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Hunter Biden in Delaware Courtroom as Trump Returns to NY Courtroom; Gaetz Moves to Oust McCarthy as House Speaker; NY Governor: Fingerprint on Ransom Note Led to 9-Year-Old's Rescue. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 03, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:39]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Top of the hour, so glad you're with us. We have a lot to get to.

Let's start with five things to know for this Tuesday, October 3. In just a few hours both Hunter Biden, the President's son and the former President Donald Trump will both had to court, different courts but it's extraordinary. The President's son set to be arraigned in federal court in Delaware. The former president expected to head back to court right here in New York City for the second day of his civil fraud trial.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And in the House, he's headed for a historic moment comes from Matt Gaetz, making good on his threat formally filing a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker.

HARLOW: Charlotte Sena, rescued in a dramatic raid two days after the nine-year-old girl was abducted, police tracking down the suspect. Thanks to a ransom note that he allegedly wrote.

MATTINGLY: And if you're just waking up, you are not a winner. I'm talking about the lottery, not generally, anybody else feel. At least when it comes to Powerball once again, no one hit the lucky numbers after Monday night's drawing. The estimated grand prize now sits at $1.2 billion, the largest of the year.

HARLOW: There is still hope, I guess. And after a five month strike late night is back.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's kind of weird coming back after being gone for five months. The studio was empty for so long. NBC converted to a spirit Halloween and that's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks to the picket lines, my writers got fresh air and sunshine and they do not care for that. Now they're back safely in their jokuls, doing what they do best making my prompter word screen full of good and haha.

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MATTINGLY: This morning, two defendants, two separate courtrooms, one in New York the other in Delaware. Historic both of them Donald Trump says he'll be back in the Manhattan courtroom at 10 a.m. for the second day of his $250 million civil fraud trial. He's accused of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars to get better rates from banks and insurers.

At the same exact time, President Biden's son Hunter will be arraigned in -- in Wilmington on three felony gun charges. He's expected to plead not guilty. We'll start with CNN's Evan Perez, live outside the federal courthouse in Wilmington. Evan, what happens today in the Hunter Biden trial?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: And just in the next hour, we expect Hunter Biden to walk into this courthouse. He was here just two months ago, about to iron out a plea deal that a judge asked us a couple of simple questions on and the deal fell apart.

Now, he's going to be facing three counts. Three of them all related to his purchase of a firearm back in 2018 at a time when he has said that he was addicted to drugs. That is a legal violation, a federal law violation. It's a felony. And as a result of that, he's going to be coming in here. We expect him to plead, not guilty. And then he's going to go get processed by the U.S. Marshals.

Now, you can see there's a long line of people already waiting to go into the courthouse. This is a historic day, obviously. The son of the sitting President coming in here to be -- to be processed for a federal crime, something that doesn't happen at all. So we expect, however, that this is not the end for Hunter Biden's legal problems.

The Special Counsel David Weiss, who has been overseeing this investigation for almost five years, he's still investigating a Hunter Biden for possible tax crimes. Now, that decision is coming in the next couple of weeks. He could be charged in Los Angeles, where Hunter Biden lives. Now, we expect again, to see Hunter Biden enter this courthouse in the next hour for this court hearing. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Evan Perez for us on the ground in Wilmington, please keep us posted. Thank you.

HARLOW: So in a different courtroom, in a different state here in New York City this morning, Donald Trump's $250 million civil fraud trial that will continue. Trump's decision to attend yesterday's proceedings was both political and personal according to sources who spoke with our Kaitlan Collins. Trump stands accused of inflating the value of these real estate assets to get favorable loans and insurance deals. A judge has already found them liable for fraud, but is now set to determine what financial penalties and punishments he could face and consider other charges from prosecutors as well.

[08:05:00]

Here's some of what Trump told reporters yesterday outside the courthouse.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This is a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time. We have a rogue judge. We have a racist attorney general who's a horror show. It's a scam. It's a sham. And our country has gone to hell. It's all run by DOJ, which is corrupt. Frankly, our country is corrupt.

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HARLOW: Joining us now the co-author of Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, good to see you.

TONY SCHWARTZ, DONALD TRUMP'S CO-AUTHOR ON "THE ART OF THE DEAL": Good to see you.

HARLOW: It's interesting. I was thinking about this yesterday as well. He doesn't have to be in this courtroom, because it's a civil proceeding, not criminal. He's going to have to be there for the criminal trials. But he did not go to the civil trial, that -- the case that E. Jean Carroll brought. And as someone who co-authored a book with him, I wonder what that tells you about what is most important to him?

