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Judge Delays Trump's Hush Money Sentencing Until After Election; Starliner Returns To Earth Without Crew Amid Safety Concerns. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 06, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:24]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We are following breaking news. The judge in former President Donald Trump's hush money case has postponed sentencing until after the November election.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Now, this is a big win for Trump and his legal team who had argued that sentencing the former President during the campaign would amount to election interference. With us now, CNN's Kara Scannell, CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid, CNN Political Director David Chalian, CNN Legal Analyst, Jennifer Rodgers, CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. A full house of CNN folks.

Thanks so much for all of you being with us. Kara, first to you, how did Judge Merchan explain this decision to delay sentencing until November 26th?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judge Merchan issued a four page decision here. And he goes to great lengths to explain his reasoning behind it, saying that he's doing this in part to avoid any appearance that he is trying to influence the election to affect one party or the other. And he also notes in this decision that the prosecutors did not oppose delaying the sentencing. And he said some of their arguments in their papers actually led him to think that they agreed with delaying the sentencing.

So he says specifically he's doing this to avoid any appearance, however unwarranted, that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election. He also says he doesn't want to give an advantage or a disadvantage to either political party, so taking the politics out of this.

Now, he also is saying that this was a verdict that a jury returned after hearing evidence in this case over 11 weeks, that their verdict stands to be treated independently of politics and that Donald Trump himself, as the defendant, stands to have a hearing, a sentencing hearing that is devoid of politics as well. So the Judge pushing this now until after the election.

In this, he's also saying that he is not going to rule on the question of presidential immunity. Trump's lawyers have asked to have this conviction thrown out. They said that the indictment itself should be thrown out because the case should never have been brought, they argue, because of the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, specifically in this case, saying that certain evidence should not have gone before the jury, including testimony from Trump's former White House, 0:02:27, as well as tweets that Trump made while he was president. That decision was expected to come on September 16th. The Judge now saying he will not issue that decision until after the election as well.

Trump's lawyers have said that if they lose that, they're going to appeal it and they will likely also seek to continue to delay the sentencing. So while it is currently set for -- after the election in the end of November, it's possible we could see some more legal efforts to try to move it. They very aggressively have tried different avenues here to move this sentencing and successful today with the Judge saying that he agreed with Trump's team, he sought read the prosecution's memo as saying that they agreed with it, and that he thought it would only be fair to avoid any appearance of having any politics influence the sentencing or having him influence the election. He was moving the sentencing until November 26th. Boris, Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Kara, stay with us. And, Paula, what was your big takeaway from the decision? And how was the Trump camp responding?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We'll hear Judge Juan Merchan for the first time really acknowledging the historic nature of this situation. Let's just state the obvious. No judge in the history of this country has ever been in a position of sentencing a former president while that individual is running for the White House. So it's the first time he's really said, yes, we are in a unique situation.

On top of that, he also has to figure out how this unprecedented Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that was issued back in July, how that applies in this case. No judge has ever been here. I mean, he even acknowledges, he says, quote, "this matter is one that stands alone in a unique place in this nation's history." And he kind of nods to the fact that it's always been a unique case. But this is the first time that its historical nature seems to have impacted his decision-making.

Because I'll be honest, I wasn't sure which way he was going to go. It seemed based on the law, he should probably delay it. Trump has a right. He's unlikely to succeed, but he does have a right to litigate these issues the Supreme Court has raised. But historically, Juan Merchan is not budged on any arguments related to the election.

The Trump team is, of course, excited. This is a big win for the legal team. But we're in a political season, as David (inaudible) knows. And so they're trying to put a political frame on it, saying, quote, "there should be no sentencing in the Manhattan DA's election interference witch hunt. As mandated by the United States Supreme Court, this case, along with all the other Harris-Biden hoaxes, should be dismissed." I will note that in this case, Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers. It had nothing to do with President Biden or Kamala Harris, but they're trying to frame him as a political murder.

SANCHEZ: Jennifer, to you, it strikes me that here, Judge Merchan specifically references the potential for reputational harm ahead of the election.

[14:05:06]

And yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan, effectively in her courtroom in the election subversion case, the federal one, said that the election doesn't matter. What do you make of that distinction between the two decisions?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, it's interesting, Boris, because you're right, they did take different tags. Now, there is a difference, of course, we're talking about sentencing, potentially saying that Trump should go to prison in this case, whereas Judge Chutkan instead is going to take briefing on the papers. We're not talking about a hearing, a trial, a sentencing, so they're differently situated.

