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Judge Threatens to Remove Defense Witness Costello; Cohen Admits Stealing from Trump Organization; Trump Account Reposts Video with Term 'Unified Reich' Referring to Possible Second Term. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired May 21, 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 Tuesday, May 21. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, an explosive admission from Michael Cohen and a fiery clash between a witness and the judge as the Trump hush money trial reaches its final days.

[05:59:50]

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Whatever these warrants may imply, there's no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Biden outraged by an international court's decision to seek an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.

And Rudy Giuliani expected to appear today in an Arizona courtroom to face arraignment on election subversion charges.

Just before 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at New York City, where this trial gets underway in just a few hours.

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

The trial's end is near but not before an explosive admission from Michael Cohen and some disorder in the court.

The prosecution's star witness admitting under oath that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump Organization by requesting a reimbursement far greater than the payment that he had made on the company's behalf.

Trump's son, Eric, taking notice in real time with this tweet declaring, quote, "This just got interesting."

Cohen under redirect explaining he stole the money because his annual bonus had been slashed. He described it as "self-help." And then there were the fireworks. Robert Costello, a former legal

advisor to Cohen and now a Trump defense witness, was scolded, shall we say, by Judge Merchan for uttering comments under his breath and rolling his eyes during testimony.

The judge clearing the courtroom and threatening to have Costello removed, warning him, "When there's a witness on the stand, if you don't like my ruling, you don't say 'jeez.' You don't give me side eye, and you don't roll your eyes." To be continued.

This morning, our panel's here: former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams; Republican strategist, former Trump administration official Shermichael Singleton; and former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield. Good morning, all.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good morning.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

HUNT: It was a fun day in court yesterday.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Fun.

HUNT: Elliot, so the stealing thing, let's start there, and then we'll get to the eye rolls.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: Because, you know.

WILLIAMS: Did you ever think you would say those words?

HUNT: Here's where we are.

BEDINGFIELD: First the stealing, then the eye rolls.

WILLIAMS: You know, not the porn day, which was a day I don't want to repeat the words.

HUNT: Yes, true. Right. Yes, we're past that.

WILLIAMS: Past the porn.

HUNT: On to this --

WILLIAMS: We're not past the porn. We're past -- anyway.

HUNT: It's -- it's very early for all of that.

WILLIAMS: Too early. Too early.

HUNT: So the stealing thing, it is actually technically not new, because this was something that Michael Cohen said under the direct, the initial direct examination. Our colleague, Elie Honig, though, compared it and was raising questions about how the prosecution handled this. He basically said, look, under -- under direct examination, what came

out from Michael Cohen about stealing this money amounted to this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIIP)

JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS, ACTRESS: I've "yada-yada'ed" sex.

JASON ALEXANDER, ACTOR: Really?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Yes. I met this lawyer. We went out to dinner. I had the lobster bisk. We went back to my place. Yada, yada, yada. I never heard from him again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That basically it was yada, yada, yada under the prosecution, but that this was stunning from the defense, the way that they portrayed it. How impactful do you think it is at the end of the day with jury?

WILLIAMS: Certainly, the prosecution put it on the record, but it wasn't as explicit as it could have been. I wouldn't go as far as "yada, yada, yada," but they didn't ask him the question, "Did you steal from Donald Trump?" and have him sing from the mountaintops, "Yes. And here's $60,000 in my pants right now." So we did not do that.

Now that said, it's never good when the jury is left with the idea that they're hearing something for the first time. And it's something that's so critical of a witness's -- or damaging to a witness's credibility. So it's not great for them.

But -- but back to the point of when you can say "yada, yada, yada" about someone who has lying to his wife, lying to the IRS, lying to Congress and a prior conviction for perjury on his record. I don't know if the theft moves the needle much at all in terms of -- but no, in terms of the jury knows that this is a witness with credibility issues.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Now, it's a witness with credibility issues whose testimony is supported by other things in the record. And perhaps, and quite likely, he's telling the truth here.

