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Number stores or sleepnumber.com. This

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is CNN Breaking News. Welcome

0:52

to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

0:54

Right now, right this minute, a

0:56

new witness in Donald Trump's hush

0:58

money coverup trial, the prosecution just

1:00

called its third witness. His name

1:02

is Gary Farrow. Gary Farrow is

1:04

a banker who worked with Michael

1:07

Cohen at the time that the

1:09

payments were made to former Playboy

1:11

model Karen McDougall and porn

1:13

actress and director Stormy Daniels,

1:15

both of whom alleged romantic

1:18

entanglements of sorts with

1:20

Mr. Donald Trump. This comes after

1:22

Rona Graff was called as the second

1:24

witness in the trial. Rona

1:26

Graff, she's on the screen right there, she's a

1:28

longtime Trump assistant. She worked with Trump since

1:31

he hired her in 1987 after

1:33

she cold called the Trump

1:35

organization. Rona Graff testified two

1:37

contacts she maintained at the Trump

1:40

organization were for Karen

1:42

McDougall and Stormy

1:44

Daniels. Rona Graff was on the stand for less than half

1:46

an hour. Earlier today,

1:48

Trump's attorneys cross-examined David Pecker, the

1:50

former tabloid magnate and longtime friend

1:52

of Donald Trump. Let's

1:55

dive into all of this with

1:57

my panel. So, Jamie, put one

1:59

more thing. Grown a graph into context for

2:02

us a lot of people who

2:04

know Trump world were excited about

2:06

this testimony She was a vice

2:09

president for the firm. She was a

2:11

very important player in his world She

2:15

testified today and very testified very

2:17

briefly, right? So loyal Trusted

2:21

gatekeeper for those of us going

2:23

back who it wanted to interview Donald

2:26

Trump that's who you called She

2:29

was she knew everything was

2:31

going on her back when he was like a

2:33

real estate tycoon and that's it back in the

2:35

Ice age that would you know you want but?

2:40

She also her her desk was

2:42

right outside his

2:45

office she was within earshot

2:47

and She

2:49

she is the inner circle of

2:51

the inner circle she placed the

2:53

calls she made the schedule She

2:56

knew his travel arrangements Politico

2:58

had a headline on

3:00

a profile of her and it

3:02

was need to reach Trump Called

3:05

Rona, so she

3:08

knew everything that was going on And

3:10

she's someone who you know was brought in she

3:12

worked for Norma actually his other Executive assistant who

3:15

you know Trump has this thing with his executive

3:17

assistant his dad was the same way And they're

3:20

deeply attached and someone who really knows everything

3:22

does everything for him Rona was that person

3:24

and even when he went into the White

3:26

House Jake she was someone who still had

3:28

that direct line his old contacts would still

3:30

reach out to Rona to get her to

3:32

get A message to him she even trained

3:34

the former white the White House employee who

3:36

went on to set outside the Oval Office

3:38

I've been occupied that role Madeline Westerhouse and

3:40

obviously she was only on the stand briefly

3:42

But she was there to get some records

3:45

into the record and basically to say Stormy

3:47

Daniels was seen outside of Trump's office on

3:49

the 26th floor of Trump Tower and that

3:51

Kara McDougal and Stormy Daniels his contact numbers

3:53

were in his contacts interesting So let's

3:56

talk about the guy on the witness stand right

3:58

now. His name is Gary Faro He's

4:00

a former senior managing director at First for

4:02

Public Bank. He

4:04

was just asked about the issue of what

4:06

does KYC stand for. He says it means

4:08

know your customer, be sure they are who

4:10

they say they are, and email is right

4:13

now being shown to the jury. What

4:16

is the significance of Gary Farrow?

4:18

Why is he testifying? I

4:21

mean, obviously it's still underway, but it appears that he's

4:23

essentially Cohen's banker, if I sort of understand what it

4:25

was. So what would that mean, that he's just going

4:27

to testify as to the payments? Yeah,

4:29

the payments, the shell company, the mechanics of

4:31

the payments. Right. Obviously, we've

4:33

all been like focused on, largely or many of us,

4:35

been focused on sort of the more salacious elements of

4:37

this. They are more interesting. They

4:39

are more interesting, but the

4:42

crime actually has to do with all of

4:44

this somewhat banal record keeping stuff. So you know,

4:46

this is a case where I think we're

4:48

going to actually see quite a few somewhat

4:50

dull witnesses producing things

4:52

like documents, ledgers, invoices, things like that

4:54

just have to come into evidence to

4:57

complete this case. Which is not

5:00

meant as a bust on Gary Farrow. He

5:02

might be a very fascinating guy, but his

5:04

testimony itself is just about record

5:06

keeping. Well, he's got an interesting name again, too. Gary

5:08

Farrow. Again, we have the greatest

5:10

names of witnesses. Farrow, Packer, Graff,

5:13

anyway. I'm walking away from

5:15

that. But look, one thing to

5:17

just point out, you know, there's a couple

5:19

of tactics at play here. One

5:21

is if you're a prosecutor, and I used to do some multi-week

5:24

cases where you have good witnesses and bad

5:26

witnesses mixed in. You like the idea of

5:28

leaving them with something solid, unchallenged, good at

5:31

the end of the week. So

5:33

it may be that these are basically glorified

5:35

records custodians. They're basically introducing some paperwork for

5:37

the jury to look at at 4.30 before

5:39

they go home and go, oh,

5:41

there were checks or there were meetings or there

5:43

were contacts. It's also smart for the

5:45

defense at this point to keep it dull, you

5:48

know, to basically not spend any time

5:50

cross-examining people where you have no

5:52

real reason to gain anything because

5:55

they're not establishing criminality or they're

5:57

not establishing controversial points. So let

5:59

them go. continue to focus on

6:01

Cohen and wait for that moment. Well let

6:03

me just say so the email that was

6:05

just shown that now they're discussing it's

6:08

from Gary Farrow's assistant informing

6:10

him that Michael Cohen his client at the

6:13

time called on

6:15

October 11th 2016. Yeah

6:17

I'm sure we'll find out

6:19

why that matters. There are no cameras in

6:21

the courtroom. No no I know I know

6:24

I'm sure it'll be interesting but I just

6:26

want to like yes their

6:28

records folks but I don't know we should lose

6:30

sight of the significance of what GRAF actually put

6:32

into evidence. We'll come back to GRAF in a

6:34

second but Gary Farrow received another email two days

6:36

later. Please return Michael Cohen's call

6:38

when you are available today regarding

6:40

an important matter. So this is why this

6:43

matters is because he is trying to arrange the

6:45

payment to Stormy Daniels which is what all of this

6:47

is about. From Michael Cohen. From Michael Cohen maybe

6:49

it's not a salacious but this is actually what the

6:51

trial is about. And the crime itself. It is.

6:53

And Michael Cohen was contacting the bank because

6:55

they had been having this discussion about AMI

6:58

and David Pecker. AMI is the friend that owned

7:00

the National Enquirer. They had been having the discussion about

7:02

them making the payment to Stormy Daniels and essentially David

7:04

Pecker didn't want anything to do with it. He

7:06

did not want to be in

7:08

cahoots with a porn star making this payment to

7:10

her and it came to this point where Michael

7:12

Cohen was trying to reach Trump. He was under

7:14

pressure to do this and finally said I'm just

7:16

gonna do it myself and drew down a home

7:18

equity line. That's why this exchange happening right now.

7:20

And Farrow received another email

7:23

two days later. Please return Michael

7:25

Cohen's call when you are available

7:27

today regarding an important

7:29

matter. Farrow calls Cohen who

7:31

told him he wanted to open

7:34

a new LLC account. Cohen said

7:36

the account was for capital real

7:38

estate. Farrow says let me bring in

7:41

some other attorneys we have with us today to

7:43

discuss criminal defense attorney Bill Brennan,

7:45

trial attorney Misty Maris and Manhattan criminal

7:48

defense attorney Stacey Schneider. Stacey was also

7:50

a former contestant on The Apprentice and

7:52

knows the judge as well as a

7:54

district attorney Alvin Bragg as well as

7:57

Mr. Trump obviously from her time on

7:59

The Apprentice. Let's start with

8:01

you, Bill Brennan, because right now this

8:03

testimony from Gary Farrow, who

8:05

worked for Michael Cohen, it

8:07

looks like it's leading up towards

8:10

evidence of this LLC corporation,

8:13

which some might call a shell

8:16

corporation, to hide the payment that

8:18

he made to Stormy Daniels on

8:20

Trump's behest. That is the allegation

8:22

anyway, Mr. Brennan. Hello, Jake. Hello,

8:26

Jake. And I agree with the former prosecutors

8:28

that you may want to end

8:31

the week on, especially I think

8:33

they're not in session Monday, if

8:35

I'm correct about that. That's right.

8:37

Three-day weekend ended on innocuous testimony,

8:39

especially following up the 34-year-old, a

8:42

34-year employee, the

8:45

administrative assistant, who apparently spoke in

8:47

glowing terms of the defendant, said

8:50

he was respectful, he was wonderful to work for.

8:52

I don't think you want the jury, if you're

8:54

the prosecutor, if I'm prosecuting this case, left

8:57

with that to mull over for three days.

8:59

Plus, you need this type of boilerplate

9:03

innocuous testimony to corroborate

9:06

the later allegations

9:09

of Cohen and the papers that will

9:11

go in. So it's not going to

9:13

always be as salacious as Pekka was,

9:15

and you have to fill in with

9:17

these fill-in-the-blanks witnesses.

9:21

Stacey, tell us about Rona Graff. Do

9:24

you know her at all? Have you encountered her at

9:26

all? What is your experience

9:28

with her? She obviously was Trump's longtime

9:30

assistant, who testified for about half an

9:32

hour earlier today. Yes. Rona

9:35

is the loveliest woman on the planet when I

9:37

was on the show. We

9:40

wanted to stay in touch with Donald

9:42

Trump after the show. The person we

9:44

were told to contact is Rona. She

9:46

was indeed his gatekeeper. She

9:49

had an amazing relationship with Donald Trump.

9:51

I always wondered how she worked for

9:53

such a difficult boss. She

9:55

was always pleasant. And

9:58

I think this is very helpful. after

10:01

David Pekker's testimony, which was

10:04

really damaging for Donald Trump about

10:06

all this alleged nefarious conduct, to

10:08

have somebody soften him like Rona,

10:10

who still, you know, who's cared

10:12

about him all these years. I

10:14

understood I wasn't in the courtroom, but after

10:17

she got up and left to leave the

10:19

testimony, I think Donald Trump stood

10:21

up and touched her hand,

10:23

and that's a big difference from what his

10:26

behavior during jury selection, when the jurors were

10:28

entering the room he didn't even stand up

10:30

for them, but he stood up for Rona

10:32

today. So, Missy Maris, let me tell you

10:34

some of the stuff going on in the courtroom

10:36

right now, on

10:39

October 13th, 2016, email,

10:41

and again the significance of October 2016, A,

10:44

right before the presidential election, B, this

10:47

is during the hotbed of activity about

10:49

making sure that Stormy Daniels' story or

10:52

allegation does not get out there. On

10:55

October 13th email, Michael

10:57

Cohen, need account, open

10:59

for Michael Cohen, this is from Gary

11:01

Farrow, need account open for Michael Cohen,

11:03

immediately he wants no address on the

11:06

checks, he also notes

11:08

that an LLC not having an address

11:10

is not unusual, Farrow says

11:12

that Cohen called to set up

11:14

an account for resolution consultants, LLC.

11:17

I love the fact

11:19

that in any, any time there's any

11:22

story about allegations of misdeeds, the LLC

11:24

always has the most boring innocuous name,

11:26

and that's one for the history books,

11:28

resolution consultants LLC, I'm already falling asleep,

11:32

but obviously it was anything

11:34

but boring what was going on, Misty. Right,

11:36

certainly seeking a resolution, right, so there's

11:39

a couple of really important points here.

