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Lara Trump Comments on Larry Hogan and the Republican Convention; Trump Leaves Door Open for Revenge. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 03, 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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[06:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARA TRUMP, RNC CO-CHAIR: I think it's ridiculous. And I think anybody who's not speaking up in the face of - of really something that should never again have seen the light of day, a trial that would never have been brought against any other person, aside from Donald Trump, doesn't deserve the -

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: But does the RNC support his bid?

TRUMP: The respect of anyone.

Well, I'll have to get back to you -

HUNT: He doesn't deserve the respect of anyone?

TRUMP: He doesn't deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party at this point. And, quite frankly, anybody in America, if that's the way you feel. That's very upsetting to hear that.

HUNT: So, are you willing to cede the Senate seat in Maryland to the Democratic Party and not support Larry Hogan?

TRUMP: What, I'll tell you is that we, of course, want to win as a party, but that is a shame. And - and I think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Lara Trump, the RNC co-chair and the daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, slamming former Maryland governor and current Republican - Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan during an interview with me on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" yesterday.

Why? Why was she so incensed? This tweet, which was posted by Hogan last week. Now, this was after we knew the jury had a verdict, but it was before the verdict was read. And what he said was, "respect the verdict and the legal process," and don't "pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship." The Trump campaign quickly responded to Hogan's tweet with this. This

is Chris Lacivita, who runs the Trump campaign. "You just ended your campaign."

So, after that exchange with Lara Trump, I pressed her on whether the Republican National Committee, again, charged with getting Republicans elected, would financially support Hogan's Senate campaign in a blue state where basically he is the only Republican with any chance of actually winning statewide office. She said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Are you willing to use Republican Party resources to support his bid or not? It sounds like you're saying you're not.

TRUMP: Well, I'll get back to you on all the specifics monetarily. But what I can tell you is that the - as the Republican Party co-chair, I think he should never have said something like that. I think that's ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I'll get back to you.

Scott Jennings, you have been very invested over your career in winning the Senate for Republicans. Does this help that?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: As I was saying about Hunter Biden -

HUNT: All right. All right.

JENNINGS: No, look, here's the - here's the - here's the -

HUNT: (INAUDIBLE) so much you don't want to talk about it.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Are we going to have to do this again, Hunter? Is -

JENNINGS: Here's - here's - here's - it's not - it's not good to not support Larry Hogan. He is one of our best chances to have literally retake the Senate. So, here's the math. West Virginia's gone. So it's in a minimum 50/50. We've got to win one, Republicans I mean. And he may do it. He's the one guy who could do it. And to put Maryland on the map in a competitive way this cycle was a true gift to the Republican Party and Democrats are freaking out about it.

So, that having been said, I'll put a silver lining on it. It may not be the worst thing in the world for Hogan, in blue Maryland, to be in a feud with the Trumps, because the core of the Democratic argument is -

HUNT: Yes.

JENNINGS: That, oh, he's just going to end up being a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's Republican Party. Obviously that would undercut that argument.

[06:35:01]

But, look, they're -

HUNT: You and I were going back and forth on this over the weekend.

JENNINGS: There are Trump supporters everyone.

HUNT: I mean the thing is that like Trumps supporters, we have seen, they listen to him. When he says, don't vote early, they don't vote early, right? Like they lost them, two Senate seats in Georgia, and there are people who are very much Trump supporters in Maryland. (INAUDIBLE).

JENNINGS: My message would be that it would be better for Donald Trump, if he were the president, to have the Senate majority than not. And that that strategic imperative should prevail.

HUNT: Stephen.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, I mean, you're right, if there's - there probably isn't a Republican who could win the Senate race in Maryland. But if there is, that guy is Larry Hogan.

JENNINGS: That's it.

COLLINSON: Principally because he's very popular, even among quite a few Democrats. His governorship is remembered quite fondly by many Democratic voters. And now the issue obviously here is, is he going to get all that turnout he needs in western Maryland -

JENNINGS: Yes.

COLLINSON: Which is pure Trump country. In some of those counties, they tried to join West Virginia, that's how Trumpy they are, right?

JENNINGS: Right, Trumpy.

HUNT: You got it on the eastern shore too of Maryland.

COLLINSON: Yes.

HUNT: There's significant Trump support.

COLLINSON: So - so he - he can't really afford Trump voters to decide that they're not going to vote for Larry Hogan.

WILLIAMS: It's not just the voters, it's the machine. It's the ground game and all that the RNC could bring with it. I - it's just funny -

HUNT: Well, and that's what she wouldn't answer.

