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World Number One Golfer Scottie Scheffler Arrested Outside PGA Championship, Charged With Felony; Former Trump Attorney John Eastman to be Arraigned in Fake Electors Scheme; New York Times Reports, Stop the Steal Symbol Seen at Justice Samuel Alito's Home. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 17, 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.

And we do start with breaking news, the world's number one golfer, Scottie Scheffler, arrested this morning and charged with a felony. Now, Louisville, Kentucky Police released a mug shot just a short time ago showing Scheffler wearing an orange jumpsuit after being arrested this morning on the way to the PGA Championship.

ESPN is reporting that Scheffler tried to maneuver around a fatal crash scene by driving on a median near the entrance to the Valhalla Golf Club. Police told him to stop, but Sheffler continued to drive toward the golf club. He now faces four charges, including a felony count of second degree assault on a police officer. He has since been released and has arrived at the PGA championship.

I want to bring in Criminal Defense Attorney and CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson. Joey, pretty shocking developments this morning, and we just got this statement in from Scheffler just a few moments ago. It says this, we put it up on screen. We have the graphic ready. It literally just came out.

This morning, I was directed -- I was proceeding as directed by police officers. It was a very chaotic situation, understandably. So, considering the traffic accident that had occurred earlier, and there was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do, I never intended to disregard any of the instructions. I'm hopeful to put this to the side and focus on golf today. Of course, all of us involved in the tournament express our deepest sympathies to the family of the man who passed away in the earlier accident this morning. It truly puts everything in perspective, that statement coming in from Scottie Scheffler, the world's number one golfer. Joey, your reaction?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, good to be with you, Jim. And so, obviously, you know, there an incident of some type that occurred. His indication is that it was a misunderstanding. Perhaps at the end of the day, it was. This case is going to turn on what the specific facts were, indications were that, of course, there was that tragic accident involving a bus where someone was dead. He, of course, you know, the world's number one golfer, wanting to get to his particular location. The police saying, hey, listen, stop. He goes.

Well, now that could certainly be because he didn't hear the police's commands. That's a plausible explanation. It could be because he intentionally disregarded it. Why do I say the recitation of facts? Because that's what this will turn on, it turns on the notion of they say he was recklessly driving. Was he, right? That's a determination predicated upon specifically what he was doing, when he was doing it and what he was doing.

They say he was reckless driving. That's the allegation. The biggest allegation, Jim, of course, relates to the assault. An assault means that you intended to actually cause physical injury to someone or you did it to in a reckless way. And so what was that? That's really the crux of it because that's the charge. That's a C felony carrying up to five to ten years in jail.

And what generally happened, Jim, last point, is that in many jurisdictions, Kentucky being no different, what happens is, is that a generalized assault, where you intend to cause physical injury, if that is directed towards a. police officer, right, and other personnel in law enforcement, it elevates it to that felony.

So, I'm particularly concerned about the interaction with the police, what specifically he did or didn't do. And, generally speaking, Jim, there are body cams. And so perhaps we have a bigger indication of that specific interaction and whether it rises to a level of a crime or whether it was a simple misunderstanding.

ACOSTA: Yes, that will tell us a lot too. And let's play what a Scheffler's attorney told our affiliate WLKY. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE RAINES, ATTORNEY FOR SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: We'll just deal with the court system as it comes.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) hasn't been made at this point. He'll play today or no?

RAINER: He'll make that decision.

REPORTER: What's the charge?

REINES: He's charged with assault seconds and criminal mischief and disregarding (INAUDIBLE) officer signals. The assault seconds, I actually felt (INAUDIBLE).

REPORTER: Is there a description you can provide about why assault was included in this charge?

RAINES: No, no.

REPORTER: So, how is Scottie feeling this morning? What did he say?

RAINES: Again, we'll just let it all play out. That's the extent of what we know. It's moving pretty fast at this time, but we'll litigate the case as it comes.

REPORTER: How long it will be in (INAUDIBLE)?

[10:05:00]

RAINES: That's all I got, guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, Joey, that's the reaction from the attorney for Scottie Scheffler. It's remarkable to me he's on his way to this golf tournament, and within hours he's in an orange jumpsuit. I mean, that is -- is it possible here that the police overreacted? I mean, it seems to me if there's a felony charge here of assault of a police officer, that means he made some kind of contact with the police officer, either with his body or his vehicle. Can you help us make sense of that?

