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U.S. Says It was Not Involved in Iranian President's Accident; Biden Outraged over ICC Warrants; Defense Witness Clashes with Judge Merchan; Giuliani and Medows to Be Arraigned in Arizona. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired May 21, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:02]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in Iran, funeral ceremonies underway for President Ebrahim Raisi. He was killed over the weekend in a helicopter crash. A procession and official prayers were held this morning in the northwestern city of Tabriz. The bodies of the victims are set to be taken to Tehran for large ceremonies scheduled for tomorrow.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin insisting the U.S. had nothing to do with the deadly crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The United States had no part to play in - in that crash. And so - and that's - that's a fact plain and simple.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Israel? Are you afraid they're going to blame Israel?

AUSTIN: I - I won't speculate as to what they'll - what they'll blame.

Again, they - they have to conduct an investigation to see what the cause of the crash was. It could be a number of things, mechanical failure, pilot error, you name it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The Islamic Republic is now facing an uncertain future after Raisi's sudden death, but a quote/unquote election has been set for late June.

The panel's back. We're joined by "Washington Post" columnist Josh Rogin.

Josh, good morning.

JOSH ROGIN, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Good morning.

HUNT: Always good to see you.

ROGIN: Likewise.

HUNT: So, the U.S., of course. I mean you - you heard Lloyd Austin there saying directly, we had no role in it. I was a little surprised how direct he was to be honest. The - Chuck Schumer was out there saying there's no intelligence assessments that this was anything other than weather. But "Politico" quoted an anonymous U.S. official in the last couple of days saying that "there was fear that Tehran might quickly allege that Israel and the U.S. had sabotaged the transport, even though there was no initial intelligence to suggest anything other than a crash in bad weather. For a little while, it was not a crazy question to ask, is this how World War III begins," said one of the officials.

A pretty remarkable and stark way to put it. How do you view how Iran is publicly messaging around this and what they're saying and how that impacts the situation?

ROGIN: Right, I do think it's kind of a crazy question to ask. I mean, of course the Iranians, as a matter of form, will blame everybody in anybody. But there's no evidence to be clear that this is anything but, you know, a janky helicopter traveling through the fog that made a wrong turn and hit the mountain, OK. So, you know, no matter what they say, because the Iranian regime lies, the bottom line is that people out there should understand the most likely cause, pending any other evidence that we haven't seen yet, is that this was an accident.

HUNT: Right.

ROGIN: Now, we also know that the Iranian regime doesn't actually want World War III. They backed down from the provocation with Israel with the help of U.S. urging and also with some coordination with the Israeli. So, I don't think we're on the brink of a world war. I do think that it does - it does show, on the other hand, that these dictatorships, these regimes that we think of as so stable, are not really that stable because they depend on these individuals, in this case the president, who's the butcher of Tehran, who was involved in the murder of thousands of political prisoners, who's been oppressing women in Iran for all these years, who really was the product of a rigged election. And, you know, just like that, no more president and nobody knows what's going to happen next.

So, it does tell us something about this regime, is that it's actually very brittle. Their helicopters aren't that good. But it doesn't tell us that they want war. It actually tells us that they're actually weaker and actually more fragile than we really understand.

Yes.

All right, President Biden outraged by the International Criminal Court's decision to seek arrest warrants for top Israeli officials and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me be clear, we reject the ICC's application of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants may imply, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

Contrant (ph) allegations against Israel made by the international court of justice. What's happening is not genocide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, that was pretty tough stuff from the president for the ICC in this case. However, the White House is working with the ICC to document and investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

And, Josh, let me come back to you on this. I mean this was a pretty strong condemnation from the president on this. And the administration also came out and said that ICC officials were supposed to be on a plane going to Israel to work out more on this and, instead, they didn't get on the plane. They did interviews and they came out with this in public. What does that say to you about all this?

