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Former President Trump to Attend New York City Courtroom for Third Day of Jury Selection in Criminal Trial Involving Falsification of Business Records; House Speaker Mike Johnson Possibly Risking His Speakership by Brining Ukraine Aid Package to Vote on House Floor; 911 Services Mostly Restored After Outages in Four States; Biden to Appear with Kennedy Family, Receive Their Endorsement; Biden's Support Among College Students Hinges on Gaza Policy. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 18, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That will be interesting in and of itself. Max, thank you very much for that.

All right, a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: As Donald Trump heads back to court for day three of jury selection, did he just go after the jury? We are live outside the courthouse with more.

Real questions this morning after a widespread 911 outage that's impacted four states.

And a multimillion-dollar gold heist, why police are now saying it was an inside job.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: We are standing by to see Donald Trump leave Trump Tower for his New York criminal trial. It is within the realm of possibility that they seat a jury by the end of the day. Donald Trump will be there to see if he can stay awake, which has been an issue according to people who have watched him in the courtroom.

Also, an issue potentially, social media posts that Donald Trump pushed about jury selection. One of our legal analysts says, quote, I think the judge is going to go rip split, but she did not say "split" exactly here. So we are standing by to see the judge's reaction. Trump normally speaks before going into court. We will see if he addresses the jury issue then.

Also, we will see if he weighs in on what could be the biggest story of the day. House Speaker Mike Johnson putting his job on the line for a vote on Ukraine aid. Will Donald Trump cut him loose?

CNN's Kristen Holmes is outside court. Seven jurors so far, we will see where we end up in the next few hours, Kristen. KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. So let's talk about what we're going to actually see today. And as you mentioned, Donald Trump is likely to leave in the next hour, and he is expected to stop and speak to the cameras. Remember, he is still running a presidential campaign. He is going to use every opportunity he can to paint this trial as unfair, as election interference, as we have seen him do for the last several months.

So today, we are talking about another 96 jurors being brought into the courtroom. That means the judge is going to first talk to them. Is there anyone who feels like they can't be impartial? That's going to dismiss several people. Last time, it was more than half of the pool that had come in.

Then there's going to be conversations about anyone else who feels for some reason they are to fit to serve in this jury. That will dismiss another handful of people.

Then we get to that questionnaire, the questionnaire we have been talking about that asks the basic questions, what your name is, where you're from, how old you are, what you do for a living, but also those questions that are directly related to this case. Have you ever attended a Trump rally? Have you ever attended any kind of anti-Trump even? Again, more people will get weeded out.

Now, at the very end of this, we know that Donald Trump and his team as well as the prosecutors only have four strikes left. Those are those strikes that they get to just dismiss a juror for any reason. That is something thing that Donald Trump has complained about. He says he should get unlimited strikes. He also continues to say he can't get a fair trial here in New York.

But one post was particularly striking that he put on Truth Social last night. We're going to pull it up for you here. He was quoting a FOX News anchor, but he said, "They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury." There is absolutely no evidence of that right now, but that is a line that Donald Trump has said time and time again, this idea that people are sneaking onto the jury. And I will tell you, John, speaking to both sides, the prosecution and the defense, there is a concern about that. But again, no one is being caught in this moment. That is not a factual statement.

I do want to say one thing about the Johnson comments that you mentioned, because I think this flew under the radar on Friday when there was so much news. Donald Trump, I actually asked him when I was at Mar-a-Lago what he would do if Johnson moved forward with a Ukraine aid package. He essentially said that they were talking about it, that there might be a way to do it as a loan, but I'm pointing that out because this was really the first time that he didn't adamantly say no foreign aid to Ukraine. He said they were trying to work through that.

And as we reported over the weekend, we have heard from multiple sources that Johnson was advised that he should be briefing Trump on anything he does about Ukraine. So that's another aspect of the story that we should keep in mind when we're talking about Trump and Johnson.

BERMAN: Look, that's why I'm so interested to see if he says anything about this, because Donald Trump over the next 24 hours could hold the fate of Mike Johnson in his hands, not to mention perhaps the fate of aid to Ukraine. All right, Kristen Holmes glamorously standing outside the courthouse where it's pouring this morning. Nice to see you. Thank you very much. Sara?

