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Now, Trump Sentencing Hearing Underway; Judge Sentences Trump to Unconditional Release; Blazes Ravage L.A. County, 10 Killed, 10,000 Structures Destroyed. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 10, 2025 - 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.

We are following multiple breaking stories at this hour. The sun is rising on the West Coast, revealing another day of horror and heartbreak in Los Angeles. Five wildfires are still ravaging L.A. County. Entire neighborhoods are scorched. The death toll now at ten and expected to rise. More than 10,000 homes and businesses have been destroyed in high winds returning today, putting a strain on firefighters.

Plus, right now, President-elect Donald Trump is being sentenced for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York hush money case. And in just moments after that, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the federal government can ban TikTok.

But we begin this hour in Southern California where several major wildfires are raging through the Los Angeles area, devouring entire neighborhoods and killing at least ten people, that death toll almost certain to rise. More than 10,000 buildings have burned homes, businesses, livelihoods and lifetimes of memories. And more gusty winds are expected to fan the flames later on today.

Take a look at these new exclusive images Thank you Just into CNN, satellite images from Airbus show one Pacific Palisades neighborhood before the fire and the charred, look at that, smoking remains after the wall of fire swept through the area. In just a few days, the overwhelming majority of homes and businesses and Pacific Palisades are destroyed.

The county's infrastructure is also severely damaged. The power grid, transportation system, even the ability to use toilets all compromised in this huge area. Here's a quick look at the five active fires in and around L.A. County. The Palisades fire is the most destructive in L.A. history. Curfew blankets the county and the National Guard has been brought in to help protect against looting, which has been happening from place to place. This is new video you're looking at right now, the Kenneth Fire, which erupted just yesterday afternoon. Overnight, we learned that a man has been arrested on suspicion of arson. The LAPD is not confirming whether the suspect had any connection to this fire, but CNN is covering all angles of this rapidly unfolding disaster.

Stephanie Elam is northeast of L.A. in Altadena and CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is west of the city of Pacific Palisades. We will get to them and have much more on all of the fires in just a moment.

But, first, as we were just saying, breaking news out of a New York City courtroom right now, President-elect Donald Trump is being sentenced in his hush money conviction just ten days before he is set to return to the White House. The unprecedented ruling follows a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court to deny Trump's last-minute appeal last night.

CNN's Laura Coates is outside the New York court. Laura, walk us through where things stand right now, a lot of things happening at this very moment.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, we may not have been here, but for the Supreme Court last night, deciding in a 5- 4 decision, a very tight ruling, where Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the so called liberal justices to say that this could go forward. We knew from the judge it was unlikely that this was going to be a jail imposition or a probation period or a fine.

The judge has now had an opportunity to review a probation report written in connection with interviews from the president elect and the probation officer who said during the report that it seemed that Trump believed he was, quote, above the law. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the president-elect, soon to be president in just ten days, is arguing that the indictment itself should never have been brought, the Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg, was wrong to bring this and that, in fact, the American people, according to Todd Blanche, who will be number two at the DOJ following his inauguration, has believed that this the American people did not want a case like this to be brought under a category of lawfare.

The judge, Judge Merchan has said, which is the understatement of a lifetime, this has been a truly extraordinary case. Indeed, it has been. We have never seen a time when an American president Former, of course, or president-elect has been convicted of felony counts, this to the tune of 34.

Now, it is a Class E felony in the state of New York, which normally does not necessarily bring a jail time. It's not universally accepted as that, but it doesn't always have jail time. But the idea of no probation, no fine is directly connected from the decision of the judge, it seemed, and we're waiting to hear that final point.

[10:05:08]

This is a president-elect who has argued that he would be unable to fully govern if he were to have certain contingencies or conditions above him. He does note, the judge said, it is the office of the presidency that is extraordinary, not the occupant of the office. But, again, he is a president-elect,

Trump wanted this to be delayed until after he became the president again. The judge thought it was incumbent on the decision to honor the jury's verdict, and, of course, the rule of law to allow this particular defendant and all defendants to have the finality of a sentence.

Jim, although we are using the phrase, convicted felon, there is a slight nuance to this. It is not a done deal until after the sentence. And then that's the catalyst to be able to have your full appellate rights and go after all the different legal issues here. Merchan says that once the courtroom doors closed, the trial was no different from any other in the courthouse.

