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Justice Alito Complains About Media Scrutiny in New Secret Recording; Trump Calls to Haul Out the Guillotine in Fundraising Email; IDF Says, Hezbollah Fires 200 Rockets at Northern Israel. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 12, 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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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We begin with the fallout up on Capitol Hill over the explosive secret recordings of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. While representing herself as a religious conservative, a liberal activist captured Alito speaking candidly about the difficulty of living peacefully with progressive opponents. And in new audio just released, Alito slammed the media for holding the nation's highest court accountable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so sorry, first of all, about all the attacks on you by the media. I just think they are piling on you, and it's underserved.

JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just wanted to ask you, why do you think the Supreme Court is being attacked and being so targeted by the media these days?

ALITO: Well, I think it's a simple reason they don't like our decisions and they don't like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That's the beginning of the end of it. And there are, I mean there are groups that are very well funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks. That's what it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like who?

ALITO: ProPublica. ProPublica gets a lot of -- you know, a lot of money and they have spent a fortune investigating Clarence Thomas, for example.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay.

ALITO: You know, having everything he's ever done in his entire life, and they've done some of that to me, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Reality check. If you sit on the nation's highest score with a lifetime appointment and you face no direct electoral accountability, you can't reasonably complain about media scrutiny. We should note, Justice Alito did not respond to our request for comment. In a statement to CNN, ProPublica says it, quote, exposes abuses of power no matter which party is in charge in our newsroom, operates with fierce independence.

Here in Washington, Republican lawmakers are rushing to Alito's defense, arguing that Democrats are undermining the court's integrity even as they push conspiracy theories about a two-tiered justice system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an effort by Democrats to undermine the court because they want to pack the court.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Why shouldn't Alito recuse from these January 6th --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not anything to recuse himself for.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I think this is just a frankly a rank cynical political effort by some of my colleagues to make the Supreme Court an issue in the elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: There is no evidence of a justice system weaponized against conservatives. What there is evidence of is Justice Clarence Thomas accepting lavish gifts worth millions of dollars from Republican mega donors. What there is evidence of is Justice Alito's religious zeal.

Joining me now is the woman behind these recordings, Liberal Filmmaker Lauren Windsor. Lauren, you've been taking some heat from Republicans. They're going after your work. What's your response?

LAUREN WINDSOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, THE UNDERCURRENT: Shocker. I mean Republicans being cynical about anything, but, you know, I wish that they were more shocked about the ethics breaches at the Supreme Court than some lies that I told them in order to elicit truths that serve the greater public good.

ACOSTA: And I did want to ask you about some of that, but the other question that I have, and you and I were talking about this a little bit last night, the way you were able to get access to these Supreme Court justices. You were able to pay, what, $500, something like that to attend this event held at the Supreme Court?

WINDSOR: Yes, I bought a ticket.

ACOSTA: You bought a ticket. WINDSOR: Registered in my own name.

ACOSTA: And, I mean, this is something that a lot of Americans can't afford to do. They can't shell out $500 or whatever to go to an event and have access to these Supreme Court justices, yet you did.

WINDSOR: Yes. And I wasn't the first. I learned about the tactic from Reverend Schenck in the reporting from The New York Times after the abortion rulings.

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ACOSTA: So, this has been done before?

WINDSOR: By conservatives.

ACOSTA: Yes. And what does it say about access to the court?

WINDSOR: Well, I think that if you have enough money --

ACOSTA: You're a high roller in D.C., I guess.

WINDSOR: If you have enough money and the right connections, then you get the access.

ACOSTA: What do you make of what Alito said there about ProPublica? What are your thoughts there?

WINDSOR: Well, what's crazy to me is that he's talking about they're spending a fortune investigating Clarence Thomas when, you know, Clarence Thomas just re-filed his ethics disclosures to reflect all of these trips that ProPublica unearthed. So, obviously, there's a there, there with ProPublica's reporting. Obviously, there's a there, there with what I'm reporting. Otherwise, people wouldn't be talking about it and they wouldn't be attacking me.

ACOSTA: And court watchers have noted that Alito's tone of aggrievement has deepened in recent years. His views have been on the winning side of many court cases though. I mean, he's been winning. There was another audio that said something, you know, talking about winning. So, why do you think he's so aggrieved? Why is he -- it sounds a little bit like sour grapes.