The other thing is that Merchan, you know, may actually get more clarity by the time the election has happened as to what his real options are. I mean, we all know that if Trump wins this election, he is not going to prison for this, at least not in the next four years. So that will give Merchan some clarity. So there's that reason to do it, too. But most of all, I have to say, and it's kind of, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking.

But when you think of instances where the defendant wants something and the prosecutors don't object, 99 times out of 100, the judge is going to go with that because the parties are more or less on the same page. And that's what he did here. So we probably all should have seen this coming, really, as soon as DA Bragg and his team decided not to oppose and to leave it in the hands of the judge.

KEILAR: Yeah. And Ron, the Trump team is welcoming this news, obviously. And they, even -- as they capitalize, even as he really capitalizes politically on whatever legal developments come his way, clearly, they wanted to punt this one beyond the election. What do you think about the kind of effect that it could have had that they may have been worried about?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Look, you know, it's funny because the Judge said he didn't want to influence the election, but obviously, not sentencing before the election is a way of influencing the election. I feel like we're pretty much dug in on these questions already, though I'm not sure that the sentencing would have moved many more voters than those who already think that Trump is unsuited to be president again, in part because of all of his legal trouble. Certainly, Vice President Harris has shut down that avenue. You know, in her rallies, when people say, lock him up and she says, we'll let the courts deal with that, we will deal with November.

I am struck that, you know, in the way she talks about Trump's legal troubles and legal situation, she focuses more on the future than the past. Less on that what he has done has disqualified him than on the argument that the Supreme Court decision on immunity essentially will unleash him in a second term to challenge civil liberties and violate norms and constitutional standards even more aggressively than he did as president.

So on balance, certainly a win for him in the sense that you don't have the uncertainty of how the public might have reacted. But I do think that by and large, the people who are rejecting Trump because of his legal troubles had already done so.

SANCHEZ: David, we got reporting from CNN's Kaitlan Collins soon after this decision came down that Trump was with his legal team when it was announced then that he was pleased. But earlier in the day, during the press briefing, there was a bit of an uncomfortable moment with his lawyer standing behind him, Trump saying, quote, "I'm disappointed in my legal talent. I'll be honest with you." What did you make of that?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, that is not new for Donald Trump to be complaining about his lawyers in their presence. That is something that if you sign up to be a Donald Trump lawyer, you could pretty much expect that that will happen.

I do very much agree with Ron's assessment of the political impact of this. I think it's remarkably limited at this point, which is just an astonishing thing to say when you think about all the history that Paul walked us through. I mean, 34 times over convicted criminal, whatever you think of the merits of the case, that's the reality of what a jury of his peers did. And yet, we've seen almost no movement in his poll numbers.

The sum total of the political effect of Donald Trump's legal woes in this 2024 election thing has -- in cycle has been to help him secure that republican nomination more rapidly than perhaps he even expected and dispense with his republican competition. That is the actual biggest political impact that we've seen of these court rulings over the last couple years.

KEILAR: What are you thinking, David, as you look to the future, which will bring one of two possibilities that Donald Trump wins or he loses, and that in these very big federal cases, you would expect his Attorney General just dispenses with them, but he obviously would still have, for instance, this sentencing that would probably be punted? But if he loses, then he has a lot to contend with. And that is obviously the opposition candidate. I mean, how do you see this playing out?

CHALIAN: Well, as you said, I mean, it plays out totally differently depending on the outcome of the election. I think your prediction that he would have his Attorney General do away with the special counsel investigations, I think that's a safe bet.

[14:10:01]

And I'm not big on predictions, but you can take that to the bank. I do think it is a question for Kamala Harris and how she perceives if she were to win, if she thinks there's some role for her Justice Department in trying to bring the country together and beyond these Trump trials or allow them to just play out, as she has said, that these will all just play out in the courts, or if she sees some role as a potential winner of the election to actually try and move the country beyond this moment of these trials.

