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President Trump's Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Granted Immunity by Special Counsel Jack Smith; Possibility of Mark Meadows Testifying against President Trump in Federal Case and Its Effect on Georgia Election Interference Case Examined; Israel Rejects Calls for a Ceasefire, Launches Large Scale Strikes; UN Chief: Hamas Attacks on Israel "Did not Happen in a Vaccuum. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 25, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the tunnels over a period of two years fueled the center of the hostage negotiations and of the desperation of getting aid to people inside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans have chosen yet another nominee for Speaker of the House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike Johnson won a majority, but there is a real warning for him to get the 217 votes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has been a wasted three weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This House Republican majority is united.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jack Smith has secured his most valuable witness yet, Mark Meadows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors do not hand out plea agreements like candy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mark Meadows was at the center of so much of this. He could speak to Trump's mindset in a very specific way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York. We begin with the federal election interference case against Donald Trump. The former president's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows we learned was granted immunity by Special Counsel Jack Smith and met with his team more than once. That is according to ABC News reporting.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Meadows allegedly told investigators that he did not believe the election was stolen and talked about this moment on Election Day in November 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Meadows reportedly telling investigators earlier this year that he believed Trump was being, quote, dishonest, in saying that. CNN anchor of THE SOURCE, Kaitlan Collins, joins us now. We have all been asking for, I don't know, a year plus, what's up with Mark Meadows? Where is he at? Where is his place in all this? This is big.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, THE SOURCED WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: I think this is what people suspected was happening with Mark Meadows, that there was something happening given his name was not on that indictment that came down in Washington when it listed all the people who were involved in these efforts who were around. Certainly, he is someone who was presumed to be on the list.

And so what ABC is reporting is that he has been granted immunity. What is not clear is what kind of immunity, how far that immunity goes. Is it just carte blanche? What does that actually look like. But the other part of ABC's reporting that is so interesting is what he today Jack Smith's team about what was happening, these conversations that he claimed he was telling Trump he did not win the election, it was not rigged, that it was not stolen. I mean, to look at that and to look at what is in Mark Meadows's book, which has been its own source of fascination because of the classified documents case, I mean, in the book he writes basically the complete opposite. Of course, it's not a crime to lie in your book, but I do think that's something that investigators will have questions about, what he said then versus what he is apparently testifying.

But I do think if he does have this full-blown immunity, I think there's questions of did it come from a court order, exactly what are the terms of it? It would be incredibly bad for Donald Trump.

HARLOW: I also was fascinated by what he told, according to ABC, Jack Smith's team, that what Trump said to him after the Supreme Court decision on December 11. Basically, Trump admitting, at least privately to him, this is the end of the road.

COLLINS: Yes, and acknowledging privately that -- yes. Trump is denying this, I should note. He has been posting nonstop since the story came out last night saying that Mark Meadows never told him the election wasn't rigged never said any of that to him. Of course, it's Mark Meadows' word against Donald Trump's.

Mark Meadows is someone who when you covered him and he often has this reputation of being someone who would say one thing to one person, one thing to someone else, and that certainly was an issue in this time period because we heard from the January 6th congressional testimony of people saying Mark Meadows, you need to step in, you're the chief of staff here. And he basically said Trump wasn't listening to anyone who was pushing back on the election stuff.

MATTINGLY: You mentioned the Truth Social posting from the former president going after -- or saying Mark Meadows, he didn't think he would do this, kind of attacking him a little bit, or the idea of it. Inside the Trump operation, what's the response to this?

COLLINS: I think they have all suspected something was going on. As you mentioned, those questions that have been going around Washington, they start within the Trump orbit. And they know Mark Meadows is silent. His attorney doesn't speak to the other attorneys here. And obviously, that's typically something that has been going on is they were reading the tea leaves pre-indictment in Washington to see what was going to happen.

I think the question also is how this impacts Georgia and what's happening there, because, obviously, when that happened and when Mark Meadows's name was on that indictment list, it raised a lot of questions of how it causes issues for Jack Smith if he is trying to use Mark Meadows as a star witness.

HARLOW: Is it also clear -- I didn't read it as clear -- what, if anything, Mark Meadows agreed to plead guilty to with Jack Smith's team?

COLLINS: No.

