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Mar-a-Lago Property Manager, Who's Accused of Trying to Delete Security Footage Set to be Arraigned Today in Classified Documents Case; Trump Dominates in New New York Times Poll Despite Legal Woes; Former Hunter Biden Associate to Testify Before GOP-Led Panel. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 31, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. Let's get things started, five things to know for this Monday, July 31st.

In just hours, a Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker accused of telling another employee that, quote, the boss wanted security footage deleted, is set to appear in court. Former President Trump denies directing staffers to delete anything.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: In the middle of all of this, Trump extends his primary poll dominance, and it really is dominance. 54 percent of likely Republican voters say that he is their pick. This is according to a New York times/Siena College poll. Just 17 percent want DeSantis and it is low single digits for the rest of the pack.

Also, Devon Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden, about to speak under oath before the House oversight committee. The two worked together on deals in both China and Ukraine.

MATTINGLY: Also this morning, a senior Russian official says the country may be forced to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine succeeds in its ongoing counteroffensive. Dmitry Medvedev says, quote, there simply wouldn't be any other solution.

HARLOW: Also this, you've seen their trucks in the road, but now trucking giant Yellow has shut down. That's according to new reporting, The Wall Street Journal, even after receiving $700 million in rescue loans during COVID. Now, 30,000 jobs are in danger.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

All right, here is where we begin this morning. The property manager who allegedly said the boss wanted the surveillance video servers deleted at Mar-a-Lago, he'll be in a Miami courtroom this morning answering to criminal charges. His name, Carlos De Oliveira, is the third person indicted in the classified documents case alongside former President Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta.

Prosecutors say De Oliveira met up with Nauta in June of last year to scope out the surveillance cameras around the storage room where the documents were moved in and out. Prosecutors also say De Oliveira then asked a different employee, quote, what are we going to do about, quote, the boss' request to delete that footage?

And this comes as we wait for more potential indictments against a former president. We are waiting on a charging decision still in a federal investigation into January 6th and the special counsel's office is getting ready to meet with key witnesses in the fake electorate scheme.

MATTINGLY: And also the Georgia, new security barriers are up outside the Fulton County courthouse, as the district attorney there confirms that by September 1st, she'll decide whether to charge anyone for the efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FANI WILLIS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA: The work is accomplished. We've been working for two and a half years. We're ready to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So, obviously, a question, will this impact the former president's poll numbers? No. At least according to a New York times/Siena College poll out this morning showing 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters say he's their pick.

Let's get things started with Randi Kaye. She's outside the Miami courthouse, where we're expecting to see the Mar-a-Lago property manager in just a few hours. Randi, a lot moving here, what are you seeing right now?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, we are getting ready for Carlos De Oliveira to make his appearance here in court as this federal case against the former president continues to grow now, involving two of the former president's employees. De Oliveira is charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements, as well as two counts of destroying or concealing an object. All of this happening as the former president continues to deny he did anything wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice over): Donald Trump slamming the special prosecutor's team.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: These are crooked people.

KAYE: As he learns of new legal threats he and his employees may face. Newly named co-defendant Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira is set to be arraigned today in Miami. A superseding indictment alleges he along with Trump aide, Walt Nauta, attempted to delete security camera footage at the club after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it.

According to the indictment, De Oliveira told one of the resort's I.T. workers, the boss wanted the server deleted. CNN has now learned that I.T. worker, Yuscil Taveras, has received a target letter from federal prosecutors.

Taveras reportedly met with investigators after Trump's first indictment in June. It's unclear if he's cooperating with the investigation, but sources say some of the new allegations against Trump were based at least in part on information Taveras provided.

Trump facing additional charges for mishandling classified documents, maintained his innocence on social media, claiming his legal team voluntarily handed over the tapes to the special counsel and that he never told anybody to delete them.

De Oliveira is separately charged with lying to the FBI about moving boxes of documents from Trump's residence to a storage room.

CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is bad stuff. And, you know, you can't say there was no underlying potential crime here.

KAYE: The superseding indictment giving Trump's opponents an opportunity to go after the frontrunner.

CHRISTIE: It's pretty brazen. These guys were acting like the Corleones with no experience.

[07:05:05]

KAYE: Other candidates treading more cautiously over the indictment as Trump remains popular with the GOP base.

