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Vote to Decide Rep. Kevin McCarthy's Fate Could Come as Soon as Today; New York Governor Says, Missing Girl Found After Ransom Note Left in Family's Mailbox; Soon Hunter Biden to be Arraigned on Federal Gun Charges. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 03, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Isaac, thanks very much.

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right. CNN This Morning continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz launching his attempt to oust Kevin McCarthy.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Kevin McCarthy won't be the speaker or he'll be working in the pleasure of the Democrats.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This has never been successfully executed before in American history.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: That nine-year-old girl who went missing during a family camping trip has been found alive.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The suspect left a note at the home of the young girl's parents.

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): Leaving a critical piece of evidence behind, his own fingerprint.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: For a parent whose child goes missing, this is like getting your whole life back again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Former President Donald J. Trump appearing by choice in a New York courtroom.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Trump's choice to show up was as personal as it was political.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's watching as his company is in a death spiral.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Good morning everyone, so glad you're with us. There is a lot going on. And so interesting that just a few miles from here, Trump is going to go-- instead of being elsewhere on the campaign trail, he's going to be here campaigning from the courtroom.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I think that's the biggest thing. The legal and the political, they've converged over and over again and, clearly, and I think it's Kaitlan Collins who reported last night, seized this as a political moment in the courtroom.

HARLOW: For sure.

MATTINGLY: Plenty going on here, plenty going on down in Washington as well, where Kevin McCarthy is dealing with his own set of struggles. A vote to decide the fate of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could happen as soon as today. And it looks like almost assuredly he will need Democrats to help save his job in a conservative Republican revolt.

Now, overnight, Congressman Matt Gaetz made his move and triggered a historic vote to potentially oust McCarthy. It's the first time this has happened in over a century.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAETZ: Well, I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen. Kevin McCarthy won't be the speaker of the House or he'll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats. And I'm at peace with either result, because the American people deserve to know who governs them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Pivotal day ahead on Capitol Hill, before the vote happens, sources say McCarthy will try to have the measure killed. And this morning, House Democrats are getting ready to meet as they decide whether to help keep him in power.

McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes. Five have already said that they would vote to get rid of McCarthy. That means he needs the support of Democrats to stay in power. And there are at least 13 Republicans who are undecided but open to voting McCarthy out.

Let's bring in our Congressional Correspondent Lauren Fox, who's fantastic at math, sorting out all those numbers for us. The clearest thing is he needs Democrats.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he absolutely needs Democrats at this point. And that's why we're sort of in this uncharted territory. Democrats are going to huddle behind closed doors around 9:00 A.M. this morning on Capitol Hill. Their leadership telling them this could be an extended caucus meeting and opportunity to have a conversation among members. And there's a diversity of opinion about where Democrats should go in this moment.

You hear from some Republican allies of McCarthy that if Democrats care about this institution, that they will just vote to move on with this resolution. But you hear from a lot of Democrats that they're not going to be a cheap date on this, that they believe that they could get major extractions from the speaker, from Republicans, if they were to help him.

And there are many Democrats who don't even want to lift a finger to do that, arguing that this is a mess of McCarthy's own making, that he's the one who allowed this rules package, that any one single member could bring up this resolution to try and oust him. And that is exactly the moment that they have found themselves in. That is what many Democrats are saying.

So, right now, something to keep in mind is the reality that the Republican conference is also divided on what should happen. They're going to be meeting behind closed doors as well, not too far away from where the Democrats are meeting. Also, you have some hardliners who aren't big fans of Kevin McCarthy, but are also weighing if this is the right moment to try and oust him.

I talked to Representative Ralph Norman last night. He's a conservative. He's in the House Freedom Caucus, also serves on the Rules Committee. He said that he's concerned that if they go forward with this, the implication could be that they would not get to one year spending bills, bills that have been promised by the Republican leadership, and that in 45 days, they could find themselves in another shutdown showdown, given the fact that they will have spent so much time dealing with this on the floor.

Because, remember, if McCarthy is ousted, you have a situation where who is the speaker and who would actually have the 218 votes to rise and become the next speaker. That is something that a lot of hardliners, even people who want to oust Kevin McCarthy, cannot answer right now. Poppy?

HARLOW: Lauren Fox, shut down, showdown, say that five times fast.

[07:05:00]

Let's hope we don't get there again. Thank you. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, a nine-year-old girl is back in the arms of her loved ones after vanishing from a New York State park over the weekend. Charlotte Senna's disappearance triggered a multiday search. It grew to include 400 people.

Police say the major break in the case was a ransom note left in her parents' mailbox. Now, a suspect, 47-year-old Craig Nelson Ross, is in custody.

