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New Poll: Biden-Trump Race Too Close To Call; Classified Docs Hearing Devolves Into Shouting Match; A Look At Natalie Harp, Trump's "Human Printer." Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired May 23, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:47]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:30 a.m. here on the East Coast, 2:30 out West. A live look at the Washington Monument and the White House. The sun is coming up on this Thursday.

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

Brand new polling this morning revealing what we basically already know. The race between President Biden and Donald Trump could not be closer. The Quinnipiac poll of registered voters shows Biden ahead 48 to 47 percent. It's within the margin of error, so the way we would characterize this is there is no clear leader, as you can see on the screen.

Here's what happens when you put third-party candidates into the mix. Biden's margin over Trump increases a little bit -- 41 for Biden. Trump comes in at 38. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14 percent. And then look, you've got Cornel West and Jill Stein getting two percent apiece.

Worth nothing, we're just a month away from the first debate between Biden and Trump. It's going to be right here on CNN. And, of course, both campaigns have some concern RFK Jr. could act as a spoiler candidate. Neither one of them seem to want him on the debate stage either.

Joining me now is Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for the Associated Press. Seung Min, good morning to you.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Good morning.

HUNT: Thank you so much for being here.

KIM: Thanks for having me.

HUNT: So this obviously is a national poll but when you dig into the swing state polls, honestly, things get even worse for Biden.

KIM: Right. HUNT: You look at those recent New York Times polling. But there's been some reporting that he simply does not believe the polls.

Is that -- does that line up with your understanding of where his team is? And should they be more concerned than they are?

KIM: Right. Well, their philosophy all along is don't really believe the polls; believe what the voters tell you when they vote.

So they've looked at -- they pointed to primary results, especially in the Republican primary results that shows this consistent bloc of Republican voters who will not support Trump at the end of the day, even months after Nikki Haley dropped out of the race. They say that's what matters instead of polling that may have some flaws or ask registered voters versus likely voters.

So they're really looking to that. They're really looking towards the voting as what that matters.

Obviously, political campaigns all look at polling. They're not -- they're not shy to point out polls that are actually good for them, obviously. But the whole theory of the case right now it still remains that they still feel the -- a lot of their electorate -- a lot of the voters who will eventually come home to the Democratic Party -- home to them -- are still not quite tuned in yet, which is one of the reasons why they pushed that debate so early on in the general election calendar. They really believe that seeing that -- or one of the reasons is they really believe that seeing those two candidates on the stage could help crystalize that choice for voters much earlier than perhaps September or October.

HUNT: Right -- and, of course, early voting where people start --

KIM: Right.

HUNT: -- casting their votes in September.

So one thing we noticed that stuck out to us in this poll -- in this poll is Quinnipiac asked how likely are you to change your mind --

KIM: Right.

HUNT: -- about who you're going to vote for? And if we could throw that up on the screen, you've got three percent of voters who say they are very likely to change their minds. But 16 percent say they are somewhat likely to change their minds.

I feel like this probably comes as a surprise to some folks who feel like -- I mean, if you're not already on a Biden or Trump side --

KIM: Exactly.

HUNT: -- like, have you been paying attention for however many years we've been doing this?

KIM: Exactly. I mean, that's basically one in five voters, which is actually -- which can be a pretty influential swingy bloc of voters.

What I did find interesting in the Quinnipiac poll is that it's actually Biden voters or people who are more likely -- inclined to support President Biden -- that are more likely to change their minds, too.

HUNT: And yeah, we have that, too. Actually, we can put that up.

KIM: Trump voters are much more set in their candidate, relatively speaking, than Biden voters.

So I think that is a challenge for the Biden campaign to make sure that people who are likely to vote for the president at this point stay in their fold. You know, will continue to tout their accomplishments. Continue to make that contrast with Donald Trump that they feel is politically effective.

HUNT: Yeah. I mean, and this is -- this I think really illustrates, too, Biden -- or Donald Trump has a lower -- or a higher floor, if you will, right? Like, his supporters are more committed.

