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Today: Trump Back In Court For Criminal Hush Money Trial; Speaker Johnson Calls On Columbia President To Resign; Today: SCOTUS Hears Trumps's Presidential Immunity Arguments. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired April 25, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: A live look at New York City where Donald Trump's hush money trial resumes this morning. Good morning. Thanks for being up with us. I'm Kasie Hunt.

Trump will be back in a New York courtroom in four hours. That criminal hush money trial resumes while here in Washington, the Supreme Court hears his arguments claiming absolute presidential immunity.

In Manhattan, former tabloid publisher David Pecker takes the witness stand again. For two days, he's detailed how he'd find stories that were damaging to the former president, then he'd buy the rights and he'd bury the stories. Prosecutors allege that those catch and kill deals, like the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, were all part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election.

We're also waiting for the judge's ruling there on whether Trump is in contempt for violating a gag order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not allowed to defend myself -- and yet, other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Trump appears to be referencing attacks from Michael Cohen. Cohen now says, "I will cease posting anything about Donald Trump on my account until after my trial testimony."

Joining me now is CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson. Joey, good morning.

This is very interesting that Cohen would say this. It maybe reads like someone's advising him to do this or that he acknowledges that it might end -- he might end up in a situation where Trump is no longer gagged and attacking him.

What do you think is going on here?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, good morning to you, Kasie.

I think it's the right call. I think that right now, this has to be about the trial and nothing but the trial. We know, of course, that Cohen is a central witness. We know, of course, that Pecker, in giving his testimony as he has and as he will resume doing so today, really corroborates a lot -- or I think is designed, obviously, to lay out the scheme and corroborate Michael Cohen that we look at there.

And so I think he takes himself away from the -- being the central role or at least the central focus of Trump's ire and provides or takes away any excuse that Trump might have for being in contempt of court or violating the court order. And I think he takes himself right off the table.

And so, yes -- to your point, Kasie, whether he's advised to do it, whether he took his own counsel to do, I think it's a smart point.

I do not think that it's a justification or excuse for Trump to violate the gag order but certainly, it neutralizes the argument that hey, it's unfair. I'm simply responding to Cohen. Allow me to do it. I'm the victim here.

And I think it's a good move. We'll see what the judge does. I expect the judge to do something with regard to Trump completely violating the order multiple times on multiple occasions, on multiple dates.

HUNT: Do you see a distinction between the gag order preventing Trump from talking about Cohen, who is basically a public figure by virtue of his past, as compared to the judge's family, court officers, anonymous jurors?

JACKSON: So I do see a distinction and I think that is a very fair point, right? Michael Cohen certainly is someone who predicated upon him being in the media based upon his, certainly, vocal discussions about Trump and his disdain for him -- his podcast. His own, really, bouts with the criminal justice system. His going to jail. His testifying before Congress. That does make him a public --

HUNT: Quite a laundry list.

JACKSON: And as a result --

HUNT: Now that we lay it out that way.

JACKSON: Yeah, it really is. It really is, Kasie.

And so I do think it sort of elevates him to that public figure level and distinguishes him. The only problem, though, is that the judge noted no witnesses -- and no witnesses means no witnesses. It doesn't say public figure, private figure, those who are popular-unpopular, those known to the public-not known. It says no witnesses.

And certainly, Trump waxing poetic about Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen really gets him in the ire of the judge as we saw before -- that is, his attorney. His attorney was trying to defend Trump's postings. And so it'll be notable what the judge does. The judge has to do

something to get this under control. We just started the trial and here we go in terms of a hearing about violating a gag order.

HUNT: Yeah. I'm not sure that I'm surprised by any of that considering what I've learned covering Donald Trump for however many years, but here we are.

Joey, what do expect in terms of what we're going to see on the stand?

We know that David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer is going to be back up there. They have been kind of building in something of a crescendo to the point of the Stormy Daniels story, which we haven't really dug into yet. Are you expecting that today?

