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President Biden Pardons His Son Hunter Biden for All Crimes Going Back to 2014. President Biden Criticized for Pardoning Son Hunter Despite Saying He Would Not Do So. Record-Breaking Snow Hampers Post-Thanksgiving Travel; Trump Slams Biden's Decision to Pardon Son, Hunter. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired December 02, 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]

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- psychotic schizophrenia, and the excitement of the struggle between Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny.

Now, this is a case that has really focused on the city's crisis with people who are experiencing mental health issues as well as public safety on the subways. There were several witnesses who talked about feeling scared when they saw Jordan Neely and relieved that Penny had stepped in. This will all be determined by the jury, who we'll expect will be deliberating here, possibly over the next few days. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, you will be standing by at the courthouse for this. Keep us posted. Gloria Pazmino, thank you very much.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden pardons his son, and now President Biden is facing the blowback. Even some Democrats concerned the president is putting family over country and the precedent this now sets.

Donald Trump tapping ally and loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel now poised to potentially lead the bureau he has vowed to dismantle. What that means for his chances at confirmation.

And several feet of snow rocking parts of the country over the weekend. The impact for millions who are traveling post-holiday today and where the snow is headed next.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: New this morning, we are waiting to hear from President Biden directly on his decision to pardon his son Hunter, something he said he would never do, something the White House said he would never do. Well, he did it. And we're getting new reaction from Democrats and Republicans this morning. The outrage machine is in overdrive. This could easily have an impact on Donald Trump's nominations and pardons he might soon issue. Think January sixth. In a written statement, President Biden said, quote, "Here's the

truth. I believe in the justice system. But as I've wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision."

Now, this not only means Hunter Biden will not be sentenced this month -- he was scheduled to be -- but he was also granted clemency for any other federal crime he might have committed during a 10-year period. That seems to be a relatively unprecedented move.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is in Angola, where the president arrived shortly. So, Arlette, walk us through what you're hearing from White House insiders about why this decision was made now.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, President Biden issued this full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter Biden, a stunning reversal after for months both Biden and senior officials had said that he would not make this move. Now, President Biden made this decision over the Thanksgiving holiday as he was spending time with the first lady and his son, Hunter, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. And I'm told that the president began informing his senior staff of his decision on Saturday evening.

The president actually called a meeting with senior aides, some in person, but most by the phone, where he told them that he had made this decision, and also asked them to begin preparing a statement for release on Sunday. The senior team then huddled together again on Sunday morning to iron out the details of this stunning announcement.

For President Biden, he is really approaching this from the view of a father, saying that he believes that his son has been unfairly treated in this process, but he's also expressed some concerns about the way that these charges were brought. He believes that a lot of it was politically motivated.

And in a statement that was released last night, the president said, quote, "There has been an effort to break Hunter, who has been five- and-a-half years sober even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter they've tried to break me, and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough."

Now, this comes just a few months after President Biden, before and after Hunter's felony gun convictions, had said that he would not pardon his son. Take a listen to some of those moments from earlier this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you, will you accept the jury's outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is?

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And have you ruled out a pardon for your son? BIDEN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have.

BIDEN: I am satisfied that I'm not going to do anything. I said I abide by the jury decision. I will do that, and I will not pardon him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, the president made no mention of his reversal in his statement, but it does come as the Biden family had been bracing for sentencing in Hunter Biden's criminal trials.

[08:05:01]

He was set to face sentencing for those gun charges, the felony gun conviction in the state of Delaware, and also tax charges over in California. But for Biden this is something that is deeply personal. The family has long wrestled with Hunter's issues, his addiction issues, but also the way that Republicans have attacked Hunter and the president over the years over some of these lapses that Hunter had.

But certainly, this will raise a lot of questions about the president's decision going forward as he has long campaigned, long worked in the White House under this premise that he respects the independence of the justice system. But now he is issuing this pardon for his son.

BERMAN: Arlette Saenz, in Angola. Again, the president arrives there today. We will wait and see if he speaks on arrival. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And on that pardon, one U.S. pardon attorney told "Politico" this about it. "I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon." That one pardon attorney speaking to "Politico" there.

