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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Trump's Immunity Claim; Trump Using Slow Legal System to His Advantage; 1M+ Acres Scorched in Texas, Oklahoma. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 29, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, February 29th. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, happy leap year!

[06:01:04]

The Supreme Court announcing it will hear Donald Trump's immunity claims, further delaying the former president's federal election subversion trial.

And more trouble for Trump, an Illinois judge removing his name from the state ballot, citing the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban.

And the race is on. Top Republicans already angling to replace their departing Senate leader, Mitch McConnell.

All right. It's 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the Supreme Court, not usually the critical center of deciding our elections. It's looking like it might be this year.

Good morning, everyone. It's wonderful to have you here. I'm Kasie Hunt.

Donald Trump's strategy to delay those trials until after the November election just got a big assist from the Supreme Court, the justices announcing they will hear the former president's claims of absolute immunity. That's going to happen in late April. A ruling not expected until the end of June.

And only then can Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal election subversion case move forward, assuming that the court rules against Trump.

Meanwhile, an Illinois judge just ruled against the former president, taking his name off the state's November ballot, citing the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban. The decision is paused, giving Trump a narrow window to appeal.

The Supreme Court already considering whether states have the authority to remove candidates from their ballots.

Let's talk about all of this with former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams; CNN senior political reporter Stephen Collinson; Republican strategist Sarah Longwell; and former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield. Welcome all. It's wonderful to have you here at the top of the hour.

Elliot, let's just start here with the legal of all of this. I have to be honest: after covering the arguments in the case around taking Trump off the ballot, there seemed to be kind of an emerging consensus in your legal world that they were going to let him stay on the ballot and they were potentially going to deny even taking up this question of immunity.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Right.

HUNT: Were you surprised about what they did here?

WILLIAMS: No, I'm not surprised at what they did here. You know, big picture, it's the Supreme Courts job, ultimately, to rule on big constitutional questions.

Now, they didn't have to. They could have just let this go. There was a perfectly well-written appeals court decision. And look, we as Americans are well aware that we're on the clock here. This is an important issue for the 2024 election.

That said, I mean, last night, Andrew McCabe in that seat right there said it was supreme arrogance from the Supreme Court. I think that's kind of a point. They see themselves as the arbiters of major legal questions and are, you know, going to operate on their own timeline.

And if it takes them several months and isn't resolved by the election, so be it. But from their perspective, not mine or anyone else.

HUNT: Fair. I mean, Stephen, big picture here, though, I mean, the politics of this. Even having these conversations, right? We're just in completely unprecedented territory here, right? I mean, this potentially puts a trial starting around Labor Day. That's right when Americans are actually making up their mind.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And we talk about how Bush v. Gore, that was the supreme collision between a presidential election and the Supreme Court.

HUNT: Right.

COLLINSON: This is much bigger than that on multiple levels, and it's playing directly into what is going to happen in November. I think that's why it's so significant.

If you think when this case probably gets decided, the end of June, we were on the clock for about two months before the beginning of the trial, before all this happened. That gets us to probably Labor Day.

HUNT: Right.

COLLINSON: Is it conceivable we can see a presidential candidate go in trial in the daytime, campaign in the evenings, perhaps even take place, take part in a presidential debate? I think that raises real questions. But the judge is going to have to decide, assuming the court says that Trump doesn't have immunity.

HUNT: Right.

COLLINSON: Can Trump get a free -- a fair trial if jurors are watching him on the TV in the evening.

WILLIAMS: Just very real quick, he can get a fair trial. And I want to pour cold -- ice-cold water on the notion that he can't.

[06:05:05]

Now, the idea is, can he get a trial by August, September? And that would be lightning-fast if the moment they walked out of the Supreme Court in June, everybody ran to the courthouse and started preparing for trial. To get everything started by August or September would really be record-breaking, I think.

HUNT: Yes. So a couple of numbers for you. One, Americans' view of Trump and immunity. Sixty-six percent say Trump should -- should not be immune to criminal prosecution. Thirty-three percent say that he should be.

