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CNN This Morning

Lawyers Argue Rudy Giuliani did not "Literally" call for Insurrection with "Trial by Combat" Speech; 2024 GOP Hopeful Chris Christie Joins CNN this Morning; Barr: Anger will give way to Reason in Elections; Health Officials Brace for Three Major Viruses this Fall. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 18, 2023 - 7:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

BEN MCKENZIE, AUTHOR, "EASY MONEY: CRYPTOCURRENCY, CASINO CAPITALISM, AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF FRAUD": You know, have some insurance basically he's going to win either way right. If the market goes down, he's going to profit from his put potions. And if the market goes up, he's going to profit from his long positions. So it's hard to say and so, you know, unfortunately, the 13-F is already a little outdated because that's only through the second quarter.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: It's a regulatory filing.

MCKENZIE: Yes, sorry, regulatory SEC filings, I know this is also so technical. But it is interesting to watch, you know, the markets obviously went down in early 2022. They've come back up, although not to their full heights of 2021. And the Fed is it done raising interest rates? We don't know yet.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: So one of the interesting things is, if you look at kind of the broader macro numbers for the U.S. economy, I think it has all predictions have proven to be wrong. But I think some of the smartest economists, whether you're talking about GDP, whether you're talking about jobs, whether you're talking about just about everything, to some degree, even the trajectory downward trajectory of inflation, given the Feds efforts. You listen to Janet Yellen; this is what she said this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, TREASURY SECRETARY: Today, overall inflation and the unemployment rate both sit below 4 percent. And our economy continues to expand. And -- are better off than they were last year, real average hourly earnings have grown over the past year, that means wage gains are outpacing inflation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So it's interesting to contrast that with what Warren Buffett is doing, or kind of the assumption over the course of the last 18 months that at some point, there's going to be a downturn at some point, there's got to be an effect that hits the broader macro economy.

MCKENZIE: Yes, I mean, you know, look, if you zoomed out, there's a lot of factual evidence to support that claim. I mean, you can look at what's happening in China, for example.

HARLOW: Yes.

MCKENZIE: The Chinese economy is slowing down at a pretty alarming rate. And obviously, at this point, all these economies are interconnected, and our economy is as connected to China as any other. It'll be interesting to see at some point, the bill does come due. And I don't think we're out of the woods yet.

HARLOW: And you bring up China, there are also questions about how reliable those numbers even are, and are it worse, with China? Actually, they're on paper.

MCKENZIE: Yes, they even stopped reporting their youth employment numbers.

HARLOW: Right.

MCKENZIE: Which is a little concerned?

HARLOW: Finally, what keeps you up at night on the economy that we're not talking about that you don't see on the front of the Wall Street Journal and the money that you think people should be talking about?

MCKENZIE: Well, I'm just I'm worried about the rate kick in really has a 12 to 18 month time lag. And so, we're only at that 18 month mark now from when the Fed started raising interest rates about 18 months ago. So I'm just worried if there's a lot of debt on the books. We know about commercial debt here and Manhattan is obviously pretty extensive. So that --

HARLOW: Empty buildings.

MCKENZIE: Yes, a lot of empty buildings in New York City announced that there could convert some empty office buildings into housing, which is great, but there's a bill to come through there as well.

HARLOW: Yes, there always is.

MCKENZIE: Yes.

MATTINGLY: You know, if you're reading the Financial Times this morning, on the front page, you see crypto took an 8 percent hit yesterday and you want to know about that. He's got a book.

HARLOW: It's a great book, by the way, Ben, congrats on it. Thank you. OK, there was a debate next week, five days away from the first Republican presidential debate. We're getting a sense, some particulars about one candidate strategy. And what will Chris Christie do, he joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:35:00]

MATTINGLY: Well, it's just days until the first Republican debate Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign has to explain his strategy memo, like the strategy memo and documents from his super PAC. Now sources tell CNN the memo has stirred confusion and anger from fundraisers and donors was first reported by the New York Times, the super PAC urging DeSantis at the debate to "Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy and defend Donald Trump in response to a Chris Christie attack".

