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CNN International: Tennessee House Expels Two Democrats, Spares Third; Israel Strikes Gaza and Lebanon After Flurry of Rocket Attacks; Trump, Allies Launch Campaign to Discredit DA, Judge. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired April 07, 2023 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
I'm Max Foster joining you live from London. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to let the nation know that what's happening in Tennessee is a danger to the nation. What we saw today was authoritarianism. What we saw today was the undoing of the will of my voters, of my constituents.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We will strike our enemies and they will pay the price for any act of aggression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What business does Israel have going into the mosque, storming into it and preventing people from worshipping? That's the essential question.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): He is stronger today than he was yesterday. People in South Carolina even those who don't like President Trump, see this is a politically motivated prosecution.
TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I feel like I drove it good. I just didn't do the job I needed to do to get the ball close.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London. This is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: It is Friday, April 7th 9:00 a.m. here in London, 3:00 a.m. in Nashville, Tennessee. Where the Republican controlled state legislature has voted to expel two Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROW: This will be where action will be.
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FOSTER: That's Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, protesting the lack of action on gun violence last week after the Nashville school shooting.
NOBILO: Jones and Pearson were expelled for what Republicans say was a violation of House rules. Johnson will keep her seat. The two men could be reappointed or sent back to the House through special elections.
FOSTER: But Jones and Pearson are asking protesters to come back to the capital on Monday when the House reconvenes. More from CNN's Gary Tuchman.
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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was a tumultuous day here on Thursday at the Tennessee state capital in Nashville. Outside the capital, and inside the capital, there were hundreds of protesters here afraid of what might happen to three Democratic legislators, and indeed what they feared did happen. The Republican supermajority in the House of Representatives voted to expel two of them.
Those two representatives expelled were Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, accused of disorderly conduct after an incident last week. A third member, Gloria Johnson, was also part of it. She survived by one vote. She's still in the legislature. But those three legislators said they were not being acknowledged. They walked into the well of the House of Representatives last week and started talking about what they wanted to see with gun reform after the horrifying school shooting that happened here in Nashville. But they were declared out of order. They violated the rules.
Typically, in a legislature or in Congress or a city council, if you violate the rules, you get a slap on the wrist, or maybe you're censured. But the decision was made to fire them, to expel them, despite the fact that they were elected in their districts by tens of thousands of voters, they are now gone.
[04:05:00]
When the decision was made for those two men to be expelled, people screamed and yelled. They actually had a die-in, where people were lying down in the halls of the legislature. And when it all ended, and when the representatives came out there were Tennessee troopers separating the protesters from the legislators as they came out. It was a wild day in a very unusual day in American politics.
This is Gary Tuchman, CNN in Nashville, Tennessee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton said peaceful protests are welcome. But what these lawmakers did detracted from that process and distracted the House from protecting children. Here's what the Democratic lawmakers had to say. The two Black men who were expelled and the white woman who was not explains why she thinks she was spared.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUSTIN JONES, EXPELLED TENNESSEE LAWMAKER: What happened today was a distraction of the real issue. Which was that a week after mass shooting in Nashville, rather than passed laws that passed common sense gun laws, my colleagues expelled myself, Justin Pearson because they're afraid of what we're giving voice to. Which are all these young people you see gathered around the capital demanding this body change. Gen-Z and millennials, saying that it's our time now and that we need substantive and urgent action to address this crisis of mass shootings.
JUSTIN PEARSON, EXPELLED TENNESSEE LAWMAKER: Sometimes you get from the periphery in the back of the House. You got to go to the well of democracy. And demand that democracy be true for everybody. It's not just the rich white males too. Not just the rich white people who've got this provisional power, perpetuating the status quo. Not just those who are being supported by the NRA and gun lobbyists and the Tennessee firearms associate, not just them. Now they are the ones that just get a voice. Let the folks in our districts get a voice too.
GLORIA JOHNSON (D) TENNESSEE STATE HOUSE: I'm a 60-year-old white woman, and they are too young Black men. I am listening to the questions and the way they were questioned and the way they were talked to. I was talked down to as a woman, mansplain to, but it was completely different from the questioning that they got.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Well, President Biden is condemning the lawmakers' expulsion as shocking and undemocratic.
