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Property Manager at Mar-a-Lago to Face Charges in Miami Courtroom Related to Former President Trump's Classified Documents Case; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Attempting to Reset His Republican Presidential Primary Campaign. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 31, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:50]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning, everyone. It is the top of the hour. We're so glad you're with us on this Monday and a busy one already.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: New polling, new arraignment.

HARLOW: Polls, polls, polls, and they all the same thing.

MATTINGLY: That's the most important, because one poll, they're not focused on one poll. I'm going to die on this hill.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: It's a good hill to die on. We'll get to that in a moment, the politics of this.

But to the law, this morning, a second Trump employee scheduled to be arraigned in the classified documents probe, as the former president says he did not direct anyone to delete security footage at Mar-a- Lago.

MATTINGLY: And will thousands of small-dollar donors to Trump's political action committee care at all the that their money is being spent on legal fees? We're learning the PAC Save America has already spent $40 million this year on those legal fees. That's already more than double what it spent last year. Just a reminder, it's July.

HARLOW: And there's a giant "X" atop Twitter's headquarters. Look at that. Elon Musk's rebranding efforts have now caught the attention of San Francisco official who say they are investigating whether the sign is a permit violation.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

This morning, the property manager who allegedly said the boss wanted the surveillance video servers deleted at Mar-a-Lago will be at a Miami courtroom to answer to four charges. Carlos De Oliveira is the third person indicted in the classified documents case alongside former President Donald 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 documents were moved in and out of. They say that De Oliveira then asked a different employee, quote, what are we going to do about the boss' request to delete footage. This comes as another Mar-a-Lago employee, Yuscil Taveras, who oversaw those surrounding cameras, we've learned, previously received a target letter from federal prosecutors. Sources tell CNN that Taveras had met with investigators since the initial indictment, but what's not clear is whether he's cooperating with prosecutors or not, and we should be very clear, he has not been charged.

MATTINGLY: That's true. We're also following new details in other Trump investigations, and there are many. The special counsel's office gets ready to meet with another committee witness in the fake electors scheme. And in Georgia, the district attorney says that she will decide whether to charge anyone for the efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election there by September 1st. We'll get to those new thread in a second. But first, let's go to CNN's Randi Kaye. She's outside the Florida courthouse in Miami, where the property manager will be arraigned. Randi, what are the expectations today?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Phil. Well, what we're seeing now is that he is really caught up, apparently, in this alleged plot to try and destroy security camera footage of Mar-a-Lago which would have shown these boxes of documents, some of them classified. So we are waiting for him to appear here in court this morning. The official charges are pretty serious. He's facing conspiracy to obstruct justice, false statements that were made as well as two counts of concealing or destroying an object.

Now, we know he's going to appear here in court with his lawyer, John Irving, that is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney. He will need a Florida-based attorney in order to enter a plea. If he doesn't have a Florida attorney this morning, his case could be delayed. And of course, all eyes are watching that, because that could weigh into whether or not Donald Trump could go to trial in this case before elections. So certainly, that is being closely watched.

But also, as you mentioned, at the center of this new allegations, is this I.T. worker from Mar-a-Lago named Yuscil Taveras. What we understand from sources is that he was working with prosecutors, speaking with the FBI and the investigators. And apparently some of these new allegations against Donald Trump were based at least in part, Phil, from some of this information coming from Yuscil Taveras, this I.T. worker. So now a fourth employee identified, and all in this alleged plot to try to get ready of this security camera footage. Phil?

MATTINGLY: All right, Randi Kaye, thank you.

Also this morning, the Georgia probe investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election result, that could be nearing its end.

