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Day 3 of Jury Selection Today in Hush-Money Trial; Senate Dismisses Articles of Impeachment Against Mayorkas. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 18, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, April 18. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, day three of jury selection in Donald Trump's hush-money trial. New details about the prosecution strategy if the former president decides to testify.

[06:01:23]

Impeachment fail. Republican attempts to oust the homeland security secretary abruptly shut down in the Senate.

And RFK Jr., one of the only Kennedys who won't be endorsing Joe Biden today.

Look at that lovely picture of the Jefferson Memorial at 6 a.m. here in Washington. Here's a live look at the Jefferson Memorial Tidal Basin. Washington, D.C.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Jim Acosta, in for Kasie Hunt. It's great to be with you.

Will he, or won't he? Day three of jury selection resuming this morning in Donald Trump's hush-money trial. Five more jurors need to be seated before opening statements can begin, perhaps as early as Monday.

But the buzz is building about the former president's intentions when it comes to taking the stand, that's where the "will he or won't he" question comes in. And Trump claims he's all in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, do you plan to testify -- do you plan to testify in your trial in New York?

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I would testify. Absolutely. It's a scam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it risky for you to testify?

TRUMP: I'm testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: Now we've heard that before. If Trump does decide to testify, prosecutors already have a plan. D.A. Alvin Bragg intends to attack his credibility by questioning him about his fraud and sexual abuse cases.

Let's bring in conservative columnist Scott Jennings; former White House senior director Nayyera Haq; and Molly Ball, senior political correspondent at "The Wall Street Journal." Scott is also a CNN political --

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I work here.

ACOSTA: -- contributor. You work here, yes.

JENNINGS: Almost for seven years now.

ACOSTA: You're a conservative commentator.

JENNINGS: Yes.

ACOSTA: You say lots of things.

Now, Scott, let me go to you first, because I mean, one of the things I wanted to ask you about -- let's put this up on screen. Do we have the Truth Social from Donald Trump yesterday? Five p.m., he was posting about this.

He's quoting Jesse Watters, a noted humorist over at FOX. He says, "They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury."

This kind of dovetails, Scott, with what Trump was saying, what was outside the bodega the other day when they were asking him, do you think you'll get a fair jury? And he basically he said, Well, I'll let you know after the trial is over. It's sort of like I know it's a fair election if I win.

What's going on there? I mean, he --

JENNINGS: Well, I think -- I think he has a basic assumption that he's being railroaded at every step of the process.

ACOSTA: Yes.

JENNINGS: I mean, he thinks that about the judge. He obviously would think that about the jury selection process, as well.

I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, it only takes one person in a jury, you know, for a criminal defendant. So I don't know if that's true or not. We'll see how it plays out.

I mean, I -- look, when this whole thing started, there were a whole bunch of people on the left and the right who said they thought it was a weak case, that it did not rise to the level of a felony, that this is not something that should have been indicted the way that it was. You never know. There may be a juror in there that agrees with them. ACOSTA: Do you worry about how this case may play out and whether this could end up being a gift to Trump at the end of the day?

NAYYERA HAQ, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE SENIOR DIRECTOR: There's 88 indictments out there.

ACOSTA: OK.

HAQ: This is -- this is one of many -- and it's probably the one that people feel is the least serious. I mean, this is -- the D.A.'s talked about this being tied to election interference. It's not nearly the same type of election interference that we associate with calling up a state senator and demanding that -- the secretary of state -- find a couple of thousand votes, right? That -- that is a gravity of interfering in democracy.

But no one told Trump that he had to run while under federal indictment and 88 charges. This is something he is choosing to do and getting attention for it.

ACOSTA: Yes. But Molly, I mean, getting back to that Truth Social post, he's already kind of chumming the waters for his base, it sounds like, to just sort of discount whatever happens in this case.

[06:05:03]

If there's a conviction, they're going to say, OK, oh, yes, didn't I hear this thing that Jesse Watters was saying and Trump was saying, that there were liberal activists getting on the jury.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, and I was at the Trump trial earlier this week in the courtroom watching the jury selection process, which was fascinating for how sort of simultaneously normal and abnormal it was at the same time, right?

