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Inside Politics

Trump Seeks Sentencing Delay In NY Hush Money Case; Trump's 2016 Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski Joins 2024 Team; Columbia Univ. President Resigns After Israel-Hamas War Protests; 40 Countries, Intl. Bodies Endorse Guidelines To Right Antisemitism; RFK Jr. Denies Reaching Out To Harris Campaign About An Endorsement In Exchange For An Administration Role. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 15, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:06]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Just in, Donald Trump is asking the judge in his hush money case to delay his sentencing until after the election. Right now, it's scheduled for September 18th. CNN's Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid joins us now. Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Dana, this is another attempt by the Trump team to try to delay Trump's sentencing up in New York. Now, in this letter sent to the judge today, obtained by CNN, they're making two key arguments. The first is they are arguing that this sentencing could have an impact on the 2024 presidential race. They're also arguing that they're still appealing how that historic Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity could apply to this conviction.

Now, when it comes to that first argument about the election, they're trying to frame this, this case, this sentencing, as they have with all four of his criminal cases, as election interference. In this letter, they point to statements that the Democratic ticket has made about this case, and the fact that this sentencing, right in the middle of September, will take place around the same time that early voting starts in some states.

They say, quote, "Setting side naked election-interference objectives, there was no valid countervailing reason for the court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar. There is no basis for continuing to rush."

Now, Dana, there are legitimate, untested questions about just how close to a presidential election you can do things in a criminal case are related to a presidential candidate. And I said those are untested because, look, we've just never been here before.

But his team is also continuing to appeal this question of how the Supreme Court's ruling could impact this conviction. They argue that the Supreme Court ruling means that certain pieces of evidence that were introduced during this trial need to be thrown out. Anything that could be an official act. Like, for example, they argue, his conversations with Hope Hicks, or things that he tweeted. Now, Dana, most legal experts do not believe they're going to be successful on that argument. But here, Todd Blanche, he says, "The judge in this case is going to decide if the Supreme Court case applies to this case on the 16th and then sentence Trump on the 18th."

They believe that is not enough time to adequately exercise the former president's rights to appeal. So, we'll see what the judge does here, Dana. A lot of really interesting legal questions being raised in this letter.

BASH: OK. Thank you so much, Paula. I appreciate that reporting.

And Donald Trump scheduled another news conference for later today at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. It comes a day after he gave a campaign speech in North Carolina that was supposed to be focused on the issue Americans say they care most about, the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what's happened with inflation and all of the other things. So we're doing this as a intellectual speech. You're all intellectuals today.

What happened to her laugh? I haven't heard that laugh in about a week. That's why they keep her off the stage.

When Kamala lays out her fake economic plan this week, probably will be a copy of my plan because basically that's what she does. She is not a brilliant person. She is not a smart person. She is not very smart.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More planning (ph).

TRUMP: But it is crazy, isn't it though? Isn't it crazy? She was so disrespected just a few weeks ago, and now it's like, Kamala, Kamala.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And that was his policy event focused on the economy. It does seem each time Trump takes the stage, he hurls more insults at the Vice President, all while Republican allies have been pleading with the former president to stay on message.

Our panel is back and we do have this new reporting Kristen Holmes and I that Corey Lewandowski who was Donald Trump's very first campaign manager starting in 2015 first time he entered politics formally was fired pretty early on in that cycle. But was really always in the Trump orbit for the past eight years.

He is going to be added to the Trump official campaign. We don't yet know what his role will be. He is going to be accompanied by other former trump aides who are kind of coming back. They're getting a bit of the band back together. What does that tell you, Jonah Goldberg? [12:35:12]

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, one of two things, either this is precursor to a larger campaign kind of shakeup or a veteran campaign person told me recently, I asked him about this, and they said it's also possible this is orchestrated by LaCivita and Wiles where when the campaign's going bad and the candidate is down in the dumps, you got to bring someone that they can talk to.

Basically, Corey Lewandowski might be like a service animal, like a comfort animal, to like, for Trump to like, vent to, who can travel with him, so that they can -- the campaign staff can actually run the thing. I don't -- either way, I don't think it bodes well for the campaign.

BASH: Well, it -- on that note, it was noteworthy to me that Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita are the ones to put out the statement on the record that he is joining. Perhaps that's also a self-preservation thing to say like he's not replacing us. He's, you know, we're the one -- well, we're the ones welcoming him in.