He tweeted: Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters.
NOBILO: Former President Barack Obama tweeted.
What happened in Tennessee is the latest example of a broader erosion of civility and democratic norms. Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won't lead to progress.
FOSTER: We're keeping a close eye on the violence flaring in Israel, Gaza and now Lebanon as well. The Lebanese foreign ministry just announced it will file an official complaint to the U.N. Security Council after Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon. Israel says it was going after Palestinian militants there. And in Gaza, where the Palestinian health ministry said the Israeli strikes damage a children's hospital.
NOBILO: Israel says it was responding to a barrage of rocket attacks from Hamas. This comes two days after Israeli police stormed the al- Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites where all these worshippers returned on Thursday.
The fighting is happening as the region's three major religions are meant to be celebrating Ramadan, Passover and Easter. CNN Scott McLean is monitoring the Lebanese reaction live from Beirut.
Let's begin with our Salma Abdelaziz, who is with us from Jerusalem. Salma, tell us more about the reaction of Israel to what's being called the biggest rocket salvo since 2006.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think really, to break this down, Max and Bianca, we have to start at the compound, known as Temple Mount to Jews, known as the noble sanctuary to Muslims that flashpoint holy site that is often the start and end of so many tensions in this region.
And you have to take it back to Wednesday. Of course, when al-Aqsa mosque was twice raided by Israeli police. Footage of one of those overnight raids shows Israeli police hitting worshippers, hitting people inside with batons with the butts of their rifles. Those images as you can imagine, are extremely inflammatory to the Muslim world, particularly as it is the holy month of Ramadan.
And condemnation quickly poured in as well as rockets in response. Rockets coming from Gaza, about a dozen of them on Wednesday, as well as rockets coming from southern Lebanon, a barrage of over 30. The largest barrage seen from that region since the conflict, since the war in 2006.
Now authorities then went on here in Israel to say that they would respond. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that he would -- he vowed to respond to those attacks, and that's exactly what we saw take place. Israeli defense forces they struck at sites inside Gaza. They say those were military sites, weapons sites.
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The Palestinian Health Ministry, for its part said that the hospital was hit in that attack, and there was no death toll. But the people inside of course, disturbed by that attack. And of course, retaliatory strikes on southern Lebanon as well.
Now it's important to note here that Israeli authorities are not blaming Hezbollah, which is, of course, the organization, the political military organization that operates and dominates southern Lebanon. Israeli authorities are instead blaming other Palestinian factions, they were Hamas or Islamic jihad for launching attacks from southern Lebanon.
Now Hezbollah for its part, has neither claimed nor denied responsibility, has condemned the raid on al-Aqsa mosque Wednesday. But now you've seen these very measures -- that's important to note -- very measured no death toll here from Gaza from southern Lebanon, from Israel. No death toll, very measured tip for tat. And the question is, does it fizzle out or does it escalate?
And to answer that question, we're going to have to go back to Temple Mount. Back to the noble sanctuary today where there's going to be Friday prayer in less than a couple of hours' time. Does that go ahead as planned? Does that go on without incident? That could bring down tension, that could deescalate the situation.
But if yet again, we do see more escalation there more incidences there. That could feed fuel to this fire.
FOSTER: That's very tense, very worrying. We're going to shift to the Lebanese capital. Scott McLean is there. What are the authorities saying about these rockets going in both directions across the border?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Max. Look, the Israelis promised to respond, and it seems like they have responded. The thing is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to extract a heavy price from Israel's enemies and at least on the Lebanese side, the strikes didn't really do that much damage, at least based on the video that we have seen thus far.
Which shows that there were some homes, some cars that were affected. There was an electrical transformer that was affected and there was a massive crater left in a farmer's field in a pretty rural area, a little farming community. Farmers there said that they woke up to these explosions that damaged some of their homes. But as far as we can tell so far there have been no one injured. No one -- no casualties either.
Now as Salma mentioned, the Israelis are blaming Palestinian militant groups that are operating within Lebanon, and there are several of them. And they do have some military power in this part of -- they're in the southern part of the country, especially around some of the Palestinian refugee camps there.
