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CNN This Morning

Supreme Court Weighs Presidential Immunity Claim, Pecker Facing Cross-Examination In Hush Money Trial; Tense Protests Expand To More College Campuses; Fire Damages Iconic Oceanside Pier In California. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired April 26, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:39]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, April 26th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity in the hands of the Supreme Court. Have the justices tip their hand?

The former president claims he's being treated unfairly. Now, a CNN poll reveals whether the American people agree.

And the children of Gaza sending a message to the U.S. students who are protesting on college campuses.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: All right, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at Capitol Hill on this Friday morning.

Good morning, everyone. Happy Friday. We made it. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

A historic week unfolding in Donald Trump's legal dramas. Right now, we are waiting on a decision from the Supreme Court on Trump's claims a sweeping presidential immunity.

The justice heard -- the justices heard oral arguments yesterday. They appeared ready to reject some of the former president's claims, but they also seemed reluctant to give special counsel Jack Smith the greenlight entirely to pursue these charges related to Trump's actions on and around January 6th. The high court appears likely to leave a lot of the work to lower courts that could take months and further delay a trial that was originally set for March 4th.

We are also hours from Trump returning to New York City courtroom for his hush money trial. The former tabloid publisher David Pecker, back on the stand yesterday, describing to jurors how he paid a former Playboy playmate to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump and how his decision not to pay for Stormy Daniels story led to Michael Cohen ultimately paying for it. Judge Juan Merchan also announcing he'd hold a hearing next Wednesday

where he's going to make a decision about whether Trump violated his gag order. That supposed to be an off day for the trial. After court wrapped up yesterday, Trump seemed to walk back his vow to testify in his hush money trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would if it's necessary. Right now, I don't know if you heard about today. Today was just incredible. People are saying the experts, I'm talking about legal scholars and experts. They're saying, what kind of a case is this? There is no case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Joining me now to break all this down, CNN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.

Joey, good morning. always wonderful to have you with us. Thanks for kicking us off today.

Let's start with the oral arguments that we saw before the Supreme Court yesterday.

What stood out to you?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah. Kasie, good morning to you. What stands out to me is whether there's going to be this delineation between the president's private conduct and between of course, what can be deemed is outside the perimeter of the presidency.

And the reason that's concerning to me is because I was one who believed there would need to be a bright line rule cool. What does that mean? Us lawyers, what we say is bright-line rules that you need clear guidance with respect to what you do.

Otherwise, you get lost in the weeds. Otherwise, for example, how do you differentiate when something's criminal, something's not, you need a bright line to determine if a president does something that's illegal, it's illegal. It doesn't matter. Whether it's in part of your performance of the presidential duties are not.

And so I think I'm wondering whether or not and we know when terms of the setup that the Supreme Court is conservative, six to three, six conservative, three liberals, whether they'll split on any of those grounds, right? And so there's a number of things I'm thinking about.

The first is the delineation of whether you started this off Kasie by saying whether they send it back, send it back for what? Send it back to the lower court for further findings that could take months. The findings as to well, our all the ax presidential are some of them not presidential? And how does that play into the role? So I'm about that. Yeah.

HUNT: Yeah. To that every point, I'm so glad that you laid it out so clearly that way because one of the moments that really stuck out to me yesterday was when Trump's attorneys seem to acknowledge that some of his potentially critical actions on the day on January 6th could amount to private conduct.

I want to play that section. This was an exchange with Amy Coney Barrett, one of the Trump appointees on the court and Trump's lawyer.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Petitioner turn to a private attorney, was willing to spread knowingly, false claims of election fraud to spearhead is challenges to the election results. Private?

[05:05:01]

D. JOHN SAUER, TRUMP ATTORNEY: As alleged, I think we dispute the allegation but that sounds private to me.

BARRETT: Sounds private. The petitioner conspired with another private attorney who caused the filing and court of a verification signed by petitioner that contain false allegations to support a challenge? Private?

SAUER: That also sounds private.

BARRETT: Three private actors, two attorneys, including those mentioned above and a political consultant helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding and petitioner and a coconspirator attorney directed that effort.

SAUER: You read it quickly. I believe that its private.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That seems to answer a lot there.

