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Trump Says He Will Surrender Thursday at Fulton County Jail; Eight Candidates Qualify for First Republican Presidential Debate; Trump's Rivals to Face Off Without Him at First GOP Debate. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired August 22, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is that, you know, what we're these migrants told to be transported to various places, maybe far from the city where they've told that there may be a job for them there.

[07:00:08]

That is what the A.G.'s office is going to be looking into.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Okay. Thank you for keeping us posted.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: CNN This Morning continues now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 45th president of the United States now plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail this Thursday.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Even though this is his fourth indictment, this is the first time that he has had to post cash bond.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are in unprecedented territory. We're going to find out where the line is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eight candidates are fully qualified now to participate in this debate.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I don't think our voters look kindly on somebody that thinks they don't have to earn it.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have no issue with him skipping the fest couple of debates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump, he can sit back and watch people attack Ron DeSantis and watch Ramaswamy defend him.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are on Maui viewing firsthand the devastation and pain left that has been left there by the wildfires.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The country should grieve with you, stands with you. We're with you for as long as it takes.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: There's no public list of the missing. Plenty of folks are coming to grips with the idea that their loved ones are now part of the landscape here.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Millions across the southwest are recovering after Tropical Storm Hilary brought life threatening floods, damaging winds, power outages and evacuations to the region.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is actually a road. This scene is being repeated across Southern California.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't describe it. I've never seen like that. The amount of water we got, it is huge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heading to shopping mall. Please make sure your seat belt is fastened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Incidents involving autonomous vehicles have spiked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't be stupid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not ready for primetime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The status quo of transportation is unacceptable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pay attention, get on board, get ahead of this because it's coming your way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Well, good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're with us at the top of the hour. Victor Blackwell by my side, good morning.

BLACKWELL: Good morning. Good to be with you. You too.

HARLOW: Day two, pre-debate day. Getting your popcorn ready?

BLACKWELL: I was going to ask you about snacks.

HARLOW: We talk about snacks in the commercials here.

BLACKWELL: We talk about snacks in the breaks. You guys ready?

HARLOW: Yes, we're ready.

This new overnight, the official lineup for the first Republican presidential debate is out. There you have it. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is not in it. The RNC releasing the names of the eight candidates who will appear on the stage in Milwaukee tomorrow night. Trump has already said he was going to skip the debate. The RNC chairwoman was holding out hope though he might change his mind.

Also this developing overnight, former President Trump says he will surrender at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday, the day after his debate. This will be his fourth arrest this year. His bond has been set at $200,000 on those 13 felony charges for trying to overturn his election loss in Georgia.

BLACKWELL: The judge is already warning Trump that when he's released, he is not allowed to threaten or intimidate any of the witnesses or 18 co-defendants in the case, including on social media.

Several of Trump's alleged coconspirators reached bell agreements as they get ready to surrender, among them, Attorney John Eastman, he the architect of the legal strategy to keep Trump in power after he lost the election. He is set to turn himself in tomorrow.

CNN Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz is live outside the Fulton County courthouse. The judge laying out conditions already for Trump's release.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Victor, the strictest conditions that Donald Trump has faced yet as a criminal defendant in four different cases, four different courts. Here in Georgia, those conditions have two things that make this much stricter for the former president as he awaits trial not in jail.

So, these are the conditions that allow him to be released awaiting his trial rather than staying in jail. The top one to be watching is that not only is he told he can't intimidate any witnesses or defendants or speak to any other co-defendants or potential witnesses in this case about the facts of January 6th, which is the allegations for this case, he also explicitly is not allowed to be doing that on social media. He can't be posting in a way that could be perceived as intimidating witnesses.

No other court has said it that directly, even though a similar term is on top of him for his situation in the federal court in Washington, D.C. as well as New York. So, there is going to be a lot of attention paid to what Donald Trump might be posting on social media, saying publicly, including related to some of his rivals in the political sphere, people like Mike Pence who's running against him. He would be very much a crucial witness in this case or a possible witness here in Georgia.

