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Now: Law Enforcement Enters UCLA Encampment; Greene To Force Vote To Oust Speaker Johnson Next Week; Co-Founder Of Politico, Axios On Trust In News. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired May 02, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:31:10]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a live look at the Washington Monument on this Thursday morning. Good morning to you. Thanks for being up with us. I'm Kasie Hunt.

We're going to get back now to our breaking news. These are live images of the UCLA campus where police have entered the protesters' encampment there. And right now, the two sides are seemingly at a standoff. Demonstrators have been told they need to leave or face arrest.

CNN's Nick Watt is on the campus of UCLA near that encampment for us. Nick, bring us up to speed. What's going on here?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so it appears that law enforcement did enter the encampment and then is giving people the option -- leave or you will face arrest or perhaps you might get hurt.

Now, this is the scene here. We have a line of LAPD officers in front of that. We have a line of CHP (California Highway Patrol). You see they have zip ties attached to their belts. They have gas masks attached to their belts. It was -- it is, we are told, going to be the CHP that ultimately makes arrests. That is from a source earlier.

Now, Tom (sic), if you spin around you will also see that there are -- there is another line of LAPD. And then beyond that is where all of the Palestinian -- pro-Palestinian protesters who have gathered in solidarity with the encampment have been for the past six or seven hours -- maybe even eight hours -- since we first got the rumor that there was going to be a law enforcement presence moving into the encampment.

So right now, as you say, Kasie, it seems to be a little bit of a standoff in there. We are relying on word coming out, livestreams coming out. But it appears that the protesters -- many protesters who are still in there are determined to stay no matter what they are told about arrests. They've been here for a week and they ain't leaving.

Back to you.

HUNT: Nick, forgive me. When you say the arrests are going to be made by CHP, you mean they feel like it's important that -- is that campus law enforcement actually execute on this situation?

WATT: No. So, California Highway Patrol --

HUNT: Got it.

WATT: -- state agency. This is state land. They are the agency that comes in to support the campus police. They are the next line that comes in.

So -- and it was Gov. Gavin Newsom that was very critical of the lack of law enforcement response last night when pro-Israel protesters moved against the encampment. So we are told it is going to be CHP at the front.

HUNT: I see.

WATT: And as you see here, we have LAPD in the back, CHP in the front. But let's just see how this plays out.

HUNT: Understood, understood -- OK.

Nick Watt for us. Nick, thanks very much for that.

All right. Back here in Washington, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announcing she's going to force a vote next week to try to oust the House Speaker, Mike Johnson. She says she's outraged because the speaker reached across the aisle when he passed aid to Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Mike Johnson is hurting our efforts to win. He's passing Joe Biden's agenda. That's the agenda that voters all over the country are fed up with. Mike Johnson is absolutely destroying our efforts to have the majority in January of next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Greene is now daring Democrats and, really, daring Johnson to go through with this. There is a plan to rescue Johnson -- the Democrats have one -- by killing the motion to vacate. She is also dismissing warnings from members of her own party, saying that they should avoid a vote that is all but certain to fail.

Joining me now, Andrew Desiderio, senior congressional reporter for Punchbowl News. And Shelby Talcott. She's politics reporter for Semafor.

Andrew, let me start with you on this. I mean, is this just about keeping Marjorie Taylor Greene's name in the spotlight? Is it about forcing there to be an on-the-record vote where you can see the Democrats are supporting Johnson? I mean, what is it?

[05:35:00]

ANDREW DESIDERIO, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: It's a mix of the two, right? The longer this hangs out there the more beneficial it is for Marjorie Taylor Greene in the long run, especially when it comes to her fundraising efforts, right? You've seen some Republicans and Democrats criticize this as basically a fundraising ploy.

But she's letting this hang out there for another week, at least. She's going to go through with this. And as you said, she's basically daring Democrats to save him.

And there are House Democrats who are having internal conversations right now about this who are actually unhappy with their leadership. That their leadership did not try to extract some concessions from the Republican leadership -- from Mike Johnson, specifically -- in exchange for voting to save him.