SANCHEZ: There is no historical precedent for this, right? But, Ron, if we were to look at history, Gerald Ford was incredibly unpopular when he essentially told the country to forget Watergate and made everything that was looming against Richard Nixon go away. How do you think Harris might approach that situation?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, first, can I just say I disagree a little bit with David, and maybe he would not disagree with what I'm about to say. I think it's a mistake to assume that all of Trump's ethical and legal troubles have had no effect on him. You've got 60 percent of the country saying they are not better off because of Biden policies.

You have double-digit advantages for Trump's in polling for over a year on who can handle the economy. And he's in a neck and neck race at best and is probably a step behind. And there's no other way to explain that except for (inaudible) some part of a lot of voter or dissatisfied --

CHALIAN: Oh, Ron ,I totally -- sorry, I totally agree with you. What I mean is since --

BROWNSTEIN: -- to put him in the White House.

CHALIAN: What I meant was, since he's been locked in this very tight race and all of these legal woes have played out, I have no doubt the legal woes are why he's in the position he's in. I completely agree with that.

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

CHALIAN: I just don't think we've seen much movement during the time that he's been, for a year now, locked in a margin of error race.

CHALIAN: And to answer Boris's question, I don't see Harris letting -- dropping this if she wins. I think she will say -- in her answer in the rallies, I think kind of foreshadows where she would go, you know, we'll leave that to the courts. And, you know, we'll worry about beating him in November.

We'll worry about -- I don't see her making a Gerald Ford-type move, which, of course, in the hands of John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh was completely unnecessary because they, you know, Ford was obviously operating on the assumption, which I think was all of American history, that a president could be prosecuted after they left office. And that's why he pardoned him. He wouldn't have pardoned him if he believed that the court would take the view that it did this last year.

So I don't see her go -- I myself would be surprised if she wins and goes down that road. And I think she's basically signaled that to us by the way she's phrased her response, that we'll leave that to the courts. CHALIAN: It's also really important, to Ron's point, the Ford

comparison was preemptive, right?

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

CHALIAN: He had not been charged. Donald Trump has been convicted by a jury of his peers in at least one of these cases.

KEILAR: These are the questions that we are going to be asking here as this plays out.

REID: Absolutely. That we have been asking, that we will continue to ask. And look, either way, it's going to be a historic, right, situation. That's what we've been in with Trump's legal issues for years now. And again, I think if he is elected, it's pretty clear what's going to happen.

The state cases, even the state sentencing, I think will be on ICE. The federal cases go away. He's not that he is facing some significant legal jeopardy. The Mar-a-Lago documents case will be revived. The January 6th case will likely survive in some narrowed down form. And then there's also Georgia that you have out there. It is a -- it's a really ominous legal landscape for the former President.

Even though he dissed his lawyers, I'll say most of them have done a damn good job of helping him put off these legal consequences, at least until after the election with a large assist from the Supreme Court.

KEILAR: They'll be happy to hear your compliments because they didn't get a whole lot today. So hear ye, hear ye. Paula Reid with the truth on that.

SANCHEZ: Everyone, thank you so much for the conversation. Still to come this hour, a father and son in Georgia both in court to hear charges against them for Wednesday's deadly school shooting. More details on their first appearances.

KEILAR: Also ahead of CNN exclusive, how a missing person's report turned into a false murder confession and a man ending up in a psych unit. And later, Boeing's Starliner saga may soon be over for the spacecraft, at least. We have details on its homecoming just ahead. You're watching CNN News Central.

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[14:19:03]

SANCHEZ: Just a few hours from now, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is set to finally begin its journey back to Earth after 12 troubled weeks at the International Space Station.

KEILAR: But there's no one inside of it, right? The two astronauts who went on the mission, they are not going to be on board for the flight home as was originally planned because NASA has deemed it too risky. Joining us now is CNN Aviation and Aerospace Analyst Miles O'Brien. All right, Miles, what is the plan for Starliner's return? Questions? Concerns? Comments? Go.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: All right. So 06:00 p.m. Eastern, Starliner will undock from the International Space Station and they are going to do a speedy retreat, a breakaway, they're calling it. A couple of thrusters will fire. And the idea there is to get Starliner, which has proven to be quite the lemon away from the space station as quickly as possible and on its way back into the atmosphere of our planet, and if all goes well to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

[14:20:12]

So hopefully that will all go well. They're saying they have confident. It will be a safe confidence, there'll be a safe landing. But they don't have enough confidence to put the astronauts, butch and sunny inside. So I'm having a hard time reconciling those two statements.