JACKSON: Yes, Jim. I think that will be the indication. And I think that's why as we look at the charges there very briefly, the second degree assault, which is the felony punishable by five to ten years in jail, that is when you intend to cause physical injury. The fact that it's a police officer makes it the felony. In a general sense, a second degree felony would be intent to cause serious physical injury or if you had a weapon and did something.

When you look at the mischief charge, criminal mischief represents damage to property, so we have to assess what damage to what property they're speaking about. The reckless driving speaks for itself with respect to you driving in a way that a reasonable and prudent driver wouldn't drive, and then, of course, disregarding the signals. And I think, Jim, you know, you indicated already what the statement was that we have there.

And so all of this is very fact-dependent, again, it will depend upon whether or not it was a simple misunderstanding, as the statement reads, or whether or not it was something more nefarious than that. But I have to believe just from a defense attorney, of course, everybody deserves the presumption of innocence is that, you know, he's a person who's very focused, very driven, chaotic environment, as he noted. He has somewhere to be somewhere to go. He's certainly significant to the tournament. He's trying to get there. And I think that's where his focus is.

And so I really would like to see, the world is going to want to see, what, if any interaction with the police, would have made this a crime. And I think once we see that, we'll have more of an indication of whether there's nothing to see here or whether there's a lot to see here, that remains to come, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Joey Jackson, thank you very much. I really appreciate on the breaking news. In the meantime, Donald Trump is out of the courtroom today, but in the next hour, the architect of his bid to subvert the 2020 election, John Eastman, is due in Arizona courtroom for his alleged role in devising a fake electors scheme. Eastman is the first of 18 Trump allies to be arraigned there on charges, including conspiracy and forgery.

Let's get straight to CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Kyung Lah in Phoenix. Kyung, I mean, a lot has been made about how the Trump January 6th trial in D.C. has been delayed. There's the situation obviously in New York. But, I mean, this arguably could be a far more consequential case because it gets to what was going on during these efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in places like Arizona.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, this is the consequence of those efforts and a lot of those efforts were recorded. There's paperwork. A lot of video was tweeted out.

But let me start by explaining exactly what we are going to see today just so you can kind of get a sense of my setting here. What you're seeing over my left shoulder are the doors to Superior Court here in downtown Phoenix.

And the stress that that we're hearing, what was being stressed to us is that what John Eastman is going to be going through is very ordinary. He's not getting any sort of treatment. There's one entrance in and out. It's a public entrance. He's going to have to go in, go through an arraignment, a very standard arraignment for a number of felony charges, and then he's going to be booked and officially charged, mugshot taken, like anybody else who would be arraigned here in Superior Court. He is, as you mentioned, just, you know, being charged as the architect -- named in the indictment as the architect of this multistate fake elector scheme.

But, you know, I was just talking about the video and the documents that investigators use to sort of piece this whole thing together. It was actually tweeted out by the Arizona GOP. I want you to take a quick look at it. It's nine seconds long, but this is a ceremony that they held declaring Donald Trump the winner in a public effort, at least, because a lot of people still believe that here in Arizona that it was Donald Trump who won the state in 2020. He did not. Joe Biden did. But these types of shows are what misled the voters, misled the public. And so the attorney general has now sought to charge these 18 defendants, the first of whom will be in court today.

I want you to take a look at who they are. There are 11 people in that room. They are the so-called fake electors here out of Arizona, a number of prominent state Republicans. And then the second page is where you're going to see a lot of people who are very familiar to a national audience, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, although Rudy Giuliani, we understand, still has not yet been served his papers.

ACOSTA: All right, very important developments in Phoenix. Kyung, we will get back to you as things develop. Kyung Lah, thank you very much. [10:10:00]

In the meantime, still ahead in upside down American flag, a sign of support for the January 6th insurrection reportedly flying outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Fareed Zakaria joins us next to talk about that.

Plus, insults fly out at a House committee hearing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, oh, girl, baby, girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, really?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't even play.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Baby, girl? I don't think --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are going to move and we're going to take your --

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ACOSTA: This morning, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing some very tough questions this morning after The New York Times reported that a Stop the Steal symbol, an upside down American flag, you can see it right there was on display outside of his home, this is that flag, on January 17th, 2021, 11 days after January 6th.

