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Special Counsel Zeroes In On Chaotic Over Office Meeting; Special Counsel Has Spent $5M+ Investigating Trump; Special Counsel's Focus Turns To "Nuts" Oval Office Mtg; Special Counsel Drills Down On Period Post-2020 Election; Jobs Report Hints Labor Market Cooling Off; Jobs Numbers: Women In Labor Force Hits Record High; Biden: "Bidenomics" Is Working; Freedom Caucus Voted To Oust Marjorie Taylor Greene. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 07, 2023 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, new and exclusive CNN reporting reveals the special counsel is asking questions about an Oval Office free for all and the trio who pushed Donald Trump to erase the 2020 election.

Plus, a jobs miss. Hiring is still solid, but new employment numbers fall short. And the government edits down blockbuster reports from April and May. Does it all point to another rate hike from the Fed that could crunch your credit? And the Freedom Caucus purges Marjorie Taylor Greene from its ranks over questions about where her loyalties lie to the hard right or to the House speaker.

I'm Abby Phillip in for Dana Bash. Let's go inside the headlines at Inside Politics.

Up first, the screaming match at the center of the special counsel's investigation, exclusive CNN reporting gives new insights into Jack Smith's months long focus on that December 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting. The people inside that room and the desperate and legal ideas that then pushed Donald Trump.

And CNN Katelyn Polantz is part of the team that broke that new reporting. So, Katelyn, what does this new reporting tell us about where Jack Smith is in this process?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Abby, this reporting from a team of us led by Kaitlan Collins and others on our justice team is that there were many, many witnesses that have been asked about this December 18 meeting at the White House. Where things really escalated after the election with Donald Trump in the room for much of it hearing different ideas about how he could try to hold on to the presidency and lean into these accusations of fraud in the election.

So, Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel. He's testified about this. He says, it was not a normal meeting. That's what he said to House investigators. And this meeting really was one where there were several outsiders coming into the White House. And essentially saying, that they wanted Trump to use the powers of his presidency in really extreme ways.

People like Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Patrick Byrne, three outsiders coming to the White House to meet with Trump, suggesting to him that he could cease voting machines, use the U.S. military if he wanted, and also to potentially appoint Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate the course of the election and the possibility that float.

Votes had been changed against Trump, which actually did not happen. Rudy Giuliani was also there at this meeting. He was not siding with these three people. But I was having his own ideas at that time about using the courts still to challenge the election. They had lost many court cases by that point. And using a scheme of electors to potentially or state legislators to potentially keep Trump in power.

There were others that were supporting Giuliani in that. And then the folks in the White House, like Cipollone, they were pushing back, and it did devolve into screaming to the point where the special counsel's office now they have retraced this, and they still are interested in it even have talked to Giuliani about it.

PHILLIP: So, what does this all tell us, Katelyn, about the prospects of a charging decision from the special counsel in the near future?

POLANTZ: Yes. Well, we don't know exactly where things stand. But we can see in recent weeks and with this reporting, Abby, that the special counsel's office and the prosecutors there, they are drilling down into certain aspects around what happened after the election, particularly in the White House and around the top people who were working for Trump.

So, we saw grand jury activity around the fake electoral scheme in recent weeks. And there was a lot of emphasis on that by the prosecutors. And then we hear that there is a lot of focus on this. We also understand they're looking at a time period after the fake electors were certifying or trying to certify, and that that time period is of particular interest to the special counsel's office December into January. Abby?

PHILLIP: Yes. All right. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much for all of that reporting. And joining me now around the table is CNN's Sara Murray, CNN's Paula Reid, and former federal prosecutor Shan Wu. So, Paula, as we come to the table here, we're getting some new information about what all of this is costing the special counsel. What have we learned?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not cheap. So far, the special counsel's investigation into Trump says, both January 6 and the investigation of the possible mishandling of classified documents has cost around $5 million. And what does this go to? Well, a variety of things, right?

[12:05:00] It costs money to go to various locations. So, this is travel. This is salaries and the buildings that they're in. And so far, the total is about $5 million. We just got these numbers here. They also released them for special counsel rob her, who a lot of people forget about who's investigating President Biden, where it's possible mishandling of classified documents. His total spending is about around $600,000. And then they also released them for special counsel Durham as well. He's recently wrapped up his throat.

