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James Craig Faces New Charges; Judge Shuts Down Giuliani in Court; Federal Workers Fear Doxing by Musk; Harris Team Opens Up About Campaign Loss; Student Loan Debt Under Trump. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 27, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But this all began just last year, when Angela Craig, who was trying to take care of herself, would have her husband make her a protein shake every morning. And suddenly, one morning in March, she was feeling dizzy. She was having convulsions. She actually had a seizure, went to the hospital, in and out of the hospital three times. She was on death's door, and the office manager of the dental practice realized that they had gotten a shipment of a potassium cyanide, and they didn't use that in the dental practice.

So, she told the partner, the dental partner, he went to police in the hospital and told them about it. And a homicide investigation was begun. And once she passed, of course, they executed many search warrants. They found that he was researching undetectable poisons on his computer. But he started to ask all the inmates to help him because they were all getting out and he wanted them to distribute notes around the house and in the truck to make it look like she committed suicide in her own handwriting, wanted women to step forward and say they were having an affair with him and she and Angela got upset and was going to frame her husband with this potassium cyanide.

So, this is -- these are all the allegations must be proven, but this will go to trial. But at this point, everything has stayed for the moment. And of course, James Craig has pleaded not guilty.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Wow. What a wild story. All right. Jean Casarez, thank you very much. Another wild legal news, Rudy Giuliani was shut down in court by a federal judge on Tuesday after the former mayor went on an extended rant trying to explain why he hadn't turned over millions of dollars in assets to Georgia election workers who want a defamation case against him. The court artists who created these images said Giuliani was, quote, "losing it." Outside, things didn't get much better. Giuliani told reporters that judge was targeting him as part of a left-wing conspiracy involving the Bidens.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER DONALD TRUMP ATTORNEY: This is punishment. It's punishment for being the one who revealed, first, Joe Biden's 30-year criminality. I'm the one who revealed it. Nobody else. He hated me since then. He's been trying to torture me. Stop me.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: Of course, he hasn't revealed any lifetime of criminality. But anyway, CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz joins us now. Katelyn, what a downward spiral for Rudy Giuliani. Walk us through what happened.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So, in this federal courtroom in New York, this is the second time where Giuliani has revealed he's in his cantankerous phase of his life where he's facing all of these proceedings.

In this one, he still hasn't turned over everything he has to turn over under a court order to begin to pay off that $150 million debt to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The things they don't have yet, a Joe Dimaggio jersey that is -- was given to him by the baseball great, art, the title of his car. So, he gave them the Mercedes, they don't have the title yet. And then, cash that they were supposed to wired him because they're seizing his assets. The judge has said it's happening. And he's getting warnings from the judge over and over again court. I was there the last time, this time our reporter Lauren del Vall was witnessing Giuliani in court. And he's complaining. He's sitting with his arms crossed. He's speaking to the judge out of turn saying, everything I have is tied up. I don't have a car. I don't have a credit card. I don't have cash. I can't get my bank account. I can't pay my bills. And then, the judge says, you can't just talk out of turn. If you want to testify about your financial state, you can. And then, Giuliani said in court yesterday, somebody has to tell the truth.

This all comes as he is veering toward a trial to try and hold on to four World Series reigns of Florida condo and also facing contempt proceedings in a Washington, D.C. federal court separate from this. It's a lot.

ACOSTA: Yes. And in this New York case, I mean, if he keeps defying the judge, could he end up in jail? Is that a possibility?

POLANTZ: He could end up in jail. He could also end up fined. Contempt really is something the judge keeps warning him he is moving toward. But it appears that Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss' attorneys may have to ask for that. But keep an eye on it. They're already asking for contempt in D.C., where he keeps speaking about them publicly and should not be.

ACOSTA: Wow. And you just see those courtroom sketches. I mean, that's about as animated as they get of Rudy Giuliani there. Katelyn Polantz --

POLANTZ: He's an animated guy.

ACOSTA: Very much so these days. All right. Katelyn, thank you so much. As federal workers brace for job cuts, a new fear is emerging. Public doxing by Elon Musk. It's already happening and viewed by tens of millions of his followers. That's next.