SANCHEZ: To that point, Miles, I'm wondering what you think we'll hear from not only Boeing, but NASA as well, because if this thing does land safely, they will argue that this was a research mission. And therefore, it was a success. You just called it a lemon, though.

O'BRIEN: Well, I think we've seen it all unfold. And it's been quite evident. I think that's an objective statement at this point. Clearly, there's going to have to be a big rethink about how to operate these thrusters at the very least, or perhaps more ominously for Boeing, a redesign of some kind.

And that's when you get into significant setbacks and delays. And for the benefit of the taxpayers, this has been good because it's a fixed price contract. Boeing has been eating the costs all along. And this would obviously dramatically increase cost, probably one way or another, but could be significant.

And so the question is, are they going to continue to keep trying with Starliner or just leave it to SpaceX and the Dragon capsules to do the job? NASA would like to have two ways to get to the space station, however.

KEILAR: Yeah. Do you take this lemon and make some lemonade, or do you just get out of the beverage thing altogether to the labor, that analogy? So it was interesting when you look, and I know you're always so interested in this, too, the decision-making behind this, Miles, because NASA acknowledged that there was this tension in the room when the decision was made to fly Starliner back empty.

How does NASA -- I mean, you covered all of these, the successful, the unsuccessful, the tragic. How does NASA navigate something like this, making a decision, which in this case, involves a private company spacecraft?

O'BRIEN: Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think it's important to put a little history in the mix here, Brianna. On the eve of the launch of the space shuttle challenger, the contractor was on the teleconference, pleading, pleading, please don't launch. We don't think these O rings are going to work. And NASA ignored it and launched Challenger. And look what happened.

Here we are subsequent shuttle loss later. And NASA appears to have finally, you know, taken on the lessons of these horrific losses in space and are employing that into their culture and decision-making process. So I want to give NASA a hat tip for taking that all into account. That doesn't necessarily mean that Boeing is considering all the variabilities and all the possibilities in the same way. They have a narrower bandwidth, if you will.

NASA is looking at the ultimate big picture here. Many of the people making the decisions lived through Columbia, and the horrific tragedy, and the fact that there were people at the lower levels of NASA saying, hey, maybe we should check that wing to make -- to see if it's been breached, and they didn't. And this time around, NASA, in spite of a contractor saying, it's okay, said, no, let's not do this. So I think it's a good sign.

SANCHEZ: I would like to tip my hat to NASA and Boeing for creating one of the spookiest sounds that I've ever heard in space. I don't think I'm ever going to get over that weird feedback loop thing. It sounded like an alien, Miles.

To get back to something that you pointed out a moment --

O'BRIEN: It reminded me of a couple movies.

SANCHEZ: It did. It did.

O'BRIEN: it seemed like an alien. It was like close encounters or contact or something.

SANCHEZ: To get back to a more serious point you made a moment ago, it's important for NASA to have two separate options when it comes to providing spaceflight for astronauts, because they can't become too reliant on any one company, right? Why is that?

O'BRIEN: Right. Well, it's precisely what we're talking about right now. I mean, Boeing has a craft which we can't -- it cannot be relied upon. The fact that SpaceX is able to deliver and deliver safely gives them a fallback. What happened after the Shuttle, the Columbia accident, and ultimately the retirement of the Shuttle, there was this huge gap where the U.S. was reliant on paying a lot of money to the Russians to buy seats on Soyuz rockets and capsules.

Well, given the fact that the space station -- the Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine, etcetera, the idea of having to go back to the Russians to buy seats is a pretty untenable option right now.

[14:25:02]

So NASA would like to have another way to do it. The question is, though, as Boeing gets delayed further and further, you know, the Space Station is not going to be up there forever. The question is, is it too late for them to get their act together? And that goes back to that idea, whether we need to think about, you know, whether NASA needs to think about a big redesign here or just a new way of flying the spacecraft.

KEILAR: Yeah, very good point. Miles, always great to have you talking about this stuff and a lot to talk about here. Miles O'Brien, thank you so much.

O'BRIEN: Pleasure.

KEILAR: And still to come on CNN News Central, a heartbreaking blow to hundreds of American families who are in the process of adopting children from China. We'll tell you what happened ahead.

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