Maybe it is that, I mean, that they want to have somebody who --

GOLDBERG: I mean either way --

BASH: -- he's -- who Trump is comfortable with. I remember John McCain in 2008, they kept Joe Lieberman on the campaign with him. Like, what is, what makes McCain happy? Joe Lieberman and Cookies. So they made sure he had Joe Lieberman and Cookies.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" NEWSLETTER: So it's interesting. I was talking to a Republican the other day about this and they made a really interesting point that Donald Trump has not really had to run a campaign so far. It was, you know, he kept being bolstered in the polls by people sympathetic to his indictments, this assassination attempt that he was running against Joe Biden, which people were unsure if they could -- he could run another -- serve another four years.

And so, it wasn't a campaign. And now that he is against a campaign that is motivated, that has momentum, that has energetic, Donald Trump does not have the foundation at this point in his campaign to carry on with that. He doesn't really have a ground game in these battleground states. He hasn't really had a consistent message other than making fun of Joe Biden.

And so, I don't know if -- I mean, it's up to them if --

BASH (?): Yes.

CALDWELL: -- Corey Lewandowski is the person to do that, but --

BASH: Right. Well, the ground game is one thing. That's a whole -- that's a -- an issue that the Republicans I talk to, I'm sure you do as well, say that they have to deal with. But on everything else, especially messaging, which is what we started this segment with, that's not a campaign issue. That's not a Susie Wiles or a Chris LaCivita issue, that's a Donald Trump issue.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And we've heard this every time he's run. And yes, he won in 2016, but he lost in 2020. And, you know, every time there's been talk of Donald Trump is a changed person, he's going to be focused more on policy. He's changed because of the assassination attempt.

It doesn't happen. It doesn't materialize. He's not able to stay focused. And I think, to Leigh Ann's point, it's a lot worse for him right now because of the fact that he isn't sure how to run against Kamala Harris. He is so focused on still his talking points that he had, what was effective against Joe Biden and pivoting now to her when he sees that a lot of the Democratic base is getting motivated by Harris at the top of the ticket.

That one of his biggest arguments about Joe Biden being older than him and not being necessarily -- not necessarily running the country has totally been taken away from him and he's just -- has not been able to figure out how to effectively campaign against her.

BASH: The former president did talk some policy yesterday, it wasn't all insults. And one of the things that he talked about was Obamacare. Such a different world than it was back when he first started running for president eight years ago. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm going to keep the Affordable Care Act unless we can do something much better. We'll keep it. It stinks. It's not good. If we can do something better, we're going to do something with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLDBERG: Yes. Look, I mean, this is one of the problems that the Trump campaign is going to have, is that there are two different arguments you can make about Kamala Harris that have, I think, a lot of merit to them. But they're in conflict.

One is, is that she is a deeply ideological, committed left winger, right, a radical. And the other one is, that she's a flip flopper. Flip flop -- committed radicals don't flip flop, right? Because that -- flip flopping suggests that you're willing to do what it takes to get elected, you're willing to run to the middle.

The Trump campaign cannot go after her on the flip flopping because there is not an issue left that Trump has not said the exact -- taken the exact opposite position on. From transgender, to healthcare, to almost every conceivable thing. And this is part of the reason why he's got to go back to the insult stuff.

[12:40:01]

BASH: Yes. Well, you're making an argument that consistency is something that the campaign is really focused on which -- GOLDBERG: Yes, that's right.

BASH: -- which they're not. We're going to say thank you. Before we go, happy birthday Leigh Ann.

GOLDBERG: Happy birthday.

BASH: Thank you for spending some of your birthday with us.

CALDWELL: Thank you.

BASH: Hope it's a great day.

Up next, very different topic. We are going to talk about antisemitism, which has dramatically spiked since Hamas's deadly attack on October 7th. Now, 39 countries and international bodies are coming together to fight it. We'll explain after a break.

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[12:45:06]

BASH: Months after campus protests against Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza embroiled Columbia University and colleges across America, the president of Columbia University resigned. Antisemitism, or Jew hate, has dramatically increased in the U.S. since Hamas's deadly attack on October 7th.

Just three weeks after October 7th, FBI Director Christopher Wray said antisemitism was reaching, quote, "historic levels." Now, 40 countries, states, and international bodies have endorsed new guidelines to fight antisemitism.

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism is here with me live. Thank you so much for being here.

AMB. DEBORAH LIPSTADT, SPECIAL ENVOY TO MONITOR AND COMBAT ANTISEMITISM: Thank you. Thank you, Dana.

BASH: This is a pretty big accomplishment --

LIPSTADT: It's a milestone.

BASH: -- that you've gotten. Yes.