WILLIAMS: Right. Right.

HUNT: She wouldn't tell me no, we're going to deny you that. WILLIAMS: Right.

HUNT: We'll see about that.

WILLIAMS: But - but that's incredibly valuable to the party.

You know, what's interesting, just, God, remember the days of Reagan's 11th commandment, thou shalt speak ill of another Republican, and it's almost as if the party is so broken that it's - that it's about one guy as opposed to, you know, capital "r" republicanism nationwide. And I think you saw some of that playing out here, which was really fascinating, that it's about Trump and support for him, not necessarily the goals of the Republican Party.

JENNINGS: I thought -

WILLIAMS: Your point about winning the Senate being the critical goal.

JENNINGS: Yes.

HUNT: I mean that seems like a foundational (INAUDIBLE) the entire thing.

JENNINGS: Right.

WILLIAMS: It's-

JENNINGS: I mean your question about the money is - was right on because if - if the Republicans don't support Larry Hogan, then that means the Democrats don't have to pour resources in either.

One of the great things about putting this on the map for the Republicans was, it's going to be a money sponge for the Dems. They didn't want to have to spend money here. They don't want to put resources into a blue state like this.

And so the party needs to stay with Larry Hogan. He has a real chance to win. And it's better to be in the majority than the minority. Just look at the last couple of years.

HUNT: And every single seat is going to matter for -

JENNINGS: Yes.

HUNT: For each side.

So, other thing that I spoke to Lara Trump about, again, in her capacity as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, the question about Donald Trump's sentence has loomed. It is set for July 11th. The convention, of course, is the following week. So, I asked her about scheduling, planning, and she actually was not as definitive as I expected that she might be.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Are you planning or discussing any changes to the convention in programming or scheduling?

TRUMP: Well, I think we have to be ready for anything. As we've seen, you know, all bets are off when it comes to Donald Trump. So, yes, we have to wait and see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, I'll be candid with you, Stephen, I was a little bit surprised that she was willing to say that. She basically also went on to say, you know, whether we have to do it at Mar-a-Lago or at Trump Tower, which if you - we had run that clip a little bit longer you would have heard, that suggested, like, maybe there's a world where Donald Trump isn't at the convention.

COLLINSON: Yes, I think it's in their interests to raise the possibility that Donald Trump might be sent to jail instead of going to the convention. We've seen how effective that has been from a finance - financial and a fundraising perspective here.

I mean, I do find it difficult to think that Trump's legal team honestly thinks, as Elliot said, that there's a possibility that the president can be jailed and couldn't go to the convention. But the politics of this really works for the Republicans right now.

WILLIAMS: And -

COLLINSON: And, you know, we're going to see this more and more heading into that. We've got the debate at the end of the month on CNN. Heading into the convention, into that sentencing is going to get to an absolute fever pitch of political expectations.

WILLIAMS: And if he goes to jail, that's cutting off his own nose to spite his face because by going to jail he waves his right to appeal. So, all these questions about biased judge and Democrats and selective process and the jury and the instructions, he can't make those. So, why - you know, he would not accept a sentence because he doesn't - he has the right not to.

COLLINSON: Right.

WILLIAMS: He still has - he still is able to and it would be silly for him to do that.

HUNT: All right, so let's talk about the other side of the political argument. We've talked a lot about Republicans, what they're saying, how this potentially works in their favorite or doesn't. But Democrats are also wrestling with how President Biden should be responding to this conviction. And I spoke with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, Senate candidate in California, yesterday about this. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I think the president should be leaning into this going forward. The - his competitor is a convicted felon. And you can only imagine if - if the situation was reversed, they would be going after Joe Biden with a vengeance. They're making those false claims about Joe Biden regardless. So, I think not only the president, but Democrats need to be making the case forcefully to the American people, you want the country run properly, you don't want a convicted felon to turn the Oval Office and the federal government in some kind of a racketeering operation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:40:05]

HUNT: Stephen Collinson, this is a very interesting thing to wrestle with because you've seen the president be relatively restrained. Mitt Romney is arguing the opposite of what Adam Schiff is arguing. He is saying, don't poor oxygen on - don't give this oxygen. You give Trump oxygen, it's what he feeds on. It doesn't matter if it's good oxygen - it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, it just seems to help him. Schiff is saying - and, look, there is the argument, look, if roles were reversed, you think Donald Trump wouldn't be aggressively going after Biden? I mean, absolutely not.