HARLOW: No, right. It's just exchange for testimony to immunity?

COLLINS: And that's the question, because if it's full immunity and he can't be charged with anything, then that adds another layer to this. But we don't exactly know, was it a proffer agreement where he could go in and it's just in that one setting where he can basically say whatever and it won't be used against him. There are a lot of questions that are still -- we are still trying to bear out even here. I should note, CNN has not confirmed this reporting yet about what exactly the terms of this agreement are because that does make a huge difference.

HARLOW: Huge difference.

[08:05:01]

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan, stay with us. We also want to bring in CNN political commentator and former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah, who knows Mark Meadows pretty well, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and former senior investigative counsel to the January 6th select committee, Temidayo Aganga-Williams.

Temidayo, I want to start with you, because, to Kaitlan's point, trying to figure out what that means, the structure of it, what it would actually entail, when you read the story, the details that we have according to ABC News, what's your takeaway from it?

TEMIDAYO AGANGA-WILLIAMS, PARTNER, SELENDY GAY ELSBERG: I do think Kaitlan's right that we should not conflate what would be all-out cooperation, which would be proffer agreements, which means sitting down and really talking about your entire criminal conduct, everything from what you could be charged with here to a piece of candy you stole when you were a kid. That's what federal cooperation looks like. Getting immunity, which is what the report indicates, for testifying

in a grand jury, that's something very specific, and that is limited in scope. So that could be basically Jack Smith wanting to get honest testimony on a particular instance about specific questions. That does not mean that Mark Meadows is going to be in court testifying against Donald Trump. I think one of the big problems here you're going to find is he has massive credibility issues. He's going to have to answer the question under cross-examination that, OK, you're going to have to admit you are a liar, and are you lying now or were you lying then? And that's a tough thing.

So I think what's going to have to happen is that is there corroboration for any statements that he told Jack Smith? And that's what's going to matter. Did he turn over documents? Did he turn over, the same way he did to the January 6th committee when he provided that treasury trove of text messages.

MATTINGLY: He likes to text.

AGANGA-WILLIAMS: He does. So those are the kind of independent corroboration that could bolster an otherwise damaged witness here.

HARLOW: Is this the Mark Meadows you know, this Mark Meadows making a deal like this?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The Mark Meadows I thought I knew is a different man than what I think turned out to be the public-facing version. But to Katilan's point, I think the most consistent thing folks in Washington who know Mark Meadows will say is that he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He is somebody who is innately --

HARLOW: Everyone in Washington does that.

GRIFFIN: Right. But he probably takes it to a whole new sport level where he wants to be liked and stay in the good graces of certain people. And I'm going to speculate a little bit here, but knowing him very well for very many years, he is a good attorney, George Terwilliger, who I think is a serious person who wants to keep Mark Meadows out of jail. I think on the one side he's given him actually sound legal advice about how far he should go in cooperating with the Department of Justice. But I think Mark Meadows publicly wants to still be seen as aligned with Trump world and as somebody who would never flip on him. So his public statements very much may contradict what he is actually doing behind the scenes.

Trump world is very aware of this, though. There has been basically a year-and-a-half, two years of souring on him and not trusting that he is engaging in good faith and that he is still loyal to the team. So I think this is a mixture of a smart attorney who wants to, frankly, keep him out of jail, and then Meadows still wanting to stay in the conservative fold, still be a former freedom caucus chairman who is Donald Trump's greatest ally.

MATTINGLY: Temidayo, to Kaitlan's point, we don't know what this means for Georgia. We had Timothy Parlatore who used to be on Trump's legal team who was on earlier and suggested that maybe this is a sign that they want to make a deal with Fani Willis or they might want to plea. We don't know any of that. But it does happen at the same time that just yesterday we saw Jenna Ellis in court tearfully not taking responsibility for any of her own actions, to some agree. That is now the third, I believe, person to do so. What effect does this have on the Georgia case?

AGANGA-WILLIAMS: I think it affects how Mark Meadows's lawyer is going to push this, because if he's going to have a resolution with Jack Smith, he's going to seek, if possible, a global resolution. But those two offices, Jack Smith and Fani Willis, they're going to operating independently of each other. So they're not going to be looking and saying, OK, he is cooperating on the federal side, therefore, he should hop over to this side. Those are separate office and they're not going to be according to that level, because there are other considerations from a prosecutor's perspective why not to do that.

