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Tristan Snell is Interviewed about the Mounting Pressure on Weisselberg; Migrant Children Wait to be Reunited with Family; Nicaragua Arrests 5th Presidential Candidate; Strongmen Autocrats Running Rampant; Abigail Disney is Interviewed about Avoiding Taxes. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 22, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:11]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: He's the money man and now Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg is staring down a big decision, cooperate with prosecutors against former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, or face potential criminal charges of his own.

Joining us now is Tristan Snell. He is a former assistant attorney general for New York state. He also led the prosecution against Trump University.

And "The Washington Post" here is reporting that Weisselberg is regularly, Tristan, going into work, going about his day. So why -- you know, what we've heard some people say is, why would he be doing that if he's thinking of flipping? But you say --

TRISTAN SNELL, PROSECUTED TRUMP UNIVERSITY : I say he could still be going into work every day and be thinking of flipping. In fact, a lot of times prosecutors are going to tell a potential cooperator, play it cool, be natural, do what you would normally do.

Weisselberg could be going into the office and collecting more information while he's there. So the fact that he's going in doesn't necessarily tell me that much.

BERMAN: You've spoken a lot about how much Allen Weisselberg knows about the Trump Organization and about the former president and his family. If prosecutors can't get him to flip, how big of a deal is that for their case?

SNELL: Look, it's not a must have. It's a nice to have. A lot of people online were kind of flipping out over this over the last like day or so saying, oh, if they can't get Weisselberg to flip, the whole case is not going to happen. That's not true. There's so much other evidence that -- that is in a case in terms of emails. We all know how important emails can be.

BERMAN: But Trump himself isn't on email. SNELL: Trump himself isn't on emails, but they're going to refer to

Trump. There could be meeting notes. We know there are recordings of meetings, right? We know about that famous recording that Cohen took. He said that there were others that he provided to prosecutors. That could be the tip of a much larger iceberg of tape recordings. We don't know about that.

But, also, just things like -- we're talking about the intent to make these fraudulent statements. If you've got one version of a spreadsheet that has the correct numbers and then you have another version of a spreadsheet that has the fake numbers, then you're showing that there was clearly an intent to move from the one set to the other. You know, it doesn't need to be the gotcha moment of getting somebody to testify and say this happened. It could be much more boring, but still actually get a guilty verdict.

KEILAR: His daughter-in-law is cooperating, giving a lot of information to prosecutors, Tristan. And you know some of the data points about what they're looking at to put pressure on Weisselberg with, and that includes, for instance, the payment of tuition for his grandkids.

SNELL: Yes.

KEILAR: When you look at these things that we know about what they are looking into personally for Weisselberg, how much leverage does that really give prosecutors? Are these big-deal items?

SNELL: It can be added up. I think the fact that they're pursuing all of these other angles and now they're going after the bodyguard, Calamari (ph), it shows that they've got enough resources on the case now that they can actually start pursuing those. If you're short staffed, you're not going after those secondary witnesses or secondary targets. You're just trying to keep your head above water.

I think it shows that now that maybe that the New York AG's office is involved, too, and that potentially there's more staffing on this. They're able to try to see if they can go after some of those other angles to see if they can get whatever leverage they can.

BERMAN: You say "can be." That's not exactly a slam dunk. Based on what you know -- and you've got some experience with this organization -- do you think Weisselberg will flip?

SNELL: I think that there's a good shock that he will. It might take an indictment to actually get him to cooperate.

Now, his deal won't be as good if he -- the longer he waits, the worse of a deal he's going to get. It's also possible that they're in the middle of tough negotiations right now trying to get him to cooperate, where he's trying to get total immunity and not actually face any charges at all, and the prosecutors are trying to say, look, you're going to be guilty, you're going to plea but we can get you a reduced sentence, maybe even avoid prison time, but there's going to be a charge or there's going to be some prison time.

[08:35:03]

That may be where they're at right now in the negotiations.

KEILAR: Maybe we'll find out soon because our Kara Scannell is reporting from her sources that this is now in the advance stage. So perhaps this will be moving towards a conclusion finally.

SNELL: Yes.

KEILAR: Tristan Snell, thank you so much.

SNELL: Thank you.

BERMAN: Up next, strong man leader defying the U.S. with new crackdowns on opponents.

And former President Trump's idea to quarantine tourists on an island famous for holding terror suspects.

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BERMAN: Migrant children desperate to be reunited with family in the United States are having to wait weeks in largely inadequate government holding facilities.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us this morning with some new reporting.

Priscilla.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN IMMIGRATION REPORTER: That's right. A 16-year- old from Guatemala really summed up a court filing last night. He said, quote, every day I feel really sad. This is a boy who has been in a temporary facility for more than 60 days.

Now, these are facilities that fall under the Health and Human Services Department.

[08:40:01]

That department is charged with the care of unaccompanied children and they have facilities across the country. But because of the record number of children who came to the U.S. this year, they had to open temporary facilities, otherwise known as emergency intake sites.