Separately, he has a $200,000 bond term. No cash bond was set, no money amount in any of the other cases. And so here in Georgia that $200,000, that's the promise that Donald Trump makes to pay to the court if he were not to show up for his case, for his proceedings.

[07:05:01]

Other defendants have reached agreements already as well in this 19- defendant case, two attorneys, John Eastman and Ken Chesebro, they both made their bond agreements as well. The reason that everyone does that first is so that when they go and be arrested at the jail, that that process can be fairly efficient so that they don't have to spend a long time in jail until they can be bonded out.

And so this sets up the possibility for Donald Trump to turn himself in on Thursday, Eastman to turn himself in on Wednesday for their arrests. We're waiting to see what else happens today as far as bond negotiations.

HARLOW: Okay. Katelyn, thanks so much for the reporting there in Atlanta. Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right. Let's pick it up there. What happens next?

Let's bring in now CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Elie Honig.

All right, so as Katelyn mentioned, some of the 19, they now have these agreements in place. What does that mean? Walk us through it.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, 5 of the 19 now have agreements in place. And these are agreements, to be clear, between the D.A. and the individual defendants that have now been signed off by the judge.

There're two components to each of these release agreements. The first of it is a cash bond. Donald Trump has agreed to a $200,000 cash bond. He doesn't have to write a check for $200,000. That's just in case he doesn't show. John Eastman has an agreement for $100,000. Kenneth Cheseboro, another attorney, $100,000. Ray Smith, $50,000. Scott Hall, $10,000. Expect to hear about more of these agreements being reached throughout the day.

Now, the second part of these bail release agreements, which are I think more complicated here, restrictions on communications. The judge has entered an order, Donald Trump has agreed it to, that he cannot threaten or intimidate any co-defendants, any witnesses or any victims. And, interestingly, for Donald Trump, it specifies use of social media, including not just posting but reposting.

And Donald Trump has been on a bit of a bender the last three weeks or so starting with this infamous Truth Social and many that followed that we won't re-circulate here that are much more specific and direct. And so there's a question about how are prosecutors going to police this. I think they're going to be looking for posts directed at a specific individual and they're specifically tied to this case.

But keep in mind, Donald Trump does have First Amendment rights. He's allowed to talk about the case and he is in the middle of a campaign. So, we'll see how this gets policed.

BLACKWELL: And this has been what he's focused on primarily in these rallies that he's holding for the campaign.

HONIG: For sure.

BLACKWELL: So, what happens this week? There is a deadline coming. When do we expect these people to surrender?

HONIG: Yes. All 19 defendants have been given until Friday at noon. That clock is ticking. By the way, if anyone does not surrender by then, that enables the D.A. to send out cops, law enforcement, to go make an arrest. I think everyone will comply with this.

Important difference here from what we've seen before. In the past, the surrenders have happened in the courthouses. This surrender that we'll seeing tomorrow and into the future will happen at the Fulton County Jail.

Now, they're not going to be locked up. They're not going to be in cells or general population, but they are going to have to go through the processing at the jail. That will involve a search, typically medical screening, fingerprints.

And then the mug shot, we're going to a question mark there because we don't know for sure. The sheriff has said, yes, we will take a mug shot of Donald Trump unless we're told otherwise. Georgia law actually requires mug shots for all felonies. If there is a mug shot of Donald Trump, very likely we will see it publicly fairly quickly given Georgia law.

The other thing that's really important in the prior cases, the same day as the processing, there's been a court appearance. Here, there's not going to be a court appearance until sometime down the line which will be set by the judge in this case.

BLACKWELL: Okay, so what happens there? And then tell us more about this judge.

HONIG: This judge, Scott McAfee, he graduated law school in 2013. That's not a typo, 2013. If you're doing the math, Victor, he's 34 years old, which makes him much younger than me. I don't know about you.

BLACKWELL: And me, yes.

HONIG: Okay. It makes me feel kind of old. He was a federal prosecutor. He was actually a state prosecutor under the D.A., Fani Willis, for a short amount of time. He was made a judge earlier this year in 2023 by the Republican governor of Georgia, Governor Kemp.