11:41

Number one, Jake, you nailed it, the

11:43

timing, remember this is all part of

11:45

the prosecution's narrative that this is right

11:47

around the time the Access Hollywood tape

11:50

has become public, Trump team is in

11:52

panic mode to get rid of this

11:54

Stormy Daniel story, so that's all going

11:56

to speak to some of the elements

11:59

that tie this payment directly to

12:01

the election. Now the other piece

12:03

is, every single document and communication

12:05

and transaction relating to this payment

12:08

is obviously a key and critical

12:10

part of the case. And

12:13

to have these shell companies, this

12:15

is all speaking to that idea

12:17

of a conspiracy trying to mask

12:19

these payments as something that they're

12:21

not. And remember, that is a

12:23

fundamental part of the prosecution's case

12:26

as far as this all being

12:28

unlawful conduct because the payments themselves

12:30

aren't unlawful. It's that were they

12:32

properly reported? Were they related to

12:34

the campaign? Were they related to

12:36

the election? So all of this

12:39

testimony, while foundational, authenticating documents, really,

12:41

really important to the merits of the prosecution's

12:43

case. Let me call on my favorite, my

12:46

fellow, rather, Philadelphia, Mr.

12:48

Brennan, and permit

12:50

me a moment of geographical snobbery

12:52

because Delaware is being raised. The

12:55

jury is seeing pages of documents that

12:57

show resolution consultants LLC was created by

12:59

Michael Cohen as a Delaware entity.

13:02

We like to make fun of

13:04

New Jersey and Philadelphia. And Bill,

13:06

maybe you can explain why Delaware

13:08

is always where these shady corporations

13:10

are headquartered. I

13:13

can, Jake, because Delaware

13:15

many years ago crafted

13:18

laws of incorporation were very favorable

13:22

for those who wish to incorporate. So that's why

13:24

we see, I think, Per Capita, it's

13:26

the out of the 50 states. It's the

13:28

number one. But I'd just like

13:31

to respond to a couple of comments that I heard. Probably

13:34

just the DNA that I have being

13:36

a defense lawyer. You know, you

13:38

have to remember that the defense here

13:40

is likely to be, and I think

13:42

we've seen a preview, is that payments,

13:45

if they were made, and if they

13:47

were made to these individuals, Ms. Clifford

13:49

and Ms. McDougal, they were paid to

13:52

avoid a very embarrassing and shameful

13:55

scenario that the defendant

13:57

would encounter with his wife and family. and

14:00

you know that that sells the people and

14:02

i think that when you

14:04

and look at what i was in court today you

14:06

know i just know what i've read what i've heard

14:08

from from you guys but uh... when

14:11

you think about this uh... prosecution

14:13

they have to get it to the other

14:15

crime to make the felony that they have

14:18

to show that if these things

14:20

were done they want to avoid uh...

14:22

personal problems they were to affect either

14:25

campaign finance laws or the election thought

14:28

i'd read or heard that mister pecker

14:31

stumbled into some type of meeting in

14:33

the way that were director kome and

14:35

secretary pompe over there and uh...

14:37

the prosecution seems to be saying we were in the

14:40

meeting with too big officials i mean that doesn't make

14:42

him a code of fear that makes him far as

14:44

gone i mean if you know the

14:46

guys tumblr animal general meeting that's proof of

14:48

nothing so i don't know

14:51

that peckers tech testimony with that

14:53

damaging so far i'd suspect

14:55

will fill in the gaps are at that

14:57

the bill the mooam with colin and i

14:59

suspect it will be a much more aggressive

15:01

line of course examination with them so

15:04

there is jurors are being shown emails

15:06

right now between colin and ferro setting

15:09

up a bank account for resolution consultants

15:11

l l c everyone stick

15:13

with me were close to wrapping for

15:15

the week in the manhattan hush money cover-up route even

15:18

here as we watch our prosecutors try to finish out

15:20

of the court adjourned for the weekend three-day weekend for

15:22

the jury we're back in a moment this

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wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome

17:01

back to CNN's coverage of the

17:03

Manhattan hush bunny cover of trial.

17:06

We are still here in studio and the jury

17:08

is still listening to testimony. Cohen,

17:10

according to the paperwork being presented to

17:12

the jury about the LLC,

17:15

the corporation being set up

17:17

by Michael Cohen in order

17:19

to make payments to Stormy

17:21

Daniels, allegedly at Donald

17:23

Trump's behest, per the

17:25

paperwork Cohen described the entity. This is

17:28

resolution, what's it called? Resolution

17:30

consulting LLC or something like that? Consultants,

17:32

yeah. Consultants LLC. Describe the entity's

17:35

function to be management consultant, including

17:38

HR and marketing. Cohen was

17:40

the only authorized signatory for the account.

17:42

Now you were saying that this

17:45

may sound very boring and bookkeeper-y,

17:47

but actually it's not. It's

17:49

actually important. So let's talk

17:51

about why the prosecutors would be introducing

17:53

all this. Obviously it tells part of the story, but

17:56

part of what they need to prove is

17:59

that there was some... knowledge or awareness that

18:01

there would be legal implications concerning the way

18:03

that this payment was booked. One

18:05

of the pieces of circumstantial evidence that you

18:08

can produce as a prosecutor to help

18:11

shore up testimony like this is evidence

18:13

that you are doing something very sneaky,

18:15

you're concealing things like management consulting. There

18:17

was no management consulting going on, right?

18:19

So he was being consulted to manage

18:21

Stormy Daniels. Correct, right. So all

18:24

of this has an air of impropriety about it, right? It

18:26

has an air of impropriety about it. Well,

18:29

as you said, Delaware. Just joking. Right.

18:31

And then on, I just want to

18:33

go back to Ronograph too. It

18:36

was short, I guess she said she liked

18:38

him, whatever. But this is the gatekeeper who

18:40

worked for Donald Trump from 1987 for

18:43

decades. Cohen, by the

18:45

way, checked no on the form when asked

18:47

if the entity was associated with political fundraising

18:49

or a political action committee, unquote. Is that

18:51

significant? Yeah, I mean, it's a lie. Because

18:54

it was associated with... I mean, it's

18:56

definitely associated with political fundraising and some sort of

18:58

PAC. There was an ongoing campaign. Whether, I mean,

19:00

sure, there's some lawyerly way of trying to defend

19:02

that language, but the jury's not going to see

19:04

it that way. But make

19:06

your point about Graff. Yeah, Ronograph. So what is

19:09

she put into evidence? She put in evidence that

19:11

in the Trump organization records,

19:13

Ronograph, excuse me, Stormy Daniels contact

19:15

information was in there. Okay. The

19:17

prosecutors are slowly trying to establish

19:19

that this affair actually happened. With

19:22

Stormy Daniels. Correct. And that... Whatever

19:25

it was. The event. Whatever. Wasn't

19:27

really an affair. Whatever. The interaction. Yes. The

19:30

jury won't have to take Stormy Daniels word for it, right? Because

19:32

Trump has tried to say, oh, she's a liar. She's making it

19:34

all up to sell books and money. But why would he have

19:36

her contact info in her... But

19:39

by the way, this account, Farrah says the

19:41

bank did all of our work to establish Cohen's account,

19:44

but, quote, a deposit was never made in the

19:46

account, so the account never went live. So

19:48

it confirmed the account was not open. So why

19:50

does that matter? So this is a

19:53

debt account. It looks like a lot

19:55

of machinations that are designed to just

19:57

conceal this from scrutiny. Okay. what

20:00

Michael Cohen was doing. He's actually said

20:02

this publicly, that he wanted to not only

20:04

hide this from scrutiny, but also hide it

20:06

from his wife. He later said that. He

20:09

hid it from his own wife or from? From Michael Cohen's wife. So

20:11

it wasn't just easy for Michael Cohen to go and get $130,000.

20:15

He's talked about the immense pressure he was under,

20:17

and he only went to do it because he

20:19

essentially faced no other option to get this money.

20:21

And it felt like they needed to pay for

20:23

McDaniel's and do so quickly because she and her

20:25

attorney felt like they were dragging it out past

20:27

the election. And then once they hit the election,

20:29

they'd never get the money. Because Michael Cohen didn't

20:31

have millions of dollars in the bank. He had to

20:33

draw down a home equity line. Let

20:36

me go, I'll come back in one sec, but let me go out

20:38

to Paula Reed, who's outside the courthouse right now

20:40

with all the latest. Paula? Yeah,

20:44

Jake, I was just thinking about the gag

20:47

order and creative ways that Trump has found

20:49

a way around it because we do expect

20:51

him to speak after court, really, possibly in

20:54

a matter of minutes. We're always currently subject

20:56

to an expanded gag order where he can't,

20:58

as most defendants cannot, attack witnesses, attack members

21:00

of the jury. And it's been expanded to

21:03

include prosecutors and family members of the judge.

21:05

Now, I'm also monitoring the side stream while

21:07

I'm talking to you. They're still talking about

21:10

setting up that LLC. I agree with you,

21:12

Jake, not the most exciting thing we've seen

21:14

throughout the trial. But Trump has tried

21:16

to find ways of working around this

21:18

gag order because he has, according to

21:21

prosecutors, just blatantly violated it multiple times,

21:23

particularly going after Cohen, is trying some

21:25

work arounds like quoting other people,

21:27

including a Fox News host who raised questions

21:29

about the jury. He's also come out, we've

21:31

seen him a few times at the end

21:33

of court with a stack of articles and

21:36

quoted attacks on people he's not supposed to

21:38

directly attack. Now, it was clear from the

21:40

hearing earlier this week on the gag order

21:42

that that is probably going to be a

21:44

violation. So something we saw this morning for

21:46

the first time was him pointing to his

21:48

allies on the Hill, GOP allies, who are

21:50

now making many of these arguments for him.

21:52

Now, again, I'm looking down at the side

21:55

stream. Mr. Farro is just talking about the

21:57

urgency that Michael Cohen had while he was setting

21:59

up this LLC. But it's going

22:01

to be really interesting to watch as Trump

22:03

comes out of court if he continues this

22:05

tactic because he cannot directly attack people like,

22:07

for example, Matthew Colangelo, one of the prosecutors

22:10

here, who formerly worked at the Biden Justice

22:12

Department. It appears that now instead he's having

22:14

folks on the Hill do that and that

22:16

he and his allies will point to their

22:18

reports or their remarks. Now, I'm also curious

22:20

to see prosecutors' reaction to this. So I

22:22

definitely want to watch for in a couple

22:25

of minutes when Trump addresses the press. OK,

22:28

every time Michael Cohen spoke to me,

22:30

he gave a sense of urgency. And

22:32

this was one of those times testimony

22:34

from Greg Farrow, who was the banker

22:37

for Michael Cohen. And we are

22:39

hearing information about the

22:42

accounts that Michael Cohen set up

22:44

to allegedly pay Stormy Daniels, allegedly

22:46

at the behest of Donald Trump.

22:48

Farrow confirms that the new LLC

22:50

that Cohen wanted to open was Essential

22:53

Consultants LLC as opposed

22:55

to Resolution Consultants LLC.

22:58

Jim. Well, I shouldn't end on

23:00

personal motivation only LLC. That would

23:02

have been helpful. But look, I think there's a

23:04

couple of things that are interesting here. If I'm

23:06

the prosecution, I've got Farrow on the stand. I'm

23:08

going to do what I can to make him

23:10

go to the buzzer today. Do not leave time

23:12

for cross examination because if there is cross, they're

23:15

going to leave this jury with the weekend. It'll

23:17

be a friendly cross, frankly. It's not going to

23:19

be some big hostile Perry Mason moment. But you're

23:21

going to get him to concede Cohen being dishonest,

23:23

Cohen being in charge, Cohen committing misdeeds. It's

23:25

the first substantive moment of being able to

23:28

say this guy Cohen is the weasel at

23:30

the heart of everything. And if

23:32

you leave the jury with that for three days, it's

23:34

a great moment for the defense. So it'll be interesting

23:36

to see if they kind of start asking questions like

23:38

how do you like the weather in New York just

23:41

to get to five o'clock? What's your take on this?

23:43

No, I think that's astute inaccurate. I

23:45

would just say that the phrase that I was

23:47

searching for a little bit earlier concerning all these

23:49

machinations and the secrecy and the misrepresentations, it reflects

23:52

consciousness of wrongdoing. Right. But

23:54

Michael Cohen knew what he was doing was wrong. Because you

23:56

don't go through all of these efforts unless you're doing something

23:58

wrong. You feel bad about it. And I agree

24:00

that the defense is

24:03

going to be that this was all Michael Cohen's doing.

24:05

But can I say I see it completely differently

24:07

than you do, which is that it's Michael Cohen

24:09

out for his own good doing what he needs

24:11

to do. What I'm seeing these

24:13

dates and that Michael Cohen is urgently trying to

24:15

get in touch with this banker, they

24:17

are trying to paint a picture of Michael

24:19

Cohen is stressed. Michael Cohen is under pressure.

