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Trump Called Then-Governor Doug Ducey To Overturn 2020 Election Results In Arizona; Interview With Tim Parlatore About Trump's Cases; Putin Tries To Project Power After Aborted Mutiny; France Faces Fifth Night Of Riots Over Teen Death; ESPN Lays Off Top Talent In Cost Cuts At Network. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired July 01, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:52]

PAULA REID, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington. Jim Acosta has the day off.

And we begin this hour with new evidence of former President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A source telling CNN that after the votes were cast, Trump called then Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona in an attempt to pressure him into overturning his state's results. Sources say the former president also pushed his then vice president, Mike Pence, to help him in this pressure campaign.

CNN's Jeremy Herb joins us now.

All right, Jeremy. The former governor is downplaying this alleged call. What have you learned?

JEREMY HERB, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Paula. The former governor's spokesman basically said that this call is old news. And while it is true that we knew about this call after it happened in 2020, what we're learning today is new details about what President Trump said to former Governor Ducey. And sources telling CNN that the president pressured the governor to try to find enough fraud so that he could overturn the results of the election in Arizona.

We're also learning from sources that President Trump pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to go to Ducey to also take part in this campaign. And while Pence did speak to Ducey about the election, a source tells CNN that he did not follow through with the request to pressure the governor. Now if this sounds familiar, that's because it's similar to what we heard from the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in 2021.

Trump asked Raffensperger to find enough votes for him to win the state of Georgia. There are a few key differences. And the first one is that request that Trump made to Raffensperger to find votes. We have not heard from our sources that that's what he asked Ducey. He asked Ducey instead to find fraud. And that is a key distinction particularly could be affirmed when it comes to the special counsel's investigation.

The second distinction here is that there is no recording, according to our source, of this Ducey call unlike the Raffensperger call. One thing that's interesting here is that we actually have video of what appears to be President Trump calling Governor Ducey in the middle of Governor Ducey -- his certifying the election in 2020. You can watch the tape here. And you'll see here that Governor Ducey, he's signing the papers to certify the election. And you can't hear it on this video, but he gets a call.

It's a "Hail to the Chief." You can actually kind of hear it a little bit there. You hear that ring tone. And what Governor Ducey said was he had set that ringtone early in the year specifically so that he could get a call from the White House and know it was President Trump or Vice President Pence. In this case he chose to ignore that very call.

Now in a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the governor, as you said, Paula, downplayed the significance of this call telling CNN, "Frankly nothing here is new nor is it news to anyone following this issue the last two years." The spokesman also said that Ducey has not been contacted by the special counsel.

In a statement he said that -- sorry, excuse me. In Arizona's 2020 election, he certified the election, he made it clear that the certification provided a trigger for credible complaints backed by evidence to be brought forward. None were ever brought forward.

Now while Governor Ducey has not heard from the special counsel, we know the special counsel is interested in a number of these state- level officials including Secretary Raffensperger. So this will be an interesting story for us to watch and see if it develops further in the investigation -- Paula.

REID: Jeremy Herb, thank you.

And this week brought an avalanche of new developments in Donald Trump's multiple legal cases, starting with Susie Wiles, a senior campaign official for Trump who, according to multiple sources, was shown a classified map by the former president.

This week, I reported along with some of my CNN colleagues that Wiles has spoken to federal investigators numerous times as part of the special counsel's Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. It's unclear exactly what she told them. Meanwhile, multiple sources tell CNN that the Florida grand jury that indicted Trump in the classified documents case three weeks ago is actually still investigating.

This week we also learned that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was voluntarily interviewed by federal investigators as part of the special counsel's effort to investigate efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

[19:05:12]

Also this week, special counsel investigators sat down with Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the man who Trump taped -- who was taped as Trump asked him to find votes after the 2020 election. And finally, somehow, Donald Trump's legal team found the time to countersue E. Jean Carroll. He alleges Carroll defamed him when she appeared on "CNN THIS MORNING" after the jury in her sexual abuse lawsuit awarded her $5 million in damages.