On the one hand, you have this hours and hours of questioning about impartiality, and it's a very routine process that happens in criminal courtrooms every day.

On the other hand, as one of Trump's lawyers said in that process, most defendants, when you get called for jury duty, you're going to have no idea who they are. This guy, everybody knows, everybody has an opinion about.

And we repeatedly had jurors confronted with years'-old social media posts that they had made, mostly anti-Trump, raised to question whether they could be impartial.

So I think there's a question about, you know, whether Trump is in violation of the gag order when he makes posts like that. Because one of the things he's not supposed to do is disparage the jurors. And -- and he has been a little bit cautious about that in his public comments, but not when he makes posts like that.

So then that's a pending motion before the judge, is whether he's in violation of that.

ACOSTA: Yes. And Scott, I mean, George Conway wrote a piece for "The Atlantic" reflecting on the start of the trial. So far, we described the trial as -- this is what he says -- "ordinary despite being so extraordinary." He said, "Frankly, that was comforting. The ordinary mechanics of the criminal litigation process were applied fairly, efficiently, and methodically to a defendant of unparalleled notoriety."

I mean, I guess there's -- there's a little bit of a civics lesson for the public in all of this. They're getting to watch this unfold.

JENNINGS: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And --

ACOSTA: Now, we don't cameras in the courtroom, but reporters came out and talked about it.

JENNINGS: And -- that's what you would want to happen here.

ACOSTA: Yes.

JENNINGS: It does -- it shouldn't matter who you are in the criminal justice system. Everybody should get the same fair trial. Everybody should get the same kind of a justice system, whether you're famous or whether you're not famous.

And I agree with you, Molly. I think everybody is going to have an opinion about Trump, but that should be independent of your opinion about the facts and the law.

And people -- you're picking jurors, because you want them to be able to separate your emotional reaction to somebody versus -- versus what their duty is as a sworn juror.

And hopefully, they're getting at that. And Trump deserves no more or no less than any other American who is indicted for something at any jurisdiction. And I mean, that's what you would hope at the end of this, everybody would say, well, it was a fair process. The jurors acted fairly and -- and impartial that -- that's the goal here.

HAQ: Transparency actually works to Trump's benefit in this case, because if you look at the racial disparities involved in the American justice system otherwise, plenty of people who sit there and think they did not get a fair trial because of those biases. The scrutiny and public attention here is probably working to Trump's benefit.

ACOSTA: And Molly, I mean, Trump spent the other day campaigning outside that bodega. We were showing that a few moments ago. In the previous hour, we were showing how he was meeting with the president of Poland. They're sort of like-minded on a lot of things. The president of Poland is a nationalist.

Although the Polish president is, I think, trying to persuade Trump to get on board with aid to Ukraine.

But he is a bit hamstrung, is he not? He can't really get out and campaign quite as much. I mean, if he's got to be sitting in that courtroom every day, what do they think inside the Trump orbit about whether this is ultimately a political liability for the former president in this campaign, the longer this drags out?

BALL: He obviously doesn't like it.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BALL: But, you know, he's still got -- he's got Wednesdays, and he's got weekends and he can do things like the bodega appearance the other day, where he's using New York City as a backdrop -- and I think, frankly, quite effectively -- to call attention to -- it's interesting to hear him talk about crime, talk about law and order at the same time as he's a criminal defendant.

But the purpose of that visit, really, to say, you know, they're prosecuting the wrong alleged criminals, right? That the criminals that Alvin Bragg should be going after are the ones that are affecting people's quality of life, affecting bodega owners like the one -- workers like the one who was stabbed at this place in Harlem.

So he's able to use it to highlight his issues. And rather than sort of a separation between defendant Trump and candidate Trump, they're really one and the same. And that, I think, is what you see in, you know, a split screen like this: that throughout the primary, he used the indictments against him to fuel his narrative of sort of victimization and grievance and the weapon -- the so-called weaponization of the deep state or so -- or whatever.

