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Bud Light Loses Place As Most Popular U.S. Beer; Trump Defiant After Pleading Not Guilty In Docs Case; Today: Fed To Announce Interest Rate Decision. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 14, 2023 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And potentially, other defendants who could be charged alongside him.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That's really fascinating.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Actually, I have a correction, OK?

HARLOW: What?

MATTINGLY: Shelby is not from Iowa. She's actually from New York. She went to the University of Iowa where she played tennis and defeated my Buckeyes on a regular basis. And I thought we're Midwest. We're going to claim her. And I just wanted her in our circle --

HARLOW: You're welcome in the fold.

MATTINGLY: -- and she's in it whether she likes it or not.

HARLOW: You're welcome in the fold.

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: I appreciate it. I like being a New Yorker but I will take the honorary Iowa Hawkeyes.

HARLOW: There you go.

MATTINGLY: I feel like we've found a good balance.

HARLOW: We did, indeed.

Well, plans are being finalized, we should note, to reopen that collapsed portion of I-95 in Philadelphia. Officials have identified a truck driver killed in that crash.

MATTINGLY: And a federal judge will now allow E. Jean Carroll to seek more damages in her defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. More on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:35:15]

HARLOW: Welcome back.

Well, health officials in Philadelphia have identified a body pulled from the wreckage of that collapsed section of I-95. They say the truck driver, Nathan Moody, died after his truck crashed into a highway wall and went up in flames on Sunday. Part of the highway then collapsed. The father of three died of blunt trauma to the head, inhalation, and thermal injuries. That's according to a health department spokesperson. Obviously, our thoughts are with this whole family, especially his kids.

Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg visited the site yesterday, as you see. He vowed the federal government would help fix the collapsed section of the highway, which state officials say could take months.

MATTINGLY: And you can add a new legal woe for former President Trump. A federal judge will allow E. Jean Carroll to amend her original lawsuit to include comments he made at a CNN town hall. Last month, a civil jury found Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her in the way he denied that attack. And just a day later, Trump said this on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They said he didn't rape her. And I didn't do anything --

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: They did not say --

TRUMP: -- else either. You know what? Because I have no idea who the hell she is. I have no idea who the hell -- she's a whack job.

COLLINS: Mr. President --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Carroll's lawyer says she will try to seek additional punitive damages for those remarks.

HARLOW: Also, Bud Light has lost its place as America's most popular beer, at least for now. This follows backlash over the brand's outreach to the transgender community. Bud Light sales started tumbling in April after trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted an Instagram picture of a personalized can sent to her by Anheuser-Busch. Sales were down 25 percent since last June. Modelo Especial now the top U.S. beer.

Up next, reaction to Donald Trump's arraignment from America's global allies and rivals.

MATTINGLY: And later, Trump has not -- has been ordered not to talk to one of his closest aides about the case. How the judge could actually enforce that. Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:41:43] MATTINGLY: Welcome back to our continuing special coverage. You're looking at headlines from around the world after former President Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges of mishandling classified documents. Now, remember, the documents themselves have potential very real international implications and we're going to talk about that.

Joining us from London is CNN's Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo. Max, Bianca, look, we're very kind of insularly focused on the United States and the politics. You know, how dare we?

HARLOW: No. Americans are focused on America? Never.

MATTINGLY: It's the exceptionalism happening in real time or the perception of it to some degree.

But this has wide repercussions around the world. What are you guys seeing in terms of the international community -- how they're reacting to the indictment and what they're view is of this moment for America?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think Trump has been a global story in the same way this has been a story for you. What's interesting this around is it's not playing that high.

So, The Daily Telegraph, for example, a big front page. We did have a massive U.K. story here yesterday and it's just a mention here at the bottom. And that's a typical sort of thing we've seen around the world if you look at all the newspapers. But if you go inside there is commentary. So in the Times, "His golden hair glowed like a giant light bulb."

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: The best headline of the day, I have to say.

FOSTER: So a lot of them talking about -- and said this as well -- the Italian News Agency, talking about the Trump show. How he used the court events to create a show later on in the day.