(LAUGHTER)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, we're going to continue the conversation with CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero. She is joining me now. Thank you so much for coming in this morning.

[08:05:01]

I want to just -- we've already heard from Kristen Holmes what Donald Trump put on social media last night talking about, saying that they are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury. He is quoting FOX News personality, Jesse Watters, but he put it on his own Truth Social. We just heard from his former attorney at the White House Jim Schultz. Here's how he put it when I asked him whether or not this violates the gag order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: He's referencing the jurors. He's pushing out something that someone else said, yes. But the bottom line is it applies to him, right. So I think the judge is going to see this as a violation of the gag order. And get ready. They're going to continue and continue and continue. Sure, the judge can fine him. He can admonish him. He could do a lot of things in the courtroom. He's not going to throw him in jail. This trial is still going to continue, and you're still going to hear from Donald Trump on Truth Social, no doubt about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Carrie, do you agree that Trump violated a gag order with this post?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So I'm not sure that the judge is going to find that he technically violated. The former president is pretty savvy in the way that he navigates lines. And since it doesn't sound to me like the post is about an actual, specific, real juror, right. It's sort of purporting to describe somebody who might exist, but who according to Kristen's reporting doesn't actually exist, it's not actually about a juror.

It does fall into a broader category of sort of talking about the jurors. And so I look, I think Sara, this is the extraordinarily difficult line that the judge is going to navigate in this case, because the former president is going to always push the envelope in terms of his public statements. He does have first amendment rights. The judge does need to make sure that he stays in accordance with the gag or and doesn't threaten court personnel, doesn't threaten jurors, doesn't talk about them specifically. But it's going to be very, very difficult. Monetary fines, in my judgement, would have to be of extraordinary amounts to actually matter and be a deterrent to the former president.

SIDNER: Yes, those are really interesting points. I want to stick with the jury, because you have mentioned that the integrity, of course, of the trial depends on jury anonymity. We know one of the jurors is from Ireland. He lives in West Harlem. Another is a Puerto Rican I.T. consultant. Another is a black woman who was a teacher at a charter school. Another as an oncology nurse. There's a corporate lawyer who lives in Chelsea. When you look at all of these different descriptions, if these people are going to be out of work for the next six to eight weeks or more, couldn't people easily figure out who they are, especially if they know them?

CORDERO: Well, I would imagine that there are all sorts of interests from various corners, including the media in trying to learn who some of these jurors are. And as a lawyer from someone who is looking at this from the purpose of the integrity of the proceedings, and it's a really difficult issue. Yes, there's identifying information about these people. This is the highest profile trial going on in the country. All of their associates and family members and coworkers and so forth are going to probably know. And so you're relying not actually just on the jurors themselves, but on a wider network of individuals to try to protect them.

And so we will see that the jurors will be seated. There also will be alternatives who are seated, so that if a juror at some point becomes unable to serve for whatever reason, including public identification, then there will be alternates. But it will be a challenge.

SIDNER: OK, so that's something the judge could do is switch out a juror with one of the six alternates. We have five more jurors to get on the case and six alternates that have to be pulled in as well.

I do want to lastly ask you about legal strategy that we're learning more about. This morning the prosecution is saying if Trump does take the stand, they're asking the judge to allow them to question him about his civil cases where he was found liable for sexual abuse -- that was the E. Jean Carroll -- and the fraud case involving his businesses. How do you think this will play out with the judge, or do you think two prejudicial and the judge will say no?

CORDERO: So I think the judge will have to evaluate each particular piece of evidence that the prosecution wants to launch against the former president to impeach him, impeach in the sense of just demonstrate to the jury that he is not truthful and in prior circumstances his testimony should not be weighted heavily based on prior untruthfulness.

[08:10:00]

So that is in the scenario that he would decide to testify himself, which still would be an enormous question mark, and I tend to think that his defense attorneys would be inclined to guide him not to. But that will, I think the judge will have to consider each individual circumstance and whether each piece of information is appropriate to be entered.

