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One Hour Left for E. Jean Carroll to Object to Trump's Appeal Bond; Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) Facing Backlash After State of Union Speech; Orban Says, Trump Will Not Give a Penny to Ukraine if Elected. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 11, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

At this hour, E. Jean Carroll has just 60 minutes to challenge former President Donald Trump's most recent legal move. Last week, Trump posted a nearly $92 million bond to appeal a federal jury's judgment in which they ordered him to pay more than $83 million to Carroll for repeatedly making defamatory statements about her.

But despite the multimillion dollar fines for defamation just moments ago, Trump once again made comments about Carroll on CNBC, calling her names, claiming he never met her and insisting her accusations are false despite a federal jury ruling that he's liable for sexual abuse.

CNN's Marshall Cohen is following this developing story for us. Marshall, what happens next?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Well, one hour from now, E. Jean Carroll has a deadline to tell a judge if she has any issues with this bond arrangement. As you mentioned, Donald Trump on Friday posted that $91 million bond. The judgment against him was $83 million, but he had to include some interest.

So, if she has any issues, the judge said that he'll hold a hearing later this afternoon. If she doesn't have any objections, then the judge will still need to give his formal stamp of approval so that this bond can be posted and the appeal can move forward.

Remember, Jim, we're here because of something that a jury concluded Donald Trump did in the mid-1990s. According to a jury in New York, they found that Donald Trump was liable for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll in a department store dressing room in the mid-90s, and that he defamed her when he repeatedly said that she made it all up.

But if you were watching the campaign trail over the weekend, you would have seen Donald Trump in Georgia repeating some of those same claims. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made up story.

$91 million based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn't know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.

And when I denied it, I said, it's so crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Right. So, we're waiting for this decision on the appeal. That could take a while, but maybe some additional fodder there for Ms. Carroll and her attorneys.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. Not just from the rally, but from CNBC this morning. He keeps talking about her. It could add to his legal troubles.

Marshall Cohen, thank you very much.

Joining me now to talk about this, Defense Attorney, former Federal Prosecutor Shan Wu.

I mean, Shan, despite these multi-million dollar fines, the former president just can't stop talking about E. Jean Carroll, not only at this rally over the weekend, but just this morning on CNBC. I mean, according to this transcript that we have, we could put it up on screen to our viewers.

I mean, this is what Donald Trump was just saying a few moments ago on CNBC. He said, if I didn't win on appeal on these ridiculous decisions, if I didn't win on appeal is the most ridiculous decisions and putting this Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, a person I have never ever met. I have no idea who she is. I mean, that's except one point, except one thing continuing here. I got sued. And from that point on, I said, wow, that's crazy what this is. I got charged. I was given a false accusation, had to post a $91 million bond on a false accusation.

I mean, Shan, he keeps talking about her despite all these fines.

SHAN WU, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. It's almost like he -- I mean, he really can't help himself I mean he seems to think if he doesn't actually say her name maybe that that somehow protects him from the defamation, it doesn't. It's perfectly clear who he's talking about which case he's talking about and it just does not make any sense. I mean --

ACOSTA: And to call her Ms. Bergdorf Goodman. That's allegedly where this took place.

WU: Exactly, yes. That's exactly where the jury found that it took place.

ACOSTA: Yes. WU: And it's just this idea that there's no amount of money that will make him stop. That's sort of the common sense take on it. And, I mean, there is grounds for suing him again on this basis, but I don't think it's a question of money. I mean, there's something off with the way he thinks about this.

[10:05:01]

Once he starts something, you know I mentioned this, he just keeps repeating it, he just can't stop.

ACOSTA: And might this affect his desire to appeal this? I mean, if he tries to appeal this and a judge says, hang on a second, I don't want to do this all over again, you keep talking about this, you're obviously doing it, I mean, might that impact his chances for appeal?

WU: I don't think it impacts the substance of the appeal, because it's confined to the record they had. I think it has almost no basis to win an appeal. But from an optics standpoint, that can't help but hurt him on the appeal, that he keeps repeating this conduct over and over again.

ACOSTA: And he's been found liable for sexual abuse. I mean, that has happened.

WU: Absolutely, yes. I mean, the idea he keeps trying to re-litigate this publicly, yes, by saying it didn't happen, I mean, you just lost on that. I mean, it has happened. And the jury found that happened. It's not that the judge made it up. The jury found that.

ACOSTA: And another development this week, there's a hearing to throw out the classified documents case on Thursday. What are the chances there?

WU: I think the chances are very low substantively, but the problem is that Judge Cannon has shown herself open to fully hearing all the issues, and that tends to delay things. And, you know, whether or not she has that intention, her track record is she's allowing this delay to happen. So, with this whole multitude of issues, it's going to take a while again for her to go through those, and there could be appeals in the middle.

