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CNN This Morning

Today: Federal Grand Jury Expected to Meet in January 6 Case; Trump Burns Through Cash as Legal Troubles Mount; France Evacuating Citizens from Niger. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 01, 2023 - 06:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGOT ROBBIE, ACTRESS: It is the best day ever. So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow. And every day from now till forever!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we saying there's a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?

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JIMENEZ: The world's largest theater chain scoring its biggest single week ticket venue revenue since the company's founding in 1920. It's all thanks to the incredible opening weekend of both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" and the momentum that followed from July 21 to July 27.

Worldwide in just ten days, the two movies combined have earned more than a billion dollars.

Thanks for hanging out. I'm Omar Jimenez. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. So glad you're with us.

Good morning, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

HARLOW: There was a big game this morning.

MATTINGLY: So I thought it was going to be awesome to wake up at 3 a.m. and have an amazing game on.

HARLOW: And?

MATTINGLY: And then it turned out to be the most stressful two hours of my life. And I don't like it anymore.

HARLOW: Aren't you supposed to be reading then, for the show? MATTINGLY: I'm totally prepped with women's soccer.

HARLOW: We'll see how that goes. A lot happened overnight. We'll get to the game in a minute. From politics to geopolitics to the Women's World Cup, of course. Let's get started with "Five Things to Know" for this Tuesday, August 1.

Today could be charging decision day for former President Donald Trump and the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That grand jury will meet just hours from now.

MATTINGLY: And new this morning, Donald Trump's political action committee is almost out of cash. It began last year with more than $100 million. Now it has less than $4 million after paying all those lawyers.

And also new this morning, the former president and Joe Biden statistically tied in a new "New York Times"/Siena poll. The 2020 rematch has them both at 43.

HARLOW: Also, the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer expected in court this morning. It marks his first hearing since he initially pleaded not guilty in the murders of three women in 2010.

"New York Times"/Sienna poll And it was the most stressful two hours of my life. Just moments ago, the U.S. hanging on at the Women's World Cup. It was another tie, this time 0-0 with Portugal. Afterward, one of their former teammates blasting them as arrogant, but they are moving on.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

HARLOW: All right. We've said this before, but here we are again. An indictment against former President Donald Trump could come as soon as today in the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It is Tuesday.

The grand jury in that case may be meeting just hours from now as we learn new information in the other federal investigation into the former president.

In that classified documents case, his Mar-a-Lago property manager is out on $100,000 bond after appearing in a Miami courtroom. Carlos de Oliveira is accused of, among other things, telling the club's I.T. director, quote, "the boss" wanted surveillance footage deleted. That surveillance video is now in the hands of lawyers for both the defense and the prosecution, according to a new court filing.

MATTINGLY: And it's worth noting, a lot of court cases means a lot of lawyers. And new this morning, we know how much of a dent that's putting into Donald Trump's political war chest.

His political action committee, Save America, bleeding cash. Only has less than $4 million left in its account after the first six months of the year, down from $105 million at the beginning of last year. The situation appears so desperate Team Trump clawing back a $60

million donation it made to a pro-Trump super PAC to help pay for those legal fees.

But on the political front, a new poll just out this morning shows that Trump is statistically tied with President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch of that 2020 race. Both sit at 43 percent in that "New York Times"/Siena College poll.

A lot to get to. So let's get right to CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, we've all been on indictment watch for weeks, several different indictments watching, I think, to some degree. Is there an indication that we could actually get one today?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil and Poppy, we will see whenever the morning unfolds.

And the reason that we will see when the morning unfolds is that it matters when the grand jury meets. Any time the grand jury in Washington, D.C., has gathered, it means they could be asked, at this point in time, to approve an indictment against Donald Trump and potentially others.

And this is a Tuesday. And Tuesdays is one of the days where we have seen the grand jury meeting regularly, working with the special counsel prosecutors related to January 6th.

And so it is quite plausible, especially after the last month and a half that Donald Trump has had, that he could be facing another indictment today.

