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CNN Live Event/Special

Supreme Court To Hear Trump Immunity Case As Hush Money Trial Resumes. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 25, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Bolton, great to see you this morning. Appreciate your time as always. Thank you.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It was very interesting to have him on.

Thank you all so much for joining us today. This is "CNN NEWS CENTRAL." Now, CNN's special coverage of Donald Trump's immunity battle now before the Supreme Court starts now.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: We are live the U.S. Supreme Court where historic arguments are about to unfold testing former president Donald Trump's unprecedented claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The outcome could determine if the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's federal election subversion trial happens before this year's 2024 election or at all.

I'm Kaitlan Collins outside of the high court.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Anderson Cooper overlooking the Manhattan criminal courthouse. While the Supreme Court hears Donald Trump's immunity case, the former president is here in New York City in the midst of his first criminal trial for hush money scheme allegedly aimed at helping his 2016 presidential campaign. The leadoff witness, former "National Enquirer" executive David Pecker resumes his testimony soon.

We're covering both of these monumental cases in the hours ahead.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, and this is CNN's special coverage. The Trump immunity battle at the U.S. Supreme Court.

About an hour from now, oral arguments will begin in Donald Trump petitioner versus the United States, and the nation's highest court will confront landmark questions. At issue Trump's claim that he has blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for his conduct on January 6th and other efforts to stay in power because, he contends, those were official acts as president. Those are arguments the lower courts have rejected.

The stakes of this case are enormous, not only for Mr. Trump and the current presidential race, but for American democracy moving forward. The nine justices, including three justices appointed by Mr. Trump, have the power to set constitutional precedent, but could have a lasting impact on the ability to hold sitting and former presidents accountable to the rule of law, or in Donald Trump's view, the court's ruling could potentially clear the way for presidents to conduct official business without the fear of frivolous prosecution.

Let's check in with CNN's senior Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic, outside the high court right now.

And Joan, your thoughts on the history-making arguments the justices are about to hear.

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Hi, good morning, Jake. You know, this has been so suspenseful, what's going to happen at the Supreme Court, and we're finally here in this moment. About an hour from now, the oral arguments will start. I'm about to go in to get my seat in what will be I'm sure a very crowded courtroom. I'll be both watching and listening for particular things.

First of all, once I get into that courtroom, I'm going to be looking for who's in the justices' special guest. Who's come to watch this. You know, occasionally their spouses come in. Jane Roberts, the wife of the chief justice, often slips in just before arguments are going to be heard. I'll also be looking at the two lawyers who will be arguing this case, whose voices you're about to hear, Jake.

John Sauer on behalf of former president Donald Trump, who argued the case in lower courts, and Michael Driven on behalf of Special Counsel Jack Smith defending the Justice Department, the United States government here, before the justices. And then I'll really be listening for what the justices themselves act asked, who dominates this, what will the chief be asking about. The chief who is very protective of executive authority, but also has had quite fraught experience with Donald Trump and will be very cautious about what sort of messages projected at this point.

You know, they'll be going back to precedent from the time of the framing of the Constitution all the way up to Richard Nixon era and cases that involved him, and a precedent that was set when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Watergate, and Jack Smith's side is arguing that that shows that a president could have been subject to criminal prosecution -- Jake.

TAPPER: Interesting. Joan Biskupic, thank you so much.

Kaitlan Collins, also outside the court, it will be a fascinating day at the court today. And I'm sure Mr. Trump wishes that he could attend, but of course he's busy with a different case.

COLLINS: Yes. Jake, he just said that this morning, he was complaining that the judge in New York did not make a special exception for him to be able to come to these arguments. He said that he wanted to come. Instead, it will be his attorneys inside the Supreme Court arguing this without Mr. Trump as he is listening to David Pecker's testimony.

And I have CNN's Paula Reid and Kasie Hunt here with me as we are waiting for this monumental day, just kind of -- I mean, we talk about split-screens a lot, but this is really remarkable to see Donald Trump in a Manhattan courthouse and also his attorneys -- his other attorneys going into the Supreme Court.

[09:05:12]

And Paula, just a reminder the question that the justices had before them, which is whether and if so, to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is so wild to me, Kaitlan, that we are here on this question because in talking to Trump's lawyers throughout the special counsel investigation, they would always say this isn't our strongest argument, but we're going to keep making it that what he did in the wake of the 2020 election to try to subvert the outcome that we're going to make the argument that those were official acts because not only do we or client a duty of vigorous advocacy, but also the litigation helps to delay any possible trial.

