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CNN This Morning

Today, New Details Expected About Substance and Timing of Election Subversion Cases Against Trump; Sheriff Says, Three Killed in Jacksonville, White Gunman Targeted Black People; Hurricane Watch Issued for Florida's Gulf Coast as Idalia Nears. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 28, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow. Sammy just don't want it to end.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Wow is a good response there. That floor routine earning Biles a standing ovation, obviously, from the crowd. It's only her second elite competition since she took two years off from professional gymnastics. Biles said the win feels really special for her.

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SIMONE BILES, U.S. ALL AROUND CHAMPION: I've been doing it for so long. I feel like I don't think about numbers. I think about my performance. And I think, overall, I hit eight for eight. It's eight. I guess it's a lucky number this year.

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MATTINGLY: Now, the gymnast would not reveal whether she plans to take aim at next year's Paris Olympics, but she didn't rule it out, either eight. I can't even come to work on time eight straight days.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Honestly, she is just incredible.

MATTINGLY: She's pretty great.

SIDNER: Incredible. I get chills watching it, because I'm so worried something's going to happen. And it doesn't. And she just blows my mind.

MATTINGLY: Hey, can we do another hour of this?

SIDNER: If you want to.

MATTINGLY: CNN This Morning continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two key hearings, in Atlanta, Mark Meadows will argue that his case in Georgia, should be transferred from state to federal court.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Was he doing something that was part of his job in good faith?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The special counsel wants January of next year. That seems very ambitious. But I think she's going to lean in that direction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jacksonville, Florida, where three people are dead, and what police are calling a racially motivated shooting.

SABRINA ROZIER, FAMILY MEMBER OF JACKSONVILLE SHOOTING VICTIM JERALD GALLION: I thought racism was behind us, but, evidently, it's not.

MAYOR DONNA DEEGAN, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: The division has to stop. The hate has to stop. The rhetoric has to stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Floridians are preparing for severe weather in anticipation of Tropical Storm Idalia.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We have mobilized 1,100 National Guardsmen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's even forecast to be a 100-mile-per hour storm. That may even be conservative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Russian investigators say genetic tests confirmed that Prigozhin was among the ten people killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It brings to an end the life of a very controversial figure. But there are still lots of questions about why that plane crashed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are literally tens of thousands of these guys doing Putin's bidding all over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 60 years since the march on Washington when Martin Luther King, Jr. laid out his dreams for the future of America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to take on the responsibility to make sure that we do not repeat the same mistake and that we fulfill the dream.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not tomorrow. We've got to do something now.

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MATTINGLY: Good morning everyone. Poppy is off this week. Sara Sidner is here hanging out and all about it.

SIDNER: I'm all about it. I'm ready. It's now 7:00. I'm ready. Let's go.

MATTINGLY: And it is a good day to be ready because we have a lot of news going on. We are bracing right now for very big developments in both election subversion cases against former President Donald Trump at 10:00 A.M. Eastern, three hours from now. Judges in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., will hold simultaneous hearings. They may give us new details about the timing and the substance in the cases about efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

SIDNER: In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be the first prosecutor to sketch out parts of her evidence and arguments in the anti-racketeering case against the former president and his co-conspirators. This could be a kind of mini trial, if you will, as ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tries to get his state case, excuse me, moved to federal court.

And at the same time in Washington, D.C., a judge will weigh arguments from the special prosecutor and Donald Trump's defense team over the timing of the federal trial. Jack Smith's office wants to start right after the New Year while the ex-president is pushing for way after the election. He wants an April 2026 date.

MATTINGLY: So, let's go ahead and bring in CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig and focus on what's going on in Georgia this morning. What exactly is removal? How does it work here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So, this is a big argument today. Removal is a rarely used law, but it's going to be vital here. Essentially, what this says is if a person is a federal official or former federal official and they get charged with state-level crimes, they can move the case over into federal court if, and this is the big if, if they can show they were acting under color of such federal office.

Now, Mark Meadows has already made this argument and he'll have his hearing today. He was saying, I was acting as White House chief of staff. Jeffrey Clark has made this argument. He was a DOJ official. Donald Trump has not yet made this argument, but I think it's very likely that he will.

So, Fani Willis, of course, is going to respond, no, you were not acting as a federal official. You were committing crimes and, therefore, you were outside of your federal scope. And we'll get our first sense of how the judge comes out on that.