24:21

He has someone who he has in mind

24:24

as he is trying to open this count and desperately

24:26

get money that he doesn't really have access to and

24:28

that we already know he's hiding from his wife at

24:30

the time and concealing it. I think they're trying to

24:32

paint a different picture that he is actually under pressure

24:34

and he is stressed. But they know because October

24:37

2016 right before the election, they don't

24:39

want Stormy's story coming out. It's

24:41

October 26 when he calls back. I mean, we are

24:43

truly a week away from the election and they're saying

24:45

they're basically trying to frame Michael Cohen as someone who

24:47

is stressed. I'm not disagreeing with the image

24:49

they're trying to create. I'm saying how's that going to

24:51

play out? Do you think Michael Cohen is going to

24:54

come off as poor overworked Bob Cratchit from the Christmas

24:56

Carol with Scrooge leaning on him? Or is he going

24:58

to come off as a first class purger

25:00

and liar and disbarred lawyer? He

25:03

is going to come across also as

25:05

someone who used to be very loyal

25:07

to Donald Trump and did

25:09

his bidding. And that's what

25:11

this feels like. We're getting closer and

25:13

closer to the election. Resolution

25:16

went to essential. Essential Consultants

25:19

LLC. He's not setting this up

25:21

because he has a problem with

25:23

Stormy Daniels. He's setting this up

25:25

because Donald Trump has a problem

25:28

with Stormy Daniels and they don't want it

25:30

to come out before the election in

25:32

the wake of Access Hollywood. Right. Donald

25:35

Trump is fighting for his political life after the

25:37

Access Hollywood tape dropped a few weeks before just

25:39

to put everybody in the context of October 2016.

25:44

Along comes Stormy Daniels who is alleging

25:46

she had a sexual encounter with Donald

25:48

Trump. He does not want that information

25:50

to be known by voters in

25:52

October 2016 with the election coming

25:55

up. That's the story that

25:58

prosecutors are presenting. Michael

26:00

Cohen, according to the prosecution, set

26:03

up these accounts to pay

26:05

Stormy Daniels to hide the payments not

26:08

only from

26:10

Johnny Law but from his

26:12

wife, according to Michael Cohen.

26:14

Under business narrative for the

26:16

second LLC that Michael

26:18

Cohen was setting up, this one Essential

26:20

Consulting LLC, it states,

26:23

Cohen was opening the account for a

26:25

real estate consulting company to collect fees

26:27

for consulting regarding real estate. The prosecutor,

26:30

Mann Gold, she says she's at

26:32

a natural stopping point for the day.

26:34

It's 4.27 p.m. They said 4.30

26:37

would be the time that they would end

26:39

for the weekend. Judge Rashawn says, we will

26:41

call it a week and is giving the

26:43

jury instructions. This is exactly, Jim Trustee, what

26:45

you said you would do if you were

26:47

the prosecutor, establish some of these little facts.

26:49

Don't let the defense have a moment to

26:51

go at them. Yeah, I mean,

26:53

and look, there's nothing sinister about that. There's an

26:55

element of theater to trial. I think there'd be.

26:58

North Carolina 4.4 corner defense, right? It's

27:01

not 4 to 2 at halftime. Right,

27:04

right. But look, this is

27:06

essential. My point is not

27:08

that it's not important evidence. They're looking for

27:11

stuff that's not controversial. They don't want to

27:13

leave with their chin and have these moments

27:15

of really getting sidetracked long before Cohen gets

27:17

on the stand. And if you're the defense,

27:19

the fight is not whether or not there

27:21

was a relationship with Stormy. It's

27:24

not whether or not there was an NDA.

27:26

I mean, that's really not it. Ultimately, what

27:28

you're focusing on is Cohen and you're looking

27:30

at the ledger and you're saying, is the

27:32

difference between a crime and a not crime

27:34

that you didn't say for NDA after legal

27:37

services? That's a really thin divide between criminal

27:39

and non-criminal. And that's where jury instructions are

27:41

going to be huge way down the road,

27:43

but that's also where closing arguments are going

27:45

to go, I think. So, the Trump inside

27:47

the courtroom just hit his attorney

27:50

Todd Blanche on the arm and leaned over

27:52

to tell him something again, color that

27:54

we're not seeing because there

27:56

are no cameras in the courtroom in New York, which

27:58

many people, many legal experts, have. have disagreed

28:00

with. We are also waiting for Donald Trump

28:02

to come outside of the courtroom and speak

28:04

to the cameras you see the

28:07

place there that he will deliver the message. Yeah

28:10

I just wanted to say that you

28:12

know I think whether or not the relationship

28:14

with Stormy Daniels occurred I mean we all

28:16

take it for granted but in a trial

28:18

setting actually is a material fact because Trump's

28:21

position including I think the position his lawyer

28:23

took an opening in the opening statement is

28:25

that this interaction didn't occur. Well they say

28:27

it never happened. Correct and so every lie

28:30

that the prosecution can establish that

28:33

the defense is putting forth as part of

28:35

their defense helps them. Interesting

28:38

and but we know that I mean there are

28:40

pictures of Donald Trump with Stormy Daniels he he

28:42

doesn't deny knowing her right and she says that

28:44

she tried to get a job on celebrity

28:47

apprentice the issue is whether or not they

28:49

had any sort of sexual interlude so I'm

28:51

not sure and she's inconsistent on that too

28:53

they've got her on record saying it didn't

28:55

happen. Because she signed that NDA to begin

28:58

with Judge Marchand reminding jurors that the court

29:00

is dark on Monday and is going to

29:02

return Tuesday at 9 30 a.m. Eastern jurors

29:04

are exiting the courtroom which means that we

29:06

expect the defendant himself will exit the

29:08

courtroom as well but what

29:11

have they established so far factually if

29:14

anything that establishes that

29:16

Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump did have

29:19

a sexual encounter I don't think anything

29:21

as of now nothing. There are a lot of

29:24

people in Donald Trump's contacts you're

29:26

probably in his contacts that wrote

29:29

I'm probably in them I mean there are a lot

29:31

of people who are in the phone book that

29:34

said what's the

29:36

motivation for paying for all

29:38

of this money one

29:40

of the interesting things about David

29:42

Pecker's testimony about here

29:45

comes the defendant himself watching walking up to

29:47

the to the cameras it

29:50

is Friday afternoon 4 30

29:52

p.m. let's listen in city

30:00

limits, goodness.

30:03

This is only heightened indictment.

30:06

It's in order to try and win an

30:09

election, political opponent, and nothing

30:11

like this has ever happened. Eight days. As

30:14

you know, the economy is falling apart now.

30:16

Now you're seeing it very little growth. We're

30:18

killing it worse. Oil prices are

30:20

going up. And you have the

30:22

college campuses all over closed down. Our country

30:24

is going to hell. And

30:26

we sit here day after day after day, which

30:29

is their plan. They think they

30:31

might be able to kick out an election, but

30:33

I doubt it because the vote numbers are very good

30:35

for us. I just want

30:37

to say that I've invited Mike to debate.

30:39

You can do it anytime you

30:42

want, including the next meeting. Here we

30:44

are. I invited him to the court

30:46

yesterday. He has his tight up date

30:48

with his safety station. This is all

30:50

being done through Washington. It's

30:52

all well-coordinated attack. I want

30:55

to believe in a felony. So

30:58

I'm here. I'm ready winning

31:00

in April. And if you

31:02

want, I'll do it on Lending Night, Tuesday night,

31:04

or Wednesday night. We'll be in

31:07

Michigan, stating that he's destroyed because of the

31:09

auto industry. We're not going to have any

31:11

jobs left in Michigan. No

31:13

auto jobs left in Michigan. No more going

31:15

over to China and other places because we

31:17

think it is easy win day to

31:19

make your vehicle mandated. Well,

31:22

we're willing to do it. Lending

31:24

Night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday

31:26

night, or Friday night on national television.

31:28

We're ready. Just tell me where. We'll

31:31

do it at the White House. It'll be very comfortable,

31:33

actually. But if you tell

31:35

me where, we're ready. He said yesterday not showing

31:37

up now. We heard nothing. But

31:40

he said that all I've learned is a very, very important thing.

31:42

I don't think he'll be there. Maybe he won't.

31:45

Maybe. Well, I'm not sure he has a choice. But

31:48

that's the story. So here we are.

31:50

We're ready, willing, and able. And

31:52

we don't see him. And I don't think he'll be here.

31:55

But maybe next week he'll do it. I doubt

31:57

it. But maybe he'll sort of change. and

32:00

everybody for being legal is a new

32:02

receptor through this like everybody else. And

32:05

anything is done. This is a case that

32:08

should have never been brought. Every

32:10

legal scholar, every legal

32:13

expert, Andy McDonoughton. Jonathan,

32:17

Andy, every single one, Jonathan Drennel

32:19

came out with a scathing report

32:21

on this trial today. Andy

32:24

McDonoughton scathing report. Martin

32:26

Drennel can't believe this is happening in

32:28

our country. This is the case here.

32:31

This is the case whatsoever. It's at the

32:33

schools. We have a conflicted judge

32:35

and it shouldn't be happening. Not in this country.

32:37

Thank you very much. Do you think he's

32:40

in this case? He's

32:42

wicked so far. All

32:46

right. Donald Trump, the 45th president of

32:49

the United States and the defendant in

32:51

this case, talking

32:53

after a full week of court. Let's

32:56

bring in CNN's Daniel Dale, our fact checker,

32:59

who's looking into everything we just heard from the

33:01

former former president, most of which was

33:04

criticizing the trial and

33:07

telling the world that he's ready to

33:09

debate President Biden whenever, wherever

33:11

it can happen. Daniel. Fair

33:15

enough. He said something that we fact checked,

33:17

I think, five times in the last couple of weeks. He

33:19

said this is a Biden indictment.

33:22

It's a well coordinated attack coming

33:24

out of Washington, completely baseless, zero

33:26

evidence whatsoever. This is an

33:28

indictment approved by a grand jury

33:30

of New York citizens. There

33:32

is no basis for any claim that President Biden had

33:34

a personal role in it. The

33:37

prosecutor behind it is Manhattan district attorney Alvin

33:39

Bragg, who's a locally elected official, does not

33:41

report to the federal government. Former

33:44

President Trump has repeatedly said that a former

33:46

DOJ official went over to work for Bragg.

33:48

That's Matthew Colangelo, who you've been talking about.

33:51

Zero evidence that President Biden had any

33:53

role in that personal employment decision. Colangelo

33:55

and Bragg were former colleagues in the

33:57

state attorney general's office. I

34:00

think it's also worth noting Jake that that when

34:02

former president Trump has every legal expert thinks this

34:05

case is a shame And so on the people

34:07

he named today. He named Mark

34:09

Levin who yes talks about the law

34:12

He's also a right-wing radio host who's

34:14

a frequent defender of Donald Trump Andy

34:17

McCarthy Sometimes criticizes Trump but is also

34:19

a conservative commentator Jonathan Turley a professor

34:21

who defended Trump in the impeachment context

34:23

and other things so yes They're even

34:26

liberal professors anti-Trump professors and so on

34:28

who have questioned this case But

34:30

those names are the regular the usual

34:32

suspects defending Donald Trump and I don't know he

34:34

talked about mission Michigan being destroyed No more auto

34:37

jobs. I think some of that was a prediction,

34:39

but it's worth noting There are more auto manufacturing

34:41

jobs today more people employed in Michigan in that

34:43

industry today than there were when Donald Trump left

34:45

office alright, Daniel Dale with just a

34:49

a combo platter of fact checks from

34:52

the feast that mr. Trump just Served

34:55

up. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Let's

34:57

talk more about the case Because

34:59

it is a fairly significant case just a step

35:01

back for one sec now that the trial is

35:03

over for the week I want I want to

35:06

talk about some of the takeaways from

35:09

the cross examination of David pecker

35:12

by Emile bovet who is

35:17

It was an interesting interesting Q&A

35:22

in this back and forth with Emile bovet

35:25

who is a defense attorney for mr. Trump Pekker

35:28

acknowledged that negative press for

35:30

Trump's foes was generally good for business

35:33

Pekker said that if the false doorman allegations

35:35

had been true. He would have run the

35:37

story after the election Bob

35:40

a elicited from pecker that catch and

35:42

kill the the term catch and kill Buying

35:44

a story in order to not run it so

35:46

that it doesn't run anywhere else to protect mr.