What are you looking for?

JACKSON: Yeah, I think that's it. I think I'm looking for a couple of things.

Certainly, we know just in terms of resetting that Pecker, being a person who was involved with the National Enquirer, sets the stage for this entire scheme. What scheme? The catch and kill. We're going to get these stories, we're going to pay for them, and we're going to kill them -- suppress them from public view.

Certainly, the prosecution has been laying out, as they call it -- the prosecutors -- this conspiracy and coverup. Not that conspiracy is charged but it notes this meeting in 2015 where they were going to boost Trump's electoral prospects by really denigrating his opponents and taking things belonging to Trump out of the public domain.

[05:35:13]

Now, in terms of the testimonies -- we look at them there, right -- Mr. Pecker -- what happens is that he, of course, has testified already as to the doorman and in terms of whether he fathered a child -- that is, Trump -- and noting that was false. He testified about the whole situation involving Karen McDougal -- that was the Playboy model -- and Trump's relationship and whether that would get out.

And so to your point, the crescendo -- I think that now begins with Stormy Daniels in terms of the whole entire thing about her being paid. And I think he continues -- that is, Mr. Pecker and the prosecutor -- to build up this notion that Michael Cohen was the conduit -- he was at the behest of Donald Trump -- and corroborating Cohen's testimony. So when Cohen testifies to exactly what Pecker did, we can't say he's a liar, liar, liar -- that's not true. Pecker already said it was.

HUNT: All right. Because that laundry list you noted about the -- that makes Michael Cohen a public figure also raises a heck of a lot of questions about his credibility that we know the defense is going to talk about.

Joey Jackson, thank you very much for being with us this morning. I really appreciate it.

JACKSON: Nothing going on, Kasie.

HUNT: Nothing at all.

All right, now to this. House Speaker Mike Johnson calling on Columbia University's president to resign during his tense visit to the New York City campus yesterday. Johnson visited with Jewish students and delivered remarks with other Republican lawmakers as he was booed the entire time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): My message to the students inside the encampment is get -- go back to class and stop the nonsense. Stop wasting your parents' money. Enjoy your free speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Following that tense news conference, Johnson defended his appearance at Columbia in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: The speaker speaks for the House of Representatives, and I felt it was very important for that voice to be heard not just about what happens at Columbia, but about what is happening right now around the country. I'm calling on all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to speak out against this. This has to stop. We have to treat every single person with dignity and respect and that's not happening here, and it's an atrocity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, joining me now to discuss, Farnoush Amiri, congressional reporter for the Associated Press. Farnoush, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

FARNOUSH AMIRI, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Thank you.

HUNT: So, Johnson is going to Columbia. He was there, backed by other Republican members. He was heckled for the entire 18 minutes of that press conference.

What was he trying to accomplish, and did he do it, even considering the way -- I mean, you could just see watching that video how it played?

AMIRI: Yeah. I mean, this has been a political maneuver by Johnson -- and even before him, by Kevin McCarthy -- of trying to fill what they see as a vacuum of support for Israel within the Democratic Party, right? You've seen how the war has divided Democrats, whether it's sending aid to Israel, how humanitarian aid goes into Gaza. It has become an extremely contentious issue among Democrats.

And Republicans, as you'll notice who is behind him -- those are some of the most vulnerable Biden 18 district Republicans that are standing behind him. Obviously, New York Republicans. But they are trying to rewrite the history of who -- which party is more -- is more on the side and supportive of Israel. And for so long, it has been Democrats, and this war has really been able to help Republicans capitalize on the fact that it might be them.

HUNT: Yeah. I mean, I would argue that -- I mean, certainly, Republican hawks have been supportive of Israel in a very staunch way. And in the Trump administration, they moved the embassy to Jerusalem, et cetera. But I do take your point on how they are trying to reframe this and point fingers at Democrats who are grappling with this as a -- as you note, tough issue inside their own conference.

