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CNN Live Event/Special

Trump Turns Himself In At Miami Court. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 13, 2023 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The video from Doral from just minutes ago. And, Kaitlan, I'm not sure who was there. I saw Jason Miller, his former -- or his current campaign aide. Who else is riding with him?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake. You saw some of them getting out once they had actually arrived here at the courthouse. These are people who we don't believe we'll actually go, of course, into the room with him. We think that's just the attorneys that we talked about earlier.

But you did see a lot of the political staff that is with the former president today. Of course, Steven Cheung, his spokesperson who has been handling a lot of inquiries for the many investigations that the former president is facing was there. Chris LaCivita, who is running his campaign. Susie Wiles, another political top senior adviser to the former president. All of them are on hand as he has just arrived here at the courthouse in Miami.

Of course, when he actually gets in the room and gets before Judge Goodman, we believe it is only going to be Todd Blanche and Chris Kise who are there with him. They are being very tight on who it is that is allowed into that room. Very strict, of course, on the process for reporters and media in the room.

We do believe it is just going to be the president and those two attorneys who go actually in there with him. And of course, all of this comes, Jake, is he is -- the president himself -- the former president has been blasting Jack Smith, the special counsel on social media, only increasing his level of attacks on him. Of course, he's never had anything nice to say about Jack Smith for several months. But that has only increased in recent weeks.

And he's you know been trying to get his supporters -- his allies in Congress to do more of that publicly. I think you've started to see a lot of that coming from people like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans who are now being more vocal. That is after I was told by some sources that the former president was essentially saying they weren't doing enough. They weren't going after Jack Smith the way that they were going after Muller.

A lot of that has to do with also, you know, the messaging here -- the political messaging, not just what his legal strategy is going to be. But the political strategy that you were saying the former president employees on the ground here in Miami. TAPPER: OK. Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. One note I want to make here because there's been a lot of -- have said by Trump and his allies about the so-called partisanship of Jack Smith. And, Elie Honig, we were talking about this yesterday.

Jack Smith has gone after, as far as I know, at least two major Democratic politicians. He tried to prosecute former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards. He tried to prosecute -- or did prosecute, he failed to convict the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez of New Jersey. You can make an argument that maybe he overshoots and doesn't -- and doesn't get what his target but he certainly has gone after Democrats as well.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think the record does not at all bear out this notion that Jack Smith is partisan or Democratic- leaning. He's first of all, a longtime federal prosecutor. Not a political appointee, but someone who served in high-level positions under administrations of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Part of Jack Smith's career, and this is the moment that you're talking about, Jake, he was in charge of the Public Integrity Section in DC, what we call main justice, meaning DOJ headquarters. And candidly, his record is not great there.

The three biggest cases that Jack Smith was either involved in or oversaw, he was a supervisor, all were ultimately failures. There's the two cases against prominent Democrats that you mentioned, the John Edwards case, which is actually in some respects, similar to the other charge against Donald Trump because it had to do with the payment of hush money. The jury rejected that case and then DOJ dismissed what was left of it.

Jack Smith was involved in the early phases of the prosecution of Senator -- Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, same result. The jury rejected part of that case. DOJ then throughout the rest.

And the third was against the Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. That actually resulted in a conviction, which was upheld by the Court of Appeals, but then reverse nine nothing by the U.S. Supreme Court. So, Jack Smith has a long record of accomplishments. He was not just a federal prosecutor.

He was a war crimes prosecutor in The Hague. That's why we see the image of him in that distinctive purple robe. But it's worth noting that his three-most prominent prosecutions before this one all failed.

TAPPER: And they had to do with what a lot of people would refer to as the criminalization of politics, which has to do with favors that are done in the service of politics and whether or not those favors are allowable by law or not.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, there's another interesting aspect of his background while running the Public Integrity Section, which he took over in 2010 in the immediate aftermath of the Ted Stevens prosecution, which was a debacle for the Department of Justice. So, Jack Smith comes in with a remit to kind of restructure that section. And in the first few months, he closed several prominent investigations into members of Congress without charges.

So, those included John Ensign of Nevada, of course, a Republican. Tom DeLay of Texas, another Republican. Jerry Lewis of California, a Republican. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, a Democrat. And Don Young of Alaska.