KIM: Right.

HUNT: The question is how high is his ceiling?

KIM: Right.

HUNT: And I think that 15 percent might suggest maybe it is a little higher than the Biden team would hope.

[05:35:00]

KIM: Right, right. And it's also because his -- because of that -- because of that ceiling level and because of the fact -- because of the unpredictable influence that Robert F. Kennedy could have. That's why you've seen, particularly both campaigns, really try to beat down RFK on his positions, on his -- on his ability to be a presidential candidate. Because it's still unclear who he really hurts.

HUNT: Yeah.

KIM: I don't think this poll really clears up -- clears it up either. So that's why you're seeing a lot of those tactics from both campaigns.

HUNT: Yeah, really interesting.

All right, Seung Min Kim for us. Seung Min, thank you.

KIM: OK, thanks.

HUNT: I really appreciate you being here.

All right. Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial on track to go to the jury early next week, and voters are paying attention. We're learning that new Q poll finds 70 percent they're following the trial either very or somewhat closely.

And on the key question will the verdict impact their vote, most -- 65 percent say a conviction would have no impact on their choice for president. About a fifth of voters, though, say that they would be less inclined to vote for Trump if he were found guilty. And one in 10 say a conviction would make them more likely to vote for Trump.

The former president never followed through on multiple promises that he made to testify in the case. I certainly wasn't surprised by that, but you might have been. Trump did explain why he decided not to take the stand when he spoke yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He made rulings that makes it very difficult to testify. Anything I did -- anything I did in the past; they can bring everything up. And you know what? I've had a great past -- but anything.

The other reason is because we -- they have no case. In other words, why would -- why testify when they have no case?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, joining me now to discuss, former U.S. attorney Michael Moore. Michael, good morning to you. Thank you so much for being here.

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY (via Webex by Cisco): Good morning.

HUNT: I mean, his why testify when you have no case is the Trumpian way of saying what I'm sure the lawyers were telling him, which is don't give them anything to add to their case. Why would you take the stand?

Trump always has had this issue of getting -- of -- well, how should I frame this? People who have tried to get Donald Trump to do what they want in a campaign context have long struggled -- his campaign managers, his White House advisers, and others. But it seems like he was willing to listen to the lawyers in this instance.

MOORE: Yeah. Well, good morning. I'm glad to be with you.

I do think that his lawyers worked some magic to get him to pay attention, and that's been a difficult feat for lawyers before and you've seen lawyers drop off the cases for various reasons and probably disagreements with how to handle cases moving forward.

In a criminal case like this, ultimately, it is, frankly, the defendants -- whether that's Trump or anybody else, it's their decision and their right to testify if they want to do that. They don't have to. They're under no obligation under the law.

The judge is going to tell the jury the defense has to put up no evidence. They don't have to do anything except sit here, frankly. The entire burden is on the state to prove guilt here. So there really was no upside for him to testify.

And I do think that some of the information he kind of referenced -- that in one of his reasonings for not doing it -- you know, that things in the past could come out. He could have been asked things and details about the relationship with Ms. Daniels. He could have been asked about other allegations and things that have gone on. And that doesn't help him.

So what he needed to do is sort of follow his lawyers' advice and just stand down and listen to the evidence in the case. Let the jury consider the impact of cross-examination on Mr. Cohen. And ultimately, that's what it's going to boil down to -- do they believe Michael Cohen or not? Does the jury have some basis to substantiate a conviction outside of Mr. Cohen? If they feel like they have enough other evidence, then they can do that or does it just simply going to be because they have feelings that they've predisposed one way or another they may not have disclosed during jury selection.

So that's kind of where we're at. There just was no gain for him to testify. And I think, frankly, kudos to the lawyers that were able to convince him to follow some sound legal advice.

HUNT: Yeah.

All right. Well, I guess it's going to get underway next week. Never a dull moment.

