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Global Reaction to Trump Indictment; Trump's Indictment and What's to Come. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 12, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:32:09]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Developing right now, JP Morgan Chase announcing it has reached a settlement deal with Jeffrey Epstein's sex abuse victims. And the victims had brought a class action lawsuit against the bank, accusing JP Morgan of enabling Epstein by ignoring warnings that he was trafficking girls and young women for sex and also overlooking red flags because he was a wealthy client. The amount of that settlement has not been disclosed. Before reaching the deal, the bank insisted it did not help Epstein commit his heinous crimes.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Also happening this morning, officials in Philadelphia are trying to set up alternate routes for commuters on I- 95 after part of that interstate collapsed on Sunday. All lanes were closed after a tanker truck that may have been carrying hundreds of gallons of gasoline caught fire.

Now, the cause of the fire, still under investigation. The National Transportation and Safety Board is sending a team out there to help in that investigation. Authorities are now working to identify if anyone was hurt in the collapse. I-95 is a critical artery on the East Coast. It stretches from Florida to Canada. The destroyed portion of that highway is said to see around 160,000 vehicles daily. Officials say it could take months to rebuild.

HILL: Wow.

Also this morning, tributes are pouring in from world leaders after the death of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The billionaire media tycoon and founder of Italy's largest commercial broadcaster went on to become the country's longest serving prime minister. This despite a career tainted by sex scandals, allegations, and even a tax fraud conviction. Berlusconi was often considered the kingmaker in Italian politics. He had been battling leukemia. Silvio Berlusconi was 86 years old.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and this is your miracle of the morning to some degree. Colombia is celebrating the rescue of four children missing in the Amazon jungle for 40 days. The children are ages 13, 9, 4, and one is an infant. They were lost after their plane crashed, kill their mother and the pilot. Now officials say they survived by eating six pounds of flour, but eventually ran out of food. Their father says they survived because of their upbringing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANUEL RANOQUE, FATHER OF RESCUED CHILDREN (through translator): We are indigenous people. I believe in the jungle, which is our mother, and that's why I've always kept the faith and would said that both the jungle and nature have never betrayed me.

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MATTINGLY: Now, medical reports say the children are dehydrated and still cannot eat food, but they are well and they are out of danger.

HILL: That it quite a miracle there.

Just ahead, how the world is reacting this morning to the news of former President Donald Trump's indictment and, importantly, the fact that some of those classified documents had information, as we learned, related to foreign countries.

MATTINGLY: And also this morning, we're learning of losses and some gains on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Stay with us.

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[08:37:46]

MATTINGLY: Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING.

New intelligence shows Ukraine lost 16 U.S. supplied armored vehicles in just the last several days. Now, open site website Oryx has been tracking military equipment losses in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began. Oryx says the lost Bradley fighting vehicles represent almost 15 percent of the 109 that Washington has given to Kyiv and are among almost 3,600 pieces of military equipment Ukraine has lost in the war. Still, Ukraine is making some progress, declaring it liberated three villages in the Donetsk region.

HILL: Well, as Donald Trump gets ready to appear in court on criminal charges this week, another former world leader is facing questions from police. Scottish investigators arrested and have released former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday. Local media reporting they were questioning Sturgeon over possible financial misconduct by the Scottish national party. Now, she was released without charge pending further investigation. Sturgeon maintains she's done nothing wrong.

In this country, while Donald Trump is the first former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges, he is certainly not alone on the world stage. He joins the ranks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, and a handful of others.

For a closer look at the international perspective we're joined now by CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, when we look at all of this, there's certainly been a

reaction here in the United States. Some of it anticipated. Perhaps some of it not based on just how detailed this indictment was. How is this playing overseas, especially given that those details includes references to materials that, you know, could compromise foreign relations and detail some potential vulnerabilities for allies?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, exactly. Matters of national security, allegations of violating espionage laws, these are all very, very serious. And clearly that is being reflected in the foreign coverage all over, certainly over the U.K., France, Germany. All the U.S. allies are -- you can see in the press. This has been a story for the past weekend.

As you correctly point out, though, the rest of the world, and I'm talking about democracies now, elected democracies with the rule of law, independent judiciaries, they have held many, many of them, many American allies are -- have held their ex-leaders, some even current leaders, to account when there are serious allegations.

[08:40:08]

Whether it's in this regarded, as Trump is facing, or whether in terms of financial misdoings, tax fraud, and the like.

As you know, the prime minister of Israel is under criminal investigation right now. And there have been previous prime ministers and leaders of Israel. The same in France. Two former presidents were accused and convicted of crimes relating to economic and financial misdoing. In South Korea, in Japan. I mean, really, it does go on.

