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CNN This Morning

Israel Negotiators Expected at Cairo Ceasefire Talks; Judge Finds Trump in Contempt, Former Employees Testify; Deadly Tornado Touches Down in Oklahoma. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 07, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'll do that sacrifice any day.

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KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Trump insisting he's willing to go to jail in order to speak his mind. Will the judge oblige him?

And a dangerous morning in parts of Oklahoma, after a night of terrifying tornadoes.

All right, 6 a.m. here in Washington. Look at that. We've got a beautiful sunrise hitting the Statue of Liberty in New York City, the site of all the action this morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

We have this developing story right now, the Israeli military seizing the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing following a series of airstrikes that killed at least 15 people.

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HUNT: A source familiar with Israel's plans tells CNN the Rafah operation is intended to keep the pressure up on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal on Israel's terms.

Many Gazans have been heating warnings to evacuate Eastern Rafah.

And in Tel Aviv --

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HUNT: Thousands of Israelis taking to the streets to demand the government reach a deal to return the remaining hostages. Israeli negotiators are expected in Cairo today to continue ceasefire negotiations that are on the verge, it seems, of falling apart.

Let's bring in former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams; former RNC communications director Doug Heye; and seniors -- CNN senior reporter Isaac Dovere, all here with us. Good morning to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Isaac, I want to start with you on President Biden, and you know, let's really kind of drill into the imperative around a ceasefire for him and his administration.

Because this, of course, has been something that has rippled across campuses in this country. It has really divided the Democratic Party. And this is something the White House was grappling with all day yesterday as they tried to figure out exactly what was going on among the parties here.

What's your understanding of how the White House is viewing where negotiations stand right now and the ways in which they are trying to get a ceasefire here, as frankly, the political imperatives ratchet up on him.

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Look, you -- you hit it there, because there's the political imperatives and then there's what's actually going on in the negotiations.

And part of the problem that the Biden administration is facing here, and the president is facing, is that it is clear that you don't have a completely honest and forthright broker in Hamas, to say the least.

And that they're also dealing with maybe a situation where they don't have a completely honest relationship coming from Benjamin Netanyahu.

And how Biden, who is -- from the beginning has said he is not looking at the politics of this. He is looking at this as how to get to a long-term solution on the immediate thing here. And in his mind, hopes for something bigger.

It is how he's approaching this. But look, the politics are there. And it is something that is not showing up as something, so far, that is as big of an issue for voters as some of the coverage of it has been.

But it also maybe is reaching the point where it will be a disqualifying political issue.

HUNT: Yes --

DOVERE: And it's sort of thing where maybe people are saying, oh, the economy is still their top issue. But they -- they -- when they think about Israel and they think about the handling of Israel, are saying, well, actually can't be with by them, and that -- and that may be where things go. HUNT: Do you -- do you think the administration -- I actually should

probably frame this in terms of the Biden campaign.

Do you think the Biden campaign believes that, if this war is still going on in six months when voters go to the polls, that it is significantly more likely they will lose?

DOVERE: It's very hard to tell, right? And especially because of the terms of this election that they know are going to be a sort of reference in a month. Donald Trump and all the other things that are going to be going on there obviously would rather not be in this situation.

And -- but again, I talked to Ted Kaufman, who was so Joe Biden's chief of staff for a very long time since he'd been in the Senate --

HUNT: Yes.

DOVERE: -- all the way back in October about this right at the start. And he said, listen, nobody has had more years of experience going to the Middle East and to Israel than Joe Biden. Nobody has sat through more top-secret briefings than he has.

HUNT: Yes.

DOVERE: He has a very clear view of what to happen here. And he is -- you see it, even when he said last week, when he was asked after his brief statement about the campus protests.

HUNT: Sure.

DOVERE: Has any of this changed your position? He just said no. He knows where he's going on this, but the politics are running into it.

HUNT: Yes.

DOVERE: And that has been an issue that, even among his advisers, has been a constant topic of conversation.

