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The Arrest and Arraignment of Donald Trump; Trump Holds Fundraiser in New Jersey Hours After Pleading "Not Guilty" to 37 Felony Counts in Federal Court in Miami; Trump's GOP Rivals' New Reaction. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2023 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:19]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, June 14th. And quite a day it was yesterday, and quite a day it is ahead.

Former President Trump defiant after pleading not guilty to 37 federal charges related to his handling of classified documents.

Here are the major developments you need to know this morning. Trump delivered a speech to supporters at his golf club in New Jersey last night where he claimed he, quote, did everything right.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: During the 45-minute arraignment in Miami, he did not address the court. He sat, hunched over with his arms crossed and according to reporters in the room, as scowl on his face.

Also in the courtroom, special counsel Jack Smith. "The New York Times" reports that it was the men's first encounter. No words between the two were spoken.

HARLOW: And the judge ordered the former president not speak about the case with his longtime aide Walt Nauta. Nauta is, of course, his codefendant and is said to appear in court again in two weeks.

MATTINGLY: And there's also new reaction from 2024 Republican contenders. Former Vice President Mike Pence told "The Wall Street Journal" he can't defend Trump's alleged conduct and Nikki Haley said she'd be inclined to pardon the former president if he's convicted.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

(MUSIC)

HARLOW: It was such an important day, such a striking day and then to hear the president's response last night all of it.

MATTINGLY: Just how fast things comingled from that legal to the political, are they ever separate? But if you ever had any doubt about how things were going to be going -- it was made very abundantly clear last night. HARLOW: That's exactly right. We'll talk about all of it, we'll fact

check the president's -- former president's remarks from last night, but Donald Trump shifting way back to campaign mode as you are alluding to after becoming the first former president in U.S. history to be arrested on federal charges. He claimed innocence and he raised money.

Just hours after pleading not guilty to those 37 felony counts in Miami, Trump gave a speech in his golf club in New Jersey. It was full of misleading claims, many false claims, including this one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so. It's an absolute right. This is the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, federal prosecutors are accusing Trump of illegally hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, including some of the nation's most sensitive nuclear secrets, and then hiding them repeatedly from the FBI.

They say that he showed them off to people without security clearance and haphazardly stored them in places like the bathroom and his bedroom.

We once again have team coverage this morning. Alayna Treene is at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, former prosecutor Jeremy Saland and "Semafor" politics reporter Shelby Talcott are standing by for analysis.

But I want to start with Sara Murray and Trump's post-court speech last night.

Sara, the former president not denying that he took the documents, that he had the documents. What is he saying in his defense?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, he is saying that these are his documents, that he had every right to take them, but it was pretty clear that Donald Trump was not excited to be in court yesterday for his second indictment since he left the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): Former President Donald Trump maintaining his innocence in the face of 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

TRUMP: I hadn't had a chance to go through all of the boxes. It's a long, tedious job. It takes a long time. Which I was prepared to do, but I have a very busy life.

MURRAY: Trump speaking before a crowd of supporters at his Bedminster golf club, capping a historic day that included the first federal arraignment of a former president.

REP. DON BACON (R-NE): We cannot deny what president Trump did was wrong. I, mean it is clear as day wrong.

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): I do not care if you are a Trump supporter or a Trump oppose or. You have to take this seriously.

MURRAY: Trump surrendered at a federal courthouse in Miami Tuesday afternoon. His attorney telling the court on Trump's behalf that we most certainly enter a plea of not guilty.

In the courtroom, Trump sat with his arms crossed at a table flanked by his two lawyers. Trump did not address the court, also seated at that table, his aide and codefendant Walt Nauta. Nauta could not enter a plea because he did not have a Florida lawyer present.

Of the 37 count Trump faces, some are for obstruction, but most are for the willful retention of national defense information.

TRUMP: Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in American court of law.

[05:05:07]

MURRAY: The judge presiding over the arraignment did not impose any travel restrictions, but told Trump that he could not speak to any of the potential witnesses in the case. Trump's attorney objected, insisting that many of the witnesses in this case are people employed by the former president.