The reviews on him have been uniformly solid. He knows what he's doing. That's what we've been told so far. But imagine being in your first year on the bench, you get your cases randomly wheeled out. This was randomly assigned and this one lands in your lap.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it is a huge one and he will get a lot of attention, Scott McAfee, the judge there.

Elie Honig, thanks so much.

HONIG: Thank, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Poppy?

HARLOW: All right. This morning, we know who will be facing off in the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee tomorrow night. Eight candidates will take the stage, not the clear frontrunner, President Trump. He has opted out. He's taped an interview instead with Tucker Carlson that will air during the debate.

Jeff Zeleny live in Milwaukee with more. So, hopefully, they prepared, Jeff, without Trump. They're going to talk about him a lot, I'm sure. What do we know about how they're all preparing for tomorrow night?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, good morning. Well, the stage is set now for those eight candidates. And you're right, all the hopefuls I'm told have been preparing for the possibility of Trump coming to the debate or the possibility of him not. Now that we know he's not coming, though, he's still going to be a central figure, of course, in this debate.

[07:10:02]

But, first, let's take a look at which eight candidates will be on the debate stage. Of course, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is the second candidate in most national and state polls, he, of course, qualified a long time ago, as did senator Tim Scott from South Carolina. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will also be on stage as well Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

The other candidates on stage will be former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as well as former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson there. He was the last candidate to qualify. I actually saw him flying here yesterday. He said he is excited to participate in this debate.

So, yes, this is going to be essentially ringing the opening bell of the Republican primary campaign in this summer. But, of course, the big person not on stage is Donald Trump. The Fox News hosts have said they do plan to make him a central part of this debate.

But the other candidates are looking for a way to break out in their own way. Of course, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence have been talking extensively in critical ways of the former president. The other candidates largely have not been. They'll be looking for a viral moment, if possible, to introduce themselves. And this is the biggest stage any of them have ever had and will likely ever have in this primary campaign to make their case to Republican voters here.

So, there are many debates scheduled this fall, virtually one a month, but this is a critical one for these lower tiered candidates in particular and for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He has been practicing with one of the biggest debate coaches in Republican politics, Brett O'Donnell. And this is a chance for him to either show that he is the second tier candidate or perhaps have someone else replace him in that.

And so a huge night for these Republican candidates tomorrow here in Milwaukee. Poppy?

HARLOW: And it's happening in a critical state, battleground state of Wisconsin. So, I wonder what your reporting is on Democrats as they watch this closely.

ZELENY: and that is exactly why this is here. Of course, Republicans will hold their convention here in Milwaukee next summer. And this is one of the closest states in the country. Of course, Trump won in 2016. He lost in 2020. But Democrats are already advertising here. President Biden's campaign is.

Many Democrats will be descending on Milwaukee to paint this entire field of candidates as extreme, in their words. So, this marks the first time that the White House and the president's campaign will be sort of injecting themselves, asserting themselves into this Republican campaign.

So, you can be sure what happens on stage tomorrow night will certainly play a major role in the general election campaign next summer. Poppy?

HARLOW: Jeff Zeleny for us in Milwaukee, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Some of Donald Trump's rivals, some of them, are slamming him for skipping tomorrow's debate. But what do Republican voters think? We'll break down the latest polling and new insight from a New York Times focus group.

HARLOW: Also new this morning, new reporting also from The New Yorker reveals just how much the U.S. Government relies on Elon Musk's companies. It is fascinating. Journalist Ronan Farrow joins us on set to talk about all of it.

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[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We now know that Donald Trump is probably not going to show up at the first two debates. If he shows up at the third one, which I suspect he might, because he's going to get pretty damaged to these first two by not being there, in my opinion, you're going to want me to be there to continue to bring it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Presidential Candidate Chris Christie reacting to the news that former President Trump will not participate in tomorrow night's Republican debate. Instead, Trump will be preparing to turn himself in to the Fulton County Jail the following day.

Joining us now, Politics Reporter at Semafor Shelby Talcott and CNN Political Analyst and National Politics Reporter for The New York Times Astead Herndon. Welcome to you both.