You see Republicans continuing to put these messaging bills on the floor that are putting moderate Democrats, swing district Democrats in a really tough position. They want Republicans to stop doing that and they want to sort of extract that as a concession in exchange for saving him.

HUNT: And your understanding and reporting is that there were no concessions ahead of this letter?

DESIDERIO: There are -- our understanding is there was no deal, no concessions, no nothing.

HUNT: Really interesting.

Shelby, how are the dynamics of this? How do they relate to Donald Trump?

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Well, Donald Trump has come out in support of Speaker Johnson. We saw last month -- or earlier this month that Johnson went to Mar-a-Lago, actually, and met with him for several hours.

And it's been really interesting to see this dynamic develop because Marjorie Taylor Greene is also one of Donald Trump's closest allies. And so, we haven't seen Donald Trump really aggressively insert himself into this ongoing drama, and part of that is because he is so close with Marjorie Taylor Greene and personally likes her.

But it's also because there is this idea that if he does get involved and does tell Marjorie Taylor Greene that she needs to stand down, and that he supports Speaker Johnson, it could cause more chaos. And that's something that Donald Trump and his team are trying to avoid leading up into this election is the -- is the concept and the idea that Republicans can't govern.

HUNT: Yeah.

Andrew, how do you see the Trump effect play out not just in this particular instance but kind of across the Hill right now as he is standing this trial. And honestly, I'm interested to know what you're hearing from Republicans about the trial and if there's any difference between what they say in public versus what they're saying, kind of, on background without attaching their names to it about whether they think this trial is a problem.

DESIDERIO: Right. I mean, obviously, they know it's a problem, right? The more time he's spending in court, the less time he's campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin, right? He was in Michigan last night, I know. He was endorsing the Republican Senate candidate, Mike Rogers there. And so, that's something that Senate Republicans, in particular, want him to focus on, right -- is not just campaigning for himself but helping other Republicans up and down the ticket.

And Republicans have a pretty favorable map for the Senate this year and the more Trump is out there trying to help their candidates, especially in these races that they should win in states like Montana, for example, and Ohio -- I think Nevada is more of a reach state for them, but that's another possible place that we could see Donald Trump campaign because of how close it was last time. That's what they want to see him focused on.

And to the extent that all the headlines are about him getting fined for violating the gag order and just being in court every day, they obviously don't like that.

HUNT: Yeah.

Shelby, a number of these people in Congress can also be defined by their interest in either becoming Donald Trump's vice president or at least getting a slot somewhere in a potential future Trump administration.

You've been kind of reporting out on the "veepstakes" and we are hearing kind of what I would describe as, like, escalated chatter about this, this week. What are you learning?

TALCOTT: There's certainly escalated chatter and the question is, is that coming from Donald Trump and his team, or it is coming from the media? Now, what I will say is that Donald Trump's team is starting to vet a number of potential vice-presidential candidates. Those include Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, of course, J.D. Vance -- sort of these names that have popped up -- Doug Burgum.

But at the same time, when I talk to people close to Trump, they note that his real sole focus right now is the trial. And so, you shouldn't expect to hear who he's going to pick until later this summer. Probably about a month before the RNC convention is when I'm hearing he's going to announce.

HUNT: Yeah, a pretty standard timeline.

TALCOTT: It is a standard timeline.

But at the same time, as you said, it is very clear we're starting to see more and more how all of these lawmakers are clearly quietly trying to sort of position themselves to be serious contenders.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, I mean -- and look, it's May. This is May 2, right? June, July -- the convention is in July. These vets, when they're done properly, take a lot of time. I guess, sort of, the question to me is, like, how much is Trump going to really focus on that and really just instead go with his gut here?

But, Andrew, what do you hear kind of in and around from the camps of the various -- I mean, J.D. Vance is one, for example, who has kind of come up to the top of this conversation.

DESIDERIO: Yeah.

HUNT: How does this play out on the Hill?

[05:40:00]

DESIDERIO: Look, there -- all the people that Shelby just mentioned are serious contenders. And you look at people like J.D. Vance, people like Marco Rubio -- people who have been, I guess, traditional allies of Donald Trump. Rubio, I guess, less so because they had a battle for the primary, of course, in 2016.