Now, this was completely rejected by the lower court, saying, of course, presidents don't have absolute criminal immunity for everything that they do in office. And so rejected the idea that what he was doing, you know, pressuring the Justice Department to investigate the election results, pressuring state officials engaging in this effort to put forth fake electors, rejecting the idea that any of those were official acts. Completely rejected at the lower-court level.

So when the Supreme Court took this up, the two questions are, OK. Does the Supreme Court want to be the final word also rejecting this idea of absolute criminal immunity for presidents, or did they think there is a little bit of nuance here? And they'll send it back down to the lower courts to litigate that. Either way, the Trump team really walks into court today winning because just taking this up now so late in the game has made it difficult, though not impossible, for Jack Smith to bring this case before the election, even if he wins here today.

VAUSE: Yes, that's a key point, Kasie, because, you know, even if he loses, he could still technically get a win if they take so long to decide that he has lost his argument here that this case does not happen before the election. I mean, even if they decided in a month, we wouldn't see a trial potentially until October. So well into the heart of the presidential election.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it seems unlikely that they'll decide it before the very end of their term and that it'll the late June before were actually learning. I mean, I suppose it's possible that something else could happen, but I think it's just important to reflect on kind of the big picture question that is at hand today because, I mean, this lawn on which we are sitting, we're right across from the Supreme Court, this is the place where the mobs overwhelmed the capital which is right across the way, bashed in many of those windows.

COLLINS: A hundred feet away.

HUNT: Injured -- I mean, I watched it from a building across the way. I looked out the windows and saw them attacking the side of the building. The justices have said that they want to decide whether or not the then president can be held accountable for that day. And that is an incredibly weighty question for us as a republic. And it really inserts the Supreme Court into a central role in deciding whether or not that same person is going to become president in the United States again.

And I mean, to your point, Paula the delays here and this -- their decision, how they decide this could generate another set of potential delays. If their decision ultimately is what means that there's no answer to whether or not Trump is accountable for that day before the election, that means that millions of Americans are going to have to go and decide whether they want to put Donald Trump back in office without having a chance to see whether or not he was convicted here.

And we know from talking to voters that they do care whether or not he is going to be convicted here. So there is a very -- there's an argument that the Trump people have made that pushing it this late close to the election is going to influence it. I would also argue the other side can say this delay is influencing him.

COLLINS: Yes. It's going to be a notable and John Sauer will be the one, Jake, inside that courtroom or inside the Supreme Court arguing on Trump's behalf. Some of his allies didn't think that he did a great job arguing before the D.C. appeals court. We'll see what they make of how he argues this case today.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan, thanks so much out.

Let's break down the key elements of the Trump immunity fight with CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, how did the case reach the nation's highest court?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Jake, it's a split-screen day. This Supreme Court argument comes out of Jack Smith's federal 2020 election interference case here in Washington, D.C. Now, as you said, we've had to go through several steps of the legal process to reach the Supreme Court. It started in the federal district court, the trial court, Donald Trump claimed he was immune based on his status as a former president.

The District Court judge, Judge Tanya Chutkan, she quickly and swiftly rejected that. She ruled that there is no divine right of kings in this country. Donald Trump, you are not immune. Now at that point Jack Smith's team actually made an unusual move. They said Supreme Court, we want to skip this middle level. We want you to take this case directly. It's too important, it's too urgent. Supreme court said, no, you got to go through the normal channel so that brought us to the mid-level court of appeals.

Donald Trump again claimed he was immune and again, the appeals court, they rejected that argument, too. [09:10:05]

They said the same thing essentially, presidents are not covered by their status as former presidents.

Now, a couple of things that we need to know and a couple of things we don't know about immunity. First of all, there is such thing as civil immunity. You cannot sue a president or other federal officials for things they did within the scope of their job. We know that from a 1982 Supreme Court case involving Richard Nixon. You will hear reference to that case today. What we don't know and what we will learn today is, first of all, is there such thing as criminal immunity for federal officials at all? And if so, what are the scope of those protections?

Now we are going to hear I think three key arguments and some variation today from Trump's team. First of all, they argued in those lower court cases that Donald Trump has complete immunity for everything he did, from the moment he took the oath of office as president until the moment he left office four years later. That argument, though, has essentially been dropped out. I don't think Donald Trump's team is going to rely on that today in this Supreme Court. It's been firmly rejected by the courts below.

I think the argument we're going to hear much more about is Donald Trump's claim that he has limited immunity for whatever he did within the scope of the job. There'll be a separate question about, was he within the scope of the job relating to January 6th and what led up to it. But I think that's going to be the main argument. The third argument you'll hear from Donald Trump is something called the impeachment judgment clause.