LIPSTADT: It's a milestone. It's a landmark event.

BASH: And there are very specific, very simple guidelines --

LIPSTADT: Right.

BASH: -- set out in here. Can you just describe some of them and what you think is the most important and why they are?

LIPSTADT: I think the first one, which I insisted would be the first one. It was generated by my office, but then we worked in cooperation with all these other countries, the European Union, the Organization of American States, and other countries. The first one is leaders should speak out wherever and whenever they see an antisemitic.

BASH: Why is that so important?

LIPSTADT: Because too often you get them sort of, this is not a very, a froufrouing (ph) around, I'll call it, you know, sort of well, maybe, yes, consider the circumstances, it's not so bad, did it really -- firstly, of course, they have to know it really happened, but there's a hesitancy, that sadly we don't see in some other areas of discrimination. So that's one.

Number two, don't politicize antisemitism. When I was before the Senate, my confirmation hearings, I said, you know, I don't care if it's coming from the right or from the left, from in between, I don't care where it's coming from. If it's antisemitism, I'm going to fight it.

There are people on the left who see it on the right and accurately so, and fight it. And people on the right who see it on the left, but they don't see it next to them. I don't care where it's coming from. I'm against it.

BASH: And education is key. It's dropped off in recent years.

LIPSTADT: Yes.

BASH: Why is it so key?

LIPSTADT: It's key because you've got to understand what the hatred is. You've got to understand when is the antisemitism and when is the criticism, for instance, of Israeli policies. There's a difference. And you've got to understand sometimes it's subtle. Sometimes you think it's just the stereotype, you know?

I hear things not just on international level but, you know, kids having pennies thrown in front of them, which of course, the Jews are cheap, Jews -- and you've got to understand it. And sometimes it hides behind norms.

BASH: Yesterday, the president of Columbia University resigned, and that was months after protests engulfed that campus. That kind of thing happened all over America, all over the world.

LIPSTADT: Right.

BASH: I know that your --

LIPSTADT: My focus is --

BASH: -- your focus is global.

LIPSTADT: Right.

BASH: Is global. But students are going to be returning to school, some already have, around the world. Why is it -- what do school administrators need to do differently right now than they did not do in the spring?

LIPSTADT: I think they, you know, they can almost follow the global guidelines, because though they're written for countries, they're -- many of them are applicable to educational institutions, sports organizations, call them anything. But speak out when you see it. Don't get involved in the politics of right or left.

Understand what it is. Hold people accountable. That has been very disturbing overseas in the United States that the people who are doing this seem to be getting away with it.

BASH: On that note, I just want to read you quickly part of a ruling from a federal judge. This happened this week about the protests we saw in the spring at UCLA. "In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the state of California, in the city of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.

UCLA claims that it had no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion."

LIPSTADT: I find that situation, I mean, and it happens on other campuses as well. And as you say, my focus is overseas. But that's pure antisemitism. That's pure antisemitism. Denounce, you know, your Jewish identity, and we'll let you in.

It doesn't say where do you stand, and they shouldn't even be asked where they stand on the Middle East crisis. But when Jewish students are denied entry into parts of campuses, when synagogues are firebombed, when the statue of Anne Frank is desecrated with Free Gaza, when people chant, globalize the Intifada, that has nothing to do with the Middle East crisis, that has nothing to do with being pro- Gaza, or some people even pro-Hamas, though I find that hard to understand, that is antisemitism, pure and simple.

[12:50:23]

And these global guidelines, they're fewer than 700 words. They're simple. They're straightforward. How do you start to address this situation?

BASH: Well, they are so important. I have them here. I hope everybody can find them --

LIPSTADT: They can find them on the State Department. Just put in global --

BASH: Yes.

LIPSTADT: -- guidelines to counter antisemitism and you'll find them.

BASH: Ambassador Lipstadt, thank you so much for being here. LIPSTADT: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Really appreciate it.

And up next, RFK Jr. reacts to reports that he's angling for a spot in the Harris administration.

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[12:55:15]

BASH: It's time for today's spoiler alert. Robert Kennedy Jr., the biggest potential spoiler of the third party candidates, is adamantly denying he's considering dropping out of the race. Earlier, CNN and other outlets reported that Kennedy's team asked to meet with Harris campaign about a possible role in her administration if he quits the race and endorses her. A Kennedy campaign official confirm the news.

But a short time ago in a lengthy post on X, attacking Harris and the Democratic Party, Kennedy said, "I have no plans to endorse Kamala Harris for president. I do have a plan to defeat her."

Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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