HARLOW: So this memo also has "A specific suggestion for an attack line accusing Mr. Christie of appealing mainly to Democrats. Trump isn't here. So let's just leave him alone. He's too weak to defend himself here. I don't think we want to join forces with someone who on this stage who's auditioning for a show on MSNBC"

So the DeSantis campaign response to this whole thing and says this was not a campaign memo. We are not aware of it. We weren't aware of it prior to the article. With us now is Chris Christie, not in an audition for a show on MSNBC. We appreciate you being here, Governor, would you like you're in Miami? We'll get -- in a moment. Would you like to respond to this from DeSantis PAC?

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Well, well, first off, I'd like to respond to what the campaign said. It's not a campaign memo. There is no DeSantis campaign, the entire DeSantis campaign is being run by the never backed down super PAC. They've gotten all the people at the campaign fired that they didn't like, and now they're writing strategy memos and putting them on the internet where everybody can see them.

Look, this just shows you. It's not easy to run for president, everybody. And if you can't run for president in a way that doesn't create embarrassing process stories, you know, multiple times a week, you certainly can't run the White House and run the federal government or be trusted to sit across from President Xi, or Vladimir Putin, or Kim Jong-Un.

And so, you know, I think it's an indication of something much, much bigger in terms of problems with Governor DeSantis. But, you know, I'll show up Wednesday night, we'll see how it goes.

HARLOW: Alright, so let's talk about how it's going to go. You've called Trump a coward for probably not going maybe he's going come we'll see. What are you going to do on the debate stage if he's not there? Or you're going to say that to Ron DeSantis? Are your attacks going to be against people like Tim Scott and others and DeSantis, who have basically stood by Trump through all these indictments?

CHRISTIE: Poppy, I've got a very simple debate strategy. Listen to the questions, answer them directly and honestly, and if someone up there says something that I believe is dishonest to call them out on it. That's it. I don't have any more complicated strategy than that. I don't and I don't think you need one.

I think what the American people want to see is, what's your plan for the future? Are you strong enough to be able to implement them? And are you willing to put yourself in front of them? And answer whatever questions come from two, I think very good, credible interviewers, Bret Baier, and Martha McCallum, and I look forward to doing that.

And I think all the people are going through the strategy memo stuff and coming up with candle lines and all the rest of it. I've watched that candle. I think it doesn't work all that well.

MATTINGLY: Yes, you pointed that out.

HARLOW: You call -- how they recall that.

MATTINGLY: And -- if I recall correctly, I think it was covering your campaign at the time. To that point, though, you're not looking around and saying that's my biggest problem in New Hampshire. That individual is the biggest hurdle I have to become the clear kind of contrast to Donald Trump here. You're not thinking through any of that. You're just going in and responding.

[07:40:00]

CHRISTIE: That's right, Phil. And by the way, my biggest problem with what I'm focused on is the biggest problem for the Republican Party for the feeding Joe Biden. And that's Donald J Trump. And you know, by the time we get to that stage Wednesday night guys, he is more likely than not going to be out on bail in four different jurisdictions.

However, to think about that out on bail, I mean, the first question maybe should be from Bret Baier, Donald Trump, can you explain to us what the restrictions that were placed on you by all four different courts are as a condition of your release from custody?

I mean imagine that we have a front runner who has to answer those types of questions. I'm focused on that, because I'm not focused on any one particular person, except for the person who's ahead of me and in New Hampshire, now that I've passed Donald Trump, or I pass rather Ron DeSantis. My next job is to pass Donald Trump in the polls there. So --

MATTINGLY: Were you surprised?

CHRISTIE: That's what I am focused on Phil.

MATTINGLY: Right.

CHRISTIE: Is Donald Trump.

MATTINGLY: Were you surprised, given you know, the former president and his penchant for either taking advice or not taking advice that he canceled that Monday press conference, he'd set up because of his lawyers?

CHRISTIE: No, I'm not surprised by it. Because what he now knows is, he's facing jail time. And he can't make his situation much worse, and expect his lawyers to be able to do anything to help him. What he should have done, Phil, is listen to his lawyers back in the White House between November of 2020 and January 20 of 2021.

When they told him, if you continue with this election, interference activity, you are going to spend the rest of your life dealing with the criminal justice system. Bill Barr said that yesterday that that's what he was told, not only by Bill Barr, his attorney general and other members of the Justice Department.