The judge clarified that Trump could not speak about the facts of the case with any of the witnesses including Nauta and asked to provide a list of witnesses in the case.

Also present in the courtroom, special counsel Jack Smith, though he did not speak during the hearing.

Trump was greeted by a crowd as a motorcade left the White House. He made an unannounced stop at the famous Cuban restaurant Versailles in Miami's Little Havana where he was met by dozens of supporters. He entered the restaurant with Nauta by his side and spoke to religious leaders.

After the indictment, Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, spoke about the charges after previously urging the Justice Department not to indict the former president.

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I have the opportunity to read the indictment that was filed. I can't defend what's alleged. These are serious allegations and the handling of classified material, as I learned in my years as vice president and my years on the foreign affairs committee is a serious matter that bears upon the national security of the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, let's not overstate where the Republican Party is at right now. So, we still have heard mostly from Republicans who are defending the former president, but we have heard from more people in the past 48 hours who are caveating their sort of unequivocal support of Donald Trump when it comes to the indictment.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, it'd be interesting to watch play out.

Sara Murray, stay with us. You're stuck with us once again. I'm very happy about that.

I want to bring in Jeremy Saland and Shelby Talcott.

And, Shelby, I want to start with you on that point. You've been in Bedminster, you around kind of Republican primary and the zeitgeist of that primary. After the president's remarks last night, what were you hearing from Republican officials?

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: I think the big thing is that, in terms of the people running against the former president is that this is just something that they want to move past, which I think is natural because it is a no win situation for any of the candidates running against him. They are kind of forced to walk this very fine line between do we defend Trump because that is what the base wants us to do or do we come out and say, yeah, look, these are really serious charges and he did something really wrong here. I don't know if I can pardon him if I become president.

So the major theme that I was hearing was, okay, the days, over we are moving on, we are continuing to campaign. Let's not talk about this again.

HARLOW: Good luck with that.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, I was going to say, do you respond good luck, that's going to be a great strategy?

HARLOW: It's always nice of them that.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: I thought that this was interesting, let's play where Trump in his many defenses last night talked about you cannot do this it is election interference. He is the Republican front runner, here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is called election interference and yet another attempt to rig and steal a presidential election. More importantly, it's a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's address the first point that he made there. You can't do this. It's election interference.

Because this is a criminal trial he is going to have to be in the courtroom, right, for all of this. So, depending on his calendar, where he goes, what motions there, are the delay things, does he have a point that, at least it could be argued, how can I be campaigning, et cetera, if I'm in the courtroom?

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER PROSECUTOR: I think the response that is probably rhetoric. I do not want to say nonsense because I can appreciate his concern, but that would be his statement no matter when this investigation began --

HARLOW: That's fine but looking at the facts and the calendar, they can really bump up against each other, no?

SALAND: They certainly can I think that's one of the reasons why Jack Smith would like to see this happen sooner rather than later. That discovery I'm sure is ready to go and after that two-week period comes in, the other codefendant is in, and they go be for the judge and it is arraigned, I expect that procedures going to move as quickly as I can but Trump's team is certainly going to try to delay it for the reasons you just stated.

MATTINGLY: Sara, I'm interested, we've all become Presidential Records Act experts over the course of the last several weeks, because what else do we have to do when our lives. But I think what is important and we've talked about this over the past few days, it's never mentioned in the indictment, it is not related to this indictment directly in terms of what the special counsel put together, and frankly, it doesn't apply here because these documents that the president took were not his documents or his personal records.

However, this is how the president framed things -- former president framed things last night.

[05:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in American court of law.

As a president, the law that applies to this case is not the espionage act, but very simply, the Presidential Records Act, which is not even mentioned in this ridiculous 44-page indictment. Under the Presidential Records Act, which is civil, not criminal, I had every right to have these documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So the only thing the president said in that sound that you just heard that was accurate is that the PRA is civil, not criminal. Nothing else was accurate. Why? MURRAY: I mean, there's a lot there. I mean, first of all, Donald Trump is not going to go to prison for 400 years. We should disabuse him of that notion. So, that's not going to happen.

Secondly, if you look at what they actually charged in this indictment, they narrowed down the scope of the documents they took. I mean, we know that they took more than 100 documents and classified markings and what they are charging him with is the willful retention of national defense information.

