Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Speaks After Appealing E. Jean Carroll Verdict; U.S. Activist Killed in West Bank; Georgia Shooting Suspect Facing Life in Prison. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 06, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:03]

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: But, as you said, Wolf, and pointed out, he had a history of making threats.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Yes, awful history, indeed.

In court this morning, the judge in this case told the 14-year-old suspect -- his name is Colt Gray -- that he faces the death penalty. He was then dismissed. Then he was brought back in only moments later for the judge to say he actually doesn't face the death penalty because he's too young. What happened here?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: So there's a United States Supreme Court case that has held that you actually can't give the death penalty to someone who's under 18.

And so I think it was just a correction of the record. It's really a reflection of, in the beginning, they said, you face the death penalty. I think that was more of an indication of what they think he should face. But then they had to correct the record and bring him back because he is under 18 and you cannot sentence someone to death who is under 18.

So he informed him that he instead is facing life in prison.

BLITZER: Life in prison, and just to be precise, without the possibility of parole; is that right?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: Yes, without the possibility of parole.

BLITZER: All right, Georgia doesn't have what's called a red flag or extreme risk law. If it did, do you think that 2023 interaction with the Gray family and police would have gone differently?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: It certainly seems like it. It certainly appears that if they did have that red flag law, that perhaps the red flag would also apply to the father who purchased this gun.

And they would this would not have happened. That being said, since the child illegally possessed this gun because he's underage and wasn't allowed to, it's unclear whether the father would have been included in this red flag, given what we now know. But it's just -- all the facts continue to develop. And as we learn

more, we will be able to talk about it more and know more what was going on. But, certainly, there were so many indications here of just failed red flags, if you will, including the fact that this kid and his threats were on the radar of the FBI.

This should have never happened.

BLITZER: Yes, this should have never happened indeed.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, thank you very much for your expertise. We are grateful to you.

Also new this morning, the U.S. State Department says it is urgently gathering information the death of an American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The U.S. ambassador to Israel is identifying her as Aysenur Eygi. She was 26 years old, held dual U.S.- Turkish citizenship.

She and others were protesting near an Israeli settlement not far from Nablus. Eyewitnesses say Israel's military fired tear gas and stunned grenades toward the protesters and that a soldier then fired the live round that wound up killing her.

CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces for comments. We have not received an answer yet.

Also today, and this is new, Israel's military has withdrawn from the West Bank city of Jenin after nine days of intense military operations there. The devastation is widespread. Infrastructure is in ruins and drinking water and electricity are cut off. The United Nations says this has been the deadliest period of the West Bank in at least eight months.

CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is joining us right now from Tel Aviv.

Nic, you and your team were among the first to arrive in Jenin to see the aftermath of these raids. How extensive is the damage?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Very extensive, Wolf.

This was the first opportunity for residents to really get out and safely begin to sort of assess the damage and clear it up. It was also the first time they had an opportunity for a lot of funerals. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 39 people were killed. They say, of those, eight were children and they say two of them were elderly.

We went to the funeral of one of those elderly people, an 87-year-old man. I talked to his sons. And his sons said: "Look, why was he shot? We don't understand. He was old. He could barely walk. He hadn't been able to get food. He'd gone out. And why was he killed?" He said -- his son told me he wasn't a threat to anyone. We also saw some militants being killed. There were quite a number of

gunmen at that funeral. The IDF says they killed 14 terrorists during those operations. And I actually spoke to one of the commanders of one of those units, one of those militant units the people -- the IDF calls terrorists.

He was the Jenin brigade commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And he told me: "Look, we will admit our losses, but Israel should admit their losses."

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I'm going to interrupt you for a moment. We will get back to you. But Donald Trump is now making a statement in New York. Listen to this.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I haven't spoken to anybody from Russia in years. They know that, but it's a scam.

[11:35:04]

But it all goes back to the DOJ, because we had a trial today. It's an appeal of a ridiculous verdict of a woman I have never met, I don't know. I have no idea who she is. She wrote a book and she made a ridiculous story up. She put it in her book, and we're now appealing the decision.