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: None of us want to be talking about indictments. I don't even know if it's the third, fourth or fifth Indictment right now, but what I can tell you is it's a distraction.

KAYE: Most use the issue to steer the conversation to the future.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the right ways to do that is to pardon the former president of the United States from what is clearly a politicized prosecution.

KAYE: Even Trump's top rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, wary of engaging.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I want to spend less time litigating that, because that's really looking in the past, and more time focusing on the future in terms of what we need to accomplish as a country.

KAYE: At a GOP party dinner in Iowa, direct criticism of Trump drew a rebuke from the audience.

WILL HURD, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect -- I know -- listen, I know the truth and the truth is hard.

KAYE: Closing out the dinner, Trump steered clear of the new charges against him. TRUMP: If I weren't running, I would have nobody coming after me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: And De Oliveira will appear here in court today with John Irving. He is a D.C.-based attorney. De Oliveira will need a Florida- based attorney to enter a plea. We don't know if he does have that Florida attorney secured. Of course, this is being closely watched, because if he doesn't, his case will be delayed. And, of course, we're trying to figure out whether or not the former president will go to trial in this case before the election cycle that is certainly being closely watched. Back you.

HARLOW: Randi Kaye, thank you for the reporting from Miami.

MATTINGLY: Well, also happening this morning, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is expected to meet behind closed doors with a former Hunter Biden business associate. Devon Archer served with Biden on the board of the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma. And according to the subpoena from those Republicans, quote, Archer played a significant role in the Biden family's business dealings abroad, including, but not limited to China, Russia and Ukraine.

CNN National Security Reporter Zachary Cohen has the details. Zach, there is a lot of conversation about what's going on right now in terms of Archer and the Justice Department and in terms of what's going to happen behind closed doors. Can you explain what's actually happening today and how this fits into the kind of broader issues that Archer is dealing with?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, good morning, Phil and Poppy. Look, Devon Archer is somebody who House Republicans have really hyped up as someone they view as a key witness in their investigation, that they say is focused on Joe Biden himself. And they've been trying to connect the president to what they call his son's shady foreign business dealings. And because Devon Archer was involved in some of these business transactions with Hunter Biden in places like Ukraine and China, they believe that he could provide evidence that does speak to that point, connecting the president to the foreign business deals.

Now, it remains to be seen if that evidence exists and if Archer can deliver it, if he even has it. But this all speaks to the broader polarization around the Hunter Biden congressional investigations that Republicans have really warmed up to the idea of prioritizing as they seek to potentially try to impeach the president based on some of these claims about his foreign dealings and his links to Hunter Biden's foreign dealings.

HARLOW: Oversight Chair James Comer said they really do believe that he has significant things to tell the committee. In fact, he said that he thinks that they're relevant to their investigation. This is sort of what we heard from McCarthy last week, the drumbeat of potential impeachment increasing, if the evidence leads us there, in hearing from witnesses, like Devon Archer, and filling in the blank, then, you know, we may go there. How central is he? COHEN: That remains to be seen, Poppy. But House Republicans are floating this idea of impeaching the president before they have the evidence that warrants doing so. And the same is true ahead of Devon Archer's appearance today behind closed doors, and as we all know, that closed-door testimony, it can be a tricky thing, because oftentimes Republicans and Democrats emerge with very different perceptions of what they saw.

But there's also the Trump of it all, right? Trump is ramping up pressure on house Republicans to investigate every possible avenue to impeach the president himself. Listen to what he said during a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The biggest complaint that I get is that the Republicans find out this information, and then they do nothing about it.

Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out, out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, we'll see what Devon Archer ultimately tells lawmakers today behind closed doors. But, obviously, the White House vehemently denies any connection to Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings, and Democrats say these are all recycled claims.

MATTINGLY: All right. Zach Cohen, we'll have to reconcile the Democratic and Republican views of the closed-door hearing later today. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Let's bring in two former federal prosecutors Sarah Krissoff and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

[07:10:03]

Good morning, guys.

I'm going to leave the Devon Archer stuff on the table and see what comes out of it get into some more of these issues with you, Elie, beginning with you in terms of the fact that you have got the arraignment of De Oliveira today. You say, there's two main things to watch. What are they?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, the first thing is will there be any indication that this guy is going to flip. As of now, there's not, right? He has, thus far, spoken with the FBI and lied to them. He's now charged with lying to them. He was asked, do you know anything about these boxes, and he says, absolutely nothing, whatsoever. It should be fairly easy to prove.

