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Trump Dealt Twin Setbacks; IDF Blames Mistaken Identification; No Labels Abandons Third-Party Ticket; Trump Talks Drug Test for Biden. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 05, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:46]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Donald Trump handed two setbacks yesterday in his efforts to derail the criminal cases against him with judges in the Georgia election subversion case and the Florida classified documents case, both rejecting his bids to have those cases thrown out. In Georgia, the judge shot down Trump's arguments that his efforts to overturn the election were protected political speech, while in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected his claim to personal records under the Presidential Records Act.

CNN's senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz joins our panel.

Katelyn, good morning to you.

Just, kind of big picture, what stands out to you about what we saw yesterday? What of this should we be focused on?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: So, we're - we're talking a lot about, Trump is losing these motions as he's going to trial. These are all of the attempts his attorneys are trying to get the case dismissed or set the terms for the trial when it actually takes place. But you have to remember, that's not the only game that they have to play. They also have to try and make sure, as defense lawyers, that Trump has the best ground he can have when there's a jury in the room.

It's quite clear he's going to trial in this hush money case in New York and very potentially in one of the other one - one of the other criminal cases against him, maybe even this year. And so we have to start shifting our thinking about what the approaches from his team - this is not just about delay the trials. Now they're making sure that they can do things that they want to do before the jury and that what they're presenting to the jury might not look like what Trump is presenting publicly on the political campaign.

So, an example of this - there's two examples, actually, recently. One, in the hush money case, they lost a motion before the judge there to be able to talk about presidential immunity. They wanted to delay things. They wanted presidential immunity to give him a leg up in that case. And the judge said, no, but if the prosecutors want to bring in anything you said while you were president, you can try and cut that out during trial. So, we're going to see that happen during that hush money trial once it starts.

Same thing is happening with Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida. She's currently not dismissing the case on this claim that Trump says these Mar-a-Lago documents where his personal records and not White House records, but she's saying, we can come back to this later. That might be something that you see talked about when there is the reality of the jury in the room.

HUNT: Yes, very, very interesting points all. We're going to dig into this a little bit more in a second, but, first, we have to go to this breaking news.

The Israeli military releasing a report on the deadly strike in Gaza that killed seven aid workers who were with the World Central Kitchen.

Nic Robertson is live from us - for us from Jerusalem.

Nic, what are we learning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, this is the initial report from the IDF and they say that this is what happened. They say that their forces identified a gunman, and I stress a gunman, on an aid truck, an aid truck, and then they believe - the forces then believe that they identified another gunman, one other gunman on an aid truck.

Now, the - what the Army says happened next is a misidentification by the forces of the vehicles involved and a miss classification of the event.

After the aid vehicles carrying the seven World Central Kitchen workers left the warehouse, the IDF says they did not recognize those vehicles as World Central Kitchen vehicles. The IDF say that they believe that those gunman, who they say they believed were Hamas, were in those vehicles, not aid trucks, but the vehicles. The vehicles, the SUVs, the three different SUVs. So, the IDF is outlining a situation where they believed that there were being spotted two Hamas gunmen and they believe that they were in these three vehicles. And then they targeted the three vehicles.

Now, the IDF says this should not have happened. That it was in violation of the standard operating procedure of the IDF.

[06:35:00]

They say that they've taken action. That they're firing the major directly involved in the incident. That they're firing the brigade chief of staff who has the rank of a reserve colonel. Those two people have been fired.

The World Central Kitchen have released a statement. They are saying that the acknowledgment of responsibility by the IDF and the fact that they've taken action against some of those involved is a step forward. But they are saying this out - these outrageous killings - this statement is cold comfort in the face of those outrageous killings. So, this really hasn't gone a long way as yet for the World Central Kitchen and perhaps for many other observers.

There's a lot of detail we don't have here that the IDF could say that they didn't know that these three vehicles leaving this designated and recognize warehouse, these three vehicles that the World Central Kitchen said were known to the IDF, were known through liaison channels, that the troops involved in firing on those vehicles can say that they didn't know that they were World Central Kitchen vehicles.

There's a lot of detail here that really isn't explained. And the World Central Kitchen as well says that the video so far that's been released by the IDF to support their investigation so far does not, for the World Central Kitchen, show for them satisfactorily these alleged or the two alleged gunman who were seeing on the aid trucks. And again I stress trucks because aid trucks are trucks that carry large amounts of aid. The SUV vehicles are different vehicles entirely. The IDF said they had seen the gunman on the aid trucks. So, we're even talking about different vehicles. So, there's so much that isn't really explained in detail here.

