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Inside Politics

Letitia James Pleads Not Guilty; Trial Set For Jan. 26, 2026; James: "The Justice System" Has Been Used As Tool Of Revenge"; Poll: Majority See DOJ Prosecutions As Illegitimate, Political; Inflation Edges Up To 3 Percent, Highest Since January; Admin. Official On ICE Recruitment: "It's A Shit Show". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 24, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

STEW LEONARD JR., CEO, STEW LEONARD'S GROCERY STORES: The second thing is, you know, check-up private label. You know, instead of buying a national brand, you can usually save 20 to 30 percent if you get a Stew Leonard, say bag of chips or Stew Leonard's item. And the third thing, stay away from the demos when you shop. Stick to your shopping list. You know, so those are -- those are my tips.

PAMELA BROWN, ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Thank you so much.

WOLF BLITZER, CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Good advice, Stew Leonard. Thank you very, very much. And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media, @wolfblitzer and @pamelabrowncnn.

BROWN: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts now.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash, and we are following breaking news. New York Attorney General Letitia James just pled not guilty to felony charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. After her first appearance on the defendant's side of the bench, James slammed the Justice Department for seeming to give the president what he wanted to prosecute her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LETITIA JAMES, (D) NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: Justice system, which has been used as a tool of revenge and a weapon against those individuals who simply did their job and who stood up for the rule of law. A justice system, which unfortunately is nothing being used as a vehicle of retribution. But my faith is strong. And my faith is, I have this belief in the justice system and the rule of law, and I have a -- and I have a belief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: James' trial is now set for January 26. CNN's Kara Scannell is outside the courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia. You're now outside, but you were inside during this hearing. What happened?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, this was a traditional arraignment where Letitia James is before a judge for the first time since she was facing the indictment on charges of bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution. In this court, the judge had James, walk up to the podium, stand beside her attorney as he essentially read her rights, asking her if she understood her right to remain silent, her right to an attorney. And each of those -- to each of those questions, James responded, yes, judge.

Now for the rest of the hearing, her lawyer did most of the talking, but he specifically wanted her to enter her plea of not guilty to these charges, which she did. And throughout the rest of it, it was then setting a schedule for this case. The prosecution initially said that they had expected this trial to go as long as two weeks, and the judge said that's not how things work here.

So, this clearly is on a fast track with this trial set for January 26, but they did tee up a couple of the legal arguments that are going to be made here. James' lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said that he does intend to challenge the authority of Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She was Trump's hand-picked choice. She was in the courtroom today, did not address the judge, but sat there at the prosecution table.

So, the judge said, once he officially gets that motion, he will transfer it to the judge who is handling James Comey, the former FBI director's challenge of Halligan's authority for his indictment. So, it's likely that that will be consolidated, and a hearing in that will take place on November 13.

Then Abbe Lowell also said that he anticipates, he will file a motion of either a selective prosecution or vindictive prosecution. He said it's the worst kept secret in this whole investigation that they're feeling is that this was retribution. So, he said he wants to see what the discovery is in this case, and then he will make that motion.

So, there's already a hearing date set for that that will be in early December, and then Lowell said, he does also intend to challenge the specific charges in this indictment and whether the allegations actually can support those charges.

So, the judge set a hearing for later in December for that appearance to take place. So, it's going to be a lot of activity here between now and the trial date, and it looks like James' team is going to put up a fight and try to knock these charges out before it even gets to the trial. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. Certainly, sounds that way. It looks that way. Kara, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Now joining me, CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams and CNN correspondent Katelyn Polantz. They're both here. Katelyn, you are here in the room with me. I want to start with you, kind of the big picture of this case. I know we have kind of the big, big picture of the allegations of retribution, but specifically what we're seeing here? KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. In this case, what comes next is the defense team trying to make this about Trump's Justice Department and Lindsey Halligan challenging authority, challenging whether things were handled correctly by the prosecutors here, trying to find a way to convince the courts that this should never go to trial, that this should not see a jury.

