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Santos in Talks with Prosecutors; Special Counsel Takes Case to Supreme Court; November CPI Report; Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) is Interviewed about the Biden Impeachment Inquiry; Musk Pushes Followers to Alex Jones. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 12, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This last night before the news was even official. But clearly she had enough support and more so than the Pennsylvania president Liz Magill (ph) -

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

EGAN: Who didn't necessarily have that outpouring of support internally that Gay does.

HARLOW: And, by the way, Claudine Gay apologized in that interview with "The Harvard Crimson" a couple days ago. You have to wonder what role that played in all of this.

Matt, thank you. Great reporting on this topic.

EGAN: Thank you, guys.

HARLOW: Keep us posted.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, also this morning, expelled former New York Congressman George Santos is said to be in talks with federal prosecutors in the hopes of striking a plea deal. The Republican is facing a laundry list of charges from wire fraud and money laundering, to allegations he embezzled cash from his company and conspired with his former campaign treasurer to falsify donation totals.

All this unfolding as he is scheduled to appear at a courthouse in Long Island for his status conference.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is live for us.

Brynn, what are prosecutors looking to see happen today? Do we know how this is all going to end?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, Phil, listen, 23 federal charges is what George Santos is facing. Now, today is a status conference hearing. In past status conference hearings we've just seen prosecutors turn over pages and pages of evidence, some of which have been text messages and emails that prosecutors say implicate the former congressman in these charges. So, we expect more of those documents to sort of be exchanged in court today.

However, we learned in court paperwork filed yesterday that prosecutors are asking for another status conference hearing in about 30 days. And they say that's because the two sides are in talks to strike some sort of plea deal, saying, "the goal of resolving this matter without the need for a trial."

Now, listen, George Santos actually sat down with our local affiliate, WCBS, and discussed and hinted at the fact that he might strike a deal.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE SANTOS, FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN: And a plea is not off the table. So, there's, obviously, conversations taking place, especially after what happened in Congress. I think everybody should be afraid of going to jail. It's not a pretty place. And I definitely want to work very hard to avoid that as best as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: Now, keep in mind, Santos' former campaign treasurer, his former campaign fundraiser, have already struck deals with prosecutors on charges related to all of this. So, it could be very imminent. Not clear if we are going to see any deal today, though it could be very near.

And, of course, George Santos will arrive here later this morning for court, Phil and Poppy. We'll have to see if he gives a free cameo and talks to the cameras out here. We'll keep you posted.

MATTINGLY: Well done. Brynn, keep us posted. Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Special Counsel Jack Smith's extraordinary decision to go straight to the Supreme Court on weather former President Trump is immune from some prosecution is raising new questions this morning.

Our senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic writes a piece -- in her piece this morning, "as this case tests Smith's federal prosecution of Donald Trump for election subversion, it will also test America's highest court."

Biskupic points out that three of the seven justices are Trump appointees with a fourth, Clarence Thomas, tied to the former president through his wife's involvement in the plot to overturn the 2020 election. It's leaving many to wonder if this court can rule on this case impartially, the nine justices.

Joining us now is CNN senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic.

The nine are in the spotlight this morning. I think you put it so well in this piece. This is going to test America's highest court in a highly charged situation with a former president who has repeatedly tried to politicize the federal judiciary to use for hir ends. This couldn't get more complex or more important.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Right, and it really does bring us back to his four years of having his administration policies challenged before the Supreme Court and his own personal business dealings before the court. You know, the -- all these cases continue to roil the justice. They always came down to very narrow votes. And here's something that offers the court an unprecedented question. This question of a former president's immunity has never been tested up there.

And Jack Smith is essentially asking two things that will make this a really critical challenge for the justices. One, to say that Donald Trump should be able to go to trial on March 4th, that he doesn't have immunity from this criminal prosecution, and also Jack Smith is asking that the justices do something different in their own procedure, to essentially, you know, let him skip an appellate court and come right to him and say, you know, you, Supreme Court, which will be one way or another the ultimate eventual arbiter of whether a former president has immunity in this kind of case, to decide it right now. Don't wait for this intermediate court. Decide it right now.