CNN's Jean Casarez joins us live. Jean, the pressure, as kind of the clock continued to tick, mounting the breakthrough, though. It's a remarkable story.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely remarkable. Charlotte and her family, they were camping just up the road here. It was Saturday. She was riding her bicycle with her friends. She wanted to make one more loop around. Her family said she could. She never returned. At 6:15 Saturday evening, she was missing.

Law enforcement immediately began to converge. They were going to search for her. They did search for her, but they also stood guard at the family's home. At 4:20 yesterday morning, a man came to the family's home, deposited a letter in the mailbox. That turned out to be a ransom note.

They needed a fingerprint. They worked all day to try to get a hit. And they did. At 2:15 yesterday afternoon, a 1999 DWI arrest by Craig Ross Jr., that led them to a residence where he lived behind his mother's house in a trailer. The SWAT team converged and stormed into that trailer at 6:30 last night. They got him in custody. Charlotte was found in a cabinet.

She was taken to a hospital in Albany for safety precautions. She's been reunited with her family. The governor says now we are waiting, shortly, we believe criminal charges to be filed. Phil?

MATTINGLY: All right. Jean Casarez, please keep us posted, fascinating, fascinating reporting. I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Let's bring in CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John. This is what we were all praying for and hoping for, but the fact that they found her really quickly, it says a lot.

MILLER: It does it says they rushed into this literally with every possible resource they could bring in terms of technology, investigators, help from the FBI, everything that they could bring to bear because they know there's a clock ticking on cases like this where the longer they go on, especially in the first two days, the worse the outcome could be.

MATTINGLY: The ransom note seemed to be kind of the big break. But the governor was talking about multiple different elements that kind of led them to this point. What else was it play here? What else were they looking at?

MILLER: Well, so that's what we're going to learn a little bit more about today because we have to start with you know that ransom note, and some things the state police said on the first day, which is we're looking at this as a targeted kidnapping, meaning who is Craig Ross, 47 years old, record for minor arrests, not a master criminal.

Why Charlotte? Why that park? Why that time? Why this family? And the answer may be he was just waiting for the right moment and the right opportunity with a child who was by herself, not with a group of other children, a lack of witnesses, or the answer could be based on the early hint we got from police that this might be targeted, that there's a connection to that family.

So, they've got to peel back not just with Charlotte's family but also through the suspect's information. Was there any connection? Did they ever worked together? Is it possible they knew each other? And I think we'll learn whether or not that was the case later today when they have their other press conference.

HARLOW: The governor identified him as 47-year-old Craig Nelson Ross, Jr., we heard from Jean. Do we know anything about his history?

MILLER: He appears to have an aggravated harassment arrest. He has a driving while under the influence arrest in Saratoga. These are old arrests, though. But, strangely, Poppy, in that way, he fits the profile of a child abductor. You know, 30-something percent of them have no criminal record, which actually makes them harder to trace. And the 40-something odd percent that do, these are generally not other kidnappings and sexual assaults of children. It's generally a mixed bag of minor offenses. They have a real diversity in criminal background.

In this case, you talk about luck. His criminal background was a stroke of luck. Because when they got that ransom note and they ran that print and they had to do it twice, because the first one didn't catch, that's what in the AFIS system, the Automated Fingerprint Information System for New York State, that runs all those prints, a latent that you come that may just be a partial and matches it to a person, that's the record that clicked.

[07:10:04]

MATTINGLY: How often do we see ransom note-type cases in child abduction? I feel like you see them all the time in the movies.

HARLOW: Yes, you're right.

MATTINGLY: You don't see a lot of these stories. At least publicly, from a law enforcement perspective, is this regular?

MILLER: That's a really interesting question because you don't see a lot of that. I mean, when you look at child abductions by child predators, or usually child sexual predators, that mean age is mostly female, almost 100 percent, and the average age is 11 years old. So, with a nine-year-old girl, in this case, we're in that ballpark.

Kidnap for ransom is not for sexual predators. The money is the motive, and that's a different kind of criminal, and that's a different kind of kidnapping. I ran a lot of kidnappings, particularly in Los Angeles. And the ransom drop was always the opportunity and the worst moment of the case, because you had to decide, do we do the ransom drop and let the person go and attempt to follow them, maybe it will lead us back to the victim.

But if you give them enough room so that they don't detect the tail and you lose them, you lose the money, you lose the suspect, you lose your trail to the victim. So, you had to make a real decision there whether to jump in. In this case, they were able to get ahead of that by a clue left on the note.