And so he's -- I think we're going to see him continue to do that. And the question is going to be whether a general election audience is as sympathetic to that as the primary base was.

ACOSTA: Scott, there's a lot of bodegas in Manhattan.

JENNINGS: Yes.

ACOSTA: Affirmed. No shortage there. You get the egg -- egg and cheese sandwich. Those are -- those are delightful. I mean, I have lots of experience in that area myself.

JENNINGS: And yet, they're not here.

ACOSTA: They're not here. Well, next time. You know, good point, good point.

Well fix that in post, but but Scott, I mean, what about what molly was saying a few moments ago? I mean, it is a bit -- isn't it a bit something to go up to a bodega in Harlem and complain about crime when he's on trial, accused of a crime.

[06:10:04]

JENNINGS: Well, his --

ACOSTA: Among several cases that are -- JENNINGS: Sure. I mean, his view is, is that his trials are invalid, that they're political, that he's being persecuted by the criminal justice system for merely running for president and being the political enemy of Democrats. And they're diverting all these resources away from him -- or away -- towards him and away from the actual criminals.

I mean, that is the argument. And, you know what? I think if you poll it just the way I just said it, you'd pretty darn near get 100 percent of Republicans that would agree with it, even the ones who don't like him that much.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, we go --

HAQ: Like you talked about white-collar crime and how, you know, people with money tend to get away with the system and know how to move money around and make that work. I think that would -- most of these bodega workers would understand that this is accountability that is long overdue.

ACOSTA: All right, guys. Lots to talk about. Scott was asking before we got started this. Yes, you are here for the whole hour. You're not going anywhere. So hang in there, stand by.

The Republican-led impeachment effort that failed before it got started. Take a look at this. It didn't last long. We'll talk about that in just a few moments.

Also, how one congresswoman is threatening both the Republican House speaker and his plan to pass aid for America's allies. You can see who we're talking about right there.

And thousands evacuated after a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:57]

ACOSTA: And just like that, the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is over. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: on this vote, the ayes are 51, the nays are 49. The point of order is well taken. Article 2 falls.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Madam President.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The majority leader is recognized.

SCHUMER: I move to adjourn the impeachment trial of Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And that was the second tally for the second article of impeachment, where senators voted to end the trial, House leadership criticizing Senate Democrats, claiming that they bypassed their constitutional responsibility.

Here's more of their joint statement. This from the Republican side in the House: "Secretary Mayorkas," it says, "alongside President Biden, has used nearly every tool at his disposal to engineer the greatest unitarian and national catastrophe at our borders in American history."

Let's talk about this further.

Molly, I mean, this was -- you know, this was -- I mean, we go back to the Liz Truss and the lettuce or maybe it's the Scaramucci. Scaramucci was, what, 11 days. This is, what, one tenth or one 11th of a Scaramucci.

This did not last long.

BALL: It did not, at least not in the Senate. You know, it took the House awhile to get to this point, and they even failed the -- to vote for this impeachment at one point.

But, you know, I think the inclusion of President Biden in that statement that you just read really gives the game away.

The beef that the Republicans have on Capitol Hill is with President Biden and his border policies. And you've heard -- we've heard even some Republicans, especially in the Senate, say you know, impeaching the homeland security secretary isn't going to do anything to change the border policies that they object to. It's not -- you know, you could just get another homeland security secretary in there who would behave exactly the same way in terms of carrying out those policies that they object to.

I think the Republicans have successfully forced immigration onto the agenda. They got the White House to come to the table and negotiate last year. They've made it a top of mind -- they've helped make it a top-of-mind issue for a lot of American voters.

But this impeachment was never going to go anywhere, given the makeup of the Senate and, again, the skepticism that even a lot of Republicans shared about whether this, you know, historic gesture, this historic impeachment of a cabinet secretary, which hasn't happened in over 100 years, whether that was actually warranted, given -- given the underlying charges.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, Scott, the -- or go ahead.

HAQ: The irony is that the House [SIC] actually did come up with a compromise border solution, and that was deep-sixed by the same people who negotiated it, because President Trump did not want Biden and his administration to have any type of positive action on border policy.