So, yes, he's had some prominent run-ins with Republican politicians but he has also been very firmly on the other side of those scales of justice. Closing investigations against prominent Republicans as well, when he thought that they had lingered too long and that there was nothing there worth prosecuting.

[14:05:16]

TAPPER: And one of the problems, of course, is how much money is allowed in politics and campaign donations and what is directly a quid pro quo. And the rest is not actually related, Abby Phillip, to this specific charge, which has -- which has to do with top secret documents and whether or not Donald Trump was obstructing justice and keeping them for himself.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR & SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think all of that is really interesting. And all of those cases involve some complicated questions. But I think no one can deny that any other person in this country accused of the same conduct would be exactly where Donald Trump is today.

And in some ways, as I'm watching this video, it is actually a sign of how our system is working. He is going in there with the dignity of -- that is afforded to a former president. He has a full motorcade, full protection, all of his supporters are allowed to be outside to say their peace protest to wave their flags.

This is America. This is a former president being treated with actually quite a lot of dignity better than the average defendant, but charged only as much as a regular person would be charged under these circumstances. And we have to wait to see how this turns out.

Obviously, he has not been convicted. He's innocent until proven guilty. But for those on the political side who keep saying that this is a banana republic, this is not what banana republics look like, OK? When --

TAPPER: Yes.

PHILLIP: Really, when banana republics are --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How sad.

PHILLIP: -- prosecuting their political figures, it does not look like this. And we should just be crystal clear about that.

TAPPER: I actually -- and we'll come back to this up in a second. But I actually think that you can make the argument that Donald Trump is being charged in a much more careful way than the average defendant would be (INAUDIBLE). This was --

PHILLIP: Absolutely.

TAPPER: -- if this was a lieutenant or an admiral that had done the same thing, that I bet it will be, you know, dozens and dozens of charges, many, many more. But we'll talk about that in a sec. Let's go right back to CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins in Miami.

COLLINS: Yes. Jake, can we just -- I want to show -- obviously, we don't have cameras inside, so we're trying to get insight on what it looks like actually, inside the courthouse. We did just get this sketch of members of the media and some members of the public. They are being briefed by court officials, as you can see here, on the process with a selection of who got to go into that room and who gets to actually be in the room as the former president is in there to plead not guilty. And you know hear those words.

Obviously, there are 25 people that they allowed in the actual chairs. They also have an overflow there. But, Jake, also here with me is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Marcos Jimenez, who obviously has more experienced than almost anyone on what it is actually like inside there right now.

So, since there aren't cameras in there, tell us what is happening. You -- I mean, you prosecuted a lot of cases inside that very courthouse behind us. What's going on with the former president right now?

MARCOS JIMENEZ, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA: Well, he's first being processed, which is the equivalent of being booked in state court. So, he's going to the probation office and he's being fingerprinted. He's then going to go have a very perfunctory appearance.

Basically, he's going to be read -- you know, read his charges, not in detail, but told what his charges are. The conditions of his release are going to be set. Those are very interesting.

And he's going to either plead guilty or not guilty. And of course, he's going to plead not guilty. So as crazy as it is out here and as momentous it is because of the individual involved, this is a very routine, almost non-event important.

COLLINS: Yes. And we know he'll get fingerprinted. You said the conditions of the release are very interesting. Why do you think so?

JIMENEZ: Well, every defendant that's charged is released on supervised release. So, there are travel restrictions, there are restrictions on employment. There are restrictions on where you can live. You have to tell your probation officer.

You have to allow the probation officer to visit you at home. You can't have a gun -- can't possess a gun. You can't talk to someone who's a convicted felon. You can't be a federal informant. There are standard conditions of supervised release that will apply.

COLLINS: You know when we were in New York --

JIMENEZ: Yes.

COLLINS: -- for his last indictment, and the judge made comments about the language that you're hearing. Talking about what was being said about that case about what was ongoing reminding -- telling the attorneys to remind your clients about what they're saying publicly about it. Trump is on the way here to the courthouse calling this a witch hunt, going after Jack Smith, the special counsel, repeatedly calling him deranged. Do you expect the judge may say anything about that?

JIMENEZ: I think today, no. But listen, our system of justice is sacrosanct. I'm here because we -- everybody who's involved in this case, every participant, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, especially the judge has to ensure that we uphold our system of justice, which is the best in the world. And we can't turn this into a circus.

