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Trump Again Asks Appeals Court for Immunity; Expert Trump Hired to Find Voter Fraud Speaks; Runway Warning Lights Were Out of Service at Time of Crash; New Antibiotic Targets Deadly Drug-Resistant Bacteria. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 03, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:03]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: Trump's attorneys and special counsel Jack Smith are scheduled to present oral arguments in that case next Tuesday.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And until that appeals court weighs in and then potentially the Supreme Court, the federal election subversion case is on hold.

Let's get the latest from CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid. So Paula, what are you watching for right now?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I'm looking for former President Trump to file his appeal to the Supreme Court. It's been two weeks since the Colorado Supreme Court removed him from the ballot.

We've seen him file a challenge in Maine to the state court, but really we need the Supreme Court to weigh in here and offer clarity to the states and the candidates about this question of ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Now the Republican party in Colorado has already filed its appeal. So the impact of that was twofold.

One, it put that decision to remove Trump from the ballot on hold. So he is expected, unless the Supreme Court acts in the next few days, to appear on the primary ballot. And it also means the Supreme Court could take up that appeal if Trump doesn't ultimately end up filing his own.

But I'm told by multiple sources, he does expect to file an appeal. And look, time is of the essence here. They really need to clarify this question ahead of the general election.

MARQUARDT: So as this plays out, what is next in terms of the immunity bid by the former president in that election subversion case?

REID: So next Tuesday, big day, oral arguments before the court of appeals. And we saw last night, once again, the Trump team filing a brief reiterating a lot of the arguments they've made. Insisting that he should not be criminally charged for any actions that he took while in office. They pointed to the quote, 234 years of unbroken tradition of not prosecuting presidents for official acts. But of course, a lower court found that what he did related to January 6th, it's not part of his official duties. It's not protected.

And of course, the special counsel has said, look, if we allow president's absolute immunity for anything they do in office, they're going to start committing crimes to stay in office. We can't have that.

So look, even sources close to the Trump legal team say they don't expect that he's actually going to win on this issue of immunity. But the long-term goal is to delay this case, right? That's the strategy. That same source puts it at about 50-50, whether this case goes this year. Because remember, the whole thing is on pause until this immunity question is resolved, something that could ultimately go to the Supreme Court or not.

But with all of these issues, fascinating constitutional questions, but time is really the big issue here.

MARQUARDT: The word we use over and over again, unprecedented.

REID: Unprecedented. We've been using it for seven years. I'm ready for some precedent today.

SANCHEZ: Let's do that. Paula Reid, thank you so much.

So as Donald Trump seeks presidential immunity in his federal election subversion case, we want to have a conversation with someone who was actually hired by his campaign after the 2020 election.

Voting data analyst Ken Block joins us now. He owns Simpatico Software Systems and he wrote the new book, "Disproven." He also recently wrote an opinion piece for USA Today titled, "Trump paid me to find voter fraud. He then lied after I found the 2020 election wasn't stolen."

Ken, thank you so much for being with us. First, I want to start with why you think the Trump campaign hired you and whether you ever got the sense that they wanted you to bring them findings that went beyond the truth.

KEN BLOCK, OWNER, SIMPATICO SOFTWARE SYSTEMS: Good afternoon. Thanks for having me on. I don't believe that -- actually, I know for a fact that there were no expectations placed upon me in terms of you must deliver us fraud no matter what.

As we negotiated my contract to do this work, I was very clear with them that the data would take me wherever it led and that that would have to be acceptable to the campaign. And the campaign was very gracious about that and said, no, we totally understand that. We want -- this is surprising to a lot of people -- but the Trump campaign attorneys that I reported to wanted an honest assessment of voter fraud so that they didn't file erroneous lawsuits.

There were a couple of different camps of lawyers involved in the litigating the election. I worked for the more careful. SANCHEZ: I see you do write that your team communicated directly with

the White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, that you found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. I'm curious if you've got a sense of his reaction and whether you know how and when that message was communicated to President Trump.

BLOCK: So I do have answers to those questions. The lawyer that I reported to in the January 6th committee hearings was broadcast on TV during those hearings describing his interactions with Mark Meadows when he brought Mr. Meadows the results, the totality of our results, which said no substantive voter fraud was found sufficient to overturn an election in any of the swing states.

[15:35:04]

Mark Meadows' response in the sworn deposition by the attorney that I reported to was that Meadows said, well, that means there's no there, there. Referring to the claims of voter fraud. And then we saw some reporting by "The Washington Post" within the last two months that Mr. Meadows communicated to Jack Smith's investigators that he had taken the news of no valid voter claims of voter fraud into the Oval Office.

SANCHEZ: Sure. So Ken, what was your reaction then, knowing that you found no voter fraud, to then seeing President Trump and his allies echoing what ultimately was a lie?

