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Axios: Aides Say Biden Doesn't Realize How Old He Comes Across; Meadows Loses Bid To Move Georgia Election Case To Federal Court; Anti-Defamation League: Jewish Institutions Receive Bomb Threats Since Saturday. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 19, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: You know, she is very much in this role of making sure that the president, who is the oldest president ever, is staying healthy, getting enough rest, and being able to present as vigorous going into this reelection.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: It was always fascinating to me in talking to folks in the West Wing that it was the president -- to your point and as your reporting shows here -- who was pushing to add more events. Was agreeing to events on the phone when he was talking to lawmakers without his team actually knowing. Was having the late-night phone calls with the old friends -- Chris Dodd, John Kerry -- checking in. And it was the first lady and his team that were trying to kind of rein things back in.

I guess the question is that's -- it runs counter to the assumption I think you see sometimes from people that he's not with it. He doesn't have vigor. He isn't really kind of out there in a -- in a -- in a way that doesn't make him look 81 years old. And how does that translate, if that makes any sense?

You know, if you look at this New York Times reporting that -- the new Sienna poll that just came out showing that he's actually losing young voters. And you make the point that this contributes to everything. Donald Trump winning young voters, which is a death knell for a Biden campaign if that turns into reality.

What does the team say about that?

THOMPSON: Well, this is why -- exactly why there is a push to sort of rein him in and get him to do -- and get him to do a little bit less and make sure that he gets enough rest so that he can present as more vigorous. Because some of it is not just the number of events you do; it's how you look when you do the few events that you do do. And that's sort of where this tension is going.

I mean, to your point, I think everyone that I've talked to on the team is really struck and think basically what Biden is doing at his age is extraordinary. I think the tension comes is that he does not understand that he cannot do as much as he did 10-15 years ago and is there a way that they can sort of rein him in in order to ensure that he is at the top of his game at all times. And that's sort of where this delicate dance goes into place where you basically need to tell the President of the United States you probably shouldn't do that event.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. That's a job that's good for the first lady -- probably not staff sometimes, based on my understanding of this.

It's a really interesting report and really nuanced reporting as well. Alex Thompson, thanks so much.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Alex.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

HARLOW: New legal setbacks for two of former President Trump's top allies.

MATTINGLY: And what's next for actor Jonathan Majors after he was found guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:35:48]

MATTINGLY: Welcome back.

You're looking at new pictures of a house burning in a flood zone just west of New York City in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. This flooding is the result of a powerful storm that slammed into the entire East Coast over the weekend and yesterday, killing at least four people from South Carolina to Maine. Some places got up to seven inches of rain, putting rivers at or above flood stage in several states. And more than 600,000 people are still without power this morning.

HARLOW: This morning, there are major legal setbacks for two of former President Trump's top allies. A federal appeals court rejected former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' bid to try to move his Georgia election interference case from state court to federal court. The opinion of the 11th Circuit undercuts Meadows' claim that his alleged actions were connected to his official duties in the Trump White House.

Here is part of the ruling. Quote, "Whatever the chief of staff's role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate."

MATTINGLY: This comes as we learn that Rudy Giuliani is getting sued again by Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, the two former Georgia election workers who just won a nearly-$150 million defamation judgment against Giuliani. The women are now asking a federal judge to permanently prohibit Giuliani from continuing to make false claims about them.

Elie Honig is back with us.

I want to start with Mark Meadows. How big a legal setback? Were you surprised? ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, FORMER FEDERAL AND NEW JERSEY STATE PROSECUTOR: So, a very big setback for Mark Meadows -- not surprised. It turns out that trying to interfere with an election is not part of anyone's federal job description.

Mark Meadows is not alone in making this argument. So we've now seen about a half-dozen or so people, including Donald Trump, in various contexts try to argue that well, what I was doing before January 6 was part of my job as president. As in Mark Meadows' case, chief of staff. As in Jeffrey Clark's case, part of the Justice Department. And they have all lost every one of these rulings across the board in state courts, here in federal courts.

And it's really important to note about this Meadows decision. This was a three-judge panel of the famously conservative 11th Circuit. A unanimous 3-0 ruling. And the judge who wrote it that we just quoted, Judge Pryor, is a longtime staunch conservative. He actually was on Donald Trump's shortlist for Supreme Court. Donald Trump mentioned him by name as a potential Supreme Court justice.