But joining us now for more on this, former Trump attorney, Tim Parlatore.

All right, Tim. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you being back with us. Let's start with this news out of Arizona, right? Sources telling us that Trump spoke to the then Arizona governor, Doug Ducey, after the 2020 election. Quote, "Ducey, a Republican, said the former president was pressuring him to find fraud in the presidential election in Arizona to help him overturn the results of the election." What is your reaction to that?

TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: So that doesn't sound too surprising to me. I mean, that was really the effort throughout that time, was to go to the states and try and get them to do investigations to find fraud, which is, of course, always the risk when you ask somebody to do an investigation and find fraud, if there is fraud to be found. If there's not, they very well could come back and say, we looked, there is nothing there. So it's -- there's nothing about that that particularly surprises me. And the specific words of, you know, find fraud, yes, that's what you would want somebody to investigate and look at.

REID: So a Trump spokesperson said in a statement about the special counsel, these witch hunts are designed to interfere and meddle in the 2024 election in an attempt to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House. You have interacted with the special counsel's office. Do you think the special counsel is on a witch hunt here?

PARLATORE: Well, I do think that, you know, they are engaging an investigation. I think that some of the things that they are doing do exceed what you would normally see from a professional prosecutor's office. And so witch hunt is not a word that I like to use, but I do think that some of the things that they could be doing would be more professional and ethical than what they are doing.

REID: Like what?

PARLATORE: Well, for example, some of the things we've talked about in the past with the Mar-a-Lago investigation. And to be clear, a lot of what I'm talking about with the prosecutorial misconduct really is in that Mar-a-Lago team. I haven't seen anything from the January 6th team that would indicate any misconduct. You know, while I may not agree with everything that they were doing, that is an investigation that's run by professional, experienced criminal prosecutors.

But it is more along the Mar-a-Lago side of things where they were not trying to seek any cooperation. They were being a lot more oppositional. They were, you know, allegedly threatening a witness' attorney. They were committing misconduct before the grand jury, things like that.

REID: All right. We're going to go through the Mar-a-Lago indictment in just a second. PARLATORE: Sure.

REID: But as you know, I have the indictment here. I want to go through it. The special counsel, they let Donald Trump break the news that he had been indicted. It was 24 hours before he found out the charges. What do you think of that approach?

PARLATORE: You know, both sides in this have unique, common strategies that are different from what you would normally see between an ordinary defendant and an ordinary prosecutor's office. Every case that I have ever dealt with, the news breaks because the prosecuting office has a press conference. They put out their press release. They say these are what the allegations are. They're required under the rules to remind everybody that these are mere allegations, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty.

And then the defense attorney has the opportunity to respond. So this whole thing has been very oddly handled by them. And it did certainly did surprise me that they decided to kind of let everything hang out like that, especially after watching what happened with Alvin Bragg doing the exact same thing. You would have thought they would have learned a lesson.

REID: Yes. And you were talking about the Mueller investigation.

PARLATORE: Sure.

REID: So we too were surprised that night when we learned about that in Truth Social.

PARLATORE: Exactly.

REID: All right. I want to go to the indictment. One of the things that's really interesting about the Mar-a-Lago indictment is it sort of ends in the summer of 2022.

PARLATORE: Yes.

REID: With the family going up to Bedminster. See, well we know that was almost a year ago, and a lot has happened since then. So I want to walk through the timeline to really lay out what exactly transpired there because, as you know, there are questions about potential superseding indictments.

But let's talk about when you joined the team, you were on the team starting in April. But after the duly executed search warrant of Mar- a-Lago down in Florida -- I didn't call it a raid.

PARLATORE: Yes.

[19:10:02]

REID: Duly executed search warrant, they moved you over to the Mar-a- Lago side of the investigation after the FBI search. Why did they move you over? PARLATORE: So my role expanded at that point because one of the things

was -- has been publicly reported that we were asked to conduct additional searches. Special -- well, at the time National Security Division, it was before Jack Smith got involved.

REID: So this is the fall of 2022.