We had an extremely hostile judge pointed by Clinton, very good friends of Clinton. I guess he married -- presided over the marriage ceremony of one of the lawyers on the case against us. And it was very sad.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, angry man. He was so angry. I went to the trial. I have been in a lot of litigation over the years. I have never seen such anger or wanted to throw one of our attorneys in jail, who -- threatened her with jail. Nobody's ever seen anything like it over nothing. Nobody's ever -- I have never seen such anger.

But all of our judges -- but we had a brilliant judge and I think a very fair judge in Florida. I think we have another judge who's very fair. I just ask for fair. I don't want anything different from anybody else. I just ask for fairness. We have another judge or a couple of judges that I think are fair.

But then we have other judges that I think the whole thing is -- I think the system is a disgrace. The case that we met on today -- and then we're going to talk about job numbers, which are horrible, by the way, horrible, like really bad. And you know that.

I'm sure you won't report on it. But the job numbers are terrible. We're going to talk about the appeal today. We had a great appellate lawyer go down representing us. And I think John did a very good job. You have a matter of minutes to speak.

It's a very complex thing, because it was a setup, a rigged deal. They had two witnesses. And before I start, I have no idea who this woman is. They have a picture from, they say, about 40 years ago, a picture. And the picture depicts her and her husband on a celebrity line where I was the celebrity. I was -- been a celebrity for a long time.

And they were shaking my hands, along with hundreds of other people. Nobody even knows where it is. The problem is, she doesn't know the date of this incident. She doesn't know when. She doesn't know, was it in the '90s? Could it have been further than that? She has no idea when. And people do that because you don't want to give a specific date, and then you find out that Trump or whoever it was in Europe.

So they tend to do that. They take long periods so that, this way, hopefully, he was in New York at that time. But this is a disgraceful case, and disgraceful in particular because it's about a former president of the United States who is now leading in the polls to be the president again.

And this is being worked with the DOJ, Department of Justice, as are all of these cases. They all come out. Atlanta, Fani, that is all Department of Justice. Nobody knew that. The case with Judge Engoron, the most overturned judge in the state, that is very close because they sent their team from the DOJ to help him.

The district attorney, Alvin Bragg, that was all worked with -- again, they sent a top operative from the department -- from DOJ, Department of -- I call it the department of injustice, because they're using the Department of Justice to rig the campaign.

These cases are disgraceful. Now, they're bought -- brought, for the most part, in front of very hostile areas, where Republicans get 3 or 4 percent, like downtown Manhattan, in front of very hostile judges, like hostile like you wouldn't believe, Judge Merchan, Judge Engoron and Judge Kaplan, all of them hostile areas, and very, very hostile judges. I have never seen anything like it.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this statement from Donald Trump. We will get back to it. We will update our viewers clearly on what he's saying.

He's very angry on this E. Jean Carroll case. There's an appeal that they're filing. He was convicted of sexually abusing her and defaming her, resulting in at least a $5 million verdict against him.

[11:40:06]

Kristen Holmes, you have been covering this. You have been covering the Trump -- he basically is going after the judge, an extremely hostile judge, he says. This is a ridiculous verdict. And then he says he never, he doesn't even know who she is, E. Jean Carroll.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He's said that before, right.

BLITZER: He says that all the time. HOLMES: Right. And to be clear, I mean, we spoke, what, 20 minutes

ago, and I said that he -- this is exactly what he was going to come out and do. These are the cases that make him angry. He was there, sitting in there today in that courtroom. He didn't have to be. He chose to be.

He has chosen to make in some cases the courtroom part of the campaign trail. In some cases, it had to be because he was forced to be in court, for example, with the hush money trial there in New York. But it was pretty predictable that this is what he was going to do to come out and attack all of the justice system in general.

And just to be very clear, as we have reported time and time again, the case with E. Jean Carroll is a civil case. It is not involved with the Justice Department. The case in Atlanta was brought by Fani Willis, not by the Justice Department.

But part of what we have seen with Donald Trump and with his campaign, particularly amid all of these ongoing legal investigations and trials, is the fact that Donald Trump has aimed to make this political, to tie this to the current administration, and now, of course, will tie this to Kamala Harris as part of the current administration, saying that he is being politically persecuted, essentially having this line that is, they're coming after you, but I'm just standing in the way, when instead he just -- they just are alleging that he committed crimes.