And as you know, Poppy and Phil, the special counsel is invoking the Watergate precedent back to 1974 when the Supreme Court did hear the case right after a district judge ruled and ended up ruling against Richard Nixon in his effort to keep the Watergate tapes saying he was not immune from prosecution, he could not assert executive privilege there.

[08:35:08]

MATTINGLY: Joan, it took maybe an hour, two hours before some Democrats started calling for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself given his wife's Ginni's involvement in some of the 2020 issues. Do we have any sense of whether he's willing to do that?

BISKUPIC: I think, Phil, it's -- you know, you hate to predict these things before any kind of official request might be made to Justice Thomas. And, frankly, I don't think Jack Smith is going to ask for his recusal. You know, I'd almost bet money that the special counsel himself is not going to ask Justice Thomas to recuse himself.

But, Senators Durbin and Blumenthal, as you say, Phil, have already, you know, raised that. In the past, Justice Thomas has not recused himself from cases related to the election fallout and these justices are the judges of their own selves in this. So, it will be up to him, and he will probably stay on the case.

HARLOW: In other words, don't count on it. I urge everyone to -- go ahead, Joan.

BISKUPIC: No, no, you're right. It's early to tell, but I wouldn't count on it, right.

HARLOW: Yes. OK. Everyone, read Joan's analysis. It's really interesting. Thanks very much for getting up early for us.

BISKUPIC: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, in just under 30 minutes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is back in Washington. He's set to meet with lawmakers and President Biden at the White House as he fights for continued U.S. support of his country's battle against Russia.

Also, we just the November inflation report. We'll bring that to you straight ahead.

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MATTINGLY: Well, this just in, we have new numbers from the Labor Department showing inflation hit 3.1 percent in November.

[08:40:02]

CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich joins us now.

Break down -- we get a lot of reports.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: We get a lot of numbers. What does this mean in the grand scheme of things?

YURKEVICH: In the grand scheme of things, this is a good report. Year over year inflation is at expectations, ticking up just slightly from October to November. Nobody likes to see higher prices. But only up 0.1 percent. The year over year number cooling a little bit to 3.1 percent.

But what we saw in this report is that energy prices fell significantly. And that's because gas prices have fallen in recent months. So, you have gas prices falling month-over-month by 6 percent year over year, falling by almost 9 percent. But the reason why we didn't see a more significant decline in this report is because shelter is still really expensive. Rents, housing, what people are paying, that was up 0.4 percent month-over-month and up 6.5 percent year over year. Some slightly good news at the grocery store.

Prices are still up, but cooling. So, month-over-month, up 0.2 percent. Year over year, 2.9 percent. That is cooling from the month prior and the year over year number that we saw in October.

But if you take this big report and look at it -- sort of step back and look at it, it's important because the Federal Reserve is meeting today and they're going to be talking about all the data that they've seen over the last couple months. This report will signal to them that they could, tomorrow, the announcement will come, but they could pause interest rate hikes. And that is such good news for the U.S. consumer as they look to next year because ultimately it paves the way for potentially cutting of interest rates. And for everyone who wants to buy a new home, mortgage rates, who's paying a lot on their credit cards, student loans, auto loans, it's really important to see this trending in the right direction with interest rates so people feel like they don't have to spend a lot on interest to pay for everything else.

So, a really nice report that we're seeing today. And I think consumers, hopefully, will start to feel this, because consumer sentiment for the last couple month has been on declining. But in the beginning of this month we saw consumers actually starting to feel a little bit better about the economy. Even our CNN polling showed that many Americans just feel like despite these good economic reports, the economy is not in great shape. Maybe this will help people feel like prices are cooling still a little bit and they'll feel a little bit better about the economy.

HARLOW: Vanessa, thank you.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, also happening this morning, House Republicans are set to meet as they prepare to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Biden with a House vote this week. Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are working to lock down support for the vote and overcome their razor-thin majority. The investigation has struggled to come up with any direct evidence at all of wrongdoing by Biden. Republicans can only afford three defections in their ranks.