SIDNER: All right, we're just waiting here. In the next few moments, we will see Donald Trump heading to the courthouse where there will be 96 potential jurors who will be questioned. Carrie Cordero, thank you so much. Appreciate your time this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: An American political dynasty and a show of force for Joe Biden that also says a whole lot about Kennedy family dynamics.

The rollercoaster continues, what's behind the uptick now in Trump's media stock today.

And some parts of the country waking up this morning with no 911 service, four states impacted, and officials are now investigating what is going on here.

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[08:15:33]

BERMAN: And breaking overnight, some parts of the country without 911 service after a widespread outage.

Authorities in South Dakota, Texas, Nebraska, and Nevada all reported issues overnight. One department in Texas is blaming a cell provider and others said that landlines were down as well. They are working to find out what caused these outages.

With us now, CNN's Stephanie Elam, what's the latest here, Steph?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a bizarre one, John, that this happened and basically six cities in four different states overnight, we know some service has been restored, but not everywhere based on what we've heard from some of these departments.

So, if you look at Southern Nevada like the Las Vegas metro area. They're saying that their service has been restored. Same thing with South Dakota, so Sioux Falls and also Rapid City are concerned, but we also heard about outages in Del Rio, Texas as well as in Chase County, Nebraska. They have not indicated that their services are back online at this point.

We had learned about these outages because a lot of these areas put it out on their Facebook feeds that they weren't working.

But how you were able to get in touch with 911 varies depending on where you are. In South Dakota, they are saying texting 911 worked in most locations while in Texas, they're saying that the outage was because of that major cellular carrier slightly different if you look at Nebraska where they said the outage was for all carriers except for T-Mobile.

And it is also interesting too that they would say in Texas that they are saying, use a different carrier. I don't know if people have multiple phones that they could do that if they are on two different carriers, but also to look at landline and text worked. Alternately, if you take a look at Vegas, they were saying texting

from a landline was not working or calling from a landline was not working, but if you called or texted, if you call from a 911 number from your cell phone, they would see that you called and directly call you right back.

What is unclear though is why this happened, if any of it is connected, and also how long it might take for those two states to get their areas back online, but obviously very scary if people had any emergencies late last night, John.

BERMAN: Yes, very scary in some places, apparently ongoing with no explanation just yet.

Stephanie Elam, thanks so much for this latest report -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The big moves in Arizona, Republicans in the State House there blocked an effort to repeal the 1800s era near- total ban on abortion. They blocked the effort.

Now police say it was an inside job. Now, they are rounding up suspects in a multimillion-dollar gold heist.

Stop right there.

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[08:22:35]

BOLDUAN: President Biden is heading to Philadelphia today where he is picking up the endorsement from one of America's most storied political families.

More than a dozen members of the Kennedy family are set to throw their support behind him, a show of force and very public shunning of their own family members, third party presidential bid even calling Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s campaign outright dangerous.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Pittsburgh with more on this.

What are you hearing about this -- Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate, good morning.

I mean, it is the latest show of force from the Camelot era, if you will, for President Biden's re-election. We have seen several instances of where the Kennedy family is showing their support for President Biden and what they are not saying is they are trying to draw a contrast with their other family member, the black sheep in the family, if you will, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. whose third-party presidential candidacy is really worrying some Democrats and here is why.

He has been trying to get on the ballot in many battleground states. That effort is underway. He has not been certified in several of them, but the signatures are in so that is something to watch for this summer to see what ballots he actually gets on, but long before that, the White House, the Biden campaign and the Kennedy family, the vast majority of them wanted to show that they are supportive of the Biden re-election efforts.

So we are going to see today in Philadelphia on the third day of President Biden's swing here through battleground, Pennsylvania, the strong show of support from many, many, many Kennedys -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about Pennsylvania because Biden has been there courting unions, courting steel workers this week.

One type of voter, if you will, that he is still struggling with is young voters and you spoke to some young voters about -- younger voters about this. What are they telling you?

