idea of raising -- or the idea of seizing voting machines and Trump himself asking if the Department of Homeland Security, the military even had the authority to cease voting machines, that that came up repeatedly in the -- these officials had to tell the former president no, DHS does not have the authority to cease voting machines.

But the fact that we are learning that the prosecutors are specifically asking key witnesses these questions is a rare window into this investigation. That is one of several ongoing criminal probes that Trump is facing now. One of the top -- former top officials who has testified is Ken Cuccinelli, who was the second in command at DHS in the waning days of the Trump administration. His boss -- or then-boss, Chad Wolf also testified before the grand jury telling -- and they both told them something similar that you know, they were asked if DHS could cease voting machines, if it had the authority to cease voting machines, and they both said no.

Now, we also know that Trump continued to entertain the idea of potentially using federal agencies to cease voting machines all the way up into the immediate run-up of January 6, but this new -- these new details from our sources about closed-door testimony really do give a rare window into what prosecutors are looking at, at least, as one part of the investigation into efforts to overturn the election.

GOLODRYGA: All right, Zachary Cohen, please keep us posted. Thank you.

HILL: House GOP lawmakers are sounding off on the historic indictment of former President Donald Trump and already discussing plans to investigate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

GOLODRYGA: CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju is on the Hill. So, Manu, some lawmakers are calling Trump's indictment a political scam, and say that Bragg overstepped here. They were calling him to testify, though before these indictments were unsealed. What more are you hearing now that they happen?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And we still are hearing from those same House Republican members who are pressing ahead and asking for an investigation into Alvin Bragg, calling on him to testify, asking for records. Yes, this came -- these requests came before the indictment news even broke and then even after the indictment was first leaked to the press.

Then they pressed it forward. They call. They sent letters. They had a back-and-forth with Bragg. Bragg pushed back.

But in the aftermath of these charges being unsealed, the Republican chairman of these committees say they plan to have more discussions later this week about their next steps. That's what James Comer, the House Oversight Committee Chairman said earlier today that he plans to have a discussion with Speaker McCarthy about their next steps.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JAMES COMER, (R-KY): Well, we're going to be having a call with McCarthy later this week. Jim Jordan and myself, we're going to try to figure out a path moving forward. This is very serious.

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RAJU: What's unclear is what exactly they will do given that Bragg has resisted those calls to testify. They have not said whether or not they would issue a subpoena, even as Democrats and others say that they are seeking to obstruct an investigation into the former president and trying to get muddy the waters as Bragg is pursuing these criminal charges against the former president. Now, there are some Republicans who have not said a whole lot, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been silent about this issue so far and refusing to issue a statement as he has been very clear about his public views about Trump, especially in the aftermath of January 6.

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There was silence from the number two Senator Republican, John Thune. But just earlier today, he issued his first statement in the aftermath of his indictment news, very much siding with other Republicans. He said I understand that this is the beginning of a legal process, not the end of one, but after an initial review of the details, this indictment looks like a political agenda run amok. He goes on to say it's become increasingly clear why previous district attorneys opted against prosecution.

Now, the former district attorney in Manhattan was told to essentially stand down he says, by federal prosecutors at the time who are launching their own probe into all of this, which is why those charges were not pursued by Cy Vance, the previous investigator. But nevertheless, Republicans for the most part align attacking this investigation, even as members are on recess. And we haven't heard from a lot of other members of Congress who have been gone and all around the country have yet to weigh in. Guys.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. We heard from those who -- Republicans who support the former president and those who don't, most of them really condemning this indictment from the Manhattan DA. Manu Raju, thank you.

Well, Donald Trump's next court appearance is not until December 4, but his attorney is saying that he doesn't believe the case will make it to trial.

HILL: So, just to remind you. Here's what will happen next. Prosecutors say they'll reveal the bulk of discovery evidence over the next 65 days, so that brings us into June.

Trump's legal team then has until August 8 to file any motions. The prosecution has to respond by September 19. The judge says he will rule on any motions at that December 4 hearing.

Norm Eisen is a CNN legal analyst who is also of course the House Judiciary special counsel in Trump's first impeachment trial. Norm, good to see you. This is where -- I almost said this morning, it's afternoon already. Time flies.

When we look at where we're at in this moment, and looking forward, how do you anticipate let's say -- trade your hat here, Norm Eisen. Let's say you're working on the former president's legal team. How are you using these next two months? They say they don't think it's going to make it to trial. Is that simply about filing that motion?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, if I were representing former President Trump, I would use these months to prepare to try the case in the actual court but also, as Trump is doing to try it in the court of public opinion. But I wouldn't do it the way Trump is doing it. In terms of the actual court case, we -- they are now going to get more information about what the proof against Donald Trump is.

They very likely will seek what we call a bill of particulars, more details about the prosecution's exact theory of the case where you have this alleged crime, fake books and records saying hush money payments or illegal fees, and it becomes a felony if that was done to cover up a campaign finance violation. Well, what is the exact violation? Bragg talked about it. Is it possible tax violation that makes this a felony? What is that violation?

So, I think they're going to probe for that, they're going to get discovery, get the evidence. But as this is going on to the court of public opinion, Donald Trump should not say some of the terrible and threatening things that he said over the past weeks.

He should not attack the judge, but he does need -- if I were advising him, I would tell him he needs to keep his base strong. Why? Because more cases are likely coming. Perhaps next, in Georgia from Fanni Willis or from the federal special counsel Jack Smith, hurdling forward on his investigations of the Mar-a-Lago documents and of January 6.

HILL: And I want to ask you about this too, in just a moment. But let's first address what is being said in public, and concerns about what could be said in public. The judge very clear warning the team to refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest. It does also raise the question there was a lot of talk about, could there be a gag order prior to yesterday?

How difficult is it to balance the constitutional protections on free speech which Americans have, which the former president has, with the safety of some of the key figures, including the judge, in this case? The White House is even saying they condemned any attack on any judge not commenting specifically on this case, but making it clear.

EISEN: Well, that is a very tough balancing act that Judge Merchan is already commenced upon. He laid out his criteria. If statements veer too far into threatening, he also talked about offending the rule of law, there is a line, right -- and prosecutors brought up the issues.

[14:25:03]

They showed the judge, for example, the very disturbing image that Trump put out on social media of swinging a bat at the man -- an image of the Manhattan DA's head actually in that picture. So, prosecutors set this up for a future battle.

If Donald Trump continues to do things like his Truth social posting, talking about death and destruction, like last night, calling out the judge, the judge's wife, the judge's daughter, give him enough rope, he'll hang himself. I suspect this is not the last we've heard of this debate between the First Amendment and protecting public safety in this court.

HILL: I would imagine that is one thing that we actually can count on. That will not be the last time. Ambassador Eisen, appreciate it as always. Thank you.

EISEN: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has a message for Russia, release the detained American reporter Evan Gershkovich immediately. This, as we get new details on his health in prison. We'll discuss that up next with a close friend.

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DAYTON WHEELER, COMMANDER, MIDTOWN HILLS PRECINCT: March 27 is a day that I will never forget.

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HILL: The heroic officers who responded to the Nashville school shooting will take us through just what it was like for them on that harrowing day. You'll hear from them in their own words, ahead.

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