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Now: Jury Deliberating In Trump Criminal Hush Money Trial; NATO Chief, Allies Signal They Want To Let Ukraine Use Western Weapons To Attack Russian Territory. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 30, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The Waiting Game: Outside a Manhattan courtroom, the judge, lawyers, defendant, Donald Trump and millions of Americans are waiting to see if a jury of 12 men and women will find the former president guilty or not beyond a reasonable doubt.

Plus, the CDC announces a third case of bird flu in humans. This latest case appears to be different than the others. We'll break down the latest details.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And Defending Ukraine: NATO's chief is seeking major changes. He wants to remove some weapons restrictions to help Ukraine fight back against Russia.

I'm Brianna Keilar alongside Boris Sanchez, and we're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Right now in the jury in Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial, we're looking at going into 10 hours here.

SANCHEZ: And plus.

KEILAR: Well, it should be the 11th hour, right? That they're going into a deliberations.

SANCHEZ: (INAUDIBLE) ...

KEILAR: Exactly. Sources saying the former president is in the courthouse is watching coverage of this pivotal moment as he is awaiting what could be a historic verdict. This morning, before deliberations continued for a second day, jurors sent the judge a new note. They were asking for clarification on the jury instructions, including those related to count one of Trump's 34 charges.

SANCHEZ: Jurors also reheard testimony from key prosecution witnesses, National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen. They specifically wanted to hear what each man said about the 2015 meeting at Trump Tower` and what Pecker said about the catch-and-kill deal with playmate Karen McDougal, including his phone call with Trump. CNN's Paula Reid is live for us outside the courtroom in New York with more details.

Paula, how significant is this testimony that jurors asked to review this morning?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, this is such an important moment in this alleged conspiracy because prosecutors argue that this 2015 meeting in Trump Tower` between David Pecker, the head of the National Enquirer; Michael Cohen; and then prospective candidate Donald Trump was the first step in this larger conspiracy to use the National Enquirer to help Trump win the White House.

And it's interesting that the jury not only wants to hear David Pecker's version of events, but they also want to hear from Michael Cohen. And earlier today, the judge read back portions of David Pecker's testimony, including where he talked about how this arrangement where he was promising to be the campaign's eyes and ears looking out for stories, he testified under direct examination from prosecutors that this was mutually beneficial.

He testified that positive stories about Mr. Trump and covering the election and writing negative stories about his opponents is only going to increase the newsstand sales of the National Enquirer and the other tabloids. So for me, that was my benefit. And then in doing what in publishing these types of stories, we were going to benefit his campaign.

So that's where he testified that he said they were both mutually, both parties were going to benefit from this arrangement. And this is something that could potentially help the defense a little bit. This is something that they have honed in on. But they also got a portion of David Pecker's cross-examination from Trump lawyers about the Trump Tower` meeting.

And he testified there under cross-examination: I would speak to Michael Cohen and tell him that these are the stories and - that are going to be for sale. And if we don't buy them, someone else will and that Michael Cohen would handle them, buy them or try to make sure to get that they don't ever get published. That was my understanding from the meeting.

So that's significant, because there they're talking about how the effort wasn't not - necessarily just to help the National Enquirer with their sales, but also to make sure to suppress some stories. But it wasn't just David Pecker's testimony. They also wanted to hear Michael Cohen's version of events. And there he testified to something similar.

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He said that in this meeting, they discussed the power of the National Enquirer in terms of being located at the cash register of so many supermarkets and bodegas and that if we can place positive stories about Mr. Trump, that would be beneficial. And if we could place negative stories about some of the other candidates, that would also be beneficial. And he testified here, too, that the point of contact for Mr. Pecker would be him, would be Michael Cohen. But again, if you look at Michael Cohen's testimony, the issue there is that he is also extending this not just to positive stories about Trump, not just to help the sales of the National Enquirer, but also to hurt other candidates. And as we know, prosecutors have charged here that this entire conspiracy that they say ultimately resulted in Trump causing these documents, these business records to be falsified to cover up that payment to Stormy Daniels, that this was all part of an effort to help him win in 2016. And that is how this is being charged as a felony.