I don't think that one additional revelation really has -- will turn the jury around in terms of what they thought of Michael Cohen.

HUNT: Yes.

SINGLETON: I mean, I just wonder with this established pattern of not telling the truth. If it makes the jury wonder if some are sort of leaning towards a conviction, do they really want to make that judgment based upon the testimony of Michael Cohen? I mean, if -- if I were on the jury, I would really question, maybe

there are some documents to substantiate some of the claims. But is it enough when we know this guy really just doesn't tell you the truth?

SINGLETON: It would be, were the documents not there, but you have the checks, the ledgers. You have a write-up calculating this -- the sum of money that he was ultimately going to receive, in the handwriting of several people at the Trump Organization. That is supported by his testimony.

Now, the fact that he has credibility issues doesn't change the fact that the words that came out of his mouth under oath match exactly almost --

[06:05:04]

SINGLETON: But can you tie that directly to Trump, Elliot?

WILLIAMS: That's not the issue. I mean, I think it's what the jury believes now.

SINGLETON: Sure, sure.

WILLIAMS: I think prosecutors have made a case that something bad happened. Now, whether the jurors believe that it's tied to Trump, no. I think it's an open factual question.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. I mean, look, in some ways, it also just sort of underscores for, like, the average voter who's kind of watching, not really, probably not following the ins and outs in the same way.

To sort of underscore, all these people around Trump were liars. They weren't truthful. They were -- there was a lot of sort of underhanded behavior going on here.

And so I think, you know, if you remove yourself from the -- you know, watching the case from the perspective of an attorney or a juror, which obviously is significant. But if you sort of think about how it's being absorbed into the political landscape.

HUNT: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: I think it probably, for the average person, is sort of like oh, yes, God, all those people around Trump were awful.

WILLIAMS: It's easy to forget, as we giggle about the porn and the "Forbes" magazine and what got done with it and all that business, how disgraceful this conduct is overall.

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Now, we're getting hung up in a lot of the minutiae of whether you meet the state statute for misdemeanor versus felony, and how the jury instructions will look.

Disregarding the paying off of a porn star by a former president of the United States.

HUNT: Right.

WILLIAMS: And we've just sort of --

BEDINGFIELD: Right.

WILLIAMS: This is who we are.

BEDINGFIELD: Right. And this -- but this is also where I think the character issue is sort of -- you know, the kind of conventional wisdom is this is -- some subset of the conventional wisdom is this is helping Trump. He's raising money. It's like underscoring his argument that the system is out to get him. And so it's out to get you.

But you know, at the end of the day, there's a huge character element here that I think, you know, having -- just having this on display for Trump 24/7 is not good for him in a political context.

SINGLETON: But I do think there is a legitimate point to the argument that we have a justice system that isn't always impartial.

And I actually looked at some of the data on how various groups in the country feel about the justice system, particularly groups of color. And you find a pattern, especially among Hispanic men, African American men like, you know, the system isn't always fair. The system is sort of tainted, oftentimes one side to the other.

Now, whether or not Donald Trump has made the correlation between his experience and those groups, I think he could do a better job there. But there is some concern there. I mean, those are constituents.

HUNT: That's a very interesting point. But before we -- I do want to touch briefly on the eyeroll situation and kind of how it plays into -- because this is the defense's only witness so far, possibly their only witness at all. And he's kind of acting this way.

I mean, some of what he had to say -- Judge Merchan had to say, Costello says to the judge, Can I say something, please?

And the judge says, No, no. This is not a conversation. Right? This is me in charge of this room, is what he says.

There it is: "No, this is not a conversation."

How much of a problem is the way Costello is acting with the jury?

WILLIAMS: So it's -- the important question to ask, Kasie, because it's not a problem for the trial. It's not like everything's going to rise and fall from Bob Costello's testimony.