And this opinion just completely shreds Meadows' position that what he was doing was somehow within the scope of his job.

HARLOW: Is it the end of the road for Meadows? I suppose he could ask the appeals court to hear it on bonk and get all of the nine.

HONIG: Right. He has two steps left.

He can ask the 11th Circuit her on bonk, which means the whole thing. They rarely grant that. I don't think they will here. I think this is a -- it's a unanimous 3-0 opinion. There's not much ambiguity about it.

And then he can and surely will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take it. As for whether they'll take it --

HARLOW: I don't --

HONIG: -- I agree with you. I see your expression is --

HARLOW: I don't think they would.

HONIG: I agree with you. I mean, on the one hand, it's a constitutional issue. It's a big issue. On the other hand, there's no real diversity of opinion here. There's pretty much unanimity and there's not much ambiguity about it.

So I think they're going to stay hands-off and let this one sit as the final word.

MATTINGLY: I love when you guys talk about the Supreme Court like I talk about college football.

HONIG: I think --

(Crosstalk)

HARLOW: That's so true. You can, Elie. Ambidextrous.

MATTINGLY: Um, can I --

HONIG: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: I want to play something from Rudy Giuliani and then I'll explain why -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Never, never, never did any of those jurors see a single piece of evidence that many Americans have seen about how these women acted that would have been totally contrary to the -- to their unrebutted, uncorroborated testimony. It's a -- it's a sham of a trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: A sham of a trial that Giuliani chose not to testify in. This is the defamation trial Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman were awarded nearly $150 million here. They have moved to sue him to basically get him to stop telling lies, which he has continued to do in the wake of this.

Is this something that could -- actually has legs?

HONIG: So, first of all, I think we have to call this out every time. What a disgrace by Rudy Giuliani. Basically, everything he just said is a lie. What he said about Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman is a lie. And what he even said about the trial is a lie.

He had plenty of opportunity to put on his own defense. He chose not to do that. So when he says I was prevented from putting on evidence -- nonexistent evidence -- he was not prevented.

[07:40:00]

Now, Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman have sued Rudy Giuliani again. They can keep suing him every time he defames them if they want.

HARLOW: But explain why they're suing him --

HONIG: So they're suing him because --

HARLOW: -- because it's beyond money.

HONIG: Right, and this is where I think we're going to run into a little bit of a legal problem. They're asking the judge to prohibit Rudy Giuliani from speaking about them. I totally get that. I understand why they want that.

The problem is our Constitution, the First Amendment, is very, very resistant to impose what we call prior restraints, meaning you can say something and then be punished for it. There can be consequences. You could be sued if it's defamatory. If it's criminal you could be indicted.

But what our courts are very, very hesitant to do is prevent somebody, whether it's a private individual, the media, from saying something in advance. That's what we call a prior restraint. It's a bedrock principle of our system that we are against -- we -- all of us. Our Constitution, our First Amendment do not go in for prior restraints except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

So I don't think they're going to be able to proactively shut Rudy up, but he can always have consequences after the fact.

HARLOW: Elie Honig, thank you.

HONIG: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: A woman in Ohio suffered a miscarriage alone in her bathroom and now she is facing potential felony abuse charges. We have details on that case ahead.

And also this morning, hundreds of synagogues across the country on alert after receiving threatening emails and fake bomb threats. Who officials believe is responsible.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:45:00]

MATTINGLY: He was set to be one of the next stars of the Marvel universe. Now, at 34 years old, his career is very much an open question. A jury has found actor Jonathan Majors guilty of assault and harassment of his former girlfriend during a domestic dispute. Hours after the verdict, Marvel fired the actor from his upcoming projects, including the 2026 film Kang Dynasty, named after his character Kang the Conqueror.

The domestic dispute happened back in March. Majors' ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari testified that she was assaulted in the back seat of a car after she saw a romantic text message from someone else on Majors's phone.

Majors' attorney says the actor still looks forward to clearing his name. The actor could face up to a year in prison for the assault conviction. Sentencing is scheduled for February 6 of next year.

HARLOW: This morning, synagogues across the country on alert after a series of bomb threats nationwide. The Anti-Defamation League tells CNN more than 400 Jewish institutions across multiple states have received threatening emails since Saturday. All of the threats, so far, have been deemed to be hoaxes.

