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Donald Trump to Attend Court Proceeding in Which Judges Will Decide His Presidential Immunity on January 6th; Former President Trump to Juggle Campaigning and Appearing in Courtrooms for Various Trials over Next Week. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2024 - 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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[08:00:24]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York. And a big morning straight ahead. Take a look at some live pictures, you are looking at Donald Trump's Virginia golf course as he prepares to head to court in the nation's capital.

We are 90 minutes away from a crucial hearing where three judges will consider a landmark question -- is Trump immune from prosecution? Trump's lawyers will be arguing that he has absolute immunity as they try to get felony charges against him thrown out for January 6th and the alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Trump has chosen to be at this court hearing with just six days left until the Iowa caucuses. He is not actually required to be there. Campaign and court converging. On Thursday he is also voluntarily going to be at the closing arguments in the New York civil fraud trial that could dismantle his business empire.

We have team coverage of this very consequential day. Kaitlan Collins and Laura Coates are here in the studio, but let's start with Katelyn Polantz live outside the D.C. courthouse. Katelyn, voluntarily deciding to show up. We know that the court and the campaign are all one at this point in time. What do we think we're going to see today?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: What we're going to see today, Phil, is there will be the former president here. He's going to be attending these arguments as a criminal defendant, but also almost as a member of the public because he's not going to be speaking. This is going to be legal arguments. And these legal arguments are quite important ones today because they are asking questions of this court, and they are trying to get answers about the Constitution and the presidency that have never been asked for or answered in this country.

So the main question here, is there an immunity around the presidency, around someone like Donald Trump who served in that office and is now facing criminal charges for actions he took while he was still that officeholder after the 2020 election? Is there protection of him where he is not able to face charges or go to trial? Does his criminal case that's set to go to trial in March, does it get tossed?

And then on top of that, there are additional questions about was what Donald Trump was doing after the 2020 election, is that part of the presidency, is that part of the campaign. Where does the court fall on that. And is this one of those issues, one of those rare issues where Donald Trump or any criminal defendant can actually take this through the appeals court and get an answer from the Supreme Court before they face the jury, before they sit for trial.

So a lot of major questions. What you're going to be hearing is the two attorneys arguing. You're going to hear Donald Trump's attorney arguing. You're also going to be hearing an attorney from the Justice Department. And then lots and lots of questions from three judges, Karen Henderson, Michelle Childs, and Florence Pan.

HARLOW: Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much. We will stick with you all morning as this gets started.

MATTINGLY: And let's bring in CNN anchor and chief legal analyst Laura Coates and CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins. Laura, I want to start with you. When this idea of theory of the case was thrown out, I thought that's insane.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: That's not going to work. They are just trying to delay and postpone and push things off. To that point, though, is there a possibility that this could actually win the day at some point?

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's unlikely that a court would find that the president of the United States has absolutely immunity. Remember, this is not going to be a decision about whether an insurrection was committed, whether a crime was committed. This is about the legal question before the court, can a president of the United States be absolutely immune for anything they did while they were in office?

Remember when Trump used to say I could go on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone? This is now saying, can I be on Pennsylvania Avenue and do it, because that's the White House's location. That's a better idea. This is really coming down to that legal query, not really the facts about the underlying alleged crime. But they could have some conditions on it. They could say, well, no, if it's an official presidential act. And then they put this back almost at square one to say, well, what does that mean? What would constitute a presidential act? Is it somebody who is trying to, as he will argue, faithfully enforce the laws to suggest, hey, I believe that a law is being broken by voter fraud. I want to enforce that. Does it tip away from being fair when it's actually it's because I didn't win the election?

This is a very tough panel. I've been before Judge Pan at the very least, now a district court judge, she was tough at the trial level. A former prosecutor, former deputy at the appellate division at DOJ in my own former office. This is a very serious judge who does not want any "i" not to be dotted or "t" to be crossed. It's not going to be a walk in the park for any of them. But the idea of a king in America? Problematic.