[08:05:04] Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis telling CNN affiliate WXIA that any announcement of an indictment would happen before September 1st.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Some people may not be happy with the decisions that I'm making, and sometimes when people are unhappy, they act in way that could create harm. The work is accomplished. We've been working for two-and-a-half years. We're ready to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Willis has previously signaled that she would make any charging announcements between July 31st and the end of August, meaning that they could come any day. And this comes after a judge scheduled an August 10th hearing on the Trump team's motion to disqualify Willis from the case and toss much of the evidence she has collected. Trump's team is also trying to remove another judge in Fulton County from presiding over that case.

HARLOW: We're also waiting for another potential federal indictment against former President Trump over efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Former New York City police commissioner and Trump ally, Bernie Kerik, will meet with Special Counsel Jack Smith in a matter of days. Kerik worked alongside Rudy Giuliani in the weeks after the 2020 election to try to search for evidence of fraud that could have shifted the election in Trump's favor. Kerik's attorney tells CNN he's going to speak to Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors about the Trump's team unfounded claims of voter fraud. Earlier this month, you'll remember, Kerik turned over lots of documents about those claims after previously shielding some of them from Congress and federal investigators on the grounds of attorney-client privilege.

MATTINGLY: So you may have noticed in the process of the six-and-a- half minutes we spent walking through all of the different elements of this, the president has a lot of legal issues. And that also means he has to spend a lot of money. His political action committee has to spend it, I should be very clear on that, more than $40 million on legal fees alone for the former president and his associates this year alone, according to a source familiar with the matter. That's more than double what it spent last year. The PAC, which raises most of its funds through small dollar donations from Trump supporters, is expected to report to the FEC this morning as the former president's legal battles, as we noted, continue to mount.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live in Washington this morning. Kristen, I think maybe this question is, are they going to have a cash problem at some point during the campaign? This is a lot of money, and I know they're trying to set up a separate legal entity. Is this problematic for them from a mechanics organizational perspective, financially?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It certainly seems like it could be, Phil. And obviously, as you're laying out step after step, all of these legal battles, those cost money. And as you said, they've spent $40 million so far this year. It is only July. The entirety of last year, they spent $16 million on these legal fees. And again, it is not just Donald Trump. It is all of these associates, these former and current aides, employees, anyone who is wrapped up in these investigations that his team deemed worthy to actually pay for those attorney fees. And there are a lot of them.

You mentioned that Mar-a-Lago case. Both of those co-defendants are represented by lawyers who have received an enormous amount of money from that Save America PAC. And again, it certainly looks like this could lead to a huge money issue here. And that is in part why we are understanding that Trump's team is creating this legal defense fund. This will not cover any of Trump's legal fees, but it will cover some of those associate fees, those outside witnesses. Unclear exactly how big the umbrella of this legal defense fund is going to be, but it is clearly something that they are taking into account right now as they are hemorrhaging money for these legal fees.

Again, $40 million, and it is just July. And they are not wrapping up, these legal issues are not wrapping up anytime soon. In fact, they seem to just be continuing and possibly mounting, getting worse.

MATTINGLY: Yes, if you want to -- $40 million, look at what every other candidate and their super PACs have raised, $40 million is a lot of money. Kristen Holmes, great reporting. Thank you.

HARLOW: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign is seizing on this news. His campaign communication director wrote this in a statement, "Trump has spent over $60 million this year on two things, falsely attacking DeSantis and paying his own legal fees, not a cent on defeating Joe Biden. Governor DeSantis's sole focus, by contrast, has been campaigning for this country's future, defeating Biden, and reversing the decline of America," close quote. DeSantis also responded himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: When he hits me with the juvenile insults, I think that helps me. I don't think voters like that. I think they look at it and they realize, like, you know what, that's not effective. And so I don't think it's effective. So I actually don't mind it at all. I think it's just a reminder why there's so many millions of voters who will never vote for him going forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Later today, DeSantis is going to hold a news conference, a press conference, focusing on his economic plan, trying to turn around those slipping poll numbers. Steve Contorno is following this very closely. He joins us in Rochester, New Hampshire, for more.