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[10:35:00]

ACOSTA: Federal employees have something new to worry about here in Washington. Elon Musk, who was selected by Donald Trump to find areas to cut in the government, is going after individual workers in a very public way, shaming them before his legions of followers on X. Last week, Musk singled out federal workers on his social media platform. That's become a tool of the MAGA movement.

CNN Media Correspondent Hadas Gold joins me now. Hadas I mean, this obviously has the potential to get very disturbing very quickly. What can you tell us?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, I think that there is bipartisan support, even amongst some federal workers to try and streamline and make the government more efficient. And federal employees are aware that there's likely going to be a lot of job cuts. But this is something that's really scaring them. And that is that Elon Musk reposted several posts from other users that revealed the private names of four women who are working in climate related jobs in the government.

Now, one of the posts says, I don't think the U.S. taxpayers should pay for the employment of a director of climate diversification. Musk then reposted that post and said so many fake jobs. Now, the information that was posted is from a publicly available database on government employees, and it does not reveal phone numbers or addresses or anything like that.

[10:40:00]

But these people who were revealed, these are otherwise sort of relatively unknown government employees. None of them have public facing jobs as spokespeople or anything like that. So, by the richest man in the world, close confidant of the president-elect, essentially putting their names on blast for many federal employees this really scares them that they Elon Musk's legions of fans will now be going after them personally, because he has done this before to other people who he feels are standing in his way. And those people have had death threats. They've had to leave their homes. They've been fearful for their lives as a result of being targeted by Elon Musk.

Now, the union that represents federal workers has put out a statement and they say that these tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees. They say, it's intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.

And, Jim, something really interesting. I actually reached out to some experts on cyber harassment, online abuse, trying to get sort of their take on this, Jim, I had several of them refuse to speak to me on the record. And these are, you know, academics, experts, things like that, because they themselves were fearful of becoming a target of Elon Musk themselves.

Now, we did reach out to Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also part of this effort, this Department of Government Efficiency, and he didn't speak directly to whether it was appropriate to single out these individuals, but he did say our opponent is not any particular individual. Our opponent is the bureaucracy. And I'll also add that we did try to reach out to Elon Musk via the X press office, but they did not reply to our request for comment.

ACOSTA: All right. Hadas Gold, thank you very much. Let's talk more about this. I want to bring in CNN political commentators Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist and Shermichael Singleton, a Republican strategist.

Shermichael, should Elon must be going after individual federal workers on a social media platform this way? Isn't this cyber bullying?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look, I mean, the reporter just said that it was doxing. I don't know if I would describe it that way. I mean, doxing is publishing private information, which the previous report you just had on also acknowledge that.

I wouldn't go this route, though. I mean, I think you can fulfill your objective by removing many of these offices, closing down various departments, it their goal without necessarily naming people. I just don't think that that's useful, Jim. I mean, these people are probably already scared as hell that they're probably going to lose their jobs at some point. Focus on the goal, downsize, but necessary. Don't put people's private public names out there.

ACOSTA: Yes. Maria, isn't this sort of trying to create a climate of fear here in Washington?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, it's absolutely grotesque and disgusting, and it shouldn't be allowed. Jim, this is the type of behavior that if our children engaged in this and when they do, you know, like in high school or junior high or, you know, middle school, you have a meeting with their teachers and their principals and there is a punishment that is there for kids who engage in this type of bullying behavior.

ACOSTA: Elon Musk is being a mean girl?

CARDONA: Exactly. And you know what that comes from? Insecurity. What is he insecure about? There are ways to do what he and Vivek Ramaswamy and Donald Trump want to do in terms of refining the federal government, you know, taking away the kinds of jobs that they say are a waste. This is not how you do that, right? This is not how you go about making the government more efficient. This is how you go about injecting fear and frankly, provoking violence against these workers who -- you know, Jim, as you know, I worked in the federal government during the Clinton administration and I work with so many public servants who are incredibly committed and all they wanted to do was their job.

ACOSTA: And I do want to talk a little bit more about some of these picks, Shermichael, Trump's pick for director of the Domestic Policy Council. I mean, these are some -- sometimes some of these we don't talk about quite as much, but Vince Haley, part of the Trump team. He was a proponent of the fake elector's scheme after the 2020 election. And we can put this up on screen. This is according to the January 6th Committee and some reporting we did here at CNN.

