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CNN Live Event/Special

Soon: Defense Cross-Examines Former Lawyer For Stormy Daniels; Police Dismantle UCLA Encampment, Detain Protesters; Biden On Campus Unrest: "Violent Protest Is Not Protected"; Soon: Sixth Day Of Testimony In Trump Hush Money Trial Resumes. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 02, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: CNN's Alayna Treene is following the Trump campaign for us.

Fresh off of two rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan, Alayna. What -- what has Trump's message been on the campaign trial? And is he even talking about this criminal trial?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: You know, it's really interesting, Wolf. I was in Wisconsin yesterday and my colleague, Kristen Holmes, was in Michigan. And in Wisconsin, he didn't really address this trial that much.

I remember, we were about an hour into the trial -- or excuse me -- into the speech before he even brought up any of his cases. And he then generally -- talked about it more generally.

However, in his Michigan rally, he did go into more specifics. He railed against the judge and railed against the case, saying that it was Democrats who were bringing this against him.

Very similar rhetoric we have heard from him in the past and, of course, on the sidelines of this trial here in New York.

Take a listen to how he framed it in Michigan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've come here today from New York City where I'm being forced to sit for days on end in a kangaroo courtroom, with a --

(BOOING)

TRUMP: -- corrupt and conflicted judge, enduring a Biden sideshow trial --

(SHOUTING)

TRUMP: -- at the hands of a Marxist district attorney, Soros-backed, who is taking orders from the Biden administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: There were a couple of things there -- obviously, Donald Trump did have some inaccuracies there. This has nothing to do with Joe Biden. This is a state case being brought by the district attorney, Alvin Bragg.

But look, I do think what's very notable is the timing of these remarks. It came just one day after the judge had fined him $9,000 for violating the gage order in this case. We're waiting to see today what the next hearing will bring on that.

But Donald Trump was careful not to cross the line. He did not talk about anything he wasn't allowed to within that gag order. He's allowed to attack the judge. He's allowed to talk about the case. He's even allowed to go after the district attorney.

But he's not allowed to talk about their family members and, of course, not the witnesses or the jurors. And we did not hear that from the former president yesterday -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Interesting.

Alayna Treene with the latest. Alayna, thank you very much.

And, Phil, let me get back to you. I know you're outside the courthouse in New York City.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR: Thanks, Wolf.

I am here with CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid.

Paula, first off, it's fascinating. He was reading those remarks. Alayna made a really great point. He stayed within the confines of the gag order, which seemed very intentional, which makes sense.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's notable because that is actually what we've seen over the past 10 days. Now before he was fined $9,000, you saw this shift.

And it happened as a lot of conservative commentators were calling for him to stop violating the gag order and use all this attention to campaign.

And we've seen this shift away from these prolific violations of the gag order, attacking the jury, attacking witnesses, attacking certain prosecutors.

Instead, he's pretty much kept his ire focused on the judge and D.A. Alvin Bragg, which is completely within the bounds of the gag order.

But I will note that we have seen his allies on Capitol Hill instead sort of acting as surrogates, attacking, for example, some of the -- at least one prosecutor on the D.A.'s team and making some of these political arguments that Trump can't give in the gag order.

MATTINGLY: On his behalf --

REID: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- whether officially or unofficially.

OK, I have to ask because, in the morning part of the cross- examination, you said when they first started bringing up some of Keith Davidson's past work, more is about to come, just wait. Or something along those lines.

And then more came as Charlie Sheen, it was Tila Tequila, it was Lindsay Lohan.

So now that I know you're clairvoyant --

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: -- what are we expecting when they come back into session? Obviously, you've been talking about the defense team has been very sharp and seems to have done fairly well --

REID: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- in framing how they want Keith Davidson to be viewed by the jury. What's next?

REID: So I think, first, we're going to see the defense continue their cross-examination. And one thing that we haven't heard yet is their effort to point out that Mr. Davidson never spoke with a then- Candidate. Trump and the then-candidate was never involved in any of these discussions directly.

So they're really going to home in on that, like, look, he's not in these emails. He's not in these text messages. You never spoke with the defendant. They're going to try to divorce their client from what happened with this hush money payment and Mr. Davidson.

So definitely expect that to be the next thing that we'll see.

And also right now, in this building right behind us, you have prosecutors who are scrambling to figure out how they're going to repair on re-direct everything we just learned about these other hush money payments or payments or other coordinated efforts that Mr. Davidson was involved in.

Particularly, the Hulk Hogan situation where there was a federal and state inquiry into whether Davidson was engaging in extortion.

MATTINGLY: Yes, not great when your witness is being -- trying to clarify whether or not they were traditionally extorting people as part of their job.

Paula Reid, appreciate it as always. We'll be back with you shortly.

[13:34:37] And we are continuing to follow the breaking news out of Oregon. Right now, police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators in a faceoff at Portland State University. President Joe Biden just addressed the violence. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Now to our other top story. Chaos on college campuses all across the United States. New video coming in right now from Portland State University, where pro-Palestinian protesters just clashed with police.

Officers in riot gear are working to take back the university library, which has been occupied now for days.

Similar scenes unfolding over at UCLA this morning, where more than 100 people were arrested during the removal of an encampment there.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is over at the White House for us.

The president addressed those demonstrators just a little while ago. Kayla, I want to go to you in a second.

But first, I want to go to CNN's Josh Campbell in Los Angeles with the latest on the protests out there.

Josh, what's the situation like on campus now?