It's important to see who represents him, right, and who's funding the person who represents him. Because if this person, as we've seen with other defendants in this case, is represented by Trump-affiliated PACs, it's going to be harder for him practically and financially to flip.

The other thing is, let's watch the schedule, let's watch the calendar. We now have this May trial date, which I have said before, I already felt a little shaky about. Now that the DOJ has added a new defendant and three new charges against Trump, let's see what the judge says. The judge may be ticked off here because DOJ begged for an early trial date knowing they were going to add these charges and defendants, and didn't say anything about it. So, let's see if there's any indication on timing.

MATTINGLY: Sarah, it's the question I've been trying to figure out over the course of the last 24 to 48 hours, which is employee number4, Yuscil Taveras. He received a target letter after the first indictment. But before the superseding indictment, there appears to be information the superseding indictment that could be attributed to him. He has a different lawyer than kind of the Trump -- what Elie was talking about. What should we make of that?

SARAH KRISSOFF, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Listen, it's unclear to me, frankly, whether he has any criminal liability at this point, or if he's just a witness, right? Ultimately, he did -- he has provided information. That information is in the superseding indictment about these attempts to delete the video surveillance. But it may be that he's just a witness here. We just -- you know, it remains to be seen.

Although, I do have to agree with Elie that each addition defendant, each person who's charged here creates a real big risk to the former president that additional people are going to flip on the former president.

HARLOW: I think that's interesting that your perspective seems to be different than a lot of other attorneys that we've spoken to, that you think it's like fairly significantly likely that Nauta and De Oliveira would flip. I just -- why wouldn't you before then? Why would you get to this phase?

KRISSOFF: So, I think the pressures are different along the way. So, when you're actually in the courtroom, you're facing the judge, and then, ultimately, facing the jury, the pressure increases on you to cooperate with the government. So, there are people who cooperate, at the very last minute sort of two weeks leading up to trial.

And so a lot of that frankly is going to depend on the advice they have from their counsel, the advice they have from their family members, who they're consulting with. But assuming they have independent counsel here, who's really going through the options with them, and that's an option that their counsel should be discussing with them, because they are looking at the real likelihood of going to prison.

MATTINGLY: Elie, that kind of brings the interest -- connects the -- we saw the stories about the $40 million spent by Trump's super PAC on legal defense, not just for the former president, but for so many of his associates, Walt Nauta is among them, I believe De Oliveira is, too. Is that a problem? HONIG: It is.

MATTINGLY: Because the Trump folks say that there's note where they're advising not do anything, they're not saying to do anything.

HONIG: It's a problem for the prosecutors but it's actually not illegal. This happens all the time. Sarah knows this from our days as prosecutors.

MATTINGLY: Companies do it.

HONIG: Yes. Corporations do it. Political organizations do it. Mob families do it. It's not illegal. In fact, DOJ actually doesn't even hold it against a defendant if he's paying for other people.

But what's the practicality of this? Imagine you're Walt Nauta or in De Oliveira's position, these guys don't have tons of money. They're not people of huge means. So, you get this lawyer assigned to you from Trump's PAC, free, you don't have to pay, it's very expensive to hire a defense lawyer, and now you're thinking, boy, the pressure, what would you have to go through in order to flip? So, it's a real factor that protects Donald Trump. He's it very well.

HARLOW: We're out of time. I have another question next time we got you. Elie, thank you, I appreciate it. Sarah, good to have you.

MATTINGLY: Now, Vice President Kamala Harris taking center stage in President Biden's re-election campaign, what's behind her rapid response strategy to what she calls Republican overreach.

HARLOW: Also what Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley had to say after Mitch McConnell froze for 23 seconds at the podium during his weekly news conference last week, that's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

HARLOW: So, we've been talking all morning about this fascinating new polling, a number of polls, especially The New York Times poll, shows Trump with a dominant lead over his Republican rivals.

Phi at the magic wall breaking it down. It's not just -- the numbers are so wow, but it's when you dig into the cross-tabs.

MATTINGLY: Look at you. That's too fancy for me. I just look at the top. No, that's exactly right. Because if you look into the different groups, the different -- whether it's by gender, whether it's by demographic, whether it's by suburb, moderate, conservative, all of them break heavily towards the former president.