HUNT: Yes, I think it's safe to say this is most definitely not the last of this.

Nic Robertson for us live in Jerusalem. Nic, thank you very much for that reporting.

And Evan Osnos, we - I want to show you a little bit of what we saw from Secretary of State Blinken, who's traveling in Europe, earlier on this morning, just as we were coming on the air, he said this.

Watch.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: It's also critical that we see an independent, thorough and fully publicized investigation into the killing of the World Central Kitchen team who were performing heroic work under the most difficult circumstances in trying to get assistance to people who so desperately need it. So, we're looking to see that investigation. We're looking to see a public accounting. And we're looking to see accountability in its wake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, two words stand out to me there, independent and publicized investigation.

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

HUNT: What do you hear?

OSNOS: Well, we're just starting to now see some of the details of what was clearly a catastrophic breakdown in the way that the IDF made the decision. It was a breakdown of communications. But it was also a breakdown of the rules of engagement themselves, about how do people on the ground understand, interpret, and act on what are the rules of war in a case like this.

And I think the inevitable question that is going on within the Biden administration and will be more broadly is, how much was this an isolated incident and how much does this tell us about broader dysfunction right now within the war effort? Because as long - it's going to be a temptation to say this was a terrible case. Let's put it behind us. Biden and his aides are going to say, well, let's make sure that this doesn't happen again. And we want to hear a lot more detail about how this happened.

HUNT: Yes, for sure.

All right, up next here, the valuable lesson that Donald Trump says he learned from a former impeached president.

Plus, rock and roll and all night, partying every day. Kiss the latest ban to cash in on their catalog.

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[06:43:00]

HUNT: All right, 42 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

President Biden, heading to Baltimore today where he'll get an aerial tour of the damage caused by the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge and outline the federal response to the disaster.

Former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark facing possible disbarment. An attorney disciplinary panel ruling he violated attorney ethics rules when he attempted to interfere with the 2020 election.

Today, Nebraska's legislature debates a proposal that would award the state's electoral votes through a winner take all system. That measure is supported by former President Trump. Why? Nebraska currently splits electoral votes between statewide and congressional district winners, which often hands one Electoral College vote to Democrats.

And -

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vision of taking Kiss to a completely different level beyond being just a music band. And we've always thought of ourselves as more than just a music band.

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HUNT: Kiss is cashing in. The legendary rock band has sold their catalog, brand name, and IP to a Swedish company. The AP is reporting the deal is estimated to be worth more than $300 million. All right, now this. No Labels will not be fielding a third party

ticket in November. The group tried to find a unity candidate, someone who would be an alternative to Trump and Biden, but in a major setback its founding chairman, Joe Lieberman, passed away last month. Here is what Lieberman said about the group's efforts shortly before his passing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LIEBERMAN, FORMER CONNECTICUT SENATOR: This whole movement and No Labels to run a third choice, bipartisan unity ticket started because our members saw another Trump-Biden race coming and thought the country could do better. And every poll that's taken shows that most of the people in our country think that we could do better than those two choices and they want something other than Trump and Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:45:05]

HUNT: Here is what the No Labels spokesperson said on Thursday. Quote, "No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down."

Joining me now to discuss is CNN's Michael Smerconish, who has become our Friday regular, for which I am so grateful.

Michael, good morning to you.

What - what happened here? I mean this was sort of an - a disaster, honestly, for them. Was there any chance - ever a chance they would actually find someone? There are so many people who looked at this and said this is a terrible idea.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST, CNN's "SMERCONISH": Kasie, you remember that line from "Field of Dreams," if you build it, will they come? We're never going to know because they were building it, but then they stopped short of getting to the finish line.

And in the end, to your point, it seems as if they really did approach a whole slew of candidates, both in the public arena for politics, even "The Rock," Dwayne Johnson, was apparently offered some type of an overture to see whether he was interested. So, you know, it was the ultimate Rorschach test. You had a number of people, me included, who said, if there were ever a cycle that seems perfectly suited because of the polling for someone to get into this race it would be 2024. But then there were other people who said, any other cycle, you know, this was former Congressman Gephardt, this was David Brooks from "The New York Times," individuals who said, in any other scenario we'd be open to it, but not this year because the risk of Donald Trump being elected is just too great.

