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UPenn's President Resign Amid Backlash over Antisemitism Testimony; Trump Promises Retribution for His Political Enemies; The Atlantic: Trump Poses Existential Threat to US Democracy, Aired 6-7p ET

Aired December 09, 2023 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:12]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

Breaking news right now: The president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill has resigned and we've just gotten word that the chair of the University of Pennsylvania's Board of Trustees, Scott Bok, has also resigned effective immediately.

The UPenn controversy began spiraling earlier this week after Magill's testimony before Congress about antisemitism on campus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): Specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?

ELIZABETH MAGILL, FORMER UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESIDENT: If it is directed, and severe, pervasive, it is harassment.

STEFANIK: So the answer is yes.

MAGILL: It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.

STEFANIK: It's a context-dependent decision? That's your testimony today, calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That was Tuesday, and this was the cleanup attempt by Liz Magill on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGILL: In that moment, I was focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the US Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable. These policies need to be clarified and evaluated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That obviously was not enough. And of course, she has now stepped down, so has the chair of the Board of Trustees at the University of Pennsylvania, and we have team coverage on all of this. CNN's Polo Sandoval, Matt Egan.

Polo, let me start with you. What's the latest? What can you tell us?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The developments have been swift moving here, Jim, with Liz Magill, tonight announcing that she will be stepping down amid the growing chorus of calls asking for her resignation in light of that testimony that she offered in Washington just this past Tuesday.

In a statement released by the university, we've learned that Magill is expected to remain tenured as faculty at Penn Carey Law and that she has also agreed to stay on at least until the interim president can potentially be appointed.

For some context here, Magill has been under growing scrutiny for her handling of antisemitism on campus, and that testimony that was offered on Tuesday was really the last straw here, mainly referring to that, or at least her inability to just unequivocally say that any mention of genocide of Jewish people would be against the Code of Conduct at the university.

We should also mention that, you know, we heard from other university officials tonight, including one that we will talk about here in a few moments, basically trying to paint a clear picture of what he believed played out on Tuesday saying that Magill was "overprepared," that she was over lawyered and essentially provided a legalistic answer to a moral question.

So what you have now is coming from the now former chair of you Penn's Board of Trustees, trying to explain what was an absolutely disastrous testimony that played out on Tuesday.

ACOSTA: And let me go to Matt Egan.

Matt, I know you've been reporting on the school being under tremendous pressure from donors. The donor community has been outraged over these comments. Take us behind the scenes on that.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Jim, remarkable developments this evening at one of the nation's most prestigious schools. First, the board chair, Scott Bok sent out a letter saying that the president, Liz Magill is out. Then Scott Bok sends out a statement saying he is out, too.

Now, make no mistake, both of these leaders were under pressure for months as Polo just said, and again, it was over issues of antisemitism on campus, but Tuesday's hearing, which can only be described as disastrous really was the final straw.

I mean, that hearing lasted for hours, but it really just came down to just a precious few minutes where the leaders of Penn and Harvard and MIT. They struggled, right? I mean, they struggle to answer a question that many people would think would be easy to answer, right? Does calls for genocide of Jews, does that break the schools' rules?

And the leaders including Magill, they fumbled that response, right? They did give kind of a legal answer and that moment went viral on the internet. It just exploded.

The backlash was so intense. We heard from the Wharton board of advisers, which is basically a who's who of business leaders. They called for an immediate leadership change at the school.

More than 70 members of Congress, a bipartisan group calling for Magill to resign. It is hard to get 70 members of Congress to agree on much, but they agreed on that.

[18:05:04]

You also had the former US ambassador, John Huntsman telling me that it wasn't even debatable whether or not Magill should leave, and you also had one megadonor threatening to cancel a $100 million gift if a change wasn't made.

ACOSTA: Wow.

EGAN: Now, Scott Bok was effusive in his praise of Liz Magill calling her a very good person, saying that she is not in the slightest bit antisemitic.

I want to read you one line from Bok's statement that he said, talking about the hearing: "Over prepared and over lawyered given a hostile forum in high stakes, she provided a legalistic answer to a moral question and that was wrong. It made for a dreadful 30-second soundbite in what was more than five hours of testimony.