This is really bad in front of the jury. Jurors respect judges in a way that they often don't respect prosecutors or defense attorneys. Everybody seems to revere the person when they see the robe.

I saw it with the judge that I clerked for, where people walked into the courtroom and don't like when people are -- it's almost like seeing someone speak to your mother in a way that's this disrespectful. And it's bad for the jury.

They -- even though the jury was sent out of the room when he was yelling at them, the jury had to know exactly what had happened, because they saw what had preceded it.

So it's just bad for the defense. It makes them look sloppy and not like the witness.

BEDINGFIELD: That's -- that's so interesting because I -- you know, when I sort of watched this happen, and you -- if you think about it as a communications strategy, you know, the Trump -- the Trump team strategy is to try to make this seem like as much of a persecution or a farce as possible. And so --

HUNT: Worthy of an eyeroll.

BEDINGFIELD: Right, right. Exactly. Worthy of an eye roll.

So you can -- you know, you can see his behavior in the context of, you know, trying to communicate about how foolish they think the whole thing is. But it's so interesting, your point that the jury would absorb it differently, because they have a respect for the judge. You could see that -- you can see that communications strategy backfiring.

HUNT: Communicating with the jury a little bit different than, I guess --

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Exactly.

HUNT: -- the American people.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly.

HUNT: We've got a lot more to get to here. Coming up, Rudy Giuliani facing an arraignment hearing today in Arizona. New details about how he was finally served with papers.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(WIND BLOWING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Stunning video of a tornado tearing apart a small town. That is one of the five things you have to see this morning.

Plus a video posted to Donald Trump's Truth Social page. It includes a phrase referencing a, quote, "unified Reich." We'll show you this, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:13:56]

HUNT: Welcome back.

Donald Trump's Truth Social account on Monday shared a video about how -- how they seem to think the United States will change if Trump is elected president again.

There's, of course, nothing abnormal there, necessarily. Political candidates talk about their visions for the country all the time. They're running for office. That's the point.

What is not normal is that this video referenced a -- quote, unquote -- "unified Reich."

Reich is a German word that basically means "empire," but it, of course, evokes the Third Reich, used to refer to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

We're going to show you that video. It's going to sound a little strange. We edited it to freeze and zoom in on the term so that you can easily spot it. So you'll hear this video start. And then, when the sound stops, you'll be able to see what we're talking about.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happens after Donald Trump wins? What's next for America? The economy --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So there you go. It's pushing in on -- it says there -- you can see the phrase, quote, "Industrial strength significantly increased, driven by the creation of a unified Reich."

So the Trump campaign spokesman, Karoline Leavitt, telling CNN the video was not created by the campaign and was reposted by a staffer who didn't see the word.

Kate Bedingfield, that's a way to put it. They say that this was posted while Trump was in court yesterday.

The Biden campaign said this: quote, "Donald Trump is not playing games. He is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a 'unified Reich.'"

Again, this is something that they reposted. The A.P. says at least one of the headlines flashing appears to be text copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: quote, "German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich."

But this language is -- is quite specific. BEDINGFIELD: Yes, well, look, the problem here is this comes in the

context of other things that Donald Trump has said along these lines.

I mean, the -- you know, this is a video the campaign didn't create. It got retweeted, or whatever Donald Trump's social team calls posting it. You know, that's -- that's all well and good.

But, you know, in the context of somebody like Trump, who has, you know, said that there were very fine people on both sides of a rally where, you know, people were carrying tiki -- tiki torches and chanting, "The Jews will not replace us."

This word in that context is incredibly -- it's incredibly upsetting, and it's very dangerous.

And so I think, you know, it's less about this specific instance of using the word and more about this word in the context of these other things that Donald Trump has said, you know, from his own mouth.

You can't argue -- you know, if you're the campaign, you can't argue, Oh, well, someone just accidentally reposted it, when Donald Trump is out saying it himself.

And so it underscores some of the most dangerous language that he's used. And that's why it's a problem.