HUNT: So, Michael, I mean, what - where is this energy, do you think, going to go? I mean to the extent that No Labels had an argument, right, it was that people are unhappy with the Trump-Biden rematch. We can see that in the polling and in the numbers. Now they will not have this No Labels option. What happens in your view at this point to those voters? I mean are they going to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? I mean what is the Biden campaign imperative here?

SMERCONISH: I'm sure the Biden campaign is thrilled with this news because the perception is that Donald Trump has a ceiling. Is it 44? Is it 45? Is it 46 percent of the vote and therefore that any gain by a No Labels candidate would have been to the detriment of President Biden. So, I'm sure the Biden campaign is ecstatic with this.

I would also think, to your point, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sees this as opportunity. Where will the so-called, Kasie, double-haters go? In the end do they sit at home? Do they break either for Biden or for Trump? Do they go to Bobby Kennedy? I mean that's really x the unknown. And with so many intangibles still to play out, not the least of which is the April 15 first Trump trial. Will there be more thereafter? We don't know. But you've got to really be able to see around corners to know which way this whole thing is going to break. And I, for one, have been proven incorrect too many times.

HUNT: I know, predictions have become dangerous in this business.

SMERCONISH: That's true.

HUNT: Michael, I actually - I'm not sure I've had the chance to ask you what your view is of Bobby Kennedy, Jr., the campaign that he's running, the type of voter that he appeals to, because while we've obviously talked at length about how it's clear he could eat into Biden's support, there are things about him that our Trumpian, quite honestly, and that seem to speak to people that may consider themselves part of Trump's MAGA base. How do you look at this?

SMERCONISH: Yes is the answer to that question. There's a populist appeal to him. I think there's a tendency for many to see Robert F. Kennedy, immediately associate him with his vax position, and in many instances write him off. I made the observation, having watched his entire announcement speech many months ago in Boston, and then having witnessed his switch to run as an independent, which was in Philadelphia, that if you read the transcripts for each of those speeches and forget who the speaker is and just focus on the message, there's mass appeal. And he addresses issues that no other candidates are speaking about in this campaign.

So, if he can get individuals to focus not so much on personality and some of the more controversial aspects of his candidacy. And I know that's a reach for many, there is appeal that I think that he will have among some who don't normally come out and vote. And to look at the crowd of people that he attracts, to go to some of those live events is really to see a cross-section that I think you don't find at Biden and Trump events.

HUNT: Really, really interesting.

Michael, I - it's - it's - it's - it's quite a phenomenon to get your head around. Before I let you go, I'm actually interested in this, and I may be throwing you a curve ball, so I apologize for that. But I know that you have Mr. Haidt, Professor Haidt on your show coming up over the weekend. He is, of course, the NYU professor that - he's got a new book out looking at social media. He's basically telling people, don't give your kids phones until they're 16 years old.

[06:50:00]

And he's become sort of a lightning rod for controversy. I have to say, as the mom of two young kids, I really like what he has had to say about this, that this is something we shouldn't be doing with our kids. What are you going to talk to him about and what do you think we should know about what he's got out there?

SMERCONISH: I'm so glad that you brought this up. Jonathan Haidt has the number one book in the country according to "The New York Times." It's called "The Anxious Generation." And he speaks of what's taken place in the last several decades where you go from my childhood, which was one of neighborhood backyard play-based, to the current childhoods of so many of our adolescents that is totally dependent on smartphones and technology. And he sees a causal connection between that and a rise of mental health issues, particularly among our youth. I see it as part of a larger societal disconnect.

All this connectivity is actually making us more disconnected from one another. I think it has relevance in the political arena because its driving polarization and partisanship to new heights. And his is a book - I've read them all. There have been so many in the span of the last two decades, but this is the book that ties it all together. Yes, it's controversial. Some try and attack the causation argument. I think both he and Jean Twenge, who wrote "iGen" have it all buttoned up and every parent, every grandparent, every aunt or uncle needs to read this book and appreciate what's going on.