SCHWARTZ: Donald Trump's sense of value comes entirely from his net worth. So his survival, his emotional survival depends on looking outside himself to define his internal value, which he feels none of, he feels worthless. So when you take him, when you accused him of having less money than he's falsely claimed he has, he feels deeply diminished. And it's one of the reasons why at that event yesterday, you saw him looking so actively agitated, most of the time when he's accused of stuff. He doesn't look that visibly agitated. He did yesterday. And I know it's because he felt small.

MATTINGLY: Does he really -- I think the thing that I've always tried to figure out having read a lot of depositions, particularly in 2016, as I was trying to figure out how his business world operated. This was, well -- he always, always inflating and lying and talking about numbers that simply had no basis in reality. Why is he so offended about him being called out on that in court?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I mean, he's in court, he's on the verge of losing these, you know, he has an Oedipus complex, to be differentiated from an Oedipus complex. He, again, the size of his buildings is connected to his sense of self-worth. So he's about to be stripped of all meaning, or all sense of -- of worthiness. I think it's no surprise, when that actually becomes the threat that he becomes more engaged and more interested.

HARLOW: We were talking earlier about sort of campaigning from the courtroom, right? He could even said yesterday, I could be in this state, I can't be in that state. But I'm here in New York, and I'm in the courtroom, and he called this a witch on, do you expect to see, would you, given how you knew him prior, more of this? I mean, this is going to be a month's long trial, it looks like? SCHWARTZ: Well, he's dancing for the next 12 months, really, 13

months, because he's going to be moving between the campaign trail and courtrooms. And I think he's trying to -- and quite honestly, he's been quite successful at it. He's trying to take something that should be ending his career and landing him in prison. I think it -- I think it will lead to guilty convictions. I don't know if it'll land them in prison. He's trying to have that on the one hand and then run for president on the other. So I think going back and forth between claiming these are witch hunts and shams, is first of all, a way for him to raise money. He's done that very successfully after each indictment. But it's second of all, a way for him to change the narrative.

MATTINGLY: The -- I'm fascinated by the details of this case, because I think the valuations and the way in which they're trying to defend themselves, particularly the Habas Defense, there Mona Lisa's, this is -- everything's wrong. Based on kind of your knowledge, your interactions with him, the evaluation process, did he believe any of this was actually what he claimed it was worth?

SCHWARTZ: Absolutely not, not for a second.

HARLOW: How do you know?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I mean, I knew him very well. And I knew he --

HARLOW: He's talked evaluations?

SCHWARTZ: He -- we would wink at me, you know, frequently, like, can you believe it? When he was putting on one of these shows, when he was playing P. T. Barnum, when he was making a claim that wasn't true. Did he ever actually explicitly say to me, by the way, Tony, I'm lying. No, he didn't. But he literally had that wink and I dreamt about that wink after he announced for president, I dreamt about it for a period of time. It was -- it made such a big imprint on me that he -- he's a public performer. There's nothing inside. He is truly the definition of an empty suit. So he -- his whole way of being is built around how he presents himself publicly.

HARLOW: We appreciate you coming in. We'll watch. We'll see what happens today. He says he's going to be in the courtroom again. That trial starts pretty soon. Thank you.

[08:10:01]

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.

HARLOW: All eyes on the Capitol this morning to see how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy responds to a fellow Republican formally filing a motion to remove him from his leadership posts.

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HARLOW: Live look at beautiful Washington D.C. this morning, Capitol Hill where not such a beautiful battle is brewing between Speaker McCarthy and Congressman Matt Gaetz. It's all set to begin and vote could come as soon as today. And it looks like McCarthy may need Democrats to save his job from a Republican revolt. Overnight, Congressman Matt Gaetz made his move and triggered a vote to potentially oust his own leader that hasn't happened in more than a century.

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REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): 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 results because the American people deserve to know who governs them.

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MATTINGLY: Well, this morning House Democrats are getting ready to meet as they decide whether to help keep McCarthy in power. And we're told McCarthy might try and kill the measure today. He has some procedural options, but he needs Democrats to pull them off. He can only afford to lose four Republicans. Five have already said they would vote to get rid of McCarthy.

Explicitly, he needs Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader. We will see what they have to say going forward. At the moment, it's not just the five who have already declared, there's also at least 13 other Republicans who are undecided but open to voting McCarthy out.

Back with us for more on this, and a lot of other stuff as well, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Cassidy Hutchinson. Cassidy, let's start with you, because I first became familiar with you because we were always staying in the hallways on Capitol Hill when you were working with White House Legislative Affairs, you know Speaker McCarthy, you had a close relationship with him.