MATTINGLY: So, walk through what we're actually going to see in court today.

HONIG: Yes. So, first of all, the argument today involving Mark Meadows' motion to remove will happen in federal court in Georgia. There will be no T.V. cameras, so we won't physically see what's happening, but this is going to be a federal judge making this decision.

Now, Fani Willis is going to put on a little bit of a case. She has subpoenaed Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, who, of course, was on the other side of the infamous call where Trump asked him to just find 11,780 votes.

[07:05:04]

Important to remember, Mark Meadows is on that call. He initiates the call. And that's the famous quote. But let's remember, Mark Meadows actually does a little bit of talking on this call. At one point, he says to Brad Raffensperger, what I'm hopeful for is there is some way we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully. You know, the president mentioned Fulton County.

A little bit of bureaucratic doublespeak here, but at issue will be, well, what was Mark Meadows really trying to do? Was he chief of staffing or was he involved in campaign activity, political activity for Trump?

And to that end, another witness who Fani Willis has subpoenaed for today is this Georgia investigator, Frances Watson. At one point, really importantly, Mark Meadows texted her looking for a way to speed up the Fulton County signature verification in order to have the results before January 6th if the Trump campaign can assist financially. So, I think Fani Willis is going to point to that and say, look, this is political, what he's doing.

MATTINGLY: Okay. So, take a step back here. Because, immediately, after this case was brought, everybody was talking about moving it from state to federal. Why? What's the strategic advantage here?

HONIG: If you are a defendant in this case, first of all, I think you're going to like the jury pool more. If it stays state, the entire jury pool will be drawn from Fulton County, which voted 26 percent only for Donald Trump in 2020.

If you get it moved federal, you're going to be drawing from the northern district of Georgia, the federal district, which includes Cobb County, which went 42 percent for Trump. Not great, but better than 26. Cherokee County went 68 percent for Trump. So, you're going to have a more pro-Trump jury in the federal court.

Also, in the federal courts, no matter where this case is tried, it's going to go up to the mid-level court of appeals, whether in state court or federal court. But if you get into the federal court, you have the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, famously conservative, really seen as the second most conservative of the 13 appellate courts in the United States. They've ruled against Trump. But if you're Trump, you want that 11th Circuit.

And, finally, most importantly, if you get into federal court, your next move, if Mark Meadows gets there or Donald Trump, you ask for dismissal on the basis of immunity. If you can show that you were within the scope of your job and that you were not doing anything more than was necessary or proper, then you can get the case dismissed and that's the whole ball of wax.

MATTINGLY: All right. Elie Honig, we're going to dig in more on this. Sarah?

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Phil. Joining us now, CNN Anchor and Senior Political Analyst, joining us again, I should say, John Avlon, and former Deputy White House Press Secretary under Donald Trump Sarah Matthews, as well as CNN Political Analyst -- you can come over here now, it's fine -- and National Politics Reporter for The New York Times Astead Herndon. Thank you so much for coming on.

First, to you, Astead, what do you expect from the hearings today?

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. As Elie laid out, it seems like it's going to be a kind of preview of the arguments to come. And then most importantly, you have the D.A. kind of making the initial salvo in those cases and you have the Trump defendants kind of giving a preview of what could end up being the president's defense.

From the political perspective, which is where I spend most of my time, this continues the kind of saga that has really crescendoed to this point. For a lot of these indictments, it has felt like kind of one after another, a kind of waterfall of information that was kind of washing over voters.

I think that that mug shot and this kind of latest round of Georgia indictments kind of broke through in a different way. And so I think you're going to see more attention on this case. You're going to see the kind of Trump never surrender argument being kind of tested on a national front and we don't necessarily know how that's going to land.

We know among the Republican base itself it's caused people to really rally around him in a kind of short-term way, but we don't know how that hits with the public at large and we don't know if the other candidates are going to actually use this as an opportunity to try to attack him.

And so I think that the continuing kind of development of facts in Georgia might have some new political consequences for us because of the pure reason that for this case specifically, whether it's because it has a RICO charge, whether it's because it has other defendants involved, Atlanta, Georgia, some of maybe familiar facts after January 6th. It does feel like this indictment is cutting through the noise in a way that maybe the last couple of ones from the special prosecutor didn't really hit for voters.