HUNT: I mean I think it's also something you can kind of just test in your own life. I mean I am an adult. I - I - I am one of the few people that - I came of age, right, my childhood was before the internet. Then I learned how to do it as a kind of native. AOL shows up when I'm, you know, 11, 12 years old. Now as an adult, I can tell I'm way happier when I put down my phone. So, how can we not, you know, expect kids who are learning, you know, who are growing and their brains are developing - anyway, it makes a lot of sense.

Michael Smerconish, thank you very much for being with us.

SMERCONISH: Thank you, Kasie. Thank you.

HUNT: "SMERCONISH" is Saturday at 9:00 a.m. I will be watching.

SMERCONISH: Thank you.

HUNT: See you next week, I hope.

All right, let us turn now to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW": Are you suggesting President Biden's using cocaine?

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know what he's using but that was not - hey, he was higher than a kite.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": Now Joe Biden is doing cocaine. That makes sense. If anything, he's not doing coke, it's doing sarsaparilla. The man is 145 years old. But by all means, do a drug test. Let the whole country watch the both of you pee into a cup.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Jimmy Kimmel talking about an interview that Donald Trump did with Hugh Hewitt?

Let's, in fact, I think we should play the full exchange. This is the full thing that Trump had to say before you heard Hewitt there asked whether Trump was insinuating that President Biden takes cocaine.

Let's watch the whole thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The firings were a mistakes. You notice the way I kept people that I couldn't stand?

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW": Yes.

TRUMP: I learned that from Nixon. I said, let me just live with these.

You know, that - that white stuff that they happened to find, which happened to be cocaine in the White House. I don't know. I think - I think something's going on there because I watched his State of the Union and he was all jacked up at the beginning. By the end he was fading fast. There's something going on there. I want a debate. And I think debates, with him at least, should be drug tested. I want him drug tested.

HEWITT: Mr. President, are you suggesting President Biden's using cocaine?

TRUMP: I don't know what he's using, but that was not - hey, he was higher than a kite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Here we are, American politics, April 2024.

Karen Finney.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Like I said, it's only April and we're talking cocaine. Guess where we'll be by October and November, right? It's the same thought I had when he came down and he talked about, you know, in 2016 and Mexicans are rapists and murderers. And I thought, wow, is that the floor or the ceiling. So, yes, he'll say anything. I mean - but, sure, let's see his drug test.

HUNT: Sarah, the look on your face says a lot of things.

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I mean, I guess, I'm just trying to like, I don't know, it's probably not the worst thing he could say about Biden. Like, in terms of - in terms of Trump, right, he's been saying like Biden is - is like a corpse. Biden has dementia. I don't know, maybe this - this is just - I don't know. It is, it's all just very stupid and I - it doesn't - it would be so funny if the stakes weren't so high.

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: The stakes are so high. Agreed.

OSNOS: Yes, I mean the idea that he's going to accuse Biden of using performance enhancing drugs, where now we're getting into like Studio 54 drugs.

HUNT: Right.

OSNOS: I mean the whole idea is, hold on, I think Americans have other things that they actually want to hear from their presidential candidates about. So, let's hear it, Donald Trump. (INAUDIBLE) -

HUNT: Well, it's also future evidence - further evidence of him kind of living this media ecosystem of conspiracy -

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: You know, that is fed by conspiracy theories.

FINNEY: Yes. I mean it's a tactic, right, to just throw as much crazy stuff out there so that your opponent has to decide, are we going to respond to that?

[06:55:04]

Are we going to leave that? What? But he just throws it out there. It will stick with somebody. And so, in a serious note, it's - it's dangerous. And it's really irresponsible and ridiculous.

LONGWELL: Yes. No one's going to take the idea that Joe Biden is doing cocaine seriously, except Trump's base, who will think it's funny.

FINNEY: Right.

LONGWELL: But its - that's - swing voters are not going to take to that.

HUNT: All right, fair enough.

Let's also show what Trump had to say in this interview about lessons he learned perhaps from Richard Nixon.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The firings were a mistake. You notice the way I kept people that I couldn't stand.

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW": Yes.

TRUMP: I learned that from Nixon. I said, let me just live with these people for a little while before I get rid of them. In many ways, he was his own worst enemy. And he did things that were - he didn't treat people, some people well, and those people ended up coming back to get him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Evan Osnos, this is not - Donald Trump's not a guy we necessarily think of as having sort of a historic - like, of considering the arcs of history or learning from history.

OSNOS: Right.