I was in that courthouse. I got to tell you, what was so extraordinary, aside from the fact that it was the former president of the United States there, is that he was being treated and in a courtroom, unlike any other defendant, when the rule of law and the criminal prosecution and the weight of your name after a jurisdiction versus is in front of you.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Laura, I guess when this is all said and done, and you were just saying, and we've all been saying, we expect there not to be a sentence of jail time or anything like that for the president- elect. But take us through the next steps. He'll be able to appeal the conviction. That process continues on even while he's president?

COATES: Oh, yes, he wants it to continue on. He does not want this title of convicted felon. He does not believe that this case should have been resurrected, according to the laws and on the books. But remember, ever since this case even started, he said he was convicted and a verdict entered back in May of last year, the Supreme Court has issued this interim opinion about immunity that not only can you not prosecute a sitting president for official acts, but you can't use official acts to then form the basis of evidence in criminal matters.

Trump believes that his statements and statements that were made to people who are part of the administration beyond, whether it be Hope Hicks or others, should not have been allowed to be entered into the evidence and therefore could have unduly tainted the judge that the jury's view of the case. Merchan is saying, however, the considerable indeed extraordinary legal protections afforded the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all else in his sentencing.

But, remember, he's a president-elect. So, a law that is not applied to him yet, and the judge wanted this done beforehand. This will be quite a slap on the wrist. I'm curious if the judge will, in fact, address the contempt or even the statements Trump has made about the judge and his family as well.

ACOSTA: All right. Laura Coates, thank you very much.

With me now, CNN Anchor and Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins and CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig. Elie, let me go to you first. What's your reaction to what we've been hearing so far?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's pretty orderly, all things said. Donald Trump seems to have gone on a little bit of a tirade, but nothing unpredictable, nothing different from what he said before.

One thing that I think is interesting is there's been no talk whatsoever, except from Donald Trump, about the actual conduct that Donald Trump was tried and found guilty for. For a while, the D.A. was trying to say this conduct of hiding the hush money payments.

ACOSTA: Is that the same right there?

HONIG: Okay, there we go. So, that's the official moment of the sentence Donald Trump has now been sentenced to an unconditional discharge.

ACOSTA: What does that mean?

HONIG: That means that it is now official that Donald Trump has been convicted of a felony. There's two parts of that equation, the conviction, and now we have part two, the sentence. So, that is a moment. We now have Donald Trump. I guess you can technically, if you would like to call him a convicted felon, that is a label that now technically applies. But, of course, he does have his appeal rights.

But again, the focus has been -- okay, lawyers are packing up. So --

ACOSTA: Yes, Judge Merchan is off the bench. It happened that quickly.

HONIG: In a lot of ways, not that different from any other sentencing. It took 38 minutes. That's about average for a sentencing in state court, but the focus has largely been on Trump's out of court comment (ph).

ACOSTA: Yes. Kaitlan, what do you think? You've been watching all this.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the most interesting statement from Judge Merchan just a few moments ago before he left the bench was acknowledging Trump's election win. He was saying, you know, ordinary citizens don't get these kind of legal protections. It's the office of the presidency that is bestowing these to the officeholder. And he said, it is the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections, essentially acknowledging that, yes, because Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated in a few days, that is changing the sentencing here. I mean, if this had happened in July, before he had actually won, you could see, you know, that was way before he was afforded those protections and how different that was.

ACOSTA: And, Kaitlan, you were reporting that Donald Trump did not have to appear in court this morning. He did this over video.

COLLINS: Yes. I think one thing that I noticed from attending this trial when it was going on is that the way that the Trump team has framed Justice Merchan and how he acts here is so different than what I personally witnessed and reported on from court, which is that the judge actually goes out of his way and bends over backwards a lot of the time to accommodate Donald Trump. He was never bothered when Trump was sitting there, you know, hitting his attorneys, passing them notes, talking sometimes out loud during the hearing, and instead he allowed him to appear virtually from Mar-a-Lago with his attorney there, Todd Blanche, another attorney I believe was in court.

ACOSTA: Is that a photo we're looking at it right now?

COLLINS: Yes, and so see the two of them appearing side by side. He was not there actually in the courtroom, which, as Elie would note, I would assume was pretty unusual for --

HONIG: Almost unheard of.