Now, Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado had been seen as the only Republican hard no vote, but last night he signaled he's considering backing the impeachment inquiry citing the White House's response to record requests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEN BUCK (R-CO): The White House recently sent a letter -- after these committees issued subpoenas to the White House, the White House sent a letter back and says you haven't held an impeachment inquiry vote yet and we're not going to give you any records until you pass an impeachment inquiry. I think that is an absolutely wrong position and it's a delay tactic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Daniel Goldman of New York, who's on the House Oversight Committee. He's served as the lead counsel in the first Trump -- impeachment of Donald Trump.

Congressman, I appreciate your time.

What do you think is the rationale for the congressman's reversal given the fact that in September he wrote a very prominent "Washington Post" opinion piece about why pursuing impeachment was a bad idea for House Republicans?

REP. DANIEL GOLDMAN (D-NY): Yes, I mean, I think the about-face has to do with a very technical process argument, that the White House has somehow stonewalled the -- this investigation, which is patently untrue. The letter that they requested information about from the White House related to classified documents which has never been the subject of the impeachment inquiry. And the White House continues to discuss with the committee ways of

cooperating. They have provided 75,000 documents from the National Archives. 2,000 pages of documents from the Treasury Department. Documents from the IRS, confidential information. More than ten government witnesses have testified. And over 37,000 pages of bank records. The problem here is not the White House, which has been unbelievably cooperative, especially compared to Donald Trump in 2019 who turned over zero documents. The problem here is that they have no evidence to connect Joe Biden to any wrongdoing. And so they are just flailing around trying to come up with some reason to justify impeachment when there really is none because they can't get anything done legislatively.

[08:45:00]

So, the idea is to distract the American people with an impeachment investigation that is completely baseless.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, can I ask, you know, what's interesting is you listen to what Congressman Buck is saying, what a lot of the moderate Republicans are saying in terms of their willingness to get behind the formalized vote. And I went back and read Speaker Pelosi's 2019 letter to the caucus and her decision to formalize the vote. And the rationale was the same in terms of their facing obstruction, they needed more tools, legal tools to get documents. I understand what you're saying about the difference between what the Trump counsel's office was doing versus what the Biden counsel's office is doing in practice on the documents, but I think my question right now is, didn't you guys kind of lay the groundwork for everything the Republicans are doing right now?

GOLDMAN: If it were the case that the Biden administration was completely stonewalling and that President Biden said I will defy all subpoenas and that the Biden administration has turned over no documents and provided no witnesses, then, yes, the same logic would apply. But, of course, that is not the case. The White House and the administration has been unbelievably cooperative with a fishing expedition of an investigation. They have given essentially the Republicans every single thing they've asked for.

And you don't have to take my word for it. James Comer said it several months ago when he said he had 100 percent cooperation from the administration. This is an investigation in search of facts. There are allegations that are completely unfounded. And every single time a Republican is asked to point to specific, direct evidence linking Joe Biden to any misconduct, they are unable to because it does not exist. Their own witnesses said that at the original and only public impeachment hearing.

MATTINGLY: Right.

GOLDMAN: And so this is - they're just trying to desperately find some rationale to go forward with it, but there is none.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask - you know, a lot of the - the concerns, I think on the Democratic side, is that this will have a political impact to some degree, or they believe that that's why this is being pursued, right? This is for purely political reasons for the Democratic incumbent president.

But it's not just Republicans in -- it's Dean Phillips, the Democratic presidential candidate, who's also a colleague of yours in the House technically still, he suggested in an interview that the impeachment inquiry into Biden could make him unelectable as a general election nominee. What's your response to that?