I don't -- I don't think the judges are going to be happy with public comments. I would expect that the government at some point would make a motion in that regard. But hopefully, the defendant himself will respect the rule of law in this case, and not make those comments. But that's why we're here.

[14:10:16]

COLLINS: You know the judge, actually, who's going to be overseeing this today. It's not Judge Aileen Cannon who we've talked about, the Trump-appointed judge, that will we do believe potentially take this to trial, instead it's Judge Goodman. What do you -- and you know him well. What do you -- what do you expect is his approach to this today?

JIMENEZ: Jonathan, and I can call him that, and I went to law school together 40 years ago. We're in the same study group. He's a straight shooter.

As he wrote in his order last night, he's staying in his lane kind of guy. He enforced the court's orders relating to cameras in the courtroom. And this is most likely the last thing he's going to do in this case.

So, he's going to do it correctly. And like I said before, it's not that complicated. You know, any lawyer could stand up and represent Trump today in court and just stand there next to him on the podium.

COLLINS: Yes. Quite a week for him to be the judge on this.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

COLLINS: We'll see what that looks like. Thank you for your expertise. Of course, former federal prosecutor, you know this better than anyone so thank you very much.

JIMENEZ: Thank you. COLLINS: Jake, obviously, a lot of questions on what it is going to look like. Even though it is -- it is a perfunctory hearing, as he was saying, not a lot of expectations of anything that Trump is going to say beyond not guilty in that room, but still significant that in just a matter of months, this is the second time he will be doing that.

TAPPER: Yes, it is remarkable. Kaitlan Collins in Miami, thanks so much. Let's go to the other side of the courthouse where we find Paula Reid who has new information. Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are learning from inside the court that the booking process is now complete. And that was going to look more or less like it would for any other defendant.

The former president and his attorneys had some paperwork to fill out as expected that he will be fingerprinted. But they weren't going to do a mug shot or anything like that. That, in a short time, he will go before a magistrate judge and they will read the charges that have been filed against him. He's expected to plead not guilty. And at the defense table will be Todd Blanche and Chris Kise.

He's the former Florida Solicitor General. The former president has not been able to put together his permanent legal team after the departures over the past few weeks of all of the defense attorneys who have represented him in this case. But again, this is just the first step in what is expected to be a very long and certainly historic case.

Now, some people have asked me why is it so hard for Trump to find lawyers. Well, there are a lot of reasons for that. One is there are concerns about him paying his bills. There's also concerns were told about reputational damage, alienating other clients. He's also a notoriously difficult person to represent with a lot of the political folks around him meddling in legal affairs as part of why some of his legal team has already left from this case.

But I am told down here in Florida, a lot of the best defense attorneys, they have their own practice, and representing Trump is a full-time job. But I am told it is very likely that he will eventually find a lawyer but it's going to take time.

The other big thing I'm watching for in this courtroom is who is going to be at the prosecution table. The special counsel's office would not tell us on the record for security reasons, who will be representing the special counsel's office. But if Jack Smith is in the courtroom today, that will be the first time that Trump would come face to face with a man who filed the first-ever criminal charges against the former president of the United States.

TAPPER: All right, Paul Reid, thank you so much. Anderson?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Jake, thanks so much. John Miller, this seems to be moving along pretty quickly so far.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So for a booking that was a record time, but I think what we're seeing here is the effect of the U.S. Marshal probably filling out all of those forms ahead of time. The FBI does all of their records in advance. The electronic fingerprint scan, they don't really have to wait for his records to come back. So, yes, I would say that was record time. But I also think it was pretty well forecast and in advance that the steps would be mostly executed before he walked into the room.

COOPER: How long, Laura, do you think he'll be before the judge? How long the process he's not?

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: So, distinguishing the booking process as in the paperwork aspect of it and the actual arraignment where the judge is going to read out the charges, asked for a plea, they might do some sort of scheduling issues in terms of when is the next trial date knowing who was on the record, etcetera, both Nauta by the way and Trump who is the co-defendant.

Walt Nauta is also a part of this entire thing. So, expect to see an abbreviated actual arraignment process. These are normally very, very quick as opposed to say, a preliminary hearing about probable cause, is there enough evidence to support the grand jury's claiming etcetera or findings? This will be largely ministerial.

