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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Soon: Trump Organization CFO Weisselberg To Turn Himself In To D.A.; House Votes To Form Committee To Investigate January Sixth Insurrection; Chinese President Xi Says Countries That Bully China Will Meet "A Great Wall Of Steel. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 01, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:04]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Whitney Wild. Twenty-nine minutes -- 30 minutes now just past the hour.

JARRETT: Donald Trump's longtime money man Allen Weisselberg expected to turn himself in to Manhattan prosecutors, really, at any moment now. Sources telling CNN a grand jury has indicted the Trump Organization and Weisselberg, its chief financial officer, after being under investigation for years. This would be the first criminal indictment against the former president's namesake company.

Our understanding is the charges, expected to be unsealed at some point later today, related to alleged tax crimes connected to perks and other benefits that the company gave to its employees.

So it's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig.

OK, Elie, we've been waiting for this for a long time. We've known it's coming. When you get that indictment today what is the first thing you're looking for?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I want to see how big the tax loss is that's charged against Allen Weisselberg.

Because New York law has a huge range of penalties depending on the amount of the tax loss. It can be as low as a misdemeanor, meaning really nobody goes to jail on a misdemeanor. I don't think it will be that low. It could be as high as 25 years. And that matters because Allen Weisselberg is not flipping on a misdemeanor, but if he's looking at 25 years he might well flip and that's obviously going to be key for this case.

WILD: So does he have time now to -- so the indictment was filed. Now what happens? Do you think he's going to flip later on?

HONIG: You can -- you can. I mean, ideally, from a prosecutor's view, you want someone to flip before indictments -- as early as possible. I've seen people flip after indictments. In fact, being indicted could often cause somebody to flip. It's one thing to say I'll never flip but when you see your name on the other side of that indictment I've seen that shake people loose.

You can even flip after you've been convicted -- after you've been sentenced.

JARRETT: Right.

HONIG: But at a certain point the prosecutors' doors are going to be closed.

JARRETT: Well -- and if he does it after he's already sentenced, the kind of deal that he's going to get -- the kind of reduced sentence is nowhere near --

HONIG: Yes.

JARRETT: -- what he would have gotten if he had cooperated from jump.

You know, Elie, it strikes me -- I've said before that the D.A. didn't go to the U.S. Supreme Court to get Donald Trump's taxes to take down Allen Weisselberg, right? It doesn't seem like -- it couldn't be that this is all --

WILD: Right.

JARRETT: -- that they have. But maybe this is all that they have. Maybe it is just about cash and perks, and a rent-free apartment and a company car.

The way that the -- that the prosecutors in this case and the A.G.'s office has been so out in front and public about the fact that they were going after the former president, does it -- does it strike you that they must have some other card in their pocket or is this it?

HONIG: That's the question, right? If this is heading somewhere else -- if this is just the start -- that it will be much bigger, then all their efforts and all the time and resources will be justified.

If this is it -- if all they come out of this with is an indictment of the Trump Organization and nobody goes to jail on it -- an indictment of an organization -- and Allen Weisselberg, given all the time, given all the publicity they've put behind it and given all the campaign statements made, particularly by the attorney general, and given the amount of resources, then that's a pretty weak outcome if this is all they have. So that's one of the big questions going forward.

JARRETT: I know this is only --

WILD: Yes.

JARRETT: -- three questions in three -- but I want to ask you a fourth question -- fourth question. Is the main reason that they need Weisselberg -- my understanding is because Trump doesn't e-mail, right? He doesn't text. And so, how else are you going to prove intent here --

HONIG: Yes.

JARRETT: -- without Weisselberg? Is that the thrust of it?

HONIG: Exactly. As a prosecutor you can't just say there was fraud and Trump was the boss. Hence, he's guilty. You have to be able to specifically prove he knew about it and he had the intent. If you don't have e-mails, you don't have texts, there's no evidence that there's a wiretap of him talking about it or anything like that, then you need a witness who can say yes, he authorized this transaction. He authorized this scheme.

It doesn't appear they have that now with Weisselberg.

JARRETT: Right, yes.

All right. It's going to be a big day. You're going to be busy. I hope you've got your coffee.

HONIG: I'm ready to go.

JARRETT: All right, Elie Honig. Thank you so much -- appreciate it.

WILD: All right.