ROGIN: Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious that the U.S. president has to come out against the ICC's charges against Israel. What else is he going to say? I mean the U.S. is not a party to the ICC. Israel's not a party to the ICC. But the bottom line here is that this is a political problem for the Israelis, I think, because it just shows you that although I totally agree with President Biden that there's no equivalence between Israel and Hamas, Israel's facing a lot of international condemnation for the thing that actually - they're actually accused of, which is not genocide, by the way, it's the intentional starvation of the Palestinians.

Again, I'm not alleging that they're doing that, but that's what the ICC is saying. They're saying that by not allowing the food into Gaza, that constitutes a war crime.

[06:35:03]

And that's something that the United States has been pushing Israel on. That's something that the international community has been pushing Israel on. And it complicates all of these other efforts to come to an agreement over how to end the fighting and how to get to the day after.

So, you know, I think the president did the right thing politically. I think most Americans will agree with what he said about there being no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. At the same time, the fact that you have the prime minister of Israel facing charges in the International Criminal Court is not good for him and not good for Israel. And so, I think that's a problem that the Israeli's can complain about, but they can't ignore.

HUNT: Kate Bedingfield, this is obviously something that is - that squeezes the president politically, as Josh illudes to. I mean him says, OK, did the right thing politically, but he's getting a lot of pressure on the left flank on this. This is something that's been cheered by a lot of the progressive corners. I mean Bernie Sanders is out there saying that this was the right thing to do.

I certainly saw that - what he said as - that - I expected that from him based on all of the statements that he's made publicly. But how do you read the reaction here?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, look, he - he wants to be especially clear that he is not walking away from Israel. Remember, this comes after the last couple of weeks he, you know, announced that they were withholding the 2,000 pound bombs contingent on what Israel was doing in Rafah. There was a lot of, I think confusion about what that meant. There was some coverage and discussion of that as he's, you know, walking away from arming Israel. That wasn't their intention. I think maybe there could have been clear communication around that from the White House, to be quite honest with you.

But, remember, this - this comes, you know, after that conversation. And so I think the president is trying to be particularly explicit in showing that he is not walking away from Israel, that he is allied with Israel. And, of course, this point about the ICC equating Hamas and Israel, you know, is - is ludicrous. And I think, you know, the president wants to be clear about that.

I would also say, you know, he and his team have been explicit from the outset that they don't believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide. That's language that they've used. You've seen, you know, John Kirby, Jake Sullivan. They've been very clear from the podium, we don't view this as a genocide. So, this was also the president, you know, reiterating that. And that's where the administration has been from the outset on this.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I - just make - a thought for you and I guess a question is, what - and in your reporting do you come across the idea of a vacuum at the top of Iran? Now certainly there's the supreme allied leader, so, therefore, it's not a vacuum. But you have a major figure gone. What does that do to destabilize Iran or even beyond that, the whole region?

ROGIN: Yes, no, I mean, in my opinion, you know, the more that the Iranians are internally struggling, the better it is for the rest of the region because they'll have less time and attention to mess with all of these other countries. So, if they're having some sort of internal strife, I say good.

But the bottom line is that, until that ayatollah leaves, then nothing really is going to change. Now he's 85. He's not in good health. So, maybe this is kind of a preview. OK, the president leaves. We have some sort of internal disruption. But when the ayatollah goes, that's when all bets are off.

WILLIAMS: Oh, really.

ROGIN: And I don't think anyone has a plan for that. And again, it just shows you that, you know, you may think that these dictatorships are really stable, but they're not. And eventually all dictators die, whether it's a plane crash or old age or whatever. And that's why you sort of have to, you know, understand that in that - in this region, relying on all these dictators is really a penny wise pound foolish approach in my opinion.

HUNT: Yes, Josh, how do these two stories interact, right? I mean - because Israel, and let's be clear too, has plenty of its own internal strife going on. I mean Netanyahu had a significant defection over the weekend before these warrants came out. I'm actually curious how you think whether these warrants, you know, strengthen Netanyahu at home in a - in a kind of creative way, but also this vacuum in Iran. I mean that, obviously, impacts their relationship.