And let's talk about those top lines, where you have here, as Poppy was noting, the former president in this New York Times/Siena College poll out this morning, 54 percent. His closest competitor, 17 percent, nearly tripling his closest competitor. And it's not just the one poll. I think this is important to note. One poll is a snapshot. One poll should not drive what is or isn't happening in a race. It's the fact that the consistency across polling over the course of the last couple of weeks is once again confirmed by this New York Times/Siena poll.

You dig in a little bit deeper, what's interesting is this. I think this is a point you hear from some Republicans given how large the field is. More than half of the remaining Republicans are still open to Trump. What you have is the base, which has always been kind of rock solid in the 30 to 35 percent, according to this poll, at about 37 percent, persuadable, about 50 percent when you put them together between persuadable and not open to the former president.

[07:20:00]

That's a problem, though, when you have as many candidates in the field, because this, when you have a large field at 37 percent, is almost unbeatable. Also worth noting that 37 percent is far below the 57 percent Trump sits at in this poll.

When you dig in a little bit further, the base itself, again, everybody has been talking about this for the better part of a year, to the point where it's almost something you get numb to or don't pay attention to, but that base is rock solid inside the Republican Party. You want to know why Republicans on Capitol Hill respond to the form president, why Republicans across the party respond to the former president? They know that 37 percent is not going to move for anything, whether it be indictments, Ron DeSantis, or anyone else. And that base, once again, is shown to be incredibly solid, maybe even a little bit larger than expected in this poll.

Now, where Republicans stand in term of the primary, in terms of heading into 2024, very clearly don't think that the United States is on the right track. This is not in and of itself surprising, right track, 6 percent, wrong direction, 89 percent. You're probably going to be able to swap those pretty interchangeably between the party depending on whose party is in the White House. But this underscores that fact.

And then you look at what happens if there are only two choices. I think this is interesting, because you think, large field. That's got to benefit Donald Trump. What happens if you narrow it down to just two? The only two choices in this race are Trump and DeSantis. Who are you more likely to vote for? Donald Trump, 62 percent to 31 percent.

Poppy, people talk about how DeSantis is going to have a comeback, how you retool the campaign and do a McCain '08. McCain in '08 at this point was down, I think, by 12 or 13 points to Rudy Giuliani.

HARLOW: And not 30-plus.

MATTINGLY: Not 30-plus. There is no precedent for a comeback. There is no precedent for a frontrunner blowing a lead this large. This is an enormous win behind the former president.

HARLOW: No precedent --

MATTINGLY: No.

HARLOW: -- for blowing a lead this large?

MATTINGLY: No. I spent a lot of time on RealClearPolitics putting polling averages together, trying to figure out, what could be the model here? Because everybody talks about McCain '08 and the comeback, and it's not even close. This would be the biggest comeback, the most significant collapse from a frontrunner in the history of the Republican Party, bar none.

HARLOW: Wow. Okay. Come back to the table and let's talk to our political commentators, Bakari Sellers and Scott Jennings.

Bakari, you're an attorney, so I want to get to the part of this poll that has to do with the law and federal laws. Just 17 percent of likely Republican primary voters think that Trump has committed a serious fed crime, just 10 percent of those voters think he did something wrong in the handling of classified documents. This is, as some other legal analysts are pointing to the fact that they think the Mar-a-Lago case is like the most threatening to the former president, politically, in the party, not at all so.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, that's disturbing when you have a party that trumpets and kind of marches to the beat of following the rule of law and you have a president who has these very serious allegations against him, particularly in Mar-a- Lago.

I've always maintained that the president's worst legal trouble or legal jeopardy is going to be in Atlanta, Georgia, with Fani Willis and this RICO conspiracy, but I don't think that's going to sway these polls either way.

I don't think we've ever seen an individual have a grip on a base of a particular party the way that Donald Trump has grip on his base. He -- it's fascinating to watch. And I can't wait for somebody who's smarter than I to come and diagnose this. But he has a grip on this party which removes certain people from reality. The fact is, this president, where there is smoke, this much smoke, there is likely fire. And whether or not the president broke the law is up for a jury. But you don't have three, four, five indictments and be a saint.