All right. The next step in the congressional investigation of the Capitol riot now in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the House voted to create a new select committee to probe the January sixth attack. Now the question is who's going to be on it? We know only two Republicans voted to create that special panel. That was Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

JARRETT: Only two. So what happens now? Pelosi will appoint eight of the panel's 13 members with the five others said to be named in consultation with Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

Democrat Bennie Thompson is seen as a leading candidate to run the panel. He points out the elephant in the room here that McCarthy's infamous phone call to the then-president, begging him to call off the rioters who were storming the building, could actually become part of the probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Well, he's acknowledged that he had a call. There had been other Republicans who said he had a call. And that would be part of the collection of evidence necessary to produce a report.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: McCarthy, so far, has refused to say if he's going to cooperate and help nominate some members to the committee.

[05:35:02]

Majority leader Steny Hoyer says McCarthy should cooperate with the Capitol riot committee just as Democrats did with the GOP-led Benghazi committee.

JARRETT: A great wall of steel. It's a warning call from Chinese President Xi Jinping, positioning China's rise as inevitable and vowing it would not be bullied by foreign countries that try to interfere in its affairs. This all happening at an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

CNN's David Culver is live in Shanghai for us where the CCP was founded in 1921. David, tell us more.

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Laura.

Yes, 100 years ago, about a few dozen folks gathered here. They started the party that has now grown some 95 million members. And we've got to look at just how much it has grown. And, of course, they love to demonstrate this through pomp and circumstance -- the performance that they put on today in Beijing.

It is now the world's second-largest economy. It is a fast, modernizing military that is unnerving rivals, such as the U.S. And it is, of course, continuing on this trajectory. And they say they will not back down.

In fact, we heard from the leader, President Xi Jinping -- perhaps the most powerful leader in decades here -- and he said China will not be contained. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

XI JINPING, PRESIDENT OF CHINA (through translator): At the same time, the Chinese people will never allow ourselves to be bullied, oppressed, or enslaved by any foreign powers. Anyone who dares to try will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel, forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CULVER: "Bloodied against a great wall of steel." Now, the words, in and of themselves, sound quite serious. But we should not in context and using the Chinese, it's a bit more subtle here. It's not as threatening if you will as the English translation comes across.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that this is a country that wants to demonstrate to the world that they will not be told what to do. And we have seen that over and over again, especially in recent years against the Trump administration and now continuing against the Biden administration.

One thing that is missing here Laura, and the official narrative -- and we see this time and time again -- are the missteps, the catastrophes, the failures, including the bloody crackdown against student protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square and the cultural revolution. Those things are never made mention of, especially when it's this something this public and this major of an event.

I was in Beijing just 24 hours ago and I can tell you that was a city that was preparing for this. They're going to continue the celebrations here in Shanghai with a party, as we noted, originated 100 years ago. And it's expected that they will want this to be the world looking at China on its rise and will even encompass in this 100 years an Olympics -- the Winter Olympics in 2022. That's next year.

So a lot of eyes on China and they know it, Laura.

JARRETT: Yes, a lot of eyes. And worth pointing out here that billionaire Elon Musk picked today of all days to praise China's economic prosperity --

CULVER: Right.

JARRETT: -- and encourage people to visit -- apparently, just ignoring COVID. He also cozied up to Russia recently, so that's something to watch.

David Culver, thanks so much.

WILD: The coronavirus Delta variant, which was first detected in India and then spread through the U.K., has now been detected in all 50 states here in the U.S., as well as in Washington, D.C.

The CDC director says coronavirus hospitalizations are increasing among young people since May. People 12 to 19 years old have accounted for about a third of the hospitalizations.

Concern for kids is one of the reasons the surgeon general said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: It's very reasonable for parents who are living with kids who are unvaccinated or for that matter, other family members who are unvaccinated to consider wearing a mask if they are in a high-risk area or if their job requires a high degree of exposure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: A top FDA official says data on kids under 12 years old is something they look forward to seeing -- hopefully, this fall or winter.

JARRETT: More than a dozen people were injured in South Los Angeles when 5,000 pounds of illegal fireworks exploded inside a bomb squad disposal truck. Look at that. Police had just seized the fireworks from a residence.

Now, it's not clear whether the fireworks exploded without warning or whether the officers were trying unsuccessfully to detonate them. Several cars and windows in the area were damaged.

WILD: I can't believe someone had video of it happening in real time -- wow.

JARRETT: Yes.

WILD: Sorry, that was amazing -- it was unbelievable video.

Finally, a little clarity and actual results from the New York City mayoral primary. The race is tightening at the top between Eric Adams and Kathryn Garcia. It will come down to absentee ballots. It could still take a couple of weeks to decide.

So, Athena Jones explaining all of this for us today.

[05:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning, Laura and Whitney.