35:48

Trump in this case Allegedly catch and kill was

35:50

not discussed at the August 2015 meeting The

35:54

defense elicited from pecker that he wanted

35:56

nothing to do with the stormy Daniels

35:58

allegations and the defense made

36:01

sure to spell out for the jurors that

36:03

the karen mcdougall deal was

36:05

reviewed by an election law jam

36:09

do any of these stand out to you

36:11

as as important bits of information

36:14

for the defense of donald trump for

36:16

the defense i would say you know and

36:19

hopefully set this up an opening statement but

36:22

you need to just kind of pound

36:24

home that we're not fighting every single

36:26

fact that moves in this case we're

36:28

not fighting whether or not i wouldn't

36:30

be fighting the relationship still matter it's

36:32

no more than the doorman which was

36:34

demonstrably false you still pay money in

36:36

nuisance suits to people that probably don't

36:38

deserve that money so again

36:40

i you know i think that it's not

36:42

that the prosecution is doing a bad job

36:44

at all they're they're kind of leading in

36:46

a protective way where they're getting undeniable fax

36:48

out there's a lot of scandal a lot

36:50

of salaciousness in your opening as the defense

36:53

hopefully pull the teeth on that some of

36:55

the federal you're gonna hear all sorts of

36:57

stuff that sounds gross that makes you disrespect

36:59

any of the players that were involved but

37:01

that's not what this trial is about and

37:03

then you could hold to that in your

37:05

cross-examination by not challenging stuff you don't need

37:07

to challenge make everything a friendly cross until

37:09

you get to kon alcush what do you

37:11

make of the fact the

37:14

fact that the that david pecker had election

37:17

law an election law attorney look

37:19

at the karen mcdougall deal and

37:21

just remind folks the karen mcdougall

37:23

deal this was uh... a playboy

37:25

playmate who alleged having a ten

37:28

to eleven month relationship with donald trump she had

37:30

a story and what happened was

37:32

that the uh... the tabloid

37:34

magnate david pecker in a m i his

37:36

company uh... hired her gave

37:38

her a hundred fifty thousand dollars

37:40

to write a column for a different magazine

37:43

in their end to empire i think it was or

37:46

health and fitness or something like that she

37:48

never wrote anything she was paid a hundred

37:50

fifty thousand dollars but they had apparently

37:52

david pecker had an election attorney look at this this

37:54

deal was going on i think

37:56

right before the two thousand six election as well

38:00

that the implication would be that there

38:02

was no actual election law violation as a result

38:04

of these types of deals. Right, so he has

38:07

a lawyer took it over, apparently the lawyer blessed

38:09

it, right, and the deal with Stormy Daniels is

38:11

structurally very similar, right, so that's sort of the

38:13

implication. I don't think it actually is that potent

38:15

of an observation. I doubt we're going to

38:17

hear from that lawyer in the course

38:20

of this trial, which would be necessary to actually

38:22

make that useful. Let's

38:24

go to our attorneys outside the room

38:26

right now. I'll

38:29

start with Bill Brennan. What's

38:33

your big takeaway from today, if

38:35

anything, or if you want to look at the week

38:37

in general, if any gloves

38:39

were laid on Mr. Trump or not? Jake,

38:43

I really don't think so. I heard

38:45

on Kush lay out a

38:47

scenario, and certainly he could be correct with

38:50

regard to actions taken in furtherance of

38:54

a political motive, but any

38:56

married man in this position is

38:58

going to be very worried about a jury of one,

39:00

and that's the person he lives with. We

39:03

had another former president who

39:05

had been accused of a

39:08

dalliance with someone

39:10

not his wife and apparently denied it,

39:12

and then had to walk that back,

39:14

and from what

39:16

I had read at the time, it was a tougher spell

39:18

to his wife than it was to the country. I

39:21

think any married man on the jury, any

39:24

married person, a female on

39:26

the jury is going to get that in. I

39:29

also heard some talk about, well, look at

39:31

this, the Billy Bush tape comes out and the

39:33

timing, and here's when Cohen's going in. I

39:37

challenge anybody to tell me a

39:39

favorable time to have that

39:41

come out if you're married and have children, and

39:44

I really think that's going to resonate

39:46

with the jurors as far as Cohen and

39:49

this banker. This

39:51

also, I think, validates the

39:53

defense of not wanting

39:55

to be embarrassed or to deal with his

39:57

wife. Cohen wouldn't even tell his wife about that.

40:00

the hundred thirty thousand dollar loan so

40:02

i really think that there's a

40:04

strong narrative that if this if

40:06

it happened uh... that

40:08

it happened because the defendant was

40:11

worried about the implications

40:13

it would have on his family as

40:15

marriage and if that is what it's

40:17

limited to in the prosecution can't tie

40:19

it up to the other crime the

40:21

cases out the window so misty maris

40:23

uh... it is uh... it

40:26

has been said by david packer who so far this

40:28

week has been the key witness

40:31

uh... that he was doing this for trump uh...

40:34

and his campaign uh...

40:36

not necessarily exclusively but he did mention

40:38

the campaign any number of times

40:41

of what what's your take on what bill just said

40:43

well i think that's exactly what the defense

40:45

is going to say bill laid it out

40:48

that number one these payments on their own

40:50

are not illegal so the prosecution will have

40:52

to point to unlawful conduct in the other

40:54

piece of that if the extent that we're

40:56

looking at a campaign finance violation if the

40:59

concept of mixed motive that there's a reason

41:01

to make the payments that are outside of

41:03

the election now the flip side of that

41:05

is exactly what we heard today the timing

41:08

the timeline is really really critically important for

41:10

the prosecution case and of course

41:12

packer's testimony that was his perception that

41:14

this was all about the election that's what

41:16

he testified well that is going to be

41:18

part of how the prosecution uh...

41:21

tries to show that the intent was

41:23

directly related to the election and not

41:25

all of these other reasons why somebody

41:27

might make a payment like that stacy

41:29

schneider your take i

41:32

think david pecker damaged donald trump

41:34

this week i think that

41:36

the manhattan district attorney's office has

41:38

a plan and that's to prove

41:40

a local new york state violation

41:43

of its election law and they're slowly setting

41:45

it up with these witnesses to go that

41:47

route i don't think it's going to be

41:50

a federal violation although the d a's office

41:52

has signaled in the beginning of

41:54

this case in april fourth of twenty twenty

41:57

three when they announced the indictment that they

41:59

were looking at Donald Trump for allegedly violating

42:01

both state and federal election law, but I

42:03

think that they're really going for the New

42:06

York state angle here. We'll see with the

42:08

rest of the witnesses. All right,

42:10

Stacey and Misty and Bill, thanks to all of

42:12

you. Have a wonderful weekend. If you're just tuning

42:14

in, the Manhattan hush money cover-up trial wrapped for

42:16

the week. Donald Trump just spoke, he repeated the

42:19

other big story of the day, saying

42:21

that he is ready to debate President

42:23

Biden whenever, wherever. President

42:26

Biden said something similar today. We're going to take a

42:28

short break and we're back in a moment. As

42:37

we've been following Trump's hush money

42:39

cover-up trial in Manhattan, another major

42:41

political storyline played out. That is

42:43

a possible presidential debate. President

42:46

Biden in an interview on the Howard

42:49

Stern show on Sirius XM said he

42:51

would be happy to debate the

42:53

presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. I

42:57

don't know if you're going to debate your

42:59

opponent. I am somewhere. I don't know when.

43:01

I'm happy to debate him.

43:05

Then Donald Trump responded to

43:07

Biden's willingness just

43:10

minutes ago when he walked out of court.

43:13

But we're willing to do it. Wednesday

43:16

night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night,

43:18

we're Friday night on national television. We're

43:21

ready. Just tell me where. We'll do

43:23

it at the White House. I would be very comfortable

43:25

actually. I'm

43:27

back with my panel. Let's turn to

43:29

our political wise women.

43:33

Trump ready to debate Joe

43:35

Biden. Joe Biden ready to debate Donald Trump. Well,

43:38

I mean, Trump basically has been saying this

43:40

nonstop. They put a thing up at his

43:42

rallies now talking about how they say that

43:44

Biden won't debate him. using

43:48

this. Although he wouldn't debate any of

43:50

his Republican opponents during the primaries, we should note.

43:53

And, you know, to be fair, I mean, they

43:55

still feel really good about that decision. They don't

43:57

feel like it was warranted whether or not it

43:59

was for integrity purposes. and intellectual purposes, who's to

44:01

say? I will say Biden's announcement

44:04

of this did not seem like some well-planned

44:06

campaign strategy. It was kind of off the

44:08

cuff because Howard Stern asked him, are you

44:10

going to debate Donald Trump? This has been

44:12

something of discussion when you talk to Biden's

44:14

surrogates, and they had never said outright, yes,

44:16

this debate will be happening. They'd kind of

44:18

not offered a real answer. So

44:20

it is notable. I don't think anyone believes that

44:23

Biden is going to take Trump over what is

44:25

offered to debate outside the courthouse in Manhattan tonight,

44:28

especially since Donald Trump says he's going back to Florida.

44:30

But it doesn't say he was willing to have the

44:33

debate at his at a Trump rally with

44:35

tomorrow night or something. When was it? I

44:37

think he was talking about next Wednesday when he

44:39

got to two events scheduled. I mean, no one

44:42

is taking that seriously. But I will say these

44:44

organizations did reach out to the campaigns and say

44:46

they did believe a debate was important and that

44:48

one should happen. Trump's campaign has tried to get

44:50

them to move the debates earlier to add more

44:53

because they believe it's to their benefit, whether

44:55

or not they do one or more than

44:58

one, it remains to be seen. What do you think? Take Caitlin's

45:00

point about Biden just sort of put

45:02

it out there as Biden does today.

45:05

I actually think this could be a

45:07

mistake and it doesn't take wind out

45:09

of Trump's state by Biden. Yes,

45:12

because Caitlin pointed out

45:14

that at the Trump rallies, he keeps

45:17

sort of goading Biden. When are you

45:19

going to debate? Well, now Biden has

45:21

said I'll debate and Trump is going

45:23

to what is Trump do every day

45:25

he wakes up looking for a fight.

45:27

Now he has one. Where is Biden?

45:30

He said he wanted to debate me.

45:32

I'm ready. Here I am Monday, Tuesday,

45:34

Wednesday. So I think Trump

45:37

will play into this. But they

45:39

could just point to precedent, which

45:41

is that one, we've never

45:43

had a general election start that early campaign

45:45

and to the debates aren't typically until closer

45:47

to the election. I think the

45:49

earliest they've ever been in September, in the

45:52

modern era. Very interesting stuff. Before

45:54

our attorneys go and enjoy their

45:56

Friday night, I just want to

45:58

get your final. final thoughts

46:01

on this momentous week, the first week ever,

46:04

where a former president of the United States

46:06

is a criminal defendant in court. Your

46:09

thoughts on what's happened so far? Well,

46:12

look, it is quite remarkable that we're here. But

46:15

in terms of the trial itself and how sort of I'm

46:17

thinking about it, fraud trials tend to

46:19

be tedious. They tend to get tedious. And

46:21

so there's going to be more tedious testimony.

46:24

But the common metaphor that prosecutors use is talking

46:26

about sort of building their case right brick. So

46:29

we're seeing a lot of bricks being inserted

46:32

here. Now, whether it will all add up to a

46:34

conviction at the end of the day remains to be

46:36

seen. But that's a process that's going on right now.

46:39

How do you think the prosecution has done with their

46:41

bricks? I think they've done

46:43

fine, but we're not at the main event yet. Right. Michael

46:46

Cohen, you mean? Well, Michael Cohen, for sure. But

46:49

also, you know, at some point

46:51

there is going to be need to

46:53

be some presentation indicating whether

46:55

to what extent Trump knew any of this

46:57

was unlawful. Right. We

46:59

haven't heard any of that yet. Now, all the stuff I

47:01

was talking about earlier, the circumstantial evidence surrounding the Michael

47:04

Cohen's shell companies and all that, the

47:06

defense's response is going to be Cohen did that.

47:09

Right. Jim? Well, I

47:11

agree with that. I think that more and more

47:13

it's looking like the critical intent stuff they need

47:16

is going to come from one guy and one

47:18

guy only. Michael Cohen? Yeah.