HUNT: Little Marco --

DESIDERIO: But -- yeah, exactly, right?

HUNT: -- I think was the name.

DESIDERIO: But with J.D. Vance, it hasn't been like that, right? They have been allies this entire time. They talk multiple times per week. J.D. Vance has really been leading the anti-Ukraine charge on behalf of Donald Trump in Congress. He's sort of viewed on Capitol Hill as, like, the intellectual side of Donald Trump of the America First sort of doctrine.

You hear a lot of Republicans who don't even agree with him on foreign policy say he's pretty good at laying out the case for Donald Trump, especially on issues like Ukraine and this whole idea of an America First foreign policy, which they would criticize as neo-isolationist. But they say that, hey, Vance is at least good at encapsulating that, right?

HUNT: Right. I think I'm following but, man, it says a lot about where we are today.

DESIDERIO: Yeah.

HUNT: Shelby Talcott, Andrew Desiderio, thank you both very much for being here. I appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next, Donald Trump hinting that another January 6 could happen if things don't go his way in November.

Plus, the Dallas Mavericks one win away from advancing in the NBA Playoffs. We'll get the Bleacher Report ahead.

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[05:45:45]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON STEWART, HOST COMEDY CENTRAL "THE DAILY SHOW": He arrived at the intersection of American history where he put a quarter in the parking meter of destiny, leaving the car, looking to avoid stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence.

Seriously, are we going to follow this guy to court every (bleep) day? Are you trying to make this O.J.? It's not a chase. He's commuting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Jon Stewart, shall we say, critiquing the American media for how they -- we are covering Donald Trump's hush money trial. As we have talked about on this show, how to cover him is a challenge that all of us in the media have to grapple with in this incredibly consequential election year. And it's, of course, at a time when trust in major national news outlets is ebbing.

In a new poll, significant percentages of Americans say they're highly concerned about disinformation, division, and political bias in the media.

Joining me now is Jim VandeHei. He is the co-founder and CEO of Axios and the author of the new book "Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success." Jim, good morning.

JIMENEZ: VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, AXIOS, AUTHOR, "JUST THE GOOD STUFF: NO-BS SECRETS TO SUCCESS": Good morning.

HUNT: I'm so grateful to have you.

VANDEHEI: Good to see you.

HUNT: Just full disclosure, I used to -- you hired me --

VANDEHEI: I did.

HUNT: -- for my first jobs here in Washington when you were running Politico.

VANDEHEI: That means you have to be nice to me.

HUNT: I appreciate you having done that because I'm grateful to be here.

And this book that you have is really all about the things you wish you had known as you were kind of making your way up --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- in media. And now, of course, we are all grappling with this question of trust.

So, I mean, what lessons have you learned? What would you say -- I mean, what would you say back to Jon Stewart about what you know and what you've learned?

VANDEHEI: I'm with him. I don't mock it. I'm kind of saddened by it --

HUNT: Yeah.

VANDEHEI: -- the fact that so many people don't trust what we do. Like, the book is very much about what did I learn in trying to start Politico and start Axios in this crazy digital environment.

Obviously, you've dedicated your life and I've dedicated my life to trying to get to the closest approximation of the truth. And you have a lot of forces out there that have tried to diminish the work that we do. And, quite frankly, I think there's things that people in the media have done to diminish some of the work that we do.

But I always tell people you better step back and be careful with what you're playing with here because you're playing with fire. If we suddenly have a country that trusts nothing and there's no sources of common truth, it's going to be really hard to govern. It's going to be really hard to avoid protests and know what's really happening on these campuses.

And if you look back at the history of the country, a free press is such, like, and awesome, distinctive, needed, necessary, vital piece of this awesome country. And it's how we know so much of what's happening. It's how we expose so much malfeasance.