And then, Sarah, the Iowa exit poll of Republican voters, right? Caucus goers. Is Trump fit for the presidency if he's convicted of a crime? Thirty-one percent say no.

The big question now is whether or not there is going to be a trial that is going to make a decision about whether he is going to be convicted before voters have to decide. I mean, early voting starts in September.

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: That's right. But I talk to voters all of the time in focus groups, and I know that this is being read as a big win for Trump. But if that timeline holds that you just laid out, and voters are having to look at Trump on trial, right before they're thinking about voting, I think that's very bad for him.

You know, the thing is, is there was always sort of two tracks to Trump's legal problems. In a primary, it helps him. There's a rally- round-Trump effect from voters.

But swing voters, independent voters, Nikki Haley voters, they don't like the idea of voting for somebody who's, like, in a courtroom all the time, who's under multiple indictments. And so that timeline, I think, would actually be bad for him.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree with that, and I also would say, let's not forget the substance of what this case is about.

Like, we know that this argument about Trump as a -- as a threat to democracy is motivating for voters. It's motivate -- certainly motivating to Democrats, but we've seen it is a motivating argument. We saw it play out in the midterms. We see it -- it's motivating for independence.

So, you know, there's not only -- will -- will he, under this hypothetical timeline, be on trial in front of the country two months before a month before the election, or as you pointed out, once people are already early voting.

But we're going to be hearing the argument for, you know, exactly why he's such a specific threat to democracy. So that -- I think it's hard to argue that that politically is a good thing for Donald Trump.

I know there's a constant sense that he's always able to take, you know, any legal threat and turn it into political gold. I don't -- I don't think in this case that's true.

HUNT: Sarah, you -- you do, as you point out, like you're out there conducting these focus groups with voters all the time. And the big question that I have had on this Iowa graphic -- and it's been true also in New Hampshire and South Carolina and other places -- that's 31 percent of people who say he'll be disqualified if he's convicted. They're clearly open to the idea that this guy has major legal problems that would mean that he shouldn't be president.

My question has always been, can Trump convince them otherwise, right?

LONGWELL: Yes.

HUNT: And do you think that he can?

LONGWELL: Trump and the entire sort of right-wing infotainment media. They will go to work on people, trying to make them believe that this is a witch-hunt.

The thing is, is that that 31 percent number is high enough that, even if they can chip away at half of that, it is still a big chunk of voters who are going to -- it's going to move their vote right before an election.

And as we know, in this hyperpolarized environment, we're talking about just a few hundred thousand votes across six states. And so I do think that can be the difference maker. It doesn't have to be that whole 31 percent.

HUNT: Yes. Elliot --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: -- this idea that the Department of Justice, right, has this rule or policy that says, like, they don't interfere in elections, right? And that's around typically making a decision to indict or not, right? How does it apply in the case of a trial?

WILLIAMS: I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. No, certainly.

So just so folks understand, the 60-day rule is that the Justice Department typically, it's a guideline, not a rule. But typically, within 60 days of an election, doesn't take investigative steps that might interfere with the election or might interfere with how voters might approach the election.

Now this would have been a trial that had been proceeding since well before the 60-day period. It was filed a long time ago, investigated years before. Now, obviously, the trial itself would affect the election.

But I think they could still proceed and, frankly, would want to. No. 1, given the Justice Department's stated view of getting this on the record and completed before the election day.

And two, they're not filing anything new. It's a trial that started months before and just happened to be held up in the Supreme Court.

HUNT: Right. One -- they could argue that it's the defendant that held it up, as well.

WILLIAMS: In a way, yes.

HUNT: Yes. Stephen, I mean, it's like the number of times this morning already where it's been like, well, I don't know, because we've never seen this before, right? But you -- you know, you're sort of -- you look at this big picture for us in terms of painting this. I mean, we are living history here.

COLLINSON: This is what Donald Trump has done. He's tested every single political, judicial, even constraint. And the constraints of presidential decorum itself.