We are told there's been a sharp increase in what are known as "swatting calls." These are prank calls that lure law enforcement to a location under the false pretense that a crime has been committed or is in progress. More than 400 of those reported this year compared to 90 the year before.

Joining us now is our chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller. Good morning.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Good morning.

HARLOW: Let's begin with all of these threatening emails and then also, the swatting calls. Do they have a sense of who is behind them?

MILLER: Their only sense of who is behind them comes from prior investigations. But what they have found in these instances, particularly targeting Jewish schools, religious institutions, have been -- these have been kids and young adults, both in the United States and outside using different techniques to mask their computer identity, their telephone identities, and so on.

MATTINGLY: John, the Anti-Defamation League said they believe that these are hoaxes but, quote, "The Jewish community doesn't take any threat lightly and we don't have the luxury to ignore them."

How does law enforcement both assess the overwhelming amount of threats that are incoming right now and kind of deal with something like swatting calls?

MILLER: So, it's a complicated question because these emails that went out over the weekend were addressed to multiple locations. So one email would say there's bombs in your place and they're going to blow up but would be -- it would be addressed to four or six different Jewish institutions. Looking at that, you pretty well know it's a hoax.

I think what people like Oren Segal, from the secure community networks groups, and others say is we don't have the luxury just to say because it appears to be a hoax it is because he said at some point, one of them is not going to a hoax. So they have to go through some protocols in those cases.

The interesting difference between those and the swatting calls is the swatting calls came in by telephone, usually on voiceover IP where you couldn't capture the number. And the individual would call 911 or the Suicide Prevention Hotline and say I'm in this location and give the name of the Jewish institution, and say either I'm about to kill myself or I'm about to kill others -- which that's just going to generate a police response and likely, an evacuation.

And remember, with this mass number of hoaxes, the entire motive is to cause disruption. So they struggle with how to react without overreacting because part of -- part of the goal is to deny the objective.

HARLOW: While we have you here, and your expertise, can we ask you about a different story? This declassified intelligent -- intelligence assessment that came out late yesterday that shows basically, some key foreign governments' attempts to interfere in U.S. elections -- the 2022 midterms -- really increased from 2018. We're talking about China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.

What stands out? MILLER: This is a fascinating report. It's done by the -- it's done by -- all of the agencies in the Intelligence Community put all of their intelligence and their analysis on the table. And then it's processed by the NIC, the National Intelligence Council, which is basically the top analysts from all the intelligence agencies and put into a report which is really a sense of the Intelligence Community on the overall subject.

But what they find is that in the 2022 midterm elections China and Russia, in particular, followed by smaller players like Iran and Cuba with niche interests, tried to target changing or influencing election results by social engineering -- bots, fake Facebook pages. In the case of China, English-speaking TikTok accounts that were viewed by tens of millions of people over the course of the summer into the fall before the midterms.

[07:50:00]

And what's really interesting about it is they're amplifying existing American issues. They're talking about mass shootings, abortion, the border, immigration, and trying to promote candidates that they think will favor their country against those that they think have policy differences.

MATTINGLY: Sowing chaos. We've seen it before.

MILLER: Well, it is. And, you know, the key to it, though, is what they were looking for and didn't find is they don't see attempts to penetrate computer networks --

HARLOW: Right.

MILLER: -- and change votes. They're not messing with the machines; they're messing with people's minds.

MATTINGLY: Which could, arguably, be more effective to some degree, as we've seen.

MILLER: Yes.

MATTINGLY: John Miller, we appreciate it as always.

HARLOW: Historic inflation, interest rate hikes, no recession. The economy proved to be pretty darn resilient in 2023. Have we turned a corner? The chief economist at Moody's, Mark Zandi, is here.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:55:04]

HARLOW: Welcome back.

A new CNN piece out this morning writes that the Fed may have done the impossible -- avoid a recession -- at least for now. As the year winds down, the economic outlook going into 2024 is looking pretty positive. Inflation is cooling. Wages are growing. The stock market is hitting record highs. So has the country turned a corner?

We're joined now by chief economist for Moody's, Mark Zandi. Mark, good morning.

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS (via Webex by Cisco): Good morning, Poppy.