And so, I think on the consumer end, people have to figure out a couple of news sources that they trust and that they think, on a regular basis, are getting the closest approximation of the truth. And I think us, in the media, we have to be a little more humble and we have to realize our job is to be clinical in delivering the information, try to get to the closest approximation of the truth. If we screw it up be humble enough to admit it. And maybe get off Twitter and maybe stop popping off in ways that make people distrust the work that you do.

HUNT: Yeah. How do you try to -- as you're building these news organizations --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: As you've built Politico, which I will say has become a very well-trusted -- especially in people who are --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- making decisions. Axios as well.

How do you try to get the people that work for you -- your organizations --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- to achieve the goals you just laid out? VANDEHEI: Clinical is a word that we use, particularly at Axios, which is we don't have an opinion page. We ask every employee, whether you're an editorial employee or not, to refrain from sharing your opinion in any public forum, which is a huge ask of our staff. But we do that because we want people who are still persuadable to the truth to know that we're doing everything we can do to trust them.

We try to hire people who have real domain expertise so that they can deliver content that is useful to somebody else.

But I think other than that and hiring the right people and setting the right tempo, there's not that much more you can do. And a lot of that I do think is, like, the CEO of these companies falls on me to set the example. To set the tone that, like, we can be out there trying to get to the truth. That we can be out there trying to get people smarter faster on what matters. That we don't have to be hyperventilating every single time something happens that we don't necessarily agree with.

[05:50:00]

And I think that comes to leadership. And I think there's a huge absence of high-quality leadership across the board in this country right now. In some ways we've, like, lost our moral clarity.

I watch these protests at a lot of these universities. And, yes, it stems from real passions about what's happening in the Middle East, but a lot of dysfunction comes from bad leadership. If you have moral clarity up front, what are your red lines? How do you think about free speech? When does free speech become criminal behavior?

If you set that tone early on -- the University of Chicago is one that's done a decent job at this -- you don't have as big of an issue. But when you have weak leadership, whether it's an academic institution or in governance or in politics or in business, bad things happen.

And I hope with the book -- a lot of it is me making fun of myself. You were there. Like I said, I was -- I had to learn to CEO and I wasn't --

HUNT: Yes, I do remember that.

VANDEHEI: -- and I wasn't great. You know, I learned and I'd like to think that -- you know, I'm from Wisconsin. I grew up in a small town. I had enough humility to figure out OK, if I'm not getting it right, who is getting it right? How do I incorporate that into my leadership style?

And a big part of it is having moral clarity about there is right and wrong. I'm going to be candid. I'm going to be transparent. I'm going to demand a lot of you but I'm going to demand more of myself. Like, there are, like, principles that have kind of worked for humanity for a long time that I worry people in leadership have lost sight of.

HUNT: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I totally take your point on clinical and on making sure that you're kind of above the fray.

How do you think about the challenge -- I mean, in cable news, for example --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- we have a challenge of audiences responding, right --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- to things that line up with their points of view. And you see it on social media as well.

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: People basically deciding that they want to stay in the corners in which they're in. And then they end up, when you're looking at these algorithms, consuming content that honestly pushes them --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

HUNT: -- farther and farther away.

I mean, how are -- how are we supposed to deal with that?

VANDEHEI: It's a massive problem, right? We went -- we wrote a column not long ago called "Shards of Glass," which is this idea that we all used to look at the world through this common window.

HUNT: Um-hum.

VANDEHEI: A couple of networks, a couple of cable stations, maybe a newspaper or two. And then, over the last 10 to 15 years it shattered into maybe 20 different pieces. So if you're getting your news and you're young and you're on TikTok, you're following topics and people that somebody sitting at the table next to you might never have heard of. They might be getting their news from people they trust on Instagram or maybe they're more traditional and they're getting their news on CNN and from Axios, and they're following a totally different group of people.

So I think for all of our businesses we have to figure out, OK, who are we trying to reach? CNN is not going to reach everybody. Axios is not going to reach everybody. In our case, we're trying to reach smart professionals. We know they care about artificial intelligence, politics, health care media.

HUNT: Yeah.

VANDEHEI: Go -- you go -- business. You go down the line and make sure that when we're going that we're serving the reader or the user.