Because when you look back, this special counsel's office, Phil and Poppy, they have been able to walk and chew gum at the same time. They have brought the case against Donald Trump in Florida, this indictment in June 8, where Donald Trump was indicted for the document retention after his presidency.

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And then within about a month, July 16, that's when Donald Trump received the target letter in the separate investigation the special counsel is conducting related to January 6, saying he's very likely to be charged.

And then last Thursday, that was a really busy day, where the special counsel added more charges against Donald Trump in Florida; at the same time was having a meeting with his defense team and also the grand jury was in. So we wait to see if the grand jury gathers today and what exactly they will do, what will come there.

And all of this is coming at the same time as that case in Florida is progressing.

HARLOW: Yes. POLANTZ: This codefendant Carlos de Oliveira was just in court yesterday, now out on $100,000 bond. And he, too, has a lawyer standing next to him and a lot of that video footage that is paid by Donald Trump's political leadership PAC.

HARLOW: We also learned, speaking of the second case you're talking about, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, that de Oliveira is pegged to, that Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors have had that video now for weeks.

What does that tell you, what we learned yesterday on that front?

POLANTZ: Well, the new information that we learned yesterday came in a court filing. And it was a court filing where the Justice Department is saying, we are producing all of the evidence that we've gathered that we need to turn over to Donald Trump's team. We're giving them that evidence so they can look at it, too, for trial.

And they're saying that they did gather additional surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago after they indicted Donald Trump back on June 8.

Now, that surveillance footage, we don't know exactly what the new footage was that they obtained after June 8, but there's been a lot of collections of surveillance footage that are going to be evidenced in this case in the case against Carlos de Oliveira alone.

We know two episodes that are very likely captured on surveillance tape, that they were -- there were -- there were flashlights that he and another person were carrying in a tunnel, looking at the surveillance cameras, where they were outside of the storage room where boxes were kept.

They also -- at one point he was also walking through the Bushes. It's plausible that that is on surveillance tape.

But that's not going to be all the evidence in this case. There's going to be a lot of things the Justice Department has, including witness testimony documents and many, many other things that we can look forward to at trial that we won't be able to see yet.

HARLOW: That's a great point. Katelyn, thanks very much.

So those are the federal investigations. The former president is also facing potential indictment on the state level for efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia.

That investigation still ongoing this morning after Trump's legal team tried to derail it. An Atlanta area judge called the team's filing unnecessary and unfounded after lawyers for Trump tried to get evidence thrown out and the district attorney, Fani Willis, disqualified from overseeing this.

Willis is prepared for charging decisions sometime, we know, in the next few weeks. The barriers are already up outside of the courthouse there. And she emailed this warning to county officials. Quote, "You should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe." She also shared racist and sexualized messages that she has received ahead of this decision.

MATTINGLY: Well, when you focus on all the legal issues the president [SIC] has, of course, as we noted, that means lawyers are involved, lawyers that the former president and his team and his political committees have been attempting to pay out to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

So if you have a shot, which you could say yesterday was the $40 million reported that has been spent in total on legal fees for the president and his associates, well, now you have a chaser.

His campaign political operation has significant money issues. And that was laid out in Federal Election Commission filings last night. So let's go through them.

The primary joint fundraising committee we're talking about here is Trump's leadership PAC, Save America. Now, to put some context on this, last year at the start of the year, it had $105 million. That's a ton of money.

The beginning of this year, 18.3 million.

What does he have right now? As of the latest filing that came out last night, less than $4 million. That's hemorrhaging cash.

You say, all right, well, the president [SIC] has a number of different entities when you have the leadership PAC, a political action committee, when you have his campaign. So clearly, he's got to have money elsewhere, right?

Well, look at the total money spent. They pulled in, that leadership PAC, $53 million over the quarter. If you look at the spending between his political operation and its various committees, they spent more than $53 million. If you add in what the super PAC was spending, as well, which is not legally allowed to coordinate with the campaign, more than $100 million in spending.

There is a money issue right now for the clear front-runner in the Republican nomination.

Well, when you look at where the legal fees actually came from, you actually break down the numbers here, $21 million, based on the joint fundraising committee filing, has been spent on legal fees.