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He's talking more to the press. He's doing interviews with press outlets that he never talked to before, and now he's holding a press conference on the economy. I think maybe a question or two might be about how dominant Trump is in the polls. STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Poppy. And DeSantis is up

here really trying to put the last couple weeks of the campaign behind him. There has been so much focus on staff cuts and this attempt at a reset on his campaign amid his stalling poll numbers. He wants to get back to introducing himself to voters, having one-on-one conversations with them, and really making the case that he is the best person to represent the party in 2024.

Over the weekend, he had a lot of intimate gatherings, like you said. There's a lot more media that's given access to him lately. And today, he gave an economic speech, which is really something we haven't heard him talk much about. He's so well known for being a culture warrior and his so-called war on woke, but we haven't so much seen him talk about these kinds of kitchen table issues. He's going to do that later today where he's going to give his economic policy speech. This is an issue, obviously, Republicans six months ago thought it was one they were going to win on. However, with inflation cooling and the economy seeming to be doing better, Democrats are feeling much better about their odds on that issue going forward. And DeSantis, it will be interesting to how he makes the case that not only the country needs to go in a different direction, but that he is better than Trump to lead on this issue, Poppy.

HARLOW: Steve Contorno, thanks for the reporting.

MATTINGLY: I mean, my questions will be about tax policy.

HARLOW: I know they were. But you're here, not there. So you can't even ask them.

MATTINGLY: Contorno looks really good for a campaign trail, by the way. Very put together for campaign correspondent. It's very unsettling to me, but great reporting, as always, from Steve.

Also, President Biden publicly acknowledging his seventh grandchild on a Friday at about 5:00 p.m., describing the situation as a, quote, "family matter." Reaction to statement coming up ahead.

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MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, we have new polling showing former President Trump dominating his rivals in the Republican primary field.

The latest New York Times/Siena College poll shows him way up in front, 54 percent. That's 17 points more than his nearest challenger, Ron DeSantis.

Trump has remained consistent at 54 percent in the last few weeks, but what is significant is how much DeSantis has slipped since mid-July.

A Quinnipiac poll earlier this month had been polling at 25 percent, a Monmouth poll had him at 22 percent, and it has been dropping, Trump has been rising. Joining us now, White House correspondent at Bloomberg News, Akayla

Gardner, also a Buckeye, get excited Poppy, and CNN political analyst and White House correspondent at PBS Newshour, she is cool, too, Laura Barron-Lopez, one of the best in the business.

Laura, I want to start with you on kind of the, I think, we have similar views in terms of one poll does not make everything. It's the consistency of these numbers and the kind of at some point, we have to stop repeating over and over again, it's early, it's early, it's early, like we're getting there at this point.

What is your read in terms of the current state of the race?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, Trump has a really strong grip on the Republican base, and even a recent PBS/NPR/Marist poll that we just had come out on Friday, said the same exact thing, which is that 58 percent of Republicans say that despite his legal peril, despite all of these indictments that are piling up, they still are supporting him over other GOP candidates.

And so right now, I mean, he is the one that the GOP base wants, and Ron DeSantis appears to be the second one that consistently is highest in polls, but hasn't been able to convince voters either because he is more focused on policy and they want more emotions, which is what we've heard from voters saying that they really are just still attached to Trump and his ideologies and the messaging that he is bringing, which is essentially one of grievance and just all around his legal peril and all around election denialism, but that's what they're going for right now, rather than Ron DeSantis.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: The economic speech today, Akayla that DeSantis is going to give is going to focus on the economy and largely go after Biden, not go after Trump.

I mean, the extent to which he's gone after Trump has been like, hey, he spent $20 million, you know, sort of going after me attacking me, that's as far as he will go.

But do you have any indication that Republican primary voters are thinking about electability in in the general election, because that's what DeSantis is banking this whole thing on?

AKAYLA GARDNER, BLOOMBERG NEWS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I think electability is top of mind here, and I think this speech today comes at a very crucial time in his campaign.