Joining us right now for more on this is CNN's senior legal analyst, former state and federal prosecutor Elie Honig. Elie, another former pardon attorney called this an extraordinarily broad grant. Why is this so broad, more so than a typical presidential pardon? What do you think of it?

ELIE HONIG, SENIOR CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kate, this is as broad as a pardon can possibly be. Ordinarily a pardon will specify a certain case. And that happened here. It says I hereby pardon Hunter Biden on the gun case in Delaware and on the tax case in California. But what's different about this one is it also says this is a full and unconditional pardon for all conduct going back to January 1st of 2014, which means Hunter Biden cannot be federally prosecuted for anything going back to 2014, and really before then, because before then is going to be precluded by the statute of limitations.

And as you said before, the only historical precedent, the best historical precedent for this is the pardon of Richard Nixon by Gerald Ford, which has similar language that says, "full and unconditional pardon." So Joe Biden has pushed to the absolute outer limits of the breadth of the pardon power here.

BOLDUAN: And as you heard, in the political sense, there's been a lot of reaction to this quickly, and there will be more today. But looking at it in kind of, keeping it in the legal sense, past presidents generally have cited how pardon recipients have accepted responsibility for their actions as a reason to grant them a pardon. Biden is not here. He called it a miscarriage of justice, that Hunter Biden was unfairly singled out, which is something that we have heard Donald Trump lean into before in targeting the Justice Department and the so-called deep state. Does Biden in this move here give Donald Trump new cover for whatever pardon action he decides to take in the future?

HONIG: To be sure, Kate. We're already seeing that. The first reaction from Donald Trump and his team essentially is what an injustice. Now we get to do the same thing, which is sort of an interesting twist of logic there. But without question.

I mean, look, there has long been a fair debate, fair on both sides, about whether Hunter Biden is being treated overly leniently or overly zealously because of his status as Joe Biden's son. I think there are points to both sides of that. But what I think is not disputable is that this is a historic act of political nepotism. This is the granting of a pardon by the president to his son. Joe Biden even says, if you really parse his statement, he acknowledges that a substantial part of this is because Hunter Biden is his son. And that will land Joe Biden on a historic list that he probably doesn't want to be a part of, along with Bill Clinton, who pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton, along with Donald Trump, who pardoned Charles Kushner who is the father of his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

So I'm sure Joe Biden understands the historic implications of what he's done, and now he's earned his way onto that list.

BOLDUAN: I want to read you something that the Democratic governor of Colorado Jared Polis posted about this. He's not OK with the move. He wrote in part, "I'm disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country. This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation." Does this pardon, does this damage the justice system?

HONIG: Well, I totally agree with the governor that this pardon will tarnish Joe Biden's legacy. I mean, Joe Biden, let's be clear here, he lied to us for a long time. He said categorically, I will not pardon my son. He said, I will take it off the table. And he couched it in very high=minded terminology. I respect the Justice Department. I respect the jury's verdict. Well, now he's gone back on that.

I don't know how many people actually believed him. I certainly didn't. There's tape of me saying there's no way he's going to make good on this. He's absolutely going to pardon Hunter Biden.

But as to whether this tarnishes the justice system, I don't think I would go that far.

[08:10:00] I think this, like I said, will go down on the list of ignominious presidential pardons. But I don't think law students 50 or 100 years from now are going to look back at this as a horrific miscarriage of justice that undermines the foundation of our justice system. There is a reasonable argument that in some respects Hunter Biden was treated unfairly, and I think that will give Joe Biden some degree of cover here.

BOLDUAN: Elie, thanks for jumping on. I really appreciate it.

John?

BERMAN: All right, this morning, millions of Americans facing bitter cold and feet, feet of snow. Officials urging people to stay inside as a new surge is on the way.

And beware of cyber criminals as you shop online today, the new warnings from the FBI on how to avoid scams.

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[08:15:20]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Record snowfall hampering travel for a lot of people trying to head home today after the Thanksgiving holiday. Officials are warning people hitting the roads, they may be facing whiteout conditions in some places.

Nearly five million people are under lake effect snow alerts across the Great Lakes region, that's today. And let these snow totals just sink in for a moment.

Copenhagen, New York nearly 60 inches of snow; Saybrook, Ohio 56 inches; Girard, Pennsylvania 42 inches; and it's not over yet as we well know.