HUNT: Well, and of course, the -- the images coming off the campuses here in the U.S. have complicated this for him. Donald Trump has been in his hush money trial for most of the beginning of this week, anyway, but he did after the trial concluded for the day, have this to say about protests on college campuses. Watch.

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TRUMP: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just canceled their commencement. That shouldn't happen. And it also came out the protesters, many of the protesters are backed by Biden's voters (ph). OK. Are you listening, Israel? I hope you're listening, Israel. Hope you're getting smart.

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HUNT: So Doug Heye, how do you see what is playing out on these college campuses and how it impacts what we're going to see in November? Because, you know, Isaac's point -- and I hear this from Biden sources, too. They'll say, well, this isn't a voting issue for people. It's not a top voting issue for people.

But chaos in America tends to become a voting issue in a way that perhaps a war being fought abroad doesn't always.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, I was on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, my alma mater, on Thursday, which had a flare-up of some of these issues earlier in the week.

And walking on campus, I would not have known that anything had gone on previously. The campus was gorgeous and clean. Kids were playing soccer on the lawn and things like that.

It's partially because our chancellor, Lee Roberts, has done an extremely good job, where a lot of college administrators have failed, And what we've seen is so often -- this is often the case in politics -- the loudest voices dominate the conversation. That's surely the case at Columbia and George Washington, Harvard, and other places.

But I'm also mindful of when we see protests like this, the overwhelming majority of students aren't protesting or counter protesting. They're trying to get to class. They're trying to play some sports, probably trying to meet some co-eds, and try and have the normal college experience.

HUNT: Do we still call them co-eds, Doug?

HEYE: I think so. Some of us do --

HUNT: OK.

HEYE: -- if we're really old.

But they want to live that normal college experience. They want to have a graduation.

And so when we talk about chaos, yes, this can reflect largely on -- on Biden to some extent, if this goes on for months and months. But the students overwhelmingly are tired of the chaos. They want to go to class, take their exams, and graduate.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, Elliot, we saw a little bit of that at the University of Michigan. We played some from their commencement over the weekend where it was video, yes, of protesters trying to disrupt graduation.

What you can hear, were people yelling back at them, Hey, like, I just want to graduate.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. And I'm genuinely curious as to what percentage the -- and I don't have the answers on this -- are not actually students, No. 1. And No. 2, are grad students versus undergraduates. Now, of course, if people are misbehaving and breaking the law, no

matter who they are, it shouldn't matter. We talked about this on the program last week. But who is it that that's actually participating here?

But to the point, yes, I think a lot of kids or adults, young adults wish to be going to -- through their lives and attending classes and graduating and so on. And the great tragedy here, as with their senior year in college [SIC], they got disrupted by COVID.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Much of their experience is changing, but it doesn't change anybody's right.

HEYE: At UNC, one of the people who was arrested was a Duke professor. Nothing is ever good when Duke people come to UNC. But it's not just an organic --

HUNT: But it's a great piece of anecdata, Doug. An excellent piece of anecdata.

OK. All right. Coming up, Donald Trump threatened with jail time. Why he claims he's being -- he's OK with being locked up.

Plus, President Biden taking on antisemitism. We're going to talk to Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss, who is Jewish, about how he can be the most effective.

And a dangerous morning in parts of Oklahoma after a night of devastating tornadoes.

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HUNT: Welcome back.

Donald Trump was back in court for his hush money trial yesterday. Politico recapped the day this way: "Forget the sex. Check out those titillating invoices at the Trump hush money trial."

Prosecutors called a longtime Trump Organization employee to the stand yesterday, and she laid out how she helped arrange reimbursements to Michael Cohen for the hush money payment that he made to Daniels.

Elliot Williams, what did we see yesterday in terms of how but fits into the case that, clearly, the final punches are still coming?

WILLIAMS: Yes, absolutely. I think prosecutors have laid out evidence in three areas.