But he was told that by his White House counsel as well, Pat Cipollone, he should have listened to those words, and maybe he wouldn't be under indictment in four jurisdictions today. And he wouldn't be putting the country through this. He's not doing this for us. He is doing this because he can't help himself.

And I think the first smart decision he's made in this regard, in a long time, was canceling that ridiculous press conference for Monday, where all of a sudden, he's going to unveil evidence to us that he's apparently been hiding from the American people for nearly three years. I don't think so. I think it would just been another, you know, Junior Show of the apprentice, that we would have been watching on television.

HARLOW: Responding to the DeSantis campaign attack on you as auditioning for an MSNBC show. There's some interesting polling, though, I know you've seen it. Quinnipiac says 32 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of you versus 17 percent of Republicans, and you're the most favored Republican in another poll among Democratic voters. That's great for a general but is it out of step with where the Republican primary electorate is?

CHRISTIE: Look Poppy, I had no question about the fact that when you want to tell the truth about Donald Trump, that in the beginning, there are going to be some people who are going to react unfavorably to that. And I get that. But over time, what people don't understand is, I'm the only one who's telling the truth about Donald Trump.

And what that shows you is, and they didn't break out the numbers among independents, which are even better for me than the numbers you showed. And that's what a Republican is going to have to do in order to win the presidency in November. Let me say this, Poppy, out of that beating Joe Biden, I don't want Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back in office; I think they've been a disaster.

And so, we got to have someone who can beat them, and Donald Trump cannot beat him on the person. By the way, when I ran for re-election in New Jersey, I won with 61 percent of the vote in one of the blue states in America, and did so by winning 51 percent Hispanic vote, 29 percent of the African American vote, and over 70 percent of the independent vote.

And that's the kind of formula you're going to need for the Republican Party to go back to winning a majority of the popular vote and the electoral vote in November 2024. And that's what those numbers tell me.

MATTINGLY: You know you make a good point, though, in the sense of what I'm interested in exploring here. You mentioned Bill Barr earlier, and just how sharply he's turned against the former president because of what's transpired. And you mentioned that it was going to be hard early in a Republican primary, given how people view Trump with Republicans.

Bill Barr, even yesterday saying I would not commit to not voting for the former president again. I want you to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I've already explained that. If I thought that one of two people is going to end up as the president, that I wouldn't throw my vote away, I would try to make a decision that would do the least damage to the country. But if there were other options, I would also consider.

[07:45:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you just not vote for president?

BARR: No, I think, no, if one of two people is going to do it, I would have to make that bitter choice. And if there are other options --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it's conceivable, Bill Barr could vote for Donald Trump?

BARR: Well as I said I jump off that bridge, when I get to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Beyond the fact that other than you I'm not sure anybody else, that high level of Republican official has been so visceral in their criticism, and colorful to some degree of the former president. Isn't that the problem that you have Republicans who say explicitly, he's terrible for the country, he should never be president and again.

And they get asked, will you vote for him again, and won't commit one way or another? If you can't kind of breakthrough that, that's a problem for candidates like yourself, isn't it?

CHRISTIE: I don't think so, Phil, because listen, I mean, I think Bill Barr made it very clear, he's not supporting Donald Trump in the Republican primary for President.

MATTINGLY: But he's one of those that should be the easiest to get to say explicitly, like, you have to get people to say, I'm not going to vote for him period, in order to shift the primary electorate to some degree.

CHRISTIE: No Phil, step one is to get them to vote for you in the primary. That's step one. And Bill Barr just made it very clear that he's not voted for Donald Trump in the primary. And then he expects someone else to be the nominee. And he's right, because I'm going to be the nominee. And if I had a guess, I bet your bill Barr is going to vote for me.

But he'll have to answer that question himself at some point when he goes into a voting booth. But in the end, what I'd say to you is that job one is to get Republicans to come to the same conclusion Bill Barr has come to, which is Donald Trump is bad for the party, because he can't beat Joe Biden.

And he's bad for the country, because of the things that he has done, both while he was president, and most particularly in the post presidency period. And so, you know, I'm not worried about the general election at the moment. And what people I can persuade to vote for me, then I'm going to get him to vote for me now, Phil, so we never have to confront that bridge that Bill Barr said he was prepared to jump off.