PARLATORE: This were on September.

REID: Justice department asks the Trump legal team to conduct additional searches. Why?

PARLATORE: Correct. Their argument was that the original subpoena was not specific as to place and therefore, because the only place that had been searched was Mar-a-Lago that it was incomplete and that there were additional locations such as Bedminster and Trump Tower that had not been searched.

REID: And they were searched.

PARLATORE: At the time they had not been.

REID: Subsequently, once you were asked.

PARLATORE: Correct. Correct. So I was then brought in to oversee a search team to look into those locations. And so, you know, when we got that letter, we had kind of a couple of different competing ideas on it because on one hand subpoenas don't live forever. This is a subpoena that was issued in May that had a compliance dated June. And in September when they say you still have to do more searches, legally, you know, there has to be an end date to the subpoenas.

They're not just going to live forever where two years from now they can make you do more search on the same subpoena. The flipside of it was, if you push back and you say, OK, a subpoena is dead, we don't have to respond to it, best case scenario they give you a fresh subpoena.

REID: Yes. But you --

PARLATORE: Worst case subpoena -- worst case scenario they get another search warrant and they do another raid.

REID: But you guys didn't get there because you did the searches.

PARLATORE: Correct.

REID: And what if anything did you find?

PARLATORE: The search of Bedminster, we didn't find anything. We did that. We called the Justice Department. We asked them, please send a couple of FBI agents to observe the search. They refused. We did the search, we then provided them with a very detailed report of where we had searched, what we had found, nothing that had any classified markings on but, you know, so they could see exactly how thorough the search was. REID: And then there is a bunch of litigation that happens behind

closed doors.

PARLATORE: Right.

REID: We've tried to figure out what happened, right? You know we have spies on the court but then there are --

PARLATORE: Hopefully that will soon be unsealed.

REID: We're trying.

PARLATORE: Yes.

REID: But then there are additional searches. Where are these additional searches?

PARLATORE: So the next place that my team searched is we went to Trump Tower and we searched Trump Tower, both the, you know, floor where the offices are as well as the residence. We found nothing there. We found a lot of stuff there, but nothing relevant to this. Then we went down to Palm Beach, and there is an office downtown that is leased by GSA that's part of the office of the former president, and that's where all of his correspondence is.

We searched there. We found, again, nothing relevant. There were some storage units downtown in Palm Beach. We searched those. And in there we did find some marked documents that were mixed in with some of the boxes that have been brought down from the White House.

REID: And was there any other location that you found additional documents?

PARLATORE: Yes. We then searched in December. Went back to Mar-a-Lago, and we did find a few pages with classification markings in Mar-a-Lago at that time.

REID: And what prompted you to go back to Mar-a-Lago?

PARLATORE: The Justice Department asked.

REID: Got you. And you complied. During any of those searches, did the former president ever interfere with efforts to search any of his properties?

PARLATORE: Not at all. I was given total free reign. I was told go where you want to go, search where you want to search. The only minor interference, if you want to even call it that, was when going through the residence stay out of his wife and his son's way, Barron.

REID: Sure.

PARLATORE: We stayed away from them, which is something we would have done out of respect anyway. That was really the only restriction.

REID: Now, you know it's inferred in the Mar-a-Lago indictment that he was suggesting to one of his lawyers to perhaps tamper or even destroy some of the materials that needed to be returned to the government. Did the former president ever suggest that you destroy any materials? Did he ever encourage you to tamper with things, not see things?

PARLATORE: Not at all.

REID: Did anyone in his orbit, any of his staffers, anyone who advices him interfere with any of these searches?

PARLATORE: Interfere with the conduct of the searches, no. We conducted the searches. Anything we found we turned over very quickly to DOJ. And nobody interfered with any of that.

REID: You say the conduct of the searches. Did anyone attempt to prevent you from doing searches?

PARLATORE: As you and I have discussed in the past, the first search of Bedminster, which was a voluntary search, there was some disagreement over that. And so there was certainly some scheduling, rescheduling, if you will, of that search.