ACOSTA: All right. Shan Wu, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Moments from now, embattled New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez will head back to federal court facing charges of trying to obstruct an investigation into bribery allegations. The New Jersey Democrat and his wife will be arraigned on those charges.

The senator remains defiant, calling it a, quote, flagrant abuse of power.

CNN's Jason Carroll is outside the courthouse for us. Jason, what are we going to see this morning? Are we expecting any pleas at this hearing?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, if history serves as any guide, as you know, the senator and his wife have already pleaded not guilty to previous bribery charges in the superseding indictment. They now face 18 additional accounts, including conspiracy, acting as a foreign agent, bribery, extortion and wire fraud.

Again, they already had been facing bribery charges. These new allegations, prosecutors say they tried to cover up their crimes, if you will, after they learned that they were under investigation, basically trying to say that these bribes that they had received, this money that they had received, for example, for a mortgage for a new home, to buy a brand new Mercedes, wasn't a bribe. They say it was a loan, prosecutors say not true.

In addition to that, in this superseding indictment, prosecutors also allege that Nadine Menendez and the senator gave false information to their attorneys, and their attorneys, in turn, gave that misleading information to U.S. attorneys when they held meetings with them last year.

Now, the senator and his wife again have pleaded not guilty in the past to bribery charges. And as you say, the senator has remained defiant throughout all of this. He released a statement about these new allegations, which says, in part, it says that the prosecutors are afraid of the facts, scared to subject their charges to the fair- minded scrutiny of a jury. It says once and for all that they will stop at nothing in the zeal to get me.

And that's what the senator has been saying about these allegations all along, that this is just the government's efforts to try to get at him. As you say, he has remained defiant throughout all of this. The arraignment scheduled to get underway at 11:00 A.M. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Jason Carroll live for us, thank you very much.

And still to come more fallout for Katie Britt this morning, the woman at the center of the Alabama senator's misleading sex trafficking story. She has responded to CNN. We'll have some of that in just a few moments.

Stay with us. You're live at the CNN Newsroom.

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ACOSTA: Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt is trying to defend some misleading comments she made in response to President Biden's State of the Union Address. In her speech, Britt described the experience of a woman who was sex trafficked by cartels implying it happened in the U.S. as a result of Biden's border policies.

Britt, however, failed to note the woman's story she was citing actually happened in Mexico during George W. Bush's presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To be clear, the story that you relate is not something that's happened under the Biden administration, that particular person?

SEN. KATIE BRITT (R-AL): Well, I very clearly said, I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12. So, I didn't say a teenager, I didn't say a young woman, a grown woman, a woman when she was trafficked when she was 12.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Let's discuss more now with CNN Political Commentator and host of PBS Firing Line Margaret Hoover and the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics Larry Sabato.

Margaret, let me go to you first. How do you think Katie Britt is handling all this?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think the major mistake was that she wasn't clear when she set it up front, because Jim, we all understand that the cartels are the major, terrible, miserable force behind the crisis at the border.

And I was delighted that a Republican woman of all people said sex trafficking and told this horrific story. But the fact that she wasn't clear about the details from the beginning and led to this implication and confusion that the experience of that individual is Joe Biden's fault, has completely undermined a really important conversation and reality that we all ought to be grappling with as we think about the role the cartels are playing and the sexual violence is being perpetrated on innocent victims all over on both sides of the border as they mess it as we try to grapple with this problem.

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ACOSTA: Yes, and then the woman at the center of it talked to CNN and said it just wasn't right for Katie Britt to use that story.

And, Larry, I mean, on top of everything else, I mean, she's had to deal with -- Katie Britt has had a deal with Saturday Night Live. It came up at the Oscars last night. Everybody was sort of poking fun at her sort a breathy, overcranked performance. Let's listen to Scarlett Johansson. She was doing it over the weekend let us watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm worried about the future of our children and this is why I've invited you into this strange empty kitchen because Republicans wanted me to appeal to woman voters and women love kitchen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Larry, it's never good when you give the Republican response and it immediately becomes a Saturday Night Live segment. And it was it was anticipated. I mean, had SNL not done it this weekend, it would have been sort of an epic fail on their part, it was just sort of like served up on a on a silver platter in a kitchen, I guess, you could say.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Yes. Katie Britt deserved an Oscar for most misleading performance ever. I've watched almost all the responses to the State of the Union Address since they started in 1966. This is absolutely the worst, not just in terms of that awful anecdote, but also her presentation. I don't know who trained her to speak that way or to vary her emotions in such extremes.