[12:05:00]

That's what happens and summing up all of those different deadlines that Kara was just outlining. But Dana, with court, when it rains, it pours. I just looked at the calendar of this and the case against James Comey, and with the exceptions of thanks, the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.

There's going to be a hearing every week, starting with the second week of November, the whole way through, and all of these challenges about the prosecutors work here that James is bringing. We're going to see similar ones sometimes at the same time that James Comey's team is going to be bringing. And then January is going to be a month full of trial--

BASH: Unless any of those hearings bring the defendants success.

POLANTZ: That's right. Or if the trial dates get moved or if they could either get the cases tossed or the trial dates move, but it's going to be really, really busy November, December, and then January.

BASH: Yeah. OK. Elliot, let's go to you because one of the main reasons, at least today, why Letitia James and her attorney Abbe Lowell, said that this should get tossed, to use Katelyn's word, is because of Lindsey Halligan, the woman who the president put in to prosecute this case.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. So, Dana, let's step back a little bit of Schoolhouse Rock for viewers. The way senior cabinet or senior government appointments typically work is that the president appoints people to roles like U.S. attorney, and the Senate confirms them by an up or down vote, up 50 votes, right?

Now this president has a few times, namely here and in the state of New Jersey, put in U.S. attorneys on an acting basis that didn't go through Senate confirmation, and that raises questions in violation, or possible violation of federal law.

Whenever a president puts someone in a role in an acting basis as has been done here, they're sort of playing with fire and potentially tainting everything the U.S. attorney touches. There's a fair legal question here about the appropriateness of Lindsey Halligan's appointment, and that's why both James Comey and Letitia James are challenging it in court.

BASH: And Katelyn, the whole idea of what she's a New Yorker very famously. So why are they in Norfolk? Well, the prosecutors are alleging that she purchased a home there in 2020, claimed on mortgage paperwork. It was the second home to get a better rate, but she knew it was actually an investment property and wanted to rent it out.

POLANTZ: Yeah, Dana, it's not as if the Justice Department doesn't charge mortgage fraud. They're charging mortgage fraud here. But one of the things that's going to come up in this, and very likely will see it in this selective and vindictive prosecution motion. So, the attempt to say that she's only being charged because Trump gave the command to charge her to the attorney general.

One of the things will come up is that it's a very small amount of money for what prosecutors would normally charge in a fraud case. You see them sometimes where people are defrauding millions of dollars in their taxes or in mortgages or bank fraud. This is about $18,000 that she would have gotten by having a lower interest rate than she would have if she had filled out her mortgage -- differently.

BASH: So, when perhaps other cases where this is an issue, the prosecutors would not be going as aggressively after depended.

POLANTZ: That's right. And one of the strategies of the defense may be to try and get this tossed before trial, because there's legal questions of whether it should go to trial. It's quite plausible, when she goes to trial, though she has pleaded not guilty, that they could prove it on the facts alone. Did she write down something on the paper, she shouldn't have.

BASH: Elliot, real quick. What else should we be thinking about here?

WILLIAMS: You know, I just want to say that a small amount of money might still be a crime. I think the bigger problem is establishing that this person knew they were doing something wrong and still intentionally did it. You know, mistakes, or as is the case here, potentially letting her niece lived for free in the house. Might be poor judgment, maybe not great, but not a crime, or may not be a crime.

And I just think that's going to be the big issue here, and the government sort of has a really high burden here in establishing that she really knew she was doing something wrong and still intentionally did it.

BASH: OK. Thank you both. So, we all remember that now infamous post by the president last month talking about people who he wanted, Pam, his attorney general to go after. Now we have James of New York, James Comey.

And up next, we're going to have some new information about another person who was named in that post who could be the next target of the president's retribution tour. Stay with us.

