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Trump Campaigns in Michigan & Wisconsin with Foreboding Language; Standoff Between Protestors & Police on UCLA Campus. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 02, 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 Thursday, May 2. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, Donald Trump squeezing in two campaign stops in critical battleground states before heading back to New York for his hush money trial.

[06:01:08]

Right now in Los Angeles, police and protesters in a tense, ongoing campus standoff. The latest details ahead.

And Vice President Harris in full campaign mode, making the case one man is responsible for the fall of Roe versus Wade.

Good morning. A live look at Capitol Hill on this Thursday morning. I'm Kasie hunt. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING.

Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail, and he had with him rhetoric that is, to put it very plainly, quite dark.

On Wednesday, the former president visited two battleground states, Michigan and Wisconsin. In those key states, we heard this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 2024 is our final battle. with you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. we will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout out the fake news media. We will drain the swamp. And we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: He left out the word "vermin" in that version, but he did say "our final battle." He said, "liberate our country from tyrants and villains."

This is, of course, language we've heard before as Trump has demonized his opponents, Democrats, judges, the media, immigrants from countries -- well, I don't really want to repeat what he said about that on TV.

In an interview with "The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel" that he did on this trip, he said this about the upcoming election. Quote, "If everything's honest, I'll gladly accept the results. I don't change on that," Trump said. "If it's not, you have to fight for the right of the country."

This, again, about questions of political violence. And of course, with Trump, we have to wonder, do we take them literally? We've learned over the past years covering him to really honestly believe him when he says what he's going to do. And this is a preview of the next six months of the election, possibly a second Trump term.

Our panel is here to discuss. Joining us now is Jonah Goldberg, co- founder, editor in chief of "The Dispatch." And Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal." And we're also joined by Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios.

Jim, good morning to you.

There have been these questions sparked about political violence that -- that we started talking about this week anyway --

JIM VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER/CEO, AXIOS: Yes.

HUNT: -- with this "TIME" interview, where he was asked, is there going to be violence, and he basically said, Well, if it's a fair election, sure [SIC].

And as we've learned, his sort of definition of fair seems to be that Donald Trump wins.

When you hear all of these things, where do you come down on how concerned the country should be about it? Is it just talk? Having been at the Capitol on January 6, I tend to hear something different than just talk.

VANDEHEI: Yes.

HUNT: How do you look at it?

VANDEHEI: I mean, it's not just talk. I think he's been consistent from the beginning. He's never said, like, yes, I would just accept the election results if I lost and no, I would never encourage any kind of political violence. He's been -- he's always given himself this flexibility.

And a couple of things that people should keep in mind. One, the last two elections. Last election, you move 40,000 votes in three states, you have a different outcome. Election before that, you move 78,000 votes in three states, you have a different outcome.

So in all likelihood, you're going to have a very close election, determined by a few hundred thousand people in seven different states. So the likelihood that we have a very contentious outcome is very high.

Well, last time we had that, you had a Capitol that got stormed, and that Trump might want to pardon people, but people have to step back. And even if you'd like the guy, people died. People died. A half dozen people died. Two police officers killed themselves from the trauma in the aftermath of it. Like, that's real.

So the idea, oh, he's going to pardon these guys. They're warriors. They're patriots, and that's just kind of normal behavior. It's kind of like what's happening on the -- on the campuses. It's not at all. There's nothing normal about it.

[06:05:02]

So people -- yes, he says things all the time. You don't know what to take seriously. I would take it seriously. And there's a lot of people out there who do take it seriously. And we saw what happened last time when they did take it seriously.

HUNT: Yes. Jonah Goldberg, what should -- what should we be doing to prepare for November, in the event that all of this does unfold as Jim has just talked about, and as Trump, you know, has -- has basically plainly said?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CO-FOUNDER/EDITOR IN CHIEF, "THE DISPATCH": Yes. Well, I like salt pills, bottled water. Purifier tablets are better.

HUNT: Are you a prepper, and I didn't know about it?