[10:15:09]

Alito told the times that it wasn't him, but rather his wife who was flying the flag, writing, quote, this is what the justice said to The New York times, I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.

We should add that CNN has not been able to independently confirm the photo of the flag, but, of course, the justice does to The New York Times.

Our Fareed Zakaria joins us now to talk about this. Fareed is the host of Fareed GPS. Fareed, what's your reaction to this? I mean, I guess they can't really say, well, we accidentally hung the flag upside down because the justice is basically confirming this to The New York Times. But in the aftermath of January 6th, a lot of folks will say, well, this is a symbol of distress and so on, and a lot of people do this as a way to, of expressing that. The distress that was going on in this country was because of January 6th. What do you make of all this?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Well, to begin with, it's an odd defense. You know, my wife made me do it. My wife did it. It feels a little bit like my dog ate my homework. But more seriously, the damages to the court's credibility, the court has always positioned itself as an independent institution, and Chief Justice Roberts often tries to make the case that the judges are conservative or liberal with regard to jurisprudence, not the political spectrum. They don't take sides politically left and right. They think about the law, and they might have various philosophies of law. Well, all that is upended by this brazenly partisan act. You know, you can agree with it or disagree with it, but for a Supreme Court justice, to be weighing in so publicly is, I think, deeply damaging to the court's credibility.

Of course, Alito has been -- has behaved like this in the past. He's made flippant speeches and remarks that were nakedly partisan. If you read, you don't even have to look at upside down flags to see his political philosophy. His opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was almost medieval in its understanding of women's roles and women's rights.

ACOSTA: Well, and I have to ask you about this. I mean, because you know, Trump and his allies up in New York have been complaining about a, quote, conflicted judge in that case. But at the Supreme Court, you have Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, texting Mark Meadows about overturning the 2020 election results. And now you have this situation at the Alito House. I mean, aren't these conflicts?

ZAKARIA: I think these are, you know, clear conflicts of interest, clearly show that these judges are not impartial, and, frankly, it makes the case for a broader judicial reform. Supreme Court justices have lifetime tenure in a way that almost no advanced industrial democracy, in fact, none that I know of have a lifetime tenure.

And, you know, when you have people like this who are abusing that tenure by behaving in nakedly partisan ways, it's very damaging, and you see it in the court's approval ratings, which have been plummeting over the last 20 or 30 years, ever since Bush v. Gore, which was the first kind of nakedly partisan opinion in recent history.

You just see the court has been slipping and slipping and slipping. It was once the most admired institution in America. It's now -- you know, I don't remember, it's about a 20-point drop. And it's entirely because of justices like Alito and Thomas.

ACOSTA: Right. And they have been presiding over the January 6th case, whether or not Trump should have immunity, and they appear to have differed very strongly with the Court of Appeals who was -- they were essentially saying, no, no, this, this case needs to move forward.

Fareed, I also wanted to ask you about the debate news that we had this week. The first debate of the 2024 general election cycle will be on June 27th right here on CNN. Last week on your show, you made some waves. As you know, you went a little viral. You warn that the president is in big trouble based on some of these latest poll numbers.

What do you make of what Biden is doing here, sort of seizing the moment with these debates? Can he use these debates to turn that around in the months ahead? We saw polls coming out after those last debates in 2020 that the public thought Joe Biden handled those debates pretty well. ZAKARIA: I think it's a big moment for Biden. I think it's, in some ways, a make or break. He has a lot more to, to gain or lose from this. He has to approach this as if he's the underdog, as if he's coming from behind, which is all true.

[10:20:00]

But it's hard for the president of the United States to think that way. It's one of the reasons presidents have typically done badly in debates, particularly in the first debate. Obama, who's a very good orator, did very badly in the first debate against Romney, because the president has been spending his time governing, he's been spending his time with his cabinet and his White House staff, all of whom defer to him.

You know, every time he walks into the room, the Marine band plays. Every time he walks onto a tarmac, he's walking onto Air Force One or Marine One. It's not an atmosphere conducive to recognizing that people can disagree with you. It's not a -- you know, you don't realize that you have to punch and counterpunch.