[08:15:00]

I'm sure you're familiar with Matt Gaetz. Everybody up there is this dynamic that has played out and led to this point. Are you surprised by it?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO TRUMP WH CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: No, Phil, I'm not surprised at you know, Matt is an unserious politician, and that's something that a lot of House Republicans and frankly, House Democrats have recognized for a very long time. Matt is in the office for himself. Matt is more concerned about getting sound bites and about making an image for himself than he is about passing effective policy.

We see that with what's playing out on the Hill right now. He is single-handedly uprooting the Republican Party, which is already hanging on by a thread. And this is just a symptom of the greater problem with the Republican Party right now, too.

We need to focus on electing effective leaders to Congress and not people like Matt Gaetz who are willing to hold government funding hostage because of a personal qualm that he has with the speaker of the House. HARLOW: And over the referral to the Ethics Committee, et cetera. But

we are where we are now, and he may be unserious, in your view. He's smart that he can act in a savvy manner, and he's not going to give up, right? We know those things. So, I wonder, Alyssa, how this plays out. Can he pull it off?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's basically one of two scenarios that I think we're going to frankly learn once Democrats meet. Either some Democrats are going to come and vote with House Republicans to table this measure, basically put it on the back burner. It's privileged.

So, a vote is forced. They can't just not in the next two days or I mean, there is a world I don't think this is as likely that Democrats say, "Let's let Republicans display their chaos on the House floor." There were 15 rounds to make Kevin McCarthy a speaker.

We can go all day. Hakeem Jeffries knows he has the full support of his conference, and there is something kind of stark about hearing every Democrat lineup and say, Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries. And Lord knows what names Republicans might throw around. I sense moderates are getting extremely frustrated.

Mike Lawler's been outspoken about this. I mean, it looks like a clown show. We have, what, 43 days to fund the government? But to Cassidy's point, thesis is personal with Matt Gaetz. It goes even before the ethics committee. He's got a personal beef with McCarthy. But even if it was Scalise, I think he's going to do the same thing in a matter of several months.

HARLOW: You think Gaetz did?

GRIFFIN: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if this is truly about spending and having a full approach process and an open amendment process, Congress hasn't worked like that in years. I think it probably should. It's not going to change overnight, and he's just going to end up pulling this next time there's a vote he doesn't think is popular.

MATTINGLY: The most work they've ever gotten done on appropriations in a single year was the same year as the longest shutdown in the history of the country over the course of the last three decades. Just your random appropriations. Cassie, I want to go back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of your book and your experiences.

I have been waiting to talk to you both at the same time since your book came out because of how the January 6 committee operated. Your public testimony, which we all saw and I think kind of riveting,

shook certainly the moors of the Congress but also the country and your involvement in getting to that point. Walk through how that happened.

HUTCHINSON: So, I go into detail about this in the book, but essentially there were pages of my transcript that were released publicly, and I had been struggling with not being completely forthcoming with the committee, but it was something that I was sort of just trying to bury under the carpet for myself. I had toed the line with Trump World for quite some time, about a year and a half at that point after the administration ended, and it was a comfortable place for me to be.

I was very uncomfortable. I was very adamant that what happened on January 6 was bad, but I didn't want to be that voice to come out. I say that with shame now. I recognize the mistakes and I recognize the flaws I had in all of this, but I also exhausted my resources trying to find an attorney to work for me pro bono or at a low cost.

I had no financial resources. So, I'm reading through these pages, and I just have this moral reckoning where I realized that I have to do something. I spoke with a member of Congress who did not serve on the committee as a Republican member of Congress who suggested I do the mirror test to look in the mirror and see if I'm looking at the person I can live with for the rest of my life.

So, then I realized I couldn't, or I didn't want to, at least. I reached out to my dear friend Alyssa, who we had spoken to after the end of the administration a little bit, but it was a little awkward for us for a bit too, because I was trying to tow the party line, and she was a very outspoken voice and a very courageous voice.

So I went to her house, and it is sort of one of those emotions for me to look back on now. But she had no reason to open the door that day, and I don't mean that and try to exaggerate it at all, but she did.

[08:20:00]

She opened the door and she welcomed me inside, and we talked about what I was facing, the moral dilemmas that I was facing.

GRIFFIN: I was stunned by what she shared with him because I left on December 4. So, I missed kind of the craziest stretch of the "Stop the Steal" pressure on Mike Pence's campaign. And she said they didn't ask the right questions. And you laid out for me some of the things, you know, which we now saw on that, meaning the committee in the yes, the Kit Committee.

And what we ultimately came up with is, you know, I'm going to back channel to Congresswoman Liz Cheney and say she has more she wants to share. She doesn't feel empowered to because she's got this Trump world attorney, and you ultimately were able to get an incredible pro bono attorney and drop that Trump world attorney.