So Jim, there you have it, you have both Liz Magill and Scott Bok stepping down after that disastrous hearing on Tuesday.

ACOSTA: Yes, just a devastating afternoon for the University of Pennsylvania.

All right, polo Sandoval and Matt Egan. Thanks to both of you.

I want to bring in Alex Proekt. He's a professor with the UPenn School of Medicine.

Professor, what's your response tonight?

DR. ALEX PROEKT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ANESTHESIOLOGY, UPENN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Well, frankly, I can't say I'm happy because it's hard to be happy about all of the things that have been happening at the university, but I do believe that Liz Magill could not have continued being the president given a number of, I would say, mistakes that she and people who, I guess maybe lawyered throughout and prepared her to lead.

I think she lost the trust of the community of faculty, donors, students, of course, people have very complex opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but this is about something completely different.

ACOSTA: And I mean, the chair of the board, Scott Bok, tried to describe it as just a 30-second soundbite that did not go well for President Magill, but we talked to a Penn student in the last hour, who has described a pretty hostile atmosphere on campus, and that this has been building for some time.

How would you describe things?

PROEKT: Well, I definitely think that the soundbite during the hearings did not help, but Miss Magill could have helped herself by issuing a less lawyered up apology or explanation what happened during that hearing. And unfortunately, that too, was kind of canned and I don't think anybody who heard that post, sort of post hoc description felt that it was at all sincere.

So I don't think it is fair to say it's just an unfortunate soundbite. We've all said things we did not mean, but given an opportunity to clarify the situation, she did not do that.

ACOSTA: And how do you think this news is going to be received by students? By the faculty? What do you think?

PROEKT: Well, I think people have different opinions and maybe that's the important bit is that, I understand that, you know, the lack of desire to unequivocally condemn calls for genocide is sort of coached within the framework of free speech, but unfortunately, and many people have written and spoken about this, it's hard to cast the university like you can as sort of very much pro-free speech, speech tends to be limited in many different respects.

So I am actually a proponent of free speech. So I think people are probably going to have very different opinions, depending on where they stand politically, and how they feel about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, et cetera, and that's a good thing, people should be having debates.

They shouldn't cross over into violence, they shouldn't cross over into hate speech, et cetera, but within the sort of norms of human behavior, I think people should differ on their opinions and their conversations.

ACOSTA: And why do you think we saw the chair of the board, Scott Bok resign, in addition to the university's president?

PROEKT: You know, I'm not really privy, of course, to any of these discussions. I suspect that maybe there is a realization that they've waited a bit too long, that maybe with a number of, again, unfortunate, and in my opinion, incorrect moves, she could not have really governed and sort of corrected the course.

So I don't know if the idea to keep Liz Magill longer than she probably should have stayed, it came from Bok, and maybe that is why he decided to step down, but I would be just guessing.

ACOSTA: All right, Professor, thank you very much for your time. tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you.

PROEKT: Thank you.

ACOSTA: In the meantime, Donald Trump's disturbing comment about not only being a dictator on day one is raising red flags for democracy. One person worried is "The Atlantic's" David Frum. He joins us next to explain.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:14:25]

ACOSTA: Tonight, another warning sign for President Biden's bid for a second term in the Oval Office.

For the first time in the poll's history. Trump narrowly leads Joe Biden in "The Wall Street Journal's" hypothetical general election match up. This comes as Donald Trump is previewing what a second presidential term would look like. Here is what he told Fox News' Sean Hannity during a town hall earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "HANNITY": Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Except for day one.

HANNITY: Except for?

TRUMP: He's going crazy -- except for day one.

HANNITY: Meaning?

TRUMP: I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.

HANNITY: That's not -- that's not --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:15:10]

ACOSTA: Now, if there was any doubt about what Trump meant, host, Sean Hannity gave him a few chances to step back from those extreme words, but Trump did not do that and his allies like Kash Patel are echoing that tone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FORMER CHIEF-OF-STAFF OF ACTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE IN TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.