GOLDBERG: Well, you said how do you prepare?

Look, I agree with Jim's punditry entirely in terms of how close this is going to be and all that kind of stuff. But it's important just to emphasize, we didn't get the violence because the election was close last time. We got the violence, because there was this orchestrated campaign to misinform the public that the election had been stolen. Right? I mean, it was a massive fraud effort.

Because the election was in early November, and the violence was on January 6. That was not stemming from the closeness. That was stemming from the campaign.

That said --

HUNT: And we spent the last four years with him kind of reinforcing that narrative and kind of priming people to hear it again.

GOLDBERG: Yes, no. What's -- what's amazing is it actually hasn't been four years. It's been more like three. My colleague, David Drucker, pointed out to me yesterday, when he interviewed him three years ago, he was still saying January 6 was a bad thing. Like he was still saying it was regrettable. There were a few bad -- there were some bad apples; I wish it hadn't happened.

Now, it's like it was awesome. This was like martyrs' day. And I think that that -- that is part of the problem. It's a public -- it's a deliberate campaign to get people prepped to be intimidating and to have the threat of violence hanging over things.

HUNT: Molly. MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": I think that's all true. I think -- I hope that -- that law enforcement is a deterrent here, right? I mean, Trump has said he would pardon some of the people arrested and convicted for their behavior on January 6. But hundreds, I think over 1,000 people, have been prosecuted.

And the time since then when Trump has tried to summon, if not a mob, you know, a big group of supporters to something other than a rally in his defense, they haven't shown up in the same force.

So I would hope that we, as a country, learned a lesson from what happened on January 6. Most people didn't like it. Most people saw what happened there as a terrible tragedy and a stain on -- on our democracy.

And so you know, there -- there's been legislation, not to say that, like, everything can be solved with, you know, policy and -- and that kind of thing.

But, you know, we have -- I think law enforcement will be better prepared for any potential post-election violence. And we did have a reform of the Electoral Count Act, which makes it less likely that something specifically like January 6 happens again.

But -- but absolutely, Trump is laying the groundwork for the same type of -- of saga, where, you know, he does --

HUNT: Yes.

BALL: You know, the last thing I would say, though, is that looking at the polls right now, the most likely outcome is that Trump wins fair and square. And in that case, nothing happens.

HUNT: Well, yes, fair enough. Just -- just as a reminder, too -- we're talking about January 6 and how the narrative has changed around that. This is how the president [SIC] sometimes starts -- the former president sometimes starts his rallies, with this song sung by January 6 "hostages," he calls them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.

TRUMP: Do you see the spirit from the hostages? And that's what they are, is hostages. They've been treated terribly.

Unbelievable patriots, and they were unbelievable patriots, and are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Jim VandeHei, I mean, you're right. This is going to be a close election. If he keeps doing this, like are general election voters, independents actually going to go for that? And, like, again, like please. VANDEHEI: One, the intro is just so goofy, right? You can't help but chuckle about it.

But -- and then there's just like -- there's always these intellectual inconsistencies. Like, on the one hand, you can't say, Oh, they're patriots, man. They're hostages. And look at those hoodlums on the college campuses.

HUNT: Right?

VANDEHEI: And they're bursting into buildings and breaking glass.

Like, wait, what happened on January 6? So it's like -- now, do people punish him for it? I don't -- I look at the same polls that you do. We talk to the same people. I think there's just so many people out there who've just tuned all of us out and everything out. And I guess they filter that.

And they -- and for some reason, you look at the polls, there's just this nostalgia that, oh, when -- Trump was weird, but man, my taxes were low. Yes, January 6 was bad, but regulatory environment seemed favorable to my business. And that seems to be what's keeping him afloat in those seven -- in those seven states.

And I think that is what viewers have to remember. These national polls are -- they're meaningless. There's basically seven states that are highly competitive, that had been narrowly determined in the last couple of elections. It's going to be the same thing this time around.

And that is why President Biden's worried. You look at those seven states, and they consistently look better for Trump, as Molly just pointed out, than they do for Biden.