ACOSTA: Elie, what do you make of these images that we're looking at right here?

HONIG: Well, they certainly -- they got fully dressed up.

ACOSTA: This is historic.

HONIG: Right. And, look, this is a criminal defendant at his sentencing sitting in front of the American flag. I mean, I promise you that's never happened before in American history. But as Kaitlan said, you know, the judge made clear that you are only getting this sentence, the D.A. said the same thing, because of your status as president. And, look, in our legal and constitutional system, the president just is a different.

One thing we will never know, I wish we could somehow figure this out, what would the sentence have been if Trump had not won the election, right? I mean, there certainly would have been some sort of probation. Judge Merchan, would he have sentenced to prison? It's one of those hypotheticals. We'll never know.

ACOSTA: And, Elie, because Laura Coates was saying just a few moments ago that this was essentially a slap on the wrist. This is actually less than that.

HONIG: As I say, at least you feel a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure that this is even that. But, again, it does make the conviction official.

ACOSTA: Kaitlan, I mean, if we could show that image one more time of Trump with his attorney there in that monitor, that is something else. And at one point, I think we just saw an image of him sort of pointing his finger, there it is, at the camera. I guess we don't know what is going on there, but we can guess.

COLLINS: And also, Jim, just to think of it in the full circle moment of, you know, we were covering the White House when this story was kind of first unraveling and being reported publicly. And we learned about the hush money payments and learned about the cover up and watch Rudy Giuliani go on T.V. and talk about this. That was so interesting. And to see how that has developed from this moment to now, Trump appearing virtually for this sentencing, which, you know, his attorneys and people in his orbit, his top advisers had argued, this is pretty much a best case scenario from where we were when this guilty verdict came down last May. They -- you know, a lot of options, as Elie noted, had he lost could have happened here. And so they were arguing essentially take this and go with it.

But Trump himself doesn't want to be sworn in as a convicted felon. He now will be as a result of this. But I think to Judge Merchan's point, I mean, the election happened months after Trump was convicted. The American people had enough time to take this guilty verdict and to digest it. And still, it didn't bother them enough to not reelect him, and that's his argument.

HONIG: And to that point, you know, people have said that Donald Trump has just completed the greatest political comeback ever in our history. I'm not a political expert, but, legally, think back a year- and-a-half ago. I don't believe there's ever been another human being in the history of this country who's been under four separate simultaneous indictments in four separate jurisdictions. He was looking at four trials. Any one of them could have resulted in his imprisonment. Now, here we are, this is it, an unconditional discharge on one of the cases, completely impossible to have predicted this a year-and-a-half ago.

ACOSTA: Yes, he pulled off this incredible political comeback, but at the same time he is going to be making history. He is going to be entering the White House as a convicted felon until he's able to deal with this in the courts as that legal process continues. Is that essentially it?

HONIG: That is correct. He is a convicted felon now. He will be ten days from now when he takes the oath of office. But, again, important to keep in mind, like all defendants, he has his appeal rights. That'll take many, many months. So, it could happen that --

ACOSTA: And he could go from the White House to the courthouse or appear virtually from the White House as this appellate process continues on?

HONIG: Yes. So, defendants don't usually physically appear for their appeals. It's done on paper with briefs. And then when there's oral arguments, his lawyers, Kaitlan raises a good question, who's even going to do this, because his whole team is coming with him to the administration? He'll find someone. But the lawyers do the oral argument.

Defendants usually do not attend those arguments, but, you know, six, eight months from now, maybe he'll choose to.

ACOSTA: We'll see. And, Kaitlan, you and I were just talking about covering Trump at the White House. Another person who was covering the White House with us was Paula Reid who is sitting -- standing by Paula, your thoughts on what we just witnessed? Pretty extraordinary stuff, not just the sentence of an unconditional release, which means he's not going to do any jail time, the fact that he is going to be going into the White House as a convicted felon, but the fact that he appeared virtually in those stunning images we just saw a few moments ago of him appearing in the courtroom on a flat screen in front of the judge with his attorney by his side and the flags behind him.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, just zoom out here, big picture. Six months ago, he faced four criminal cases. He had been convicted in the New York hush money case, which was considered the least serious of the four. And now, even though he has been convicted, he has received really no punishment there. The two federal cases against him have been dismissed. And the Georgia case, the prosecutor has been disqualified.