[08:05:03]

HARLOW: That's exactly what the district judge Tanya Chutkan said, you don't have the power of a king. Trump, clearly, Kaitlan, thinks that he has the broadest possible presidential power and even beyond. But just talk about the politics and how extraordinary it is that six days from the Iowa caucuses Trump is going to be in an appellate courtroom in Washington D.C. making this argument.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, he by no means is required to be there. And I think if it was another criminal defendant, them going would say, look, that I'm going to show the judges, these judges, that I'm serious about this, that I'm serious about showing up to this. That is not what is happening today. This is a calculated political decision that Trump is making to use this high profile hearing where he knows it will get coverage. He will go, his entrance in there, you won't be able to see it, but hear what his attorneys are arguing, the questions that these judges are asking.

And he is going to be able to use this in fundraisers and his political speeches, as we've seen him do with nearly every other aspect of the indictments and the charges that he is facing as he uses it to his political benefit. And his Republican challengers have been quite frank about this. Ron DeSantis does believe that this has distorted the Republican primary and that it has boosted Trump and hurt the other Republicans here.

I think for Trump's team, though, he does insist on coming to this today. They are expecting the judges here, though, to be highly skeptical and to ask a lot of questions. And that could potentially indicate where this is going.

MATTINGLY: It's tea leaf reading like what we do normally with the Supreme Court cases where this is likely to at some point end up, it would seem. Does Trump's legal team think that they have a pathway to the Supreme Court?

COLLINS: It is not even whether or not they have a pathway. Just the idea that it would then go to the Supreme Court is going to be enough for them because what they are trying to do here is delay this. So even if this does ultimately go to the Supreme Court and Trump ultimately loses on the merits of this, on the idea of presidential immunity, if it is long enough, if it goes on long enough, that's a victory for them because if it goes past the 2024 election and he wins, then he can get rid of these cases. And so that is kind of what they are seeking here.

But I don't think it's hyperbole to say that it is so dizzying to look at all of Trump's legal issues. Today's decision here could be one of the most consequential because it could affect the timing of all of this.

HARLOW: And consequential for the country beyond this election for presidents to come. It's not a surety, though, that the Supreme Court will take this up.

COATES: No.

HARLOW: What I think is interesting is people assume they are going to take up big issues or big constitutional questions. If there is not a split among these three judges, you don't have a circuit split, then could they just say I'm going to leave it there?

COATES: They've already tried to punt once. They don't want this case. The Supreme Court does not want to be involved in a presidential election year. You've got Chief Justice Roberts who is like, unless I've got unanimity here, I want no part of it because it is going to make it look all the more political. Bush v. Gore is still very much in the bones of the court, and there's a lot of PTSD surrounding it, and we know why.

But they could also keep their hands a little bit clean. The appellate court could essentially say, look, we don't think you have immunity. They could then try to raise this up to the Supreme Court and they could decide not to review this case, which means that the lower court ruling stands. They haven't made an actual holding. They haven't issued an opinion. And it's just, well, they said that, so we're going to go with it.

I think, though, this is a very important question. That is why Trump is there. He knows the optics of all of this. He is kind the attitude of I'm not scared, I was there in New York, I'll be there at the appellate court. This is not normally where you see a defendant in an action. They don't usually appear for an appellate court argument.

They will be asking questions, to your point, but those questions are really also for themselves. Judges are trying to ask questions to try to persuade or ask and influence their other people on the bench. They may ask a lot of questions to appear skeptical. They may want to appear as though, which they are supposed to be, and I hope they are, objective. But at the end of the day, they're question are going to be willing try to pick apart the arguments on both sides. They might already have an idea what the Constitution says or does not say, but I would expect this oral argument to be an opportunity for us to really see what the defense is going to say.