MATTINGLY: And bring Charlotte Senna home, fascinating. Thanks so much, John. I appreciate it.

Well, former President Trump says he'll be back in court today, and in just a few hours, the president's son, Hunter Biden, will also be walking into a courtroom for his arraignment on three felony gun charges. HARLOW: And calls grow for San Francisco to ban driverless vehicles after a woman was seriously injured in an accident involving one overnight.

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[07:15:00]

MATTINGLY: In just under three hours, President Biden's son, Hunter, will be in a Delaware courtroom for an arraignment on three felony gun charges. He's accused of lying after he said he wasn't addicted to drugs when he bought a firearm in 2018. He's expected to plead not guilty.

CNN's Evan Perez is live outside the federal courthouse in Wilmington. Evan, the plea deal fell apart dramatically. There's a special counsel investigation. There's this. Walk through where we are right now.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, the president's son is going to walk into this courthouse in just a couple of hours. You can see people standing in line right there behind me to get a seat inside the courtroom.

Look, this is something that never happened, right? The son of the president is going to come in here. He's going to plead not guilty to these three counts. Then he's going to be processed by the federal officers inside the courthouse there and then probably released on his own recognizance.

He's facing these three counts as a result of the fact that this plea deal that was hammered out and was supposed to get ironed out in July, late July, just fell apart spectacularly right before the judge, when the judge asked him simple questions about exactly what this plea deal covered.

Now, that was a diversion agreement under which for 24 months, Hunter Biden just had to abide by not using drugs, not buying any firearms, and then this would have been over with. Now, he's facing these three counts related to when he bought a firearm back in 2018.

He owned it for about just a few days, and according to the indictment, he lied on the form that you fill out when you buy that firearm. He was addicted to drugs. He has written about this fact that he was addicted to drugs at the time. And as a result, the federal law says that was a federal violation.

Now, we anticipate that this is not -- it's over after this, because we know the special counsel is still investigating Hunter Biden over his taxes. It is possible that they are going to bring charges in either Washington or Southern California where he lives. So, this might just be the beginning of what we'll see with Hunter Biden and the special counsel as a result of this investigation that's been going on, Phil, for five years.

MATTINGLY: Yes, a historic first for the trial of a president with many more potential steps to come. Evan Perez outside the courthouse in Delaware, thank you.

HARLOW: This morning, day two of that $250 million civil fraud trial against Donald Trump gets underway and Trump has wasted no time going after the judge in the case. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's a judge that should be disbarred. This is a judge that should be out of office. This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he's doing. He's interfering with an election and it's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Not sure what the basis and fact for those allegations are.

But joining us now, retired U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of New York Shira Scheindlin. Judge, it's very good to have you. I appreciate your time.

There's that, right, and he's also gone after the attorney general. I want to go to the substance of what happened in the courtroom yesterday, the testimony we heard and the basis for the prosecutor's arguments here. What is your assessment?

SHIRA A. SCHEINDLIN, RETIRED U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE, SDNY: Well, yesterday we heard an accountant who had worked with Mazars and he was testifying about transactions that occurred in 2011. So, there was a question there because the statute of limitations says we're not interested in anything until 2014.

But what's at issue here is not the transaction but the actual false statement about it. So, the false statement is made in 2014 even though it's about an event that occurred in 2011. So, it actually made sense for the attorney general to put in that evidence because the background of the statement is the transaction. But it's the statement that's at issue.

HARLOW: The judge did question though, is the AG going to take this argument further? The Trump legal team thinks that that's a strong point for them.

SCHEINDLIN: I don't think it's a strong point for them. I think the judge said, I hope this won't go on forever. I don't want to hear much more of this. I've already said what the statute is. I understand that. But she has to prove her case. And to prove her case, she has to first give the background of the transaction and then the false statement about the transaction.

[07:20:04]

And the statement was made after 2014.

MATTINGLY: One of the defenses we heard from Trump's attorneys yesterday, aligned with what we heard leading up to this moment, which was, this is how everybody does it. This is just kind of the way things work, which you can put that aside for a second.

Alina Habba defended the valuation saying, this value is what someone is willing to pay. The Trump properties are Mona Lisa properties. This is not fraud. That is real estate. Look, I understand, it's a market, right? Whatever the person is willing to pay sets the market. But that defense in this specific case, does it have validity?

SCHEINDLIN: No, it has no validity because it's speculative. A willing buyer is someone who's making an offer or about to make an offer or has discussed an offer. It's not what's in the mind of Ms. Habba or former President Trump. They might believe that a buyer will turn up who will pay hundreds of millions, but they have no evidence of that, so you can't just speculate.