What does that mean? Seventy percent of the total spend coming out of Save America PAC was coming for legal fees. It underscores just how much of a weight this has become for the president's finance operation.

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Here's the most fascinating part about what's in these FEC filings, though. And I'm not kidding when I say FEC findings can be fascinating.

The refunds. We reported yesterday, our team reported yesterday that, according to sources, the joint fundraising committee, which the president and his team do control, had sent or donated $60 million to the super PAC, which legally cannot coordinate with the president [SIC] or his team. They don't technically have control over it.

They have since requested that $60 million back as part of a refund. So Save America gives his -- the committee that the president [SIC] controls, gives $60 million to his super PAC. They have no control over that super PAC. They're not supposed to. They're not legally allowed to coordinate.

They have now asked for that money back, which based on the FEC filing, they have started to get in installments. So far $12.3 million has been sent back to Save America PAC as part of a refund.

Here's the rub. The super PAC is not allowed to technically coordinate with the political action committee. It's not allowed to coordinate with the campaign. While they're trying to get around this by calling it a refund, there's no precedent for a, quote unquote, "refund" being this large.

Trump campaign says they've done everything according to the law, everything legally, but this is new. This is different, and this is very clearly an effort to try and add liquidity when they have a very clear crunch, despite the fact it's never really been done before.

Now one other thing that's really interesting to pick up from these FEC filings. The donations chart.

If you want to chart out how donations have gone, well, the legal issues have clearly put a lot of pressure on the campaign and its finance entities when it comes to spending. It's also led to some pretty good boosts in fundraising.

Look at how this goes in terms of the fundraising over the course of the first six months of the year. You see the big spikes when Trump was indicted in a Manhattan court, when Trump was arraigned in Manhattan court, when Trump was charged for his handling of classified documents. Not as big of spikes as we saw in that case in New York, but that has been a kind of marker of major fundraising days for the president [SIC].

More indictments to come, potentially more fundraising, big fundraising days to come. Obviously, more lawyers and payments to those lawyers to come, as well -- Poppy.

HARLOW: It's so interesting, looking at those charts and where the big donations are. Phil just wanted an excuse to say "liquidity" more. Liquidity in there.

Joining us now CNN senior political analyst, senior editor for "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein; and senior reporter for "The Root," Jessica Washington. Good morning to you both.

So on the liquidity point.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

HARLOW: Does -- do numbers like this encourage more donations, given how widely far ahead Trump is in the polling? Or do they discourage it, Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. First of all, I think the macro point of this is there are no campaign finance laws left. I mean, the -- any -- any limitations have just utterly been shredded. If you have the idea of raising money in a limited super PAC, you know, levels and then transferring it back to a political committee that is operating under contribution limits, it just shows how completely this system has been -- has been shredded.

Money follows success in presidential politics, not the other way around. There may be donors, Republican donors, who feel that Donald Trump is kind of steering their money in the wrong direction. But if they think he is the winner, if he is the likely nominee, they will have no shortage of people lining up to give them money.

Conversely, raising money has never been a guarantee of success in presidential politics. There's a long history of candidates, from Jeb Bush to Phil Graham, all the back to John Conley (ph) in 1980, who excited voters, you know, that shiver down the leg that Chris Matthews talked about, but never connected with voters.

So, I think that the financial aspects of this are very distinct from the electoral.

MATTINGLY: I think Ron makes a great point. If he's -- if Donald Trump becomes the general election nominee for Republicans, he's not going to have a hard time raising money. The money will come in. The super PAC will raise an enormous amount of money and still has, I think, 30 plus million dollars cash on hand right now.

I think what I'm trying to figure out right now, is you look at all the cross-cutting pressures for the president [SIC], both on the legal side, now on the financial side. And yet, he's plus-30 in every single poll we see. Numbers aren't just staying steady. They're rising, and everybody else is falling at this point.

Does this seem to be a foregone conclusion, despite all the pressures?