HARLOW: Yes, he certainly did. Some of the reaction that I found interesting was not only The New York Times reporting that some political commentators in Russia were very open about their support for Trump, but also the tweet by the prime minister of Hungary. Viktor Orban tweeting "Your fight is good -- your fight is a good fight. Never give up!"

NOBILO: Yes, this is -- this is key, Poppy. And what you've hit on is exactly why, as Max was saying, President Trump was such a global story. And that's because he was part of this broader trend that we've seen with rising authoritarian tendencies and these populist mavericks cropping up all around the world.

Obviously, Hungary's Viktor Orban is one of those populists. And also when we look at Russia, obviously, with Vladimir Putin at the helm, it's interesting that the Russian state news agency has covered this but they covered it exclusively from the angle of Trump maintains that he had the right to have these documents with no counterbalance in their report as to all the evidence against him. So underscoring as a leader that he has the right to do what he wanted to do.

And in the United Kingdom in The Guardian, which I have here, there's been quite a lot of commentary linking Boris Johnson's political travails of the last week -- the fact that he had to resign after calling an investigation into him a witch hunt, a kangaroo court, a political hit job. Basically saying, like, Britain doesn't want these Trumpian tendencies.

So I think that is what's really resonating across the continent.

MATTINGLY: Yes, the corrupting of the language with allies and foes has been fascinating over the course of the last few years.

I want to ask both of you guys this because the times we interact in person are when I'm on presidential trips and I'm lucky enough to be able to work with you face-to-face as opposed to through the TV screen. You talk to aides and officials that are close to leaders of key U.S. allies. So many of the times we've been on these trips the message is palpable concern about whether or not there will be a return to what they saw in the four years of the Trump presidency.

[05:45:06]

How do people look at this moment and his lead in the Republican primary right now for what it might say about the future?

FOSTER: Oh, they're very nervous. It's that chaos that they had and they didn't quite understand. If you take the U.K. for one -- as one example, they're desperate for a trade deal with the United States. So you're not going to have any public figure, really -- anyone that might be in government criticizing Donald Trump because he might be the person they try to get that trade deal with.

And all of the allies are just aware that he might be president next year so in public they're playing it very straight and they're not taking sides at all. Behind the scenes, they do dread the chaos.

NOBILO: And I think it's also linked in terms of what officials think and what the concerns are to those two prevailing questions. First of all, could the outcome of this particular investigation and case and all of these counts against the former president lead to him not being eligible for office? That's the key question that many people have and many newspapers in Eastern Europe are asking that today.

The other being what was the motive here? A lot of our newspapers in the U.S. also asking that question. Because in terms of an alliance with America for defense intelligence and security, that's a key question and an unanswered one.

HARLOW: And remember, we know from the indictment it's alleged that some of these documents included Five Eyes, which would be sensitive information with those key allies as well. So it's not just about U.S. intelligence; it's about what is shared with our closest allies.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Oh, it's fascinating. Guys, thanks so much for that perspective. I think it's really important and probably unappreciated. And Sara, that last point Bianca made I think is so valuable because

we get so stuck in the politics, the polls, the messaging, the posture of the former president. Inside these documents, major, major problematic information were it to become public not just for us but to Poppy's point, our closest intelligence allies and our foes to some degree.

MURRAY: Yes. I mean, you can understand why international leaders might want to be quiet publicly because we don't know how this election cycle is going to play out, and privately, would just be horrified. I mean, to think that your own country's secrets would be splayed across the floor at Mar-a-Lago because Donald Trump decided he just wanted to take boxes of documents with him when he left I think really makes you wonder how you can completely trust the U.S. as an ally in sharing these kind of secrets. Again, we don't have the full details of what's in all of these documents but it doesn't look great, Phil.

HARLOW: But the jury -- the jury, Jeremy, is going to have to see the documents and that's why Jack Smith was very particular in choosing these 31 and went back to those intelligence agencies for what needs to be redacted so that these are sort of damning enough to make my case to the jury. But also, you're sharing sensitive national secrets. And that could also be a point of criticism from Trump allies.