HARLOW: The recession that wasn't? What do you think?

ZANDI: Yeah, right -- yeah.

A year ago, I think the widespread consensus among economists, policymakers, and businesspeople was 2023 would be a year of recession, but it didn't materialize. In fact, just the opposite, as you point out. It was a -- actually, a pretty good year for the economy. Lots of growth. Lots of jobs.

We saw unemployment at four percent the entire -- in fact, interestingly, unemployment is below -- been below four percent for more than two years. And that last time that happened was in the 1960s.

Stock prices are at record highs. Housing values at record highs. And really, the most recent good news was the Federal Reserve, last week, saying that they're going to cut interest rates early next year. So that's really very positive for a lot of households who have taken on credit card debt in the past couple of years.

MATTINGLY: Mark, I had a former White House economic official this week send me the headline from a Bloomberg story in 2022, forecast for U.S. recession within year hits 100 percent, and a blow to Biden -- which, by the way, I'm not knocking Bloomberg. It's what their analysts are saying. It's what the forecasts were saying.

ZANDI: (INAUDIBLE).

MATTINGLY: We've seen a little bit of an enjoyable-to-watch kind of dunking effort by Treasury Sec. Lael Brainard to the extent they can dunk in their policy roles.

Is this durable? Is it sustainable? Are they right in saying we told you so?

ZANDI: Yeah, I think it is. It feels like the economy is on very solid ground. I mean, the key to the American economy is you and I as consumers if we go out and buy things. And there's every reason that we will continue to do so.

Lots of jobs. I mentioned the low unemployment. Wage growth has moderated but that's by design. It's trying to get wage growth down so that it doesn't fan inflation. And wage growth is now stronger than the rate of inflation, so people's purchasing power is improving. I mentioned the stock prices and housing values.

And, you know, debt is up, particularly for low-income households, and I think that's where most of the stress is. But if you look across all Americans -- all consumers and paint it with a broad brush, people's debt loads are low. They locked -- people locked in those low rates back a couple or three years ago when they were very, very low through refinancing.

So the consumer is hanging tough and as long as they do their part I think the economy will continue to push forward.

HARLOW: Bank of America, this week, calling for four rate cuts in 2024 for a total of 100 basis points. I mean, that's something that people would feel.

Do you see that coming -- four cuts?

ZANDI: Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that. I mean, the Fed said three rate cuts --

HARLOW: Yeah.

ZANDI: -- a quarter percentage point with rates. So four is very possible.

I mean, that goes to the good inflation. Inflation just looks a lot better. And all the trendlines look good. Forecasting inflation isn't easy but it feels like it's going to come in here reasonably gracefully.

So it makes sense to me and it's -- that will really help. Credit card rates will come in. People with buy now-pay later consumer-financed loans -- those rates will start to come in. Auto loan rates. Mortgage rates are already down.

So, yeah. I think that will be very helpful.

HARLOW: Mark, can I ask you something? Is there a lesson here for the post-COVID economy on the Fed seeming to be able to do something even it didn't think it could do?

Elizabeth Warren was really concerned -- I think rightly concerned that you couldn't raise rates like this without increasing unemployment to like four-plus percent -- 4 1/2 percent. What the Fed showed is that maybe you can.

What did we learn?

ZANDI: Well, I think that a lot of it is idiosyncratic to the kind of thing -- all the events that we've gone through over the last couple, three years that make it unique in many respects.

I mean, for example, going back to consumers. A lot of consumers -- high-income households, middle-income households -- saved a lot of money during the pandemic -- the so-called excess saving. And that really has come in handy when inflation was really raging a year ago or two years ago. People could draw down the cash sitting in their deposit accounts and kind of supplement their income to maintain their purchasing power. And that's unique to the period. The other thing is I mentioned households locked in those very low rates that were enjoying two-three years ago. They did a really marvelous job of getting their mortgage rates down and now they're reaping benefits from that.

So we have to be careful about drawing too many strong conclusions here. I think a lot of it goes to the circumstances that we're in.

MATTINGLY: Mark, for all the reasons that the economic data never seemed to tell a story any of us were familiar with over the course of the last two years, are you confident that what we're seeing going forward will make a little bit more sense based on precedent?

ZANDI: Well, Phil, you've got to be humble, right?

[08:00:00]