How do you think it impacts or relates to what Johnson is trying to do in the wake of him deciding to put the Ukraine and Israel bill on the floor -- one that divided his conference, right? Is he trying to unify his conference around this and take a stand for himself? And, kind of, what is Johnson's standing right now in terms of this threat still hanging over him from Marjorie Taylor Greene?

AMIRI: Yeah -- no. I mean, it's really interesting. He says in that interview with Erin he -- she mentioned you're also -- you're pushing for the ouster of this -- the president of this -- of this university and you, yourself, are facing questions about whether you're going to be able to stay in this job.

And I think for Johnson, he has seen Israel as a really politically advantageous area for him -- arena for him -- that he's able to coalesce. Even the folks who are against Ukraine aid voted for Israel aid. It's not as contentious as what's happening. There is this staunch, as you said, history of support within the Republican Party and that has grown even stronger in the past six months since the war began.

[05:40:00]

And I think Johnson is just really trying to point the fingers as look, we are -- we are together on this issue. Look at Democrats. Look at the way that they're unable to come together and have a unified message. We are not like that. We are going to show up at these universities and we are going to stand unified on this message.

HUNT: All right. And we shouldn't forget about, frankly, the antisemitic elements that have come into some of these pro-Palestinian protests as well.

Farnoush Amiri for us this morning. Farnoush, thank you very much.

AMIRI: Thank you.

HUNT: I appreciate you being here.

All right. Coming up next, the Supreme Court set to hear Donald Trump's claims of absolute presidential immunity. It's a historic day.

Plus, coming up in sports, the Miami Heat taking the homecourt advantage away from the Boston Celtics. We'll bring you the Bleacher Report ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:45:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If a president doesn't have full immunity, you really don't have a president.

Well, a President of the United States must have immunity. And I'm not talking for myself, I'm talking for every President of the United States.

A President of the United States has to have immunity.

There is nothing more important to a presidency than immunity.

You have to have guaranteed immunity for a president.

The president -- you have to have immunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The Supreme Court set to start answering that question for Donald Trump. Today, the court hears oral arguments about those claims he's making of absolute immunity for his actions on and around January 6. At the heart of the case, whether or not Trump's attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election qualifies as an official presidential act. It is arguably the most politically consequential question that the high court will have to answer since they decided Bush versus Gore back in 2000.

And it will demonstrate, as our next guest puts it, the court's "unrivaled influence" over the 2024 election. Joining me now, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Hey, good morning.

HUNT: Ron, good morning to you.

So, here, let's show everyone a little bit from your piece. You say that all roads lead to the Supreme Court and that "Whatever, and whenever, the court decides, the immunity case has placed it in a familiar position, with a decisive role in framing the terms of the competition between the parties."

They really have --

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: -- everything in their hands.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, look -- I mean, I think you can make a strong argument that in an era when neither party has been able to hold control of the White House or Congress for very long -- I mean, we're in an era of real political instability -- the Supreme Court is the most durable source of influence in setting the nation's direction and pulling it steadily to the right. Not in every case, but the overall body of decisions that they have put down over the past few decades on voting rights, separation of church and state, environmental regulation, gun regulation, and, of course, abortion has delivered to the conservative movement, arguably, their most significant victories of the 21st century.

And now, again, in this case, they have already delivered Trump a tactical victory by --

HUNT: In taking it up at all -- right.

BROWNSTEIN: In taking it -- in taking it up -- in taking it up at all and taking it up in such a leisurely fashion.

And it's highly -- I mean, it is -- it is entirely possible that they will decide this in a way where they do not give him his claim of absolute immunity but nonetheless, functionally prevent the case from coming to trial before voters render a verdict on Trump in the fall.

I mean, there is a 1982 case -- you know, Nixon verse Fitzgerald --

HUNT: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- where the court ruled that a president could not be -- could not face a civil suit after leaving office for official acts, but kind of left open the possibility that you could for acts that were not official.