PHILLIP: And for Durham, it would be about $1 million. So, I mean, putting this into perspective, this is a sprawling investigation. And actually, kind of, this is part of what we are talking about today is the scope of this is so extraordinary, in some ways, $5 million might make sense.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, when you think about it, you're talking about, again, a January 6 investigation where there are a lot of different players involved, right? Where you're talking about, you know, people who are out in various states, election officials in various states, state legislatures, potentially, as well as the sort of people who were Donald Trump's inner circle at the time.

When you're looking at Mar-a-Lago, you're talking about staff, Trump advisors, but you're also talking about a totally different jurisdiction, right? You want to know what was happening in New Jersey. You want to know what's happening in Florida.

So, I think there are also like a lot of different locations that they're trying to cut down on this. And again, this is still much cheaper, at least at this point, than what we saw from Robert Mueller sprawling Russia investigation, which tallied out to about $32 million.

PHILLIP: Yes.

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I would add, anytime you have a multi-jurisdictional investigation like this, it's really expensive because you have to send people these different places. They've got two grand juries going and those numbers may not even reflect folks who aren't being captured in those stats, like there are career people, there are Department of Justice people who are already working on it as well. So, it's a little bit hard to infer too much from it. But it certainly seems like a reasonable amount of it.

REID: It does seem like a reasonable amount. And with Mueller, they were able to get back a large chunk of money through the prosecution of Paul Manafort, because a lot of that was tax evasion. So, they were able to reclaim tens of millions of dollars for the federal government. I don't see a way here, though, that they're going to reclaim any of this money (Ph).

PHILLIP: A different kind of investigation. I mean, one of the things that as we are getting to this stage of the process, they are circling in. As Katelyn was saying, on some key dates, and some key moments, moments that a folks at home might actually remember from the January 6 committee. These are, especially this December 18, meeting there that you see, this off the rails meeting.

And I want to play for you some of the testimony from the January 6 hearing in which those witnesses described what went down on that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I walked in, I saw General Flynn. I saw Sidney Powell sitting there. I was not happy to see the people in the Oval Office. The Overstock person, I've never met, I never knew who this guy was. Actually, the first thing I did, I walked in, I looked at him and I said, who were you, and we're asking one simple question. As a general matter, where is the evidence?

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY: It got to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there. What they were proposing, I thought was nuts.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I'm going to categorically describe it as, you guys are not tough enough. Or maybe I put it another way, you're a bunch of p -- -ies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I mean, it was a long time ago.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: But it really brings back those fresh memories. I mean, this was a wild meeting. If Rudy Giuliani is describing it in that way and it was a wild meeting. And this is -- tells me why from a legal perspective, Jack Smith is very interested in this moment?

REID: Look, this is considered to be the most chaotic meeting of the Trump administration. We all cover the Trump White House. That's an extremely high bar. Rudy Giuliani is called it in the middle of his meeting, Trump reaches out to him because there's all these people screaming. I mean, he brings in Rudy Giuliani as the voice of reason.

He's the referee that the former president calls in to try to, you know, get the two sides to calm down and speak to one another, something this chaotic. It's very difficult to find criminal liability in a moment that is just this nutty, right?

But it's important, and it's a common theme that's keeps coming up in our reporting and clearly an investigation because it shows this pattern, right. Once it's clear, even the Attorney General Bill Barr told him before this meeting, look, there is no fraud. You should concede to see what was happening.

After that, it's all about establishing a pattern and also potentially figuring out where people were lying either to the former president. When the former president could have been lying to his donors and other people or when people could have potentially been lying to investigators. But it's really, I mean, an astonishing scene.

PHILLIP: So, the Overstock person who was referred to in that audio, that's Patrick Byrne, the Overstock CEO. He replied on Twitter today saying. Hi Jack Smith. I take all responsibility. Best of all with my eidetic memory, I can tell you amazing detail about it "parrot-like" some say. Call collect. I'm here to help. Some of these characters, I mean actually this is a real a question for Jack Smith. There are a lot of characters involved here.

[12:10:00]

How many of them need to be witnesses? How many of them are potential subjects of this investigation? Where do you think this is heading?

WU: Well, I think they all started off as witnesses, a number of them might be subjects. But you know, all that sort of a wacky character stuff tends to become a lot more sobering and focus for the investigation once they're under oath in the grand jury with very targeted questions.

And as chaotic and a circus like that meeting was, it's very rich in terms of what you can mine for individual, like even when you see the January 6 testimony. As you get the individual people's recollections what they were thinking, that's the building blocks of the investigation.