So at this time, until he actually signs a cooperation agreement, I would not expect it to have any impact on the Fani Willis case. And what I suspect he is probably doing, because he does have are a serious lawyer, is that he is trying to cooperate enough with Jack Smith to avoid any future charges here while also trying to get at the Georgia case through his procedural mechanisms.

But I do not think he is looking to plead guilty in either case. And that's what is typically going to be required for any kind of cooperation. You see with Jenna Ellis and the agreement there. She has pled guilty. And that's what cooperation means, accepting responsibility. It's not merely coming in and talking, it's not merely admitting to certain things. It's saying what you did.

And frankly, I think he is benefiting from Jack Smith's approach, which is just to charge Donald Trump now and put all this later on. In a typical federal investigation, you would charge the lower level people earlier on, you would charge them to force them to flip. And because that case is focused on just the former president, I think not only Mark Meadows, but Eastman, everyone else, they get the benefit of that.

[08:10:03]

HARLOW: Kaitlan, you know Trump world better than just about anyone. This doesn't come in a vacuum. This comes in a week where we have seen three others flip in the Georgia case. Any sense that the walls are closing in, or no?

COLLINS: I think it's publicly they will say no, it's just, you know, none of this means anything. Sidney Powell wasn't really my attorney, neither was Jenna Ellis. Jenna Ellis was so close to Trump world, you can't really even overstate how close she was. She was having direct conversations with Trump. She was out on TV. He loved her TV appearances where she was out there pushing back on people who were saying the election wasn't stolen. And so I think that is really one of the most interesting guilty pleas that we have seen in the entire thing. MATTINGLY: Can we play the mash-up of the old Jenna Ellis?

HARLOW: It's stunning.

MATTINGLY: Sound that we have, do we have that?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNA ELLIS, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN LAWYER: This is an elite strike force team that is working on behalf of the president and the campaign to make sure that our Constitution is protected.

President Trump is right that there was widespread fraud.

The election was stolen, and President Trump won by a landslide.

We have this overwhelming evidence of fraud.

This election was fraudulent. It was corrupted.

All of these false and fraudulent results --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: To your point, less elite of a strike force than perhaps they thought, but she was the person. And in the room.

COLLINS: And she was willing to go on TV and repeat it, which Trump loved, and, therefore, it forged a closer relationship with the two of them. And so that was why it was fascinating watch her yesterday in court through tears, essentially arguing -- as you were saying, she didn't really take responsibility. She basically was saying that Rudy Giuliani and others misled her, people with more experience. She is an experienced attorney. She was in there. She knew what she was doing.

And so I just think it's fascinating, all of this, seeing her plead guilty and the concerns that Trump world has about that. Mark Meadows, how that's affecting you -- he was involved in the back and forth with the speaker race yesterday. He is talking to all these House Republicans. And one of the parts of the House Republicans' race was whether or not you voted to certify the election. That was disqualifying for Tom Emmer to be House speaker. And so it's just remarkable to look at all of this through the broader lens.

GRIFFIN: Can I mention one thing on Mark Meadows, too? It's of course there is the friction of the book, which is just chockfull of lies. He even walked back something in his own book, calling it fake news when Donald Trump criticized it. But like Kaitlan said, writing something wrong in a book, that's not a crime.

But myself, as you'll remember from the January 6th Committee, Cassidy Hutchinson, both testified to the fact and to the Department of Justice that Mark Meadows told us things along the lines of we are going to stay in power, or what if I told you we are going to stay in power. So there are statement that indicate he thought that there was a chance he would be holding on. So I think there is going to be a bit of a friction in testimony they may get from him about him saying the election wasn't stolen and apparently allegedly telling the truth to Donald Trump and then when he said to other people. And I know he said a number of different things to different things to people on Capitol Hill as well.

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan, Alyssa, Temidayo, thanks, guys, appreciate it.

Overnight, Qatar's prime minister saying he is hopeful for a breakthrough on hostages held by Hamas. Could intensive talks pay off? We're back on the ground in Tel Aviv with the latest.

