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SCOTUS Weighs Trump's Claim of Presidential Immunity; Police Arrest Pro-Palestinian Protestors Across the U.S. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 26, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, April 26. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, Donald Trump's immunity claims in the hands of the Supreme Court. The justices sending some signals about how they might rule.

[06:00:56]

A new CNN poll: how voters feel about the former president's claim that he's being treated unfairly.

And pro-Palestinian protests spreading to campuses across the country as Columbia University struggles to end a student occupation.

Six a.m. here in Washington, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Friday morning.

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

Institution after institution has shied away from taking Donald Trump on directly. His campaign rivals, the Republican House leadership, the Senate Republicans, who didn't convict him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald John Trump, B, he is hereby acquitted of the charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That after his lawyers assured them, behind the scenes, that Trump could always be prosecuted later if they acquitted him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): This body is not invited to act as the nation's overarching moral tribunal.

We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation, and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Even the incoming Biden Justice Department under Merrick Garland seemed to put off accelerating a prosecution until the January 6th Committee effectively forced their hand.

All of these people in Washington, they all convinced themselves that someone else, anyone else, or something else would take him on, take him down, even, which in private, they would say they desperately wanted. And they were afraid.

Now it seems to be the conservative Supreme Court's turn. The arguments yesterday suggest they, too, are going to kick the can down the road, instead of quickly deciding one way or the other whether voters will have a chance to consider a convicted or exonerated Trump before they all have to vote in the 2024 election.

Arguments yesterday suggest that their split decision will just delay the trial, most likely well past November 5, 2024.

Trump's lawyers now arguing the failure of those Senate Republicans to convict is exactly what lets Trump off the hook from criminal prosecution now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY CONEY BARRETT, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT: So Mr. Sauer, you've argued that the Impeachment Clause suggests or requires impeachment to be a gateway to criminal prosecution, right?

D. JOHN SAUER, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: Yes. I think that's the plain meaning of that second phrase in the clause.

Keep in mind that the criminal prosecution of a president -- president prior to impeachment contradicts -- you can argue with the plain language of the Constitution -- but also hundreds of years of history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So it's to be left to the voters. But again, the voters may not get the chance to find out if Trump is guilty of conspiring to overturn an election until they have to decide whether to send him back to the office -- Oval Office.

Our panel is here. Let's bring in David Frum, staff writer for "The Atlantic"; Republican strategist Sarah Longwell; former White House senior policy adviser, Ashley Allison. I thank you all for being here on this Friday.

David Frum, an incredibly consequential day yesterday. And it just seems to me that, again, we are not going to get an answer to what happened here before the election.

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, I have more sympathy than some for the predicament in which the Supreme Court finds itself.

The law of the presidency, all of it, was -- has accreted on the assumption the president is a good and honest person, trying to do his or her best under difficult circumstances and often having to do things that stand before the judgment of history. Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was that -- was that a necessary act of self- defense? Was that a war crime? We still argue about it.

The system was unready for a career criminal to enter the office. Someone who's a career criminal, in ways both large -- overthrowing the Constitution -- and incredibly petty -- paying hush money to people to hush -- to kill embarrassing stories about himself.

The Supreme Court has to write a law that will stand that will be there forever. And it's -- it's a consequential thing they have to do.

And we have lots of cases. I was reading about a case today involving war crimes prosecutions against Japanese officials after the Second World War, where the Supreme Court hastened to do things to punish bad people that left behind legal regimes that we're not sure we want to live with ever afterwards. We don't -- and so they have to be --

[06:05:15]

HUNT: I completely take your point, David. I absolutely agree. This is a very weighty thing. But that said, they could have done this in December when Jack Smith asked them to, and they didn't. They put it off.

FRUM: Well, what I -- what I think they should do here is something that is -- they won't do this, I'm afraid. But they could say, look, we're not going to decide whether the official acts of the president are subject to criminal prosecution. We'll leave that for another time.

What we're going to tell you is overthrowing the -- overthrowing election, it's not an official act and make a factual finding. And it says, as they did in Bush versus Gore, which embarrasses them, but where they -- they said, Look, someone has to do this. We'll do it.