His lawyers are going to argue that the only way you can indict a president or former president is if he has first been impeached by the House and then convicted by the Senate. The prior judges who heard this were very skeptical of that argument.

And Jake, just one last thing, as Kasie Hunt was just talking about, the calendar is all important. And of course, the election is in November. We expect to get a ruling on this case towards the end of the Supreme Court's term. You're really looking here at late June, early July. And as you can see, that leaves us with only a very limited window where this case could possibly be tried if the Supreme Court sends it back down. So timing is of the essence here, Jake. This is going to be a history-making day in the Supreme Court.

TAPPER: All right. Elie, thank you so much.

Let's talk about this with the panel. Laura Coates, let me start with you because when one is preparing for a U.S. Supreme Court argument, I assume they are studying where these justices have been, or at least five out of the nine, in order to win on the issue of presidential power. And this is, we need to remind our viewers. This is a conservative court. There are a lot of people on this court who believe that the executive branch, the presidential branch, has been too weakened in recent years, and so they're going to, I assume, the Trump lawyers, tailor their arguments accordingly. And the other lawyers, too, the defense lawyers, the U.S. lawyers, will also tailor their arguments that way.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, they need not go back quite so far. Remember, before the 2020 election, the Supreme Court was considering the issue of immunity for Donald Trump as related to his taxes. And Justice Roberts wrote an opinion, where he talked about that a president does not enjoy immunity for a criminal subpoena. They could -- and they sent it back to the lower courts.

It kicked around for about six months until after the election. And so they could go back to that and try to play to that very side and say, you know, we've been here before and last time we kicked it down to think about the contours of this and so, on a precedent-making day, they're aware that these judges do not necessarily want to rewrite history. They want to rely on their past precedent and they could maybe do a light edit on that very ruling.

But they also know they have to think about the larger audience here, including those members who did not sign onto that unanimously and said, well, hold on a second. Are we really going to say that a president would essentially have no checks and balances when we ourselves are the head of judicial branch who knows we have to check and balance the other branches.

TAPPER: And Jamie, talk about the timing of this case if you will.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So this is not just about what the Supreme Court does. We think we have an idea of it is about when they do it and how quickly they do it. You heard Elie talk about, you know, the election and when the case could start, but why is that so critical? It's not just about putting Donald Trump on trial. It's about what will come out in the course of the trial.

Our sources have told us that there is critical grand jury testimony, evidence that Special Counsel Jack Smith has, that while the January 6th Committee learned a lot, he has much more and that the American public should hear this evidence, should hear this testimony before they vote.

TAPPER: And Dana, Abby, and John, if we could just take a step back and look at this from the 30,000-foot view, the fact that we have former United States president who is facing two cases right now. We know it's more than that out there, but just today, one case at the U.S. Supreme Court about his actions essentially on January 6th, 2021, and then of course, the New York hush money cover-up case in Manhattan, which is, you know, which is the second story of the day. Pretty remarkable.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is remarkable. I mean, we've run out of synonyms for unprecedented.

[09:15:00]

But it's good to take a step back and look at how absolutely remarkable and credible it is. When you look at what's happening in Washington, in the highest federal court in the land at the Supreme Court, it is also important not just to think about the timing which is critical, whether or not the special counsel is even going to be able to get the information that he's collected through the months for the grand jury out to the public through a trial, but also about the idea that you have had scores of people who were actually physically at the Capitol, who have been tried, who had been convicted, and are in jail.

The big question when we were sitting there on January 6th, waiting for the then president of the United States to say something and he didn't for hours and hours and hours was what is he doing and then ultimately, what is his culpability? How the Supreme Court decides this immunity case is going to decide for the American people and for history whether we're ever going to find that out.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, it is a stress test for the entire judicial system in this country from the state level all the way up to the Supreme Court. And Donald Trump has been that as a political figure since he became a political actor in, you know, the most recent case in 2015.

I think that -- I've been thinking about the choice that the court made to decide to even hear this case in the first place. They very well could have let the lower court ruling stand. They could have just stayed out of it. I think some people worry that the court might be wanting to outline the contours of what immunity could look like for a former president in a way that might give a former more leeway.

But I do think we have to seriously contemplate that Donald Trump is a major party candidate for the presidency again. He could very well win and we may very well need to know the answer about what are the contours here of what is acceptable and what is not? Because Trump has this way of just pushing the boundaries all the way to the very edges. I mean, his lawyers brought up this possibility or essentially that he could order an assassination of a political rival and essentially be immune from it.