COLLINSON: Right. I've heard some Democrats say that every time the word Donald Trump is mentioned in the campaign, it should be prefixed by the phrase convicted felon. So, convicted felon Donald Trump. The evidence of the last few days seems to suggest perhaps that might not work. If there's any political benefits so far from this, it seems to be occurring to Trump. Do you gather his supporters more around him? And I think we have to realize that it's quite possible the election is not going to be decided by Donald Trump's legal issues. There are a lot of Americans that are hurting from high prices, they can't afford to buy cars. Any impression - and as much as the Biden administration has struggled to talk about this effectively, any impression that the Democrats are just obsessed with Donald Trump's legal problems could backfire against them. So, it's a - a complicated message.

HUNT: Sure is.

All right, coming up next, did he or didn't he?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary Clinton - I didn't say lock her up. But the people don't say lock her up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Donald Trump claiming he never said what I don't even know how many times I heard him say when I covered every single day of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Plus, Dr. Fauci about to come face-to-face with House Republicans who accuse him of participating in a Covid conspiracy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:46:14]

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

Mexico has elected its first female president. Claudia Sheinbaum is projected to win with nearly 60 percent of the vote. She is Mexico City's former mayor, also the country's first Jewish president.

Dr. Anthony Fauci faces a House hearing today. Lawmakers want to know whether government backed scientists were fully transparent about controversial Covid research and whether a longtime adviser to Dr. Fauci dodged public records requests.

The Biden administration is preparing to roll out a sweeping executive order on the border as early as tomorrow. Sources tells CNN it's designed to dramatically limit the ability of migrants to seek asylum at the southern border.

And then this story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is now on TikTok.

D. TRUMP: It's my honor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Donald Trump joining TikTok and posting a video this weekend after attending UFC matches in New Jersey. He said it was an honor to be on the app, even though you may note he tried to ban it when he was president.

OK.

Now this, Donald Trump, whose campaign has been branded with this message -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: I am your retribution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Now fresh off 34 criminal convictions, in an interview with Fox over the weekend, he seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of seeking political revenge on his enemies, like this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: It's a very interesting question.

My revenge will be success. And I mean that. But it's awfully hard when you see what they've done. These people are so evil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, joining me now is a very special guest, the senior political correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman. She's also a CNN political analyst.

Maggie, I am so grateful you're up early today to be with us. Thank you so much.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Of course.

HUNT: You have covered this guy for decades at this point and probably know more than anyone in the country, besides the man - beside the man himself, about the way he thinks, the way he operates, and how that actually plays out.

Can we dig into this question of retribution, especially in the wake of this conviction, considering some of the things we've heard from Republican allies who say they should, you know, weaponize justice systems in other states to go after people.

HABERMAN: Yes, look, Kasie, the question of retribution is not being posed very subtly by certainly Donald Trump's allies right now, if you look on Twitter or X, formerly known as Twitter, if you look at other social media, you can see, you know, Trump supporters talking about you know, opening investigations and finding other ways to get back at Democrats.

Trump himself has been trying to walk back his retribution language because his advisers are aware it's not helping him. It doesn't play well with swing voters. But does that mean that Donald Trump will decide he is going to put aside his desire for retribution, which is a lifelong thing that he has had? No, I don't - I - it's hard to imagine. But is it possible, sure. But there's nothing consistent with Donald Trump in his life that suggests he's going to say, this is fine now and I'm not going to look at ways to use the levers of government against the people who he thinks went after him.

And I should note, Kasie, he keeps insisting, and his people keep insisting, that President Biden is behind the Manhattan district attorney's case against Trump. And there is absolutely no evidence for that.

HUNT: Yes, no, it's very - very important to underscore that.

Maggie, we also heard him talk about he - he claimed he was OK with going to jail. I'm interested to hear you weigh in on that. But then he also said, the public wouldn't be. That there would be a breaking point. What did you hear in the framing that he had there? Obviously, it's already become a political back-and-forth about whether he meant violence. I'm curious how you heard it.

[06:50:03]

HABERMAN: So, two things. Number one, no, he does not want to go to jail and he's not OK with going to jail. There is nothing about his makeup that is. I understand that he - he has to -- feels like - he feels like he has to say that because he believes in not showing any weakness, but no, he doesn't want to go to jail. And I don't know anybody who actually wants to go to jail, number one.