MATTINGLY: Sarah, to that point, I mean, despite the fact that never surrender while you're having a mug shot taken because you just surrendered seems kind of intuitive to some degree. But the idea that it's cutting through the idea that, you know, we're going to have a hearing today where facts and people are going to be reminded of what exactly happened, the calls that were made, how people were involved, do you get the sense that in a Republican primary electorate, not the 35 percent rock solid Trump base but the general Republican electorate that perhaps this does cut through?

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: I don't know if it will cut through, to be honest. I think that while the mug shot definitely brought more attention to this case, I think it also kind of makes Trump into a martyr. Obviously, we saw his campaign capitalize on it, and they had huge fundraising numbers come out of it. I think they said it was their best fundraising day that they've had.

MATTINGLY: $7.1 million total, I think 4 point something during that day.

MATTHEWS: Exactly. But I do think that there is a large amount of indictment fatigue.

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I think there is -- people don't understand the differences between the cases. I don't think that necessarily it was helpful that Alvin Bragg's indictment dropped first. I think that most people found that to be politically motivated. And so then I think that that kind of stained the other indictments, even though I believe that these other indictments have a large amount of evidence and that the Trump team should be very worried about, these other cases. But I think in the court of public opinion, they probably are doing better because it's hard for people to understand the differences between the cases.

SIDNER: John, I'm curious what you think this is going to do, because you can win obviously the primary, but then you have to win the general election. What about Independents, the all important Independents?

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: So glad you asked because that is really where the focus needs to be. It's not just, you know, there's a short-term bump because of negative partisanship among the primary base. It's ultimately you nominate someone to win a general election.

So, let's talk about independent voters. First of all, there are plurality of American voters, more self-identified Independents than Democrats or Republicans. And two-thirds of Independent voters have said they don't want to see Donald Trump back in the White House. That's a problem, not just for Donald Trump, but for the Republican Party if they continue to nominate him.

And Astead makes the point, look, we're an unprecedented territory. I think we can say with a degree of certainty that multiple indictments on 91 counts does not help Donald Trump with the American people at large or Independent voters. It may have a short-term bump in a primary, but the idea that this helps in a general election is not just it's unprecedented. That's just, I think, not reality-based.

MATTINGLY: Elie, on the legal side of things, the idea of Meadows moving first, he moved very quickly. I think you asked kind of across the board, regardless of your political affiliation, there's a respect for his legal team, the people that he has around him in this case. Should we read anything into the fact that he went first, that he's moving first and separately from the former president?

HONIG: Yes. So, it's interesting because I think he has the strongest removal case of any of the three people who we just talked about because the chief of staff, I think, has very broad responsibilities. He has the ability to say, I was doing what chiefs of staff ought to do. I was setting up meetings. I was setting up phone calls. I was coordinating communications between various political actors. I think when you're the president giving the instructions, it's a little harder to hide from the instructions you've given.

Jeffrey Clark was over at DOJ. I don't -- I mean, he has not a great argument, but he has a colorable argument. But I do wonder to what extent -- we don't know this right now -- to what extent are they coordinating? To what extent are these defendants getting together saying, you go first, then we'll go?

I mean, it's interesting to me that Trump has not yet filed his motion. Maybe he wants to see how it goes with Meadows and Clark, use them as test balloons, but there's a lot of moving parts here.

AVLON: Hold on, my friend, I mean, and, you know, this is for you and Sara, I guess. But where in the job description for chief of staff does it say help a sitting president try to overturn an election?

HONIG: No, but the difficult --

MATTINGLY: That's not a fine print footnote.

HONIG: I don't think it says that. I've looked in the Constitution. It doesn't say that. But --

MATTINGLY: Sarah was in the White House, maybe did you see that?

HONIG: But that sort of nicely underscores why this is a difficult argument, because both sides are a little bit circular. What Meadows and Trump are going to say is, I pled not guilty. I'm entitled to the presumption of innocence at this point. I claim that I'm acting outside this within the scope of my job. Therefore, I should be removed. Fani Willis is going to say I've charged you with crimes, therefore you are committing crimes, therefore you don't get to get removed. So, that's going to be the argument here.