HUNT: Yes, we have some of those. We can put them up. Yes. Pennsylvania 49, Biden 50. Trump, Michigan, 51; Biden 49. Trump, Wisconsin, 49, 50. I mean, that makes your point just there for you.

[06:10:11]

And I will say the one thing in the national poll that is potentially encouraging is the number of people that say democracy is an important issue, up to 58 percent. Our recent polls say they care about that.

I just -- again, having been at the Capitol, watching the mob outside, now to hear the former president say that as he starts at these rallies, is pretty head-spinning.

Jim, thank you.

VANDEHEI: Thank you.

HUNT: I really appreciate your time this morning.

Coming up next here, at UCLA, a tense stand-off between police and protesters. We are alive on the campus with a witness. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:01]

HUNT: Our breaking news right now. A tense standoff on the UCLA campus after police entered the protesters' encampment.

A group of faculty members at the encampment to support the students and protesters telling CNN they expect to be arrested in the coming hours.

All of this developing one night after violent clashes between the two protest groups.

CNN's Nick Watt is on the campus of UCLA. Nick, what are you seeing?

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So Kasie, I'm just going to get out of the way so you can see what I'm seeing.

So in the past few minutes, this group of police officers has just it looks like they're actually moving into the encampment as we speak, they're moving forward.

You see the protesters have flashlights they are shining in the police officers' faces. They have umbrellas, protection against pepper spray or -- or tear gas.

Yes. I'm seeing officers pulling aside this barricade that has been put up around the encampment. They are throwing the pallets aside. They are clearly getting ready to move in.

I've been hearing shouts from inside the encampment. Hold the line, hold the line.

Now, the police have given these encampment residents a long time to get out. They've said, if you stay, you're liable for arrest. You might get hurt. They've given them a long time.

Clearly, a large number of these protesters have decided to stay, and they will be arrested. These police officers now, you see them pushing at those barriers, trying to get into the encampment.

They are going to be moving in, and we've got to assume they're going to be arresting the protesters that they find in there.

This encampment has been here for a week. They were told earlier today that they should get out. They have been given time to get out. Many of these protesters have not gotten out.

So the police now moving in. Can you see that huge board being lifted off of the barricade? So that these officers can come in here. I believe we've got an arrest. That looks like somebody has been arrested and is being taken out.

The barricade is being torn down. Screams from behind me, from the pro-Palestinian protesters, who do not like what they are seeing. Yes, so we've got our -- the first -- Tom, did you see this person here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did.

WATT: Yes. OK. OK. I've just seen a flare go up. I've just seen somebody running. There are people running.

Yes. the police are tearing down that barricade, Kasie. They are going to be moving in.

We saw the protesters reinforcing that barricade today, determined to stay. It has come to this now, in the early hours of the morning here in Los Angeles. The police are moving in. The police are moving in.

Screams from behind me. Screams from behind me. The flashlights being shown in the eyes of those officers as they try to move in.

Now, the protesters, of course, their demands, they wanted divestment. The college said that was never going to happen. The protesters said they were never going to leave. It was almost inevitable it was going to come to something like this.

But UCLA for a week now has been trying to avoid a confrontation like this. They have kept law enforcement, really, in the background.

That all changed last night, when pro-Israel protesters attacked the camp, in a sense. There were scuffles, physical altercations. The governor today called for a much greater police response. The mayor called for a much greater police response. The university obviously agreed.

We have seen dozens, hundreds of California Highway Patrol, LAPD, sheriff's officers on this -- on this campus today. And here they are in the early hours of the morning, moving into that encampment.

We can see some tents now shaking as those officers move in. There are dozens of tents in there, dozens of tents. And, you know, I can't really guess. how many people. The last time I looked over that wall, there were hundreds.

They were told to get out. They were given time to get out. Unclear how many of them did get out. Clearly, a large number of them stayed. Large number of tents.

That camp has been there for a while, and you know, I was told by a source that law enforcement was concerned about human waste in that camp. They were concerned that some of these protesters could have bear spray on them.