JESSICA WASHINGTON, SENIOR REPORTER, "THE ROOT": Yes, I hate to say a foregone conclusion in politics, especially with Donald Trump --

MATTINGLY: I was trying to pin you down on just facts, so somebody could replay it later.

WASHINGTON: Thank you, Phil. I saw the trap.

No, I think, you know, with Donald Trump involved, we never know exactly what's going to happen. And I hate to make, you know, these large predictions, but I will say this is someone who has a massive cult of personality. These are -- there are people, Republican primary voters, who will

stick with Donald Trump, despite anything that happens. We've seen it. There's been indictment after indictment, and there are at least two more that we can expect to come. And I don't think he's going to lose his entire base when these next two indictments come out.

HARLOW: Ron, your column this morning hits on exactly this. The headline "Why Trump's Indictments Haven't Shattered the Deadlock Between Parties" I'm going to just read people what was so striking to us from it.

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"These forces face the immovable object of entrenched demographic and geographic divisions that have produced one of the longest periods in American history in which neither party has been able to establish a durable or decisive advantage over the other." You go on to write, "The parties now represent coalitions with such divergent visions of America's future that it's unclear what could allow one side to break from the close competition between them. And that includes the prospect of Republicans choosing a presidential nominee who could be shuttling between the campaign trail and the courtroom."

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

MATTINGLY: I want to send your column to, like, everybody.

BROWNSTEIN: Maybe. Look, you know, we are in an era where the principal dividing line between the parties, between the two coalitions, is whether you welcome or largely fear the way America is changing culturally, demographically and economically.

And those are not divisions that are especially susceptible to being shifted based on current events.

And -- and so, you know, I think there are reasons for Republican -- there are some yellow lights flashing about a Donald Trump candidacy. In that "New York Times" poll today, even though it had them tied, a majority of Americans said he committed serious federal crimes. A majority of Americans said he endangered democracy.

HARLOW: But not a majority of Republican primary voters.

BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. Not at all. The Republican primary voters are buying his basic construct that all of this is an attempt to silence them by going at him, by these shadowy forces.

But in the larger electorate, we're looking -- we're in an era where change is very much at the margins. And while, as I said, there are -- you know, Donald Trump only got to 47 percent last time. It might be hard for him in this environment to get there again.

There are enough doubts about Biden, and there's enough stability to the basic partisan divide that this is not out of reach for either side again in 2024, despite everything that has happened to him since the 2020 election. MATTINGLY: Which I think people need to have a better grasp on, to

some degree. There's a lot of assumptions about what a general would look like, or what a rematch would look like.

Jessica, before I let you go, the -- his top -- Trump's top challenger, Ron DeSantis, who's had a rough couple of weeks, maybe even months, to some degree, released his economic plan yesterday.

And what was fascinating to me is, besides the fact he wouldn't take questions on anything else but the economic plan at his press conference, which is a great way to invite questions on everything else, is there were actually two interesting elements in the plan. What he's done on student loans, with his focus on crypto. And it was interesting to me from a policy side of things.

But I can't fathom that it breaks through in this moment. Is that fair, or am I not understanding the dynamic?

WASHINGTON: Yes. I would agree. It doesn't seem to break through. I mean, the things that we're talking about. You're saying there's all these interesting kind of policy things.

But we're talking about the fact that he said we've got to break away from China, and you know, his focus on we've got to go against woke corporations, as he calls them.

And so I do think it just kind of seems like another part of his culture war, even though this is clearly someone who wants to seem like a serious candidate.

He recognizes that people have been saying for, you know, this entire candidacy this is not someone who is ready, potentially, for the main stage. This is someone who looked like they have flopped repeatedly, you know, as a candidate.

And so I think he's trying to say, I have a serious economic message. And I don't think it's breaking through.

HARLOW: Ron Brownstein, Jessica Washington. You don't get to go anywhere. Stick around. We've got a lot more to talk about with you.

Also this, new overnight, France and Italy now preparing to evacuate their citizens from the Western African nation of Niger following a military takeover there.

MATTINGLY: And overnight, a building in Moscow struck again by a Ukrainian drone. We're going to have the latest developments ahead.