Why do you think you have double jeopardy attaching for the impeachment? Not a criminal proceeding. Why do you think you have absolute immunity for these things? And by the way, it is just a delay tactic. The court does not like games played in their courtroom.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn, the political and legal calendar, if you look at it over the course of the next few months --

COLLINS: Hurts your eyes.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it looks like the weekend sports calendar in the Mattingly household, who bring my children around. Clearly, they believe inside Trump's team that the political and the legal benefit him, at least at this moment. But Susie Wiles told reporters a couple weeks ago this is a nightmare schedule. Do those two ever diverge for them? Are they concerned about that?

COLLINS: I think it is. It could be a nightmare when he's very much in the courtroom and what the problem could pose when it comes to the general election, because that has also been the argument here is that this is beneficial to Trump in the primary. It's not going to be beneficial to him if he is the Republican nomination and he's going up against Joe Biden.

[08:10:01]

So Susie Wiles is a shrewd political adviser. She is really the one running the coexisting worlds of Trump's political orbit and his legal orbit. So when she says that, I think she probably means it. But also Trump himself sees the benefit of it. He posts about it constantly.

And just yesterday he is arguing that he has presidential immunity and nothing that he can do as president that he can be prosecuted for, but he is saying that if he wins the White House back, that Joe Biden will be indicted. So it just nullifies -- it's the arguments like that that are just coming out repeatedly. And I think that is something his legal team is watching when he is in the courtroom today.

When he was here in New York, he wanted them to make a certain kind of political argument. They want to make legal arguments, they don't want to make political arguments. These are attorneys who have been around the block. And so that is also I think a factor in all of this.

COATES: And don't forget, this might be voluntary for Trump today, but if they think he does not have immunity, he goes into a criminal trial and he has got to sit. And that calendar becomes all the more nightmarish. All right, I will say, at 11:00 primetime, I have the nightmare schedule. But thank you all.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: OK, OK.

MATTINGLY: We are honored by your presence in the morning. And I'm grateful for you.

COATES: I had to give it to you for a second. I had to give it to you. That's fine, that's fine. Thrilled to see you, I love all of you.

HARLOW: Love you. And thanks for the cappuccino.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn, thanks for coming, guys. We appreciate it. Yes, the coffee is great.

COLLINS: I know coffee is needed this morning.

MATTINGLY: And we will see you guys in less than an hour, special coverage of Trump's immunity appeal, you're going to have to watch.

HARLOW: Right now Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he is in Israel. He is meeting with top officials. We have new reporting on what the Israelis are telling Blinken about their plans to try to get Hamas to release more hostages.

MATTINGLY: Also right now, people from New Mexico to Maine are bracing for a storm packing blizzard condition, flooding rain, potentially dangerous tornados. The National Weather Service says a possible large and dangerous tornado hit near Panama City, Florida, just about 90 minutes ago. In the Midwest, up to a foot of snow could fall and winds up to 70-mile-per-hour could create white out conditions overnight. Big waves flooded parts of the Mississippi coast. The east coast could get up to four inches of rain, which could trigger flash flooding. Stay with us.

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[08:15:37]

HARLOW: Well, new this morning, one of Israel's best known actors and singers has been badly wounded while fighting for the IDF in the Gaza Strip. This is according to his family.

You may recognize Idan Amedi from the breakout Netflix series, "Fauda" in which he played an Israeli Special Forces soldier. Hospital officials where he is being treated say he is in critical condition this morning. His father does say they do expect him to recover.

Wishing him all the best, of course.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And happening now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Tel Aviv meeting with top leaders and the Israeli War Cabinet. Earlier this morning, he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you see it there in Netanyahu's private military base office, this coming as AXIOS is reporting that Israeli officials will tell Blinken that Israel will not allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza unless Hamas agrees to release more hostages. That's according to two senior Israeli officials.

HARLOW: Just this morning, a Hamas leader said no more hostages will be freed from Gaza until all Palestinian prisoners are released from Israeli prisons.

Joining us now, the reporter behind this reporting, CNN political and foreign policy analyst, Barak Ravid.

Thanks so much for joining us.