So OK. So now we've just seen California Highway Patrol getting their batons ready. They have zip ties on their waist, as well. They have gas masks. They are ready to move in.

Excuse me, please.

HUNT: Clearly, a very tense situation.

WATT: So we've seen the first -- yes, we've seen the first wave go in, Kasie. Waiting to see what happens next.

[06:20:06]

HUNT: Yes. Stand by for me, Nick. We're going to keep --

WATT: Bangs from behind us. Bangs from behind us.

HUNT: Bangs. Bangs might suggest --

WATT: Whoa!

HUNT: -- measures.

WATT: Just fireworks, I believe. Just -- just fireworks.

HUNT: Fireworks.

WATT: Just fireworks.

HUNT: OK. Nick, stand by for me. We're going to keep our eyes on your camera as this unfolds. And I'll be -- I'll be right back with you.

But I do want to bring into this conversation former FBI director Andrew McCabe, who has been standing by watching this unfold.

And Andy, can you -- this -- this is obviously a very tense situation right now, where we can -- we're actually able to see the police officers going in to try to clear this out.

The universities have waited to try to avoid scenes like this, but now we're here. As you watch this unfold, what are you thinking about in terms of what are those officers thinking about as they are approaching this? And do you think mistakes were made that we got to this point at all?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Kasie, I think a lot of decisions will be reviewed in the aftermath of whatever plays out here. And I think there's some clear signs that maybe point in that direction.

So just to kind of set the scene for what we're seeing right now, I think Nick used the right word when he referred to it as inevitable. This conflict was -- we were on our way to this, have been on our way to this for several days.

And as dug in and passionate as these protesters are, you should understand that law enforcement has a very, very limited option, a limited menu of options to use to try to address this situation.

It's an issue where the property owners, essentially, the people responsible for this space, have called in law enforcement and said, these people are here illegally. We want them gone. And so they have to be removed. And as soon as you apply force to that -- to that dynamic, to that

kind of volatile relationship, you have to understand that law enforcement sees this almost in an -- in existential terms. They cannot be denied.

There's no scenario in which police officers are going to go in there and surround this camp, ask people to leave, and then shrug their shoulders and walk away when they don't leave. It is simply a matter of escalation.

I think that the -- I think they've done a few things well, particularly over the last several hours. It's clear that once they issued that tactical alert in Los Angeles where they basically informed the city that they were prioritizing most of their available law enforcement to this matter, and that other calls for law enforcement assistance might not be responded to, this was -- we knew this was coming.

They waited until, what, it's a little after 3 a.m. in the morning in Los Angeles, in an effort to probably draw that crowd down as much as they could. There were undoubtedly many, many people who had come to this just to see what was going to happen, maybe weren't affiliated with either side in this dispute, but were -- were adding to the crowd and the raw numbers of people that police have to deal with. And so they waited until a moment, probably, when that crowd drew down somewhat.

And they're now doing what they were unavoidably going to have to do for several days. And that is dismantle this camp and remove the people who have been informed that they were -- that they were occupying the space unlawfully.

For the individual officers, I mean, you can't possibly imagine how tense and frightening this is, a moment like this is to go into.

Some of the things that I think they may have thought differently about: clearly, the protesters were able to augment their camp with an enormous amount of physical obstacles. You see plywood. You see wooden pallets, shipping pallets. You see police barricades that have been drawn into the camp in an effort to kind of fortify their -- their lines there.

None of that should have been allowed to have happened, as this has developed over the last week or so. You know, anyone who approached campus with big, you know, eight-foot sections of plywood should have been turned around or -- or detained at the perimeter of campus and never even allowed to join this group.

So I think, in their effort to be evenhanded, and you know, a little bit more -- kind of have a lower profile in responding to this event, they've, in some ways, contributed to these protesters and whoever is organizing them, their ability to really turn this into a fortified encampment, which gives you the situation you're in now.