ROGIN: Right. I mean the link is that the region is on fire everywhere. Israel is fighting a war in Gaza against Hezbollah. Iran has proxies all over the region. They're attacking western interests. The Houthis. So, this is a very, very unstable and risky situation.

And now that doesn't mean that Iran wants World War III, but it means that the risk of miscalculation that could lead to an unintended war is at an all-time high. And I think that's what a lot of people are - inside our government are worried about.

Now, as for the - how do the indictments effect Netanyahu, I think you're absolutely right, I think they give - they put Israelis on the defensive and they make people around Netanyahu rally to his defense because what he's facing is an internal struggle. His war cabinet is breaking up. People around him want him gone. They want him to specify an end to the - the - how the war ends. This is all - he was almost at his last sort of option and now it seems like, well, now the - it makes sense that the government's going to rally around him temporarily. But it doesn't solve any of the long-term problems.

So, if you think the best way to end the war is to get rid of Netanyahu. Well, now he's got another reason to sort of say, look, everyone's against us. I'm going to stick around for a while. But that only delays the problem. It doesn't solve it, in my view.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, I -

[06:40:02]

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Kasie, if I could, just quickly. I think that was a really powerful moment for President Biden. I think there's been a lot of questions among Jewish Americans about where the president stands on this because of the politics and some of those younger progressive voters. And to see him be resolute in supporting Israel and pretty much dismissing the ICC's charges, I think was a very good moment for him.

BEDINGFIELD: But I think these points that - I agree with that, but I also think that these points that Josh is making about how everything is intertwined and how tenuous everything in the region is, also really helpful in understanding why Biden has communicated the way he has, why the administration has tried to walk a really nuanced and difficult line on this amidst a lot of really tough political waters at home because ultimately they are trying to prevent the spiraling escalation of a conflict that nobody wants to see. And sometimes that means you can't say the thing that you maybe would want to say in the moment because you're looking at the larger goal. And so I think for people who are trying to kind of understand why and where Biden has been politically on this, understanding those points is so critical to that.

HUNT: All right, very interesting all.

Josh, thank you very much. Appreciate your time this morning.

Coming up next here, Fulton County DA Fani Willis campaigning to keep her job and to keep prosecuting the former president.

Plus, Michael Cohen makes us stunning admission, stealing from the Trump Organization.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON STEWART, HOST, "COMEDY CENTRAL": Only in a Donald Trump trial would just star witness be the one who ends up going the jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:45:48]

HUNT: All right, 45 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

Just in to CNN, at least one person is dead following severe turbulence on a flight from London to Singapore. Singapore Airlines says that there are also injuries. CNN is following the story. We're going to bring you more throughout the morning. Pretty disturbing.

Today, primary elections in several states, including in Georgia, two of the key players in the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump will be on the ballot. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

Three of Hunter Biden's ex romantic partners will testify in the felony gun case against him. He has pleaded not guilty to three crimes in that case. The special counsel claims the president's son was abusing drugs while he bought and briefly owned a revolver in 2018.

Then there's this. Elvis Presley's granddaughter suing to stop this week's foreclosure sale of the late singer's historic Memphis home of Graceland. Riley Kiyo has been granted a restraining order against any sale before a court rules on her application for an injunction.

And Scarlett Johansson shocked and angered over the new voice of ChatGPT. She says it sounds eerily like her own. The actress declined an offer last year from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to be Sky, the voice of the company's artificial intelligence tool. Johansson has hired a lawyer. Let's roll the tape. You can decide. First we'll let you hear Johansson's voice from the movie "Her," which is something that Sam Altman has referenced in talking about all of this, followed by ChatGPT's Sky voice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCARLETT JOHANSSON, ACTRESS: Good morning, Theodore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.

JOHANSSON: You have a meeting in five minutes. You want to try getting out of bed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once upon a time, in a world not too different from ours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's the same. Like -

BEDINGFIELD: Pretty darn similar.