We've seen back-to-back bad headlines for DeSantis. His campaign is in a cash crunch. He's laid off now, two rounds of layoffs for his staff and donors have been telling him, they want him to focus on more moderate issues.

He became popular in Florida because of his culture wars, but we really haven't seen him focus on these kitchen table issues, and the economy is top of mind for voters. It has been and it will continue to be and he really needs to prove himself on these issues to continue in this race. MATTINGLY: Hey, Laura, switching over to the Democratic side. A

friend of all of us, Jonathan Martin, at "The New York Times" had a column -- sorry, now he's at Politico -- he had a column in Politico about the potential for another Democrat hopping into the race to challenge the incumbent president, Joe Biden.

Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, I have thoughts on this, but I am intrigued by yours in terms of who Dean Phillips is, how he is thought of inside the House Democratic Caucus?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, I know that we both know who Dean Phillips is Phi, because we've covered Congress. I've talked to Dean Phillips a number of times, but I mentioned his name to a relative who does not live anywhere near DC and they said "who" yesterday.

I don't think that he has any name recognition outside of DC. Among the Democratic Caucus, he is certainly respected, and they feel as though he's a very serious lawmaker for the short time that he has been in Congress. He is someone that helped make their majority a few years ago when they were in the majority in the House.

But a lot of Democrats that I talk to are more concerned about third party candidates versus someone challenging Joe Biden within the primary. They're concerned about candidates like Cornel West and having a Jill Stein effect, similar to 2016 when we saw that that really made the big difference in those key swing states and ultimately contributed to Hillary Clinton's loss.

HARLOW: Akayla, looking at it more broadly, not about can Dean Phillips win a nomination if you were to go up against Biden, but about the fact that here you have him, a former businessman from Minnesota turned politician who has spoken out against Biden on a number of things. This isn't new. I wasn't shocked when I when I saw this.

[08:20:17]

But you have him, you have Joe Manchin, you have whatever No Labels is going to do.

What does this all combined mean for Biden?

GARDNER: Yes, I certainly agree with Laura that the bigger issue is these third-party candidates, but the fact that a sitting lawmaker would challenge President Biden is certainly significant. It would signal a breakdown in the Democratic Party, the fact that someone would feel comfortable enough to challenge the president.

And what Dean Phillips is bringing up here is something that I hear from voters a lot, which is there is still hesitation about Biden, because of his age, and there are still voters who are frankly, waiting to see who else is going to get in this race.

MATTINGLY: Hey, Laura.

If you were working on Friday at about 5:00 PM and you thought your day was about to end, it didn't because the White House released a statement to "People" Magazine acknowledging for the first time or saying that the president was acknowledging for the first time his seventh grandchild, Hunter Biden's child.

I was -- the timing says a lot about this, right, if for those who maybe don't live in our world, if you're dropping something at 5:00 PM on a Friday, you're doing that intentionally for people not to pay a lot of attention to it. Why? Why did they decide to go that route?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think because ultimately, Phil, the White House had to address this. Reporters had been asking White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre about whether or not the president was going to acknowledge this seventh grandchild of his. He is someone who prides himself on being a family man, someone who often used Amtrak to get back to Wilmington, Delaware to be with his family. He often talks about his grandchildren.

And they ultimately needed to acknowledge this and they hadn't done so, so far. And as you said, they clearly did it on a Friday evening, in order to try to bury it a little bit, make sure it didn't get all of this wide attention that it normally would if it were released earlier in the day, in the middle of the week.

But this was something that he was going to have to address especially more and more as he is out on the campaign trail and this is how they ultimately decided to handle it.

Now, whether or not it goes away is a big question, because we know that Republicans are going to continue to attack the president on this very issue.

HARLOW: Laura Barron-Lopez, Akayla Gardner, thank you both.

MATTINGLY: Well, I am sorry. I am so -- (INAUDIBLE) about that panel.