Every president I've covered going back to, say, Bill Clinton has had a very advanced sense of the power of the presidency, what could happen if they pushed the limits of that presidency. Trump is completely different, as we've seen before he even got to the White House in his business life.

One question I have is whether the Supreme Court took this up because we have a potential president who said he's going to have a second term of retribution if he gets reelected.

[06:10:09]

Is it important, therefore, for the court to perhaps weigh in on this question of whether the president has immunity? Because it's establishing or bolstering a constitutional constraint right there.

WILLIAMS: Nixon v. Fitzgerald, Bush versus Gore. Notice, all of those are Supreme Court cases, not appeals court decisions, right? It was, to some extent, the job of the Supreme Court, at least that they, in their arrogance or brilliance, wherever you want to call it, they see themselves as the group that should be deciding these questions.

And quite frankly, it's an open question. Now Donald Trump -- Everybody has the information they need to decide whether they think Donald Trump is fit to be present of the United States or not, whether he's convicted, whether he's immune.

So to some extent, the Supreme Court decision doesn't matter. But it's their job. It's open. They ought to do it.

HUNT: Again, history, right, being written.

All right. Our panel, thanks to all of you. You're going to stay with us. You'll be back again later on in the hour.

But up next here, we're going to take a closer look at Donald Trump's legal calendar, writ large. Two words: crammed and complicated.

Plus, the heartbreak of a Texas family who just lost their home to a wildfire.

And lawmakers cutting a short-term deal to head off a government shutdown. Congressman Andy Kim, who's running for Senate in New Jersey, joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:46]

HUNT: Welcome back. Live look at the New York City skyline. It's 6:15 a.m. Eastern this morning.

Somewhere in there, Trump Tower, and of course, Trump's offices in New York City, where he made his fame and fortune before coming here to Washington, D.C. The rest is history.

The clock is ticking. Donald Trump seems to like it that way. He and his legal team are using delay tactics and trying to slow the legal system to his advantage as he faces four trials this year.

Here to break it all down for us is CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, we've obviously been focused on the big news in the immunity case, but it is just one of four situations he is facing. Can you kind of walk us through them? And now that we have kind of this new information, what the Supreme Court's going to do, how we're going to see it play out over the course of the election year?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's going to be busy. Maybe we see four trials this year. Maybe not. The -- it's looking by the day less likely, but there are weeks where I would say it looks very likely. So who knows?

What's going to happen in the next couple of days is we're going to get a bit of more solidification of what happens in his Florida documents case.

So that case is a case that is a moving target right now on the calendar. It is set for the end of May, but the judge is going to look at it at a hearing on Friday and say, can it go in May, or does it move to a different point in time? Trump's team wants it to be scheduled in the summer, and then maybe push it back again.

And then he is going to be going to trial. This is the one that is on the books and we're moving towards. The New York hush money case, business falsification of records related to Stormy Daniels in the 2016 election.

That's happening end of March. So jury selection will start then, and that will take Trump in court through May.

And, you know, with this classified documents case not set yet and with the two 2020 election cases up in the air, we just don't know where they will all land. It's -- it's really a game of musical chairs.

And the Supreme Court coming into play now, having that case tied up, the federal 2020 election case out of Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court very well could decide that case and put it back in the hands of the trial court by the end of June, the end of their term.

And then, there is indication from the special counsel's office they believe it still could go to trial this year, fairly quickly after that.

It is entirely up to the judge there in the trial court in Washington, D.C., what she wants to do with it.

HUNT: Really interesting. How does it interact with the classified documents case? Like if the -- if the classified documents case ends up going to trial in the summer before the special counsel, do they have to wait while he finishes that trial, or do we know?

POLANTZ: Well, Trump can't be on trial twice at the same time, right? Because he, as a defendant, has a right to attend his trials. So he's going to exercise that right. And he's not going to go to trial at the same time in two different courts.

The way that this is going to be stacked up, though, is we just don't know how it's going to stack up until we get closer to trial. This happens sometimes. Dates move around. We don't know how the judges are going to work it out. They might have to play some popcorn. We could see one scheduled and then the other, and then flipped.