MURRAY: Yes. And perhaps, there's a reason that the special counsel wanted grand jury testimony from someone like Pat Cipollone, over someone like Patrick Byrne. When you're thinking about these incidents, but this was a key meeting in terms of the more rational people on the White House shooting down some of the craziest ideas that some of the president's allies had about seizing voting machines, about naming Sidney Powell, a special counsel.

And it sort of lays out how there were deep concerns and there were reality checks for the president in that moment. But then he went on to, you know, fire off tweets about January 6, to call Brad Raffensperger and pressure him to overturn the results in Georgia that Trump continued to take a number of actions to try to sort of push this plot forward, even after this meeting.

PHILLIP: So, Paula -- -

REID: You saw Rudy Giuliani right there, to your points about who goes in front of the grand jury. So far, Rudy Giuliani's lawyer who was sitting right behind him, Rob Costello in that video has kept him away from the grand jury. He did voluntary interviews, sitting down investigators. And I think it just that brief clip you played, we can see why that was probably a really good idea.

PHILLIP: So, tell me Paula, before we go here, what don't we know? We talk a lot about Donald Trump and the legal jeopardy that he may face. But who else? And what else? Could we be unaware of that could be happening here?

REID: So, what I think a lot of people want to know is when older recharges and when former President Trump be charged. We know from our reporting team that we cannot say for certain whether the former president will be charged. If he could be an unindicted coconspirator. It's just not clear.

One thing we do know from our team's reporting now, there are still witnesses that the special counsel has reached out too, and they want to talk too. And at least one of those witnesses is pretty key in terms of making a charging decision for some other lead players here. So, at this point, I think the big thing is, we just don't know when they're going to charge, and we do not know if the former president will be charged.

PHILLIP: That's a really important point.

WU: And also, you know, sprawling investigation like this, which is absolutely necessary does not necessarily lead to us polling right.

REID: Yes.

PHILLIP: OK. Another important point. So, some witnesses that haven't gone before the grand jury, as far as we know. Paula, Shan and Sara, thank you all so much. And coming up next. What the job numbers tell us about the strength of the economy. We'll break down the good and the matte just ahead.

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[12:15:00]

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PHILLIP: Is the red-hot economy finally cooling off? And is that a good thing? The new jobs numbers out this morning are giving us some new clues. CNN's Matt Egan is here to tell us what the numbers say and what they mean. So Matt, first of all, give us what the good news here.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, I think the good news is that this historic jobs' boom continues. Yes, job growth is cooling, but that's actually exactly what's needed. So, the economy doesn't overheat. Gangbuster jobs growth, that's just not sustainable because eventually you run out of workers.

So, the latest numbers show that 209,000 jobs were added in June. Now that is almost 100,000 fewer than in May. But that's still a very solid number. The unemployment rate ticking lower from 3.7 percent to 3.6 percent. That is historically very low and miles away from that almost 15 percent peak back in 2020.

So, one of the big mysteries is how is this happening despite the Feds warn inflation? How is this jobs market continuing to chug along?

And one of the answers here is that supply of workers has really improved in large part because of women. We know that women were forced out of the jobs market during COVID. But look at that, the participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 is that almost 78 percent. That is a record high, Abby, for the third month in a row. That is very good news for women and really for the whole economy.

PHILLIP: So, what is now the not so good news, maybe it's bad news. maybe it's matte news in this report.

EGAN: Well, we should note that job growth was lowered in both April and May significantly, so we need to keep an eye on revisions here. Also, we are seeing some parts of the economy shows some weakness. When you look at the sector breakdown. You can see that retail, wholesale, transportation all of them lost thousands of jobs last month alone, leisure and hospitality job growth slowed there. We are still seeing aggressive hiring from at least two areas healthcare and government.

But it does feel like some of the strength has sort of narrowed, so we also have to keep an eye on that. But I do think big picture. When you look at all of these numbers, it shows that the jobs market is really in a healthy place.

University of Michigan Professor Justin Wolfers, he told me that. "This is what the early stages of a soft landing looks like." And that is really incredible, Abby, because many economists predicted that we would be in a recession right about now. The jobs market is saying we are nowhere near recession.

PHILLIP: Yes. That is a conversation we've been having for so long. And you know, speaking to White House economists over the last couple of days. They've been saying, we don't see any signs of a recession. And if that's true, that would be really quite extraordinary. Matt Egan, thanks very much for all of that.