You know, most people cite poor old Senator Marco Rubio as having the worst State of the Union response a few years back because he reached for a water bottle off camera because he was parched. That's nothing compared to what she did.

These people, Katie Britt and all her colleagues, have dozens of aides and staffers, plus the party researchers. And you mean they put her out there knowing that this is not right?

ACOSTA: Yes, no. And, Larry, I mean, kudos to, there was a guy on TikTok, I think Jon Katz, Jonathan Katz who discovered this and sort of blew the whistle on it, and then the media pounced, so good for him. I just goes to show you there are folks out paying attention to this stuff.

And, Margaret, it also highlights how immigration is just going to be this hot-button issue all the way until the election and Donald Trump just over the weekend was you know hurling more superheated rhetoric on the subject. Let's listen to this and talk about on the other side.

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TRUMP: I will seal the border. I'm going to do it and I will stop this invasion.

I will and the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country, they're conquering our country. These people are conquering our county. They're horrible people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now Margaret, nobody is disputing that there's a problem at the border. Obviously, they need to crack down on what's taking place at the border. But, I mean who believes this that there are people conquering are cities and so on? I mean, it just seems so far-fetched that I guess I've had a loss as to who who's buying this stuff?

HOOVER: Well, actually, Jim, I'm really glad you raised this because this is really important. The language that Donald Trump was using there was very explicitly the language of war, the plundering of our cities, the combating at the border.

All of those verbs are verbs that imply that there is a war at stake. And why is he using the language of bellicosity and of war? Because he is laying the groundwork for being able to use our military, if he is elected president, on the border. He's trying to justify the use of our militaries troops in what will essentially be using war powers of the presidency in order to tackle the crisis at the border. And so it's not a mistake that he is using that word, those words.

I just want to say about Katie Britt, Larry, I'm with you. It was a bad performance. But when it comes to these kinds of issues, a future potential president returning to the presidency and using war powers on the border, Katie Britt is one of the rare Republicans.

There are too few these days who, behind closed doors, is deliberately reasoned and sensible. And so it just speaks to the tragedy of the Republican Party and its ownership by Donald Trump that they're painted (ph) into a box and can even be intellectually honest about the debate about immigration when they are on television defending their side of the argument.

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ACOSTA: Yes. Larry, I mean, as part of the issue here is that when Trump takes it to the level that he does and, I mean, when he escalates this anti-migrant rhetoric and the way that he is doing it, it's almost as if other people in the party, especially people like Katie Britt, who may feel like they have to audition for the job of vice president, have to take it to that level too. And a lot of these stories are just full of holes, you know? I mean, Katie Britt story is a prime example of that, Trump going out there over the weekend and saying that they're conquering our cities and so on. I just -- who buys this stuff? It's just it's beyond the pale.

SABATO: Well, the Trump base buys it, and, increasingly, the Republican Party is just the Trump Party. His base is the GOP base. But I don't think that exonerates Katie Britt or any of the others who endorse Donald Trump and repeat his lines, knowing full well how misleading, how awful, horrific he is.

It doesn't exonerate them, whether it's Chris Sununu rushing to endorse, or Glenn Youngkin in my state rushing to endorse Trump, when both of them know very well how bad Donald Trump really is and would be in a second term as president.

So, Katie Britt, maybe she says things behind the scenes, and Margaret would know better than me. Maybe she says things that are reasonable, but I didn't see a reasonable person. America saw an unreasonable person saying inaccurate, misleading things in a weird way, to be blunt about it.

ACOSTA: All right. It was weird. There's no question about it. It still feels weird to this to this day.

All right, Margaret, Larry, guys, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

In the meantime, Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban is revealing new details about his discussions with Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend, including that Trump, quote, will not give a penny to Ukraine if re-elected this fall, a move he believes would end that war with Russia.

Orban made the comments on Hungarian state television this morning. It comes just after the former president posted a highlight reel of Orban's visit to his Truth Social account, which included Orban praising Trump's leadership and lamenting the state of the world without him in the Oval Office. Let's listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

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ACOSTA: And we're joined by Anne Applebaum. She's a staff writer for The Atlantic, author of several books, including Twilight of Democracy. And, you know, this was -- there's so much going on, and I guess because of the solar eclipse that occurred because of Katie Britt's performance after the State of the Union.

I mean, the Orban-Trump visit sort of got overshadowed a little bit. And I'm just curious if we get your reaction to Viltor Orban, this headline coming out of their meeting this morning, Orban saying that the two talked about Russia's war in Ukraine and that Trump is not going to fund it. I mean, that should be very chilling to leaders across Europe this morning.

ANNE APPLEBAUM, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: You know, let me start by connecting your previous segment to this one because Orban is really the European leader who invented the idea of the fake campaign against migrants and the idea that the migrants are invading and there -- you know, and there's a secret plot that that migrants will replace, you know, ethnic Hungarians.