We're going to come after you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, those recent comments from Donald Trump had President Biden delivering one of his harshest warnings yet about the former president telling donors in a fundraiser -- at a fundraiser in California last night that: "The greatest threat Trump poses is to our democracy."

The president went on to slam Trump's role in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol saying; "It's despicable, simply despicable."

Trump has not minced words when it comes to his plans for a second presidential term. He has pledged to go after his political enemies, investigate the press for treason, establish mass detention camps for undocumented immigrants and more.

In "The Atlantic's" new issue, if Trump wins, it has devoted entirely to what writers imagine a second Trump term would look like if he wins in 2024.

David Frum, our next guest, writes: "A second Trump presidency is the kind of shock that would overwhelm all other issues. It would mark the turn onto a dark path, one of these rips between before and after that a society can never reverse. Even if the harm is contained, it can never be fully undone as the harm of January 6, 2021 can never be undone."

And David Frum joins me now.

David, your article is titled: "The Danger Ahead." How dangerous would this be?

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, think of the first day of the Trump presidency, the day that he wants to be a dictator, from Trump's point of view, takes the oath of office. There are four sets of indictments heading his way, two federal, two state -- 91 counts.

Also, the state of New York is pursuing a civil investigation that could result in the termination of all of his companies and that he and his family would be banned from doing business in the state of New York forever.

Maybe those cases have already come to trial, or some of them have; maybe he's even had some convictions, but he is facing the prospect of a lifetime in prison, he be taking the oath of office.

So what's he going to do about that? He has to, in self-preservation use the power of the presidency to shut down law enforcement? Now, one problem, that's what Richard Nixon tried to do in 1974 and was forced out of office for it.

It used to be the case that it was a high crime and misdemeanor, something that made you resign. If you use the power of the presidency to shut down law, but Trump is campaigning on a promise to do just that.

ACOSTA: And what went through your mind when you saw Trump, with Hannity saying, dictator on day one?

FRUM: Yes, he has got a kind of curse or something where he is given the opportunity to tell a lie that would calm down some of his more normal supporters and he can't do it. He tells the truth. He reveals who he is.

And you know, one of Trump's few virtues in a way is, he is not a hypocrite. He's not a hypocrite. He doesn't pretend to be a good person. He doesn't pretend to respect women.

ACOSTA: He revels in it a little.

FRUM: Yes, he doesn't pretend to respect the law. He doesn't pretend to be religious. I mean, he'll make these little jokes, you hold the Bible upside down, just out of some kind of devilry in him.

So he shows you who he is. And he makes it very clear both to supporters and to opponents, this is what you get if you go down this path.

ACOSTA: And I want to show another quote from the article: "Trump operates so far outside the normal bounds of human behavior, never mind normal political behavior, that it is difficult to accept what he may actually do, even when he declares his intentions openly."

I mean, this is exactly what you're talking about. He's declaring his intentions pretty openly.

FRUM: Yes, well, we -- you know, you go around your Washington punditry business, and you know, you'll get questions like, so what would a second Trump term mean for the energy industry? What will it mean for this industry or that industry? And my reaction to that always is, you're not thinking imaginatively enough.

What do you mean the energy industry? We are going to be plunged into a degree of chaos. The army is going to be getting orders to punish people who protest. Those orders are probably illegal, and it will confront every military leader with the question, do I obey the order from the president, which is probably illegal, or do I disobey which puts civil military relations into chaos?

Trump keeps invoking the Insurrection Act. That was a law passed during the first George Washington administration, when there were no police forces, no FBI. Since then, we have two centuries and plus of laws governing what the military can do and can't do and the military can't do the things Donald Trump has said he will order the military to do.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, he is certainly going to push things, no question about it if he gets back in. But, you know, one of the questions I had, David, when I saw "The Atlantic" come out with this treatment of what a Trump second term would look like is, it seems like as a country, we have a tough time having this conversation and people around the country have a tough time coming to grips with the potential for real danger to our democracy if all of this comes to pass.