47:21

There was no, you know, I thought in the abstract, maybe Hope Hicks has

47:23

something not even mentioned in opening

47:25

statements. And by now the

47:27

defense has her statements, what they call

47:29

janks material, her prior statements. So both

47:31

sides kind of know what's coming from

47:34

these witnesses and they didn't flag her

47:36

an opening statement. And I think that

47:38

was a logical flashpoint on this issue

47:40

of intent. But really, I, again, not

47:42

to fast forward to utter boredom, but

47:44

when you talk about jury instructions, this

47:47

judge can dramatically affect the verdict by

47:49

either saying the government

47:51

has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

47:53

that this was fully intended to be

47:55

election interference, my words, or

47:57

the judge could say, if you find

47:59

that some portion of the motivation was

48:01

to affect the election. Then you have

48:04

this mixed motivation model that I think

48:06

Misty made mention of where it's partly

48:08

personal in the wife, it's also partly

48:10

political aspirations. If you

48:12

have combinations allowed to support a

48:14

conviction by the jury instruction, then

48:17

two lawyers on the jury might run with that and

48:19

12 people could be unanimous. I think that's a real

48:21

scary part for the defense to deal with. Very interesting

48:23

stuff. You guys have been so great to have this

48:25

week. Thanks so much. Hope we're gonna see you next

48:28

week. And you can join Caitlin in just

48:31

a few hours on her show, the source,

48:33

her big guest tonight, former Attorney General Bill

48:35

Barr. That's tonight at 9 Eastern

48:37

here on CNN and only here on CNN.

48:40

Much more on the legal space coming up. We also

48:42

need to bring you up to date on a dramatic

48:44

situation unfolding a tornado on the ground near Lincoln, Nebraska.

48:47

That breaking news is next. I'm

48:53

Ina Curtin. Welcome to Be My Guest, the podcast.

48:56

One of the best gifts you can

48:58

give friends is spending time together. But

49:00

what's even better than that? Cooking with

49:02

them on Be My Guest, the podcast.

49:04

New friends and old stuff on my

49:06

barn for some conversation and great cooking.

49:08

We talk about food, life,

49:11

and everything in between. Listen

49:13

to Be My Guest, the podcast with

49:16

me, Ina Garten, and join us wherever

49:18

you get your podcasts. This

49:26

is CNN Breaking News. And

49:28

we have some breaking news off the

49:30

top of this hour, a dangerous storm

49:32

situation right now in Nebraska, as tornadoes

49:34

have been confirmed on the ground, and

49:36

a powerful storm is moving toward

49:39

the city of Omaha. Let's go straight to

49:41

CNN's Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center.

49:43

Chad, you're actually quite familiar with

49:45

this area. Tell us about the situation unfolding right

49:47

now. Yeah, this was

49:49

a violent tornado just a few minutes ago across Highway

49:52

6, also I-80, just to

49:54

the east of the city limits of

49:56

Lincoln. Now this storm has continued to

49:58

move to the north. and will

50:00

be affecting Bennington, Blair and the like. But

50:03

this was a violent tornado on the ground

50:05

that crossed over the interstate. We do know

50:07

there's damage and also there are injuries here.

50:10

We just don't know how many, but yet,

50:12

look at the size of that tornado. Let's

50:14

get to the maps here, I'll show you

50:16

what's going on. It could be a continuously

50:19

violent night all the way through the morning

50:21

hours. We will see tornadoes likely on the

50:23

ground throughout the night, all the way from

50:25

really almost Texas into Nebraska. There's a red

50:28

box here, that's the tornado watch box, which

50:30

means they're possible. These pink boxes,

50:32

which means they're happening. So for

50:34

you, Bennington, Missouri Valley, that would

50:36

be Blair right over here. There's

50:38

I-680, Omaha, but what I'm concerned

50:40

about down here, south of Sarpy

50:42

County, these are more storms here

50:44

that are violently rotating and are

50:46

working toward Omaha proper, where the

50:48

storm here missed the western suburbs

50:50

of Omaha. Almost elkhorn, really,

50:52

but this is the area that I'm

50:55

most concerned about over the next 30

50:57

minutes or so. Now for Chanuk, Kansas,

50:59

you have some storms to your west

51:01

as well, they are also rotating. Down in

51:03

Texas, it is hail and a wind event

51:05

for you. We will watch the tornadoes because

51:08

they are on the ground right now. All

51:11

right, scary stuff. Meteorologist Chad Myers, thanks so

51:13

much. The other major story this hour. Day

51:15

four of testimony in Donald Trump's criminal hush

51:18

money coverup trial has just wrapped up for

51:20

the week. What a week it has been

51:22

for the former president today in court,

51:24

the defendant watched three witnesses

51:27

testify, including his former assistant,

51:29

Rona Graff, as well as David Packer,

51:31

his purported friend and former publisher of

51:34

the National Enquirer, testifying

51:36

about the deal that Packer says he helped

51:38

broker with adult film star

51:40

and director Stormy Daniels. Packer today in

51:43

his fourth day of testimony, admitting he

51:45

would kill stories, meaning he would buy

51:47

them and then not run them,

51:50

so as to influence the 2016 election and

51:52

quote, to help a presidential candidate,

51:54

that candidate being his friend, Mr. Trump.

51:56

Prosecutors say Trump's falsification of business records

51:58

owe a $1 billion those

52:01

hush money payments to Stormy Daniels

52:03

amount to an illegal conspiracy to

52:05

subvert the election by concealing

52:07

information from voters. We'll

52:09

see if the jury goes goes along with that

52:11

theory. That is just one of

52:13

the legal dramas starring Mr. Trump this week.

52:16

Yesterday his federal election subversion case was front

52:18

and center as the US

52:20

Supreme Court heard oral arguments on his

52:22

claim that presidents are immune

52:25

from prosecution for official acts

52:27

they commit while being president. The

52:29

justices seem to be leaning toward

52:31

rejecting his claims of sweeping immunity.

52:34

Trump also took a loss yesterday when a federal

52:36

judge upheld the verdict

52:38

and award in E. Jean Carroll's

52:40

defamation case against Mr. Trump denying

52:43

his motion for a new trial altogether.

52:46

This week Mr. Trump also finds himself listed as

52:50

an unindicted co-conspirator in both

52:52

Arizona and in Michigan's 2020

52:55

election subversion investigations and indictments.

52:57

Let's discuss all of this

53:00

with Ronan Farrow contributing writer at the

53:02

New Yorker who's done extensive reporting on

53:04

David Packer and his company AMI as

53:06

well as the Karen McDougal catch

53:09

and kill deal. Ronan's

53:11

a lawyer also the author of

53:13

catch and kill lies spies and

53:15

a conspiracy to protect predators.

53:18

Ronan good to see you again my friend so

53:20

today the defense tried to expose small

53:22

inconsistencies in Packer's statements. They focused

53:24

on a key August 2015 meeting

53:27

at Trump Tower with Packer and

53:29

Trump and Cohen where Packer

53:31

said he agreed to be the eyes and

53:33

ears of the Trump campaign flagging any negative

53:35

stories about Trump to Michael Cohen. The

53:37

defense asked did you ever

53:40

specifically use the term catch and

53:42

kill in the meeting and Packer replied no I did not

53:45

but then under redirect questioning from

53:47

the prosecution Packer reiterated the

53:49

content of the 2015 meeting

53:51

saying my understanding is those stories that

53:53

come up I would speak to my Michael Cohen and tell them

53:56

these are the stories that are going to be for sale that

53:58

if we don't buy them somebody else. will and then

54:00

Michael Cohen would handle by them

54:03

or try to make sure that they don't ever get published."

54:06

So even if the term catch and

54:08

kill wasn't used, you wrote a book

54:10

called Catch and Kill. Is that not Catch and

54:12

Kill? That

54:15

is the definition of this colloquial term

54:17

that has emerged around this, Catch and

54:20

Kill, which was a term that I

54:22

and other journalists around this first started

54:24

hearing from AMI employees.

54:27

It was something of a, you know, it's called

54:29

a neologism, it entered into the discourse partly

54:32

through this. And it was a practice the

54:34

inquirer had engaged in for a long time,

54:36

this sort of stick and carrot of we'll

54:39

buy up the unflattering stories, maybe we won't

54:41

run them. Also you

54:43

know, we'll run flattering stories about you.

54:45

They had done that with Hollywood celebrities

54:48

in the past. And here they were

54:50

clearly applying it in a political context.

54:52

And it was apparent to all of

54:54

us digging through the trail of money

54:56

on this, that even if the underlying

54:59

rumors about affairs or supposed to love

55:01

children didn't matter at all and we

55:03

didn't care, what

55:05

did matter was the potential election line

55:07

implications of the transactions. As you

55:09

pointed out on the stand today, Pekker

55:12

faced Emil Bovet, one of these Trump

55:14

lawyers who on cross-examination had two objectives.