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[12:10:00]

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BASH: New York Attorney General, Letitia James, pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud charges brought by President Trump's hand-picked U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. Now Letitia James is the third of President Trump's perceived political enemies who is facing an indictment, but the DOJ is investigating a number of the president's least favorite people, including California Senator Adam Schiff, former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

[12:15:00]

My Smart reporters are here. Nice to see you all. Nia, I'm just going to sort of put up on the screen a little bit -- once again that the targets that are not so far in the back of President Trump's head here.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST AND CNN ENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. You know this was key to his language as he was running this whole idea of, I will be your retribution. There was a big sign at the RNC saying as much. And there was some frustration from this president that this wasn't happening quickly enough, and then, of course, the famous. He was either meant to be a DM or is either meant to be a public tweet. Who knows?

But now you see what's happening here. Anyone on this list, you know you can place money on, it is likely to be a target. You've seen some shuffling at the DOJ. First, there was some sense that they weren't going to go along. Those folks were moved out. So, this is an extraordinary moment for this country that this president is using the Department of Justice, which is supposed to be independent, as his own personal tool to get retribution.

And not only that, asking for $230 million because he feels like he was wrongly prosecuted, you know, or wrongly charged out of the DOJ. So, its extraordinary moment, and I don't know how you sort of put this genie back in the bottle. How America comes back from this and sort of rebuilds trust in these institutions?

BASH: Well, it is definitely continuing. You're right. Our colleagues, Katelyn Polantz and DJ Judd have a story out on cnn.com right now about the investigation into Adam Schiff. And prosecutors are hesitant to charge Adam Schiff, and there is a back and forth internally, according to their reporting, about the sort of career prosecutors who are looking into it.

And Ed Martin, who is in the DOJ, and this is basically his job is to push for -- among other things to push against the president's perceived enemies. President talked about Adam Schiff yesterday. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm not going to comment on that. I would just say Adam Schiff is one of the lowest forms of scum I've ever dealt with in politics. He's a horrible human being, very dishonest person. I have no idea what's going on.

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're not going to comment on any grand jury that's open. We can't legally. TRUMP: I don't know. By the way, I hope it's true, but I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That has been one of the most fascinating parts of all of this is that we are seeing the president almost say so in real time. He's had multiple interactions with reporters in the Oval Office where they have asked him about some of these retribution attempts, about these indictments, about these investigations, and he's pretty open about -- he said, I don't know anything, but he didn't deny it out of the gate either, right?

We're sort of seeing him digest it in real time, think about it and comment on it to reporters, to what you were mentioning earlier, about what our reporter or colleagues have reported. It's not the first time we're seeing that either, with the careers pushing back. And that was also true during the first Trump administration, not sort of in the retribution category, but in general.

But they -- this time around, are shuffling those people around or dismissing them much faster. And so that means that these investigations are picking up pace, and we're seeing these targets come out quite quickly.

BASH: There is a new Quinnipiac poll that shows the following. Well, the question is, is the president using DOJ for unjustified charges against political opponents, or are they justified? The majority, we're more than the majority, 52 percent say unjustified. Are they justified? 38 percent.

I want to show another part of that poll because, let's be honest, this is why President Trump was put back in the office. The top reason, which is the economy. The question is whether or not you approve of the president's job on the economy. 38 percent approved, 57 percent disapprove. And just by way of context, Michelle, this is the lowest approval that the president has had since he was first elected back in 2017 -- February of 2017 to be specific.

MICHELLE PRICE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Yeah. I mean, thinking about the 2024 election, the two main issues for Trump, for his supporters, it was the retribution that we've seen him speaking to Republicans about army retribution. But for the independents, based on the Democrats, that crossed over, inflation was the reason that he was elected.

So, we know that the Trump administration and his political advisors are very sensitive to it. Their statement today about the inflation report, they were touting it as good news that it was lower than expected, but it's still well above targets.

And that's something especially as we get into the holiday shopping season that people are going to be seeing even more as they're looking for those deals, you know, Black Friday coming up. That is going to be a further pain point for them, unless they take bigger action here.

[12:20:00] BASH: Yeah. And let's talk about that inflation report that came out. It was mixed, and they argue that, as you said, it was lower than expected, but it's not low.

PRICE: Right.