HARLOW: And hey, they are going to give it another shot. In just a couple of hours, the House is going to try to elect a speaker.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Israel is rejecting calls for a ceasefire and pounding Gaza with another series of airstrikes. Listen to this. That was a huge blast just a short time ago, right near our news camera that staked out on a rooftop the bombardment coming just hours after the head of the United Nations called Israel's airstrikes, quote, "Collective punishment of the Palestinian people", and demanded an immediate ceasefire at a contentious Security Council Meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That drew a sharp and fiery response from Israel's Foreign Minister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELI COHEN, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: I hear the calls as said lim before for a ceasefire, tell me, what is the proportionate response for the killing of babies, for rape women and burning them, for the beheading of a child? How you can agree to a ceasefire with someone who swore to kill and destroy your own existence? How?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Also, potentially a hopeful development we'll see on hostages this morning. The Prime Minister of Qatar says he is hopeful there could be a breakthrough soon in negotiations with Hamas to release more of those hostages held in Gaza.

Let's go straight to Erin Burnett, she joins us live from Tel Aviv. So, Erin, there's that update from Qatar, but I also want to ask you about what President Erdogan of Turkey just said, he defended Hamas. He said, "It's not a terror organization." He also went on to say, look, Turkey has, quote, "No problem with the state of Israel."

But then he went on to call out what he calls atrocities. It's a tightrope he's trying to walk here.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Poppy I mean, and look, this reflects the unfortunate schism that you see out there right now, the sort of unfortunate reality that to call something brutal and horrific and depraved and unacceptable then has to be met immediately. Well, something else is also that, so therefore, your original claim does not carry as much merit.

It's this horrible cycle that we're hearing, right now. I mean, there's no nuance on this. Hamas is not a terrorist organization. He just said in a speech Poppy and Phil, but a group for liberation and of Muhadeen fighting to protect their land and citizens. And he said the West got together and seized Hamas as a terror organization.

Israel, you may act like an organization because the West owes you a lot, but Turkey doesn't owe you. And then, meanwhile, goes on to say that Turkey doesn't have a problem with the state of Israel. You know look, you're seeing him very explicitly siding with Hamas, going even further, frankly, than Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Putin, but very clearly in that camp of looking the other way on the atrocities that were committed by Hamas that we've seen from other leaders, including out of Russia, as well as President Xi and China.

But extremely direct from Erdogan this morning there's no question about that Phil.

MATTINGLY: You know, Erin, speaking of countries that have played delicate balancing acts over the course of the last several weeks, this morning, Qatar's Prime Minister is saying he's hopeful for a breakthrough soon on the hostages held by Hamas. Qatar has been such a critical component of the negotiations The talks that have been underway, what do we know about where it stands today?

BURNETT: Right and talk about playing a very different role, right?

[08:20:00]

Qatar, allows on its soil, Hamas, Taliban, right. Organizations that over time have been clearly labeled as terrorist organizations by the US and Europe, as Hamas is, right? They allow them there, but they also play the crucial role of mediator. We saw that when they were instrumental in negotiations with the Taliban.

We're seeing that now; they were obviously the crucial party in Natalie and Judith Rahman's release on Friday night. They are continuing to play a central role. And the national security advisor here in Israel today crediting Qatar with that. So, I think that's extremely significant to note and they are talking about a breakthrough. I did speak earlier to a hostage negotiator here in Israel who was

responsible for the release of Gilaj Dalit, the IDF Soldier who had been held by Hamas for five years. He's been speaking to Hamas every day. He says there is indeed a big deal on the table that would call for releasing all of the civilian hostages that Hamas holds in exchange for a lot of fuel requirements, as well as some sort of a temporary ceasefire, which so far have been nonstarters for Israel.

But nonetheless, it is very clear that there is a deal that has been put on the table for days. There just simply has been an inability I'm sorry to get it to the finish line, but it's significant today that Israel came out specifically mentioning the crucial role that Qatar is playing. And it does come as time is ticking.

There's a stark warning this morning from the UN Relief and Works Agency which says, that they are going to have to shut down all operations in Gaza, all humanitarian operations, by tonight, because of a lack of fuel right. This crucial thing has been at the heart of any negotiations and also

the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground.

Six hospitals inside Gaza have already shut down because of a shortage of fuel, right? They've run out of even the fuel needed to run backup generators. That's according to the World Health Organization. The IDF, though, says there are 132,000 gallons of fuel in Gaza.