WINDSOR: I had two separate conversations with him, one in 2023 and one in 2024. And 2023 was right after the reporting on Clarence Thomas came out. He did not yet face the scrutiny from ProPublica. In the intervening year, he has. And my sense is that he is more aggrieved by the media scrutiny. He thinks that he shouldn't be held accountable, that the Supreme Court is just not subject to Congress.

ACOSTA: And last night, you and I were talking about this, and when I said, well, why did you do it the way that you did? You said, well, why isn't the media doing more scrutiny? Why aren't members of Congress applying more pressure on the Supreme Court? Do you think Democrats in the Senate, for example, on the Judiciary Committee have done enough to hold their feet to the fire? WINDSOR: It's certainly not. I do not think that Senator Durbin has done enough. I know that there are many arcane rules to Senate procedure. I think that there should be something done by Democrats if Republicans are going to refuse to, you know, pass any ethics reform, whatsoever. It's kind of crazy to me that you could sit there and say, like Lindsey Graham did, I believe it was this morning in a tweet, that he was going to block any ethics reform for the Supreme Court. So, that's a great message to run on, I'm anti-ethics.

ACOSTA: Yes. And The Wall Street Journal, I mean, they kind of went after you too, and basically said, well, is this all that you got, you know, out of this? And the only actual news they say from this is that Sam Alito's wife corroborated that he is not responsible for whatever flags have flown at his homes. What's your response to The Wall Street Journal?

WINDSOR: Well, even in the one instance they point to, clearly, he's enabling that behavior. They've had a discussion about it. Yes, she's an enthusiastic flag waver, but he's still allowing it to go up. And it's clearly a political message.

There's much more than that there. There's, you know, the anti-pride comments, the Vergogna flag, the --

ACOSTA: Explain that, the Vergogna flag.

WINDSOR: So, we were talking about, she -- and this is crazy. I'm not sure how many people live around a lagoon, but she was saying, you know, I have to look out across the lagoon at a pride flag and she's very aggrieved about that, wants to have a sacred heart of Jesus flag in response, but it actually satisfies her. I think that's the exact word, satisfies her, gives her pleasure to imagine creating her own flag with different iconography, but it would say Vergogna, which is the Italian word for shame. And she made that -- she was very emphatic about it, V-E R-G-O-G-N-A. So --

ACOSTA: But spouses of Supreme Court justices are allowed to have views. She's allowed to have her own views, right?

WINDSOR: Oh, certainly. But when your spouse is one of the most powerful men in the country, you know, with his fingers on the scale, literally, of justice, I mean, are we going to say that we are going to do away with impartiality, the bedrock principle of our democracy, of our jurisprudence? Is it okay? He's admitting that he cannot be impartial. He's saying there are things that cannot be compromised. One side will win.

It's another -- it's one thing to be an ideologue and for people to know that. It's another to actually sit there and say that you're not going to compromise on certain things, particularly when there's very life-changing decisions that are coming forward in the next couple of weeks. And I think the American public deserves to know what are those things that are non-negotiable for you? What are the things you're not going to compromise on?

ACOSTA: All right. Lauren Windsor. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

I want to get some reaction now from CNN Political Commentator and Democratic Strategist Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Rina Shah.

[10:10:04]

Rina, let me go to you first. Your thoughts.

RINA SHAH, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well --

ACOSTA: Are you glad that we got this kind of up close and personal of what the Alitos think and so on?

SHAH: Well, I'm reminded by a sports reference from years ago about the Chicago Bears. The Bears are who we thought they were. Justice Alito is who we thought he is. And that's it. Simply put, you know, I'm an activist activist and I really appreciate Lauren doing this, because investigative journalism is important to this country.

And if you can get into a room like that, heck, go wild, figure it out. What are these people who sit at these high perches of power, what views are they holding? We all deserve to know that. These are lifetime appointments. They make everybody feel like they're untouchable, right?

So, pulling back the curtain on that is important on the one hand, but on the other hand, there is only one point that I do agree with Republican lawmakers this morning on the Hill who are defending him and sort of drawing their ire, unfortunately, on Lauren, saying that this was wrong by some measure. It wasn't wrong.