[19:15:03]

But ultimately those that didn't want to do it were overcome and we did the search.

REID: I think you were referring to your earlier comments to me in one of our previous interviews when you suggested that one of the president's advisers Boris Epshteyn that he was kind of pushing back on the idea of searching Bedminster.

PARLATORE: He was at the time, but ultimately he was overruled.

REID: OK. So that gets us to the end of 2022. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to talk about what happened in the next six months as we talk about the possibility of another superseding indictment. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID: I'm back with Tim Parlatore, former attorney for Donald Trump.

All right, Tim, I want to pick up where we left off. January 2023, you and I talked here at CNN on camera at about February 2023, and you said, look, at that point you said there was nothing that implicated the former president personally in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

[19:20:03]

Then in March 2023, the Trump legal team finds out there is a recording of the meeting in Bedminster. Now you know the world has heard it. What was your first reaction when you guys realized they have this piece of evidence on your client?

PARLATORE: You know, that tape is problematic. It's not something that you'd want to have, you know, dealing with a case like this. It is not conclusive. But at the same time, it is the kind of thing that you would like to know about from the beginning if such a thing exists.

REID: A game-changer, you might say.

PARLATORE: It definitely -- it introduces a little bit more complexity to things. Really, before we got that tape, we truly did believe that they were just going through this exercise and that everything was going to get closed. We believe that, when they asked us to, you know, go search Bedminster and Trump Tower, that that was just really just a hazing exercise of just forcing us to go waste time. And so, you know, that tape was when we all of a sudden realized, you know, OK, maybe there is something more here that they're looking at other than just boxes getting moved down and a dispute with NARA about how fast they get sent back to NARA.

REID: And you left the legal team in May. He then indicted in June. That's a lot that transpires between September, right, and May. We have multiple searches. We have sealed court proceedings, right.

PARLATORE: Yes.

REID: Clearly they have additional evidence. Do you expect that there will be a superseding indictment, so additional charges either against Walt Nauta, the former president or against other people in the Mar-a- Lago?

PARLATORE: I don't know. I mean, if they are doing more work in that grand jury, that would be an indication that they're at least looking at it. I can't imagine what else they would do as far as additional charges against Walt and the president now.

REID: Still the outstanding questions about possible missing surveillance tape, we know that has been a focus. I mean, it just feels like there were a lot of, like, open questions.

PARLATORE: A drained swimming pool?

(LAUGHTER)

REID: Don't start.

PARLATORE: You know, it's -- I think that they did their investigation and they brought it to a point where they were ready to indict the first two, and there probably are some questions that they have about maybe whether other people were involved. And so that's something that would make sense to be looking at further through the grand jury process. Whether it will actually result in anything, yes, I really do not know.

REID: Have you had to speak to investigators in recent months?

PARLATORE: Me? No, not at all.

REID: And there are a lot of armchair experts who suggest there might be a New Jersey grand jury. I mean, as someone who's worked on the case, who knows how a special counsel operates, do you think that there is going to be or has there been a grand jury in New Jersey? PARLATORE: Absolutely not. I mean, first of all, I have no information

or knowledge about a grand jury indictment, but here's the thing. The things that allegedly happened in New Jersey, you know, those two conversations, they were in the indictment in Florida. So for him to go and do anything in New Jersey at this point is just inviting a dismissal or things to be transferred down because you can't have an indictment down in Florida that says this stuff happened in New Jersey and then have a separate one in New Jersey.

It's all part of one -- under their theory, it's all part of one, you know, scheme, so it has to be in one indictment.

REID: Yes. It just does seem odd that the indictment cuts off as he heads north to New Jersey. And we have all of this other stuff happen in New Jersey and New York.

PARLATORE: Correct.

REID: So I don't know what happens, but it's good to get your take.

PARLATORE: Well, a lot of the stuff that happened afterwards, you know, especially with all the searches we did, were things that I think even the court recognized at that time were exculpatory. You know, the fact that we were able to establish a pattern of here are additional documents that it was clear that nobody knew there were there, but as soon as they were discovered, they were immediately returned.