55:16

He tried to pick apart Pekker's credibility

55:18

by looking at the long history of

55:20

cooperative statements he's made to law enforcement

55:23

over the past years about this and

55:25

finding any little difference. You know, did

55:27

he initially say that Hope Hicks was

55:29

present for some of that meeting that

55:31

you mentioned or did he not tried

55:34

to impeach his memory about those things? And

55:36

then the other thing Bovet was trying to

55:38

establish was were these deals

55:40

that were also just in the interest

55:42

of the national inquirer in the usual

55:44

sense that they would have sold issues

55:46

and that was the main objective of

55:48

these transactions. Here's the thing, David

55:51

Pekker has come off extremely well for

55:53

prosecutors in this case so far. He's

55:56

been very composed. He has a

55:58

sort of a vunkular manner. this case

56:00

so far and he is repeatedly

56:02

saying the main point which is the one you

56:04

highlighted which is in the face of

56:06

all of this he's saying no this was not the

56:08

normal course of business even if

56:11

they were on the margins ways in which

56:13

it might have benefited the inquirer in the

56:15

usual there was this other objective here to

56:17

subvert the election yeah and and pecker acknowledging

56:19

that the story that he helped kill that

56:21

he paid 150 thousand dollars to kill

56:24

one of the stories you helped break Karen

56:26

McDougal's silence being bought for a hundred fifty

56:28

thousand dollars that that would have

56:30

been in in in I forget if I

56:32

don't know if it was the prosecution or

56:34

mr. pecker but tabloid gold was

56:37

the term that was used because people who read

56:39

the National Enquirer would have bought a

56:41

lot of copies of it to read the story about

56:44

Donald J Trump and 1998 playmate of

56:47

the year pecker was the first

56:49

witness on the stand for four days what

56:51

do you know having researched this so much

56:53

for your book and for the article about

56:55

Karen McDougal what do you know about David

56:57

pecker and his relationship with without Trump that

56:59

the jury did not hear well

57:04

one thing is that it was a wider

57:06

deeper relationship than is being admitted into this

57:08

case there was a safe that

57:10

contained a lot of materials about

57:13

Trump those materials moved location several

57:15

times over the course of this

57:17

becoming an electoral issue there was

57:19

a list that I was shown

57:21

by a senior ami source of

57:24

Trump's stories not all of them terribly consequential

57:26

some of them were you know his feud

57:28

with Rosie O'Donnell but some of

57:30

them were also potentially on flattering ones so this

57:33

was a deep and wide relationship and

57:35

pecker saying over and over again

57:37

now this was about

57:39

trying to help Donald Trump get

57:41

into the White House is confirmation

57:43

of something that am I lied to a

57:45

lot of reporters including me about back when

57:48

these things were first emergent also

57:50

that safe helps helps explain perhaps why

57:53

mr. Trump has not criticized

57:55

David pecker at all I

57:58

want to ask you before you go because yesterday We

58:00

saw a major court ruling completely separate from the

58:02

Trump case Also on a

58:04

subject that you've broken a lot of stories about and

58:06

you think it could ultimately matter for Trump the

58:09

New York Court of Appeals overturned Harvey

58:11

Weinstein's 2020 conviction for

58:13

sex crimes Basically the court

58:15

said that the lower court made a mistake

58:17

by allowing women to testify about allegations of

58:19

sexual assault that were Separate from

58:22

the three for which he was actually

58:24

charged in that case You were at

58:26

the forefront of investigating reporting a multitude

58:28

of allegations against Weinstein You

58:30

say this ruling could come back

58:33

to haunt Trump's judge Juan. We're

58:35

Sean in Trump's trial explain Well,

58:39

it illuminates a shared legal issue that is

58:41

at the heart of both of these cases

58:44

of course for activists and for

58:47

Survivors of Harvey Weinstein's alleged crimes

58:50

It's an anguished moment to hear that

58:52

one of his convictions was overturned on

58:55

Essentially a question of legal technicality

58:57

the way the case was built

58:59

But for legal spectators It's less

59:01

surprising because this was always a

59:03

case where prosecutors Over-extended a

59:06

bit in the context of the New York rules

59:08

of evidence on what you can let into a

59:10

case He was being charged on

59:12

three alleged assaults and they let other

59:14

women with other accounts of unrelated assaults

59:17

Come in and testify and I have a new

59:19

piece out in the New Yorker detailing what exactly

59:21

the rules are and why that always Seems like

59:24

a bit of an overextension now This

59:26

doesn't matter that much for Harvey Weinstein's

59:29

immediate future his lawyers in California where

59:31

he asked to serve a separate 16-year

59:33

sentence that's essentially going to put him

59:35

away for Much

59:37

of the rest of his life Are

59:40

saying well, well it could help us on appeal

59:42

in California, but that's a much stronger case I've

59:44

been in touch with the prosecutors in that case

59:46

and California's rules for letting

59:48

in that kind of evidence of uncharged

59:50

alleged bad acts are much

59:53

more lax and permissive So that ruling

59:55

is less in jeopardy. He's less likely

59:57

to be affected. What it does affect

59:59

is the general case law on

1:00:01

what you can let in in terms

1:00:03

of uncharged acts in New York and

1:00:05

that is interesting in the context of

1:00:07

this Trump trial because the Trump trial

1:00:10

hinges on charges about one transaction from

1:00:12

Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels but much

1:00:14

of the case prosecutors are building is

1:00:16

about the wider pattern about uncharged acts

1:00:18

namely all of these AMI's. Interesting

1:00:22

Ronan Farrow always good to see you the

1:00:24

book Catch and Kill it's a great read

1:00:26

we've covered it before on the show thanks

1:00:28

so much for being here Ronan good to

1:00:30

see you. Also today both President Biden and

1:00:32

Donald Trump out with big announcements both saying

1:00:34

they would be willing to debate each other

1:00:36

the American people do deserve a formal discussion

1:00:38

on the most important issues of our time

1:00:40

when and where that might actually happen we

1:00:42

do not know. Plus a reversal

1:00:44

from a student at Columbia University who

1:00:47

led pro-Palestinian protests he said in

1:00:49

a rant that was televised and

1:00:51

at least broadcast at least in

1:00:53

part on Instagram live he said

1:00:56

that Zionists don't deserve to live

1:00:58

as other students

1:01:00

are echoing that wild clearly

1:01:02

anti-semitic claim and more demonstrations

1:01:05

are spreading is his

1:01:07

apology such as it is too

1:01:10

little too late we'll be right back. National

1:01:15

lead protests on campuses are spreading

1:01:17

to colleges throughout the country from

1:01:19

California to Indiana from Illinois to

1:01:22

Georgia at Emory University in

1:01:24

Atlanta clashes with police turned physical in

1:01:26

some cases as 28 people

1:01:28

were arrested prompting a group

1:01:30

of Democratic, Georgia state lawmakers to condemn quote

1:01:33

the excessive force used unquote

1:01:35

negotiations continue at Columbia University to find

1:01:38

a way to resolve the conflicts and

1:01:40

remove the tents before graduation one

1:01:42

of the issues being debate in all of

1:01:44

this is how much are these protests solely

1:01:47

rooted in concern for Palestinians in

1:01:49

opposition to what the Israel Defense

1:01:52

Forces is doing in Gaza because

1:01:54

we have seen sentiments expressed

1:01:57

by some of the groups behind the protests

1:02:00

that the Hamas terrorist attacks on civilians

1:02:02

on October 7th were mere

1:02:04

quote resistance and Some

1:02:07

have said that Israel should not

1:02:09

exist Other individuals associated

1:02:11

with the protests or in the

1:02:13

protests have said wildly hateful and

1:02:15

anti-semitic things Including as CNN's

1:02:17

Miguel Marcus reports for us now one

1:02:20

of the Columbia student leaders behind

1:02:23

the protests on that campus Zionists,

1:02:28

they don't deserve to

1:02:31

live comfortably let alone

1:02:33

Zionists don't deserve to

1:02:35

live Kamani James

1:02:37

a spokesperson for the student protest

1:02:39

at Columbia University Said

1:02:42

this more than once in a

1:02:44

personal social media post in

1:02:46

January the same way. We're very

1:02:48

comfortable Accepting that

1:02:51

Nazis don't deserve to live

1:02:54

Fascist don't deserve to live racist

1:02:57

don't deserve to live Zionists They

1:03:00

shouldn't live in this world Confronted

1:03:03

by CNN about his comments

1:03:05

James unapologetic, I

1:03:07

think we need to shift the conversation

1:03:09

from people's

1:03:11

comfort to the Hundreds

1:03:14

of thousands of people who

1:03:16

have been displaced the

1:03:18

tens of thousands of people who have been

1:03:20

murdered by Israel I

1:03:22

mean how do your words help? I

1:03:24

think it's very important. How do your

1:03:26

words help? I think

1:03:29

it's very important for people to

1:03:31

understand that the conflation of Anti-zionism

1:03:34

with anti-semitism is

1:03:37

woefully incorrect and wrong again, but

1:03:39

you apologize Again,

1:03:41

as I mentioned earlier We

1:03:44

believe in the sanctity of life here

1:03:46

at this encampment Despite his

1:03:49

calls for a class of

1:03:51

people to cease existing James

1:03:53

nearly daily Expresses his belief

1:03:55

that Israel is committing

1:03:57

genocide while Israel plans to move

1:03:59

forward forward with its genocide backed

1:04:01

by the United States and other

1:04:04

Western powers. It

1:04:06

is important to remember why we are here.

1:04:09

After being confronted, James released a

1:04:11

statement saying in part, I am

1:04:13

frustrated that the words I said

1:04:15

in an Instagram live video have

1:04:17

become a distraction for the movement

1:04:19

for Palestinian liberation. I misspoke

1:04:21

in the heat of the moment for which

1:04:24

I apologize. Some Jewish students

1:04:26

at Columbia say they have been called

1:04:28

Zionists by protesters

1:04:33

just for being Jewish. Other

1:04:35

Jewish students have taken an active part

1:04:38

in the protests for what they view

1:04:40

as an overbearing Israeli response to the

1:04:42

October 7th Hamas terror attack and

1:04:45

a weak US response to

1:04:47

continued bloodshed. It's possible that

1:04:49

pro-Palestine protests might make some Jewish

1:04:51

students feel uncomfortable, but I will

1:04:53

emphasize that, you know, the

1:04:56

pro-Palestine protests here at the encampment

1:04:58

are, you know, that they have

1:05:00

fundamental values against hate and bigotry.

1:05:06

Now with regard to Mr. James, the

1:05:08

Columbia university says that they

1:05:10

will not comment on individual cases. It's

1:05:13

not clear if he will face any

1:05:16

disciplinary measures because of what he has said

1:05:18

so far, but a couple of things are

1:05:20

interesting. Typically he's out here every day. Both

1:05:23

the negotiators that are negotiating with

1:05:25

the university for the protesters here

1:05:28

have distanced themselves from Mr. James

1:05:30

and he hasn't been seen.

1:05:32

Usually he's here at two 30 for their press

1:05:34

briefing. He's usually available to the press. We've not

1:05:36

seen him at all. He

1:05:39

says he misspoke. I mean, that was

1:05:42

quite at length over and

1:05:44

over saying that Zionists, which I mean,

1:05:47

as a matter of fact, most

1:05:49

Jews and for

1:05:51

that matter, most Americans are Zionists think that

1:05:53

Israel has a right to exist. Saying

1:05:56

that they, we have no right to live.

1:05:58

That's quite a. a misspeaking

1:06:01

Miguel. There's

1:06:04

a lot of misspeaking and a lot of

1:06:07

people are very upset on both sides about

1:06:09

the term Zionist and how it has become

1:06:11

come to be used. Jake. Yeah,

1:06:13

I'm familiar with it. I remember when

1:06:15

they used to call us neo-cons. Miguel,

1:06:17

thanks so much. The Politics Lead Now

1:06:19

and Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation Online, polluting

1:06:21

the 2024 presidential race. It's

1:06:24

the subject of a brand new episode

1:06:26

of the whole story this week featuring

1:06:28

reporting done from CNN's own Donio Sullivan.

1:06:30

Here's a preview. The

1:06:34

job of the journalist is to ask

1:06:36

the question, allow the person to speak

1:06:39

and just report the facts. What

1:06:42

was spoken? Would you like for me to pull up the

1:06:44

definition of journalist? That's okay, but thank you, Julie. Okay. I

1:06:47

have a God-given right

1:06:51

to speak my own truth. But there are facts,

1:06:53

right? The

1:06:56

facts have shown that the

1:06:59

election was stolen. Whether you're

1:07:01

willing to look at that and

1:07:03

accept that and really show

1:07:05

what's going on, that's your issue,

1:07:08

not ours. We want the

1:07:10

God-given freedom that our Constitution and our

1:07:12

Bill of Rights is based on. God-given

1:07:15

constitutional rights. Yes. They're

1:07:18

two different things, right? No, so they're not. Read,

1:07:21

R-E-A-D, the

1:07:23

Constitution. Read it out loud

1:07:25

to yourself so that you hear what the

1:07:27

words of the Constitution say. God

1:07:30

isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Sir.

1:07:46

Donie's with me now. What happened after she looked at them? We

1:07:49

found out that God isn't mentioned in the

1:07:51

U.S. Constitution. And look, that gets to a

1:07:53

broader point, and we've heard a lot about

1:07:55

Christian nationalism in this country over

1:07:57

the past year. You

1:08:00

know, I've spoken to many Christian pastors over these past

1:08:02

few months and they will say a lot of people

1:08:04

a lot of Trump supporters Will think that the Christian

1:08:06

God a very specific version

1:08:08

of the Christian God is all

1:08:11

over the US Constitution and

1:08:13

there's this conflation between

1:08:15

the United States and

1:08:17

between the

1:08:19

land of the Bible And it's

1:08:22

because of that that a lot of these

1:08:24

folks who are also convinced that the election

1:08:26

was stolen They now view

1:08:29

this as a kind of biblical crusade to

1:08:31

steal it back and to save America So

1:08:34

it's misinformation on top of

1:08:37

a very perverse view of patriotism and

1:08:39

Christianity Quite a thing. So there's this

1:08:41

new cue poll finding nearly three-quarters of

1:08:43

registered voters are very concerned or somewhat

1:08:46

concerned about other countries spreading

1:08:48

false information inside

1:08:50

the US to divide Americans But

1:08:54

to be quite frank, we don't need other countries

1:08:56

to be doing it. We're doing it to ourselves,

1:08:58

right? That's what your reporting shows. Absolutely Look,

1:09:02

I think the and we know from from reporting

1:09:04

from even what Secretary Lincoln

1:09:06

said today to CNN there's concerns there

1:09:08

that Russia China Iran Everybody else is

1:09:10

gonna be trying to poke and poke

1:09:12

divides in the United States. But as

1:09:15

you say Americans were

1:09:17

perfectly capable of creating myths

1:09:20

and disinformation ourselves And

1:09:22

also just the social media landscape has changed so much

1:09:24

in the past few years What

1:09:26

we'll also talk about in this documentary

1:09:28

on Sunday is after Trump

1:09:30

got kicked off Social

1:09:32

major social media sites after January 6

1:09:36

2021 so did a lot of his supporters because

1:09:38

they were sharing Q anon or election

1:09:40

conspiracy theories and a lot

1:09:43

of those people that got kicked off

1:09:45

the major social media platforms for sharing

1:09:47

misinformation have actually gone to alternative platforms

1:09:49

that have radicalized them

1:09:52

Further so it's like parlor Telegram

1:09:55

telegram especially telegram is

1:09:57

this place where you can

1:09:59

go in Starting

1:10:01

just reading about politics and very

1:10:03

quickly descend into a world of

1:10:05

racism, anti-Semitism, hate, and God knows

1:10:07

what else. All right, Donia Sullivan,

1:10:09

I can't wait to see it.

1:10:11

It's going to be terrifying,

1:10:14

I'm sure. Misinformation into Trump faithful.

