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Inside Politics

Trump Calls His Felony Sentence "A Despicable Charade"; DOJ, Trump Battle Over Release Of Final Jack Smith Report; Blazes Ravage L.A. County, More Than 10,000 Structures Destroyed. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 10, 2025 - 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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[12:33:19]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: President-elect Donald Trump just responded to his felony sentence, which was basically of course to remind you, no sentence at all. He posted on Truth Social, in part, "The radical Democrats have lost another pathetic un-American witch hunt. Today's event was a despicable charade. And now that it is over, we will appeal this hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great system of justice".

Jeff is back with us, along with Laura Barron-Lopez of the PBS NewsHour, and CNN's Lauren Fox. Laura, you -- what do you take away from, not necessarily just Donald Trump's reaction, because that's pretty predictable, but the overall political consequences or the political reality that got us here?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, what's striking here is that, yes, Donald Trump is claiming that it's not -- that somehow this was Democrats lost, or that the case was lost. Well, it wasn't lost on merits. I mean, he is convicted. He was -- he's a convicted felon now entering the White House, and he's trying to spin it to say that somehow he's not guilty. That's not the case.

But I think that, you know, there was polling during the election that showed that people didn't necessarily want someone in the White House who they thought had committed a crime, or who they thought would go against the rule of law, or who they were worried about potentially pursuing authoritarian measures.

And despite all that, even though some voters expressed worry about it, they still ultimately voted for him. And I think that was because of the other realities, which was this frustration with the incumbent president, and the frustration with the economy. And that's how we got here.

[12:35:05]

BASH: Yes. And immigration, and other issues. I'm glad you brought up a poll because we have one example. This is an AP-NORC poll conducted April 4th through 8th. If Donald Trump -- excuse me, is Donald Trump fit to serve as president if convicted in this very case? Unfit 50 percent? Well, obviously, at least some of those people, maybe not obviously, probably at least some of those people voted for Donald Trump. So --

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I will just tell you from a political standpoint, there is a real sense from Republicans that they won the argument. Despite the fact that we got here for a myriad of reasons involving the legal system, and there were a bunch of decisions that were made along the way that got us to this point that we're independent of politics.

At the end of the day, Republicans feel like all of their sticking with Donald Trump has paid off in a major way. And today is sort of the culmination of that, right. Before we came on, you had a statement from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, basically saying that this shows that Donald Trump did nothing wrong.

That's not really what this shows --

BASH: It's not what it shows.

FOX: -- at all. But at the same time, on the political argument, Republicans feel like they are in the stronger position right now.

BASH: And you mentioned earlier, Jeff, that -- and we can't lose sight of this -- that a big part of why he won the Republican nomination is GOP backlash against these four lawsuits that were going on against him.

And the federal lawsuits, because of the Supreme Court, have gone away, but the investigation has not. And there was an appeals decision yesterday that said the Jack Smith report, which is sitting at justice, ready to go, could in fact be released.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, I mean, and that's a reminder that these actually are all four different, very different cases. But Donald Trump very successfully, politically speaking at least, kind of combined them all into one and made it look like from the very beginning that his opponents were out to get him. They were all very different cases.

You know, it's a moot point at this point, but for academic reasons, you can argue, what if the Jack Smith case had come sooner? What if the Georgia case had come sooner and Fani Willis not had the January 6 --

BASH: Jack Smith, January 6th, classified documents.

ZELENY: Exactly. And Fani Willis in Georgia had not had her issues, et cetera. But that is a moot point. It's academic at this point. So the reality is Republicans are casting this as a win, but he's still on history, on January 20th, when he raises his hand, he will be a convicted felon.

And that does matter to Donald Trump. He is aware of how he's viewed in history, but he won. And he's heading back to the White House. So I think we'll talk about this today. But after today, you know, it is just one of those many things in history as we look back on this extraordinary period in American life.

BASH: Yes, it certainly is. Thanks, everybody. Don't go anywhere because we have much more news. We're going to head back west ahead.

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[12:42:45]

BASH: Imagine returning to the remnants of your neighborhood, restaurants, stores, libraries, places of worship, all scorched to the ground. That's the horrifying reality for so many Los Angeles County residents, including Judi Sadowsky, who evacuated the Palisades fire.

And Judi joins me now by phone. Thank you so much for being here. We are showing your neighborhood, we're about to show your neighborhood at the beginning of the week. And now we're going to show what it looked like -- what it looks like now.

Your condo was one of the few structures that did not burn down. You're going to go back and see it today. I can't imagine how you're feeling as you prepare to go back there.

JUDI SADOWSKY, EVACUATED PALISADES FIRE: I'm terrified. My heart is broken for so, so many of our friends who have lost everything. And we've lost our beautiful community, the most idyllic place on the planet.

And I'm not sure my husband and I keep going back and forth on whether we can actually go back and live in a war zone. We don't know what to expect.

BASH: And so many of your friends and neighbors have completely lost their houses. Are you --

SADOWSKY: Everything.

BASH: You're in touch with them. You must have very --

SADOWSKY: Yes.

BASH: -- complicated feelings about your own situation.

SADOWSKY: Tremendous -- excuse me, the air is so bad. Tremendous guilt. You know, survivors killed. Very grateful that we have our stuff, our baby picture, you know, all the things that people want.