Number two, in terms of his language about people would be upset. It would be a breaking point. Number one, I think it's true that there would be some kind of a reaction just based on what we have seen, although he has said things like that repeatedly, most notably in the lead up to the January 6th attack on the Capitol in 2021 by a pro- Trump mob. And we've seen less of that sense. Remember when he was indicted in this case in 2023, he openly called on people to protest against this indictment. And the results were pretty mild because the mass number of arrests that have taken place of people who were somehow involved in what took place on January 6th has been a deterrent. We'll see if that changes here if he is to be sentenced to jail.

I want to note one other thing, Kasie, just since you were talking on this show about the possibility that Trump gets sentenced, right - I mean he - the sentencing is currently scheduled for right before the Republican National Convention.

HUNT: Yes.

HABERMAN: The July date for sentencing is a date that Trump's own lawyers sought. It is not as if the judge was like, oh, yes, let's - let's do this there. Todd Blanche asked for - he didn't mention the Republican National Committee, but he did ask for a mid to late July sentencing date. So, that was his choice.

HUNT: Very interesting. Glad you raised that.

Maggie, I want to make sure we got - we dig into the story. Anyone that's got a copy of "The Times" this morning can read it on the front page. You talk about New York City, who - which has been almost this partner character in Donald Trump's life as a place. You say, "New York City was once Donald J. Trump's playground, the place where he made his name and then plastered everywhere he could. And now the city that helped make him rich and famous has become his battleground. And Mr. Trump keeps losing."

What else - you know, dig in a little bit to this reporting and kind of what this means in the context of the man?

HABERMAN: Sure. And so one thing that was striking as we were working on this story is how, frankly, I think exhausted by constant drama around Trump a lot of people are. You know, it - there - this has been a running - a running feud with Donald Trump in New York City for many years now. When he ran in 2016, when he went to vote on the morning of Election Day, he was literally laughed at by people who were at his polling place. One man called out, "you're going to lose." You know he - he - that he rejected the city back essentially. You know, I mean, there was constantly this issue of what was going to be funded for New York City. He ended up cutting the - sum of the tax implications by which New York did well in his tax bill. There's - there was just a running back and forth. And then he changed his voting registration after talking to his tax lawyers. Since then, he has been investigated multiple times. And he is clearly very angry at the city.

You saw him hold this rally in the Bronx. And it was a solid event. He got a lot of people. But he has been trying to troll the city back as much as he believes he's been trolled.

HUNT: That's, I guess, epic trolling, shall we say?

Maggie Haberman of "The New York Times." Maggie, so grateful for your time this morning. Thank you so much for being here.

HABERMAN: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: All right, also in that Fox interview, Trump was asked why he never went after Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. I'm going to take an issue with that question because, let me tell you, as someone who covered it day in and day out, that matter was brought up frequently through the 2016 election. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: They all said "lock her up." And I felt - and I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me. And so I may feel differently about it.

Hillary Clinton -- I didn't say "lock her up," but the people don't say "lock her up, lock her up," OK. Then we won. And I say - and I said pretty openly, I said, all right, come on, just relax. Let's go. We've got to make our country great.

HUNT: So he points at himself and he says, I didn't say "lock her up." Yes, you did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWDS: Lock her up. Lock her up. Lock her up. Lock her up.

D. TRUMP: There were - for what she's done, they should lock her up. She's disgraceful. It's disgraceful.

Hillary Clinton has to go to jail, OK. She has to go to jail.

You shouldn't lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: OK, that - threw the Bidens in there for good measure.

So, he's - I mean, he said it. He's trying not to say it. To a certain extent we can - its - I almost want to put it into the category of, nothing matters because it seems like, you know, this is the thing we've been fighting with for so many years -

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: When Donald Trump has been on the stage. [06:55:02]

He did say it. Now he's trying to say he didn't say it. But the reality - and none of this is productive - like, none of it's productive.

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, a lot of things are productive. I - you know, it's - I just feel like I've seen before, you see it often with white folks convicted of white-collar crimes, that the moment they get pulled into the system, all of a sudden it's biased, it's rigged, it's corrupt, I don't want to pay my taxes anymore. I can't believe I'm a part of this and so on. And I think you're seeing playing out here on a national scale because this is a very high-profile figure, someone who has been brought into the system now saying the system's broken, and rigged and corrupt, and I don't want to pay my taxes anymore.

JENNINGS: Yes.

WILLIAMS: I mean what Donald - Donald Trump has never said he doesn't want to pay his taxes. I just mean it's an argument brought by people because taxes fund prosecutors. That's -

JENNINGS: Yes.