I'm going to give him a break. We're not going to have that bridge. I'll be the candidate for president. And then he won't have to worry about jumping off any bridge too bright, illegal binds to having committed suicide.

HARLOW: Wow. I want to ask you about the economy because people are not happy with this, with Bionomics, even though there's some evidence that is working. You've been critical of it. Yesterday, Trump said he wouldn't reappoint Jerome Powell, the Head, the Fed is not happy with them. But you have said you'd consider it. Do you still have that position? Would you keep Jerome Powell and Christie administration? Has he done a good job?

CHRISTIE: Yes, I think if Donald Trump were elected president, Jerome Powell would probably jump off the same bridge Bill Barr talked about. Look, anybody who doesn't do exactly what Donald Trump says exactly when he says it goes from being brilliant, which is what he called Jerome Powell, when he appointed him to now being somebody wouldn't reappoint.

HARLOW: What do you say?

CHRISTIE: What he says about personnel --

HARLOW: Is he brilliant, does he stay?

CHRISTIE: I don't know if, I don't know if he's brilliant or not. But I will tell you this. He's starting to bring inflation down, which is the job of the Fed. And all of us knew that when Joe Biden went crazy with his spending, even Larry Summers said that it was going to create big inflation.

And it did, and it left the fed with no choice but to raise interest rates in order to bring that inflation back under control. Because inflation is the hidden tax that kills every family in this country, when they go to the gas station, to the supermarket, to pay for their educational costs, to pay for clothing for their kids, that's the pain Americans are still feeling now.

And poppy, you know, we've seen gas prices go up 30 cents in the last 10 days a gallon, while people are trying to get in their last bit of maybe a little bit of a vacation before school starts. This is a tax that really hurts those folks and may make it unaffordable. That's Bionomics. And, you know, 7 percent mortgage interest rates where the mortgages are now $1,300 a month more than they were when a month than when Joe Biden became president. If that's Bionomics, he can keep it. And so, I think Jerome Powell has done exactly what he needed to do, in terms of trying to bring inflation back under control, which is hurting the American people.

And it wouldn't be happening at all. If it hadn't been for Joe Biden's crazy reckless spending, which drove inflation to double digits for the first time since to his favorite President, Jimmy Carter?

HARLOW: Right. There's a lot of spending in the Trump Administration too, COVID spending especially, I hear you. You sound like you're ready to debate and we hear you have to go. So we're going to let you go, Governor, come back soon.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Governor.

CHRISTIE: We will, thank you very much, guys. It's great to be honor with you. I appreciate you having me.

HARLOW: Of course, enjoy Miami.

MATTINGLY: Well, health officials across the country are bracing for another triple threat of viruses this fall. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta will fill us in on how to be prepared.

HARLOW: Also emotions are running very high inside a Mississippi courtroom after a judge declares a mistrial in the case of two white men accused of shooting at a black FedEx driver.

[07:50:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With great reluctance, the court has no choice in this matter, but to grant the motion for a mistrial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Health officials across the country are bracing for another triple threat of viruses this fall. They're warning three respiratory viruses COVID, the flu and RSV could all hit at the same time. Stop me if you've heard this before already. We're seeing an uptick in COVID cases.

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. Sanjay, let's start with COVID-19. It seems like everyone knows someone who has it right now. Where do we stand on this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, it's interesting. There's, there's good news. And there's bad news here overall. First of all, there's not a lot of testing going on, as you probably know. So it's hard to get a sense of the real numbers, the amount of transmission out there. But they do these wastewater samples.

And when they look at wastewater, we know that there's a lot of COVID that's out there. So what we really look at is hospital admissions, trying to figure out if that's a good sort of measure of what's going on, let me show you the country as a whole. There are patches of the country, red and orange are going to be places where you see more significant increase.

There are a few places where the numbers actually going down. And yellow is sort of stable. So that gives you a snapshot of how things look. Now, it's August, as the weather gets cooler and drier. We know that these viruses tend to spread more. But let me give you this sort of trajectory over the last couple of years of how things have looked.

We know you know if you look at that very big surge in the middle there that was Omicron right before that, in September of 21. That was delta.

[07:55:00]

Far right of the screen is where we are now. The numbers are going up but August of this year right now is about a quarter of what August of last year was. So you know the answer I guess is we're going to see, we know the numbers will continue to go up. But luckily, they're starting at a much lower level than in years past.