So it is significant that the jury find that prosecutors are going to win, that this was all part of an effort to help Trump win the White House, not just to help the National Enquirer, not just to help Trump's ego, but to help put him in the White House, to influence the campaign, to subvert democracy. This is a key theme that prosecutors have been pushing. Again, it's unclear exactly what the jury is going to do with this testimony, but they have certainly asked for a very significant portion of the evidence that they heard over the past seven weeks.

KEILAR: Yes. They certainly have.

Paula, thank you so much for keeping an eye on that for us.

We have CNN Legal Analyst Karen Agnifilo joining us now here in the studio. She's also a former Manhattan district attorney, prosecutor and the former chief assistant district attorney of the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Karen, what do you make so far of what the jury has requested?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, with the caveat that it's really hard to read the tea leaves and ...

KEILAR: Fair.

AGNIFILO: ... people are also notoriously wrong when they say, oh, this is good for the prosecution or this is bad for the prosecution. So with all of those ...

KEILAR: It's a good reminder, yes.

AGNIFILO: ... it's really hard to know. I mean, really all that the jury notes tell you is that there is at least one juror in there who has requested the - whatever it is that that they requested, whether it's the jury charge or particular portions of the testimony. And it could be that they want to refresh their memory. It could be that there's factions in the jury room where they want to use this testimony to convince each other.

So it's really hard to know, what it looks like, though, is that they started at the beginning where the conspiracy started at this meeting where they decided that they were going to do this catch-and-kill scheme to benefit the election. It also looks like they're trying to corroborate Michael Cohen.

They have to corroborate Michael Cohen because the law doesn't necessarily require that you corroborate everything someone says. He is an accomplice, which means you have to corroborate it a little. You have to corroborate it just enough and the checks alone would be enough for that.

But there's an added corroboration that the prosecution emphasized and really encouraged the jury to say, look, we know Michael Cohen has a history of lying. He has a lot of baggage. He's actually convicted of lying to Congress. So corroboration here, you don't just have to believe his word. There's so much corroboration.

And that's what I like about the notes is that the testimony they asked for all corroborates one another, so I think they're really paying attention. The other thing that this tells me is that this is not how Donald Trump suggested, which is that he can't get a fair trial. This is a jury that's working hard. It's evaluating the evidence. They're not having a knee jerk reaction one way or the other. They're really working. They're deliberating. And he is getting a fair trial, whatever the outcome is and whatever the verdict is.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to the testimony about that Trump Tower meeting, as you described it, they're sort of going back to the beginning of this arrangement. How does that testimony help the prosecution go beyond Trump's motivation and get to the question of intent?

AGNIFILO: So it's about whether or not this was in order to benefit the election or not, because if it wasn't, if this was just because they're friends and he was protecting his wife, that's - then it doesn't make it a felony. It's not - because there's two kind of issues in this trial. There's - well, it's actually three issues. There's where the records falsified, number one. Number two, was this to benefit the election. And then number three, was Trump involved.

And I would say that the first two are proven beyond a reasonable doubt against David - sorry, against Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen, for sure. They committed those crimes. In fact, Michael Cohen went to prison just for this type of - for this conduct.

The question is, though, can they link it to Donald Trump? And this testimony that they asked for is all about linking it to Donald Trump. So I think they're wrestling with the exact issue in this case.

KEILAR: Karen, yesterday we were on air in the afternoon when the jury requested to hear all of the jury instructions and our two legal experts uniformly groaned. It was in unison. And I wonder - in the end, that's not what the jury heard, but they did hear an awful lot. I mean, almost 30 pages of rewrite instructions. What did you make of that?

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AGNIFILO: Look, it's complicated, the law. It's very common for juries to ask for read back again. In certain jurisdictions, they actually send the written jury instructions.

KEILAR: Why not do that?

AGNIFILO: You know, it's part that it's just the way it's always been, and part that in the criminal procedure law, it talks about what the jury can take back with them. And it lists out things like evidence, right? They can take the evidence back with them. It has other things in there. And it doesn't specify this one way or another. So I think you could argue if they intended for the jury to be able to take the instructions back with them, that the law would permit that, but it's just one of those things. It's always been done that way. I don't know.