But I think there's, like two things that are so important here. There are a lot of people in Trump World who are having their bills paid and feel like they can't tell the full truth of what they know. Because of that, there's always a way to break. There's always somebody who's going to be willing to represent you pro bono because these cases are too important for the public, but also, it's never too late to come forward.

I couldn't believe you felt any level of shame around it. There are a lot of people who have the truth to tell that just have not come forward, and I think they should feel empowered. HARLOW: The truth was so important that all of a sudden, we hear

there's going to be this hearing with one witness, and it's going to be you. I want to dig in on something that you said to Caitlin last night in your interview with her on the source. You said all roads lead to Mark Meadows. Can you elaborate on that?

HUTCHINSON: So, Caitlin and I were discussing if Mark were to be completely forthcoming with Jack Smith and his investigation. And what I meant and mean by that is what I provided the committee with. I won't say it had value. I'm not going to make that determination.

It's the investigator's job to determine the value that that had. But I think what I had to offer the committee was a roadmap of who knew what, and who was in what meetings.

Mark was in most of those meetings if not all of those meetings. Mark was privy to everything on the President's calendar. Mark knew everybody who the President spoke with. Mark --- if Mark was not quite literally by the President's side, he was getting emails about what his happenings were. He was getting phone calls from him.

Mark knows far more than I know. So, if he wants to be completely forthcoming and share what he knows and uphold the oath that he swore to protect and defend the United States. Mark is the person who can open those stores effectively.

HARLOW: It's great to have you. Congratulations on the book. It's a lot of bravery to put it out there. Thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. Thank you as well. I'm not surprised you opened the door, the kind of person you are.

MATTINGLY: Well, also this morning, nine-year-old Charlotte Sena has been found safe and returned to her family after an intense two-day search. Officials tell CNN the suspect was arraigned on a first-degree kidnapping charge earlier this morning. We're going to give you the latest details coming up next.

HARLOW: Also, dangerous levels of salt water draining into the Mississippi River are potentially having an irreparable effect on Louisiana.

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When you look this way and you look that way, you're looking at water. We're in the middle of water, but we're in the middle of the wrong kind of water.

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[08:25:00]

MATTINGLY: This just in, officials tell CNN that the suspect in the abduction of nine-year-old Charlotte Sena has been charged with first- degree kidnapping. The Albany Times Union reports he was arraigned early this morning. New York Governor Kathy Hochul last night detailed the critical clue that led to her rescue.

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KATHY HOCHUL, DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: He literally drove up to the family's mailbox, assuming they were not home. 4:20 in the morning, opens the mailbox and inserts the ransom note, leaving a critical piece of evidence behind his own fingerprint.

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HARLOW: Charlotte was rescued yesterday evening, two days after she vanished during a bike ride at a New York state park where she was camping with her family. Her bike was found in one of the park's loops triggered a multi-day search that ended with a SWAT team raiding the suspect's home where Charlotte was found in a cabinet.

Joining us now, is someone who has covered the story extensively, the managing editor for the Albany Times Union Paper overseeing the Capitol Bureau and investigations, Brendan Lyons. And CNN chief law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller also joins us.

Brendan, let me begin with you, thank goodness this is the answer to everyone's prayers, especially her family. What more can you tell us beyond the details that were shared there by the governor?

BRENDAN LYONS: MANAGING EDITOR, CBI, THE TIMES UNION: I can tell you that I don't believe they had a suspect until Craig Ross drove up to that mailbox yesterday at 4:20 in the morning. So that was really a breakthrough that don't think they expected and were gifted, and it made a big difference. 10 hours after that, the fingerprint on that note was relayed to a DWI arrest from 1999.

And then at that point, they started moving fast to get search warrants. They located every residence that had and property, which Mr. Ross was tied to, and pinpointed a trailer that was behind his mom's mobile home on Barrett Road in the town of Milton, which is about 13 miles south of where this family had lived.

MATTINGLY: John it doesn't seem, or at least it hadn't seemed like there was any connection between this individual and the family, at least that we knew as of this morning. What more do we know about him at this point?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we know he's got a history of minor arrests, and basically, I think a lot of what we're going to see today, Phil, is them going with a fine- tooth comb through his background and then working with the family to figure out is there any crossover?

Was this targeted or was this just an opportunity where he planned a kidnapping and took a child because the child happened to be alone? There are a lot of questions, and she may have some of the answers.

Remember she said after riding around that loop with the other kids, that's loop A in the park, I want to go around one more time by myself that could.

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