So what we know today is that this was the first time that he and E. Jean Carroll were in that courtroom. This was him seeking a new trial. His legal team has said that they believe there were issues with the evidence, that the judge shouldn't have let in certain evidence, and that's why they are appealing.

And, again, we don't expect any decision this today or possibly even before the election, but you can tell here he is obviously using this -- he is angry. He's always angry when he comes out of these legal cases, but he's also using this as an opportunity for himself to paint this as political.

BLITZER: Yes, he certainly is. All right, stand by.

Everybody, stand by. We're going to continue to monitor what Trump is saying. We have got -- our fact-checker, Daniel Dale, is joining us. He will be with us as well. Karen Friedman Agnifilo, our legal analyst, is with us as well.

Lots more coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:46:58]

BLITZER: All right, we're continuing to monitor Trump's very, very angry reaction to the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. He was convicted of sexually abusing her and defaming her, fined some $5 million. He says there was an extremely hostile judge, that certain evidence that was admitted should never have been admitted.

He's going on and on and on, railing against her, saying he doesn't know her, never met her, has no idea who she is, only that she's making up all of these stories.

I want to bring in Karen Friedman Agnifilo, our legal analyst, to assess this.

There was a trial. He actually didn't want to attend and didn't testify. If he's that innocent, why didn't he make his case in front of the court?

FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO: Yes, so that's one of the big questions here, because don't forget there was a second E. Jean Carroll trial that he did attend, and he did testify and he did put on a defense there. So he chose not to in this case, and he is stuck with that decision.

This was an appellate argument. This is him trying to appeal his -- the finding of liability that this nine-person jury found against him and found that he had sexually abused -- he is guilty essentially of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, in addition to defaming her. And so that is what he's complaining about here is, he almost wants to do- over.

You can't do that on appeal. On appeal, the judges look at the record, and that's it. They don't listen to your defense or anything else that you have to say, but that's what he's trying to do today in his press conference.

One of the things I was listening for is, did he defame her again? And will E. Jean Carroll bring additional defamation charges against him from this press conference? Because every time he denies ever meeting her or knowing her and denies that this happened, that could be another charge of defamation.

So it'll be interesting to see if the lawyers bring more defamation charges against him.

BLITZER: That's an important point indeed.

Karen, we will get back to you. Thank you very much.

And let's take another very quick break. Much more of our special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:53:31]

BLITZER: All right, Trump is continuing to rail against E. Jean Carroll. He was convicted of sexually abusing her, defaming her. He's continuing to rail against the entire justice system, extremely hostile judge.

He says he never met her, it's a ridiculous verdict.

I want to bring in Daniel Dale, our CNN fact-checker.

You have been listening to what he's saying. Give us your thoughts.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: So, first of all, these claims that he's been making for many months now that every single case against him, including a civil fraud case brought by the New York state attorney general and two local criminal cases brought by district attorneys, were all orchestrated by the Department of Justice, simply baseless.

Again, he's been saying those for months. There is no evidence whatsoever. He's certainly presented none. And none of those officials even report to the Department of Justice, let alone President Biden or Vice President Harris, whom he's also specifically accused of bringing these cases.

He keeps saying that he's leading in the polls. You can find individual polls in which he leads in some swing states or nationally, but, in terms of polling averages, as our numbers guru Harry Enten has repeatedly demonstrated, he's currently down. He trails in those polling averages to Vice President Harris.

And then I think, on these claims, Wolf, about E. Jean Carroll against whom he was found liable -- we should say that, liable, not convicted in a criminal trial -- of sexual abuse and defamation, this is the same stuff he's been saying over and over. I guess he's entitled to assert his innocence, so I won't report to purport to fact-check it.

But I will note that, again, a jury simply disagreed. A jury found him liable of sexually abusing Ms. Carroll, of defaming Ms. Carroll. And he's repeating many of the claims over which he was found liable for defamation today. So he can say it, but a jury of his peers disagreed.

[11:55:18]

BLITZER: Yes, that's a clear fact, liable for sexually abusing her and defaming her.

We will continue to monitor this, Trump's continuing his statement. He hasn't answered any reporters' questions yet. We will see if he does.

Thanks very much, Daniel Dale, for your analysis. We always appreciate that.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining me. I'm Wolf Blitzer here in Washington. I will be back later tonight 6:00 p.m. Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts right after a short break.