And really torn about whether we can ever consider living in a war zone, in a totally decimated, flattened community that once was so vibrant and warm. And you knew everybody in the street. You know the lady at the bank and you knew the person at the cafe. It was such a warm, loving neighborhood. Gone.

BASH: What do your neighbors need most right now?

[12:45:03] SADOWSKY: I think the most important thing right now is everyone's trying to find housing. It's a real problem because there's thousands of people looking for homes, places to live, so they can either rebuild or decide what they're going to do.

And even though my home is still standing, I can't live there now. So we also are looking for somewhere -- you know, we're relying on friends and family. Nobody knows what they're doing. It's like we're all wandering around in a haze.

Not to mention that you said that you were coughing because the air is so bad. I mean, that's something that those of us who are not there should remember, which is even when you're someplace that is safe from the fire, you can hear it in your cough. You're still breathing in --

SADOWSKY: Oh yes.

BASH: -- smoky air.

SADOWSKY: You can't get away from it for, I think they said, like 30 miles in every direction. The air is just so bad. And then, you know, all of the children who have been through COVID and were just recovering from that trauma --

BASH: Yes.

SADOWSKY: -- there isn't a school left standing, not a school, not a house of worship, not a gas station or a bank or a cafe or a grocery store, nothing. It's like Berlin after the war. I mean, it's terrifying.

And we've been evacuated three times from other places in Los Angeles. And that's why we moved to the center of Pacific Palisades, surrounded by concrete. We went -- we're safe here.

BASH: Well, good luck going back to see your home later this afternoon. And of course, we are thinking about and praying for you and your neighbors and your family.

SADOWSKY: Oh thank you so much for that thing.

BASH: Thank you, Judi.

And please tune in on Sunday night for "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper". Anderson will anchor a special hour on the deadly fires in Los Angeles and residents facing, as we just heard, unthinkable tragedies. Join Anderson for "The Whole Story", Sunday at 8:00, right here on CNN.

Up next, we are getting our first look at body camera footage from officers responding to the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans. That's straight ahead. Don't go anywhere.

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[12:51:51] BASH: Just in to CNN, New Orleans police have released the body cam footage from officers responding to the New Year's Day attack in that city. That terror attack left 14 people dead and dozens more injured.

I want to bring in CNN's Omar Jimenez. Omar, what does that video show?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this video picks up just after 3:00 a.m. This is when the terror attack actually happened. And it's a very specific portion of those early morning hours that the police released. It is after the truck has essentially come to a stop on Bourbon Street.

This is after he would have killed the at least 14 people that he hit with this truck, as we understand. And that is when this video picks up. I'm just going to play it for you and we'll talk about it on the other side.

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JIMENEZ: So that exchange of gunfire, you saw the officers essentially approaching the driver's side of the door. The airbags had already been deployed, so it seemed like the truck had already crashed. And it seemed like there may have been, before this video picked up, a brief moment of, I don't want to call it pause, but enough of a moment for officers to get close enough to that driver's side vehicle.

And then there's a specific frame of the video I want to show you that police also highlighted as well. You see that flash right there. It appears that the driver shot from behind the deployed airbags. And that's what began that exchange of gunfire.

Two officers were injured in this. And as we heard from police, police returned gunfire here after being fired at. So they acted well within policy here. But it just gives you a sense of how quickly this situation changed from an already dangerous situation to one that involved gunshots back and forth.

There were already extra officers in the area because of New Year's Eve, but also there was a big college football game going on that day as well. The Sugar Bowl between University of Georgia and Notre Dame.

So there was a big police and law enforcement response in the initial seconds, really, of this attack. But you see clearly the added danger that happened in just a split second, really, Dana.

BASH: Yes. Sure did. Thank you so much for bringing that to us, Omar.

And we want to go to breaking news in Atlanta, where passengers have just been forced to evacuate a Delta flight on a snowy runway after an aborted takeoff at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean joins me now. Pete, what happened?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, these passengers have a pretty harrowing story to tell. 201 passengers on board this Boeing 757 operated by Delta Airlines. Flight 2668 was on its way from snowy Atlanta, a pretty rare snowstorm there, on its way to Minneapolis, St. Paul, when the data from open source data compiler ADS-B Exchange shows that this flight started to begin to accelerate for takeoff on Atlanta's Runway 9 left there.

The data says the flight got to about 85 knots, 90 miles per hour, when the crew decided to apparently abort the takeoff, this flight coming to a stop about 5,000 feet down this runway.

[12:55:04]

And then the crew elected to have the passengers abort through the emergency slides on the runway there in busy Atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the world. The video is pretty incredible of the passengers going down the emergency slides there on the runway.

This flight did not make it to the ramp. There's some pretty interesting questions here. Of course, passengers are telling us that they saw one of the engines on fire, which is still unconfirmed at this point, although may explain why the crew elected to have the passengers abort there on the runway.

That is a bit of a risk, too. And we know that some passengers were injured here, at least in maybe the evacuation or maybe the deceleration itself. Four passengers with minor injuries, according to the Atlanta airport.

Also, one of them taken to a nearby hospital. But this could have been so much worse. And these things can happen very quickly, Dana. It's so important to listen to the flight crew in a situation like this.

Leave your bags behind. It can really hamper the evacuation and make it harder for people to get out when lives are at stake.

BASH: Really, really scary. Thank you so much, Pete.

And thank you for joining us on Inside Politics. CNN News Central will start after a break.