Israel says that of the strikes that it carried out -- there were 10 of them -- it was aiming at Hamas linked tunnels and production sites there. And it seems that Israel is being extremely careful here to make sure that they are only going after targets that they say are laid to Palestinian militant groups, rather than -- as Salma mentioned -- Hezbollah. Because that they see as a much, much bigger threat. In fact, it's been something that they've been worried about for quite some time.
The Israeli assessment is that there could be hundreds, maybe thousands of rockets that Hezbollah has hidden in southern Lebanon inside private residences, all of them within range of actually hitting Israeli soil.
Hezbollah, as Salma mentioned, neither confirmed nor denied. But previously for context here. It's leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that, look, any violations at the al-Aqsa mosque complex could lead to hell breaking loose in this region.
Israel does, though, say that Hezbollah does bear --
FOSTER: OK Scott, we lost communications within there, but we've got the gist of that story with those images coming into us. Now, just days after his arraignment on multiple felonies, Donald
Trump is on the attack against the Manhattan district attorney and the judge overseeing the case. The latest is just ahead.
NOBILO: Plus, a new report details how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas secretly accepted luxury trips from a major Republican donor.
FOSTER: And dozens of arrests in France following more demonstrations against the government's controversial pension reform plan. We'll take you to Paris live for the latest.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: We're expecting to get a clearer picture of the state of the U.S. economy in just a few hours when the March jobs report is released. Economists expect monthly employment gains to slow.
NOBILO: Analysts expect that the U.S. will see nearly 240,000 new jobs. That would be a notable reduction from the 311,000 jobs gained in February.
FOSTER: Economists predict the unemployment rate will hold steady at 3.6 percent. And the March jobs report will be the last monthly employment snapshot before the Federal Reserve's next policy meeting at the beginning of May.
NOBILO: Now let's check where U.S. future stand, as investors wait for this jobs report. As you can see, they're not feeling particularly optimistic about it. All three -- all three major U.S. indexes are now slightly in the red.
And trading is in full swing on the European markets. All are trading slightly higher at the moment. And the Asian markets are also in green territory as you can see.
FOSTER: There's a new warning that the odds of a recession in the U.S. may be going up. It's from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank. In an exclusive interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow, he said the recent collapse of two U.S. banks have pushed the American economy a bit closer to the edge.
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JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: I look at it like, it's not definitive. It's just like another weight on the scale. It's just like another weight on the scale.
And think of it as, you know, people, who say it's like raising rates another 50 basis points, or something like that. We are seeing people reduce lending a little bit, cut back a little bit, pull back a little bit. It won't necessarily force a recession, but it is recessionary.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NOBILO: Donald Trump's next court date in the hush money investigation is not expected for many, many months, and any potential trial would be next year at the earliest.
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FOSTER: And while Trump and his allies are already pressing their case in the court of public opinion and aggressively questioning the integrity of the Manhattan DA and the presiding judge. CNN's Kristen Holmes is in West Palm Beach and has our report.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As former President Donald Trump's legal strategy takes shape, he and his allies are moving ahead full throttle with a political strategy to discredit the Manhattan district attorney and the judge overseeing his case.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): He hates Trump. He's a left-wing Democrat and by any means necessary is his approach.
ALVIN BRAGG, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Under New York state law this is a felony.
HOLMES (voice-over): Attacking Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, as being politically motivated.
REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): It's a political scam. I've said that for weeks now.
HOLMES (voice-over): Trump ally and head of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, firing off a subpoena to a former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan DA's team, Mark Pomerantz.
The committee saying: Pomeranz's public statements about the investigation strongly suggests that Bragg's prosecution of President Trump is politically motivated.
Trump world also questioning in the impartiality of the judge on the case Juan Merchan.
MIKE DAVIS, TRUMP ILLEGAL ALLY: They brought these bogus political charges against President Trump. And then he finds out that this judge actually donated to Biden's campaign. So, that at least raises the appearance of impartiality -- that the appearance that this judge could be -- not be impartial against President Trump.