[18:20:09]

Do you think something has changed a little bit with that conversation? The president at this fundraiser last night in California talking about this in very stark terms? Are we now starting to have this conversation that I think needed to be had?

FRUM: Well, the great look back behind all of this is the fact of January 6th. So you can't say what kind of president would he be? You know the answer to that. He did the worst thing a president can possibly try to do, which is by violence and by fraud to overturn an election to keep power for himself illegally.

I don't know that there is a bigger thing. I mean, in a way that's even bigger than shooting people on Fifth Avenue. He tried to overturn the Constitution. So when you say what kind of president will he be? We know.

And the country is on notice. People are weary of this conversation. It's true, because you go round and round and also, this is such a prosperous country. This is such a strong country. This is most of the time, such a safe country, for most people anyway, that it's hard for Americans to imagine things going really wrong.

And so my article begins with an appeal: You have to think more imaginatively about the possibilities of politics. If you look back in the past, you see disruptions and when you look at the future, you think everything is going to be the same.

ACOSTA: One of the things that you'll hear from folks who will push back on this notion that Trump will act like a dictator and things will be out of control and so on. They'll say, well, the guardrails of democracy they held at the end of the first Trump term and he was not able to overturn the results of the election, he was not able to hang on to power. He left to in disgrace on January 20th. What do you think of that?

FRUM: So the car comes creaking into the driveway and one fender is bashed up and one headlight is out, and all the passengers are terrified because the driver was drunk, but no one's dead. And at that point, the driver says I'm going to have another drink and go for another ride. Okay, I don't know that that's a good idea.

Guardrails held. January 6, the peaceful transfer of power was interrupted. Trump is going is going to be turning off law enforcement in his first term.

What happens when the president tries to pardon himself for federal crimes? This is going to be a convulsion. Donald Trump, I think this is one of the things he has in his bag of tricks, he'll try to say, he has said in the past, I have the right to pardon myself. If the president can pardon himself for a federal crime, that means the president can literally shoot somebody in the White House and write a pardon. It means even more amazingly, the vice president can shoot the president dead, write a pardon for himself because he is now the president.

these things can't be true. But these are the kinds of debates we're going to be having. And not just debates, we're going to have people in the streets, and when they go in the streets, Donald Trump is going to try to tell the US Army, do something about that. Keep them out of the streets.

ACOSTA: And David, I want to ask you, if we can show some of "The Wall Street Journal" poll numbers. I mean, this head-to-head matchup and Trump leading Biden by four percentage points, that's not a huge news flash. I mean, these polls have been right around this general area for some time.

But when you put Nikki Haley up against Joe Biden, she's way out in front of the president, according to this "Wall Street Journal" poll, and polls can be polls. They can be often seen as outliers and whatnot.

Why is it that do you think -- and you've worked in Republican politics, you worked in the Bush White House. Why is it that Republicans are not looking at Nikki Haley in a way that they perhaps should if they want to win back the White House?

FRUM: I don't think that poll result is personal to Nikki Haley. I don't think that people that answer it know that much about her. I think what they're saying is, it's time for a change. We're ready for change. If you give us a normal alternative, whoever that person is, that we're ready for a change.

You know, we had two years of Barack Obama -- two terms of Barack Obama, then we had one Republican term, but that term was a disaster, so we changed presidents prematurely. We changed parties prematurely.

We got a Democratic president in 2020, that wasn't quite the right time. So now we're ready for, you know, the normal rotation of office. And if there's somebody normal, we would take it, and she looks normal, but that doesn't mean I think that when you get to the moment where Americans have to decide, Trump-Biden, coup-no coup, Constitution-no Constitution -- for all of Biden's problems, I am confident they will choose Constitution.

ACOSTA: And when you hear Kash Patel, I mean, if people can take him seriously or not seriously, you can write him off as a troll or so on, but when he says he is -- you know, we're going after the press if we get back in.

FRUM: Yes, yes. Well, it's just a sign of how this new Trump Team -- Trump is much more aware that the people who have the kind of credentials he used respect, he can't trust them. He can't trust people with proper legal credentials. He can't trust people with proper military credentials. So he is accumulating these freaks and weirdos, and I don't know that any particular freak or weirdo will be important in the second term, but what you can be sure -- the second term, if there is one -- will be full of freaks and weirdos.