Project Veritas has been doing it for a very long time. That's a very far right group. A woman was accused and, and, actually not just accused, sorry, she was indicted for stealing Ashley Bynum's diary, backed by Project Veritas. So, groups have been doing this --

ACOSTA: Yes, I'm not sure there's a -- I mean, I'm not sure that they're the same thing, what Lauren is doing in front of the (INAUDIBLE), yes.

SHAH: Well, that's what conservatives are trying to say is that she's doing the same thing where it's not the same thing. Conservatives have taken bad tactics like this for a long time.

But back to my point of what Republican lawmakers are saying on the Hill this morning, the one clear point they are making, nothing Alito said to me clearly shows why he should recuse himself from the J6 immunity case --

ACOSTA: Maria, what do you think?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think I agree that this kind of showed who Alito was, but I think I don't agree with you in terms of he shouldn't recuse himself because the difference is, and I also thank Lauren for what she did, she asked John Roberts pretty much the same kinds of things.

ACOSTA: Right.

CARDONA: And he responded exactly like he should.

ACOSTA: A very different response.

CARDONA: A very different response.

ACOSTA: Very telling.

CARDONA: Very measured, exactly how a justice of the Supreme Court should respond. And, yes, so we know who Alito is already but that just shows the kinds of leanings he has. And it's not just leanings. Lauren said that he doesn't think that one side has to win, right? That is not somebody that should -- in my book, that has the ability to call balls and strikes fairly.

ACOSTA: The members of Congress? Sure. Sitting on the Supreme Court --

CARDONA: Right, a member of Congress, you know their leanings because they run with one party or the other.

SHAH: Maria, you're right.

CARDONA: But a justice -- frankly, two justices, because Clarence Thomas is also, I think, in that group of justices that need to recuse themselves.

One last thing, Jim, imagine how conservatives and, and the right wing media would respond if this had been Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson or Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Oh my God, the outrage would -- we would not hear the end of it.

ACOSTA: Well, let me shift gears here because I do want to get this in before we run out of time in this segment. The Trump campaign put out a fundraising email earlier this morning. I want to show this to our viewers, get your response. It says at the top of this, highlighted, capital letters, haul out the guillotine, and Trump goes off on his grievances there.

But, you know, in light of everything that we've been through in this country, January 6th, you know, hang Mike Pence on January 6th, we've seen Donald Trump out on the campaign trail saying, I am your retribution and so on. Are we getting a little too -- and nobody's really made a big deal out of it. This email came out a couple of hours. Nobody has made a big deal out of it. Are we --

CARDONA: I'm glad you are.

ACOSTA: Well, you know, I'm highlighting it because I just wonder, Rina, are we getting a little too numb to this kind of rhetoric? Is it getting out of control?

SHAH: I've been struck by it every time. ACOSTA: Is he out of control?

SHAH: Trump has been out of control for a long time because what he's wanted to do is whack this whole notion of impartiality, which I heard you touching on and I couldn't agree more. And I'm really glad you touch on that because that impartiality is what makes us a country. We aren't a country if we can't look at our institutions and say, these institutions protect the very American values that I know so many conservatives care about, which are freedom, equality, justice. I mean, if we don't have those things, we're not a nation at all.

Trump wants to whack those things away just because he's mentally unstable on that day and wants to talk about a guillotine and wants to say that they want to take me to the guillotine. Buddy, it was you that was fine with people doing that to your vice president.

CARDONA: Yes. I think that kind of language is outrageous, but it's also not surprising coming from Donald Trump. I mean, I guess I will say now that he is a 34 times convicted felon, he can't have a gun, so he can't shoot people on 5th Avenue, so maybe now it's the guillotine that he's going to be using to kill people.

ACOSTA: You know, to me, it's just -- maybe we've gotten too numb to this.

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CARDONA: Yes.

ACOSTA: There's been a lot of talk about Trump amnesia, it's Trump numbness maybe that --

CARDONA: It's Trump numbness. And the more that he does it -- I think he knows that, Jim. The more that he does it, people are going to say, oh, that's just Trump. Oh, that's just Trump. But what we do know is he already put out a plan about what he's going to do in 2025, and it is all about taking away our freedoms, deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, making life miserable for, frankly, the people who voted against him.

ACOSTA: Ladies, thank you very much. I appreciate your time this morning.

Coming up, escalating tensions in the Middle East, Hezbollah firing hundreds of rockets into Israel today. Secretary of State Tony Blinken continues his efforts to negotiate a ceasefire deal.