CNN's Derek Van Dam is tracking the forecast for us. Pete Muntean still at Reagan National Airport, back being the mayor of Reagan National Airport. Pete, what are you seeing now and what are you hearing?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Things are moving relatively smoothly right now, but we have some breaking news from the TSA that we hit an all-time air travel record just yesterday, 3.087 million people screened at airports nationwide. That is even bigger than the previous big number we saw back on July 7th, which was about 3.01 million. So, we're about 70,000 people higher than where we were at the previous record.

This really fits into the theme of a huge year for air travel. The TSA says the top ten days it has seen in all of its time, in all of its existence since 2002 have all happened in the year of 2004. Things will not be so smooth totally.

Today, is about to be another big day for air travel. TSA anticipating about 2.8 million people screened at security checkpoints at airports nationwide and the FAA is warning of possible ground stops.

Newark has been a particular pain point for the FAA because of air traffic controller staffing issues, and the FAA says as the day progresses, it may put into place a ground stop or a delay program for flights going into Newark to try and alleviate some of that pressure on the air traffic controllers there.

The FAA also says there could be ground stops and delays for flights going into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, SEATAC, because of low cloud ceilings there. Also, we could see problems as the day progresses in Naples, Florida, and in Palm Beach.

Today is going to be a huge day for travel, no matter how you slice it. AAA actually extended its holiday travel forecast, its Thanksgiving Holiday travel forecast, which used to be five days; now, it is seven days and it includes Monday for the first time ever. AAA said about 80 million people will travel 50 miles or more, 70 million of them driving.

So, the bottom line here is if you can get an early start, do it. The worst time to drive between about 8:00 AM on the East Coast now until about 6:00 PM. You can maybe wait till 7:00 PM or after AAA says, that's the best time to go.

The big problem here is that not only is this a travel day over the Thanksgiving rush. The end of the Thanksgiving rush typically is hug when people come home but also, it's mixing with normal commuting traffic, people going back to work today, making it especially hard for people out there on the roads.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely, Pete, thank you so much for that update. We broke another record in terms of air travel.

Derek Van Dam, something to celebrate and also Derek as Pete is saying a lot of people are hitting the roads and they're facing some crazy conditions.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're breaking daily snowfall records across much of New York. And just downwind of the great lakes as well. This is a new number coming in to the CNN Weather Center, 65.5 inches of snow from this lake effect snow event. This is Northwestern New York, just downwind of Lake Erie. Put that into perspective. I'm 5'10", so, five feet, 5.5 inches or so, yes, that's over my eyes. That's incredible. Can you imagine waking up to that amount of snow?

That is what people have had to deal with here, just an example of what conditions are like in Harrisburg, New York. By the way snowfall averages about 15 pounds per square foot. So it's getting heavy on some of those roofs as well. That could be a bit of a concern going forward.

Lake effect snow event: The nature of the way it works. It is a very localized, hyper local event and this is a sped up radar over the past weekend. And I want to show you the bands that formed just south of Buffalo. We know the Buffalo Bills played in their stadium in a snow whiteout conditions this weekend, but notice what happened just to the South of Buffalo, the international airport there, 1.2 inches of snow.

You travel ten miles further south, you've got over two feet of snow on the ground and over three feet of snow just a little bit to the south and west of that. It is all about the direction of the wind and miles matter here, depending on who gets the most snow and who gets very little snow.

But man, let me tell you how impactful it is. Interstate 90, 81. Those areas had standstill. Some of them were closed down this weekend people stalled out in their vehicles and guess what? There's more snow to come. We have winter weather advisories, winter storm warnings, lake effect snow watches in advance.

And, Kate, can you imagine having to dig out your car after this type of snowstorm? I mean, my goodness.

[08:20:17]

BOLDUAN: That's a good reason to stay home.

VAN DAM: I agree.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Thank you so much Derek, we appreciate it -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the scene in Erie, Pennsylvania, you just saw it on the map there, nearly three feet of snow since Thursday. The Erie county executive, Brenton Davis, called it a "snowmageddon" event. And he is with us this morning.

Thank you so much. Be our man on the ground there, what are you seeing? What's the weather this morning.

BRENTON DAVIS, ERIE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA EXECUTIVE: Hey, good morning, John.