The idea that this was an engineered crisis, that anybody, Republican or Democrat, wants thousands of undocumented families hanging out at the U.S. border, is -- is a bit of an exaggeration when this is a true humanitarian crisis caused by challenges that are happening in Central America.

How different administrations handle people once they get there is up for debate and discussion. But we haven't seen anything other than the impeachment moved by the GOP to actually solve the problem.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, they did have a chance to pass a bipartisan immigration bill.

JENNINGS: Yes.

ACOSTA: Didn't do it.

JENNINGS: And Joe Biden had a chance for three years to care about this issue. And he's started to care about it when it started creeping up in the polls, when Republicans started making a big deal of it.

Look if, if Biden had to lick of sense, he would have fired Mayorkas a long time ago to show the American people that he cares about this more than just talking about it in an election year, but he didn't do that. And if Mayorkas had any shame, he would have resigned for his failures.

This impeachment was always doomed to fail. I think one thing you can always count on the Senate Democrats to do, though: do stuff they're going to later regret. Because dismissing this impeachment without having a trial, without looking at the evidence, unprecedented in the history of the Senate.

Someday in the future, they are going to regret this. May not be, you know, in the next couple of years. I promise you, just like they -- they have lived with it on judges, someday in the future, they're going to regret setting a precedent of chucking an impeachment without looking at any of the evidence.

[06:20:04]

ACOSTA: But do you think that that warranted an impeachment?

JENNINGS: Look, the --

ACOSTA: The impeachment of a cabinet member for the first time in, what, a century?

JENNINGS: They believe he lied to the Congress about the border being secure. They believe he is refusing to enforce existing immigration law.

ACOSTA: But isn't that great precedent? You can set a precedent in the sense that, OK, now, when there's a certain party in the White House, and there's a certain in party in the Congress, they're just going to start impeaching cabinet members.

How do you run a government that might just do that --

JENNINGS: One of the --

ACOSTA: -- over political differences?

JENNINGS: One, is it a political difference to not enforce the law and to lie to Congress? Or is that -- is that something that, if you were a member of the U.S. House, you would take seriously, no matter what party was in the White House?

I mean, this guy's problem is, is that he misrepresented what they were doing. They don't believe he was enforcing the law, and they don't think his boss cares. And they had no other recourse. And that's what they did. If --

HAQ: There are several other policy recourses that they had, other than trying to do an impeachment that ultimately wasn't to go anywhere. Right?

The actual negotiations and discussions, the enforcing -- getting more judges to adjudicate these situations. Right? Like, all of this, these are all possibilities that, again, actually showed up in Congress; that Biden came to the table to negotiate and discuss. And ultimately, were dismissed in favor of a dramatic impeachment.

JENNINGS: Are you -- are you saying --

HAQ: Border policy -- I'm saying border policy is complex and kind of boring at the end of the day. It is not nearly as exciting or politically fashionable as going after a cabinet member.

JENNINGS: It's not all that complex. Joe Biden, on day one, eliminated all of Donald Trump's policies on the border.

He campaigned -- he campaigned and raised his hand, just like every other Democrat presidential candidate, on, Sure. Come here, we'll give you free health care.

This absolutely was the --

HAQ: Not what I heard, and I'm not sure everybody -- that is --

JENNINGS: You're going to regret it. You're going to regret it. Take it back. You're going to regret it. That it back.

HAQ: So I was in the White House in the Obama administration --

JENNINGS: Did you watch the campaign? Did you watch the debates when they all raised their hands?

HAQ: -- when -- when this crisis first started, the unaccompanied children crisis, right? Children getting on trains coming North. And what do you do with minors who show up at the border, and they say were in danger? And where do you even put them? Do you put them with homeland security? Do you put them with the military? Do you put them with Health and Human Services.

So there are real lives and challenges at stake. There are root causes for why people are coming North.

JENNINGS: Yes.