REID: OK.

PARLATORE: And so you see there is no charges about any of the documents in the subsequent searches.

REID: So the former president and his co-defendant Walt Nauta seemed to be having a little trouble finding new lawyers down in Florida. What would be your advice for anyone who is thinking of joining the Trump legal team?

PARLATORE: I would -- I would advise people to consider it seriously. It's an interesting case. It's an important issue. And if you can work out a deal where you have the ability, the autonomy, to practice, you know, what we do and, you know, without interference, do it. Especially -- I don't know why Walt is having such trouble because I think that that would be a representation that a lot of people would be interested in. So I would definitely encourage, you know, the Florida lawyers to take a hard look at that and try and get into that.

REID: Yes, I know some people who have raised their hand, but nobody has been able to sort of sign on the dotted line. But some of it of course could be delay tactics.

[19:25:02]

I'll let you have the final word on the special counsel investigation as we have this indictment and are waiting for possibly a second one is unclear. PARLATORE: Well, I mean I think that it is definitely an unprecedented

situation. And I wish that the special counsel would handle this in a more ethical manner so as to keep everybody focused just on what the facts, the evidence and the law is. Instead of all these other atmospherics.

REID: What atmospherics are you referring to?

PARLATORE: Just, you know, between election interference on one side and, you know, prosecutorial misconduct. Like all of the other things other than just simply focusing on what happened, what is the law and should anybody be held accountable for it. If we could focus on that, that would be a lot more healthy for everybody than having people going off and doing things that they shouldn't be doing to try to pursue -- pursuing an indictment or ultimately a conviction as opposed to pursuing justice.

REID: We have no -- I have no evidence that the special counsel is engaging in prosecutorial misconduct. I know there have been allegations made by the Trump team.

PARLATORE: I watched it personally.

REID: OK. What did you see?

PARLATORE: I saw them personally when I was in the grand jury committing this conduct of asking improper questions, trying to pierce the attorney-client privilege and then improperly suggesting to that grand jury that the invocation of constitutional rights is evidence of guilt. That is absolutely misconduct. That's the kind of thing that in any trial the judge would declare an immediate mistrial and that prosecutor would be facing disciplinary charges. So I hope that when this is over the prosecutor who did that will face disciplinary action.

REID: Whose privilege are they trying to pierce? Yours?

PARLATORE: The president's?

REID: No, I understand. But which attorney?

PARLATORE: Through me.

REID: So you were -- they were trying to get through your attorney- client privilege?

PARLATORE: Yes.

REID: So this was during the sealed proceeding?

PARLATORE: This was during my grand jury appearance.

REID: Remind me why you were before -- I know.

PARLATORE: I was there to talk about the searches that I had organized and oversaw, which is all of the ones we spoke about earlier, Bedminster, Trump Tower, the second Mar-a-Lago and then the downtown Palm Beach ones. And even though I was there for that very specific purpose, they kept trying to go into totally impermissible areas. And when I refused to answer those questions, they would turn and make totally impermissible statements to the jury.

REID: And how did the judge respond?

PARLATORE: There is no judge in the grand jury.

REID: That's right. Sorry, I forgot. This wasn't a sealed proceeding.

PARLATORE: Correct.

REID: I'm sorry for that. This was a grand jury proceeding. I thought it was one of the things you had before Judge Beryl Howell. Is this something that you raised in any other forum like in a filing or?

PARLATORE: Not yet. I mean, we - so first of all, those proceedings were sealed, but it is not something that would have been right for a motion at that time anyway. So it is not something that is being considered by any appellate court. It was -- it was collateral to the issues that were litigated at the time.

REID: Do you think that the Trump team could use that to try to challenge the indictment going forward?

PARLATORE: Absolutely. Not just that one incident. It is part of a larger pattern because for prosecutors to so freely commit misconduct, blatant misconduct, in a grand jury in front of me, what are they doing when I'm not in the room? I don't believe for one second that they have been acting totally ethically and properly until I walk in the room and all of a sudden they just totally fall apart because I'm there.