Plus, happening right now, a Russian nuclear submarine is arriving in Havana, joining other Russian ships. The show of force from Moscow, just 100 miles from the U.S. shoreline.

We're back in just a moment.

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[10:20:00] ACOSTA: New today, an alarming spike in tensions in the Middle East.

Israel's military says that Hezbollah has fired at least 200 rockets into Northern Israel today. No injuries are reported. The IDF says it responded by striking this rocket launcher in Southern Lebanon and other Hezbollah targets. It marks a dramatic escalation in the region as ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas descend into turmoil.

This morning, Secretary of State Tony Blinken met with mediators in Qatar about a plan to end the fighting in Gaza and free the hostages who were seized on October 7th.

Let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann and Tel Aviv and CNN International Correspondent Jomana Karadsheh.

Oren is optimism -- it sounded like things were going in a positive direction yesterday. Maybe today not so much.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking next to his Qatari counterpart is very realistic, I would say, about where this process stands, and that is to say it's not there yet. And now it comes down to the details where this process has fallen apart so many times before.

But Blinken made clear that he places the blame for where this stands right at the feet of Hamas, saying, the proposal on the table right now and the changes they are trying to put in are points on which they have already agreed. He said the Hamas response included numerous changes. He said some are workable. Some are not.

But it doesn't mean this process is over. He says he will continue to work with other negotiators, including the Qataris, to try to push this forward as Blinken on a whirlwind tour of the region here to see if there is a window and if they can work through that window to get to a ceasefire agreement.

Blinken once again underscoring that it is on Hamas who waited 12 days to respond to the U.S.-backed proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table. We discussed those changes last night with Egyptian colleagues and today with the prime minister. Some of the changes are workable. Some are not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Blinken pointed out that Israel has agreed to the proposal. Israeli officials last night, when Hamas had responded, said it was a Hamas rejection of the proposal, but it's clear that the U.S. and the countries don't view it that way and we'll try to move forward here.

This is a three-phase plan. Take a look at this. The first phase would see a ceasefire going to place, Israel withdrawing from populated areas, that would lead to negotiate -- and the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, that would lead to negotiations for a second phase, a permanent ceasefire, a withdrawal of forces from Gaza, and then a third phase, the reconstruction, the rebuilding of Gaza. And that is what everybody here is trying to work for, even with all the challenges in the way here.

One more thing, Jim, I will note that Blinken also talked about a day after plan. That's something that Israel's leadership, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has refused to engage on. He's been called out on that by both the U.S. and by members of his own war cabinet. Blinken said in the coming weeks the U.S. will put forward its own day after plan.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Jomana, today the United Nations is releasing a scathing report on the war. It finds both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes, routinely violated international law. What can you tell us?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, after months of investigations by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, they have released two damning reports, more than 200 pages today. One report focused on the October 7th attacks on Israel, where they found that Hamas and six other armed Palestinian groups committed war crimes that day. Those include intentionally directing attacks against civilians, murder or willful killing, torture, taking hostages, including children, and more.

They also say that they identified, quote, patterns indicative of sexual violence and concluded that these were not isolated incidents but perpetrated in similar ways in several locations in Israel, primarily against Israeli women.

Now, the other report on the Israeli military operations in Gaza, Jim, they found that Israel had committed crimes against humanity as well as war crimes. This includes accusing Israel of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian structures, disregarding the laws of war and other crimes, including sexual violence, extermination, murder, willful killing, forcible transfer and more.

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Now, the commission has accused Israel of trying to obstruct its investigation and saying that it was prevented from accessing Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories. That is no surprise, Jim, because Israel has made its position clear over the past few months saying it was not going to cooperate with this investigation, accusing that U.N. being anti-Israeli and of anti-Semitism.

And today, we have the response from Israel to these findings, saying that the U.N. Commission of Inquiry showed, quote, systemic anti- Israeli discrimination and, again, rejecting accusations against the idea of saying that it adheres to international law and carries out its own. And it says that the report disregarded what it says is Hamas using civilians in Gaza as human shields. And on the accusations of sexual violence, Israel says it's outraged by attempts to draw a, quote, false equivalence between Israeli soldiers and Hamas. And we have yet to hear a response from Hamas, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right Oren and Jomana, thank you very much.

And we'll get reaction from former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen on all of this right after a quick break. We'll be right back.

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