HUNT: Like -

SINGLETON: Told you.

BEDINGFIELD: Especially - especially to the average listener, right? I mean it's - it's - there may be - it will be very interesting to see how this case plays out because there's all sorts of technological ability to assess.

But the point is, for the average person, you listen to that and you say, oh, that's Scarlett Johansson.

HUNT: Right. And she's suing basically saying, look, I said no to this. I don't want to do this.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Yes.

HUNT: You are taking my voice essentially.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Yes.

HUNT: It's also got a level of creepiness that I just can't even handle.

BEDINGFIELD: Truly does.

WILLIAMS: Bring on the creepy.

BEDINGFIELD: It truly does.

WILLIAMS: Let's bring in the creepy.

HUNT: OK. Let's go to this now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, (INAUDIBLE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You - you can't even -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zip it. Zip.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, all I'm -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit a.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: No, that was not the final hour of court from the Trump hush money trial on Monday, but it might as well have been. Defense witness Robert Costello, a former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, essentially told to zip it by Judge Merchan for rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath during questioning. The judge clearing the courtroom and issuing this warning, quote, "I'm putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous. If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand." Costello asking, "can I say something, please?" Judge Merchan responding, "no. No. This is not a conversation."

I mean, Elliot -

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: Like -

WILLIAMS: I - well, I - you know what -

HUNT: I'm sorry, Katelyn Polantz joins us now as well.

Hi, Katelyn.

WILLIAMS: But I thought, if you try to stare me down one more time would end with, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

HUNT: Thank you can possibly imagine.

WILLIAMS: Because quite literally he is empowered to remove that witness from the courtroom. So, it will not be an out of line Obi-wan moment if the judge wished to have one.

But, again, for maintaining order and just the norms of how courts work, witnesses ought to respect judges. This was a horrible moment for the defense in court and the judge handled it as well as it could have.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: The jury didn't see that moment -

WILLIAMS: Right.

POLANTZ: But the jury was clearly aware that he was -

WILLIAMS: Right. POLANTZ: You know, sighing, muttering, Jesus at one point, rolled his eyes, was looking at the judge, and then the jury was taken out.

[06:50:02]

Clearly a disruption.

HUNT: I mean he sounds like a petulant teenager. Like, I guess it's the mom in me that's saying that.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: I don't have teenagers. I was one once.

POLANTZ: Yes. I mean the other big picture to remember here is, this is the defense case. There are - I mean we are very - we are flying toward the end of the trial here. There is about an hour or so left of cross examination of this witness, Bob Costello, the lawyer that was advising legal - Michael Cohen at one point. But, this is it. The bulk of the defense case is trying to undercut Michael Cohen. So, the jury, when they go back to deliberations, they're going to be having to think about what the closing arguments are, the summation that Donald Trump's legal team gives, but they also don't have a lot to work with and it includes this moment of disruption that was so odd. Right at, you know, right at the end of court, 4:05 p.m., where everybody had to leave the courtroom and the judge was clearly unhappy at that time.

WILLIAMS: And it's important to note, the defense does not have to present a case. It's really the government's burden. The defense more often than not just says no further - or nothing and doesn't put any witnesses up. So any witness that the defense puts up ought to be someone that really brings something to the case or undermines a significant point that the prosecution had brought up. And what they did here was sort of waste everyone's time by putting up a witness that didn't really add to any of Michael Cohen's credibility woes, didn't introduce new information, didn't rebut anything major, and more than anything else, serve to annoy the person in charge of everybody, including the jurors, have a great deal of respect for and has to work - keep the proceedings in order.

SINGLETON: I mean besides the disruption, I mean, does it add anything for the jury to consider in terms of the veracity of his statements about Cohen not being a believable character?

WILLIMAS: Oh, certainly. I mean they can weigh the things that he said prior to their being kicked out.

SINGLETON: Yes.