I think that they were probably on their best behavior when I was in the room and they were probably doing a lot more things when I wasn't in the room.

REID: So you made some bold accusations here against the special counsel's prosecutors and their team. I will reach out to them to give them a chance to weigh in. But I do appreciate you being here to help us lay out the timeline and just try to suss out this idea of whether we should expect additional charges. So thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

PARLATORE: All right. Thank you.

REID: Tim Parlatore.

All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:13]

REID: One week after that aborted mutiny in Russia, Vladimir Putin appears to be on a charm offensive. The Russian president making some rare public appearances this week, a likely bid to reassert his authority.

It comes as there is still no sign of the Wagner Group's leader since he called off the mutiny. The president of Belarus says he has arrived in the country a few days ago. Also, though not seen in public since last Saturday, Russia's former commander in Ukraine. A document shared exclusively with CNN suggests that the general was a VIP member of the private Wagner Group military company.

Now joining us now is Steve Hall. He's the former chief of Russia operations for the CIA.

Steve, what do you make of all this?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, it has been quite a week, hasn't it? You know, we don't have a whole lot of -- we don't have a whole lot of context yet and I think we'll start to get more as you know, as the weeks and months go by, but you know, just a week's worth of looking back a couple of things, I think become apparent.

The first is, you know, this is -- it is amazing to me that Vladimir Putin inside the Kremlin somehow missed all of this. I mean, it shows an incredible in my view, weakening capability, or distracting capability on the part of the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has, you know, organizations that are designed and are very well-resourced to pick up exactly this kind of thing -- any threat to the regime.

And we had Prigozhin's comments, you know, months before kind of all of us saw this coming, except Vladimir Putin apparently and his security services, which to me indicates that they are simply so focused on Ukraine that they have just lost focus on everything else and it is just amazing that these guys got almost halfway to Moscow before they encountered any resistance whatsoever.

[19:35:09]

It's just -- you look back on it, and it is just a real head scratcher as far as them missing it that badly, I think.

REID: That's right, and even to casual observers, in some ways seems almost improbable.

So I mean, in the week since the revolt, we have not heard from the mercenary group's leader or the Russian general who was detained in the aftermath. So what's your best guess as to what has happened to them?

HALL: Well, if the first thing that we learned was that Putin is weakened and is now being forced to go out and do things that no dictator likes to do, like press the flesh, he feels he shouldn't have to do that. He can reply -- he can rely on repression, he doesn't have to go out and get our own anybody's vote. The second thing that we have learned is, I think we're going to see some housecleaning. Now, whether or not it's going to be a bloody house cleaning, sort of like Stalin and the other guys did during the great terror when you had so many people who were killed simply because there was some question about them, or whether it's a little more subtle than that, hard to tell.

Putin certainly knows how to do that and has all the tools. We've seen the tools of assassination that he has, but it is interesting that although President Lukashenko in Belarus says, oh, yes, Prigozhin is here, as well as many of his forces, we have yet to see any real evidence of Prigozhin himself. There has been a little bit of evidence that he is coming out, that the forces might be arriving.

And of course, General Surovikin, who was also apparently very close to Prigozhin and the Wagner Group has also not been seen for the entire week. So that could be in my view, the beginning of the housekeeping that Putin so badly needs to do if he wants to keep his regime together.

REID: A US official tells CNN that the CIA director, Bill Burns spoke with his Russian counterpart to assure him that the US was not involved in the recent revolt.

We've also learned that he paid a visit to President Zelenskyy during a recent visit to Ukraine. What do you make of all of this sort of forward leaning by the CIA?

HALL: You know, it is important to use occasionally, the director of the CIA as almost a policy instrument, as opposed to just the normal collection capability and analytical capability that the agency usually does.

The reason it is important, especially with regard to Russia, is because in Russia, the security services play a much larger political role and policy role than in the United States or other Western countries.