I mean, if they extend that line or some version of that line to criminal cases, which I think a lot of conservative commentators think is a possible, even a likely outcome -- they could create a situation where you have to have a trial of fact to decide which elements of the indictment fall into which bucket, in which case they would be pushing the trial consciously -- pushing the trial past the election without seeming to side directly with Trump.

The court has just become, I think, just an enormous player in our political system at a time, as I say, when neither party has been able to stay in control of government for very long. The court is there year after year exerting this kind of --

HUNT: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: -- magnetic pull on the way we live.

HUNT: The -- three of the justices that are going to be on the bench today were appointed --

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: -- by Donald Trump. How do you think the dynamics on the court between them and John

Roberts, who is a conservative appointed by President Bush but who has clearly seemed to have taken this role in feeling like he needs to make sure his institution is protected in terms of credibility in the eyes of Americans --

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: How does that tension play out?

BROWNSTEIN: I think John Roberts does not want the court to be seen as an entirely partisan actor and certainly not as in the pocket of Donald Trump.

I mean, they -- when we had the 5-4 Republican court there were two cases where he provided the decisive vote with four Democrats on the census and on Trump's effort to end DACA to block what the Trump administration was doing.

He also voted with the majority to uphold the Muslim travel ban under Trump, which was the most important case -- policy case, probably, the Supreme Court decided in that -- in his -- in his presidency.

I think he will be reluctant to have a decision that is seen as overtly favoring Trump. That doesn't mean he will not participate in a decision that has the effect of denying.

[05:50:00]

The striking thing here is that there are -- there were briefs filed by constitutional law professors, by historians of the founding, who talk about the extent to which the founders explicitly considered and chose not to provide immunity for the president --

HUNT: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- criminal immunity for their acts. And, in fact, argue that the refusal to provide such immunity was an important part of ratification of the Constitution --

HUNT: Yeah, right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- in several states. The argument was explicitly made we are not doing this.

HUNT: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: Now, if you -- I mean, you have to kind of think about the context of this. If they, in fact, say that -- if they try to draw a line between what is and what is not subject to criminal prosecution, is the message to Donald Trump going to be this very clear line -- this line they've drawn, or the fact that they gave an inch and he will take a mile? And that's --

HUNT: Well, because we know he will, right? BROWNSTEIN: And especially, if he is reelected. Look, if he is reelected, he will -- he will basically believe the voters have accepted his views of unlimited presidential power -- the SEAL Team Six example.

HUNT: Right. So that's what I'd like to do --

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: -- is just remind everyone the SEAL Team Six argument that Ron is talking about here raises the question could a president order the U.S. military to take out a political rival? This is from the arguments.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE FLORENCE PAN, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT: Could a president who ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached -- could he be subject to criminal prosecution?

JOHN SAUER, TRUMP ATTORNEY: If he were impeached and convicted first.

PAN: So your answer is no.

SAUER: My answer is a quantified yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

HUNT: A qualified yes.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. So that is the baseline. Trump's view is essentially, that there is nothing that he could do that would warrant -- that would allow criminal prosecution unless he is impeached and convicted first, which is a functional impossibility given the level of his control over the Republican Party.

And what the court -- even if the -- if the court basically says yes, there are some actions you can be criminally indicted for --

HUNT: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- and some you can't -- again, is Trump going to say oh, well, they've drawn this distinction that I have to respect, or they have --

HUNT: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: -- backed down when it counts, and I can push as far as I want.

HUNT: I wonder where we're going to be. BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

HUNT: All right, Ron, stick around. You're going to join us at the top of the hour.

But first, time now for sports. The Heat shocked the top-seeded Celtics in game two of their NBA Playoff series.

Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah, good morning, Kasie.

So the Celtics were 14 1/2-point favorites last night in game two. Not many people giving Miami a chance without their star Jimmy Butler. But Shaq not only believed, he had a bold prediction before the game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL, SPORTS ANALYST, "NBA ON TNT": Miami by 10 tonight.