Now, attorneys have been visiting these facilities to assess conditions as part of an ongoing settlement. And what they found is that weeks after these facilities have been stood up, issues still persist. They report, for example, children in crowded conditions with lack of privacy, very little time outdoors, as well as limited shower time, limited time to call parents and family in the United States, and really a sense of desperation among children.

Now, they are at these facilities to reunite with family in the United States, be it parent, relatives or even legal guardians. But until they get reunited, they are waiting in these facilities. And one of the attorneys said that is the most frequent stressor they've found among children.

John.

BERMAN: Priscilla Alvarez, as always, thank you for your reporting on this. Keep us posted.

ALVAREZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: Democracy in peril in Nicaragua as a fifth presidential candidate is defined. Fifteen opposition leaders have now been arrested, all of them charged with vague, so-called national security violations. Human rights groups say this is an overt attempt by President Daniel Ortega to shutdown dissent ahead of Nicaragua's elections in November.

CNN's Rafael Romo has more.

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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: I'm Rafael Romo in Mexico City.

The crackdown against the opposition in Nicaragua is not letting up. Miguel Mora Barberena, a presidential candidate, was taken into custody Sunday in Managua. He's the fifth presidential hopeful to be detained since the beginning of the month.

And now there's at least 15 members of the opposition in detention for alleged national security violations, including four other presidential candidates, activists and even a banker.

Nicaragua will hold presidential elections in less than five months, and the opposition claims President Daniel Ortega is making sure he will have a clear path to be re-elected to a fourth term.

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BERMAN: All right, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, one of several strong men embracing anti-democratic practices, trying to consolidate power. It's happening all over the world.

Joining us now, CNN political commentator Ana Navarro.

Ana, great to see you here.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you. So good to be here for the first time in a studio since COVID in New York and it's great to be able to see you in person, hug you, kiss you, tell stories.

BERMAN: I know what's happened in Nicaragua, you know, is personal to you. When you see Daniel Ortega there going to extraordinary ends to maintain power, it's also not unique now in the world. There seems to be this anti-democratic trend.

NAVARRO: What's amazing about what's going on in Nicaragua -- and, first of all, let me say thank you to you, thank you to CNN for covering it because it's gotten very little coverage. And I think part of it is because just how common it's become among strongmen to do this. It's a -- as if Ortega is taking a page out of Putin's book what he's doing to Alexey Navalny, out of Maduro's book, out of Castro's book, Raul Castro and the communists still left in Cuba where you squash the opposition. You put them in jail, you harass them, you attack them, you ransack their houses, you harass their families, and you make it impossible for there to be a real opposition and real democracy.

As you say, it's personal for me. I fled Ortega. I fled that regime 40 some years ago.

I can't believe -- I cannot believe that this is happening 40 years later. And it breaks my heart for a country like Nicaragua, which has been, you know, just struck by so many natural and political disasters.

And, John, the question is, why should Americans care. Well, America should care because we're, you know, Nicaragua's part of the region, because it's going to affect trade, it's going to affect the economy and it's going to affect immigration. Make no doubt that when the political situation gets so bad in a place like Nicaragua, like Guatemala, like Honduras, like what we are seeing at the northern border, it will mean more of these child migrants. It will mean more immigrants, more people seeking political asylum.

And so it's something where I think the international -- the whole international community needs to be outraged. This guy is cracking down and putting in jail anybody who dares run against him.

KEILAR: So, I want to ask you about something, turner a corner here separately, that we have learned. And it's kind of a headline that you might think, oh, my God, is this from "The Onion?" But it's not.

A new book reports that Donald Trump actually wanted to send infected Americans, people who had COVID, to Gitmo early on in the pandemic.

NAVARRO: I don't even know what to say about that because you read it and -- and you think, oh, look, at "Saturday Night Live" skit is, you know, what we're --

BERMAN: Well, we've got something about "Saturday Night Live" in just a second. Hold that thought. Go ahead.

NAVARRO: OK. But, you know, then you realize, oh, wait, it's Trump.

[08:45:01]

Yes, it could have been entirely possible.

Frankly, seems to me like he would have sent half his White House because they all ended up getting COVID.

But joking aside, it's a horrible, horrible concept. It's a horrible idea. It's -- it reckons back to leprosy colonies in, you know, in the old days. And, you know, it's a good thing that the one that's been exiled to -- not an island, but, you know, Palm Beach is Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Now, I promised you "Saturday Night Live."

So "The Daily Beast" is reporting this morning that there came a point, after he watched a rerun of a "Saturday Night Live" episode, that President Trump basically suggested that somehow "SNL" be investigated for unfair practices. That he was so upset about what he was seeing there that he wanted the government to step in.

NAVARRO: And given what we have seen with the gag orders, with the investigations, with the, you know, the people looking into reporter's text and emails, even here in our own network, does that surprise us? I mean, you know, this is a man who had -- I mean, I'm not one to talk, but basically the only thin part about him is his skin, and he has no sense of humor. And we saw that he weaponized the government to go after anything and anyone who was critical to him, even when it was in jest and satire.

BERMAN: Do you think he would go after Colin Jost's texts and emails? Do you think that they're going to have their phone records?