I want to get, before I get to a question, one more of the candidates in on the former president's decision not to debate. Here is Governor Ron DeSantis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DESANTIS: I think he owes it to people. I don't think our voters, even people that appreciate what he did, and I'm actually one that appreciated a lot of what he did, too, I don't think they're going to look kindly on somebody that thinks they don't have to earn it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: But, Astead, there is this really revealing focus group from your paper, The New York Times, where they find one of the findings from this discussion was that, assuming Mr. Trump skips the debate, as planned, he might not really pay a price. Many of the respondents felt his strong performance entitled him to a first-round bye. Okay. So, he's not there. We still know it.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I just came from Iowa. We heard this sentiment over and over and over. You have for the kind of Republican base, that built-in support, that built-in trust of Donald Trump. And the feeling among some that he should be frankly treated as an incumbent, as the kind of heir to the nomination. And that is, I think, a large slice of the Republican electorate.

But we consistently see him polling in kind of 50 percent of folks who are looking for an alternative, the type of people who might have liked what Donald Trump did but think that he has some baggage that might make him a less electable candidate. That's who those are kind of alternatives are trying to appeal to in this next debate. The problem for them is that that's not the majority of the Republican voters. There's still that huge group of people, as the focus group points to, as our reporting points to, that really kind of back him on this decision.

Now, I think to Governor Christie's point, we don't know if that's going to last, right? If he takes some damage in this next debate, if he's someone who looks kind of increasingly weakened maybe from the trials, I could see Donald Trump coming back to use these platforms. We know he is not someone who shirks from any spotlight.

But as of right now, because voters aren't going to pay -- because voters aren't imposing an electoral penalty on him for skipping it, I think that is really giving him the backing to be able to say, okay, maybe not this first debate, maybe not the second debate, I might come to the third one.

HARLOW: I'm super interested in what Vivek Ramaswamy is going to do on the stage. Because your reporting in Semafor is that he hasn't done any mock debates, certainly played a lot of tennis, played some tennis with you.

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Yes.

HARLOW: By the way, we learned this morning Shelby was a pro tennis player or becoming a pro reporter.

TALCOTT: Washed up.

HARLOW: No, not at all. But it's interesting. Here is what he tweeted trying to distinguish himself.

[07:20:01]

There he is playing. He said, testosterone primary rolls along in the social media video. And then he says, three hours of solid debate prep this morning. That's what his tweet is. What's he going to do?

TALCOTT: Yes. Well, I will -- first, the tennis aspect of it, I said to some colleagues, if this debate was a tennis tournament, I do think he would win.

HARLOW: Who won?

TALCOTT: We didn't play. I like to -- I like to think I could take him, in my personal opinion. I'm not -- he is good, though.

But it's interesting because Vivek is one of the candidates who does not want to go after Trump, as we're talking about some of these candidates who do want to go after Trump. And that's partially because he wants to bill himself as kind of MAGA 2.0. His whole pitch in this presidential run is I'm going to do what Donald Trump did and take it further and I'm going to be able to do more than what he was able to do in his four years.

HARLOW: And talk about more about foreign policy.

TALCOTT: Yes, yes. And he -- that's one of the things that he has been prepping for for the debate stage because that's one of his -- that's one of the things he's less experienced on is foreign policy. And it's also one of the things where he has very different point of view on some of these issues compared to the majority of the Republicans on stage.

And we're already seeing, you know, Nikki Haley has taken some hits at him in the past day or two. Really, candidates are starting to take a look at Vivek. And I do expect him to have to defend some of his foreign policy positions on stage on Wednesday night.

BLACKWELL: Well, they have to look at him because he is in, what, in some of the polls, third place, ahead of a former ambassador, governor, the sitting senator.

Astead, let me come to you on the Trump plan here. This video that's coming out, we have been talking about it for days. He has telegraphed this punch. How much does it really mean if on Monday, Tuesday, we know it's coming, does it steal the spotlight? I mean, what's the value here in the conversation of the debate?