We'll say what the president did here, or the former president did, these are -- these are crimes. These are clearly crimes. These -- this is a coup. And now he can be prosecuted for those things.

And we are saying the legal question, we postpone. The factual question, we decide here and now.

HUNT: It doesn't seem like it.

Sarah, what did you see yesterday?

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, every time we find ourselves at a new junction on this particular issue, I become deeply enraged. Because to be mad at the --

HUNT: You say it so calmly.

LONGWELL: -- to become -- to blame the Supreme Court for where we find ourselves in this timeline, right? Like, I want the voters to know whether or not Donald Trump will be he convicted of trying to overturn an election before they go vote.

But the -- as you pointed out in your leadup, there has been a dereliction of duty all along, where the Republicans refused to hold him accountable with impeachment; DOJ, why it took so long to get to this point. Like, we shouldn't be in this position now.

And this is where Donald Trump and his experience in courts and courtrooms and in legal issues, they figured out how to have a delay tactic to get them past the point where he can be held accountable.

And it looks like -- my understanding is there was a piece in "Rolling Stone" yesterday where they were celebrating already, and it was like they were -- his people from his campaign. And they were saying it doesn't matter where they land on the immunity charge, because that's not really the point.

The point is, we're going to get this delayed past the point at which Americans are going to go vote.

HUNT: Yes, I mean, to be clear, I very much -- when, when I conceive of this and how we've gotten here, it's been through just the day-to- day coverage of how this has all played out through all of these various institutions.

And yes, now we happen to be here with the court, but Ashley Allison, it does seem that they are going to have the last word before we actually get to the election of 2024, where people are going to have to decide.

And we know from talking to voters that and from, you know, all of our exit polling and our CNN polling, that whether or not he's convicted in this January 6 case actually really matters to them.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Yes, this case matters more than some other cases, because the likelihood with the hush money case that David referenced, that's happening in New York right now. We might actually have a verdict before the election. It'll be a rush, but we could get there.

Look, I have been really trying to reflect on why we're in this situation. Why did the Republicans not hold him responsible? Why did it take DOJ so long? Why now are we relying on a pretty conservative Supreme Court that many in this country feel doesn't have a great reputation and is hyper-politicized?

And I don't think I have the answers to all of that, but what I will say is yesterday I felt like there was a lot of writing on the wall.

The Trump team is celebrating, perhaps because they think they're going to win in November. And if they win in November, we know that he will throw this case out.

HUNT: Yes. It goes away.

ALLISON: And if he throws this case out, what does that allow him to do, then, as president? He's already made, really, not even just blatant threats of how we would go after people, how he would go after folks who don't agree with him. Some of the scenarios that the justices played out yesterday. And I'm afraid that this writing on the wall is suggesting that we could be on this very slippery slope that many people have warned. Some folks warned about January 6 before it, and people weren't believing it.

Because his behavior has become so normal, and we're so used to it, but we cannot remain complacent. Our institutions will not survive another attack on -- well, I hope they will, but they most likely won't survive another attack like --

HUNT: We came so close.

ALLISON: So close.

HUNT: I don't think people even understand how close we came on January 6.

And David Frum, as we kind of wrap up here, you -- you wrote this on Twitter yesterday during the arguments. You said, quote, "The crux of the problem, it is not actually a hypothetical to ask, what if a president tries to affect a coup d'etat to retain power after losing reelection? It happened. Treating the question as a hypothetical is both a denial and excuse."

FRUM: Yes. I agree with that. That is that --

HUNT: You did write it.

FRUM: And that is -- that's -- we are looking to people to save us when we did not save ourselves. There was an attempted coup. There was an attempt to seize power by -- by fraud and then by force. That's a fact.

[06:10:04]

And we are struggling to deal with it, because we never suppose -- no one ever supposed. What is the prayer that is inscribed over the mantle in the East Wing: "None but wise and honest men ever rule under this roof"?

And they weren't all wise. They weren't all honest, but we had no one who was both -- neither wise nor honest before. And now we're coping with it.