HOLMES (voice-over): According to FEC filings, Merchan donated small amounts to Democratic fundraising efforts in 2020, including $15 to Joe Biden's campaign. An act that caught some legal experts by surprise.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: While the dollar amounts here are quite small, there could be an issue at least about the appearance of a conflict of interest. The judicial ethics rules say that you want to avoid any situation where it could look like a judge might not be impartial.
HOLMES (voice-over): Trump also taking aim at Merchan's family despite a request from the judge to avoid rhetoric that could, quote, incite violence or jeopardize the safety or well being of any individuals.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have a Trump hating judge. With the Trump hating wife and family. Whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.
HOLMES (voice-over): Merchan's daughter served as president of Authentic Campaigns. A firm that does digital work for Democratic candidates.
Law enforcement in New York continues to track threats against Bragg and Merchan, although none of the threats so far have been deemed credible.
Trump himself lashing out more broadly at the investigations into his conduct, asking Republicans to, quote, defund the DOJ and FBI until they come to their senses. And accusing Democrats of weaponizing law enforcement. Something not all Republican allies were in agreement on.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I'm not for defunding the police. I think it's a bad idea. As frustrated is, he has the right to be about some things the FBI has done as Trump.
HOLMES (voice-over): As Trump and his team continue their full court press, notably absent former first lady Melania Trump, who hasn't been seen in public with Donald Trump since news broke of his indictment.
HOLMES: And though we haven't seen Melania. She's not travel from Florida to New York, with the former president for his arraignment. She was not at that speech at Mar-a-Lago. I am told by a number of sources that she has been eating dinner with him. She's been seen around the club with the former president. But some allies do believe that it would be helpful at least from an optics perspective for her to appear with him publicly.
Kristen Holmes, CNN West Palm Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Stormy, Daniels says absolutely she would testify against Donald Trump if the hush money case ever goes before a jury. In a new interview with talk TV's Piers Morgan, Daniels said that when she watched Trump in court on Tuesday, she felt, quote, the king has been dethroned.
NOBILO: The former adult film star also lamented that violent threats against her have now become way more specific and graphic allegedly by people who are no longer trying to hide their identities.
One of Trump's Republican challenges in the U.S. presidential race isn't wading into his legal problems. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley spoke to an energetic crowd in her home state Thursday night. FOSTER: She didn't mention Trump's arrangement. Instead, she stuck to
her talking points about the border and the economy.
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NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are $31 trillion in debt. We are borrowing money just to make our interest payments. And the spending is out of control. And it's easy for us to blame Biden. But I've always been a truth teller to you. And I've always told you hard truth even when it hurts. Our Republicans did that to us too.
Social security will be bankrupt in 10 years. Medicare will be bankrupt in five. Now you look at our education system and everybody wants to say COVID did this to our schools. We had a problem with education before COVID.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee in 2024 if you decides to run again.
[04:25:00]
But a new CNN poll indicates that most Americans don't think he deserves it. The poll says just 32 percent of those surveyed said Mr. Biden should get another four years in office. Nearly 67 percent think someone else should get a go. Our poll also found Mr. Biden's approval rating at 42 percent with 57 percent disapproving of how he's handling his job as president. His numbers are slightly down from January.
FOSTER: Still ahead, protests in France spiral into clashes with police. We'll go live to Paris for the latest on the situation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBILO: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted Thursday to expel two Democratic legislators who joined the protest on the House floor after a deadly school shooting in Nashville.
President Biden called the move shocking, undemocratic and without precedent.
And Lebanese foreign ministry plans to file an official complaint to the U.N. Security Council after Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon. Israel says it was targeting Palestinian militants there and in Gaza.
NOBILO: A new bombshell report is once again putting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the spotlight. According ProPublica, Thomas has gone on several luxury trips paid for by Republican mega donor Harlan Crow. But this was not previously disclosed. CNN's Joan Biskupic explains why this puts the court's integrity in jeopardy.
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JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: This latest episode involving the lavish trips that Justice Thomas took, but did not disclose, touches directly on concerns about the Supreme Court's integrity and why the justices do not have a formal code of ethics.
These kinds of off-bench activities have been cropping up more and more. But this report is probably one of the most staggering. ProPublica after.