But --

MOORE: Right.

HUNT: -- Michael, I do -- I want to move to Florida because there was a hearing yesterday in Trump's classified documents case and it apparently devolved into a shouting match among the attorneys. And I'm just going to lay this out.

It happened when Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta's defense attorney, Stanley Woodward, claimed that the prosecutor, Jay Bratt, attempted to pressure him into convincing Nauta to cooperate against Trump during a meeting that was back in 2022.

And then, the prosecutor, David Harbach, shouted, "Mr. Woodward's story of what happened at the meeting is a fantasy. It did not happen." And he banged his hand on the lectern in front of him.

What's going on here?

MOORE: Yeah. You know, it was a moment of some high drama, I guess, and it's unusual to have this kind of outburst in front of a judge during a hearing.

[05:40:04]

And frankly, you've got a situation where Mr. Nauta had filed a motion to have the case dismissed because of selective and vindictive prosecution and was -- I think his lawyer was making arguments about that as it related to whether some reference had been made to the attorney's option or choice maybe to be a judge efforts to secure that position and an allegation that the assistant U.S. attorney had made some comments in regards to that and how this might impact, I think, his judicial chances, I believe is, at the end the day, where they were at.

And so, you know, no lawyer likes to have their credibility questioned. Frankly, that's all that you have. You'll remember in the New York case -- not to bounce back up the coast there, but you'll remember when the judge barked at Mr. Trump's lawyer, saying --

HUNT: Yeah.

MOORE: -- you're losing credibility with the court. Everybody was aghast -- like, oh my gosh, this is a terrible thing that somebody's losing credibility. So no lawyer -- it's a big deal because that's really all you have is the ability to make an argument and a straight- faced argument as a lawyer. And so you want to hang on to that credibility. And I think you probably saw the prosecutor feel like his credibility had been questioned by this motion.

Frankly, I think the motion that Mr. Nauta's lawyer made will go nowhere. I think it was probably dead on arrival when it got to the courthouse. I don't blame lawyers for filing motions. I mean, sometimes -- obviously, frivolous motions, I think they should not file. But motions are a way to protect a defendant's rights and they need to be heard. It protects and creates a record for an appellate court to consider.

But in this case, to say somehow that there was an off-the-record conversation, that serves as the basis for this motion. Unless he's got some other proof -- unless he's got some evidence -- unless he's got an email, a conversation, a witness to this comment that somehow can tie back to the government's choice to and decision to use their discretion to actually charge Mr. Nauta -- unless they have --

HUNT: Yeah.

MOORE: -- some other evidence, I just think this motion is going nowhere.

And so the tensions were high, and it blew up.

HUNT: Right.

MOORE: It's unfortunate and -- but sometimes it happens in the heat of litigation.

HUNT: Sure thing.

All right, Michael Moore for us. Michael, thanks very much for being here. I really appreciate your time.

MOORE: Great to be with you this morning.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, where does Donald Trump get all of those papers that he is always carrying? It turns out he has a human printer. We'll explain.

Plus, the Mavericks go one game up in the Western Conference Finals. The Bleacher Report coming up.

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[05:47:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIE HARP, TRUMP AIDE: I'm Natalie Harp, a formerly forgotten American from California. They didn't give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President -- you did. And without you, I'd have died waiting for them to be approved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Hmm. So as she said, that was Natalie Harp. She was speaking at the 2020 GOP convention about former President Donald Trump's support for Right to Try legislation that gives terminally ill patients access to experimental therapies.

Four years later, Harp has become a critical part of Donald Trump's inner circle, and she is the focus of the new piece from Marc Caputo, who writes, in The Bulwark, this. "Harp's nickname on the campaign, 'the human printer,' underplays her importance. That's because in Trump's orbit, proximity to the principal is power. 'If you want the president to see something, the best route is Natalie,' says a knowledgeable source."

The piece explains that her nickname, The Human Printer, comes from her propensity for carrying around a portable printer and constantly printing news articles for Trump to read in court and on the campaign trail. You see him there with his giant stack of papers always at the ready.