HARLOW: But then can I ask you what -- because this is an issue that we had David Schoen on last hour who represented Trump in one of his impeachment trials. And his point is that, to your argument, if you flip it, the judge didn't have a basis for an $18 million valuation or the A.G. didn't have a basis for an $18 million valuation on Mar-a- Lago. Do you see what I'm saying?

SCHEINDLIN: Yes and no. I read the judge's opinion on the summary judgment and there were actual valuations that were made on most of these properties. There were documents by appraisers, by accountants. There were documents that gave numbers for all these things.

HARLOW: Right, and that $18 million was from the Palm Beach County Assessors.

SCHEINDLIN: Exactly.

HARLOW: I think their argument is it's before he was president and now things would be worth more if you have a president's property. I don't know about $500 million.

SCHEINDLIN: Well that's right. I'm sure they'd be worth more, but not 2,300 percent more, which was one of the percentages in this charge.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask about the attacks both going into the courtroom, coming out of the courtroom?

SCHEINDLIN: Sure.

MATTINGLY: To some degree, maybe we're all numb to it from the former president at this point, but in your experience, as you watch that happen, what comes to mind?

SCHEINDLIN: It comes to mind that this person has a habit, and has always had a habit, of attacking judges. He had that habit before he was elected president, while he was president and after he's been president. That's his M.O. to say, this judge can't be fair, this judge is of Indian descent, this judge is a racist, this judge is a Democrat.

He finds something to say about every judge, unless it's a judge that he knows or feels is on his side because he appointed that judge. So, then he says, that's a wonderful judge. So, when Aileen Cannon got one of his cases, he said, she's a great judge. Of course, she'd been a judge less than two years at that point. He had no idea if she was a great judge. But that's his M.O.

HARLOW: I'll be remiss to let you go without asking about Hunter Biden today. The fact that his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said, let him, judge, appeared in court in Delaware by video conference because he's in California. I think it's notable that they came back and said -- the prosecutors came back and said, no, he's got to be in court. And the judge ruled that way so that he is treated like other defendants would be treated. What do you say?

SCHEINDLIN: I think that's why the judge did it, so it would not look like favoritism. It wouldn't look special. However, if it was anybody else, sort of an average person whose name we never heard of, the judge might have allowed a remote hearing.

So, I think that there's a bend over backward effect. For example, these three so-called felony charges, I shouldn't say so-called, they are felony charges. Yes, they're felony charges. But they're almost always reduced to misdemeanor. They're almost always have no jail time. They're almost always end up in a diversion program for first offenders. And he is a first offender.

But here, it's really important to look like he's not being treated any better than anyone else. What that turns into is he may be being treated slightly worse than anybody else. But it's an effort to look fair.

MATTINGLY: Judge Shira Scheindlin, thank you very much. We appreciate your time.

HARLOW: Thanks.

MATTINGLY: Well, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar carjacked in D.C. at gunpoint. We're going to bring you the details next.

HARLOW: And breaking this morning, at least three people have been killed in a shooting at a mall in Thailand. We do have those breaking details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

MATTINGLY: Well, breaking news this morning, at least three people have been killed and four others have been injured during a shooting at a mall in Bangkok, Thailand. The shooting took place around 5:00 P.M. local time. Police have arrested a 14-year-old suspect who was found with a weapon. Authorities are still in the process of counting the total number of fatalities. We'll keep you posted on that.

HARLOW: Overnight, Congressman Henry Cuellar carjacked at gunpoint about a mile away from the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Police located the car but they're still trying to track down three suspects. Our Gabe Cohen joins us live with much more on this reporting. It is frightening and it happened in, what, about 9:00 P.M. last night. Is he okay?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, that's the good news. We understand that Representative Henry Cuellar is okay. And you're right, this happened right around 9:30 last night in this busy high end part of Washington, Navy Yard, a neighborhood, as you can see behind me, less than one mile away from the U.S. Capitol, just right down this street, about a quarter mile in the other direction, Nationals Park, the baseball stadium.

This is a neighborhood where congressional leaders live, young professionals live. There are bars restaurants and so there would have been plenty of people still out and about last night around 9:30 when Representative Cuellar was carjacked while parking right by this intersection.

We did get a statement in from his chief of staff saying, as Congressman Cuellar was parking his car this evening, three armed assailants approached the congressman and stole his vehicle. Luckily, he was not harmed and is working with local law enforcement. Thank you to Metro P.D. and Capitol Police for their swift action and for recovering the Congressman's vehicle.

They did recover that Honda, although those three armed assailants did make off with the congressman's phone, iPad, even his dinner.

[07:30:08]