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MATTINGLY: New this morning, officials in France and Italy announced they will begin evacuating citizens from Niger's capital. French officials also announced that they will evacuate their embassy staff. It's been almost a week since the former French colony was taken over

in a military coup. Thousands of people backing that coup marched through the streets, denouncing France.

There have been days of tense and sometimes violent scenes playing out in front of the French embassy.

Now, the French foreign ministry said that violence and the closure of Niger's -- Niger's air space leaves French and European citizens without the ability of leaving the country by their own means.

Now, much of the international community has condemned the coup. France is denying that it is planning a military intervention to free ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, saying it's, quote, "absolutely not true."

Joining us now is "New York Times" chief Africa correspondent Declan Walsh. You have been doing great reporting on this, both from the broader geopolitical level, as well as what's going on, on the ground.

I think one of the things I'm trying to figure out, in talking to U.S. officials yesterday about what they were seeing, they're -- they seem to view it as there's still a possibility to kind of turn things around and get the elected president back into place. Do you think that's still the case?

DECLAN WALSH, CHIEF AFRICA CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": That's right, yes. It's a really unusual situation.

And usually in these coups, once a couple of days have passed, it's extremely difficult to effectively try and engineer a reversal of the coup.

But that's what's been happening, both from the perspective of the U.S., France and also regional countries, which have been putting huge pressure on this new junta on Niger to try and effectively reverse the coup by freeing President Bazoum, who's been in detention for almost a week at this point.

As we understand, he's still being held at the presidential palace in Niamey, in the capital.

But, in another of the sort of unusual aspects of this, he seems to have free access to his phone. He's been sending tweets, meeting with visiting leaders and holding phone calls with his own officials and with people like Secretary of State Antony -- Antony Blinken. So it's another sign that this is still a fluid and unresolved situation.

HARLOW: One thing you note throughout your reporting is that experts generally agree how hard it is to reverse a coup after just a matter of days.

But as Phil noted, the West -- and these are the officials he's talked to -- also other experts believe that they still can. Tony Blinken over the weekend, the secretary of state, sort of threatening withholding the significant military and other funding and assistance it has given to Niger if something doesn't change.

You have a relatively new but democratic government that was installed there. You have people like Bill and Melinda Gates who had spent time there on stage with the now ousted president. I mean, there was a lot of hope that this time would be different.

Does your reporting reflect that at all? That this won't repeat what we've seen in other neighboring nations?

WALSH: I think it's a mark of how significant this coup is seen. There's been a series of coups in the region over the last three years in Guinea, in Burkina Faso, in Mali. In most of those instances, regional and Western countries, after an initial protest, sort of shrugged and effectively have moved on and accepted the situation.

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Here, they seem to be drawing a red line. And I think, from the American perspective, that's because Niger is really seen as a kind of lynchpin of the region.

With so many countries falling to coups -- you've got Russia's Wagner Group moving into neighboring Mali, helping to fight the militants there. Niger is this country that has been really a democratic outpost. President Bazoum was elected in a relatively free election a couple years ago.

And of course, it's a country that is host to 1,100 U.S. troops and about 1,500 French troops. There's also, too, the Pentagon also has a couple of drone bases that it uses to carry out strikes in Niger and also in the region, against groups that are affiliated with al Qaeda and Islamic State.

So I think the U.S. really sees this as a coup that it can't afford to just let to slide. And that's why we're seeing such strenuous efforts to try and roll things back, even though on the ground, the -- you know, the junta and -- the junta are making it clear that they're going nowhere, and they've issued some very belligerent statements saying that they will not continence any foreign interference or certainly not a military intervention.

HARLOW: Declan Walsh, we appreciate you joining us. We'll continue to follow your reporting.

WALSH: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, "X" doesn't mark the spot? I like that. Why Twitter's new and glowing logo was just removed from the company's headquarters.

MATTINGLY: "An illusion of access," that's a quote. What Hunter Biden's former business partner, Devin Archer, revealed during a closed-door House Oversight Committee meeting.

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