He was circulating this idea that you could have state legislators, fake electors. And he, at one point, wrote in a text, we should baldly assert that state legislators have the constitutional right to substitute their judgment for a certified majority of their constituents.

I mean, Shermichael, are you worried about some of the people who are coming into some very important roles in the new Trump administration?

SINGLETON: No, no, no, I'm not. When you win elections, you have the obligation to choose who you want. I mean, no one's thinking about what happened four years ago. What people are thinking about the present and they're thinking about the future, Jim.

And when you win the election, just like when Joe Biden won, Joe Biden was able to choose whoever the heck he wanted. I didn't like all of the people, many Republicans didn't like all of the people. Donald Trump has the obligation and the authority as a president-elect to do the same darn thing, and some Democrats aren't going to like it either and my advice would be to get over it just as we had to get over it nearly four years ago when we lost the election.

[10:45:00]

CARDONA: But you know what -- and, Shermichael, you know, I love you. Donald Trump himself has said that part of his goal is to go into the DOJ and to all of these agencies and relook at what happened in the 2020 election. So, we can get over it.

SINGLETON: Elections have consequences, Maria. You know that --

CARDONA: No, no. We can get over it, but you need to tell your president-elect, our president-elect, but your guy to get over it as well.

SINGLETON: He's your president as well.

ACOSTA: Yes, he hasn't really gotten over it.

CARDONA: No, he has not. That's the problem. And he's making everyone suffer for it.

SINGLETON: But, Jim, most Republicans that I know have gotten over it. They want to govern. They want to deliver results for the American people. They want to think about the future. That's what the American people elected Donald trump to focus on, the future, not the past. And my advice to the president-elect will be to just that, focus on the future.

ACOSTA: Yes, let's talk --

CARDONA: But he's not. That's the problem. ACOSTA: Let's talks about the past a little bit more. We're hearing for the first time from top members of the Harris campaign about what went wrong in the 2024 election that Donald Trump won this time around. Let's take a listen to this clip from Pod Save America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUENTIN FULKS, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER, HARRIS/WALZ 2024: Republicans don't make Trump apologize. And as Stephanie said, we don't have to mimic it, but I think that there are a lot of times where if you're in the Democratic Party and you step out of line, you get punished for it. Trump is putting these Republicans in the worst possible political, or what would seem to be, and they support it because they're -- at the end of the day, they understand that it weakens Trump.

And, you know, this may sound like a shot across the bow, but it should be. Democrats are eating our own to a very high degree. And until that stops, we're not going to be able to address a lot of the things that just need to be said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes. Maria, what do you think about that?

CARDONA: I think there's a point to that. You know, I heard a lot during the election about how Democrats could learn a lot from Republicans about loyalty, but frankly, just about protecting your own and focusing on the -- what our goal should be and our priority, which should be winning. But look --

ACOSTA: It's a little complicated though, because, I mean, Democrats had a choice. They could have stuck with Joe Biden. They went with Kamala Harris.

CARDONA: Right.

ACOSTA: The president was essentially pressured to step aside in favor of Kamala Harris. But had he not done that, it could have been even -- an even bigger landslide.

CARDONA: Sure. And here's what I --

ACOSTA: Not that this one was a landslide. But it could have been a big victory for Donald Trump.

CARDONA: That's right. It was not a landslide. It was not -- there's no mandate. And it's very, very close election still.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CARDONA: The fact of the matter is that there's so much coulda, woulda, shoulda in terms of what happened or what didn't happen, and that is going to go on for months. I think the Democratic Party needs to focus on what we need to do moving forward. As we have seen, Republicans are going to overreach. They cannot help themselves. They're going to put in policies and they're going to have behaviors like we just talked about that the American people are going to reject, and we need to be there in two years and in four years to make sure that we are fighting back for the American people.

ACOSTA: All right. Guys, thanks a lot. Maria, Shermichael --

SINGLETON: Jim, Jim, Jim, I just want to say quickly.