ACOSTA: Yes, because there are so many in the Republican Party right now who don't want anything to do with Donald Trump here in Washington, people who are capable of running departments, agencies and so on and so, who is he left with?

[18:25:02]

FRUM: Only because when the president says one of my plans is to start issuing a lot of illegal orders, and I'm going to ask you to be the instrument for it, people think, I don't want to go to prison. There's a good chance that the president may get away with this for the time being, but I get immediately in trouble. And so they want to have nothing to do with it.

They have seen how the first Trump term treated people like Rex Tillerson, who were chewed up and spat out. They don't want parts of that, but the freaks and weirdos they love it.

ACOSTA: Yes, and some of them got pardons.

All right, David Frum, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Great conversation.

In the meantime, 2024 GOP candidates are storming across Iowa with the caucuses now just five weeks away, just about five weeks away. Donald Trump is not one of them. Will that impact his lead on the polls. We'll run the numbers with Harry Enten, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Today, presidential candidates on the Republican side are campaigning all across Iowa with just over five weeks ago until the Iowa caucuses. Notably, Donald Trump was not there, is not there right now, but Nikki Haley Ron DeSantis continue to attack the former President hoping to chip away at his runaway lead in the polls.

[18:30:16]

ACOSTA: Today, presidential candidates on the Republican side are campaigning all across Iowa with just over five weeks ago until the Iowa caucuses. Notably, Donald Trump was not there. He's not there right now. But Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis continue to attack the former president, hoping to chip away at his runaway lead in the polls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I know is you don't defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. And that's what Donald Trump gives us rightly or wrongly. I had a great working relationship with him, but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. You know I'm right. Chaos follows him. And we can't have a country in disarray in a world on fire and survive this chaos.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's important to point out that normally in an Iowa caucus, you've got five or six candidates that are that are running as conservatives and conservative voters are having to look through. That's not the case this year. I think you have Donald Trump, who's obviously moved left, is not even really putting in the work to earn people's votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And CNN Senior Data Reporter, Harry Enten, joins us now to run the numbers.

Harry, great to see you.

Trump's rivals, they seem like they're playing to be the last candidate standing against Donald Trump, something that we saw in the 2016 campaign that did not work out so well. Is this a good idea this time around? What can you tell us?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: It's a horrible idea. It's a horrible idea. I mean, if you looked at the polling back in 2016, it made much more sense. Folks like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz actually beat Trump in a one-on-one. We look now at that same exact polling, the one on one Trump against Haley, Trump against DeSantis, what do you see? You see that Trump easily beats both of them nationally, beats them - DeSantis by 30 points, beats Haley by 40 points.

The comments that we saw today were perhaps the most promising sign that these folks actually recognize what's up, because they got to go after the former president if they want to beat him. This idea that they could somehow be the last person standing doesn't make any sense looking at the numbers. And today is perhaps the first sign that maybe they're starting to recognize that, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, with that in mind, you would think the debates would have been a perfect chance to go after him. But they really did not do that with the exception, I suppose, of Chris Christie.

ENTEN: Yes, it's exactly right. Politico put together this great analysis: how many times did they attack Donald Trump, how many times did they attack their fellow GOP nominees, how many times did they attack Joe Biden. You would have thought, given the numbers in that first slide, that they would have gone after Trump the most, didn't happen. They went after the other GOP candidates more than double the times they went after Donald Trump.

Sometimes, Jim, I watch politics and I go, am I taking crazy pills? Am I the only one who's seeing what's so obvious from the numbers? And based upon this, I have to think that I am because these other Republican candidates were given, massive audiences on national television to break through and they decided, nah, you know what, we're going to kick that can down the road. And now, of course, we're only about a month out from the Iowa caucuses and they're well down nationally. And even in Iowa and New Hampshire, they're down 20-, 30 points. Something needs to change. Maybe now they're finally starting to recognize it, but they've got a long way to go to be able to come back against Donald Trump, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, it was notable to hear Nikki Haley going after Trump in that fashion. I guess that was earlier today in Iowa. And so we'll see, perhaps she thinks to be able to compete in Iowa, she is going to have to go after the former president to some extent. We'll see whether that changes the dynamic at all in any way.