[10:15:00]

That case is not completely dead, but it's basically on life support. I mean, if we look at his legal defense team, this is an extraordinary victory.

Now, they got a couple of big assists from the Supreme Court over the course of the last two years. But the fact that they have been able to keep their client from really facing any consequences across four criminal cases is truly extraordinary. And today is really the symbol of their successful defense of their client.

ACOSTA: All right. I want to go out to Laura Coates, who's been watching this too. Laura, you've been covering this, and if you could put your legal analyst hat on for a moment, I mean, your thoughts on Trump entering the White House as a convicted felon, but with the sentence of an unconditional release, what does it all add up to you?

COATES: Well, I'm going to put on my legal analyst beret, if you don't mind, because it already goes with the look today. But let me tell you, what this looks like for many people, many people are looking at whether there are two systems of justice in America. Well, I got to tell you, Donald Trump right now and is a little in a league of his own for the reasons that my colleagues have described. But an unconditional release, normally, if somebody is convicted of a crime and does not have a jail sentence imposed, a probationary period comes in. They're checking in with a probation officer. They may have to engage in drug testing. They may have to have certain jobs or endeavor to have them, community service. They have to keep their nose clean. How often have you heard that said, in order to make sure that they don't have the ability to be actually brought into a jail?

Donald Trump doesn't have any of those conditions. The condition he now has is to maintain his role as the commander-in-chief and president of the United States. But why he is fighting this so hard is not just the pure ego or the aversion to having been convicted, it shows you the stigma in our country of what it's like to be a convicted felon and the societal shame that, for most defendants, it could entail. For him, it became a kind of, as we saw, political badge of honor where it was at that point when this case was charged that there was a changing of the winds when he was able to use that to propel him for the sympathy and political expedience that he was seeking.

But in this case, it goes back to what they call election interference. Imagine figures, names in the past, Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen. I am really curious to what they feel today knowing what they endeavored, a jury finding him guilty, and now essentially in like a lion, out like a lamb, or a president.

ACOSTA: Yes. All right, Laura Coates, thank you so much for that. And keep that hat on. It's cold out there in Lower Manhattan.

I do want to go to Kara Scannell. She is just coming out of the courthouse. Kara, if you can help us out for a moment, we were just looking at these images of Trump and his attorney on that flat screen in the courtroom, and at one point, you could see Trump pointing his finger at the camera. Can you tell us what was going on there? Can you give us a sort of a ringside view of what was taking place?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, that photo was taken by the photographers just before the proceeding got underway. They're allowed to come in to take photos of the defendant. So, at that point, it was a lighter moment before the seriousness of today's events got underway. But as you could see, that is what the judge saw when he was sentencing Trump, when he looked toward the video screen, he saw Trump there on the right next to his attorney, Todd Blanche. And that was broadcast into the courtroom, as well as views of the prosecution table and the judge.

Now, as I'm sure you've been talking about, Donald Trump did speak for about six minutes. He said that this was very terrible. He went on about the prosecution, saying that the district attorney didn't want to bring it, saying that it was a witch hunt, criticizing the case itself, saying that he -- and this was unusual because he did not choose to testify during the trial, but now he was putting his own remarks, his own statements about some of the evidence in the case on the record about what he was indicted and convicted of, falsifying the business record, marking certain things as legal fees that were actually repayments to Michael Cohen, who would advance the hush money to Stormy Daniels. So, he was saying they're on the record under oath that these were legal fees.

It won't have that much consequence now since he is convicted, but as he's going into this appellate process, it is something that could come up as they're reviewing some of these evidentiary rulings that Trump's putting on the record there. His view of the evidence, you know, you still under a partial gag order, but he did mention Michael Cohen, not by name, but saying that it was unfair that Cohen, his former fixer, was allowed to testify against him, saying that they treated him like he was George Washington when he was no George Washington.

In the end, he did declare to the judge, he said he was totally innocent, I did nothing wrong, and, again, repeating statements we've heard before, saying that he was treated very, very unfairly.

[10:20:00]

Now, when Judge Juan Merchan began to sentence Trump, he was sitting at the bench, he turned to face the giant T.V. screen, so he was talking directly to Trump through that screen and explaining that as this is a felony conviction, the potential sentence could have been as much as one and a third to four years, but he was saying, I need to lay out to the reasons for my sentencing, underscoring here that, you know, there were some aggravating factors, some of which the judge had already laid out and he said he wasn't going to repeat. That was like the ten violations of the gag order, holding him in contempt ten times, as well as what the judge had previously said was Trump's disdain for the rule of law and the justice system.