BLOCK: Yes, it's hard to watch and it's hard to listen to. I try and put the politics outside of it. What worries me greatly is I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who only hear about the claims of fraud and they believe firmly that voter fraud must be everywhere because those are the -- that's the only that's the only news they received. It's the only messaging that they're hearing from their politicians.

And what's frustrating for me is the fact that I was the guy. I looked for it. It wasn't there. And that information has not been covered by one conservative media outlet anywhere in the country. And it's really problematic for everybody that we're not getting balanced information about what actually happened in the 2020 election. And that's how I find myself in front of you today.

SANCHEZ: So, Ken, I don't want to get into the weeds with the methodology, but just on the surface, you write that voter fraud is, quote, detectable, quantifiable and verifiable. You added that none of the allegations you saw about 2020 provides those three things.

Help us understand what that means. Is it possible that your analysis somehow missed something?

BLOCK: Well, of course, it's possible that an analysis missed something. You have to understand that in the starting the day after the election, there's roughly a 30-day period in which you can contest an election result before most states certify the results. And once the results are certified, there really isn't much you can do from a legal perspective. So inside that 30 days, we covered a lot of ground in a hurry. We did

as much as was humanly possible with the size of the staff and the budget that we had. I would never claim that it was completely exhaustive. On the other hand, what I would tell you, though, is if there was fraud and if it was provable and verifiable and everything else, somebody would have brought it forward by now. So the fact that that hasn't happened makes me very confident that we didn't miss anything in the work that was done in November of 2020.

SANCHEZ: But I'm sure you've heard from friends that talked about those 60-plus cases that Trump and his team brought, arguing that there was election fraud, arguing that those dismissals were politically motivated, that perhaps the Supreme Court was too scared to take on the issue of widespread election fraud. What do you say to those folks close to you who still believe that Trump won in 2020?

BLOCK: Some of my work product for the campaign stopped some lawsuits that were going to be based on some astonishingly bad data analytics. And a lot of the other cases that were thrown out were thrown out because claims of harm couldn't be brought -- couldn't be quantified, a whole bunch of complex legal requirements to make a successful argument that an election should be overturned.

Not one of the cases that I'm familiar with came anywhere close to meeting the legal burden of proof necessary for a valid claim that could come out there and cause the upheaval that was being looked for in these court cases.

And you have to bear in mind that my job, first and foremost, was to deliver the findings to help inform some of these lawsuits. And I was utterly unable to come anywhere close to delivering enough fraud to matter.

SANCHEZ: Ken Block, we very much appreciate your time and we look forward to the book. Thanks for coming on.

BLOCK: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

So we want to give you an update on a story we first brought up earlier this hour. That's House Speaker Mike Johnson. He's with some 60-odd House members who are at the southern border right now. They're speaking to the press about the immigration crisis. We're going to monitor his remarks and bring you what he says in just a few moments when we come back on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: Now to new details on that horrifying plane collision in Tokyo involving a passenger jet and a Coast Guard plane. CNN has learned that the warning lights designed to stop pilots from taxiing onto the runway were not working at the time of the crash. This as new air traffic control data reveals what may have been a catastrophic error by that Coast Guard Crew.

We have CNN's Pete Muntean joining us to breakdown the latest. So, Pete, we're starting to get a clearer picture of all the things that went wrong.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: You're really able to build more of a narrative now about the links in the accident chain that led up to this disaster, that killed five people on this Coast Guard plane. And we've now got two really big clues here.

The first, that the air traffic control transcript shows that that Coast Guard plane was told to hold short of the runway but not go onto it. Then the second, as you mentioned, the warning lights that would have kept that plane from taxiing onto the runway were out of service.

[15:45:00]

This is the handout that Japanese aviation officials gave to reporters today that essentially lays out the tick-tock of the transmissions from the air traffic control tower at Haneda to that Coast Guard airplane and also to the Japan Airlines airliner that was inbound to the same runway. And it essentially shows that the Japan Airlines flight was cleared to land and the Coast Guard plane was told to hold short of the runway but not taxi onto the runway. This is the key part of the transcript that shows that.

The tail number of the Coast Guard plane, JA722A, Juliet Alpha 722 Alpha. The tower says, good evening, number one, taxi to holding point C5. And that plane responds by saying, taxi to holding point C5, thank you.

So, that clearly shows that there was some sort of breakdown in communication. The big question now investigators will ask is why did that airplane end up on the runway?

One other thing here that we have learned from publicly available notices to pilots called NOTAMs shows that these runway warning lights, they are called runway stop lights. Runway edge stop lights were out of service during the time of the incident and at the taxiway intersection in question.

It keeps pilots from moving from the taxiway onto the runway. Red lights embedded in the pavement. We have learned from this alert to pilots that they were out of service for six days leading up to the accident and on the incident day.