However, it is very significant still because it's time for us to hear the former president of the United States. We won't hear it personally because there's no courtrooms in the camera -- cameras in the courtroom. But the idea with the guilty plea or not guilty plea will be, it'll be not guilty plea. The idea about who the attorneys will be a part of it, or we'll hear from his co-defendant as well, that will be a little bit longer than the actual booking.

COOPER: I understand we have some new video of the former president before he left outside his Doral Resort. This is a -- the videos we are just seeing for the first time. David Urban, how does he look to you?

[14:15:10]

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: OK. I talked to some staff earlier today and they said you know we are defiant -- the president feels defiant. It looks -- it looks a little dejected there. To me, it doesn't look good, you know. No pep in his step. It's got to be tough.

You know, normally he's getting the motorcade. He's going someplace to play golf or did a fundraiser out to dinner. This is a completely different -- completely different riding. I don't know who's getting in that -- in the -- in the vehicle with him to take that ride, but it's probably going to be a pretty quiet ride.

I noted that when they arrived that staff Steven Cheung and Susie Wiles, Boris Epshteyn, and Jason Miller kind of got out and stood outside the courthouse. I didn't see them go in at all, so I'm not sure whether they went in like they did last time.

Boris I know sat at the table -- the lawyers' table. It -- he's been quite the center of all these legal machinations going on, keeping a lot of the lawyers from being hired kicking some lawyers out. Boris is a pretty strong personality big cheerleader. So for him not to be in there, it's kind of interesting today.

COOPER: Karen, what does -- what happens next? I mean, how -- for -- in terms of getting new attorneys, getting them read in, all of that, that can take time?

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, that can take time. I think more what's going to take the most time is to find an attorney who's willing to represent him and willing to -- I mean think about how many of his attorneys have either been sanctioned or now you've got -- we know that one or two of his attorneys are even in the indictment as you know -- that listed in here. I mean, he asks his attorneys to do things for him that are illegal.

One of the most stunning things in this indictment is paragraph -- in my opinion, paragraph 66, page 25, where they're talking about how Trump asked attorney number one, to go look and get the classified documents that they were going to turn over. And this is attorney number one Evan Corcoran is contemporary -- I mean he has notes.

What he puts in there is that Trump is asking him to take the red world with the documents -- the classified documents that were recovered that he found in these boxes. And he says -- he made a funny motion like a plucking motion and says, take out the documents, take it to your hotel room and if there's anything really bad in there, pluck out the documents. Take it out. And Evan Corcoran was so concerned that he was asked to essentially commit a crime that he took these contemporaneous notes and --

COOPER: Plucking a classified document or national security document --

AGNIFILO: Yes.

COOPER: -- because it's bad --

AGNIFILO: Yes.

COOPER: -- would be not a good thing for any attorney today.

AGNIFILO: Yes, so -- exactly. So, I know that a lot of attorneys don't want to have anything to do with this case because they are going to be asked to do things that are criminal. I mean, think about the other thing that happened with Evan Corcoran is there's no longer an attorney-client privilege to those communications because a federal judge found that the -- a crime-fraud exception --

COOPER: Yes.

AGNIFILO: -- was found here because he was used to committing -- to be a co-conspirator or a crime where his attorney.

VAN JONES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Worst client ever, in other words. And you may not get paid. And I think that's part of the thing -- I mean, when you're an attorney, you have an expectation that you're going to have a client that's going to pay you, might do some of the things you suggest, may not get you pulled into a criminal conspiracy. These are things that just normally as a lawyer you're just not worried about and yet it's now a pattern with this -- with this particular one.

You would think, ordinarily, a former president is facing federal charges. You can be in the history books. You would think there'd be a line of people around that courthouse saying, I want to represent this guy. I want to stick up for justice. Half the country thinks it's an unjust cause. Nobody wants to touch it.

COOPER: I want to bring in Marcos Jimenez. He's a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He's outside the courthouse.

Mr. Jimenez, can you just talk a little bit about what is going on now inside? The processing part, it seems is over.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Well, now that he's been processed by the probation office, he is now heading up to the 13th floor. It's to the largest courtroom that we have in the courthouse. And he's going to have -- despite the craziness out here and the gravity of the case, he's going to have a very basic perfunctory initial appearance and arraignment.