KEILAR: Interesting. Karen Agnifilo, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

And let's talk more now with a jury consultant, Melissa Gomez, who is with us.

And Melissa, you know, we've had lots of discussion today about the so-called rain metaphor that the jury requested to rehear this morning. What does that tell you about where the heads of the jurors are?

MELISSA GOMEZ, JURY CONSULTANT: I think what it sounds like is that they realize and they want to understand the extent to which they can rely on circumstantial evidence. So the rain metaphor basically says that you can assume, you can come to the conclusion that it's raining even if you didn't see the actual rain. If there's no direct evidence that someone saw the actual rain, you can infer that based on if it's wet outside or someone comes in with an umbrella or with a raincoat.

And so I think that what they're doing is they're putting the pieces of the evidence together and saying, what can we surmise even if we don't have direct evidence of that.

KEILAR: I mean, so there are some examples of things you might wonder about that. Okay, Trump signed the checks, can you infer by him signing the checks that he knew certain details? I mean, am I off base here or are these the kinds of things that this might be something they're applying this to?

GOMEZ: That's absolutely right. But what they would do is they would say, usually when you're dealing with circumstantial evidence, you're dealing with multiple things at a time. So, for example, Trump signed the checks. But there was also testimony that Trump was very careful about every detail, every dime that went out. He knew exactly where it went to. He knew exactly what it cost.

And so what the circumstantial evidence is, if you put those pieces together, then you can develop the story and come to that conclusion.

KEILAR: And I also wondered when they were - when the prosecution was laying out its case, they spent a lot of time obviously focusing on the Karen McDougal arrangement. And it seemed like they were painting this picture of, okay, this is the approach that they're taking for not burying stories that may be negative. What about an inference that, yes, of course, that is how they would then approach another negative story involving another woman?

GOMEZ: Exactly. So consensus or consistency of behavior, what they were trying to do, what the prosecution was focused on was a pattern of behavior. You can infer something because this is something that happened before. You can infer something because when you put the pieces of the puzzle together, it can only come to one conclusion.

So this is exactly what the prosecution wanted to happen, given the lack of credibility of the direct evidence, which was Michael Cohen, that the jury is not able to rely on specifically and directly because of his involvement in the endeavor.

KEILAR: They had specific questions, the jury did, about count one. And we should remind our viewers, we're talking about 34 counts of falsifying documents. Some of these documents are different, right? Some of them are invoices. Some of them are checks that were signed, invoices that might say retainer when really it wasn't a retainer for Michael Cohen. Checks that were signed, some of them by Trump himself. They came from his personal account. Some were coming from a trust and were not signed by Trump.

Do you see a situation where the jury is making a distinction potentially between those counts?

GOMEZ: They potentially could be and I think what we're seeing, especially in the fact that they're hours in and they're asking about count one, they're asking about specific information. They're looking at each count specifically. I mean, I think there were some ideas or some speculation that what they may do is just decide guilty or innocent and then draw - and then decide down the board.

But if they're looking and if they're asking questions specifically about specific counts, what that means is that they're going through piece by piece, going through the evidence piece by piece, and they're going to take the time that they need to make sure that they're making the right decision, not globally in one swoop, but really taking a look at the evidence and taking a look at each count separately.

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KEILAR: Yes, it'll be really interesting to hear what their process has been throughout this as we await potentially a verdict at some point here.

Melissa Gomez, great to speak with you. Thank you.

GOMEZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, it's a big shift that could be underway in how Ukraine may use weapons to get - that it gets from the west. The chief of NATO says, quote, "The time has come to talk about loosening the restrictions on those weapons."

SANCHEZ: Plus, the Supreme Court siding with the NRA in a free speech case. We'll break down what that unanimous ruling means.

And a third human case of bird flu in the United States, what we're learning about this person and their symptoms. Those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: New today in Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine, the head of NATO wants to allow Ukraine to more freely use weapons to hit targets in Russian territory. Now, Western allies have long held that donated weapons can only be used inside Ukrainian territory to avoid getting into a proxy war with Russia.