If this is so dangerous to have out of the White House or these secure areas, why can a jury see it?

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, again, you just made a great point. They're being redacted. You're not getting them in their complete form. And it's necessary because the elements -- or one of the elements is that these are compromising the defense of the United States. So you can't prove your crime beyond a reasonable doubt if you can't establish that, in fact, it happened.

But you do that cautiously. You do that with respect to the documents. You do that with respect to the countries that are in jeopardy -- the nuclear information that's put out there. But you have to put that out there. There's no way to avoid that.

HARLOW: Thank you very, very much.

Prosecutors and the former president's lawyers already looking forward to what are the next steps. More on that ahead.

MATTINGLY: And how a new read on inflation could impact the Fed's interest rate decision just a few hours from now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:53:06]

HARLOW: You have two wonks at the table -- three, because Christine Romans is here. The ultimate wonk --

MATTINGLY: Murray used to cover -- she covered economics for the Journal.

HARLOW: -- Sara Murray. We love this stuff.

MATTINGLY: A control room's nightmare.

HARLOW: I know.

MATTINGLY: A bunch of (INAUDIBLE). This is great.

HARLOW: Ratings gold.

Just hours from now, the Labor Department is set to release another key inflation indicator after a separate report yesterday showed prices cooled last month -- that's good. Later today, the critical decision comes from the Fed over whether they're going to pause, and it looks like they might.

Our chief business correspondent and chief wonk Christine Romans here with us.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": It doesn't have to be wonky because every household --

HARLOW: It matters to everyone.

ROMANS: -- every household budget is affected by all of this, right?

So let's talk about the Fed meeting first. You're right -- we talked about this yesterday. Overwhelming assumption on Wall Street that they will not move. There will be a Powell pause. That for the first time in a long time --

HARLOW: I like that.

ROMANS: -- you're going to have a Fed meeting that you won't have higher interest rates. And those higher interest rates have meant higher borrowing costs for everyone.

So that's important -- a Powell pause. I think it's 95 percent is the chance this is going to be at a -- at a pause here. No rate hike. Only about five percent think it will.

And if you look at that mountain of tightening that we've had, all of that has meant higher mortgage rates, higher car loans, higher credit card loans, and that's something that affects everybody.

In the meantime, all of that hiking -- that one after another 10 rate hikes -- that has helped cool inflation. We saw yesterday the Consumer Price Index has been cut in half since the summer and that's really important. And we'll get the Producer Price Index in just a couple of hours and that's expected to be even more dramatic in how it's cooling. It could be below two percent.

So there has been progress on the inflation front but still -- I think still some work to do. So a Powell pause. That's what we're calling for today. MATTINGLY: A Powell pause. By the way, wonk is not a pejorative term.

HARLOW: Hashtag.

ROMANS: I know.

MATTINGLY: It's not a pejorative --

ROMANS: I know.

MATTINGLY: We're taking it back.

HARLOW: It does apply to everyone. I was thinking about it as I was getting eggs out last night to make banana bread.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HARLOW: I was like they're so much more affordable now.

ROMANS: They are.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: That's funny. Appreciate it.

[05:55:00]

Well, Donald Trump not backing down just hours after becoming the first former president to face charges in federal court.

HARLOW: Trump sat in the same room as the special prosecutor who indicted him, Jack Smith.

Our special coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: It is the top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. We are so glad you're with us on the day after the day because yesterday was such a critical day in the history of this country.

MATTINGLY: And why I'm happy right now -- I know, God forbid, you'd be happy at six in the morning. We actually have really smart people to explain what's --

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- coming next because it's very, very --

HARLOW: That's exactly right.

MATTINGLY: -- important. Yesterday, very important -- unprecedented history. What comes next equally as important.

HARLOW: That's right.

MATTINGLY: -- and just --

HARLOW: Yes, and the trial ahead. And also, fact-checking what the former president said last night about all of it.

It is Wednesday, June 14.

And President Trump was defiant last.