NAVARRO: Right. You know, Lorne Williams (ph) should be very very --

BERMAN: Lorne Michaels, yes.

NAVARRO: Lorne should be very worried about what's going to happen with him.

But it just -- it also tells you, you know, when we were -- when we kept getting told, oh, don't take him seriously. Oh, this is just hyperbolic. He's just going after the media. You know, it's not -- it's not serious. When he was calling the media the enemy of the people and doing all these things. And we were saying, no, no, it really is serious and it's affecting journalists lives and it's affecting the lives of people on TV who criticize him.

It shows you just how serious it was. It wasn't something just coming out of his mouth. He was figuring out what -- how to put a hurt on people. And that, again, goes back to that strongman thing that we started talking about. It is his tendencies. He is not a guy with democratic tendencies. He -- and, you know, he fancies himself -- fancies himself a strongman. And that's what he had become.

KEILAR: Ana, it is great to see you.

NAVARRO: Good to see you.

KEILAR: I love being here on set with you.

Ana, thank you.

So, how do the rich get richer and pay next to nothing in taxes? We're going to ask a wealthy heiress who knows, next.

BERMAN: And President Biden's last-minute pitch to moderates for the pivotal test on voting rights legislation now just hours away. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:52:06]

KEILAR: Earlier this month, Pro Publica shared leaked tax information on several of the world's richest people like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett. And these documents showed the richest of the rich in this country have legally avoided paying almost any income tax.

Joining me now is documentary film maker Abigail Disney. She is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, and the grandniece of Walt Disney, who, together, founded the Walt Disney Company.

Abigail, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

You wrote this op-ed in "The Atlantic" titled, I was taught from a young age to protect my dynastic wealth.

You know, first off here, you came to this decision to pull the curtain back on what I think so many Americans are curious about. Why did you decide to do that?

ABIGAIL DISNEY, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER, CO-FOUNDER, FORK FILMS: Well, because this is -- this is a long, long many generations ethos that I think really needs to be questioned, you know. And it's hard when you're raised in a family and you're taught something from very young to ask questions about those things. But looking around, the way our society is currently structured, it really is time for wealthy people to ask themselves some hard questions.

KEILAR: So you talk about -- let's just talk about kind of the brass tacks of this. You say that you came into a significant amount of money at the tender age of 21, as you put it, and you became an asset manager before a lot of people get their first apartment.

What were you taught -- by whom were you taught to do?

DISNEY: Well, you know, it kind of starts with your parents. And they don't -- you know how families teach things. They don't just sit you down and tell you things. They show you what they value and it's in the air.

And one of the assumptions was that you would work very hard in your lifetime to take what you inherited and turn it into more so that your children would have more than you had. That was an assumption, a baseline assumption that was just written into everything from the beginning.

KEILAR: So you say -- you talk about the methods and practices here. You know, and the words on their own might make someone's eyes glaze over, but they're very important. So I want folks to stay with us on this.

You say, offsetting income with losses and unrelated businesses, structuring assets to grow rather than generate income, borrowing against those growing assets for cash needs, deducting interest payments and state taxes from taxable income. You say that these methods and practices are so downright mundane and commonly applied that most rich people don't see them as unethical, but you see them as unethical.

DISNEY: Well, I do. I mean they're -- those are -- those are varying levels of unethical. But, for instance, take borrowing against your assets for cash needs. That is a way of relying on the growth in the value of your assets to create material things in your life without actually paying taxes on the growth in those assets.

[08:55:06]

So you're benefiting by the growth without ever paying a capital gains tax capital gains tax. This is all possible because we don't tax growth, we tax work. And the fact is that people are sitting on their rear ends on their couches earning and not paying taxes on money while people are going out every day to a job and working their butts off just to make ends meet. And that just seems like an upside down structure.

KEILAR: You compare the dynamics of wealth to that of addiction. Tell us about that.

DISNEY: Well, I do think that an addict has the same pattern every time. No matter what the drug is, it's that, you know, you take a drink, it feels good, that first drink. You take a second drink. And the next night you come back to two drinks and that gets you the feeling that you were looking for. And then, before you know it, three drinks, four drinks, five drinks in, you've to go further to get to the feeling that you're trying to have.

And so when you have things, you have to have more things. And anything that you have turns into what is normal. And so there are people flying private aircraft right now who would rather be shot than get on a first class seat on a normal airline because it would mean they'd have to walk through an air terminal. And that is terribly dangerous to democracy, to society because there are people, large swaths of people, who are separating them -- so categorically separating themselves, so categorically from everything everyone else experiences that then when they turn around and they use your money and translate it into political power, they don't have any idea what kind of lives regular people live.

KEILAR: That's a very good point.

And, look, I feel like we are just scratching the surface of your op- ed here, but it is a fascinating read, Abigail. Thank you so much for doing it and for talking to us about it. Abigail Disney.

DISNEY: Thanks.

KEILAR: And just ahead, the showdown over voting rights. It's coming to a head just hours from now on Capitol Hill.

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[09:00:04]

BERMAN: Time for a lightning quick "Good Stuff."

The dating app Bumble just gave all of its workers the week off.