HUNT: Yes, we are. All right. Our panel's going to stick around.

Up next, is Donald Trump being treated fairly as a defendant in his criminal trial? Voters weigh in, in a new CNN poll.

Plus, we're live at Columbia University as pro-Palestinian protests enter their tenth day. Where negotiations stand.

And a high-stakes meeting. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:15:11]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING. I'm going to do that thing where I just let you in on the conversation we're all having here on the set, which is about how we got here.

And yes, it is the Supreme Court that now has to make this decision about whether we're going to get this at the end, but I mean, Sarah, there were so many other opportunities for people to try to stand up ahead of Donald Trump. Not least, the people that actually ran against him in the primary.

LONGWELL: Yes. I mean, look, this idea of nobody wants to be the one to actively take on Donald Trump has been replete through Republican politics since he came on the scene. They all want him gone. None of them want to do it themselves. They are afraid of his voters.

HUNT: And they all say it privately, right?

LONGWELL: They all say it privately. And this is where -- you know, when you look at the Republican primary this time, if you're Mike Pence, what's your theory of the case for becoming president?

Like, could Mike Pence go to a Trump rally without armed security?

HUNT: No.

LONGWELL: Without being under physical threat? He could not.

Nikki Haley, I think she realized maybe during the course of her campaign, that the party is completely different.

And so, like, their theory of the case for becoming the actual president wasn't, Oh, the voters want me. It was like maybe something happens to Donald Trump. He's an old man, so maybe something. And also like maybe he goes to jail. Like, that was their -- Nobody's got a Plan A to take him on. They've all got a Plan B, which is that Donald Trump disappears some way, and they do nothing to hasten that.

FRUM: Yes. Well, look, we don't want to face the truth about what happened. We don't want to face the truth that many of our fellow Americans supported it. There are parts of -- it brings into -- it brings to the fore many painful points in American history.

Because these things are, unfortunately -- we want to think they're unprecedented, but they happened at the state level in the 1860s and 1870s.

We have -- we have seen violent contests for power in the United States before. There was a war in Arkansas after (ph) the Civil War, in which I think good one candidate for governor may have actually literally murdered another candidate for governor.

LONGWELL: Well, we haven't seen it.

FRUM: We haven't seen -- we haven't seen it, but it's in the DNA, and we have to do it again. And I think the courts are saying, in many ways, we're not equipped at this, because we are -- we are trying to figure out the rights and wrongs of the bounds of presidential power.

We are not ready to deal with a situation where such a person has become president of the United States through a freak of the Electoral College.

And you've had someone who tried to make a literal coup d'etat of a kind that Americans never associate with their own country.

ALLISON: I do think we did see it, though. January 6. Like, if you wanted to see it, it happened. You were there. We were most probably all in the city when it happened. It was very real. It was very scary to even be in the city.

And there was a whole hearing from the January 6th Committee that showed it over and over. And so again, I go to the question about why we are here.

The other thing, and I have this extra question for you, because you talk to Republican voters way more than I do.

LONGWELL: All the time. All the time.

ALLISON: So --

LONGWELL: You don't talk to a lot of Republican voters?

ALLISON: I hang out with you.

So here's my question. I understand that there's a base that really support Donald Trump, but that base is not 50 percent from every -- the conference. It's 30, right?

So where's the 70 percent of the voters that actually -- if the elected officials, the politicians who we have all pretty much conceded that we've lost faith in and that they're not going to be the adults in the room. Where are those 70 percent of Republican voters? Why did they not show up?

I know during the primary, it was because we needed to consolidate the field. I mean, 150,000 of them in PA this week did show up and say, We still don't want Donald Trump.

So why are those 70 percent of voter -- Republican voters not doing anything?

But then in 2020 -- or excuse me, 2022, and actually 2020, and in 2023, there were other issues like Roe that really did animate the base.

LONGWELL: Yes.

ALLISON: The voters did show up. And the people that Donald Trump supported lost. And there was an opportunity to break.

But again, the elected officials didn't follow the voters' lead.

FRUM: No, but the Republicans are doing -- so the seat, the congressional seat held by George H.W. Bush, which was held by Republicans until 2018, is a Democratic seat now.