[12:20:00]

Speaking of the White House, let's go over there right now where CNN's Jeremy Diamond is. So, Jeremy, what has the West Wing said today about these new jobs' numbers?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby, you been hearing the term Bidenomics now for a couple of weeks. And today in a statement, President Biden says, this jobs number -- these jobs numbers are Bidenomics in action. The president in a statement today touting this slowed, but still strong jobs report as evidence that the economy is headed in the right direction.

As you mentioned, the president's economic advisors are increasingly confident in this idea that the U.S. economy is heading for that elusive soft landing. The president noting the fact that unemployment has now been below 4 percent for the last 17 months. And he says this in his statement. Inflation has come down by more than half. We are seeing stable and steady growth. That's Bidenomics, growing the economy by creating jobs, lowering costs for hardworking families, and making smart investments in America.

Now, the other part of Bidenomics is also focused, as you've seen from the president's few times over the last several months is going after junk fees. And today, President Biden is going after something else, something that the White House is calling junk insurance.

Now, these are these short-term insurance plans that often -- can discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. They don't offer the kind of comprehensive healthcare coverage that people are used to. And they sometimes aren't very upfront about that fact.

So, the Biden administration today announcing new regulations that the president is going to be announcing in remarks this afternoon, that will cut down on the amount of time that you can have some of these insurance plans. Under the Trump administration, they actually expanded it to allow people to have these for just under a year and renew those plans for as long as 36 months.

Now, they're bringing this down to three months duration with a possibility of a single one time one month extension. The president also expected to announce some new guidance on surprise medical billing stemming from a 2020 law. All of this aimed at issues that this White House believes the middle class actually cares about and they're hoping of course, for a political boost as well. Abby?

PHILLIP: Picking no way at those pocketbook issues one by one there. Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much. And coming up ahead for us. A be too far Marjorie Taylor Greene learns that there are some limits to what she can say. That story next.

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[12:25:00]

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PHILLIP: It's all fun and games until you get kicked out of the club and Marjorie Taylor Greene was booted now from the House Freedom Caucus according to one of the group's board members. It's still unclear if that process is complete, but the congressman Andy Harris told reporters that the historic vote to remove Greene took place before June 23.

And Georgia Republican -- the Georgia Republican has been an unwavering ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy this year pitting herself against many of her Freedom Caucus members during McCarthy's contested race for the gavel. But it was a crude confrontation on the House floor that you see there last month that led to her ouster. Harris says quote, the straw that broke the camel's back was Greene calling Congresswoman Lauren Boebert a quote, little b word.

Let's discuss this with CNN's Audie Cornish, CNN's Melanie Zanona, and POLITICO's Eli Stokols. This has been bubbling for quite some time. They've been fighting for a while, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, and accommodated in that moment that was seen by a lot of people, though not heard. And in the reporting, there were some denials and then some confirmations. But at the fact that this has led to her actually being kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus, that seems a little surprising.

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: It is a little surprising, right because the Freedom Caucus is this group that has been devoted to former President Donald Trump. Marjorie Taylor Greene is arguably one of his biggest cheerleaders on Capitol Hill. But in talking to my sources over the last two weeks, it really boils down to two things. One, Greene has become a ally of Kevin McCarthy. And they feel like that runs completely counter to the group's sounding mission, which is to be sort of this thorn in the side of leadership to get what they want. And number two, she has been publicly bashing her Freedom Caucus colleagues, which is a really big no, no, it's not just Boebert. She's criticized them for not supporting Kevin McCarthy for speaker, criticize them for not supporting the debt ceiling deal. And oftentimes, it becomes personal very quickly in Congress.

If you remember Madison Cawthorn. He was a member of Congress who's very controversial. He had all these controversies surrounding him. But what led people to turn on him was when he suggested that his colleagues were doing cocaine and having orgies was prompted a lot of angry calls or wives. But that just goes to show that, a lot of times does get personal insight Congress.

PHILLIP: Yes. So, here's what she is saying in response to all this. She says, I serve northwest Georgia first and serve no group in Washington. The GOP has less than two years to show America what a strong, unified Republican-led Congress will do when President Trump wins the White House in 2024. This is my focus and nothing else. Even that statement honestly reads like someone who went from the outside to the inside, and that has completely changed her standing in the House.

ELI STOKOLS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Yes. It doesn't sound like the Marjorie Taylor Greene, the message that got her elected in the first place and that made her a favorite of foreign President Trump. It's just, I would say it feels like high school, but that's probably insulting to high school people. I mean, this is just so petty.

And you know, yes, it's taking place in the context of a very divided and complicated House caucus. And the backdrop of this Republican presidential primary where you have the speaker who's under this pressure, it seems like.