But, Harry, I did want to ask you about the House Republican Conference. They're looking to formally begin their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden this coming week. Does there appear to be an appetite, do you think, for impeaching the current president? What do you think?

ENTEN: I was watching your last segment that showed Joe Biden trailing President Trump - former president, Trump, by four points in that Wall Street Journal poll. And as you mentioned, it's one of numerous polls that show the former president leading the current president.

And so what do you do in that situation? Do you do something that's popular or do you do something that's unpopular? It seems to me that the House GOP conference seems perfectly willing to try and take a chance at something that's unpopular. Take a look here, approve of impeaching Joe Biden. Right now, only 43 percent of Americans do.

That is much closer to, say, the Bill Clinton figures back in December of '98, which went - just 36 percent of Americans approved of it. And, of course, you remember those '98 midterms were a disaster for Republicans, a disaster. Democrats actually gained seats in the House. It's one of the few times that the White House parties actually gained seats.

This doesn't look anything like the approve of the Trump impeachment numbers, which we saw in 2021 and 2020. Certainly nowhere near the Nixon numbers. And I just have to say once again, Jim, am I on crazy pills? What is going on? Do the normal rules of politics no longer apply? What are these folks doing?

They've got a sitting president, sitting duck, someone who is extremely unpopular, an approval rating of 37 percent.

[18:35:04]

And what are you going to do? You're going to do something that's potentially even more unpopular and somehow allow him to come back in this presidential race? It's crazy to me, Jim. I just simply put - don't understand it, but they seem willing to do it and give the current president a boost up in the polls potentially.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Harry, what did you make of the Wall Street Journal poll showing Nikki Haley? So far out in front of Joe Biden right now, as opposed to where Donald Trump stands. When we were talking to David Frum, David Frum was saying, this may just be voters saying, okay, this is a more normal establishment Republican that's why that person is more popular than Donald Trump when it comes to a head to head matchup with Joe Biden.

ENTEN: Yes. I mean, look, the generic Republican leads the current president right now by high single digits, mid double digits, depending on what poll you look at. Nikki Haley is far better like than the former president of the United States. But Trump's the lead, so I think a lot of Republican voters are willing to give it a shot. Perhaps they'll regret it. But right now they're willing to give it a shot.

ACOSTA: All right. Harry Enten, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Be sure to check out Harry's podcast, "Margins of Error." You can find it on your favorite podcast app or at CNN.com/audio. Harry, thanks so much.

Coming up, how Hunter Biden's attorney is reacting to the additional nine charges the President's son is facing related to his taxes. That's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:37]

ACOSTA: As President Biden hits the campaign trail this weekend, there's new legal trouble for his son, Hunter, a federal indictment on tax charges. At the same time, House Republicans are set to vote on their impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

And defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, Shan Wu, is here with us now to talk about this. And, Shan, let's get into the Hunter Biden case. This new one that's come forward. What do you make of it? What do you think?

SHAN WU, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it really seems a bit of an embarrassment to me that DOJ is still pursuing this. I mean --

ACOSTA: Embarrassment, yes.

WU: -- yes. And I mean, the plea broke down, they were willing to give him misdemeanors on the tax issue, and nothing has changed since that time, except for the fact that the plea broke down. Normally, I think most prosecutors would say when someone has paid back the taxes and this is not a astronomical amount by these standards, they usually don't go after it criminally. It's resolved civilly.

The tax folks at the Justice Department, they want to achieve deterrence. And to do that, they go after usually either hundreds of millions have been evaded or celebrities: Wesley Snipes, Pete Rose, Biden - Hunter Biden is only a celebrity because of his last name.