So they have looked through all the various things that Donald Trump took, you know, whether it was photos, whether it was notes from meetings, and they've whittled it down to what is classified national defense information that we think is actually going to resonate with the jury, that we, you know, can get the approvals on, to be able to show the jury what we think that we are not going to so badly compromised American optional security but we can make some of this available to jurors. But where they're going to look at this and just be horrified.

MATTINGLY: And these are -- the records of these agencies, not the personal records.

MURRAY: Yes, they're not the personal records for Donald Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Jeremy, the judge saying that you cannot talk to your codefendant alleged in a conspiracy between the two, Walt Nauta. What's interesting, well, just weigh on that, but also that prosecutors are going to present a list of who else Trump cannot talk to and I wonder if Evan Corcoran, one of his attorneys, who's also a witness, would be on that list. But he's asked to talk to Evan Corcoran because he's defending him in the January 6th probe. Very complicated.

SALAND: I don't think it's so atypical that you would make a determination with his codefendants. They could ultimately have a joint defense agreement and things could change, but I don't think it's a typical. I think that the judge wants to ensure the integrity of this process and not run afoul of that.

And we know and we've heard from other cases in New York and just in general that the president or former president has done these things. That list is an effort to make a compromise, for the judge to make this work, that understands that the former president has a right to defend himself, he has a First Amendment right, but also weighing the balance to make sure that there is no tampering and there is no issues. There is a concern, I think, for at least the prosecution that there may be something on paper that says, what the president or former president can't do, but no one is there and all those rooms when he's by himself for any defender for that matter.

But it is a real concern, and that is why it is been implemented.

MATTINGLY: That's a really good point, it was striking, the prosecution did not ask for the restrictions that were put on Walt Nauta talking about the case with the former president. The judge implemented them anyways and yet Walt Nauta with the president walking in. You saw in that video that Walt Nauta right behind the president.

For people who don't necessarily understand how the former president's universe operates, what is Walt Nauta's role?

TALCOTT: He's essentially now Trump's personal aide and the interesting thing is that I was talking to aides last night at Bedminster and one of the questions I asked was confirming whether or not Walt had returned with Trump on his plane. And the reaction when I asked that question was kind of like, well, of course, he did. Why wouldn't he? And so that was --

HARLOW: So, this is actually (ph) the judge ordered that?

TALCOTT: Yes, we also discussed kind of the relationship between Walt and Trump and the overarching organization and Walt was described as now, of course, we were discussing this earlier, whether or not this is accurate. He is going to want to keep Walt very close to him at this point, but he was described as somebody who is very close to the president, extremely well liked within Trump world, and essentially part of the family, was the description that I got.

MATTINGLY: And one of the few, you've covered Trump for the years, and he does not seem to be in it for personal game, which I think is to some degree helpful. But I think you can see in the video that he is literally changing the pens the president is using to sign, that's his role, Trump's whims and how he operates in all that.

MURRAY: Yeah. I mean, this is a very close relationship, it's a personal relationship. It's physical proximity relationship and I do think Shelby is totally right that, you know, you are talking about somebody who is really ingrained in the Trump orbit right now. And, you know, someone, frankly, he has an attorney who is being paid by a Trump related PAC.

[05:15:05]

I mean, if you are someone who is that far enmeshed in that world, and you've been with Trump, you know, for that long, it can be sort of hard to imagine what your life would look like outside of that. And I think that is part of the reason prosecutors have had such a difficult time in their efforts to get Walt Nauta to cooperate and to flip.

MATTINGLY: All right. Guys, stick with us. We've got a lot more to come going forward. Donald Trump going on the offense, trying to go on the offensive, but definitely fundraising after his arraignment. His 2024 rivals, they're also weighing.

HARLOW: Also new reporting about President Biden's very quiet response to Trump's federal charges, that's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Republicans all, you must finally get tough. You've got to get tough. You've got to get though. You've got to get tough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was former President Trump's message to his party, he is going against many of them in a primary right now as he railed against a federal indictment against him.

[05:20:01]

Trump addressed his supporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club after pleading not guilty in Miami yesterday.