Those things have to be taken seriously and maybe we do need to hear what the court has to say about that. You know, I think right now at the lower levels, also, there's just an attempt to on all the things that happened between, you know, the 2020 election and, you know, January 6th is to say we need a full accounting of all of that, and the system now has to decide if it's possible for there to be accountability. And I don't think we've gotten that answer yet in really any of these instances.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Normally when you get to the Supreme Court, you think like it or not, like the case or not, agree or not, we're going to get clarity. We've made it to the last step. The Supreme Court, we're going to get clarity. Forget about it. Forget about it because there's not just this case and the Supreme Court case. In Michigan the other day, the state case there, a witness testified that Donald Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the effort to overturn the Michigan election results.

Just yesterday all of the Trump inner circle indicted in Arizona in another new case that they tried to overturn the election results in Arizona. So the Supreme Court will answer the immunity question eventually. And Donald Trump wants to delay. Everything he does is delay, delay, delay. Let me give you two numbers why. The recent AP poll, 22 percent of Republicans said he would be unfit for office if he is convicted in any of these cases, 22 percent of Republicans.

You don't lose them all, some of them say, I can't vote for Biden in the end. But if you lose a chunk of them you lose the election. And just the other day, in your home state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Nikki Haley, who's been out of the race for how long? Got 17 percent of the vote. She got more than 150,000 votes in the Republican primary and she's long gone from the race.

What does that tell you? And this is a closed primary. There are only Republicans. Trump always says there are Democrats voting here. The Democrats voting there. These are Republicans. A significant slice of Republicans have severe doubts about Donald Trump. Some of it is character, some of it is COVID, but some of it is this. Some of it is the legal issues against him. So he wants to delay this as long as possible. He wants to make it all a witch-hunt, make it against if his Supreme Court, a conservative Supreme Court says he does not have immunity, takes a lot of air out of the Trump balloon.

TAPPER: Let me bring in Steve Vladeck.

Steve, we should note that this idea of how much immunity a president has while in office, it's not a frivolous notion. The question about whether or not what Donald Trump was doing on January 6th, that's a separate issue. But the idea that presidents can't be prosecuted for things they are doing as president, there is some basis for that.

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. And Jake, I think a lot of what we're going to hear during the oral argument later this morning is going to reflect that exact point where I think we're going to hear hypothetical questions from justices across the bench that are less about former president Trump and more about presidents for whom some of these justices worked, presidents in the past and whether they could have faced criminal prosecution for actions that we now know to have crossed the relevant legal lines.

[09:20:12]

You know, Jake, I think that's the real question for the court, is not, you know, are we going to immunize former president Trump? But can we draw a line in a way that is going to put the allegations against former president Trump arising out of January 6th on the yes, you can be prosecuted side, while not saying every action a president takes, you know, ordering a military operation, deciding when to classify secret information, you know, ordinary day-to-day stuff, where there really isn't the same controversy, shouldn't be the basis for prosecution.

I think if there can be some kind of consensus on the court about where that line is, you know, perhaps the argument today will actually be fairly one-sided. If there's not a consensus about where the line is, I think that's where we can see both, you know, a lot of contest across the bench and also, Jake, probably a relatively slow time horizon for a decision.

TAPPER: Interesting. All right, Steve, thanks so much.

There's much more ahead as we get closer to this high-stakes moment for the U.S. Supreme Court with the federal prosecution of Donald Trump on the line. We're going to get insights from a former member of the January 6th House Select Committee, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Plus an update on the Trump hush money cover-up trial in New York City as testimony is about to resume and the judge could issue a decision at any moment on whether Donald Trump violated his gag order. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back. Former President Trump is now in the courthouse. You can see him as he approaches the cameras.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As you probably have heard, some very big things have happened, but the biggest seems to be that the GDP just announces all the way down to 1.6 percent and it's heading south. It's going to get worse. Gas prices in California were just also announced $7.60. Gasoline is going way up. Energy costs are going way up and the stock market is in a sense crashing. The numbers are very bad.

This is Bidenomics. It's catching up with him. It's lucky that it's catching up before he leaves office, as oppose to after he leaves office. But this is Bidenomics. It's destroying our country. And the border destroying our country with other countries. They no longer respect the United States. I think the dollars have tremendous struggle in terms of currency. This is going to be the standard and it's going to be the standard with me.

With Biden you're going to lose the dollars, the standard. That'll be like losing the biggest war we've ever lost. And it's a shame but it's all the way down to 1.6 percent. And I'll tell you, nobody could, that would be possible, and it looks like it's heading down from there. So that's very bad news.