HUNT: But, I will say, you know, Roger Ailes worked for - worked for Richard Nixon. A lot of kind of the - if you look at Roger Stone. A lot of the way that Trump came through in politics is rooted in a lot of Nixonian things. But that was pretty, sort of, you know, laying it out there in an interesting way.

OSNOS: Yes.

HUNT: What do you make of what he said?

OSNOS: Well, I mean the idea that he's studying Nixon is meaningful. I think the notion that he somehow has renounced his reputation as the man who fires people is a stretch. This is a guy who came into political life by saying that he would shut (ph) down anybody around me.

HUNT: You're fired.

OSNOS: You're fired.

HUNT: Yes.

OSNOS: But, look, it is clearly - he is a man who is running for president, as he has told us, in the name of retribution. In some ways there is a Nixonian character very much among us. And I think he's saying it out loud.

HUNT: Yes. Before we get to the story that I know we're all desperate to talk about, which is women's basketball, can - I'd like to touch on No Labels with the two of you because, Sarah, in particular, you have really made a career looking at the Republican Party and disaffected voters in the Republican Party, that consequences of another Trump presidency, what that means in terms of Biden. This is an effort that, I mean, clearly lot of people looked at it. A lot of serious people looked at it. What ultimately do you think caused the collapse and do you think it's good for the country that they're not putting any - they're not fielding a ticket?

LONGWELL: Absolutely, because they were going to be nothing of a spoiler for Joe Biden -- I'm sorry, a spoiler for Donald Trump. And it came from - the group was always very clumsy and had a certain element of political illiteracy about them. They had this idea that if they put forward a candidate who was a Republican, right, like a Larry Hogan, or a Chris Christie, that like that would be a - no, that's going to pull from Donald Trump. That makes no sense, OK? You have a - that was not who these people were going to pull from, right? It was going to pull the critical 6 to 8 percent of - right-leaning independents, soft GOP voters who have been willing to vote for Joe Biden, that are part of the broader anti-Trump coalition. And so all they were going to do was split that anti-Trump coalition and hand this election to Biden. And I think that the fact that everybody looked at it and said, oh, no, I'm just going to spoil it for Donald Trump is the reason that the whole thing collapsed. But it was - it was silly from the beginning. It was poorly run, poorly executed. And I hope what they do now is take all of those resources that they accumulated by telling donors that they were going to have this fantasy idea, I hope they use it to join the anti-Trump coalition and try to defeat Donald Trump.

FINNEY: And, I mean, one of the things that was interesting - you know, the first meeting I attended where you have everyone from folks from the Lincoln Project, Bill Kristol, who's actually become a friend, and you had Ron Klain, not to mention Third Way and Move On. I mean talk about people who rarely agree on anything. So, they did unify quite a bit of the political universe who recognized very early on, yes, what they were saying was - I mean their math didn't even work, but they were very dangerous because they had over $70 million to get on the ballot.

HUNT: Right, ballot access.

FINNEY: And what they were promising people - you know, they were promising that they could win states like Texas. And again it was totally illogical, but it was a very real threat that myself and others worked very hard to not just undermine but to make sure that the people they were talking to understood that their rhetoric just did not work and their math did not work.

HUNT: All right. Fair enough.

All right, I'll leave you with this. The women are the hot ticket this final four weekend thanks to Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark. Ticket prices for the women's NCAA final four now more expensive than the men's. The average ticket price, $726, slightly higher than the men's matchups, which are sitting at $710. Resale tickets for the women's games are selling twice the price of the men's.

[07:00:00] Double. A lot of the frenzy, of course, due to Clark becoming the all- time scoring leader in men's and women's NCAA division one history. Again, leading scorer from in the men and in the women. And tonight she and her top-seeded Hawkeyes will play the number three UConn Huskies.

Sarah Longwell, this is awesome.

LONGWELL: It's the best. Oh, my - these games are so fun to watch. I've been having the best time with it. And - and it's not just about the prices being more than the men. Like, these women - like, people are suddenly like, oh, you know, what's Angel Reese going to do? Is she going to get drafted to the WNBA? Is she going to stay in college? Like, people are into the stories.

HUNT: Yes.

LONGWELL: They're into these - these women as athletes. It's so fun.

HUNT: It's freaking awesome.

And, guess what, this game, it's a weekend. I get to stay up late and watch the games.

Thanks very much to our panel and thanks to you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.