SIDNER: Sarah, I just, I'm curious about this in -- I'm moving to another case. But in the documents case, you're already seeing some cooperation happening by someone who changed attorneys and decided to get a defense that is not paid for by Donald Trump and whoever else is paying for those attorneys that are linked to Trump. Do you see more of this happening? As these cases get closer and closer and closer, do you think that the people around him will start to break down and say, I don't want to get popped for this, I'm going to cooperate?

MATTHEWS: Yes, I think that we're going to see it in multiple cases. Obviously, the one that you referenced, the documents case, we suspect I think there is a name out there of people, of someone who, that they think it is who flipped. And I think that that's the right call. Because at the end of the day, Donald Trump demands loyalty from everyone, but he gives loyalty to no one, and he would be so quick to throw any of these people under the bus.

And so I think that this is crucial. We saw this happen with the January 6 congressional committee with Cassidy Hutchinson. She, at first, had a Trump appointed attorney who was funding her legal fees and they wanted her to not recall events that she very much did recall. And then she was compelled to do the right thing, switch lawyers, hire someone who was acting in her best interest and not Donald Trump's best interest.

SIDNER: I think that's a really good point to end on. John Avlon, Sarah, thank you so much. And, of course you, Elie, you're just --

MATTINGLY: Don't forget Astead. Don't forget Astead.

SIDNER: Oh, Astead, I'm so sorry.

MATTINGLY: Trust me, no matter what, Astead --

SIDNER: You're far away, but you're still in our hearts.

MATTINGLY: Besides having great points, Astead is also wearing better shoes than all of us today. And that's just to guarantee even if we can't see them. Thanks guys, we appreciate it.

Well, the Justice Department is now investigating whether the deadly shooting of three black people at a store in Jacksonville, Florida, was a hate crime.

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The mayor of Jacksonville is going to join us live next.

And new CNN reporting digs into how White House speaker -- sorry, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

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ROZIER: And that's what they're calling is act of racism. And I just feel like he was a coward. You went in and shot these innocent people for nothing that you didn't even know. And then you took your own life. That's just the cowardly way to go.

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MATTINGLY: That was a family member of one of the three victims killed in Jacksonville, Florida, and what Justice Department is now investigating as a hate crime. Investigators say a white gunman killed three black people at a dollar general store on Saturday before taking his own life.

The gunman was identified as 21-year-old Christopher Palmeter. This is one of the two weapons that was in his possession. The local sheriff says the gunman drew swastikas on the AR-15-style rifle, used racial slurs and left behind racist writings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHERIFF T.K. WATERS, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: We're doing so much to try to determine exactly led to this.

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The manifesto is, quite frankly, the diary of a madman. He was -- I mean, he was just completely irrational. But was it the irrational thoughts? He knew what he was doing. He had 100 percent -- he was 100 percent lucid. He knew what he was doing.

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MATTINGLY: Now, the victims have been identified as 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 19-year-old Anolt Laguerre, and 29 -year-old Jerald Gallion.

Joining us now is Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan. Mayor Deegan, thank you so much for taking the time. Condolences to your community. I know you spoke with President Biden last night, I believe. What was his message to you in that call?

DEEGAN: I did. Well, he was very gracious and obviously offered his condolences for our community, and just offered any help that he could give. And I appreciated that very much.

MATTINGLY: You said in the wake of this shooting that there are days where it feels like you're going backwards, to some degree. The community is going backwards. The country, to some degree, is going backwards. How big of a shock has this been to the community?

DEEGAN: Well, unfortunately, I would say that it hasn't been much of a shock, Phil. This is something that happens all too often. And we have a violent gun problem in our community. We have a violent gun problem in our country. We know that. We also have a problem with racism.

And I think that every step on the path that we take either is a step toward more unity, which is something that I desperately want from my community, or it is a step in the other direction. And I think that we all want unity.

I was grateful that the governor came to our vigil last night in Jacksonville, because I think it's important for him to see up close and personal the pain this community is in. He offered some help with security at Edward Waters College.

But I think that any sort of step toward unity starts with more communication. But it also starts with facing the facts of -- that we don't always say the things that we should be saying in order to step toward seeing our own and each other's humanity. And I think that's really what we have to deal with here in a very honest way.

MATTINGLY: You mentioned Governor DeSantis' visit. You were with him at the vigil. I want to play something, because it was striking the response that he got at one point during the vigil. Take a listen.

Mayor, you mentioned he's offered assistance. He was there in person at the vigil. Why do you think that response transpired while he was there?