And I think that fundamental principle can really change I think any media entity, which is stop worrying about yourself and think about who it is you're trying to reach and what do you need -- what do you need to do to get them what they need on their terms when they need it. And when you do that good things in business tend to happen.

There are going to be some people who are sitting out there who just want to be reinforced.

HUNT: Yeah.

VANDEHEI: You can't change that.

HUNT: Right.

VANDEHEI: You can't. But what you can do is there's people in between there in where you're at right now. Whereas, if you're trying to get to the truth, if you are being clinical, if you are being smart, if you are being respectful of their intelligence and their time, little by little you can move some of those people.

HUNT: Yeah.

I can't wait to really dig into the book. I wish it existed when I was an intern hired by people who I didn't -- I had no idea --

VANDEHEI: You lived it.

HUNT: -- I'd be working there.

VANDEHEI: You lived it. You don't have to read it.

HUNT: I did.

Also, can we get a copy of that picture you say that is of you leading a protest on your campus? What was that about?

VANDEHEI: It was the drinking age and it wasn't --

HUNT: I mean --

VANDEHEI: I don't even know that I cared about it back then because I didn't -- I didn't listen to the drink age anyways. But you -- we got caught up in it. You did see that and covered it, I believe live.

HUNT: Fair enough, all right.

Jim VandeHei -- he's going to stick around. His new book is "Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success."

All right, time now for sports. The Mavericks hand the Clippers their worst playoff loss in team history, pushing L.A. to the brink of elimination from the NBA Playoffs.

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

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

So a lot of times in these series it comes down to who has the best player. And right now, in this Mavs-Clippers series it's Luka Doncic. Luka was just fantastic despite being under the weather and having a sore knee. He had 35 points in this one as the Mavs -- they held a 20- point lead by the end of the third quarter.

And it was certainly a rough night for James Harden, Paul George, and Russell Westbrook. They made just eight of their 36 shots. Kawhi Leonard once again sitting out with a sore knee for this one.

The Mavs hand the Clippers their worst playoff loss ever, 123-93. And Dallas can now close out that series at home on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKA DONCIC, GUARD, DALLAS MAVERICKS: In the playoffs, it doesn't matter if you win by one or you win by 50. But it's still a good win. But the job is not done, you know. We've got to win one more. We've got to get ready for our next game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:55:02]

SCHOLES: All right. The Celtics, meanwhile, with just a dominant performance to close out the Heat in game five of their series. Boston getting out to an 18-point lead in the first quarter and they just never let up. They would win by 34. The Celtics now going to await the winner between the Cavs and the Magic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DERRICK WHITE, GUARD, BOSTON CELTICS: We just keep playing the way we've been playing all year, competing at a high level, the toughness, and just doing all the little things we've been doing all year. So, we know it's going to be a challenge whoever we play and we're going to be ready to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. And finally, Topps announcing yesterday they signed beekeeper Matt Hilton to a deal to make his very own baseball card, some of which will be autographed by Hilton himself. Hilton a huge hit and played to the crowd as he took care of the swarm of bees that delayed Tuesday's Dodgers-D-Backs game.

And CNN's Don Riddell -- well, he caught up with Hilton yesterday and asked him about his big night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT HILTON, BRANCH MANAGER, BLUE SKY PEST CONTROL: When I got on the field I saw just how loud the crowd was when I did a couple of fist bumps. And, you know, I was like, hey, I'm going to get a couple more fist bumps and play to this a little bit. And, you know, it kind of helped loosen my nerves a little bit, too, so it definitely helped me out and I just decided to have fun with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yeah, Kasie, how cool is that from Hilton? He went from his kid's Little League game to a hero, and now he's got his own baseball card.

HUNT: That's amazing. Talk about a man who meets the moment. I love it.

SCHOLES: All right.

HUNT: Andy Scholes, thank you very much.

SCHOLES: All right.

HUNT: See you tomorrow.

All right, from the trail back to the trial. Donald Trump about to find out if he violated his gag order again.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not leaving!

UCLA PROTESTERS: We're not leaving!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A tense standoff that's ongoing right now between protesters and police at UCLA.

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