Joining me now is Marc Caputo of The Bulwark. Marc, thank you so much for being here. It's great to see you again.

This is a fascinating story because anyone who has covered Donald Trump knows that this is how he operates. He requires paper. This is not a man --

MARC CAPUTO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE BULWARK (via Webex by Cisco): Right.

HUNT: -- who -- I don't know if he has one now but, for years, didn't have an email address. Typically does not text. And this an incredible amount of power. I mean, it's -- honestly, it's kind of genius to actually carry the printer around with you to make this happen.

How did you learn about this, and what -- and what more can you tell us about who Natalie Harp is?

CAPUTO: Well, I heard about it months and months ago -- actually, maybe last year after she first got hired. I think the first reference to her was in a Washington Post piece. It was just maybe a paragraph -- like, hey, look at this. Because she had been spotted at a golf course with a -- with a printer. And then, the Daily Mail had also kind of mentioned it as well.

But to your point, yeah, it is genius and it's also really indicative of how Donald Trump operates. Donald Trump creates his own solar system. He's the sun at the center of it. He's the center of gravity or the place -- the focal point around which everything revolves.

And everyone has a role. And in this role, her job is to make sure that he doesn't have to strain his 77-year-old eyes and read his iPhone or be stuck in front of a computer. He's got this aide right there who can print up anything he wants and also knows the things he wants to read.

So in addition to news articles, she prints out favorable posts on social media that he gets to read, and the like. And he certainly appreciates her and that's one of the reasons she's sort of risen in esteem and sort of risen in estimation and power within his inner circle.

HUNT: Yeah.

[05:50:00]

So, Marc, what kinds of -- how does the campaign apparatus proper view and interact with Natalie Harp -- I mean, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles -- because, I mean, I'm thinking back to when Trump was in the White House and there was a lot of thought given -- and I know your piece kind of digs into how paper was -- like, what paper got in front of the president was something they spent a lot of time managing.

Didn't they also have somebody who was in charge of actually -- he would tear paper up and they would have to put it back together?

CAPUTO: Right. That's another unique job that was created under Trump as -- under the Presidential Records Act, which actually links back to the classified documents case as you were talking about earlier. All these records that a president sees are supposed to be preserved but Donald Trump doesn't like to keep things around.

So after he'd read a record or a paper, he'd tear it up and throw it in the trash bag or trash can. And so, they had a bunch of White House aides whose job it was -- there was a Politico story written at the time -- to dig back through the trash and piece everything back together and kind of retape the puzzle pieces into a reconstituted presidential record.

But as far as information flow, this has just been a constant thing for the people who work under Donald Trump, whether it was in the White House or his prior campaigns. As he gets lots of information from lots of different people all of the time there's no real way to sort of control that info flow. And Trump doesn't want to be controlled.

And in this case, Natalie Harp, though a campaign employee, is sort of separate and apart from the rest of the campaign. She answers sort of directly to the president, not to Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the co-campaign managers.

And what you've seen this year or this cycle out of them is understanding that Donald Trump is just going to be Donald Trump. And so, it's sort of like saying the Serenity Prayer where they can accept the things they cannot change. Well, one of the things that the campaign managers cannot change is that sort of fundamental nature of Donald Trump.

So they trust Natalie and so they just sort of let her do her thing. And they understand that Trump is going to do his thing, and sometimes the campaign and the candidate match up and sometimes they don't.

HUNT: It would be interesting to know if someone has that hanging on the wall of an office working for Donald Trump.

Marc Caputo --

CAPUTO: Well, it's a Serenity Prayer, right? It's the Serenity Prayer, you know?

HUNT: Marc Caputo, very grateful to have you. Thanks very much for being here. See you soon, I hope.

CAPUTO: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: All right, coming up -- in sports, the Dallas Mavericks kicked off the NBC -- NBA's Western Conference Finals with a big road win against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Carolyn Manno has this morning's Bleacher Report. Carolyn, good morning.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Kasie.