CHARLES BARKLEY, SPORTS ANALYST, "NBA ON TNT": Threaten me.

O'NEAL: Miami by 10.

BARKLEY: Threaten me.

O'NEAL: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. So, Shaq said Heat by 10. They were down three at the half but Shaq never waivered on his prediction and, well, the Heat making him look like Shaqstradamus. Miami red-hot from downtown, making a franchise playoff record 23 threes in this one. Tyler Herro had 24 points, 14 assists. And would you look at that -- the Heat win by 10, 111-101.

And Shaq was taking calls after the game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARKLEY: Answer your phone, man.

O'NEAL: OK, hold on.

BARKLEY: Answer your phone, man.

O'NEAL: Hey, Pat Riley, how you doing, sir? You're on a live Zoom, yes. Pat Riley, that was a great game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got any more of the fake thousand --

O'NEAL: (INAUDIBLE), what's up, baby? (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Oh, what a prediction.

The Thunder, meanwhile, putting a beatdown on the Pelicans to take a 2-0 lead in their series. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leading OKC to an early double-digit lead. And this game was never really close. SGA finished with 33 points in the 124-29 win.

And afterwards, his teammate Chet Holmgren said there's no one better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHET HOLMGREN, CENTER, OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: He's too humble to say it, but this is the MVP right here -- MVP of the league. I'm going to say it for him because he won't say it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. So the Playoffs continue tonight with three games, two of them on our sister network TNT. The Sixers are going to try to dig out of that 2-0 hole. They host the Knicks at 7:30 Eastern, followed by the Lakers, also in a 2-0 hole, hosting the Nuggets.

All right. In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Kings and Oilers -- they went to overtime last night, tied at four. L.A. is going to get the puck up to Anze Kopitar and he's going to smoke the wrist shot into the net to win it for L.A. Edmonton fans -- they were just stunned there two minutes into overtime.

Kopitar -- he had an overtime winner for the Kings in 2010 when he was just 22 years old. He's the only player in NHL history to score a playoff O.T. goal with the same franchise at 22 or younger and then at 36 or older.

That series is now tied at a game apiece.

All right, the NFL draft kicks off tonight with the first round. Tens of thousands of fans expected to pack Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit for the three-day event.

And the Chicago Bears -- they got the first pick. They're expected to take USC quarterback Caleb Williams. The Washington Commanders are going to pick second, followed by the Patriots, Cardinals, and Chargers. We could see some trades at three, four, and five.

[05:55:01]

And one of the big questions tonight, where will Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy end up going? We could get four quarterbacks going in the first four picks tonight, which has never happened before.

All right. And finally, back to that Thunder Playoff game. One OKC fan had himself a really great. Eli Walch had a chance to make a half- court shot for $20,000 and it's good. Eli jumping around with the staff and the mascot. The 26-year-old, Kasie, said he's going to use that money to pay for his wedding.

And get this, Kasie, second straight Thunder game where the fan made the half-court shot for $20,000.

HUNT: I love it. That's amazing. Congrats to him.

SCHOLES: That bank sponsor is going to rethink that next year.

HUNT: Congrats on the wedding, for sure.

But, hey, Andy, so where is -- where is J.J. McCarthy going to land from my Wolverines?

SCHOLES: Well, a lot of people are wondering is he going to -- the people -- who is going to trade up? Are the Cardinals going to trade out a four and is someone going to go up to get McCarthy there? You know, could it be the Vikings? Could it be the Broncos? That's what fun --

HUNT: All right.

SCHOLES: -- about the NFL draft. You just don't know.

HUNT: You never do.

All right, Andy, thank you.

SCHOLES: All right.

HUNT: I appreciate it.

Coming up next here, former President Trump's closest allies indicted in Arizona. Plus, more campus protests getting heated with police.

(COMMERCIAL)