ACOSTA: And you had mentioned that Hunter Biden has paid back the taxes that he owed. He's apparently paid penalties as well. Let me ask you this, I mean, is it possible that the judge handling the case would take that into consideration? Is that something or is it just the fact that he didn't pay his taxes when he was supposed to pay his taxes? Spending on things other than paying his taxes, which is what was laid out in that indictment, does the judge just look at it coldly and say, nope, you didn't pay your taxes, you are guilty of this, that's it or does he take into consideration - does she take into consideration the fact that he paid them back?

WU: The paying back is only going to come into consideration perhaps at sentencing. I mean, on the face of it, if you didn't pay it, you didn't pay it, so you could bring a criminal charge. But usually, prosecutors aren't that interested in doing it if there's been a payback, unless there's something else egregious going on. And here, nothing new has come to light and the investigation has been going on for like half a decade at this point.

ACOSTA: Yes. And there was this startling allegation that happened yesterday. I'm sure you saw this when the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer was speaking about some of this to our Jake Tapper here on CNN, let's play it and talk on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): Weiss may have indicted Hunter Biden to protect him from having to be deposed ...

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Ah, yes.

COMER: ... in the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, but we in fact ...

TAPPER: Yes, he indicted him to protect him. Yes, the classic rubric.

COMER: Well, look, this whole - this, Jake, this whole thing's been about a cover-up. You've got two serious concerns.

TAPPER: That's why he indicted him to protect him, to cover it up?

COMER: Well, he - look, you indict him on the least little thing, the gun charge and not paying taxes. I mean --

TAPPER: He's facing like 17 additional years in prison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I guess Hunter Biden might wish that James Comer were prosecuting the case. That might be helpful ...

WU: Right.

ACOSTA: ... to him, but what do you make of that argument, indicting somebody to protect them? I'm not sure I know what that means.

WU: Yes, it doesn't really make any sense. I understand what Comer's saying, which is now he's under indictment, Hunter Biden would have a much stronger Fifth Amendment, a reason not to testify before them. But it's kind of ironic. I mean, Comer's own statements making it sound like this is not much of a criminal case. It shouldn't have been brought.

ACOSTA: And yet he's the one who's been pushing for (inaudible) ...

WU: Right, exactly. I mean, if anything, it seems like the special counsel has sort of caved to political pressure himself, who wants to avoid being criticized further as having given a sweetheart deal. So he's basically - proverbially throwing the book at Hunter Biden.

ACOSTA: And let's talk about the legal drama for Donald Trump. He's expected to testify on Monday in this New York civil fraud trial. The president has been using some familiar language to address his troubles. Let's play a little of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a political witch hunt. This is meant to influence an election. It's a disgrace to our country and again, I should be right now in Iowa, in New Hampshire, South Carolina. I shouldn't be sitting in a courthouse. And I don't have to sit here. I could just do what I wanted - whatever I want to do. But I want to make sure that you get the true story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes, we were talking to Mary Trump earlier on in the program. And she was describing Donald Trump's business holdings as the most important thing to him.

[18:45:01]

And while we pay attention to all these other cases, this case really is something that could cut to the core of Donald Trump and really hurt him. What are your thoughts and how important is this day of testimony for the former president in this case?

WU: I think the case is really important for him and I think that's partly why he wants to testify. Based on the evidence, based on his own history of testifying, he is not going to save the case by testifying. I mean, if he goes on about political witch hunts, that's going to be meaningless. It's a bench trial. The judge has pretty much already determined that fraud exists.

The judge has been very wise to allow this expert testimony, a very highly paid professor who kind of had a flame out on stand, saying there is no fraud, not because it's really going to change something, but it protects the record on appeal. It shows that Trump was given a full record to make of his innocence here and that's good for the record on appeal.

ACOSTA: Interesting. All right. Shan, we will be will all be watching. Thank you very much, Shan. Appreciate it.

And we'll have much more on the fallout at the University of Pennsylvania. That's coming up in just a few moments. In case you haven't been tuning in, both the president and the chair of And the chair of the board of trustees resigning this afternoon as a reaction to what has been taking place, the heated criticism for the university president after her response up on Capitol Hill this past week to questions about anti-Semitism on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Well, the latest reaction from the college next.