And I'm sure it's been talked about a lot, but the conditions of his release will be set. They'll plead not guilty. And then he'll go home. And after that, he'll be assigned a probation officer. And he will have to deal with that probation officer in whatever conditions of release are set by the judge.

COOPER: And in terms of the venue moving forward, whether this, if it goes to trial, would be in West Palm Beach, how is that determined?

[14:20:07]

JIMENEZ: Well, the judge assigned to this case, Aileen Cannon, sits in Fort Pierce. It's the farthest north in our district. It's 130 miles north of Miami. It's a very small courthouse.

Here, it's a very large courthouse and is more able to handle big cases like this. And I would not be surprised if the case was tried here in Miami. I think it's an interesting choice because the composition of the jury pool may change depending on where you're located.

I would think that if you're the defense attorney, in this case, you want the case as far north as possible, where the jurors tend to be more conservative, rather than in a -- in a more diverse city like Miami.

COOPER: Is it possible that the -- on conditions for his release that he could be barred from leaving the country? Is that possible?

JIMENEZ: Yes. The standard condition of release is that you cannot travel outside of the district without the court's permission and without the probation officer's permission. Typically, what happens is, if a defendant has -- lives elsewhere or has to appear in court elsewhere, travel will be permitted to those particular districts. Now, this is an a -- an incredibly different situation because you have a person who's running for office. And he's going to be in every district, potentially, in this country. So, they're going to have to set extremely broad conditions for this release, which is unprecedented.

COOPER: And what do you know about the judge who the former president is facing today?

JIMENEZ: Jonathan Goodman and I went to law school forty years ago. We were in the same study group. We had a friendly rivalry there.

He's an excellent, excellent magistrate judge and person. He's going to play this by the book. He, like you wrote in his rule -- in his order last night you know, he's a stay-in-your-lane guy.

He's going to handle this just like any other arraignment. It's not a complicated process for the judge. He's just going through a very standard process. And this will be the end of his involvement in this case. Unless something changes, like a new judge is assigned, and he happens to be the magistrate judge that's attached to that judge.

COOPER: So, is Judge Cannon automatically the judge -- the judge who gets this case now?

JIMENEZ: Yes. Judge Cannon has been assigned this case through a random wheel. Now, the fact that it was venued in West Palm Beach meant that there was a relatively small number of judges, three or four judges who could potentially get it.

So, the fact that she got it is not as surprising as it would be if it was filed here in Miami. But she's going to stay in the case. And I've heard people say that she should recuse herself because she's biased.

I personally think that she is not going to recuse herself. I think if she recused herself, it would make the conspiracy theory -- theories that are out there run even more rampant. So, I think she's going to stay in the case.

And like I said earlier, what's it, she is the most important person in this process. She has to ensure the sanctity of this case and of our criminal justice system. She cannot be seen to favor one side or the other.

She has to call balls and strikes. She has to play it right down the middle of the road. I know that she has hurdles to overcome because of her prior rulings, which were reversed on appeal but she's going to keep this case, I think. And she's going to have to do the right thing so that our system of justice is protected.

This case is beyond just Donald Trump. This case is a -- that in many ways, our system of justice is being put on trial. And every participant in this process has to do their part to make sure that we uphold the tradition of having the best criminal justice system in the world.

COOPER: And are you confident that a jury in West Palm Beach would be able to do that?

JIMENEZ: Absolutely. I have high confidence, a high degree of confidence in our jurors. Our jurors, in my experience, I've tried many cases in this district, come in. They do their job. Obviously, biased jurors will be excluded through the process.

But having said that, it's very difficult to win a criminal case. As you know, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. And you have to have a unanimous jury.

So, all that Donald Trump needs is one holdout juror. So, it'll be the challenge for the prosecution, in this case, to make sure that this jury does not have that one holdout that's going to ruin this case. There's a lot to -- that is going to happen between now and then but that's how I view the jury dynamic here.

COOPER: Mr. Jimenez, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I want to get to Paula Reid, who is standing by with some new information. Paula?

[14:25:03]

REID: That's right, Anderson. Former President Trump's co-defendant, Walt Nauta, one of his close personal aides has also arrived here at the court as has his attorney Stan Woodward. Now, Walt arrived here with the former president in his motorcade. He's actually been with Trump since around the time the indictment came down. He's kept him very close in the fold.