1:10:16

It's an important report. Watch

1:10:18

it on the whole story with Anderson Cooper, Sunday night at

1:10:20

8, only here on

1:10:22

CNN. An American treasure, Donia Sullivan. Thanks so

1:10:24

much for being here. As you just heard

1:10:26

last hour, Donald Trump constantly needs a fact

1:10:28

check. But don't let his main

1:10:30

2024 challenger off the hook hear what President Biden

1:10:32

repeated just today that also needs a bit of

1:10:35

a closer look. Stay with us. In

1:10:41

our politics lead today, President Biden made a

1:10:43

surprise last minute appearance on Howard Stern's show

1:10:45

on SiriusXM this morning and signaled he's not

1:10:47

only willing but happy to face off against

1:10:49

Donald Trump in a presidential debate. I

1:10:53

don't know if you're going to debate your

1:10:55

opponent. I am somewhere. I don't know why.

1:10:57

I'm happy to be here.

1:11:00

And as he exited his criminal trial just

1:11:02

a few minutes ago, Mr. Trump responded to

1:11:04

that. I've

1:11:07

invited one to debate. You can do

1:11:09

it anytime you want, including tonight. On

1:11:11

Monday, 3 hours, I invited him to

1:11:13

the courthouse. We're willing to do it.

1:11:15

Monday night, Tuesday night. We're

1:11:18

ready. Just tell me where. We'll do it at

1:11:20

the White House. That would be very comfortable, I

1:11:22

assume. Let's bring in our

1:11:24

political panel, Bakari. Wise

1:11:30

move of Mr. Biden to put this out there. President

1:11:32

Biden to put this out there. There have, you know,

1:11:34

earlier he had said something like, well, we'll see because

1:11:36

I'm not sure if he can behave himself about Trump.

1:11:38

No, I think it was a wise move because today

1:11:41

was about pushing back on narratives. I think you saw

1:11:43

some of the articles come out or some of the

1:11:45

stories come out about the Biden

1:11:47

administration not giving long-form interviews versus New

1:11:49

York Times, etc. So the sit down

1:11:51

with Howard Stern. This is about showing

1:11:53

his vitality. I think people will be

1:11:56

interested to see Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.

1:11:58

I don't know how much substance will come out. come

1:12:00

out of that debate, it may be more like watching

1:12:02

a car crash. But here we are. I mean, it'd

1:12:04

be good pay-per-view TV. By the way, Ed

1:12:07

Seals, that'll be crashing. You're

1:12:10

here because your book. I just want to make

1:12:12

sure people know about your book. The

1:12:15

moment thoughts on the race reckoning that

1:12:17

wasn't and how we can all move

1:12:19

forward now. So congratulations on that. Thank

1:12:21

you. Hope everybody out there gets a

1:12:23

copy. Good move or bad

1:12:25

move by Joe Biden. Do you think that, I mean,

1:12:29

that's a lot to debate Donald Trump. It's a lot. It

1:12:32

is a lot, but he wants to be president of

1:12:34

the United States again. So he needs to debate his

1:12:36

opponent. I think that that makes sense. And I

1:12:38

think that American people want to see it. I

1:12:40

liked this interview because it really was not about

1:12:42

policy out of the With

1:12:45

Howard Stern. With Howard Stern. It was maybe six

1:12:47

minutes of policy talk and it went through Joe

1:12:49

Biden's entire story. Now you may think someone who

1:12:51

has been in politics for as long as Joe

1:12:53

Biden doesn't need to tell his personal story again.

1:12:56

But there are still a lot of voters who

1:12:58

don't know who he is. Don't don't understand why

1:13:00

he is wanting to serve the country. And he

1:13:02

kind of laid that out about his commitment, his

1:13:04

struggles, what he's overcome and what his passions are.

1:13:06

So I thought the interview was good. I thought

1:13:09

I was interested. It was Howard Stern. I mean,

1:13:11

I don't listen to much Howard Stern and never

1:13:13

really have, but he's a

1:13:16

lot easier on his

1:13:18

guest. Now I remember how it used to be the

1:13:20

shock jock. And now he looks like

1:13:22

young to remember when he was really young. Well,

1:13:24

he was fawning over the president in this interview

1:13:26

and I was quite surprised. Well, he wants I

1:13:29

think it's fair to say that Howard Stern

1:13:31

makes no bones about the fact that he

1:13:34

thinks Joe Biden should be reelected. It was

1:13:36

a very personal interview. Harry, he talked

1:13:39

about contemplating suicide after the death of

1:13:41

his first wife and daughter in that

1:13:43

horrific car crash. He also

1:13:45

said something that caught the ear of

1:13:47

our resident fact checker, Daniel Dale. Take

1:13:50

a listen. True

1:13:53

stories. Remember when they were desegregating

1:13:55

Linfield, the neighborhood into a you

1:13:59

know, 70 homes, build a

1:14:01

one suburbia. And I told

1:14:03

you, and there was a black family moving in

1:14:05

and there was people who were down there protesting.

1:14:07

I told you not to go down there and

1:14:09

you went down. Remember that? And

1:14:11

you came, you got arrested, be standing on the porch with

1:14:13

a black family. Right. And they brought

1:14:16

you back to police. And I said, yeah, mom,

1:14:18

I remember that. So

1:14:20

this is not the first time he's made this claim.

1:14:23

CNN's Daniel Dale ran a fact check on

1:14:25

it, found there's still absolutely

1:14:27

no evidence for it. And

1:14:30

we forget that because

1:14:32

Donald Trump is who Donald Trump is, that Joe

1:14:34

Biden does a lot of this too. Yeah, he

1:14:36

does a lot of this. You know, there are

1:14:38

a lot of things that Joe Biden says, you

1:14:41

know, oh, this happened 50 years ago where my

1:14:43

uncle or my father and so on and so

1:14:45

forth. And the fact checkers go in and they

1:14:47

say, wait a minute, we can find no evidence

1:14:49

for this whatsoever. But of course, the problem is

1:14:52

if you're trying to, you know, stick Joe Biden

1:14:54

with the idea that he says some dishonest things,

1:14:56

just look across the aisle. Right. And I think

1:14:58

that's the issue that has continuously run into opponents

1:15:00

of Joe Biden, especially Donald Trump, because, you know,

1:15:03

Joe Biden may say one or two things in

1:15:05

a day, I know a week, a month, a

1:15:07

year that the fact checkers say, wait a minute,

1:15:09

hold on a second. Donald Trump says that many

1:15:11

things in a day. So it just is a

1:15:13

big issue. Doug, I mean, it

1:15:15

is true that the Joe Biden is known for these

1:15:18

apocryphal stories, shall we say cannibalism being

1:15:20

one of the latest. Oh, yeah. That

1:15:22

his uncle in World War

1:15:25

II, the plane went down and may

1:15:27

have been eaten by cannibals. And Papa

1:15:29

New Guinea is actually out there saying, what are you talking

1:15:32

about? This never happened. But again,

1:15:34

do you think cannibals are going to

1:15:36

tell their story? It's

1:15:38

time to get the other side of the story.

1:15:40

Got to hear both sides. Well, look, you know,

1:15:42

when Donald Trump talked about asshole countries, he got

1:15:45

a lot of criticism for it, I think very

1:15:47

reasonably so. Papa New Guinea is not happy about

1:15:49

this. And as we look at what's going on

1:15:51

in Asia and obviously with

1:15:53

China on the move out there, this

1:15:55

does have ramifications. It's not just Uncle

1:15:57

Joe telling another crazy story. look,

1:16:00

we know that presidents want to seek friendly

1:16:02

audiences. They also are trying to communicate in

1:16:04

new ways. That's not entirely new. But

1:16:07

this weekend is the White House Correspondents

1:16:09

weekend. And there's a time honored tradition

1:16:11

of accepting the Trump years, the president

1:16:14

saying, White House Correspondents, what you do

1:16:17

is so vital to democracy. And

1:16:19

this week is Joe Biden snubbing the White

1:16:21

House Correspondents Association, snubbing mainstream media. What do

1:16:23

you mean, not going to the dinner tomorrow?

1:16:25

No, meaning that he's been fighting with

1:16:27

the New York Times this week. And where does he go?

1:16:29

It goes to Howard Stern. So he's going to tell the

1:16:32

White House press corps how important they are, but he doesn't

1:16:34

actually talk to them. I think that's a problem. Yeah. I

1:16:36

mean, the Times doesn't go to the dinner too, though. But

1:16:38

I mean, not that it matters. It's all inside baseball stuff.

1:16:40

But I hear what you're saying. He gave an interview Howard

1:16:43

Stern, who's not exactly a member of the White House Correspondents

1:16:45

Association. Not? And you're going to be on the red

1:16:47

carpet for us? Right. I'm

1:16:49

absolutely going to be on the red carpet and be in a tuxedo.

1:16:51

It's going to be the one time during the year in which I

1:16:53

wear a tie. If you're keeping caution

1:16:55

for a passer, I might have some chocolate

1:16:57

matzah, egg matzah, regular matzah for you to

1:16:59

partake in. It should be a fun time.

1:17:01

We'll have some CNN folks that will interview

1:17:03

and hopefully perhaps a few celebrities as well.

1:17:05

So one other thing I do have to

1:17:07

bring up because when we sat down here

1:17:09

during the commercial break, this is all anybody

1:17:11

was talking about. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

1:17:13

is getting a lot of attention after writing

1:17:15

in her upcoming book obtained by the Guardian

1:17:17

newspaper about how she killed her

1:17:19

dog after this puppy ate some chickens. A

1:17:22

CNN article describes, quote, she attempted to tame

1:17:24

the dog who she said behaved like a

1:17:26

trained assassin to try to train him with

1:17:28

an electric collar, but ultimately made the decision

1:17:30

to put her down the dog by

1:17:32

shooting her in a gravel pit after an incident

1:17:34

in which the dog attacked a local family's chickens

1:17:37

and bit them. It was not a pleasant job,

1:17:39

Noem writes, according to the Guardian, but it

1:17:41

had to be done. And after it was over,

1:17:43

I realized another unpleasant job needed

1:17:45

to be done. That's about her killing a

1:17:48

goat. In a post on Twitter, Governor

1:17:50

Noem said today, quote, we love animals, but tough decisions

1:17:52

like this happen all the time on

1:17:55

a farm. I did not grow up on a farm. Anybody here grow

1:17:57

up on a farm? But I didn't get to be a grow up

1:17:59

on a farm. and know how insane she

1:18:01

sounds. I got a letter for putting down

1:18:03

dogs. I mean, my goodness gracious, man's

1:18:05

best friend is a dog. My Twitter

1:18:07

profile picture is my childhood dog. So all

1:18:10

I ever talk about is how much I

1:18:12

love dogs. Now, I don't have really horses

1:18:14

in this bloke race. I try and watch

1:18:16

it passionately, nonpartisanly. But as a dog lover,

1:18:18

I hear that quote and I go, my

1:18:21

goodness gracious, she shouldn't be anywhere near the

1:18:23

white. I think somebody allowed that to be

1:18:25

written on the back and published. I was

1:18:27

a dog owner whose dog is poorly

1:18:30

trained. I'm offended by that. And

1:18:32

there was another way to do it. And the fact

1:18:34

that she felt like she should brag about it is

1:18:36

disgusting, but also kind of just... There's no go-go. Think

1:18:38

about me rocking criticism for transporting

1:18:41

his dog on the roof. This is miles worth

1:18:43

it. All right, we're gonna take this to the

1:18:45

bar. Thanks to all of you for

1:18:47

being here and I'll see you all out tonight,

1:18:49

I'm guessing. And Harry Enten, of course, as we

1:18:51

mentioned, will be on the red carpet

1:18:53

tomorrow in his tuxedo for CNN's coverage

1:18:55

of the White House Correspondents issue she did.