So, Boris, we are really able to paint this much clearer picture about these breakdowns in communication that took place. Not only the visual alerts but also the audible alerts that air traffic controllers were able to give the pilots and the instructions. There was clearly a massive failure here and it may be more than one layer.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's sad to see the failures resulting in all those deaths but it's really miraculous that the ability for those flight attendants to get 400, almost 400 people off the plane. MUNTEAN: Yes, 379 people and the big thing here is that passengers can

take away from this is pay attention to the safety briefing as flight attendants are giving it to you. Read the safety information card, especially when you're flying on an airplane that's not totally familiar to you. If you're flying in an A350 for the first time or a 787 for the first time. And then also just really be there and ready for their instructions. It is so important because flight attendants are there first and foremost for your safety, secondly for your convenience. Seconds count when getting evacuated from an airplane like this, especially one that is burning like this and that can really equal lives.

SANCHEZ: Yes, Pete Monteen, appreciate the report. Thanks.

MUNTEAN: Anytime.

SANCHEZ: Alex.

MARQUARDT: All right, now to a couple other headlines that we're following this hour.

Across America today, multiple state capitals were evacuated after receiving what the FBI calls a hoax email about a bomb threat. Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan and Mississippi are all among states confirming that they received threats just days before the third anniversary of the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

And cities from Washington DC to New York could be blasted with their first real snow in two years as the first major winter storm shapes up for 2024.

A storm gathering strength in the Gulf is expected to combine with a western storm, then bringing ice and snow on the roads and heavy rains forecast for the southern part of the country.

Also, General Motors saying it had its best year for car sales since 2019, selling 2.6 million cars and trucks in the latest year, up 14 percent from last year. Car buyers are seeing more options and in some cases, better prices at the dealership lots with many pandemic- supplied chain snarls having been worked out.

And scientists come up with a potentially life-saving antibiotic to fight a deadly -- a dangerous and deadly bacteria that infects thousands of people in the U.S. each year. Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: As we weather another cold and flu season complicated by COVID, RSV, strep, and other bugs, many of us have asked our doctors for antibiotics to relieve our symptoms. But as life-saving as antibiotics can be, bacteria are constantly evolving to defeat them and many are now drug-resistant.

CNN's Meg Tirrell joins us now with a promising early story about a new antibiotic that could work in a new way to kill a deadly bug that's been notoriously difficult to treat. Meg, help us understand this news.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, I mean, antibiotic resistance is a huge problem. The researchers here actually refer to it as a silent pandemic. There are almost 3 million infections every year in the United States with microbes, either bacteria or other bugs that are resistant to drugs to treat them, causing more than 35,000 deaths. And worldwide, the numbers are even bigger, an estimated 5 million deaths associated with antimicrobial resistance, and that's expected to double by 2050.

And so there are desperate needs for new medicines to treat these drug-resistant microbes. Now, this one particular bacteria is especially problematic. It's known as Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii. There is an acronym for that, and it's CRAB.

This is one that can affect patients in the hospital, causing an estimated 8,500 cases per year in the U.S. and 700 deaths. And it is on the top of the list from the WHO and the CDC of priorities to try to find better drugs to treat it. Because, as you can see there in the name, it's resistant to an important class of medicines.

Now, in this very early research just published in the journal Nature, these researchers from both the drug company Roche and Harvard have shown that they have come up with a potential new class of antibiotics that essentially gums up the mechanisms of how this bacteria works so that it causes the cell death, essentially, and so it can overcome the problems with resistance in this bacteria. So this is really early- stage research. It still needs to be borne out through many more years of clinical trials, but so far promising news, and we really need a lot more of it for this antibiotic resistance problem -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, definitely. Meg Tirrell, thanks so much for the update.

We are following two breaking stories here on CNN.

An imam shot outside a New Jersey mosque. We have an update on his status.

Plus, newly unsealed documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. They are expected to be released today. We're standing by to find out what names are attached to the former sexual offender.

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Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just moments.

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SANCHEZ: We have a sad update to bring you on a story we've been following this afternoon. A law enforcement source tells CNN that Hassan Sharif, the imam who was shot outside of a mosque in Newark, New Jersey, has passed away.

New Jersey's Attorney General's office says that they don't have any information right now suggesting that the shooting today outside a mosque in Newark was motivated by bias.

We should point out the incident took place during pre-dawn prayers and we are expecting to receive an update on this case at around 4.30 p.m.

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Meantime, at any moment, hundreds of newly unsealed documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein are expected to be made public. We just learned from a U.S. district judge that parties will begin filing unredacted records with the identification of about 150 people at some point today.

Of course, this is all from long-running litigation that began back in 2015 brought by a woman who accused Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, of sexually abusing her. Epstein, of course, a convicted sex offender, died in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Thank you so much for joining us today. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.