[06:25:14] It also is curious to me that, you know, you really have very little light there, which enables the protesters to use light like flashlights, high -- powerful flashlights to distract and -- and blind the officers as they approach the camp.

They should probably have thought more about bringing in temporary lighting, which is pretty easy to do. It's used at construction sites and other places all the time.

And we would have -- the police officers would have it -- you know, have a better advantage in terms of being able to see what they're doing.

But don't those are all kind of details around the fringes. The bottom line is we have a very volatile situation here, and it's going to look horrible as it plays out. There's no question about that.

HUNT: Yes. All right. Andy, thank you so much for all that insight. Standby for me.

Jonah Goldberg is here on set, as we watch these events unfold live at UCLA, as these police officers are going in to try to clear out this encampment.

Jonah, the big picture of what we're seeing here. I mean, we saw a couple of days ago people hammering through windows at Columbia. Now, obviously, these scenes are -- are incredibly dramatic over this issue, of course, of -- and peaceful protesting in the name of the children of Gaza is absolutely one thing. We have seen lines crossed, however, with some of this.

GOLDBERG: Yes. I think part of the problem is we've -- people will say, well, it's free speech. It is free speech when it's done properly and appropriately, time, place, and manner restrictions, and all that.

And then, when it goes beyond the bounds of free speech, let's say, well, civil disobedience, right? They refused to leave occupied buildings. They refused to leave illegal encampments and that kind of thing.

And the problem is, is in our culture, we've forgotten, you know, as Martin Luther King would often explain, that the point of civil disobedience is, if you face an unjust law -- and I don't think these laws are remotely unjust. Right? These people are hampering education. But whatever. If you think they're unjust laws, you defy them peacefully, quietly, with dignity, and then you accept the consequences of the punishment.

HUNT: Yes, that was always a key part.

GOLDBERG: That's the key part of it. And if you -- if these campuses have let it be known that civil disobedience is part of the general cosplay of protest culture at some of these schools, and that there will be no consequences for it, well, you're going to get more of it.

And that's why now a lot of these student radicals are demanding, quote-unquote, "amnesty" for everything they're doing. Because they're like, wait a second. We're actually going to be held accountable for the things that we were doing that were illegal, that we were told not to do, that were against the rules, against the law?

And so I think this is all welcome. I mean, I don't want anyone to get hurt. But this is -- you know, the tolerance for this stuff begets more of this stuff. And it's long past time to sort of, you know, reinforce the basic rules.

HUNT: Molly Ball, there'd been a couple mornings this week when I've wondered if this would force President Biden to say something about this.

And I -- we do know that he's got a big antisemitism speech planned for May 7th, but we've only heard from spokespeople, mostly off-camera and mostly on paper as things have unfolded at Columbia and now here at UCLA, as we're seeing -- live on the screen, we're watching some of the members of this encampment being arrested by law enforcement on- site, California Highway Patrol.

As this goes on, is the White House going to be forced to say something about this?

BALL: You know, I think they're really on the spot here. And I think that they -- we've seen them tread very gingerly, because these images of disorder, these images of chaos are -- are bad politically, specifically for the Democrats, right?

I mean, the idea that, you know, these are -- these are Biden's policies being protested. And I think as a result, we've seen him handle this very, very gingerly.

But there's a potential that that makes him look weak and that, by not, you know, sort of forcefully articulating where he stands and where he sees the lines as being, you know. You have a candidate who's -- who's literally on trial on criminal charges, Donald Trump, who's making the case that he's the candidate of law and order.

He's making the case that he's the candidate who would -- who would, you know, be able to staunch this sort of chaos and bring order to the country. That it's sort of an absurd contradiction in terms.

And yet, the fact that the president hasn't sort of exerted leadership to say how he sees this situation and to say what he'd like to have happen and to, you know, back law enforcement and call for some sort of order, I think it's a real vacuum of leadership right now.

HUNT: Elliot Williams is here now with us on the panel as we watch this unfold live. Our Nick Watt is somewhere very close to that. So we're going to get back to him in just a second.

[06:30:00]