ACOSTA: Quick final thought. Go ahead.

SINGLETON: The vice president got 74 million votes, way more than Hillary Clinton by, I think, about 8 million. That's an incredible run in about 100 days. And I want to give the vice president her credit there.

ACOSTA: Well, a lot fewer than Joe Biden --

SINGLETON: But I do want to be critical of her advisers, Jim. They spent $1.6 billion and left the vice president's campaign at $20 million debt. I would never hire any of them again. I don't blame that on the vice president. I blame that on Democratic consultants.

ACOSTA: All right. Well, we're going to keep this conversation.

CARDONA: There's going to be a lot of that. Yes.

ACOSTA: We'll talk about that.

CARDONA: Absolutely.

ACOSTA: We'll do a bit more of the woulda, coulda, shoulda another time, guys, thanks a lot, appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving.

CARDONA: Thanks, Jim. Happy Thanksgiving.

SINGLETON: Happy Thanksgiving, Jim.

CARDONA: Happy Thanksgiving, Shermichael.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up next, what does another Trump presidency mean for student loan borrowers? That's coming up.

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[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: During the Biden administration, nearly 5 million people had a record $175 billion in student loan debt wiped out and millions more have enrolled in programs currently tied up in court. So, with the Trump administration coming in, many of those borrowers are worried about what it means for their loans.

Joining me now is the president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, Betsy Mayotte. And, Betsy, you've been feeling a lot of questions from the public about whether debt is already forgiven. Can it be reversed? People who are in situations like that, what do you tell them?

BETSY MAYOTTE, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF THE INSTITUTE OF STUDENT LOAN ADVISORS: I tell them to take a deep breath. I don't foresee anybody whose loans have already been forgiven under existing programs to have their loans unforgiven by any means.

ACOSTA: OK. So, that's a bit of good news there. But what about people whose loan forgiveness applications are still being processed or in limbo? Legally, what do they do? What are they advised to do?

MAYOTTE: So, it depends on the program. For things like public service loan forgiveness, that's written into federal law. It would take an act of Congress to make PSLF go away. I frankly don't see that happening. But even if it did, it would almost certainly only be for loans made on or after the date of that change in the law.

For programs like the broad debt relief that the Biden administration has tried twice now to implement, I do think that's gone. I fully expect the Trump administration to withdraw from that litigation pretty quickly after the inauguration. For things like the save plan, which is also under litigation, my gut says that, again, that's something that they will withdraw from the litigation and the save plan might also go away.

ACOSTA: And another potential change that the Trump administration has discussed is moving loans out of the Education Department and into the Treasury Department. I mean, Trump has talked about doing away with the Department of Education, so I suppose that would follow. What might be the consequences of that?

[10:55:00]

MAYOTTE: Well, as far as student loans go, it would just mean that they were managed by a different agency, and we expect that agency would be the Treasury Department. The terms and conditions of the loans and the options available for the loans wouldn't change just because the loans moved under a different agency.

ACOSTA: And so, I mean, what are folks to think of all this? You know, if people are still crushed by student loan debt, this kind of relief just might be going away?

MAYOTTE: Well, the good news is that there are still options available. I mentioned public service loan forgiveness. There's also various plans based that can lower your payment based on your income. And even though we may see some changes to those plans in the new administration, nobody, even the very, very far-right is suggesting that all of those should go away. So, there will still be options available to federal student loan borrowers.

So, the advice I'm giving people right now is, again, take a deep breath, and just keep yourself educated as to these changes as they happen. ACOSTA: Well, as somebody who had to pay off some student loans a long, long time ago, I can tell you it is -- it can be stressful for folks out there. It's a very important subject. Betsy Mayotte, thanks for the work you do. We appreciate it.

MAYOTTE: My pleasure.

ACOSTA: Coming. We're live -- yes, thank you. And we're live as the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons are getting prepped for their big day. Take a look at this right there. I can't -- what character is that? I'm not really sure. Maybe we'll get a wide shot in a moment, But don't forget to join CNN tomorrow for Thanksgiving in America. It kicks off at 8:00 a.m. with music, celebrity appearances and parades from across the country. Don't miss it.

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