The congressional seat held by Newt Gingrich, which was Republican until 2018, is a Democratic seat now. The seat had -- held by Eric Cantor is a Democratic seat now.

So there have been at this -- we always talk about the Trump voters in their diners. But in the heartland of the Republican Party, people with mortgages, people with kids in college, people with a little more to lose in society, that kind of -- people with college educations, they are -- they have been moving out.

And I think that's part of the message that the Democrats need to use, or the Biden campaign needs to use in 2024, which is, you know, America has asked things of people. And some people had very hard things to do.

And you have an easy thing to do, which is, for once in your life, cross a party line to save the Constitution and then go back. Go back.

HUNT: Last word.

LONGWELL: I just want to reverse your numbers, actually, because I think 70 percent of the Republican Party believes that the election was stolen. Seventy percent of the Republican Party actively wants Donald Trump.

[06:20:04]

It's this 30 percent that doesn't believe the election was stolen. That was sort of voting for Nikki Haley. Those are your persuadable voters, and those are the people that need to be persuaded in this moment.

And when I said that we hadn't seen it, I meant up until January 6th.

HUNT: Oh, yes, yes.

LONGWELL: Right? And like, you need those voters to see how dangerous Donald Trump is and to actively reject that future.

That means, though, going against their tribe and actively voting for Democrats, which is an uncomfortable thing and why there has to be -- this is why these are so important. They have to see this.

HUNT: It's why the lack of a trial matters --

LONGWELL: Yes, exactly.

HUNT: -- so -- so much. All right. Just ahead here, pro-Palestinian protesters arrested on college campuses across the country.

Plus, realities star Kim Kardashian joining Vice President Harris at the White House for a policy discussion. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:03]

HUNT: Welcome back. Tensions boiling over on colleges -- college campuses coast to coast as police arrest some peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters who are refusing to disperse.

At Atlanta's Emory University, CNN saw at least two professors being detained by officers and a stun gun being used on a protester who had been forced to the ground.

Ohio State says an unknown number of demonstrators were arrested after they, quote, "exercised their First Amendment rights for several hours," end quote, and then disobeyed police orders to leave.

At least 33 people were detained at Indiana University after police say they refused to take down a tent encampment. And at Columbia University in New York, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters lined up on opposite sides of the street. In this case, we had peaceful chanting and drumming. The university says talks with protesters are ongoing and showing progress.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is live at the Columbia campus on New York's Upper West Side.

Polo, good morning to you. Were there any arrests reported by NYPD last night? And what is the tension level where you are?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, security continues to be high, as do tensions. But initially, what we had heard were these reports of a possible deadline in these negotiations that are ongoing between leaders of that pro-Palestinian encampment located on the Columbia University and the institution itself.

However yesterday, we heard from organizations that, rather than it being a deadline, this is actually more of a timeline for these negotiations that are ongoing.

And these are negotiations, Kasie, that I heard are very much not currently hitting a stalemate. If anything, as we heard from one organizer, actually told me yesterday that they have shown some progress.

And this is the same thing that we also heard late last night from Columbia University.

To be clear, neither side will elaborate on what that progress actually means. And most importantly, what is preventing a possible deal.

Now, to remind you and our viewers right now of the objectives of all sides of this, the students here are looking for divestment and also amnesty for the students who have been punished as a result of participating in these demonstrations. The university, basically, they want this encampment dismantled. They

fear that it could be impeding with the university operations.

I -- we also heard yesterday from one of the students that's on that negotiating team, Kasie. And he's characterizing these negotiations as focused and friendly. So it's certainly positive.

At the same time, we also heard from the university last night that's saying they have their demands, and we have ours. And the president, Kasie, of Columbia is hoping that these negotiations are successful.

When will that happen? That is very much still yet to be seen.

HUNT: All right. Polo Sandoval for us in New York. Polo, thank you.

Up next here, one defendant, two courts. Critical developments in Donald Trump's hush money trial and his immunity case.

Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken meeting with China's President Xi. What they talked about, ahead.

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