DEEGAN: Well, listen, as I said, I give him credit. He walked into a crowd that he knew was going to be in opposition to many of his policies. And so I'm glad he was there to listen. And I personally think that that's a step in the right direction.

But I think he does need to hear those folks. I mean, it is a community that has been injured over and over and over again. And either we are walking in the direction of truth when it comes to our systemic racism in our city, in our state, and in our country, or we are in denial about that and creating policies that don't really help in that regard.

And so I think, as I said, any steps in the right direction start with better communication. So, I think he heard from a community that is hurting and absolutely devastatingly tired.

MATTINGLY: One of the striking things in listening to the sheriff's press conference yesterday, your remarks yesterday as well, the guns were purchased legally. There weren't really red flags, at least in the near term lead-up, to what happened yesterday or to the tragedy that occurred. What could have been done to stop this based on current laws, current regulations?

DEEGAN: Well, you know, I have to say I'm going to give credit to our sheriff, Sheriff Waters, for calling this what it was, a racist attack. But he further said that there really wasn't anything that could have been done legally in this situation, and therein lies the problem.

These guns are far too accessible to folks, these AR-15-type of guns. And, frankly, if we want to go deeper than that, if you want to go further than the guns, you've got to address the hate, and you've got to address the fact that we don't seem to want to acknowledge the truth of our history and the way that we should be dealing with it.

So, I don't know legally, given the way the laws are written right now in the state of Florida, that there was anything that could have been done. And therein lies the frustration for me.

MATTINGLY: One last question before I let you go. Our colleague, Juliette Kayyem, had a column in The Atlantic, a piece in The Atlantic, where she talks about the shooter's actions yesterday were not just a hate crime, they're performance for all the world to see.

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This is the age of mass shooting as production. He wanted to make sure his intentions were known, hate-filled screeds were written to his parents, law enforcement, the media, he was leaving nothing on set.

One, it's striking because I think it's incredibly accurate, but, two, your response to that as a leader, as an elected official, when you know that that exists out there and it's directly affecting your community and also the country writ large. DEEGAN: Well, look, I understand why some people don't want to give more glory to folks that clearly want the attention when they do things like this, but it does shine a very bright light on what we're dealing with in our community, in our state and in our country. And I think light is the best disinfectant. So, if we can shine a light on the racism that does exist and the fact that that it still exists structurally in our country, then we can begin to deal with it.

And that is my sincere hope, is that out of this, we will come to better unity through listening and better understanding.

MATTINGLY: All right. Mayor Donna Deegan, we appreciate your time, our condolences to your community, thanks so much.

DEEGAN: Thank you so much, Phil.

SIDNER: All right. Preparations are underway along Florida's Gulf Coast is Tropical Storm Idalia rapidly gained strength. Hurricane and storm surge watches are in effect along the state's West Coast. Idalia is threatening to hit the state as a major hurricane.

Let's get right to CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam, who is watching this very, very closely. How destructive might the storm be, Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Using the words from the National Hurricane Center, they're talking about rapid intensification. The last time we saw that, Hurricane Ian, we all know how that played out. So, it's time to take the storm seriously. Your last full day to prepare is today because we do expect that first arrival of tropical storm force winds for early morning hours along the southern peninsula of Florida.

By the way, this is not just a Florida storm. It could impact the Carolinas into Southern Georgia as well. This is crucial we are starting to see that northerly turn and the storm is becoming more and more organized near the Yucatan Channel.

Here is the forecast track. You can see how it runs parallel with the Gulf Coast of Florida, so the West Coast. This is where we're concerned about Wednesday into Thursday. And, yes that's a Category 3, a major hurricane. We've seen this unfold before with, of course, is being a game of miles. Any track or deviation to the west or to the east has major implications for so many population centers.

But, Sara, we've got tropical storm and hurricane watches as well as storm surge watches posted, as you said. Back to you.

SIDNER: All right. Derek Van Dam, thank you so much. We'll be watching that all morning. I appreciate it. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Well he almost missed last week's Republican debate because of a torn Achilles. But Doug Burgum still got on the stage, still made his case to the voters and he's going to do it again here in studio, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Every minute that these eight candidates spend talking about the past instead about the future is time that is just the -- you know who loves it? Biden loves it but China loves it when we're talking about the past.

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