GOLDMAN: Well, my response to that is polling that has come out from the 18 Biden districts where Republicans are sitting in Congress. And there was recent polling which had almost a two to one margin that more Republicans would be unlikely to vote for their incumbent sitting congressperson than they would be more likely to vote if they went forward with impeachment. So, let's talk to the American people, the ones who are going to decide who is in the House majority, and their overwhelmingly against this impeachment investigation because they know that it is completely baseless, that it is completely partisan, for political purposes, and that it is moving forward at the direction of their dear leader, Donald Trump, who wants retribution for his own impeachments.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, before I let you go, I do want to ask, you have been very critical of some of the words of university presidents who were on Capitol Hill. You have been very critical of a lot of things related to Israel and some within your own party and what they've said on these issues. The decision by Harvard to keep their president, that was just announced a few moments ago, what's your response to that?

GOLDMAN: Well, I'm disappointed, not just because of what the president testified last week, which was almost unconscionable, but also because of Harvard's reaction and response from the beginning of October 7th.

But this is a much larger issue, Phil, that we are going to need to take a look at. Campuses all around the country are unsafe right now for Jewish students. And this is not the First Amendment. This is a code of conduct by -- within the universities that requires the university to protect their students, all students, under Title 6 of the civil rights law, and under their own code of conduct. And if they are unable to do that, and Harvard has had multiple incidents of outright harassment and threats and borderline violence. And if they're unable to do that, then that is a violation of their code of conduct. And if they're unable to enforce their code of conduct, then they need to either get a new code of conduct or they need to get a new president.

And so I hope there's a significant change at Harvard if Dr. Gay is going to stay.

MATTINGLY: All right, Congressman Dan Goldman of New York, thank you.

GOLDMAN: You go it. Thank you.

HARLOW: Elon Musk reinstating conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on X. What Musk is doing to actually grow Jones' platform. We'll explain this, next.

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[08:54:08]

HARLOW: Well, fresh off reinstating Alex Jones to X, Elon Musk is taking some steps that are broadening the conspiracy theorists' reach. Jones' account appeared in the "for you" feed of some users despite not following him and was pushed onto the "who to follow" feed for others.

MATTINGLY: Musk even engaged him in a live stream chat on the platform.

Jones, of course, is a fringe, right-wing figure who has peddled dangerous views over the years.

CNN's Harry Enten joins us now because, Harry, this made me kind of want to step back and little bit and think, how has Elon Musk changed X, used to be Twitter, since he's taken it over?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I mean just take a look at the number of people, or the percentage of people, regular users of X, or Twitter, for news are, take a look at this, used to be Democrats overwhelmingly were the ones who regularly followed X or Twitter for news, a two to one ratio here in 2022. Look at what's happened in 2023. Basically Republicans have come back to the platform, while a lot of Democrats have been leaving the platform.

[08:55:02]

But, of course, it's not just Democrats who have been leaving the platform. It's been a lot of ad revenue. A lot of advertisers have been leaving X. Back in 2022, look at that, $4.1 billion in ad revenue. This an estimate for 2023. It's been sliced in half. In fact, more than half, to just $1.8 billion. So, Democrats and advertisers leaving X or Twitter.

HARLOW: How many people are using Twitter now?

ENTEN: Yes, so in terms of the platforms, it's actually really not that powerful. American adults who regularly get their news on X or Twitter, it's just 12 percent. Compare that to something like Facebook, where it's 30 percent. And more than that, compare it to TikTok, which has been rising at 14 percent. And you see this among teenagers especially. Teenagers who regularly use X or Twitter, it was 33 percent a decade ago. Look at where it is today. It's just at 20 percent. So, adults have been leaving it, advertisers have been leaving it, teenagers have been leaving the platform, Poppy.

MATTINGLY: Harry Enten, thanks, buddy.

ENTEN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Some breaking political news for you. Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu will be endorsing Nikki Haley for president. It will happen tonight at an event in New Hampshire. The candidates have been competing for his endorsement for months. Sununu, of course, is a Trump critic who does not believe that Trump can win re-election. A source tells CNN, quote, "he's all in on Nikki Haley." I bet welcome news in a state that's crucial for her.

MATTINGLY: A big endorsement.

HARLOW: "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" is next.

See you tomorrow.

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