But the summer is going to be really intense, whenever we're talking about the calendar. And there is the possibility that Trump's team is hoping for, which is that one trial gets scheduled, and it blocks everything else. And then that trial gets moved and continues to block everything else. And no trials happen after the New York hush money trial.

Did you follow that?

HUNT: OK. Yes. I mean, I think so. We're basically -- I mean, I feel like our banner for today should just say "uncharted territory," because everything we're talking about today --

POLANTZ: We've been there for a couple years now.

HUNT: Yes, I guess we have. All right. Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, thank you. Come back soon. All right. Coming up next here, President Biden and Donald Trump

making dueling appearances at the Southern border just hours from now.

Plus, remarkable images from the Moon. How the lunar lander is defying all odds, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:13]

HUNT: Catastrophic wildfires have now scorched more than a million acres across Texas and Oklahoma.

At least one person, an elderly woman, has been killed. Thousands of cattle have also perished. In this heartbreaking video, a 3-year-old reacts to the loss of her family home. I can't watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you crying, Mami (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want the house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want your house?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mm-hmm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Baby, we'll get another house, OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: At least she's OK.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burned almost 900,000 acres in Texas. It is the second largest fire ever in the state, and still only 3 percent contained.

In Northwest Oklahoma, more than 31,000 acres burned, with dry air, heat, and winds fanning the flames.

In the Texas Panhandle alone, more than 100 miles of power lines are going to need to be rebuilt.

Our weatherman, Derek van Dam, has been tracking this system. He joins us now. Derek, is there any relief in sight for these families?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good question. Heartbreaking to watch that video. But you said it, right? At least that -- that girl is OK.

Is there some relief in sight? You know, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but it is my job to tell you what the future holds in terms of these conditions. And I think we are into this narrow window where firefighters can at

least get some handle on this -- this out-of-control wildfire in the Texas Panhandle. But conditions are going to deteriorate as we head into the weekend.

This fire just exploding over the past 48 hours. We know now currently burning roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. If you add up all the wildfires across the Texas Panhandle and into portions of Western Oklahoma, it encompasses over a million acres.

So what's at play now? What we do have: some precipitation moving into the Texas Panhandle. You can see rain to the South, snow to the North. This is very light, much of it not even reaching the ground. So we're not expecting any more than a tenth of an inch of precipitation within these hardest hit and hardest impacted areas, if any precipitation manages to actually reach the ground.

[06:25:21]

So again, my job: to talk about the future, what's going to happen. The temperatures are going to warm this weekend. We are also noticing the winds forecast to pick up. Look at this. By the Friday and Saturday time frame, gusting between 30 to 35 miles per hour in some of those hardest hit areas.

That is why the weather prediction center already has highlighted the Texas Panhandle into Western Oklahoma with this critical fire danger as we head into the weekend. This is valid for Sunday. So something we want to monitor.

And it's all being driven by a larger storm system impacting the West Coast already starting to light up our radar system.

I want to hone in on what's going to happen this weekend across the California Sierra Nevada mountain range. Eight plus feet of snow, 75- mile-per-hour winds. This could bury cars. It could make roads impassable and make conditions disorienting.

Very dangerous situation this weekend across this area -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Our weatherman, Derek van Dam. Derek, thank you very much for that.

All right. Up next here, deflect and delay. How the Supreme Court just helped Donald Trump implement his legal strategy and his campaign strategy.

Plus, an Illinois judge adding one more legal challenge to Trump's growing list by booting him off the state's ballot.

And Hollywood says goodbye to comedian and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" star Richard Lewis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD LEWIS, COMEDIAN/ACTOR: I did WORDLE again today. I'm a WORDLE wisdom, man. I did it in three tries.

LARRY DAVID, COMEDIAN/ACTOR: Really?

LEWIS: That's three days in a row, man.

DAVID: Wow, you're really having a good streak.

LEWIS: A huge streak. That's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:30:00]