1:18:58

President Biden, comedian Colin Jost, headlined the event

1:19:00

that's tomorrow night at seven o'clock Eastern on

1:19:02

CNN and streaming on Max. And Harry, I'll

1:19:04

stop by, I promise. I don't want any

1:19:06

months ago. Up next,

1:19:09

breaking news about a former controversial governor

1:19:11

and his handling of one of the

1:19:13

biggest crises this country has seen in

1:19:15

decades. Back

1:19:19

with our health lead, four years after the

1:19:21

start of the global COVID pandemic, more information

1:19:24

continues to come to light about how some

1:19:26

states may have mishandled the crisis,

1:19:28

including in one of the hardest hit states, New

1:19:30

York. In March, 2020, then

1:19:32

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, issued

1:19:35

an advisory that forced New

1:19:37

York nursing homes to readmit patients

1:19:39

who had been hospitalized with COVID,

1:19:41

with no requirement to test them

1:19:43

first to make sure that they weren't contagious

1:19:45

and wouldn't spread the virus among the other

1:19:48

vulnerable residents of the nursing homes. Now, Cuomo

1:19:50

has attempted to defend the decision. He claimed

1:19:52

it was following guidance from the Trump administration,

1:19:55

and so the Trump administration disputes that. Critics

1:19:57

say the policy either way resulted in... thousands

1:20:00

of needless deaths. A 2021 investigation

1:20:02

by New York Attorney General Letitia

1:20:05

James, also a Democrat, found

1:20:07

that the New York State Department of Health

1:20:09

under Cuomo, quote, undercounted nursing home COVID deaths

1:20:11

by as much as 50 percent, unquote. And

1:20:13

a 2022 audit by New York

1:20:16

State's Comptroller, also a Democrat, concluded that

1:20:18

former Governor Cuomo's Health Department, quote, failed

1:20:20

to account for approximately 4,100 lives lost

1:20:23

due to COVID-19 in New York nursing

1:20:27

homes. Just last month, the chair

1:20:29

of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus

1:20:31

pandemic in the House

1:20:33

of Representatives, Congressman Brad Winthrop,

1:20:36

subpoenaed former Governor Cuomo. And

1:20:41

Ohio Republican Congressman Brad Winthrop, the chairman of

1:20:43

the subcommittee, joins us now. Chairman Winthrop, thanks

1:20:45

for joining us. You have an announcement to

1:20:47

break right here on the lead about how

1:20:50

former Governor Cuomo has responded to your subpoena.

1:20:52

What is the news? Yeah,

1:20:54

well, I do want to say, and we'll be putting

1:20:57

something out shortly, but I'll tell you here right now

1:20:59

that Governor Cuomo will be

1:21:01

coming, appearing before our select subcommittee on

1:21:03

the pandemic on June 11th. This will

1:21:05

be a transcribed interview at 10 a.m.

1:21:09

This is nine months after we initially started

1:21:11

reaching out to the governor to ask him

1:21:13

to come in and testify in

1:21:16

front of us. We were ignored

1:21:18

on many of our requests. There

1:21:20

were delays. We subsequently had to

1:21:22

issue a subpoena. We did that

1:21:24

on March 5th, subpoenaing

1:21:26

the governor for May 24th, and

1:21:28

it was only not until then

1:21:30

that he decided that he would

1:21:33

come in for a transcribed interview.

1:21:35

Just understand the difference between a

1:21:37

subpoena order deposition and a transcribed

1:21:39

interview. They're slightly different,

1:21:41

but both of them, you

1:21:44

cannot lie or

1:21:46

it's prosecuted. So

1:21:48

just to be clear, though, this will

1:21:50

be not public, and it won't be

1:21:52

under oath, even though obviously either way,

1:21:54

lying to Congress is a crime. You've

1:21:57

got it. We'll make it public eventually. but

1:22:00

it will not initially be public. Who

1:22:03

else from the Cuomo administration

1:22:07

are you going to talk to, if anyone? Well,

1:22:10

we already confirmed that we're going

1:22:12

to hear from Governor Cuomo's

1:22:15

former secretary, Melissa DeRosa. We're going

1:22:17

to speak to about three members

1:22:19

of his task force, medical

1:22:21

advisor Dr. Adams and Dr. Howard Zucker

1:22:24

from the New York Health Department. And

1:22:26

we're looking forward to hearing their versions

1:22:28

of what took place because the

1:22:31

governor wants to say that he

1:22:33

followed CMS guidelines, but if

1:22:36

you follow the dates, he did not.

1:22:38

The guidelines came out in

1:22:41

March 13th, 12

1:22:44

days before he issued his mandate

1:22:46

for the nursing homes to accept

1:22:49

COVID-19 patients. What are you

1:22:51

trying to learn from Governor Cuomo? Well,

1:22:54

I'm trying to learn why he would do

1:22:56

something like this. As a doctor who has

1:22:58

treated infections, it goes

1:23:00

against all medical common sense to take

1:23:02

someone who is highly contagious and put

1:23:04

them in amongst the most vulnerable. The

1:23:06

idea is to quarantine and to treat

1:23:08

them. And that is not what

1:23:10

took place here. And the question is why? What

1:23:13

kind of medical advice was he being given? What

1:23:15

was the motive for wanting to do this move

1:23:18

that clearly goes against, as I say, medical

1:23:20

common sense? And I think if

1:23:22

I did something like this as a physician, I

1:23:25

would be accused of medical malpractice. Your

1:23:27

press release states, quote, evidence also suggests

1:23:29

that former Governor Cuomo engaged in a

1:23:32

cover-up to hide the true New

1:23:34

York nursing home mortality rate from

1:23:36

the public and shift political blame

1:23:38

away from his administration. I

1:23:41

know, obviously, that both the New York

1:23:43

Attorney General and the New York Comptroller,

1:23:45

both of our Democrats, have said that

1:23:47

the Cuomo administration undercounted COVID

1:23:49

deaths from the nursing home rule.

1:23:52

But is there actual evidence of

1:23:55

an alleged cover-up, because Cuomo has

1:23:57

obviously been denying any wrongdoing? Well,

1:24:00

he's going to have the opportunity to deny

1:24:03

that again and take a look at what some

1:24:05

of the other people are saying actually took place

1:24:08

and whether it was intentional to

1:24:10

play those numbers down or whether

1:24:12

it was just miscounting. So

1:24:15

those are the types of things, Jake, that we need to

1:24:17

get to the bottom of. Nursing Homes

1:24:19

Aside, a Los Angeles Times analysis finds that between

1:24:21

2020 and 2023, quote, deaths

1:24:24

by age group as reported by local

1:24:26

health departments shows New York City recorded

1:24:28

a COVID death rate 40% higher than

1:24:31

Los Angeles counties. New York

1:24:33

got hit earlier than LA, giving LA more

1:24:35

time to prepare and the difference in vaccination

1:24:37

rates and mask mandates could have also been

1:24:39

factors. Given that, how difficult

1:24:41

does it determine how various policies

1:24:44

played a role in the discrepancy between

1:24:46

the death toll in Los Angeles and

1:24:49

the death toll in New York? Yeah,

1:24:52

well, you know, you're not going

1:24:54

to see necessarily the virus literally

1:24:57

being seen jumping to a vulnerable

1:24:59

patient in a nursing home, but

1:25:02

I think those numbers will speak

1:25:04

pretty clearly for themselves. And

1:25:07

again, it goes against medical advice and

1:25:09

it goes against medical common sense. And

1:25:11

so when you see numbers and you

1:25:13

say elderly, well, elderly, where? Were they

1:25:15

elderly that were in nursing homes? Nursing

1:25:18

homes where they accepted COVID-19 patients?

1:25:21

Were they in nursing homes where

1:25:23

the nursing home was prohibited from

1:25:25

testing patients being readmitted or admitted

1:25:28

for COVID-19? So a

1:25:30

lot of those things I think will speak for

1:25:33

themselves if we get the accurate data based on

1:25:35

all the surroundings of who was

1:25:37

placed where, when, and who

1:25:40

was infected with COVID and how many

1:25:42

people actually died subsequently. Republican

1:25:44

Congressman, Dr. Brad Wenstrup. Thank you so much.

1:25:47

Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Dave. The

1:25:50

lead did reach out to the former

1:25:52

governor for comment. A spokesman for Andrew

1:25:55

Cuomo told us, quote, there is no

1:25:57

news here. We agreed to do this

1:25:59

month. ago, we should

1:26:01

note that the committee in response to

1:26:04

that statement tells us that Cuomo did

1:26:06

not actually confirm a specific date for

1:26:08

his transcribed interview until two

1:26:10

days ago, Governor Cuomo has an

1:26:13

open invitation to appear on the lead to answer

1:26:15

any of our questions whenever he has

1:26:18

the time. Fresh off his

1:26:20

meetings in China, what Secretary of State

1:26:22

Anthony Blinken told CNN about interference already

1:26:25

in the 2024 presidential election here in the

1:26:27

United States. Back

1:26:33

with our world lead Secretary of State

1:26:35

Anthony Blinken just left China after spending

1:26:37

days trying to press Chinese leaders, including

1:26:39

Xi Jinping, on contentious issues that remain

1:26:41

between the two superpowers. CNN's Kylie Atwood

1:26:43

has been traveling with Blinken. She sat

1:26:46

down with the secretary right before he

1:26:48

left. Kylie, what do you have to

1:26:50

say? Well,

1:26:53

listen, he spoke to US concerns about

1:26:55

China meddling in the US elections. Listen

1:26:57

to part of our conversation where he

1:27:00

said that China is arguably already trying

1:27:02

to interfere in US elections. He

1:27:05

reported that he told President Biden

1:27:08

that China would not interfere in

1:27:10

the upcoming presidential elections in the

1:27:12

United States. But since then, there

1:27:14

have been reports of

1:27:16

online Chinese accounts that have

1:27:18

falsely mimicked Trump supporters. Do

1:27:21

you believe that these accounts violate

1:27:23

President Xi's commitment? What

1:27:25

I can tell you is this. President

1:27:28

Biden was very clear about that

1:27:30

with President Xi, and I repeated

1:27:32

that today in my meetings. But

1:27:34

they're not violating the commitment yet, as far as you

1:27:36

can tell? Well, again, I have to look at the

1:27:39

specific reports that you're referring to, but we

1:27:41

have seen generally speaking

1:27:45

evidence of attempts to influence

1:27:50

and arguably interfere, and we want

1:27:52

to make sure that that's cut off

1:27:54

as quickly as possible. Now,

1:27:59

we also said that the U.S. is concerned

1:28:01

about China seeking to mirror Russia

1:28:03

in terms of influence campaigns in

1:28:05

the United States, trying to drive

1:28:07

up divisions in the U.S. And

1:28:09

Jake, when it comes to those

1:28:11

protests, those anti-Israel protests that are

1:28:13

really surrounding U.S. college campuses right

1:28:15

now, he said that protests are

1:28:17

a hallmark of democracy. And here's

1:28:19

how he described the specific protests

1:28:21

that we have seen unfold. We

1:28:25

heard from Israel's

1:28:27

prime minister Netanyahu this week who

1:28:30

called these protests anti-Semitic and said

1:28:32

they must stop. Do you think

1:28:34

he's right? Look, the protests

1:28:37

in and of themselves are

1:28:39

not anti-Semitic. There are

1:28:42

protesters and there

1:28:44

are also activists

1:28:46

who may have other agendas who

1:28:50

clearly are engaged in rhetoric. That

1:28:53

is, but what we're also

1:28:55

seeing is people, young

1:28:57

people, people from

1:28:59

different walks of life who do feel

1:29:02

very passionately, who have

1:29:04

very strong emotions about this anger.

1:29:08

And I understand that.

1:29:10

But we've certainly seen instances

1:29:13

where that has

1:29:15

clearly veered from a totally

1:29:18

legitimate expression of views

1:29:21

and beliefs to, in

1:29:23

some instances, yes, clear expressions of

1:29:26

anti-Semitism. Now

1:29:28

what he also said was that

1:29:30

these protesters are really something that

1:29:33

the Biden administration is paying attention

1:29:35

to. But he wasn't specific, Jake,

1:29:37

in terms of how these protesters

1:29:39

could have an impact on Biden

1:29:41

administration policy, rejecting some of these

1:29:43

protesters who have been calling for

1:29:46

the U.S. to stop sending weapons

1:29:48

to Israel. Jake. All

1:29:50

right, Carly Atwood with Secretary of State

1:29:52

Blinken in Beijing. Thanks so much. We'll

1:29:54

be right back. Virginia's

1:30:00

Republican Governor Glenn Yunkin and

1:30:03

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. It's a packed

1:30:05

Sunday. That's Sunday morning at 9 Eastern and

1:30:07

again at noon here on CNN. You

1:30:09

can follow the show on X at the lead

1:30:11

CNN. If you ever miss an episode of the

1:30:14

lead, you can listen to the show once you

1:30:16

get your podcasts. Our coverage continues now with Wolf

1:30:18

Blitzer in the Situation Room. We'll see you soon.

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