They say they've got complete visibility on that. It comes after the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez said that Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, quote, "Did not happen in a vacuum." And that statement alone caused incredible ire in Israel.

Israel's ambassador to the UN says that he will now block all visas for United Nations officials to Israel, give you a sense of how tightened the tensions are, and enter into that. Erdogan said Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but one of liberation. CNN's Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward joins us live from Cairo.

And Clarissa, what more are you learning today?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Erin, you know, it's interesting you mentioned Erdogan saying that about Hamas because I do think that when you talk to people across this region that you see that reflected a lot. I spoke to one person in Egypt who described Hamas as lions, meaning that they are brave warriors.

And what you're seeing is that every day of this bombardment in Gaza, people are being kind of pushed towards more extreme positions. The images that they are seeing day in and day out of children's bodies being taken from the rubble are resulting in such an outcry of anguish, such feelings of impotence.

And really the fear is from leaders in the region that you're going to see explosions of violence, that you are going to see more terrorism. We heard those comments that you mentioned from the UN Secretary- General basically calling Israel's airstrikes on Gaza collective punishment, saying that these horrendous attacks on October 7 didn't come out of a vacuum.

He said the Palestinian people rejected 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence. He did go on to say that of course, the grievances of the Palestinians do not in any way, shape, or form justify the appalling, what he called appalling attacks by Hamas.

But those comments being met by Israeli officials with fiery calls for the Secretary General's resignation. The Secretary-General also mentioned the fact that they have lost more than 35 UN employees inside Gaza as a result of the bombardment.

And importantly, as you point out, UNRA, which is the agency inside, the UN agency inside deals with Palestinian refugees, has said that "they will not be able to continue their operations any longer from tonight." This is in line with what we are hearing from doctors.

They are basically saying today is D-Day. The WHO says eight hospitals are already nonoperational because they have run out of fuel. Two are only operating at partial capacity. One doctor at the main hospital in Gaza City, Al Shifa, said that his hospital will become a mass grave if they did not get fuel soon. But as you noted as well, there's this continuous back and forth.

[08:25:00]

Yesterday, at one stage, the IDF came out and said they were going to try to let fuel in and create a mechanism to ensure that it doesn't get taken by Hamas and used for military purposes. Then a few hours later, they appealed to dial back on that and said that no fuel was getting in.

So very clear that fuel is at the center both of the humanitarian crises, but also a key point in these ongoing negotiations, Erin.

BURNETT: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, Israel is saying they've got 132,000 gallons, essentially saying that there's some crying wolf going on the actual time clock ticking. I mean, this is the back-and- forth that we are all watching in real-time.

WARD: But just to give you some perspective Erin 132,000 liters of fuel. This is not even a drop in the ocean of what they would need before they would have close to half a million liters of fuel every single day. So, the need is just enormous.

BURNETT: Right, and of course, constant every day, right? I mean, it's used every day, so you draw it down. All right, Clarissa, thanks so much. Clarissa's in Cairo, of course, and Poppy and Phil back to you.

HARLOW: You know just Erin, to Clarissa's point, that I think is a really important one. We just had Chris Murphy on, Senator Chris Murphy, who runs sort of the Middle East portion of the Foreign Relations Committee, and he said it's not acceptable for fuel to still be blocked going into Gaza. So, you are hearing that from some lawmakers here.

But for now, the United States is not directly ---

BURNETT: This is a shift.

HARLOW: It's a shift for sure. Erin, we'll get back to you soon, thanks.

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, House Republicans considering picking their fourth nominee. They have picked their fourth nominee. Will they actually become the speaker? That is the open-question floor vote expected today. This time, will they make it across the finish line?

HARLOW: Also ahead, you'll want to see this. Our Christian Ammon porn. An exclusive sit down with Governor Gavin Newsom of California. He just met with Xi Jinping. What he says about political chaos at home and how it affects the United States' reputation abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We're the economic tentpole of the world economy right now, and we're in good hands with President Biden. We are not in good hands with the Republican Party. It's a clown show. They can't manage themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[08:30:00]

President Trump; Mark Meadows; Jack Smith; Fani Willis; Jenna Ellis; Government; Crime; Politics>