This morning I met with great people, construction workers, some (INAUDIBLE). And other unions and some not in unions and we had a fantastic morning. They were there. Some of the presidents there. Great job support. As you know, some tremendous polls came out over the last 24 hours where we're up the call up in swing states and up nationally, but one came out when we're down very little in New York. New York traditionally isn't won by Republicans anymore. It used to be 50 years ago, but not anymore.

And I think we have a good chance of winning here. We're going to give it a big play. I'm going to the South Bronx to go rally. We're going to be doing a rally at Madison Square Garden we believe. We think we're siding Madison Square Garden to do it, we'll have a big rally, honoring the police and honoring the firemen, and everybody.

Honoring a lot of people including teachers, by the way. We're honoring teachers because teachers have been very badly aligned with some very poor leadership. But we'll be honoring the people that make New York work, and we'll be doing a number of large rallies and we're very excited.

[09:25:08]

But we think we have a real good chance of winning New York, and again, these swing states we're leading in every one of them. And by a lot, not just by a little. By a lot. But the big news today I think is the 1.6 percent. When you look at 1.6 GDP, that's a number that nobody thought was possible. That's a real bad number and it looks like the projections are -- it's heading in the wrong direction. And that's why the stock market is down so big today.

So in the meantime, I'm at this trial. My constitutional rights have been taken away from me. But every single expert, every legal scholar, every respected scholar, has said this is no case. There is no case here. This is just a political witch. Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I think that the Supreme Court has a very important argument before it today. I would have loved to have been there but this judge would not --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I should be there. But he wouldn't allow it to happen. And he puts himself above the Supreme Court which is unfortunate, isn't it? But the argument on immunity is very important. The president has to have immunity. This has nothing to do with me. This has to do with a president in the future for 100 years from now. If you don't have immunity, you're not going to do anything. You're going to become a ceremonial president.

You're just going to be doing nothing. You're not going to take any of the risks both good and bad, if you're going to make some great decisions and save the country, you're going to make some decisions which are unfortunate, but that's the way it is. But you're not going to do anything if you don't have immunity because otherwise you're going to be processed after you leave office for doing something like going into an area, going into a country, doing lots of things that you would be doing.

And we don't want a ceremonial president. We have to have a real president. And assuming you have the right person that can make a big difference. You saw that for four years when I was president. We're respected all over the world. We had the best economy we've ever had. Everything was good. We had no wars. We defeated ISIS. We had no wars. We had no nothing. But we're respected all over the world and now it's a disgrace.

We also, by the way, had the single best border ever in recorded history of our country. We have the best border ever. We built 571 miles of wall. We were going to build 200 more miles far more than I said we were going to build. But we had a country that was respected and now we have a country that's a joke. It's being laughed at all over the world. And you have riots at all the universities.

The only place that's locked down is this courthouse because they don't want any supporters here. They don't want MAGA here. They don't want anybody. This thing is locked down like a buttoned-up vest and it shouldn't be. If they did the same lockdown in Columbia, NYU, and the colleges and universities, you'd have no problem whatsoever, but there you could put tents up. You can stay as long as you want.

But this courthouse is locked down. There's not a person within five blocks. They have more police here than -- and I call them New York's finest because that's what they are. And they don't want to be doing this either. They'd like to be straightening out conditions and they'd like to be at the colleges and making sure that they don't have what's happening, because what's happening at the colleges is a disgrace. All over the world, people are laughing at us.

This is the worst run country right now, probably anywhere, just about. You don't get much worse. We have a president who's a disaster. We have a president who's the worst president in the history of our country. All you have to do is look at the millions of people coming in from prisons, from mental institutions, and terrorists coming in at levels we've never seen before. So I'm going to go in now and sit in front of a case, election interference.

This is the way they think they're going to get elected but I guess based on what I'm looking at, it's driving up my poll numbers.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

COOPER: OK. The former president there in a lengthy squid full of things which are factually incorrect or hyperbole or complete overstatements, saying the economy is the worst it's ever been, claiming that the stock market is crashing, which it is not, and we're going to bring in Daniel Dale for a fact-check shortly, but just the sheer volume of false things there was, well, quite normal for the former president.

Daniel joins us right now.

Daniel, I mean, I don't even know where to begin.

DANIEL DALE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's a constant challenge fact- checking Donald Trump, Anderson. Only Donald Trump could bring up crowd-sized lie to a criminal trial. He keeps saying this entire area is locked down. He said there's not a person within five blocks. That is categorically untrue.