MATTINGLY: Hey, Scott, I want to switch over to Vice President Kamala Harris and kind of the Democratic side of this in a second. But I just want to ask you, you know, what grounds are there for anybody to think anybody but the former president is going to be the Republican nominee at this point?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, these candidates were all hoping that, essentially, after more indictments or after other things that are out of their control happened to Donald Trump, that Republican voters will just sort of say, okay, we get it, we can't do it anymore, who's left? So, basically, you're putting yourself under the rim hoping to tip in a missed shot at the buzzer, basically. That's a heck of a way to run a campaign, because, essentially, your fate is in someone else's hands or in the hands of the world. In this polling, DeSantis is the only one who's in double digits, and, obviously, he's even struggling to break through.

So, right now, a little more than half of the party wants to do Trump. If that remains the case, he's going to be impossible to beat, particularly if the fragmentation continues. But as Bakari said, it's not clear to me that any of the legal issues are ever going drag him down or even bring him to a tipping point. I think what Republicans believe is, this has basically become an us versus them. And every time they drag down Donald Trump, they dig in even further so they can prove that we're not going to let Democrats or Joe Biden pick up the nominee of our party.

[07:25:04]

And so how all this turns out this in a general election, I'm dubious, but for a Republican primary, we can see it's inuring to Trump's benefit.

HARLOW: To Phil's point about the vice president, let's listen to some of what she said. She talked about extremists and so-called leaders on the campaign trail. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: These extremist so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children. Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We're not supposed to do that.

All is not lost. This is a moment where, again, I will say, I believe there's a full-on attack against hard-won freedoms. But we have power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Bakari, just a reaction, we've been seeing her more and more speaking out like this. She went down to Florida right after, talking about abortion several months ago and then she was there talking about this curriculum change and how you teach the history of slavery in this country. What are we seeing here?

SELLERS: You know, I actually love it. I mean, I can't stop smiling, because you can hear her find her voice. I mean, look, she's had a very, very difficult job. I mean, the fact is, she is -- there is no other vice president in the history of the United States of America, in the history of the United States of America that looks like Kamala Harris. And with that, there's been a double standard in the way that she's been covered.

I actually criticized the president of the United States for the portfolio that was given to Kamala Harris at the very beginning, and now you see her actually getting out on the campaign trail, showing the talent that brought so many of us onboard during her presidential campaign. Not only did she go down to Florida about abortion, but she went to Tennessee when we had the expulsion of the three lawmakers. She's been going around the country.

And when she goes around the country, you hear the beltway talk about the fact that she's not popular or whatever or people don't like her. Yes, that's just in Washington, D.C. When she gets outside, which is what many of us have been asking the White House to allow her to do, when she gets outside of the beltway of the United States of America, people look at her in awe. I mean, it's fascinating to see.

And now you hear the rhythm of her words and she's speaking to the heartbeat of this country. Yes, I just think that right now, this vice president has found her footing and she is doing a very, very good job in a very, very tough position because she's not being held to the start of Mike Pence. She's not being head to the start of Joe Biden. She's not being held to the Saturday of Al Gore. She's held to a standard that far supersedes that and she's meeting that bar, as we see her out there on the road today.

MATTINGLY: Hey, Scott, I want to ask you before we let you go, because we're running out of time. The Republican presidential candidate, Nikki Haley, responded over the course of the weekend to your former boss, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, freezing for 23 seconds while taking questions from the press. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: What I am saying about Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, all of them, know when to walk away. Know when to walk away. We have huge issues that need new solutions, we need new generational leaders. We appreciate your service, we appreciate what you've done, but this is while we'll fight for term limits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Scott, I'm sure you've spoken to the minority leader. I know you guys talk fairly regularly. What's your response to that?

JENNINGS: 2 percent in the national polls, know when to walk away, that's super advice. I mean, the reality is no one is struggling more than Nikki Haley right now with her current task at hand. And dare I say Mitch McConnell's schedule last week after his moment at the podium was a little bit more robust than what she's opinion able to pull off in this campaign.

So, I get it, everybody has got -- it's campaign season. Everybody is looking for a hook and a way to try to get ahead, but good luck with your message.

MATTINGLY: What people don't realize is McConnell world, when they want to go at you, they don't mess around. Bakari, Scott, I appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you.

So, this new threat from Russia, a senior official there says, quote, there simply wouldn't be any other solution outside of using a nuclear weapon if Ukraine's counteroffensive succeeds. What Dmitry Medvedev said about what he calls Russian plans, next.

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[07:30:00]