And you mentioned Nicola Sturgeon. A very famous woman. Head of -- former head of the Scottish national party. Now she says she's got -- done nothing wrong. She has not been convicted. She's not even, you know - sort of not just convicted, she hasn't been charged with anything and she's been released.

The former British prime minister, Boris Johnson, he has not been accused of any current crimes, but he is under very, very strong censure by his own party on the ongoing allegations regarding did he violate Covid rules during the pandemic lockdown periods.

MATTINGLY: You know, Christiane, it's a great point, this isn't something that is only happening here. It's happened throughout the world and in democracies and allies.

One of the NATO allies is Hungary. Allies might be a little bit of a strong term at this point. But I was struck by Viktor Orban's response. He -- putting out a tweet saying, your fight is a good fight, real Donald Trump, never give up.

Look, there's a lot going on behind the scenes and a lot of history here. What was your response, though, to that?

AMANPOUR: Well, it's really actually very interesting, this, because you have different types of politicians. So, Viktor Orban is a classic populist, just like Boris Johnson is, just like Donald Trump is. And during the Trump presidency, the populists did rally around him, including President Putin. Nationalists, populist. And so they have always been, even throughout his presidency, much more sympathetic to him than perhaps other leaders who recoil against these sort of, you know, populism, the martyrdom that these people do invoke, the fact that they say it's me against the establishment and without me you're all, you know, going to hell in a handbasket, which is pretty much what they all say, including Victor Orban, including Donald Trump, including Boris Johnson. So it's not surprising that that cadre of populist leaders have come out and at least verbally said that kind of thing, or at least, you know, on social media.

But the vast majority of world leaders realize that these are very serious possibilities that can happen. Whatever they do in office or out of office can come back to haunt them if there are credible charges, done usually by bipartisan investigative committees and then put to -- in the United States you have grand juries. Over here it's somewhat different. But these are credible charges that are put to a so-called jury of the peers to see whether charges can be levelled and whether they can go to trial.

And as I say, around the world, this is kind of durger (ph). It's true that in the United States it's the first time such federal charges have been leveled, but many here have also said, Donald Trump, it appears, had it coming. As you know, this is not the first of the charges leveled against him. The most serious and the 37 charges include really serious charges. But, you know, you've been reporting on all the other legal woes that he's got himself into.

HILL: How important is this, too, in the grand scheme of how the United States bills itself on the world stage? And I'm talking not only about, as -- speaking of democracy, but also when it comes to justice and how justice is carried out, and how the rule of law is applied and whether it is applied to everyone equally.

AMANPOUR: Well, the common sort of clarion call is that the law applies to everybody. Nobody is above the law. Not even the highest elected leaders. And this is that we're seeing play out. As I said, whether it's in Israel, in Taiwan, in South Korea, in France, in Berlusconi, who's just passed away. He himself was eventually convicted on tax fraud and he had to do community service. So, these are very, very serious things. And the rest of the world wants to know that the nation that is a superpower and that holds itself up as the world's leader in terms of democratic and institutional - you know, morals and values also needs to be abiding by it.

I think the important thing also is to - to -- there's a slight difference between Trump and the others. Even though Boris Johnson is now talking about how he's being martyred by a kangaroo court, how he's innocent. He has not managed to get any like-minded or a quorum of like-minded MPs or indeed voters to come out and support him, or to, you know, to follow his lead.

[08:45:00]

But Trump has had this problem. Remember back in January 6th, obviously, and people are concerned in the United States and watching very closely from abroad whether he will rally another dangerous group of people who don't care about established institutions and who believe what their leader tells them outside that courthouse in Miami.

HILL: We'll be watching for all of that.

Christiane, always good to have you with us. Thank you.

Well, CNN crews are standing by at the former president's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Again, he's expected to leave that property, make his way down to Florida, to the Miami courthouse, where we also have our teams ready to go. He is scheduled to make that first court appearance tomorrow.

Also reporting, of course, from the White House. What is the strategy when it comes to President Biden and commenting or not on Trump's indictment.

Stay with us. This is CNN's special live coverage.

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[08:50:00]

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Witch hunt. Witch hunt. Scam. Hoax. It's called election interference, and they're doing the best they can with it.

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MATTINGLY: Now, the former president going with a little mad libs there, wasting no time slamming the indictment and trying to capitalize politically. It's a playbook, and it may be working with some Republicans. New polling from ABC News finds that they overwhelmingly view the charges as political. And, when asked if Trump should have been charged with a crime, 35 percent of overall voters said no. That was almost double among Republican voters.

Back with us, Audie Cornish, John Miller, Sara Murray.

We're almost done, guys, but I really enjoy having you around me constantly. It's a lot of fun.