CNN's Alayna Treene is live near Bedminster this morning.

And, Alayna, you followed this campaign closely. You followed the former president closely. What were your takeaways after the speech and the fund-raiser that followed?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, there are a few very notable things that I took away, Phil and Poppy. The first is that we saw the well worn playbook that he is used time and time again, and also, the same language that he has been using for several days now which that these charges are political, that they amount to election interference, but also that he was entitled to take these documents with him after leaving the White House and also that others were not prosecuted for the same thing that he did.

Of course, prosecutors in this case say that that's not true. That he took with him some of the most sensitive national security documents and also that his unwillingness to turn them over amounts to obstruction. That is the first thing.

The second thing that I found notable was that his tone. He was very angry during his speech and it's something that I know some of his advisers picked up on as well. Yes, he was surrounded by's most sympathetic supporters, his fiercest allies, but you could tell during his speech that there were some underlying anger there.

And also, he did not linger after he gave remarks. He did not stay in the crowd and talk to people like we saw him do following his arraignment at the Versailles restaurant in Miami, which is a landmark in the state of Florida. No, he left the stage almost immediately and went back into his club.

And the third thing that I found very interesting was the substance of his speech. I talked with some Trump allies prior to him taking the stage, and they told me that they were hoping that it would be more forward-looking. That he would focus on him being a leader of the Republican Party, lay out some of his 2024 agenda items. But he did very little of that. He spent the majority of his speech railing against his opponents, railing against President Biden, and also his 2016 campaign rival Hillary Clinton.

And he also focused on special counsel Jack Smith. That is something that I know his team has urged him against doing but did anyway.

MATTINGLY: All right. Alayna, stick with us. We're going to be back with you over the next couple of hours.

I want to come back to the panel. I love that idea without great reporting from, Alayna, of people around him, or his supporter saying, like who this was forward-looking, who was this about 2024, and his agenda and not about Hillary Clinton or whatever. We live in 2016.

What world are we living in? I'm sorry, like this is the last ten years always.

MURRAY: It's not going to take, guys. Every once in a while Trump will actually listen to them and he will give a forward-looking speech, and make me really excited. He's listening to us. He's taking our advice was.

MATTINGLY: This is the day he became president.

MURRAY: This is the day he became president, yes, as we've so often said, and then he goes right back to it. This is -- he, of course, is going to move into the campaign speeches and he's going to articulate some of what he is going to do if he had another term. But we have not seen a willingness to not reel against his investigations, to not try to relitigate how he believes the election was stolen from him, which is not true. I mean, it is just not going to happen.

HARLOW: What does happen now in terms of the trial, the schedule, I know we have to wake for two weeks for the Walt Nauta appearance.

SALAND: Once Walt Nauta it gets arraigned and the judge is going to set his schedule for discovery, and I think that discovery is probably for the most part ready to go. The U.S. attorney's office or Jack Smith, he has an incentive to move this along as quickly as possible, but I will expect that there will be a lot of motions and actions on behalf of Trump, for example, to challenge of privilege that was pierced with his attorney, Evan Corcoran.

That could be a big piece. This isn't Michael Cohen in New York who is a bad witness and really don't care. That's an overstatement. But Corcoran has much, much more clout and weight and credibility.

So there is going to be a lot of things that are going to happen. There are going to be subpoenas, I wouldn't shock, that are issued by the defense.

HARLOW: Do you think that this goes all the way up to the Supreme Court? That is what Tim Parlatore, who is Trump's lawyers until a few weeks ago is predicting.

SALAND: I think if you can it will. So, I think there is always a possibility that this is, first of all, a unique case. It is unheard of before. We have a former president who is now in federal court. There are issues that are legitimate issues that we will challenge again.

HARLOW: Like Corcoran's notes and audios with his meetings with Trump?

SALAND: Absolutely. So, I think there's a lot of weight here.

HARLOW: Why would the Supreme Court visit that question? Because they came from a Supreme Court decision. They had already decided on that, that there is a crime fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. Why would they revisit what they have already said as president?

SALAND: I think that -- well, that -- there are going to be new challenges now with a new team in terms of where they, are not as a grand jury stage but it was decided that it was admissible.