JACKSON: It does, Kasie, and that is the genesis of the concern, right? You have to now parse out. Is there a private conduct from presidential conduct and then, you know, this sort of, this how the ambiguity, right, is what I'm searching for. And so if you have that ambiguity, do you take it down to the lower court and does because the lower court make factual determinations as the justice did in her questioning as to what can be deemed to be private such that it can be prosecuted. And what could be deemed in the outer perimeter, you keep hearing this right of the president meaning that it couldn't be because there would be immunity.

And so whether or not the Supreme Court issues a blanket decision president seems unlikely as to the president not being immune. The question becomes the clearly in my mind, can't be immunity for crimes that just would not be consistent with the constitution. So will the Supreme Court, in an effort to protect him, send it down and have those determinations made? That's the issue for me and well see what they do very soon.

HUNT: Joey, its obvious that Neil Gorsuch said -- said as much directly on the bench yesterday that this is about future presidencies, future presidents but there's this very immediate question about Donald Trump and whether or not voters are going to get a chance to understand whether or not he is convicted of trying to overturn conspiring to try to overturn an election, before they have to decide whether or not to send him back to the Oval Office.

And while officially the Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, it seems very clear that they understand how they operate in a political environment, including the chief Justice John Roberts. He seems to want to protect the court from that, but he also understands how that plays out are they not making a political decision if they effectively delay this trial, past the election?

JACKSON: Yeah, I think so, Kasie, and I think we have to be really concerned, right. Because we have these institutions and in these institutions we want them to be non-political. We expect the Supreme Court to make rulings predicated upon the law, predicated upon past precedent, predicated upon what makes sense, right, consistent with statutes, consistent with the Constitution, not the preservation and protection of anyone in particular.

We know back in the year 2000, Bush versus Gore, and how they stepped into it. That is a Supreme Court and making that decision. And I just think when you have such a politicized environment, Kasie, you don't want the Supreme Court making any political decision. You want them making it on the merits.

And so I'm concerned with respect to your question of whether it does politicize the court and if that's the case, you lose the peoples confidence and losing the American people's confidence, I think is a travesty of, you know, in any system of justice.

HUNT: All right. Joey Jackson for us on this Friday -- Joey, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next here -- campus protests spreading as pro- Palestinian demonstrators face off with police.

Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken walking a diplomatic tight rope in China.

And we'll show you a new CNN poll, how voters think Donald Trump is being treated as a defendant.

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[05:13:21]

HUNT: All right. We've got some new video overnight as tense pro- Palestinian protests spread even more college campuses, peaceful protests escalated quickly at Ohio State University, demonstrators and police clashing on the campus late last night. Lawmakers in Georgia meanwhile say police at Emory University used excessive force when breaking up protestors there. Troopers used pepper balls and even a stun gun on one demonstrator.

Meanwhile at Columbia, which was really the epicenter of these protests, the University president faces a faculty Senate vote over her handling of the crisis. That's according to "The New York Times". Talks between the students and the university are ongoing. The protesters now getting a message of support from the people they're fighting for, the children in Gaza.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

HUNT: All right. CNN's Max Foster is with me now.

Max, good morning to you. Always wonderful to see you. As these protests are growing and we saw those children there in Gaza, of course, their stories absolutely heart-wrenching, of course, the question here in the U.S., the tension between peaceful protests that are focused on those children, and some of the antisemitic and violent elements that we have seen here.

How is this being viewed across the pond in your neck of the woods?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there have been some protests at universities.

[05:15:00]

It's not a sort of a case I don't think of them spreading from the U.S. to European universities because the protests have been taking place across Europe but in a different way, basically, in form of marches, very regular marches and protests. They become more and more controversial because there is often sort of a very negative language coming out of them, some of the posters that they'd been carrying with them have been very offensive and it really sort of reached a peak here in London, at least when there was Jewish man who was at one these protests and the police said worst effective. He was looking openly Jewish and he was provoking the crowd and that was seen as very controversial.

And, you know, as a result of that, there's been calls for a clamp down on these protests because they are being allowed to run freely and spread often antisemitic language. So a real challenge as it has been on the campuses to how to balance, you know, the freedom of expression to offensiveness effectively, and incitement, some would argue.