HARLOW: I know. They're great. They were great. Well, it feels like a summer cold could actually be COVID -- not again. But yes, what experts are saying and how extreme heat may actually be partly responsible for this uptick in COVID cases. That's next.

MATTINGLY: I'm going to do this one.

HARLOW: Okay.

MATTINGLY: The city of San Francisco investigating Elon Musk for a new X sign above Twitter's headquarters. Sorry if you live across the street from that. We will fill you in on the complaint against Musk, coming up.

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MATTINGLY: There's a chance your summer cold could actually be COVID- 19. Over the last week, hospitalizations and emergency visits have

increased and experts say it could be part of a late summer coronavirus surge, though the wave won't be nearly as severe or prolonged as last summer.

CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell is here.

All right, I don't really like reading that or anything about that, but what is the latest data?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so surge might be too strong of a term. If you look at the CDC COVID indicators -- hospitalizations, emergency department visits, test positivity levels, and wastewater levels, that's actually the virus in levels of wastewater, you can see all of those are up between 10 to 20 percent over the last week of data.

What's really important to put into context, though, is that as off of the lowest base we've seen since the beginning of the pandemic. And so, if you look at wastewater level data from Biobot, which is one of the companies that tracks these things, you can see just there at the end, that little blue uptick is the sort of beginning of a potential surge we're talking about.

And experts say even in these data and wastewater levels, this is a leading indicator, and they're even starting to see that slow and perhaps even start to level off. So we don't know if this is really going to become something any bigger.

MATTINGLY: It's like we are both exhaling, right?

HARLOW: We are. Why? Why? And how does the heat play in?

TIRRELL: Yes, the heat does seem to potentially have an effect on COVID cycles. We've seen this in previous summers where there has been a bump in cases and it's perhaps because it's so hot.

People are driven inside. They're closer together in the AC and perhaps, they're spreading COVID. So that could be one thing.

People of course, are traveling a lot more right now, and also, you know, a lot of us haven't had a booster lately, which makes sense. So we don't have as much immunity built up particularly to infection, and maybe a lot of us haven't had COVID recently, and so that sort of immunity isn't there as well.

MATTINGLY: So I've got four kids, which means I get literally everything that is going around.

HARLOW: Everything.

MATTINGLY: Are there other things? Is it just COVID right now? Are there other things that people are concerned about?

TIRRELL: There are other things going around. Data from BioFire, which is a testing company show that you're actually more likely to have rhinovirus if you've got a cold that's one of the common cold causing viruses. Coronavirus is rising to kind of intersect with that, but also adenovirus, norovirus, and rotavirus are also at higher levels than they were at this time last year according to CDC data.

Norovirus and rotavirus are really not fun things to get. They cause GI symptoms, so those things are circulating, so there's enough going around that you really don't want to be sick with anything.

HARLOW: Good luck every parent out there with little kids don't wash their hands.

MATTINGLY: Always helpful.

TIRRELL: Yes, wash your hands. There you go.

HARLOW: Right.

MATTINGLY: Meg Tirrell, thank you very much.

TIRRELL: Thanks.

HARLOW: This morning, new developments in Twitter's rebrand. Elon Musk has put a giant X on top of the company's San Francisco headquarters triggering a city investigation.

So according to this new complaint, representatives for the city of San Francisco have visited the headquarters twice since Friday. They've issued a notice of violation alleging the flashing sign now on top of the building went up without a permit.

In a statement of "The Washington Post," a spokesperson for the city's Department of Buildings said to ensure consistency with the historic nature of the building and ensure the new additions are safely attached to the sign. The city requires a permit.

CNN has reached out to the city and X for comment, but joining us now, CNN senior media analyst and Axios senior media reporter Sara Fischer.

I don't know. It doesn't seem like San Francisco is going to make any of this very easy for Elon Musk, but he is set on staying there. He's not going to move it like they moved Tesla headquarters.

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