KEILAR: But pressure is mounting on President Biden from at home and abroad to cut some of those limits on how American weapons are used as Russia makes gains on the battlefield. CNN's Melissa Bell has been following this for us.

Melissa, this could be a major shift for Ukraine. Tell us more about it.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It could. And so far, what we've heard is from Secretary Blinken, who's speaking from Moldova only earlier this week, Brianna, who made the clearest suggestion yet that a shift in American policy was a possibility, not that it had been made, but that it might be considered.

And of course, it all lies very much on what Washington decides, given that the United States is the biggest donor of weapons to Ukraine, and given what a game changer it would be for this war if its weapons could be used against those targets inside Russia from which attacks are being launched on Ukraine.

Already, we've heard, as you said, from Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary General, what we've already heard from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, that they are giving the green light to Ukraine to do just that. We're not talking about being able to strike anywhere inside Russia. We're talking about the limited use of their weapons, giving Ukraine the possibility of striking parts of Russia from where attacks are launched.

And so specifically, what we've seen over the course of the last few weeks, which is that escalation along the border to the north of Kharkiv since the opening up of that third front by Moscow. The pressure that's being felt by the Ukrainian troops and Ukrainian civilians in that region has really left to this important shift.

The question now, whether the United States will follow suit, and already Moscow keeping a very close eye on that. We've heard a number of statements from Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, but also earlier this week from Vladimir Putin himself, warning about what such an escalation would mean, Brianna.

SANCHEZ: And, Melissa, there was a new threat from Russia overnight about the U.S. putting missiles in Europe and Asia. What did we hear from the Kremlin?

BELL: That's right. We've heard from Sergey Lavrov, who is speaking to state - Russian state television, Boris, in direct response to this suggestion made by Washington in April that it was considering the possibility of placing missiles in the Indo-Pacific region. This in response to what Washington believes is the increasing militarization of China.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was asked about this in this interview with Russian state media, and he said that Moscow, were this to happen, would consider making decisions in the area of nuclear deterrence. So, another very direct threat, very belligerent threat to those noises coming from Washington.

And both what Sergey Lavrov said about those - the possibility of American missiles in the Indo-Pacific and what we've heard from the Kremlin about the possibility that Ukraine might be able to use its gifted weapons differently, I think, gives you a very clear idea of how closely Moscow is watching this, given what a game-changer it would be, Boris and Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. We will keep watching it as well. Melissa Bell, thank you for that report. And still ahead, we're going to take you back to New York for the latest on the jury deliberations in the Trump hush money trial, stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: All right. We are into the 11th hour of jury deliberations of these 12 New Yorkers who are deciding the fate of former President Donald Trump.

SANCHEZ: Yes. The jurors weighing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to that hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in what could be the first ever criminal conviction of a former president.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is outside the courthouse for us in New York.

Kristen, what are you hearing from the Trump camp today?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, look, they are dealing with the same thing that we are right now, which is really just a waiting game. They are sitting off in a small room, him and a group of close advisers, and I am told that they are watching some of the court coverage. They're looking at clips that are being sent to them of surrogates, of allies that are defending Donald Trump on TV, and they are trying to read the tea leaves of what exactly those notes from the jury meant and what exactly could happen in this trial.

Now, as I reported yesterday, they did believe or at least they hoped, that they saw some favorable jurors, at least one favorable juror that could lead to a mistrial in this case. But they also acknowledge that they absolutely have no idea what's going to happen next. Now, as for the former president himself, he has been antsy. He has been ranting about the fact that he doesn't want to be stuck in that room. But again, there are a lot of questions as to what exactly is going to happen next. Now, if he does potentially get convicted, I have talked to a number of his senior advisers who do not believe that this is going to have as negative an effect on his campaign in November that others do.

I want to pull up a poll here. This is the most recent polling we have.

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Now, this is just of people who say that they are already going to vote for Donald Trump. If he is convicted, how does that change their vote?