ZELENY: Kate, this has been really interesting watching the president's re-election campaign schedule. He has been campaigning quite a lot in battleground states, including here in Pennsylvania, but protests follow him from event to event.

Many of those voices and faces in these protests are younger voters who say they're deeply concerned about the president's policy in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(PEOPLE chanting "Hey, hey, hoe, hoe. Genocide Joe has got to go.")

ZELENY (voice over): At one stop after another, cries of protest, trail President Biden.

Even outside the United Steel Workers headquarters in Pittsburgh, one of the many friendly venues the White House selects in hopes of minimizing angry disruptions over the Israel-Gaza War.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello Pittsburgh.

[08:25:10]

ZELENY: Whether or not the president can hear their message --

(PEOPLE protesting)

Zelenskyy Many demonstrators share a common bond, they are students, frustrated and furious at US foreign policy.

KARIM SAFIEDDINE, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, PHD STUDENT: If there is indeed a will to stop this conflict, it can be stopped.

ZELENY: Karim Safieddine is a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh, one of many young Americans speaking out.

ZELENY (on camera): If there is not something that changes dramatically, can you vote for Joe Biden?

SAFIEDDINE: I do not believe so and I do believe that many people will not be voting for Joe Biden and if this indeed does something, it does open a debate, a discussion.

ZELENY (voice over): The debate plays out most everywhere Biden goes, as he tries to rebuild his winning coalition. One of the most resistant pieces of that puzzle is young voters on college campuses, a place Biden has avoided almost entirely.

DALIA SABHA, GRADUATE STUDENT: I think he would be met with a lot of backlash, a lot of protest because his policies have been -- have killed tens of thousands of people.

ZELENY (voice over): Dalia Saba is a Wisconsin graduate student who helped organize a protest vote in the state's primary earlier this month. She bristles at the notion of whether her opposition to Biden could help Donald Trump.

SABA: We reject the idea that the Democratic Party feels like they have to coerce people into voting for them by leveraging the threat of another candidate that is worse.

ZELENY: If protests rage until the election, Biden could well become the first Democratic president since the Vietnam era, unwelcome to large crowds of students.

BARRY BURDEN, DIRECTOR, ELECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON: He does have this problem of a kind of nagging protest vote on the democratic side because of his handling of things in Gaza.

ZELENY: Barry Burden leads the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, where presidential visits to college campuses --

BURDEN: Thousands of people to see Kennedy --

ZELENY: Have long been a historically critical stop for Democrats.

BURDEN: You could feel the kind of youth energy behind the Clinton campaign. This was just a very comfortable place for Obama as a candidate and a very necessary place for him to find votes.

ZELENY: What do you make of the protest vote and how that could impact November?

BURDEN: Well, Biden certainly does not have the support of young people the way Obama did.

I think the Vietnam War is the closest analogy. That was also the period when we had the biggest generation gap between the parties.

ZELENY: While pro-Palestinian demonstrations are far more than a campus movement, Biden's advisers are studying young voters carefully.

ANNA SORYAL, STUDENT, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY: The one thing that is surprising me is the degree to which he is disregarding public opinion.

ZELENY: Anna Soryal is a graduate architecture student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. She regrets her vote for Biden four years ago.

SORYAL: That was the first time I could vote in the presidential election. Frankly, I look back, I am embarrassed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (on camera): So in the next six months before election day in November, Kate, the question is whether some of these protests subside or if the choice with former President Donald Trump comes more to the focus here, but this certainly is a warning for many Democrats.

But talking to advisers, they say, look if politics was driving this, the president would have changed course long ago, but foreign policy of course, does not move at the same pace as domestic politics.

But Kate, certainly it is one of the things that the Biden campaign is keeping an eye on. Because these protests are coming from within rather than on the outside from skeptics -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Great reporting as always, Jeff. Thank you so much -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a warning this morning from the FBI. There is an increased threat to the Jewish community just ahead of Passover gatherings, what the FBI is saying.

Plus, House Speaker Mike Johnson facing a fight within his own party, but will he get support from across the aisle to finally pass aid to Ukraine and Israel? We will talk about it, coming up.

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