WILLIAMS: And the explanation that, well, a kid on our campaign put it up and didn't read it and it's buried at the bottom, OK, that's perfectly plausible. Then take it down.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly.

HUNT: And we should note, it is still up as we are having this conversation at 6:16 a.m. in the morning. Should they take it down, Shermichael?

SINGLETON: They should just take it down. I mean, I believe that someone else posted it, based on the timestamp that the former president was likely in court. Just get rid of it.

I think like yesterday, I did my third focus group, Kasie, with Jewish students. It was a series of three. And many of them are not very excited about Joe Biden.

And I've given my advice to the Trump campaign like, hey, you guys have an opportunity here to reach out to younger Jewish students on a whole host of issues. This certainly doesn't help.

And some of their experiences about antisemitism, anti-Zionism is a real issue on some of these college campuses, and so knowing that is being fermented across the country right now, I would just take this down. This is just not the message you want to send.

HUNT: Well, and you also make the -- the point about the staffer, sure, but like that's what, like, campaign accounts are for.

SINGLETON: Yes, yes.

HUNT: They are for staffers. If you are speaking for the principle under their name, that is a distinction.

SINGLETON: It is, yes.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly. But -- and so, when you're called out, take it down.

SINGLETON: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: I mean, unless you are -- unless you are wholeheartedly embracing it. And the fact that they're not taking it down tells you a lot about how they feel about it. They want to be able to put out a statement to the media and say, oh, well, it wasn't actually our -- you know, it wasn't intentional.

Well, if it wasn't intentional, take it down.

And it's very hard to believe that it wasn't intentional in the context of all of the terrible things that Donald Trump has said. At a time when antisemitism is on the rise in this country, it's dangerous.

HUNT: And I do take your point about Jewish opportunity -- Jewish students and the opportunity there. But I -- you know, Kate also noted that we see so much of this antisemitism on the right that, in a moment that is clearly a really tough and dangerous one for a lot of Jewish kids, it -- it perhaps even underscores the --

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: I agree. I agree, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. With that, coming up here --

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(TIRES SQUEALING)

(CRASH)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Oof. The moment a hit-and-run driver slammed into another car. That was one of our five things you have to see this morning.

Plus, fighting for her family home. How Elvis's granddaughter is trying to save Graceland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELVIS PRESLEY, SINGER (singing): You ain't nothing but a -- you ain't nothing but a hound dog, crying all the time. Well, you ain't --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:32]

HUNT: Twenty-two minutes past the hour, five things you have to see this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(WIND BLOWING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa! Whoa!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Whoa, extreme weather in Oklahoma. An apparent tornado ripped this tree apart, flattened a mobile home. At least two people were injured.

Police in Detroit are looking for two suspects who threw a Molotov cocktail at a home. You can see it quickly lit up the place, and one of the suspects had flames on their back as they ran away. Yikes.

Police in Milwaukee are looking for the driver of a stolen vehicle who took off seconds after the car slammed into a parked minivan. The TV crew was rolling when the crash happened. The car's passenger is now in custody. That's scary.

Police in Miami Beach are hoping this new video showing robbers grabbing $2 million worth of Hermes and handbags leads to a second arrest. One man was arrested back in March. His garbage-can-toting accomplice made a clean getaway. I guess this is why they don't leave the Birkins on the shelves. Yikes.

All right. Necks were craned and jaws were dropped as this stunning comet streaked across the sky over Spain and Portugal the other night. The European Space Agency says the fragments of a burning comet flew past at a speed of 28 miles per second.

Yes. Pretty cool.

[06:25:00]

All right. Coming up next here, President Biden slamming the International Criminal Court after prosecutors announced they were seeking arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

Plus, does OpenAI's new chatbot voice sound familiar? There's a reason why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Happening now in Iran, the funeral ceremony is underway for President Ebrahim Raisi.

He was killed over the weekend in a helicopter crash.