HAQ: Gang violence, climate change, and agriculture disaster. There are ways to solve it that do not involve impeaching --

ACOSTA: And don't forget, Scott --

JENNINGS: There are root cause --

HAQ: -- impeaching a political appointee.

JENNINGS: There are root causes called Joe Biden eliminated all of Donald Trump's policies.

ACOSTA: Scott, don't forget one of those policies that they got rid of was the family separation policy that even some members of Trump's own family were condemning.

JENNINGS: Are you guys saying it's only children showing up at the border? Do you see the video? I mean, it is -- this is what -- this is what they wanted.

And now they have it. And now the American people are mad about it. And now they're scrambling for a political solution. Mayorkas --

ACOSTA: They had -- they did have -- they did have a bill, a bipartisan bill. You remember the State of the Union speech when Senator Lankford from Oklahoma was sort of agreeing with President Biden.

JENNINGS: Yes. Did that bill --

ACOSTA: I mean, one of the most conservative senators in Congress.

JENNINGS: I'm not disagreeing with you.

HAQ: The irony -- the irony that, when you talk about the Trump policy, the "build the wall," that actually, that money and that building, it's still maintained under the Pentagon funding today. In the military funding.

JENNINGS: What do what do -- what do we do with people who come across now, versus what did Trump do?

HAQ: They end up getting detained. I mean, detention is still part of -- remain in Mexico. Detention is still policy.

ACOSTA: All right.

HAQ: Now, do they get processed? Now, this is something that goes back to John McCain. John McCain and the Gang of Eight, who wanted to say, listen, if there's going to be legal process, give the lawyers, give the judges who can actually move people through the system. What is this waiting six months problem?

JENNINGS: Move them through the system --

ACOSTA: All right.

JENNINGS: -- for what? I mean, that's the problem. That's what the American people are mad about. Joe Biden's solution to this is we're just not doing the paperwork fast enough.

And what the American people are saying is, no, we don't want any more coming across until we can get a handle on this overwhelmed border. That is the difference of opinion. Not that we're not doing the paperwork fast enough.

HAQ: Where --

JENNINGS: I don't think Biden's going to be able to win on that.

HAQ: -- where -- where are you going to send people? Leave them at the border. That's --

JENNINGS: Away, home. Not here, away. Send them back to where they came from.

HAQ: And that --

JENNINGS: That's what -- that's what any poll would tell you.

HAQ: And that does not involve paperwork. Everything in American life, unfortunately, requires paperwork.

JENNINGS: Well, they're not American, so does it have to? I mean, could you have a more secure border than to say, well, sorry, we lost the paperwork.

ACOSTA: And don't forget. We'll wrap it up with -- I mean, clearly the American people -- you can see it in all the polls -- they agree with you to some degree, Scott, that something needs to be done down at the border.

Another under-reported fact is that the economy has been doing so well in this country in terms of the way companies are doing right now, because of the influx of migrants into the country.

I will say that has also been reported.

HAQ: And that is -- OK, so Republicans who do support migration, farmers.

ACOSTA: Yes.

HAQ: Farmers who say Department of Labor, give us the visas. Let us move people in and out.

[06:25:02]

We don't want to be paying people illegally and under the table. We need this for our agriculture sector. So yes, that also comes down to paperwork.

ACOSTA: Yes.

JENNINGS: I don't have a problem with people -- you want to end it.

ACOSTA: Well, I've got to do some paperwork here, I think. We got some bills to pay.

JENNINGS: Pay bills. Pay the bills.

ACOSTA: Pay the bills. But we'll keep -- keep this discussion going. No, great discussion.

All right. Coming up next, how President Biden's planning to counter the Chinese steel industry. That'll be a good discussion. Stay tuned for that.

Plus, new images of the destruction left by some severe storms across Ohio. We'll show you that, as well, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ACOSTA: Twenty-nine minutes past the hour, almost 6:30. Five things you have to see this morning.

New video of students in Georgia being violently tossed around a school bus after it hit a ditch last year. My goodness, look at that. The school district now handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements to the families of the kids onboard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden, I saw, like, a big cloud swirling, and I'm like that doesn't look right. We need to get downstairs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)