ACOSTA: That's right.

APPLEBAUM: And he was the one who reported (ph) that.

And some of what you're hearing the GOP do and Trump himself do is actually an imitation of that. You know, this kind of -- in the case of Hungary, there is a completely fake story. There was no border crisis in Hungary, no real one. We do have one. But it's, of course, very nuanced and complicated. But using this military language targeted to an invasion, this is what Orban did to hide his real agenda.

So, he talked about migrants, you know, he talked about Hungary's enemies. And then behind the scenes, what he's actually done as prime minister, is do deals with Russia, do deals with China, you know, corrupt Hungary, reduce the Hungarian business elite to just a few people who are his friends.

And I think that is actually the model that he is presenting that is so appealing to the GOP. And it's also -- you know, it's also the explanation for the connection between Hungary, Trump and Russia. So, the agenda is, you know, private deals with Russia. And we -- you know, but we don't talk about it in public. And I think Trump is -- you know, Trump actually talks very rarely about Ukraine in public and very rarely about Russia, but we know from his actions that he has been responsible for blocking -- for persuading the House to block a Ukraine in order for Ukraine to lose so that Russia wins.

[10:25:12]

And, Anne, there's also, I mean, the arguably, maybe you'll disagree with me, the larger issue of all the world leaders that Donald Trump is bringing to Mar-a-Lago, you know, during this general election campaign, which has basically started. He brings Viktor Orban, this autocrat in Europe, that I suppose might form some kind of alliance with Donald Trump.

Maybe it's kind of a post-NATO world that they envision, more autocratic world that they envision. I mean, this should alarm a lot of Americans, and the fact that they're talking foreign policy talking about very significantly altering foreign policy of the United States when it comes to Ukraine, I mean, that should raise alarm bells.

APPLEBAUM: Look, a German member of parliament said to me a few weeks ago in Munich, we in Europe realize now that in a matter of months or years, we could be dealing with facing three autocracies, Russia, China and the United States.

And so, yes, there is a very real fear that Trump will align with Russia against Europe, that Russia will cease to -- you know, not just cease to send military aid to Ukraine but will also encourage further Russian encouragement into Europe.

So, absolutely, it's an enormous fear, and, of course, that would change the balance of power in the world, and it would have an enormous effect on perceptions of the U.S. in the world, on trade with the U.S., on whether Europeans buy American products, all kinds of things that most people don't factor in.

You know, America being the security guarantor for Europe, bestows a lot of advantages on the United States, including economic advantages. And once we lose that, it's going to be very hard to win back.

ACOSTA: That's right. I mean, our European allies, they're going to be tempted to form other alliances if they see Donald Trump on the verge of coming back to the White House. I mean, that's -- you hear that from diplomatic officials here in Washington all the time.

And, Anne, another parallel between Viktor Orban and Donald Trump, we should talk about this morning on CNBC, Trump called Facebook and the news media here in the United States the enemy of the people. And I was talking about in reference to a TikTok question, but let's watch this.

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TRUMP: I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media. I think Facebook has been very -- I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, he seems to be coming to TikTok's rescue a little bit with all of this talk of Washington cracking down on TikTok. But we should note, I mean, one place where you see a lot of MAGA propaganda is on TikTok these days, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

But, Anne, we should also note a number of press organization, press freedom organizations have blasted Viktor Orban's crackdown on the media. Of course, we saw that during the Trump administration here in the U.S. It sounds like another parallel.

APPLEBAUM: But what's important about Orban's crackdown on the media and why it's an example for that minority of the Republican Party who want a more authoritarian system is that it wasn't done with censorship. So, Orban didn't censor people. Instead, he used tactics. He used business pressure on advertisers who advertised in independent media. He would say, do you really want to place that advertisement because you might lose your government contract if you do?

He used -- he cut funding for all kinds of advertising that the government used to do. In other words, he put business pressure on media in order to put it out of business. And eventually, over a period of time, he succeeded.

And that's something that's never been tried in the United States, certainly not with the federal government seeking to put media out of business on purpose, but it's something we could see. I mean, it's something that others have tried to imitate. Orban did it. The previous Polish government that lost the election in October tried to do it. Others have seen this as a kind of example.

ACOSTA: Absolutely, there's no question about it. I mean, if you look at press freedom organizations, they have basically called Viktor Orban a press freedom predator in his country. So, that's obviously something that should worry a lot of people.

All right, Anne Applebaum, thanks, as always, we appreciate it.

All right, in the meantime, coming up, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu firing back at President Biden as the two leaders continue to clash over the situation in Gaza, that's next.

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