You have so many new developments, but let's begin on the hostages. That is quite a demand now, coming from Hamas, where your reporting in the last 24 hours or so has been that potentially, Israel had some leverage here, at this point to try to say, look, you can return to the north of Gaza if you release more hostages. Where does this land?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Good morning.

So I think as we can see, the negotiations over a new hostage deal are ongoing, but the parties are very much far apart, and because they're far apart, each side is trying to give more and more demands to try and somehow break this logjam, and the Israelis came up with this new demand because they knew that the Secretary of State Blinken is coming to Israel to ask for a beginning of a return of Palestinians to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip where more or less the IDF has finished its military operation.

And the Israelis think, at least from what I hear from Israeli officials, that that's their leverage to try and get Hamas to come to the table and soften their position, and to say, we will allow Palestinians to go back to their homes only as part of this new hostage deal. For now, it doesn't seem to move Hamas, but you know, talks are still ongoing.

MATTINGLY: I can't imagine US officials will receive that idea of leverage and moving back to the north well. I mean, any sense of where they stand on this?

RAVID: Yes, I agree. You know, I spoke to several US officials, they are not sure.

I mean, they heard this in private already for a few days now ahead of being constrained, because several US officials came to Israel to prepare the trip and started hearing this talking point.

One US official told me that this is an absurd demand because you know, at the end of the day, you need to get Palestinians that are in southern Gaza, more than two million Palestinians, you need to start getting them back north.

And as long as you don't do that, this humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza is just going to exacerbate.

So I think Blinken is going to tell the Israelis very politely, as he usually does that, you know, this is a no-go.

HARLOW: The killing of a senior Hezbollah commander, now, before in your reporting last night, Israel didn't claim responsibility. Now we know an Israeli strike was behind it. What does that tell us about what's happening between the IDF and Hezbollah specifically in the north? I mean, is this going to become a two-front war?

RAVID: I think, you know, we are -- you know, we are very careful of saying that there is a two-front war, but honestly, we have to admit that there is.

What we seen in the last few days between Israel and Lebanon is much bigger than -- sorry, between Israel and Hezbollah is much more significant than what's going on Gaza, much more significant in just half an hour ago, Israel killed another Hezbollah official who is in charge of Hezbollah's drone forces in southern Lebanon and this happened several minutes after Hezbollah attack the headquarters of the IDF Northern Command.

This is serious stuff.

[08:20:10]

So I think the situation in Lebanon is very fragile. It's very dangerous. The Prime Minister, the acting Prime Minister of Lebanon just said a few minutes ago that he got messages from Israel through the US that said, do you want what's happening in Gaza to happen in Lebanon? And he said, we don't want that, but we need to go back to the table for some sort of negotiations.

The only problem is that the government of Lebanon is not really in charge of what's going on in the southern part of the country where Hezbollah is in control.

HARLOW: Barak Ravid, thank you, as always.

RAVID: Thank you. Good morning.

MATTINGLY: Well, protesters interrupting President Biden's speech at a South Carolina church.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROTESTER #1: Ceasefire now.

PROTESTER #2: Ceasefire now.

(PROTESTERS chanting "Ceasefire now.")

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Underscoring complications inside the Democratic base, the president is trying to re-energize right now.

HARLOW: Also new this morning, Jimmy Kimmel eviscerating Aaron Rodgers after the quarterback falsely accused the comedian of being on Jeffrey Epstein's client list. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE" HOST: Aaron got two A's on his report card, they were both in the word, "Aaron," okay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We saw something on January 6th we'd never seen before even during the Civil War.

Insurrectionists waving Confederate flags inside the Halls of Congress built by enslaved Americans. For hours, the defeated former president sat in the private dining room from the Oval Office and did nothing -- nothing -- absolutely nothing.

Losers are taught to concede when they lose. He's a loser.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:25:11]

HARLOW: That is President Biden yesterday warning voters in South Carolina what a second Trump term could do to democracy. He spoke at the historic, Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston yesterday where a White supremacist murdered nine people in 2015.