Anderson, I'm told by a source close to the former president that he's gotten a lot better about keeping people who could potentially be used as a witness against him or could pose legal problems. He's gotten a lot better about keeping them in the fold. I'm told that he learned a lot of lessons from the Michael Cohen situation, and he's gotten a lot better about keeping people close to him and keeping them loyal.

And, of course, Walt Nauta has been under tremendous pressure from the Justice Department to flip to cooperate in this investigation. He was threatened multiple times that he could face charges, obviously, now he is, and he will continue to be under pressure to make a decision about whether he's willing to risk this at a trial and potentially face jail time or if he wants to cooperate with the Justice Department.

I'll note. Right now, the former president is not directly paying for his attorney, but Walt's attorney is funded by a Trump-aligned political organization. So, if he does not cooperate -- or if he does cooperate with prosecutors, who would likely lose that representation. As you might imagine, it is extremely expensive to go up against the Justice Department, particularly a special counsel. So, Walt Nauta is arguably one of the most important parts of Trump's legal strategy right now, keeping him loyal and preventing him from cooperating against him in an eventual trial.

COOPER: And, Paula, do we know if Mr. Nauta in the courtroom with the former president at the same time? REID: That is the expectation but it's a little unclear the choreography because we have a lot of different pieces here were moving. We have security operations. But they are co-defendants. They are expected to both be doing their initial appearance and their arraignment at approximately the same time.

Now, the courtroom is very tight. Space is limited. A lot of reporters want to be in there, members of the public. But yes, this will happen effectively around the same time because again, this is the same case.

They're co-defendants. No, they do have two separate legal teams at this point. Stan Woodward has been representing Walt Nauta for quite some time, though, as we know, the former president's lawyers have all recently resigned, the ones who have worked on this case or been pushed out.

So, he has two different attorneys now, and it's unclear what exactly his legal team will look like. But at some point, you know, Walt Nauta's best interests may diverge with that of the former president. So, that's one aspect of this case that we're going to be watching very, very closely.

COOPER: Yes. Paula Reid, appreciate it. Thanks. Jake?

TAPPER: Do pictures now of Donald Trump inside the car as he was being driven to the courthouse in Miami, waving to the camera. This was not long before he was actually arrested inside the building on federal criminal charges. Let's get some perspective on what the former president is going through today from some veterans of the Trump White House, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, and former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews, both join me.

Now. Stephanie, let me start with you. Trump, in some ways, seems to try to relish moments like this. He seems to try to spin the narrative. He talks about how they're out to get him because they're really out to get the American people, etcetera.

But I have to say, in the -- in the images we saw from the Doral, he seemed rather dejected. What do you think -- Sarah, what do you think he's going through?

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I do think that there is a sense of normalcy sometimes in the chaos in the Trump world. It's not like they haven't been through this before. Not just with the first indictment in the Alvin Bragg case, but you look at the two impeachment proceedings that he went through.

So, I do think that they are kind of used to knowing how to operate in these kinds of situations. They know the drill. But certainly, I think this is to a more serious degree than what he's faced previously.

TAPPER: And, Stephanie, what do you think?

STEPHANIE GRISHAM, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I would agree with Sarah. You know, I think he's absolutely dejected. I think that was a perfect word for you to use.

He doesn't want to be arrested. I think he even just said that in an interview somewhere. He doesn't like that.

He thinks that it's not elegant. He thinks that it takes away some of his power deep down. So, he definitely doesn't like it.

But being Trump, he's going to double, triple down as he's been doing. And he's going to fundraise off of it. He's going to play the victim, as you just said.

And I did think it was really interesting that earlier, it was said that he's keeping people closer. I think he's got to be feeling pretty desperate right now. He doesn't have a lot of staff. People are scared, people are getting in real trouble, and I think that's weighing heavily on his mind as well.

TAPPER: Sarah, how did you see him free classified documents? Does any of this come as a surprise to you?

MATTHEWS: This wasn't something that I was necessarily privy to in my role in the press office. But I do think that we know anything about Trump. He wasn't your typical president and he didn't always follow procedures and the norms of the institutions. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case as this indictment clearly lays out.