HARLOW: We talk to you almost we did talk to almost every day during the pandemic, can you remind people of their latest guidance? What like, if someone tests for any of these three positive? What did they do stay home again?

DR. GUPTA: Yes, I mean, this is probably the question I get more than anything else. First of all, if you're sick, you should stay home.

HARLOW: Right.

DR. GUPTA: That was guidance that existed long before this pandemic. So that's important to keep in mind. So with COVID specifically, if you test then isolation is zero to five days. So really five days after a positive test, that's how long you have to isolate. Now, one quick caveat there, I think we can put this up, if you will.

One quick caveat is that if you have symptoms, and then you test like a couple of days into your symptoms, your isolation actually begins on the first day of your symptoms. OK, that makes sense.

HARLOW: OK.

DR. GUPTA: So just keep that in mind. You don't need to test to end isolation. But if you have two negative tests, that also means there's no mask that's recommended, up until day 10. Four complicated, but really the first five days, that's when you're most infectious, that's when you should stay home. You don't need to test to get out of that isolation at this point.

HARLOW: OK. MATTINGLY: So you can see the numbers that this year is different, but it's also different because we have protection from all three of the viruses. What can we expect vaccinations so look like this fall?

DR. GUPTA: Like I put this together to try and make this as simple as possible, so flu, COVID, RSV, really dependent on age. If you're under the age of 60, before Halloween, you should get your flu shot. Late September for COVID, that's when that new booster is expected to come out. It is not an exact match for what is currently circulating dominantly circulating in the country, but it's still good protection, especially for people who are vulnerable.

You don't need to worry about RSV if you're under the age of 60, same guidance for those over the age of 60. Talk to your doctor specifically about RSV if you're at high risk for that particular vaccine.

HARLOW: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you friend.

DR. GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

HARLOW: Now to this story, a miss trial has been declared in the case of a white father and son charged with the attempted murder of a black FedEx driver in Mississippi. Gregory and Brandon Case are accused of chasing and shooting D'Monterrio Gibson who was delivering packages to Brookhaven home last year. Here's a courtroom reaction when the judge ruled this is a mistrial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With great reluctance the court has no choice in this matter, but to grant the motion for a mistrial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Dianne Gallagher is following this. She joins us now. Explain to us Dianne, why a mistrial, but also who our viewers just saw on the screen with that reaction to the judge?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that was the mother of D'Monterrio Gibson, Poppy, just a shocking moment in court. After a police officer admitted to withholding evidence, a detective under oath on the stand had a videotaped interrogation, a witness statement with that victim that never turned over to the defense or the prosecution.

Now, the judge granting that motion for a mistrial that came from a defense attorney for the defendants Brandon and Gregory Case, the white father and son who are charged with attempted murder. They were accused of chasing and shooting at Gibson, a black FedEx driver who was making deliveries on a dead end road one evening in January 2022.

Gibson says he was wearing the FedEx uniform, but he was in a Hertz Rental van when a white pickup truck came behind him blowing the horn. Gibson said he tried to get out of the way that's when he saw a man with a gun and the pickup truck trying to block him in. He says that he heard several shots and then felt shots on the van there that he was driving and the pickup truck chased him out of the neighborhood to the interstate. Gibson spoke to CNN and said that even though this happened a year and a half ago, it feels like it's been a lifetime of waiting. And now he has to start all over again. He says he feels like this was intentional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D'MONTERRIO GIBSON, FEDEX DRIVER WHO SAYS DEFENDATS SHOT AT HIM: Is definitely a screw up. He's not the first one to do hey, and then with my case, in other cases, it's just like due to negligence on the part. I feel like I'm not going to say everything was purposely done, but just like a lot of incompetence in a police department, you know, for them to not turn off a certain piece of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now CNN has reached out to the Brookhaven Police Department for comment they have not responded to us. Gibson's Attorney, Poppy, tells us that they expect that they won't -- they will get a new trial, but it won't happen until later this year or perhaps next year. They do plan to file a civil suit against the City of Brookhaven, they tell us.

HARLOW: All right, Dianne Gallagher thank you for the update. Keep us posted. The next hour of "CNN this Morning" starts now.