WILLIAMS: If they speak to Cohen's credibility and its useful. It's just, when the witness - when Michael Cohen's credibility was already attacked for three weeks, not just to Michael Cohen, witnesses beforehand came up to talk about how untrustworthy Michael Cohen was. What you gain by adding a guy at the end who antagonizes the judge, slows the jury down by - they had to stop the court to kick everybody out so the judge could - could scold these people, it just didn't -- the net positive wasn't so grant.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. It really seemed - and we were talking about this earlier in the hour, but it really, to me, it seemed more like a media play than a legal play. I mean it was, you know, designed to generate coverage of, you know, their for the team's frustration with the process and kind of underscore this, you know, this Trump message around the trial that it's a - it's a persecution, it's a witch hunt, it's unfair.

WILLIAMS: Right.

HUNT: Yes.

Katelyn, can you just remind us why it is that they wanted us to hear from Robert Costello, this lawyer.

POLANTZ: Yes, they wanted to hear from Robert Costello because they wanted to use him to say Michael Cohen was lying, that Michael Cohen was saying something different to him when he was giving him legal advice at the time when Michael Cohen was facing a lot of legal fallout. That there was a distance between him and Trump and that he had been repeating to Costello that Trump wasn't controlling him or telling him to do anything with Stormy Daniels. So that was - that was the point of the testimony. But as Elliot said, it didn't really add much to the points that the - the defense team has made throughout with this.

Now, that is not going to be the ultimate argument from Trump's team. And actually right after Costello was - was done with his testimony yesterday, there was a little bit more discussion in court on some legal arguments. And we got a preview of the defense's argument. It's not just that Michael Cohen is a lying liar and that (INAUDIBLE) is seeking revenge -

HUNT: A lying liar (INAUDIBLE).

POLANTZ: Right, and it seeking revenge against Donald Trump. It's also that they are going to be arguing that there isn't enough evidence to prove the intent that Trump was hiding these business payments, that there wasn't enough evidence that he wanted to have a campaign finance violation as part of this, that there wasn't enough intent there criminally for there to be a scheme. The quote that I wrote down at the end from Todd Blanche, the defense attorney, just sums it up what their case is going to be. It's not just that Michael Cohen isn't credible, it's, how is keeping a false story from the voters' criminal? What took this into something that was criminal intent and not just political messaging? That's what we're going to start hearing as we move towards the final days of this case. And closing arguments now expected next Tuesday but can always change.

HUNT: Could always change.

All right, we also have this. Today, Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows are set to be arranged in Arizona. Both are charged in Arizona's 2020 election subversion case which includes nine counts that range from conspiracy to engaging in fraudulent schemes. The prosecution had a tough time tracking down Giuliani. But we actually noted on the day we reported that they were having trouble tracking them down that his 80th birthday party was set for Florida for that night.

[06:55:04]

And he was ultimately served notice of his indictment last week. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes shedding light on just how they did manage to find him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRIS MAYES (D), ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: We found him essentially through his - through his live streams. He's not - not that hard to find. And so we did that and our agents professionally served him after his birthday party as the party was winding down and as he himself was leaving the house that he was in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Katelyn, why was he so lost to begin with. I mean I feel like I - we were literally on this set reporting that they couldn't find Rudy Giuliani. And I opened - we get "The New York Post." I open page six and it's like, oh, Rudy Giuliani is going to be going to his own birthday party in Florida.

POLANTZ: You're going to expose me for the - for the real nerd I am. A great process server like tail of chasing someone down, they happen sometimes. They're - you know, sometimes people can't be served in certain places, on private property and like - and so there's a whole - there could be difficulties.

WILLIAMS: What was that movie? It was "Pineapple Express," right?

BEDINGFIELD: Process, serve and drama.

WILLIAMS: The - the movie -

POLANTZ: Oh, yes. Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: I don't know, but I'm in.

WILLIAMS: Right? (INAUDIBLE) right, about the guys with the process servers and (INAUDIBLE).

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Yes.

POLANTZ: I love a process server.

HUNT: That's so great there's a whole movie about them.