He didn't focus on that today. He was saying, though, that there were other factors that had more weight than that. And that was the fact that Trump was going to be resuming the presidency, but the judge underscoring that it's the office of the presidency that has this extraordinary status, not the occupant of that office. So, really trying to underscore that this was about the presidency and not that protections were because of the presidency, not Donald Trump, who he said as an ordinary citizen would not have any of these protections.

So, the judge did issue this sentence of an unconditional discharge. He was underscoring that he felt it was important today that people had voted and spoken. Trump was going into the office, and because of the importance of the office, this was the most viable sentence, he said, he could issue to bring finality to this case, to lock in the jury's verdict, and uphold this conviction.

You know, his parting words to Donald Trump, he said, sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, a fascinating day at the courthouse. Kara Scannell, thanks for covering all of it for us. Thanks everybody for their analysis.

But we do have other breaking stories to cover this hour. Of course, we're going to get back out to Los Angeles for the latest on those wildfires. More after a short break. Stay with us.

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[10:25:00]

ACOSTA: All right, welcome back. You're looking at some live footage right now. This is coming in from our affiliate KABC live over the Palisades fire that is in Los Angeles County. Of course, the sun just coming up, revealing more devastation, more horror, more heartbreak for the people in Southern California.

Here's a look at the Palisades fire from space. Take a look at this. A Russian cosmonaut took this photo last night from the International Space Station. You can see ribbons of fire. Surrounded by darkness, the inferno is destroying everything in its path. The Palisades fire is now the most destructive to ever hit Los Angeles County, with thousands of structures burned across tens of thousands of acres. The fires have now scorched an area equal to the size of, get this, Minneapolis. Firefighters remain at the mercy of the weather with more gusty winds expected today.

CNN Stephanie Elam is in Altadena. Stephanie, forgive us for having you stand by for so long, but now that the sun has come up, my goodness, the devastation behind you, it's just heartbreaking to look at.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is now that we can see out here. And if you look behind me, Jim, you can see it's the eerie forest of chimneys that's all that's left in this block. But, I mean, it's actually more staggering to see even with for me with the lights up. You can now see the foothills, the fire. This has been the Eaton fire burning up behind the mountains now, but still this devastation here for these people, all that they've lost here.

You see that eerie fire back there because there's some gas leaks in the area still showing you how the infrastructure here has been totally impacted, the lawn completely covered in ash and little pieces of charcoal. There's still ash blowing in the wind right now. This is just one block. And I can tell you across the street we see some of that, there's a couple of homes that are standing.

But this is not an anomaly. This is indicative of what we are seeing across just the Eaton fire, as well as the Palisades fire. You have thousands of people, 180,000 people, who are under mandatory evacuation. You also have 200,000 more people who are still under a warning. And then there's all the people who are still worrying about the air, people in L.A. County walking around with their masks on just because there is so much air. You can smell the fire. It's pretty much everywhere. You can smell it.

So, this is something that is affecting people far outside of the area, but then for the people who live here, a lot of them, they can't get in here. The National Guard is blocking off roads because there were looters in here that have been arrested. So, you can't get in here.

Overall, there's 8,000 personnel, including firefighters that are working to contain these blazes, to stop them. I can look now and I can see that there's some smoking spots out there too. So, there are still some hot spots. We've seen fire crews still driving around trying to make sure that these places are safe because the first thing they want to do is save lives and then property.

And as far as lives are concerned, we do know that ten people have lost their lives. That number is expected to go up. We're expecting the acreage to continue to go up, although there is some signs of containment on the Palisades fire. This one, not so much. So, you're talking about thousands of acres in L.A. County that have burned in a very short time.

And, Jim, we've spoken so many times about these wildfires and how they turn through acres. But a lot of times, you know, they're back there in the mountains where it's a lot of open land, not in very densely populated parts of town like this. That's what makes this different. And the fact that is in January is unheard of.

[10:30:01]

This is when we should be getting a lot of rain. And that lack of rain has also led to the fact that we've had a lot of brush grow up because the last two winters actually were wet.