I mean, there's, still obviously, a lot of snow coming down. Luckily, we saw a little reprieve last night. I was able to kind of get these snow crews out, get them operating, bring in additional resources from across the region to, you know, work towards getting life back to normal. I mean, here in Erie, snow is a big part of what we do. And, you know, it's just another part of living where we do.

BERMAN: Yes. I mean, this is unusual, even by Erie standards. The State Police said they responded to more than 200 calls in 24 hours. Any reports of injuries or fatalities?

DAVIS: So, I mean, luckily, due to some proactive leadership and some early moves in terms of working with the State Police, slowing the interstates down, making some very proactive early decisions in activating these resources, you know, luckily we have not -- knock on wood -- had any fatalities related to this.

You know, very few, vehicle-on-vehicle crashes just mostly cars being stranded along the roads and things of that nature but the damage has been very minimal, despite -- we've had, well over 60 inches and a lot of areas and even higher in areas of drifting. So, I mean, to lose a car, as you can see on the screen, isn't very difficult in these conditions.

BERMAN: What's your biggest concern this morning and what's your advice? What's your ask to people in your county this morning?

I think the ask has been very consistent. I mean we're accustomed to living like this, but we just ask them to stay home. That keeps the vehicles from clogging up the highways, causing accidents and making it more difficult to do the recovery operations.

So really, we just ask our residents to stay home for today and hopefully by the end of today, we'll have everything open back up for regular business travel for Tuesday potentially into Wednesday morning.

BERMAN: What's your advice for how to shovel or move this much snow from your driveway?

DAVIS: You know, just, roll up your sleeves and get to work. That's about all you can do.

BERMAN: Plan for a long day and wear earmuffs.

Brenton Davis, county executive for Erie, thank you so much for being with us.

Best of luck for the rest of the day. I think you and your friends are all going to need it. Thank you. -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: My lower back hurts even thinking about shoveling that amount of snow. Protect your back, people.

Coming up for us, President-elect Donald Trump threatening to impose 100 percent tariffs on some countries now. Who he is threatening and what that could mean for prices here in the United States.

And with 83 trees and nearly two miles of ribbon, the halls are officially decked for the holidays at the White House, a new look inside this years' holiday display.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:51]

BERMAN: New reaction from President-elect Trump this morning on President Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, and may be a signal from the president-elect of what is to come and soon.

CNN's Alayna Treene is in West Palm Beach, Florida, with the latest. So what is the president-elect saying about this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, we saw Donald Trump move swiftly to capitalize on this pardon. He posted a comment that really is going to raise expectations that he would follow through on his pledge to pardon January 6 convicts. I'm going to read for you what he wrote in just moments after the Biden announcement came out.

He said, "Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of justice."

Now, Donald Trump used the term "hostages." This is something he also used in the last several months and throughout the campaign trail, describing those who were convicted for their crimes for the Capitol attack as hostages.

But look what's been really interesting is that a lot of people, a lot of Donald Trump supporters are really they have high expectations for Donald Trump. In some cases, to really give maximum clemency to those January 6 convicts, particularly even some of those who committed violent crimes that day, which have raised eyebrows, I will say with others.

But all to say, ever since Donald Trump was elected, we have not heard him bring that up really in the weeks since and he hasn't made any mention of what he would do regarding pardons for these Jan 6 convicts. And so, this was the first time we heard this.

When I talked to Donald Trump's team about this, I've asked them in the past several weeks whether he was going to carry through on that vow. They said that they were focused on the transition, getting his Cabinet together, and that would come later down the line. So perhaps this is a reopening to have that conversation.

Now, I will also say, we've seen many of Donald Trump's allies including those who are working on the transition, try to argue that this is an example of Joe Biden weaponizing the government. We actually had this from Steven Cheung, one of Donald Trump's spokesmen. They said, "The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system. That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans." He went on to say that that is something that Donald Trump will do.

But again, I think this does also provide an opening for some of the sweeping changes we know Donald Trump has been talking about both publicly, but also really, I'm told its been rammed up behind closed doors as well in his conversations with those around him that he wants big changes, he wants to root out what he keeps calling bias at some of the biggest departments, including the Department of Justice and in the FBI. And perhaps this is the opening they need to try and gain more support from the public for some of the things that he really wants to do.

[08:30:38]