BASH: And what matters is what you see on the right of your screen, which is how much money people are shelling out, depending or based on what it was before. And $208 per month for a typical family, the cost increase for the goods that they need to buy in their lives is a lot of money.

HENDERSON: Yeah. It's a lot of money. And listen, this is going to go up. It's going to go up because of healthcare costs. It's going to go up because of energy costs. We're going into the colder months, so people are going to need to crank that heat up. What is strange about this White House is they don't seem to really be paying attention to the economy as much, right?

They have a whole plan to have a 250 million, I guess it's $300 million a ballroom, and they're demolishing the East Wing. And in the meantime, this core experience that Americans have around the daily economy going into the grocery store or paying for childcare or whatever it is, these prices have not gone down.

BASH: Yeah. Except that they are. The president and his top aides are focused on the economy, but it's right. His number one issue, which is tariffs. I'm not saying that it's related to this, but just as we go to break. One other bit of real life data that people should look at just the inflation by category state, bacon, chicken, eggs are actually down.

That was a big issue in the 2024 campaign, but others are up, not to mention cars and trucks and rent. So that gives everybody a sense of what's going on with people's lives in the real world where it matters the most, which is their bank accounts.

OK, up next. New reporting on how the Trump administration is using the navy to ramp up immigration operations. We're going to explain how it involves $10 billion and at least six states, Priscilla has this really remarkable reporting. Plus, from the West Wing to the East Wing, well, at least when it existed. The incredibly talented Bradley Whitford will be here to talk about his new role as his words, not mine, first lady.

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[12:25:00]

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BASH: Welcome back. I want to bring in my colleague, Priscilla Alvarez, who is still here, who has some amazing new reporting about the Homeland Security Department, looking to bid build a series of new migrant detention centers. Tell us. ALVAREZ: Yeah. There are -- the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has $45 billion to play with, ever since they got that funding from Congress earlier this year as part of the Trump agenda. That means that they want to very quickly set up detention facilities, especially to meet the number of immigration arrests that they're doing on a daily basis.

So, what my colleague Natasha Bertrand and I had done is, look through and sift through the solicitations. And what we found was documents that showed that the Department of Homeland Security is using and leaning on a contracting arm of the navy.

It's an arrangement between the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department to more quickly find the contractors and to strike those contracts with them. One of the sources told me that this is an unprecedented arrangement, but it is one that experts say also makes some sense, because the defense department is -- has experience in this work.

Logistically, they can turn contracts and facilities very quickly. So even if the Department of Homeland Security is the one funneling the money together, they see this as a way where they can sort of leverage their abilities.

BASH: And you say funneling money, we're talking about $10 billion.

ALVAREZ: $10 billion. Now the construction is expected to start as soon as next month, though the contracting process is still underway, with a narrower pool of contractors that are eligible, and we expect this to be across multiple states with ten thousand people each.

If you read through the solicitation, you can see some of what they want to do here, be it, courtrooms, space for ICE staff, emergency services, transportation, really the whole gamut when it comes to a deportation operation. So, what this ultimately tells us, Dana, is that they are actively working to use these funds to build these facilities and to do it fast and leaning on DoD contracting to make it happen.

BASH: I do want to ask about another piece of amazing reporting that you are doing, which is on the way that the officials are using money from the so-called big, beautiful bill to ramp up on immigration enforcement.

ALVAREZ: And on that front, that means signing bonuses. As you have seen on the airwaves, on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is actively and aggressively pushing to bring on as many people as possible to become deportation officers. What that means, on the back end, though, according to sources I've talked to, is that the agency is just ill-prepared for this volume of applications.

That means cutting out interviews or minimal background checks, as well as getting some people who are physically not able to do the job and not realizing that until they get to the academy. In fact, more than 200 people have been dismissed from the academy for not meeting academic or physical standards. They can come back at a later date and still work for ICE in an administrative position, but certainly it has been far more challenging behind the scenes. Now the Department of Homeland Security says that the majority of their applicants are former law enforcement officers.