So it is important to speak to the Russians in language that they use themselves and that they understand. So when the director of CIA calls and says, for example, this is an internal matter, we had nothing to do with it. I don't know how many times I've heard, you know, standard argument of internal affairs from autocracies like Russia and China. So it's important for them to hear that from us.

It has not only a calming effect on Russia, but it robs them of a propaganda opportunity to say, oh, well, this was a foreign intervention of some type.

Foreign Minister Lavrov sort of alluded to it a little bit and said, well, there could have been foreigners involve somehow, but they didn't really try very hard. That was, I think, because the CIA director had set the stage for taking that argument away from them.

REID: Fascinating. Steve Hall, thank you.

HALL: Sure.

REID: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:42:18]

REID: Right now, authorities in France are trying to restore order as the country faces a fifth night of violence.

You're looking at live pictures right now. This is all over the deadly police shooting of a teenager of North African descent. It happened earlier this week in a working class town on the outskirts of Paris.

CNN's Nic Robertson is standing by.

Nic, what are you seeing?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Right now, we're on the Champs-Elysees in the center of Paris. The police behind me, it might look quiet here at the moment, 50 minutes ago they were firing teargas down the side streets here.

You can't see it in the dark, but there's a nightclub there. We just walked past it. People standing outside the nightclub. A few minutes ago, they were running down the street choking. I'm going to walk out onto the main street here, you can see the blue flashing lights down the Champs-Elysees in this direction. You can hear the sirens going off.

And we ask Claudia to turn around and look up towards the Arc de Triomphe right up there at the top of the Champs-Elysees, you see the blue lights.

This is the main central shopping district, the main street, the big street in Paris. Tourists, restaurants, cafes around here. There is a lot of side streets and on all of these side streets, that is where the police have been playing cat and mouse with the protesters.

We've seen them arresting some of them, searching some of them, taking some of them away. We don't have accurate figures for the number of arrests in Paris tonight, yet, it is likely to grow.

We know there have been protests in Lyon in the south, in the center in Marseille, and in the south in the Mediterranean coast where the police sent additional reinforcement, elite police officers, to combat riots. They needed to supplement them there.

Forty-five thousand police spread out across the country and what we've seen in the city here in Paris tonight are hundreds upon hundreds of highly mobile police. They are coming in on motorbikes. They get off the motorbikes. The passengers they jump off, they run and deal with the crowd. Van loads of police moved around.

It is still ongoing. The police here, as I say, on the corners here. Another police -- couple of police vehicles blocking the road here just now.

It is hard to tell what is going on, where the police are going to move to next, but what the effort seems to be is to keep the crowds moving, it is to not let people gather. It is just to keep pushing them away, pushing them away, trying to keep control of the situation.

In a few minutes, we'll take a look. We'll go and walk up the top of the Champs-Elysees by the Arc de Triomphe and see what's going on there. This seems to be set to go late into the night.

The big test for France is tonight, if they can get through tonight with less violence than the previous nights, the government is going to breathe somewhat of a sigh of relief.

[19:45:12]

We've seen the fires -- some fires in Paris, some vehicles overturned. There have been hundreds if not thousands of vehicles damaged on recent days. Will that number be lower tonight? It is absolutely pivotal for France and the French president has canceled his trip Monday to go to Germany because what's happening here is just too volatile at the moment.

REID: Nic Robertson, thank you.

And stay with us, CNN NEWSROOM continues after a quick break.

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[19:50:06]

REID: A tumultuous day Friday in the world of sports. ESPN laying off some of its top talent at the network as part of a multibillion dollar cost-cutting effort by Disney. A source telling CNN that roughly 20 high-profile analysts and reporters were laid off Friday.

Parent company, Disney told staff that some folks' contracts would be renegotiated and others would be allowed to expire.

So, a lot a talk about today, CNN sports analyst and columnist for "USA Today," Christine Brennan joins us now.

Christine, thanks for being with us. I want to go over some of these iconic names as really famous people were affected at ESPN, in addition to of course, the people who depend on those shows and their work. So what's behind this seismic cost cutting?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: You know, Paula, it's really a sign of the times. Unfortunately, the media world journalism world, we're in it, everyone knows someone who has been laid off at a newspaper or a TV or radio station. It's just where we are, sadly, unfortunately, at a time when we really need more information than ever. And yet, as you said, of course, some of the big names, and I think that's the headline here.