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[18:50:51]

ACOSTA: An icon, a champion, a trailblazer, Billie Jean King is all that and so much more as CNN Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash found out while recently spending some time with King, talking about her life, her career, her fight against sexism and to be taken seriously and here's a clip from being Billie Jean King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLIE JEAN KING, TENNIS LEGEND: First time. U.S. Open is the first of anything I know in this whole world that was equal with men and women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): In 2023, 50 years later, when U.S. women's singles champion, Coco Gauff, got the same prize money as the men's winner, a $3 million check, she knew who to thank.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COCO GAUFF, TENNIS PROFESSIONAL: Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my goodness.

KING: You're an inspiration to us all.

GAUFF: Thank you, Billie, for fighting for this.

KING: Yes.

BASH (on camera): To be standing there at the U.S. Open, 50 years after you led the fight for equal pay and to have a 19-year-old African-American woman get a $3 million check and to thank you.

KING: It was awesome, because - and that's when you know you did the right thing that it was worth it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And Dana Bash joins us now.

Dana, you spent time with Billie Jean King. I'm jealous. She is an icon. She is really cool. What stood out to you talking to her for this special? BASH: So much. There's so many different layers to her, not just in her history, but in sort of who she is now. And in this series, Jim, as you know, we try to really get beyond what people see with the klieg lights on and figure out who they are, who people are in politics and in pop culture, and in this case, sports.

And what was interesting is how much she was determined from an early age to make a difference in the world. She picked up a tennis racket. She realized she was good at it. She thought, okay, it's going to be sports. But she said, it could have been something else. It could have been politics.

ACOSTA: Wow.

BASH: A lot of people tried to get her to run for office, actually, especially when she became so world famous. Listen to what she said about why she didn't.

ACOSTA: Okay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Of anything I know in this whole world that was equal with men and women.

BASH: In 2023, 50 years -- orientation, that was holding you back?

KING: Oh, there's no way - yes, that was holding me back. There's no way. Are you kidding? I wouldn't have gotten up to bat. Never mind get the first base. No way in 1970s. Are you kidding? No way. Maybe I'll have to start thinking about it again. I don't know. I thought about it.

BASH: What do you know now that you wish you knew 50 years ago?

KING: I didn't know who my authentic self was and now I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So what she was saying was she couldn't have run for office, particularly back in the '70s when she became so famous.

ACOSTA: Right.

BASH: Ninety million people watched that King's - King-Riggs match, the Battle of the Sexes.

ACOSTA: The Battle of the Sexes.

BASH: And she changed not just women's sports, but really the world.

ACOSTA: She changed everything.

BASH: She changed everything.

ACOSTA: Yeah. BASH: And she said that she was hiding the fact that she was gay. She wasn't really sure even what to call it because she was married to a man at the time. And she said that there was no way she could go out and run for office or really do a lot of things that she wanted to do. And she's really candid, Jim, about the toll that hiding took on her emotionally, mentally, physically. She developed an eating disorder and she talks about that and so much more.

But she is so centered and she says that at 80, she turned 80 last month that she has never been happier.

ACOSTA: Yes. And I have to wonder, where does she find the courage? Where does that come from?

BASH: She had really supportive parents.

ACOSTA: Mm-hm.

[18:55:01]

BASH: Supportive parents, but as she says, not helicopter parents. She says she watches the parents who are sort of on the court, on the sidelines these days especially and she said she wants them to just back off. Her parents were very, very grounded. And that rubbed off on her and her brother, who was a Major League Baseball player.

ACOSTA: Amazing. What a family.

BASH: I know.

ACOSTA: Incredible. All right. Well, Dana Bash, I'm officially jealous. I have some FOMO here. But thanks so much. We can all tune in, though.

BASH: She's a news fan. I bet she's watching and she'll be happy to meet you, too.

ACOSTA: Oh, I'm happy. I'm happy to do it any time. BEING BILLIE JEAN KING with Dana airs tomorrow at 10 PM Eastern and Pacific, only on CNN. Make sure you watch it. It's going to be something special. And we'll be right back.

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