POLANTZ: A process server caper is -

WILLIAMS: No, but it's like -

HUNT: Good pull (ph), Elliot. Good pull. SINGLETON: Definitely was.

WILLIAMS: But they're like total stoner, sort of, Cheech and Chong guys.

HUNT: Yes, yes, yes, it's like Seth Rogan and - yes.

WILLIAMS: Right, but they serve (INAUDIBLE) as a - as a -

HUNT: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: Process, server, drama.

SINGLETON: Elliot, you are a clear movie buff. Clearly.

WILLIAMS: I knew it. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

BEDINGFIELD: (INAUDIBLE).

WILLIAMS: Focus.

HUNT: But, no, in a seriousness, look, this is not the - I mean it's a reminder, Shermichael, I will say of the - and we're getting it in the trial. We're getting it here again in Arizona. We were talking about Rudy Giuliani on the set this week also in terms of, you know, the man who was America's mayor -

SINGLETON: Yes.

HUNT: Has now become this.

SINGLETON: Presidential candidate once upon a time.

HUNT: Right.

SINGLETON: I mean it's interesting to sort of see the spiral of the former mayor. I've had the opportunity to be around him many times during the 2016 campaign. And it's unfortunate. I think this - some people would look at this and say, people who are not conservative, that this is what happens when you're sort of in that orbit.

And, look, he has the opportunity to defend himself, as expected. But it's just a harsh reality of what happens when someone isn't very clear about protecting what they have spent decades building all because of politics. And that's just really sad.

HUNT: I mean, Kate, the other piece of this is that this is happening out in Arizona. I mean we are - it is 2024. OK. This was a case about 2020. And these people are about to vote again -

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

HUNT: In a state that could be the linchpin.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Yes. And the issue is significant. We see time and again in the polling, we saw it in the midterms in 2022, this issue of protecting democracy is one that's motivating to voters. And so, you know, the combination of kind of all these issues being at the forefront again, in Arizona, plus the addition of Rudy Giuliani, who is a, you know, a terrific foil, a tragic character in many ways, but a terrific political foil, you know, that's - that is probably good news for the Biden campaign and for the Democrats.

HUNT: All right. We - I want to end on what is a sad note this morning. We did not get a chance to do this yesterday because we had a lot of breaking news that we had to get to, but I did not want to let this pass by without making sure that we here at CNN THIS MORNING remembered our Alice Stewart, who passed away over the weekend. She was a political advisor. I first met her years and years ago when she was working on Republican campaigns back in 2012. She was a political advisor then. She, of course, was a CNN political commentator here. And she and I had the chance to be colleagues.

She was also, we should note, an Emmy Award winning journalist. And, of course, she then went on - I worked with her in 2016 when she worked for Senator Ted Cruz as well. But she really did become more than just that to all of us here at CNN just because she was such a thoroughly decent human being and a really treasured friend. She disagreed on politics with plenty of people on our sets and in our hallways, but she still was someone who was adored by people who did disagree with her and who was unfailingly kind, considerate, always asking about you, your children. And that unwavering kindness that she brought to the table was something I will always remember about her. And we will really, really miss her very much. I know I already - she was part of the shows that I had a chance to do here at CNN, and I was always incredibly grateful for her presence. I mean she was willing to come in when we - we anchored overnight here from 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the morning and she was here with her sort of unfailing good cheer. And, you know, I know, Elliot, and the table, she was, I think, someone who brought something to all of our lives.

[07:00:04]

WILLIAMS: Yes, and it's remarkable how consistent the comments have been from people who knew Alice across the political spectrum. It should surprise no one that a lot of the folks, Maria Cardona, who she was paired with -

HUNT: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And diametrically opposed to politically, that they had such warmth between them. But I - you know, I speak to the - the kindness about asking about your kids, your family, your life, that she did every day. And this is tough.

HUNT: Y Es.

All right, Alice Stewart was 58 years young. We will miss her very much.

Thanks to all of you for being here this morning. Don't go anywhere. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts next.