Audie, the view seems to be, we know how this is going to be. This is like every other time. There's a playbook. There's a core group. He won't lose his 35 percent. Tell me something different that interests me.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's your cynical journalist speaking.

MATTINGLY: Wow. Harsh.

CORNISH: Sorry, but true. MATTINGLY: Not untrue but harsh.

CORNISH: That's only, I think, maybe the second poll. CBS had another poll that was sort of indicating some shift.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CORNISH: I would rather wait to see what it looks like by the end of the week. Remember, the former president has plenty of time to speak publicly. That has not traditionally like helped him in terms of once it gets into mainstream ears. And I think a lot depends on how the next 48 hours play out. How he reacts in his comments. And how the media sort of works with him in a way in that.

If you take his whole speech and then he spends half the speech bashing Trump, that's just free air time campaign speech smuggled in through the trojan horse of your indictment. So, I think it will be interesting to see how he uses the time and then how the rest of the ducks, so to speak, in the party follow.

HILL: I think in those remarks, too, it will be interesting to listen for how he's using that time and just how far in he's going on going after the Justice Department, which we heard some of over the weekend. This is not a new narrative for him, railing against the Justice Department, using all the greatest buzzwords which are available for your mad libs as pointed out by Phil Mattingly. But seeing how much of that is picked up as well and how that plays into what we hear from others. So I'm thinking specifically of Republicans and those we haven't heard from yet.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, look, in general it's not a great sign when you already have a predetermined playbook for how you're going to deal with an indictment. This is Donald Trump's second time around. We sort of know what we're going to see from his speech. And we know what we're see the staunch Republicans supports do, which is rally in his defense and call this a political prosecution.

I think it is sort of too early to know how voters are going to take this all in. And one of the things that we haven't seen, and I don't know if we will see, is people really hammering Trump on this. I mean the attack ads really write themselves when you have sound of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016 talking about the need to protect classified information and then you have photos of these classified documents all over the floor in Mar-a-Lago. You -

HILL: And those moments are in the indictment, too. I mean they're quoted in the indictment.

MURRAY: Yes, in the indictment. Yes.

HILL: Yes.

MURRAY: So you could just envision someone making that attack ad and just hammering voters over the head with it. And that does change voter sentiment. But I think the odds that we're actually going to see that in this Republican primary are pretty low.

MATTINGLY: John, can I broaden things out a little bit and the idea of, I feel like to some degree people have gotten numb to assaults on institutions or, you know, very -- the former president did things very differently. He did not stick to or hue to kind of the way things always were. To some degree that's why he was president of the United States, why he won his election.

When you talk to law enforcement officials, when he attacks the Justice Department, attacks the FBI, as he has for six or seven years, what do they view as the effect long term?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: I mean if you look at the inventory -- and it's a short inventory, we're just talking about, you know, the things from over the weekend -- you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene saying, you know, the Biden administration is lying, coming up with fake charges about the document hoax. President Trump is, you know, the weaponized DOJ. So, that's kind of a part of the drum beat.

And then you go to Kari Lake who's saying, you know, you'll have to go through 75 million of us and we're card carrying members of the NRA. And then you cut to Donald Trump, who refers to the prosecutor, an independent counsel who was appointed to operate outside the Justice Department in the name of fairness as a deranged lunatic.

So, we're coming out of the gate with some very high-pitched rhetoric. Not a place we haven't been before. We saw the criticism of the judge in the Manhattan case and the prosecutor. All of this is in the words matter department, these are surrogates. But in the chat rooms where you have people talking about violence, talking about guns, and those people who may act independently, you've got a dual threat here, which is one against the courthouse and the process, but the other is just against law enforcement, the FBI, the prosecutors.

[08:55:00]

All of that's being factored into the intel gathering. And there's a lot of concern.

HILL: We're basically out of time, but really quickly, what are the people that you're speaking with, those law enforcement officials who are in charge of this response and monitoring it, how concerned are they?

MILLER: They're very concerned and they're more concerned about the lone wolf than they are about the large group.

MATTINGLY: Something to watch.

Sara, John, Audie, thank you for hanging out all morning. Definitely going to make you do this all week. We appreciate it very much, guys.

HILL: Also a quick programing note. Be sure to join Anderson Cooper tonight for a Chris Christie town hall, CNN Republican town hall, right here 8:00 p.m. Eastern. You'll see it, of course, only on CNN. Good to have all of you with us this morning for the kickoff of a very

busy week.

MATTINGLY: Thanks for hanging out, pal.

HILL: Nice to be with you.

MATTINGLY: This was fun. Thanks for coming up with me.

HILL: All right. Good.

CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts after this quick break.

Stick around.

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