I don't know - I mean he did obviously say it. I mean, I - I mean it - so, they didn't lock her up and they didn't go after her, which it's interesting. If you talk to some Republicans out there in the hinterlands (ph), they wonder why not. I mean - I mean think about all those people at the rallies who were chanting that. I don't - I mean there were some people who were wondering, well, why want's Hillary Clinton looked into it more closely? So, but, ultimately, they did not.

HUNT: I - I would just say, I mean, this is one of the example, right? Like the thing that we have seen with Trump is a slide away from the norms and like - and general rules of how business has been conducted in our country for decades. And this was one of those things that was, you know, different about Trump on the campaign trail. I mean there were not other Republican - he was one of, you know, nearly a dozen Republican candidates who ran that time and he was the one that was - that brought this up.

COLLINSON: Yes. You know, this reminds me of something Trump once said. I think it was at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. He said to his supporters, what you see and what are reading is not what's happening. And sometimes I wonder if he just wakes up in the morning, tries to think of the most outrageous thing he can say and get away with, and he's sort of playing with us. And there's this challenge - this morning we've been talking about incitement to violence, and now we're talking about this. And it's Trump flooding the zone. And you have to decide which is the really - the most important thing that you narrow down on.

So, you know, back to Maggie's point, retribution has been a driving force of Trump's life. It is a driving force of his political movement. It's not everything about is political movement. We're not talking about deplorables or anything like that. But it's undeniable that Trump has weaponized grievance. And this is another way that he does it.

JENNINGS: Who is Trump like supposedly - who did he get revenge on in his first term? I mean he said these things. I'm just -- I'm - I'm thinking back now, like, who actually felt the - felt the brunt of it?

HUNT: Well, I think - I think that the argument and the - the question - and so like, look, actually, let me - this is a great excuse to read some Peter Baker. I always love reading Peter Baker, who's on the front page of "The New York Times," right? There were people inside the first Trump administration. There was a Congress with more members of the Republican Party who are willing to stand up to him. There were people who had been in government. There were people like John Kelly, right? There were others. There were guardrails. There were people who felt like they had a duty to the country to serve. And a lot of them came in for criticism afterward, right? Paul Ryan is one of those people.

JENNINGS: Yes. Yes.

HUNT: But if you had private conversations with him ahead of Trump coming in, he would acknowledge, he felt a responsibility to - to stand with the country, because he understood what was going on with Trump. So, things have changed now. And this is what Baker writes about.

So, "were are now at a point where the notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief, up ends two-and-a-half centuries of assumptions about American democracy. And Mr. Trump might be returned to office." We can all acknowledge. We can all read the polls that, honestly, he's a head right now. Baker writes, quote, "if he wins, it means he will have survived two impeachments, four criminal indictments, civil judgments for sexual abuse and business fraud, and a felony conviction. Given that it would be hard to imagine what institutional deterrents could discourage abuses or excesses." And he goes on to note, "when he was president, Trump claimed the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever I want."

So while I take your point about what may have happened in a previous Trump administration, there is - there are serious questions about a second one.

JENNINGS: When I hear you read that paragraph, it makes me wonder if there are Democrats out there who think, we have nominated the one guy who might lose to Donald Trump.

HUNT: Well, I mean -

JENNINGS: I mean - I mean, honestly. Look - read - when you hear that -

HUNT: Yes, if you talk to - privately to Democrats, certainly they will say - they will hand-wringing about Biden. But -

JENNINGS: Yes. Yes.

WILLIAMS: And I would say in response, to the, who has he gotten retribution against? Even saying in America we should use the criminal justice system to blank. If it's anything other than prosecutor the offenders, like the show "Law and Order" says, even that threat is frightening enough. And when - when the former president is saying, you know, we need to use the system to go after these people who did this to us, the mere threat is sufficient. So, even if Donald Trump has not yet prosecuted anyone or gone after is - OK -

[07:00:04]

JENNINGS: You mean - you mean like when President Biden threatened retribution against the border guards who got caught up in that horse hoax?

HUNT: OK, wait.

JENNINGS: No, I'm asking because, I agree with you, I don't think presidents and presidential candidates should do that, but let's not pretend like there hasn't been some hint of, I will use my power to -

HUNT: This -

WILLIAMS: I think - I think calling for the - calling for sanctions or prosecution against someone who is - who is engaged in wrongdoing -

HUNT: Can I have a wide shot, please, guys, because this is what we do.

WILLIAMS: All right, all right, sorry. All right.

HUNT: Because the - I mean, Soctt, the stakes are just much higher. The stage is much higher. It's - it is - we are in very new territory as outlined.

Thank you, guys, very much for being with us. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere.

CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.