There have been layoffs at ESPN and other networks and of course, again, newspapers throughout our entire business. But these were the big names. These are the people in front of the camera.

I want to start with Suzy Kolber, a good friend, 27 years at ESPN, a 38-year career, a consummate professional. Her knowledge of the NFL and her ability to be a reporter and an anchor on NFL broadcasts, just really at the top of her game.

And so she announced that she was let go, and she'll have, I'm sure many other options and things to do. But what a sad day for her.

Steve Young, the great NFL quarterback. He's gone. Jeff Van Gundy, NBA voice, he's gone. And so I think the reason this resonates, Paula, is because these are names we know, these are people not behind the camera. That's been hit hard, too, over the last few years, but these are the people in front of the camera who really come into your home every day.

REID: And the NFL announced this week that more players would be suspended for violating the league's gambling policy, and is a bit of a pivot, but tell us a little bit more about that.

BRENNAN: Yes, this is an issue. Again, another sign of our times in many ways, as gambling is becoming legal, as everyone can gamble on their phones. It is football players, these young men who get a lot of money and they have a lot of free time and they are making a huge mistake in the NFL by gambling. And in this case, at least in one case, gambling on their own team.

If you go back in history, baseball fans know about Pete Rose not being in the Hall of Fame because he gambled and he did say that he gambled on his team. And that has been something that has been obviously taboo for generations, because it's all about the integrity of the sport. Can you trust what you're watching? And if you can't trust it, then every league is in big trouble.

So the NFL has come down very hard and suspended several people for the entire season, several players, including Indianapolis Colts players, and what they're trying to do, Paula, is to send a huge message, don't do this. If you bet on your team, if you bet in the team facility, if you give information to others, then you're going to be suspended because they have to do this, otherwise, it could get out of control quickly, and then as I said, the very integrity of the game, in obviously, the most important sport in the in the country and most popular sport, the NFL, that would be at stake if they don't come down very hard on these players.

REID: And then pivoting to gymnastics, Olympic gold medalist, Simone Biles is listed as an entrant for the US Classic in August. She of course, famously withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics during the competition to focus on her mental health. So is this entrance a sign of a comeback?

BRENNAN: It certainly could be and it doesn't surprise me at all. The Paris Olympic Games -- Summer Olympic Games are coming up in just a little more than a year now, Paula, and it is kind of sneaking up on people because of course, Tokyo was postponed from 2020 to 2021, so it is only three years between the Olympic Games. I can't tell you an athlete who's in their prime who wouldn't go wait a minute, only another year to go? I might give it a shot. This is the greatest gymnast of all time. Simone Biles is 26. That's old, for gymnastics, obviously young for life. She's just gotten married. She is so popular, but she has said now that she wants to at least focus on this, to at least see if there's a chance.

This doesn't mean she's coming back to the Olympics and it doesn't mean that she would make the US team, but after what she went through two years ago to even have her thinking about gymnastics, I think is a victory and her conversation about mental health, dealing with the twisties, as she was doing in Tokyo, not being able to compete and then coming back to win a bronze medal on the balance beam in Tokyo, that was such a victory in and of itself that I think, the fact that Simone Biles is even thinking about this is a fascinating story and really will be one that we'll be watching now for the next few months and maybe all the way to the Tokyo Olympics next summer.

[19:55:18]

REID: Christine Brennan, thank you so much for joining us.

BRENNAN: Paula, thank you.

REID: And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID: CNN's July 4 special returns with an all-star lineup, celebrate with spectacular fireworks and the biggest musical performances.

Don't miss CNN's "The Fourth in America" live July 4th at 7:00 PM Eastern only on CNN.

And thank you for joining me this evening. I'm Paula Reid. I'll see you again tomorrow night starting at 5:00 Eastern.

"Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown" is next.

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