HERNDON: I mean, I think that there's a risk of that because so much of the DeSantis strategy has been kind of telegraphed for this debate. But I think Donald Trump is someone who enjoys a kind of known quantity aspect here, because people expect him to hit back at every moment.

You know, Republican -- the Republican base is ready to excuse every new Trump action when you talk to voters over and over. They have a kind of built-in answer ready for you to say, if he says something you don't like, if he does something you don't like, it's okay because I know kind of his heart, right? That's the kind of advantage that the other candidates don't really have.

And so this debate will be a chance for them to introduce and kind of create that sense of familiarity. I think what we see on stage with kind of Trump's absence speaks to the most electoral impact that could come from this because, really, this -- we have not seen much evidence that this is a competitive primary just yet. What would make it a competitive primary is if someone coalesces those kind of non-Trump alternatives.

So, I think we're really going to see a fight amongst the folks on stage to really emerge as that Donald Trump alternative. You have Tim Scott, someone who is performing a little better in Iowa, who kind of sees his chances improving. You have someone like Ramaswamy who's made the kind of Trump laying his own.

But I think Governor DeSantis is going to be in a tough spot because he is someone who has the name recognition, who has the fundraising, who has the apparatus as that number two, but those other candidates are not feeling deferential or not feeling very scared of his kind of campaign performance. So, he's going to have that pressure but he also has to perform because, you know, that two spot is up for grabs both with donors and with voters.

HARLOW: I promise this is related to our conversation. Who knows what the number one song on Billboards Charts yesterday was?

TALCOTT: I do not.

HERNDON: Is it Try That in a Small Town?

BLACKWELL: No, no, no, something similar.

HARLOW: Go, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Rich Men North of Richmond, Oliver Anthony. It's become this anthem for many parts of the country, some political elements here as well.

How are we supposed to understand how this became the number one song on Billboard? He doesn't have a contract, doesn't have any big record deal, in which he goes after Washington, goes after people on welfare as well and Jeffrey Epstein reference. How are people supposed to, I guess, consume or digest this?

HERNDON: I mean, I think about when I talked to Congressman Byron Donalds earlier this year. And he told that one thing that is true about the Trump moment is that it flows downstream from culture, that Donald Trump is a cultural figure and this kind of movement kind of represents a grievance, a kind of base that's really kind of agitated, not just on the political front but seeing kind of a world that's changed away from them.

I was at the Jason Aldean concert on Sunday in Iowa partially because he also has a song that's really taken off on this --

BLACKWELL: How was that?

HERNDON: Try That in a Small Town. We're actually talking to people about it.

And so, you know, I think that that was -- the thought process there is that, for a lot of people, their political choices are not just happening from when they're watching the news but a feeling kind of in mass culture that, you know, that things are moving away from them.

[07:25:05]

HARLOW: Of course.

HERNDON: Of course. And so they were seeing a direct relation to 2020, right?

HARLOW: Why should anyone think it would change, Shelby, from 2020?

TALCOTT: Yes. No, and I don't think it has. This is the base essentially that Trump and the broader MAGA movement as a whole, not just Trump at this point, but lawmakers, too, have targeted. And these people kind of see themselves in the messaging that the Republican Party has adopted.

And so it is now in music. It is now in schools. It is now in all of these things that this group of voters feel, like you said, things are getting away from them. And it is resonating. And the Republican lawmakers are seeing that. And, you know, they're leaning into it.

HERNDON: And when folks try to take it away, they try to cancel it, try to say that this is somehow like an inappropriate message that only makes the double down happen even more.

HARLOW: Totally, yes.

BLACKWELL: To make the top song in the country.

HERNDON: Yes.

BLACKWELL: All right. Astead, Shelby, thank you.

HARLOW: By the way, I wouldn't have been able to name the top Billboard song. Thank you, guys.

BLACKWELL: Nearly two weeks after California regulators gave two companies green light for driverless taxis in San Francisco, officials are now investigating several crashes linked to those cars.

HARLOW: Also, terrifying moment on this plane as it approaches a runway in California. The reason for the rough landing, next.

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