HUNT: Uh-huh. Max, one or the other developments were watching here in the U.S. is the U.S. military now constructing, doing additional construction to try and create a pier that they can use for humanitarian aid into Gaza. It's unclear, but potentially over the objection of the Israelis and that does signal to me some I suppose this tension has been ongoing, but we do have continually this tension between President Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, in terms of that particular piece of it. And I have to say it's the piece that I've struggled the most wrap my head around why Israelis aren't willing to let more basic food supplies and other things enter Gaza.

What do you make of this development in terms of the military working on this and what it says about the broader geopolitics?

FOSTER: I just think you know, obviously Israel is so desperate to keep control of all of this and the U.S. is saying you have to let more aid in and they're effectively just going in and taking it in and that's obviously going to be a frustration to the Israelis because they want to control this area.

Also, huge amount of sensitivity, isn't it, when you got us troops going there under the President Biden has made it very clear that they can't set a foot on Gazan soil because that could arguably be seen as Americans going into combat in Gaza. So it's a risk for President Biden, but also shows exactly how strongly he feels that his words aren't being taken seriously enough about getting aid in there. And I think that's really reflected by the leadership across Europe. I think they think this is a good thing and they should be pushing Israel on this.

HUNT: Very interesting.

All right. Max Foster for us in London -- Max, have a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much.

FOSTER: And to you, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next, a massive fire erupting on California's historic Oceanside pier. Yikes!

Plus, is Donald Trump being treated unfairly? We're going to hear from voters in a new CNN poll.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:38]

HUNT: All right. Twenty-two minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meeting with China's President Xi this morning in Beijing. The meeting comes amid rising tensions with China over its support for Russia. Blinken is expected to speak thank soon. We're going to bring those to you in the coming hour.

Today marks one month since Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a cargo ship. The investigation into the deadly disaster is ongoing as our efforts to clear the debris.

Heavy black smoke spewing from the iconic Oceanside pier in California, a vacant diner at the end of the pier catching fire. It took hours to put out the flames, but much of these southern California tourist attraction was saved. No word on what caused the fire, but authorities confirmed no one was injured.

All right. Time now for weather. Over 35 million people in the central U.S. could see several rounds of severe storms this weekend with potential tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds.

Our weatherman Van Dam is with us now.

Derek, good morning. What are you looking at?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, good morning.

So we're in this multi-day severe weather threats that has been ongoing for several days now, it will continue today and into the weekend, really ramping up tomorrow. But look what happened yesterday. Four tornado reports across parts of eastern Colorado into Kansas and Nebraska, several reports of hail and wind damage as well.

Now, there are ongoing showers and thunderstorms, several hundred lightning strikes being picked up on our radar, but I'm going to focus in on this area, the southern branch of these storms, just south of Oklahoma City. You see that shading of yellow, that is a severe thunderstorm watch that's valid through about 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time -- Eastern Daylight Time, I should say. And this its just because of the strong line of storms that's moving through this area could pick up wins in excess of 55 miles per hour.

But later today, when we start to take advantage of the environmental conditions, the heating from the daytime sun, this is the area where were particularly concerned about Omaha to Kansas City so parts of Iowa, Missouri, into Kansas and Nebraska, that is where we have our greatest threat of tornadoes and strong tornadoes at that.

And then check out the enhanced risk tomorrow, 55 million Americans on Saturday, about 37 million Americans impacted for the day on Sunday. So, a very active weekend, and again, highlighting this hashed area right on your TV screens there, keep an eye to the sky. This is where we could pick up tornadoes that have wins greater than 111 miles per hour.

[05:25:02]

You don't want to be part of that -- Kasie.

HUNT: Yikes, indeed not.

VAN DAM: Yeah.

HUNT: All right. Our weatherman Van Dam, Derek, thank you. I'll see you next hour.

VAN DAM: All right, OK.

HUNT: Coming up next -- this is so unfair, you hear that from Donald Trump almost every day. Now, new CNN poll reveals whether voters agree.

Plus, the Supreme Courts signaling they're prepared to reject Trump's claims of absolute immunity. But there's a big caveat.

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