And this comes as polls show Biden losing some key support with African-Americans, support that helped him win in 2020.

MATTINGLY: Joining us now to discuss, Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, Biden's former White House communications director; former deputy campaign manager as well; and Leah Wright Rigueur, CNN political analyst and historian.

Leah, the setting and the backdrop of yesterday, I think is so critical, because it is the cornerstone constituency of not just the Democratic coalition, but certainly the Biden coalition in 2020.

There has been softness in the polling and questions about the message. When you watch the remarks yesterday, and how it dovetailed with the democracy message, do you think it's an effective one?

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND HISTORIAN: It is an effective message and it is a necessary message, but I don't know if it's the message that is going to translate and unite the base in the way that the Biden camp needs to unite the base right now.

And so let me explain a little bit: One, it's absolutely important that Biden acknowledge what happened in South Carolina in 2015. It's important for him to go and is part of kind of a general relationship, a very strong relationship he has with Senator Jim Clyburn. It is really important for him to make that acknowledgement, to make a direct tie to the murder of these parishioners, these church goers, but also to this idea of the threat to democracy, so explicitly saying White supremacy matters, and that it at play here.

However, right, we know, because we saw the protest that broke out, which I think -- which I should mention, I think Biden handled exceptionally well. But because we saw the protest break out, we know that there is a very important part of Biden's base that is not receptive to this idea of democracy, democracy at threat, right?

So for them, they are not making the connection. They are in some ways rejecting the connection, because we are in this larger global crisis, and they see what's happening with Israel and Gaza.

So I think, it's perhaps a message that is necessary for the campaign. They have to do it. They have to stand on that, but it's not enough.

HARLOW: You know, Kate, having been as close as one can be to the Biden operations, I wonder if you think Leah has a point?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I would say I don't think that the protesters negate the power or the effectiveness of the overall message. These were obviously people who feel very strongly about the situation in Israel and the war with Hamas. No question, there is energy and anger and frustration about that situation and frustration with Biden and the Biden administration for the way they're handling it. I'm certainly not saying that that's not true. Of course, it is.

But, you know, across the board, remember, look, that was an audience. You saw an audience that was incredibly engaged and enthusiastic about what Biden was saying and we've seen time and time again, since Biden first ran in 2019 that this is a message that connects, that motivates base voters, the sense of urgency around what Trump is trying to do, and the way he's wielding White supremacy and encouraging political violence, we've seen that certainly motivates the Democratic base, the coalition that Biden needs to rebuild to win, but it also speaks to more moderate voters.

I mean, there was a "Washington Post" poll a couple of weeks ago that showed that 80 percent of people are concerned about the rise of political violence in this country.

So you know, I think there are certainly elements of the anger around the way the administration is handling the situation in Israel and Palestine that the Biden team needs to acknowledge, but I don't think that the protests yesterday negates the power or the effectiveness of the message overall.

MATTINGLY: Kate, I wanted to get your take on something we heard from the former president yesterday as it pertains to the economy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have an economy that's so fragile, and the only reason it's running now is it's running off the fumes of what we did.

When there's a crash, I hope it's going to be during this next 12 months, because I don't want to be Herbert Hoover, the one president, I just don't want to be Herbert Hoover.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And by your take, I meant how quickly do you clip that and use it in a campaign ad if you are still in the Biden campaign right now?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, immediately.

I mean, here you have Donald Trump arguing that he wants to see an economic crash, that he wants to see the economy fall apart in a way that's going to hurt middle class families, it is going to hurt everybody who is working hard in this economy.

I mean, I think this clip does two things, right? It lays bare you know, the fact that Donald Trump only cares about his own political fortunes and about himself. I mean, he has said many, many times this campaign for him is about retribution and revenge. He certainly underscores that. And it shows how little he cares about what actually happens to people in this country.

And those are two really fundamental weaknesses that the Biden campaign can and should exploit.

[08:30:30]