One, were payments made? Two, were records falsified? And three, did they intend to commit a crime in the form of a campaign?

Now over the course of last week, a lot of the evidence was about the campaign-related issues, which is that to commit a crime portion of it. Prosecutors have to establish that these payments were fault -- or records were falsified to cover up this to (ph) the campaign.

They also yesterday provided all the evidence or some evidence with respect to how the payments were actually made and recorded in the system.

So evidence in varying forms is there. The question now is tying it together and to what extent was Donald Trump aware of this entire, quote, unquote, "scheme," at least as alleged by prosecutors.

As a matter of common sense, perhaps, we can say, yes, it looks like he probably was aware. The Trump Organization was run like a small family business. One of the witnesses says -- said that.

So it defies reason to say that he didn't know that these payments are being made.

But defying reason and being able to convict are two very different things. And it remains to be seen what further testimony comes that can help tie this together for the jury.

And again -- I say this every time I'm on -- we're two plus weeks into a four- or five-week trial. There is a lot of testimony still to come.

HUNT: Yes.

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WILLIAMS: And some will be up, some will be down for one side or another. But -- but it's hard at this stage to really have a great sense as to where it's going.

HUNT: Doug Heye, we just have yet -- there are some of the likely most salacious witnesses still left to come to the stand. And we had a lot of it with David Pecker, but we have yet to hear from Stormy Daniels. And of course, Michael Cohen.

I guess my question is, is this breaking through in any real way, the trial?

HEYE: No, no. Think of how many bombshells we've had about Donald Trump that haven't mattered. "Access Hollywood" being the most prominent.

HUNT: Yes.

HEYE: And when that story hit on that Friday afternoon, a lot of people thought the campaign was over.

HUNT: You can keep track of the days at that stage of the campaign? I definitely couldn't remember what day it was.

HEYE: It was a Friday afternoon. I remember it very well. And it wasn't over. But it does come with a political impact. Trump's numbers are down a little bit, and just as congressional Republicans want to stop talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene fighting with some of our members, they also want to stop having Donald Trump be this part of the story.

They want to focus on jobs and the economy. Certainly the border, those issues that Joe Biden --

HUNT: Are they complaining to you behind the scenes?

HEYE: Yes.

HUNT: About the trial? What are they saying?

HEYE: They just want to talk about anything else. And again, they have their own problems that they don't want to have to deal with, as well, with the infighting that're seeing this week.

They want to focus on those issues where Donald -- or where Joe Biden is very vulnerable. That's jobs, the economy, costs, and the border.

HUNT: Isaac, what is your sense of how the Biden campaign, as this is unfolding, is viewing it? Because when we sort of started out, they didn't really want to touch it.

The president kind of joked about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. But otherwise, they are kind of staying out of it. Do they think it's breaking through? Do they think it -- you know, any of this -- the rigged system stuff that -- the arguments that Donald Trump made -- is making has any resonance with independent and swing voters?

Like, how are they looking at it right now in this moment?

DOVERE: Their general feeling is they want to be talking about all the stuff that makes the Republicans look extreme, that makes Donald Trump look extreme and not on the day-to-day of any of these court proceedings.

They -- they think that, for most people, the feelings about this are baked in, even though I think, somewhat amazingly, most people have kind of accepted the idea that Donald Trump probably did have an affair with Stormy Daniels and that there was some payment made.

HUNT: Seems entirely possible.

DOVERE: They -- that's where most people have gotten to, which is itself kind of a crazy thing. Right? But how it is litigated in the trial is what we're going to see and what the jury decides about what's legal in that.

HUNT: Do you think that will matter? The verdict?

DOVERE: The polls show that people are saying that it will, that if Donald Trump is convicted, that that will have an impact. We'll see how that's true, or whether that's true. But again, what the Biden campaign wants to talk about is Donald

Trump's positions on abortion. Donald Trump's positions on democracy. Donald Trump's positions on all these things that they think put him way out of whack with the American public.