Dallas is not known for getting off to strong starts in the playoffs under head coach Jason Kidd. They're 0-5 in games won -- at least they were heading into last night. Neither team was really able to hold onto the lead for long.

Kyrie Irving on fire in the first half of this game, scoring 24 of his 30 points before the break. And Minnesota star Anthony Edwards really got the home crowd excited. A clutch three-pointer with just under four minutes to go in the game. But the Mavericks, led by MVP finalist Luka Doncic, went on a roll scoring eight unanswered points to take control of this game. Luka with a game-high 33 -- 15 of them coming in the final quarter -- as Dallas gets the rare game-one win. What a wait -- 105 the final.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKA DONCIC, GUARD, DALLAS MAVERICKS: We had to work really hard to get this one. I think we're known for game one that we lose, so we tried to make a point. But that's only one. We've got three more to go. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: Meantime, the Florida Panthers putting on a goal-tending clinic against the New York Rangers in game one of hockey's Eastern Conference Finals. Sergei Bobrovsky stopping all 23 shots he faced in the 3-0 win. The Blueshirts have only been shut out once in 92 regular season and playoff games entering this series, and that was way back on December 9 when they lost 4-0 to the Washington Capitals.

This was Bobrovsky's first shutout of the postseason, but he says the most important thing is getting the W.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEI BOBROVSKY, GOALIE, FLORIDA PANTHERS: In the postseason you don't think about to get the goals or anything. There is only wins and losses and that's it. And you focus one moment at a time and you don't think about anything else.

ALEKSANDER BARKOV, CENTER, FLORIDA PANTHERS: It's 1-0 now. We're exactly where we wanted to be before the -- before the game. And it was a good effort by us. We can build on this very well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: And the Indiana Fever also looking to build this season. They're going to have to wait at least a couple of days to get their first win following last night's 85-83 loss to the Seattle Storm. Rookie Caitlin Clark still finding her way, finishing with 21 points on six-for-16 shooting. She added seven rebounds and seven assists.

So the Fever now 0-5 for the season, next facing the L.A. Sparks and second overall WNBA draft pick Cameron Brink on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLIN CLARK, GUARD, INDIANA FEVER: And you're never happy to lose. Like, it's not fun. But at the same time, like, I don't know. I think there's just -- there's just a lot of things to build on. And that's why I'm trying to just be as positive as possible and continue to learn and continue to stack days. And our first win will be right around the corner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: And the Chiefs are responding to criticism facing the team's kicker Harrison Butker after a polarizing recent commencement address led to a number of flashpoint discussions around women in the workplace, pride month, abortion, among others.

[05:55:00]

Patrick Mahomes defending Butker's character while head coach Andy Reid underscored players' freedoms to express their opinion.

And, Kasie, your Baltimore Orioles streak is snapped after an incredible 106 series without being swept and an hour and a half rain delay in the fourth inning. Brendan Donovan doubled two runs home and then scored the go-ahead run on a throwing error to lift the Cardinals to a 5-4 win on Wednesday.

But the good news is the O's have won eight of their last 10. They have a number of players stepping up, as you know, but this record spanning more than two years. Pretty cool to see them not be swept in that time. I think it has to come to an end at some point but still looking pretty good this year.

HUNT: I agree. It has -- it has been fun to see that. I'm bummed that it ended but I'm keeping the faith, man. I've kept the faith all these years, OK?

MANNO: I know you have.

HUNT: I'm finally -- some of it's coming back -- coming home. Here we go. Knock on wood.

All right, Carolyn, thank you.

MANNO: OK.

HUNT: I really appreciate it.

And coming up next, another troubling flag seen hanging outside a home owned by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. We'll dig into that.

Plus, the Mooch, Anthony Scaramucci is here. He was hired and fired by the White House in a span of 11 days. Now he wants to be your life coach.

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