So, Biden has to take this opportunity to be very feisty, very -- you know, the thing I pointed out in that commentary was he is really behind on the question of who is more competent. And I believe that there's a 25-point drop from the 2020 race for Biden. That is about -- that's about energy. That's about your ability to show that you're in command, you're in control. So, it's a big moment for Biden.

I think it's a historic opportunity for him. There's a great moment for CNN. And I think this will be one of the most widely and closely watched debates in American history.

ACOSTA: Yes, certainly one of the most important debates we've seen in many, many years.

Fareed Zakaria will be watching your program this Sunday. I always do. I'd never miss it. Fareed Zakaria, thanks so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.

Be sure to watch Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday at 10:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. Eastern only on CNN. And be sure to watch the first 2024 presidential debate, June 27th at 9:00 P.M. only on CNN.

We'll be right back.

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[10:25:00]

ACOSTA: Back to our breaking news, the world's number one golfer, Scottie Scheffler, has just teed off at the PGA Championship after being arrested this morning and charged with a felony. The crowd, we should note there at the golf course, gave Scheffler a rousing round of applause.

He also just re released a statement writing this. It was a very chaotic situation. He's talking about what happened during this arrest. Understandably so, considering the tragic accident that had occurred earlier, and there was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do.

ESPN is reporting that Scheffler tried to maneuver around a fatal crash scene by driving on a median near the entrance to the Valhalla Golf Club. Police told him to stop. Scheffler continued to drive toward the club. He now faces four charges, including a felony count of second degree assault on a police officer. You can see him in his mugshot right there. His attorney says Scheffler will be cooperating with the case.

We also just learned that the Louisville Police Department that officers there are reviewing body camera footage from the scene and they're expected to make a statement later today.

Joining me now to discuss more is Rachel Nichols, the host of Headliners with Rachel Nichols on Showtime and Paramount Plus. Rachel, I mean, what do you think of this? I guess we have to wait to see like what the body camera footage shows. Did he actually make contact with the officer or is this just the cops overreacted because he wasn't following their instructions? We just don't know. But, I mean, a major development to happen this morning, the world's number one golfer arrested, mugshot. I mean, that's just unbelievable.

RACHEL NICHOLS, HOST OF SHOWTIME'S HEADLINERS WITH RACHEL NICHOLS: Before teeing off for a major. I mean, it's incredible when you think about the way golfers prepare for these tournaments.

The idea that you need a mindset to play excellent golf, it is such a cerebral sport, how you're thinking about hitting the ball matters. That's why people try to get to the course so early and put themselves in the mind of getting to get at what they need to do that day. You can see it's still dark when all of this happened. That's what he was trying to do.

Unfortunately, there really was a tragedy. You can see a bus in the frame there. The bus hit a pedestrian who was trying to cross the street. And, you know, it's just senseless tragedy that's going on outside the club and then does appear to be some sort of misunderstanding of how he was trying to get around the accident into the club.

The report is that he had his window down and the officer was trying to grab at his arm or that he had some -- grab at the officer, which is where the physical contraction happened. We're going to have to wait and see the body cam details. But it's obviously not how you want to start your day.

The reaction inside the club, though, was, was very positive. He got a very big round of applause when he went to go to the driving range.

ACOSTA: Yes. And you have to wonder whether the cops were amped up because this fatal accident had just occurred. I mean, that can obviously contribute to this. And I also wonder why wasn't Scottie Scheffler being driven to the tournament? Don't they usually have SUVs for these guys? He's the world's number one golfer, and, I mean, he's driving himself. That one I don't understand also.

But speaking of that, I do want to move to this growing outrage over the controversial graduation speech delivered by the Kansas City Chiefs kicker, Harrison Butker. The NFL issued a statement on this on Wednesday saying, quote, Bucker gave a speech in his personal capacity, his views are not those of the NFL as an organization.

I mean, Rachel, I mean, this just seems like a cop out on the part of the NFL. I mean, it's unbelievable what Bucker was saying in this speech, saying that women might be better off staying at home instead of pursuing careers. That's it. It's 2024. That's insane.

[10:30:00]

NICHOLS: He went so far as to say that his wife feels that her life began when she married him, when she became a wife and eventually a mother.