And, you know, it comes to sort of the formulation that Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House has about it, where he says, the Democrats are team normal versus team extreme.

And that's the way they want this to be talked about.

HUNT: All right, very interesting. The panel is going to stick around, but just ahead here --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be just a lot of work to get this back in shape again.

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HUNT: A deadly tornado tears up central Oklahoma. The threat may not be over yet.

Plus President Biden set to deliver remarks on combating antisemitism on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss here to talk about the unrest on college campuses.

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HUNT: All right. Breaking news now, a deadly tornado touching down in Oklahoma overnight. One person is dead, several homes damaged. And the severe storm threat across the central U.S. continues.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov is in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, where dozens of homes were impacted overnight. Lucy, what are you seeing?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Kasie, we are right on the outskirts of Barnsdall, Oklahoma, in Osage County, about 45 minutes from Tulsa.

And the thousand or so residents here got the tornado warning alert late on Monday night. That tornado taking a direct this -- this area taking a direct hit. At least one fatality reported.

Now, I want to give you a sense of where we are and what we're looking at. I right now, am in front of what used to be a large garage structure. In fact, you can see behind me there is a silver grayish SUV, a vehicle, a truck. It gives you a sense of context, because sometimes when structures like this are completely flattened, it's really hard to imagine what used to be there before. To my left, if we slowly pan over or reveal it, this was a large

storage area, like a public storage area. So you can see the remains of some boats, other storage items, debris. Nothing really left standing from that structure whatsoever.

And to my right was and is a residential home. Some of it is made out of brick and so that, while taking a direct hit, is still standing but no longer livable.

And this is just a tiny fraction of the destruction that's been described in this area.

The roads to Barnsdall are completely blocked off right now. Officers say that there is a natural gas leak there. There's also debris blocking the roads.

And the main focus on the town itself is search and rescue operations. They're trying to make sure that everyone is accounted for, that no one is trapped in the debris, that everyone there is safe.

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management did confirm the natural gas leak. We're also about 20 minutes away from the Osage Nation reservation. We understand that search and rescue efforts are underway there, as well.

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And Bartlesville, another nearby town, also took a direct hit. So this whole area has been impacted, Kasie. But of course we have to wait until daylight to really understand the full scale of the destruction -- Kasie.

HUNT: Yes, very difficult. Lucy Kafanov, thank you so much for making your way there to bring that to us. I really appreciate it.

Let's go straight to our meteorologist, Derek van Dam, to learn more about the threat that's apparently not over yet. Derek, what's everyone in store for?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Severe weather fatigue. That's what we call this. It's been day after day after day of severe weather. There's another round possible today.

I just want to point out this visual that came into us last night. You can see some of the ongoing search and rescue operations with the flashlights in the distance.

Also take note: the trees completely stripped of their foliage, indicative of a very powerful tornado. That Lucy is clearly on the ground now in Barnsdall, Oklahoma.

Sixteen tornado reports with this storm system that continues to advance Eastward. The severe weather threat for the time being is slowly starting to diminish. That's some good news.

We still have tornado watches that are up through about 8 a.m. Central Standard Time. We've just seen the line move through St. Louis. A few severe thunderstorm warnings just South of there with gusts of 60 miles per hour possible.

But what we believe will happen is, once this line advances Eastward, we'll start to see the environment take advantage of this very hostile atmosphere that we have. And a few thunderstorms could pop up behind this line later this afternoon. That's why the Storm Prediction Center has this hatched area for Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cincinnati, to Louisville for the greatest potential of tornadoes. Strong tornadoes, as well.

And this is what I'm talking about. Severe weather fatigue today, tomorrow, and then for the day on Thursday. It just won't stop, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Derek van Dam. Derek, thank you very much for that.

All right. Coming up next here, President Biden set to deliver a major speech on antisemitism from Capitol Hill later today.

Plus, why a long-awaited space launch had to be scrubbed just before takeoff.

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