New York City's Board of Elections published an updated set of the rank-choice voting results of the Democratic mayoral primary on Wednesday, one day after retracting its previous release after it accidentally counted some 135,000 test ballots that had not been cleared from the computer system.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams narrowly led in the results released Wednesday. Former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley were the other top contenders, with Garcia advancing to the final round against Adams in these preliminary results.

While the vote numbers are different, the rankings and margins are similar to what the board reported Tuesday. Tuesday, July sixth, is the first day that some of the more than 125,000 absentee ballots returned will be included in the rank-choice voting tabulation process. Final results aren't expected until mid-July.

In the wake of the election board's snafu, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for reforms. Those reforms would have to be passed by the State Legislature but they would be aimed at professionalizing the board and making it directly accountable to New York City's elected officials.

The city's election board has a long history of missteps, like a purge of voter rolls in 2016 that affected more than 200,000 people, and mishandling absentee ballots during last year's primaries, sending preprinted ballots to people with the wrong names on them -- Laura, Whitney.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Athena Jones, thank you for that. Well, Robinhood has agreed to pay almost $70 million for misleading millions of customers. This controversial trading app is accused of greenlighting investors with little to no trading experience and failing to supervise its own technology properly. It's the largest- ever penalty leveled by the Wall Street's self-regulator, FINRA.

Robinhood had been under scrutiny since large-scale system outages hit the platform in March of 2020 and a family sued after their 20-year- old trader son died by suicide after racking up a negative balance of $720,000.

We'll be right back.

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[05:46:10]

WILD: As of today, a landmark human rights treaty is missing a key member. Turkey's withdrawal from its namesake Istanbul Convention is raising concerns that millions of women and girls could now face greater risk of violence.

CNN's Arwa Damon is live in Istanbul. Arwa, explain for us what the Istanbul Convention is and why Turkey's leaving.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's effectively meant to safeguard women and other victims of domestic violence. And it's essentially a pledge to try to tackle a number of these issues and ensure that the population -- and unfortunately, when it comes to domestic violence that generally does tend to mean women -- are safe. And that perpetrators are actually held accountable.

This is the first time Whitney that a member of the Council of Europe has withdrawn from an international human rights convention.

Why would Turkey do this when it was the first country to ratify it? Well, officially, the government says that its own laws are strong enough to actually protect women. And that is on the one hand, true to a certain degree. The Turkish legislation does really ensure that women's rights are fully protected, but you have this overarching issue of implementation. That legislation is quite simply not being implemented.

This, by and large, came about because of a certain amount of political pressure from some of the conservative groups here on President Erdogan, who were arguing -- misguidedly perhaps, some would say -- that the convention also validated same-sex domestic partnerships and that, in effect, damaged fundamental Turkish family values.

But as you can imagine, women's rights groups here are enraged as are many women who you talk to in the streets. Because this country's femicide rates -- that is the rate of a woman being murdered by someone who she knows, whether it's a family member, a boyfriend, a husband, a lover -- they are, on average, one a day. And now that Turkey's officially withdrawn from this convention, many

women feel as if one of the blankets of protection that they should have has just been ripped away from them. And everyone who you talk to says that they fear that femicide rates are just going to go up.

WILD: Arwa Damon live in Istanbul. Thank you.

JARRETT: The parents of at least 368 migrant children separated at the border by the Trump administration have still not been found. That is according to new court filings by the Justice Department.

According to government data, 2,800 children were separated from their parents under Trump's so-called zero-tolerance policy. Officials later found more than 1,000 children had been separated from families before Trump's policy even went into effect back in 2018.

The U.S. Supreme Court will issue its last two opinions of the term today. Chief among them, what could be the most significant voting rights case in a decade.

CNN's Jessica Schneider has more on this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Laura and Whitney, a big last day for the Supreme Court. We're expecting the release of its two final opinions -- one on whether charities have to disclose their donor information to the state of California; the other, a highly-anticipated case concerning voting rights.

The court will weigh in on two specific provisions out of Arizona -- one that requires election officials to discard ballots that are cast at the wrong precinct; the other making it a crime for third parties to collect ballots and then deliver them to polling places -- something critics call ballot harvesting.

Now, a lower court has already struck down these provisions, saying that they unfairly impact minorities.

[05:50:00]

But the broader issue here will be how the Supreme Court construes section two of the Voting Rights Acts. It's a provision that has not been widely used but it bars any procedure that results in minorities being denied the right to vote. The question here is what in this case, and in future cases, will challengers have to prove to be successful in mounting these section two claims?

Progressives are concerned that this majority conservative court will weaken the ways that minorities can challenge these voting laws that are being increasingly enacted around the country by Republican-led states.