[05:25:01]

But now --

HARLOW: At the trial.

SALAND: At the trial stage. There's also going to be interlocutory appeals that could delay as well. Issues may come up where we can't proceed to this trial into a higher court renders a decision on whatever issue is brought up, whatever subpoena maybe challenge, whatever legal motion is being made.

So, there are a lot of steps that can take place, and not necessarily going to Supreme Court but other appellate or higher level courts to make those decisions.

MATTINGLY: Shelby, I want to ask about, we've all been closely watching the other primary competitors that the former president is facing. Mike Pence, the former vice president, I think was at the Wall Street Journal doing an editorial board meeting while this was all happening to some degree, and he said this. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

PENCE: I have had the opportunity to read the indictment that was filed. I can't defend what's alleged. These are serious allegations, and the handling of classified materials, as I learned in my years as vice president and my years on the foreign affairs committee, is a very serious matter that bears upon the national security of the United States.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: We also have said that he has questions about a Justice Department and the decision-making in the cases in the courts for the last seven years. What do you make of that response?

TALCOTT: I'm not surprised by it, because Pence is running on being the upholding the Constitution candidate. I know you saw a few weeks ago when he launched, he really leaned into that and he was hitting Trump pretty aggressively, more aggressively than I anticipated. But after that announcement speech, it doesn't surprise me that he's taking a little bit of a stricter viewpoint after seeing all of these charges and kind of withholding whether or not he is going to pardon Trump, unlike some of the other candidates that we have seen.

HARLOW: I was a bit surprised, though, to hear Nikki Haley say for the good of the country, if she were president, and if Trump went to jail, that she may pardon him. This was after Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also running, called on the other candidates, other Republican candidates, to follow his sort of the lead and saying that he would pardon Trump.

Let's listen seem to Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you look at a part in the issue is less about guilt and more about what is good for the country. And I think it would be terrible for the country to have a former president in prison for years because of a document case. That is something that you would see in a third world country, I saw that at the United Nations. So I would be inclined in favor of a pardon.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MURRAY: You know, I think that people have issues referring to this happening in a third world country because we are talking about very serious crimes that Donald Trump has been accused of. But I do think that there is a concern about politicians, even among lawyers, what precedent we are setting when we indict a former president. And, you know, if he is convicted, could he face jail time? What does this mean and what does it mean for future presidents moving forward? Is this kind of going to be a new normal?

I think the issue with Donald Trump is that he has just done so much to break the norms and in many cases to potentially violate the law. And so, the question is that if you're not going to hold him accountable through the impeachment process, if you are not going to do that, and we saw them go through the impeachment process, twice than what is the remedy? Because the answer cannot be that if you are a president or a former president that you can run around committing whatever crimes you want.

MATTINGLY: What is striking about the answer is that the first part of it, you think that you go back to Gerald Ford, not an apples-to- apples comparative. But he pardoned Nixon, did it for the good of the country, and histories looked well upon that decision in that moment. And then you wander into the banana republic, third world country, and kind of losses me -- I'm not going to try to ask you to explain it.

But you spent a large portion of your time also paying great close attention to another investigation that is ongoing down in Georgia. And when you are saying in some of your reporting this morning that I was fascinated by the fact that Georgia law enforcement had folks up watching, I think they did in New York as well. What does it tell you about this?

MURRAY: Yeah, we've actually known this for a while, they wanted to be quiet about it but they were in New York. They were scooping out what's the security situation was there, how they secure the courthouse there, and they did the same thing in Miami to see how they were grappling with Donald Trump's appearance, how they grappled with security concerns.

Look, they are getting ready. I mean, the district attorney in Fulton County has signaled that she will make her announcement and that anyone will face charges in essentially the first three weeks of August and I know that for my conversations with a people in Atlanta that one of the big concerns is making sure that they do not have any security issues there.

They are obviously worried about the former president's security, but the D.A. there who's a Black woman has gotten a number of threats, her staff has gotten a number of threats. So, she's concerned, you know, broadly about the federal context, as well as Donald Trump, and potentially other defendants who could be charged alongside him.