And there's also the question of how will this decision impact the lawsuit just filed by the Justice Department against Georgia for its recent changes to voting laws that the attorney general says discriminates against Blacks.

So we will see when the court unveils its final two opinions of the term this morning.

Back to you guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WILD: Jessica Schneider, thank you.

A brutal heat wave, the worst on record in the Pacific Northwest, is blamed for hundreds of deaths in Oregon, Washington State, and western Canada. In the last week, nearly 100 -- nearly 1,700 emergency room visits were due to heat -- excuse me, heat-related illnesses in Washington State. And, Oregon's biggest county has seen a record number of 911 calls for medical emergencies.

In British Columbia, almost 500 sudden deaths reported since last Friday. That's triple the normal number for this time of year.

The entire village of Lytton, British Columbia is under an evacuation order because of a fast-spreading wildfire. The fire started after the village sets Canada's highest recorded temperature ever -- 121 degrees. All 249 Lytton residents are being advised to leave the community and go to a safe location. The mayor calls the situation dire and says the whole town is on fire.

JARRETT: That's really scary.

All right. A Florida law that would allow the state to fine social media companies for banning political candidates is now on hold. It was scheduled to go into effect today but a federal judge issued an injunction Wednesday saying it likely violated the free speech rights of tech companies.

The legislation was inspired by former President Trump's social media ban following the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

After missing the playoffs for the last 10 years, the Phoenix Suns are now in the NBA Finals.

Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. All right, a good morning for Suns fans, huh?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Laura.

A great day to be a Phoenix Suns fan. For just the third time ever and first time since 1993, the team is heading to the NBA Finals, and it's thanks to an epic performance from Chris Paul. CP3 just putting the team on its back in the second half scoring 31 points. It's the most points he's scored in any half of his 16-year NBA career.

Paul frustrating Patrick Beverley to the point where he shoved him to the ground near the end of the game. Beverley was ejected for that.

Paul, though, finishing with 41 points as they beat the Clippers 130 to 103. Paul now heading to the NBA Finals for the first time in his career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS PAUL, PHOENIX SUNS GUARD: And I was just happy and proud of our team. You know what I mean? My -- you know, not winning coach of the year, but we know who he is.

Hell, man, I experienced COVID. You know what I mean? Just a week ago I was here at home and couldn't be there with my teammates. And that's what you call next man up. You know, they won two games in the series without me.

There's been a lot, man, and I just -- I wanted this not just for myself but for everybody in that locker room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. The Tampa Bay Lightning, meanwhile, are now two games away from repeating as Stanley Cup champions. The Bolts beating the Montreal Canadiens three to one last night in game two.

The play of the night coming from Tampa Bay's Blake Coleman, scoring a one-armed diving buzzer-beater in the second period.

Game three of the series is tomorrow night in Montreal. A Canadian team has not won the cup since the Canadiens did it back in 1993.

All right, Mississippi State making history at the College World Series beating Vanderbilt in last night's winner-take-all game three. Will Bednar was a hero, coming up big again, pitching six no-hit innings. He was the College World Series' most outstanding player.

The Bulldogs claiming the first national championship in any team sport in school history with a nine-nothing win.

And check out the party back home in Starkville, Mississippi. Fun times there celebrating that title.

And that title, good timing for those Mississippi State players because starting today, college athletes across the country can profit off their name, image, and likeness. The NCAA approving interim guidelines yesterday that allows players to profit off their name, image, and likeness. Many states already had passed laws that were set to go into effect today allowing players to get paid.

NCAA president Mark Emmert saying the organization is still committed to working with Congress to pass more permanent federal legislation.

All right. Finally, a teen soccer phenom is going pro after a landmark legal decision. Fifteen-year-old Olivia Moultrie signing a three-year contract with the Portland Thorns of the National Women's Soccer League yesterday.

[05:55:02]

A U.S. district court ruled last month that the league's age restriction barring girls under the age of 18 violated antitrust laws.

And, you know, guys, they don't have a CBA in the NWSL where it's collectively bargained -- the age restriction, so that's why this was overturned. If that comes around they might not -- she might not be able to play very long. But for now, 15 years old playing pro soccer.

JARRETT: Good for her. I was not doing that at 15, so --

SCHOLES: No.

JARRETT: -- that is very impressive.

SCHOLES: Yes.

JARRETT: All right. Andy, thanks so much -- appreciate it.

SCHOLES: All right.

WILD: All right. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Whitney Wild.

JARRETT: So great to have you this week. This was fun.

WILD: Thank you for having me. You were a wonderful host.

JARRETT: Well, you were nice to wake up.

Christine is back tomorrow. I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

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