[13:40:04]

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, first was the warning from police to disperse, then came the arrests and now the cleanup. You can see behind me this was the area that was that large encampment in the Quad here at UCLA.

Authorities bringing in earth-moving equipment as heavy equipment just about an hour ago, which is certainly making short work of disassembling this area.

There will be no sorting of personal effects here from these protesters. They're essentially taking all this, throwing it into a dumpster. Moving very quickly to get this back up and running.

Of course, that is what the university wanted all along to have this camp disassembled. There was a period of time where they did not call in law enforcement to take any action.

That all changed yesterday, Wolf. We were out here all day. We've been out here for a long time. But we started seeing a lot of resources moving in last night. And that was the indication that, look, something is about to go down.

We saw dozens and dozens of police officers here, about a mile from here at the FBI field office in Los Angeles that served as a staging ground of sorts, where we saw hundreds of police, several prisoner busses that were brought in. And then, just after midnight, we saw authorities come and then go in.

California Highway Patrol leading that effort, clashing with some protesters at times, trying to take people into custody.

I saw some officers that had powder from the fire extinguishers that were sprayed on them.

Listen here to one of the officials from CHP talking to our colleague, Camila Bernal, about what officers faced.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEC PEREYDA, SOUTHERN DIVISION CHP SPOKESPERSON: At least 100, sounds like, from what he's saying, 132. It could go up from there. I'm sure there is going to be injuries that we are handling.

I can't say for certain, but I know objects were being thrown at officers during the night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, 132 people arrested that have been taken to various holding places. We're waiting to hear what those charges will be.

Interestingly, when we talk about that force that officers brought in, we're told that there were about 250 protesters that were here at this encampment. Law enforcement brought in 250 CHP officers. So essentially a one-to-one ratio to try to get these people into custody.

Again, just about 132 of them in custody. We're waiting to hear what those charges are.

But a quick escalation here as police came. And this is something, Wolf and Phil, that we've seen across the country where there's been periods of time where law enforcement is as at the ready.

Universities then engage in negotiations with protesters, ultimately deciding that they want the police to come in. When that happens, we see what happened here overnight, this really dramatic escalation at UCLA -- Phil?

MATTINGLY: All right. Josh, stay with us.

I do want to bring in Kayla Tausche who's over at the White House.

And, Kayla, there's a connection here because I think that escalation had something to do with the fact that, unscheduled, the White House announced that the president would be speaking in just a short amount of time earlier this morning.

Which we didn't know they were going to do in advance, which is rare for this president in particular.

Why did it happen? What did we hear? KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil,

you're right. Those images from Los Angeles and elsewhere around the country played a very big role in the decision by the White House to have the president make this formal address from the Roosevelt Room earlier today.

The belief previously was that there was no upside for the president to visit campus or even address these protests head on.

But then when those images came in overnight, it was just seen that this was too politically fraught a moment and that the temperature was not going to go down organically.

But to give you a sense for how quickly these were scheduled, National Security Spokesman John Kirby did a gaggle with reporters at 10 a.m. And at that moment, it wasn't even publicly being reported on the president's schedule that there were going to be these remarks just a few minutes later.

Biden, in those remarks, echoed things that he had said previously in statements that were published on paper. And the crux of that message is that this country supports free speech, but not hate speech.

Here's the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent. Neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.

There's the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it's anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab-Americans or Palestinian-Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Now on his way away from the lectern, he was asked whether there is a role for the National Guard. He said simply no. And he was also asked if the protests will have an impact on the policy that he pursues in the Middle East. To that, he also said no.

And the White House has been clear throughout this week that that ceasefire and hostage deal that Secretary Blinken is pursuing in the region is what they see as the end game here. And they think that that will help the protests as well -- guys?

MATTINGLY: Yes, the unquestionably complex dynamic still continuing to play out.

Kayla Tausche, for us live on the North Lawn, thanks so much.

[13:44:53]

And up next, back to our special coverage. Donald Trump's hush money trial. Court is set to resume in just moments. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Back now with CNN's special live coverage of Donald Trump's cover-up trial. Right now, court is in recess for a few more minutes. They're in recess for lunch.

The attorney, Keith Davidson, who negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money agreements, is expected to return to the stand when proceedings resume. He will be cross-examined by Trump's attorney, Emil Bove.

[13:50:01]

My panel of experts is back with us.

And, Elliot Williams, you're one of our experts. So one of the first things that Bove did earlier was get Keith Davidson, the lawyer, to say that he had never met Trump until this past Tuesday. How significant is that?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's significant. It's pretty good because it suggests -- and this is a point that the defense will continue to push throughout the trial -- that Donald Trump really wasn't involved in much of anything related to these schemes.

Like there's an argument being made that really Michael Cohen was the driver of a lot of the conduct and the behavior that are at the heart of the charges here.

It suggests that Donald Trump would not -- if there's any one individual that Donald Trump ought to have been interacting with, if he were truly guilty here, it would have been the attorney for these two women who are alleging extramarital relationships with him and so on.

So it is a good credibility point for the defense to raise to try to distance the defendant from -- from the client.

BLITZER: And, Elie Honig, Trump's attorney, Emil Bove, also asked questions centered on Keith Davidson's previous work. What's the point he's trying to make?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think he's trying to dirty up this whole mess and say, look, you Keith Davidson, yes, you represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

But this is your business. You represented all sorts of people who were adjacent to power, adjacent to fame. And your job, essentially, you made a living by extracting settlements from these people.

If we're talking about what's the direct relevance to the actual legal elements, there probably isn't much of one.

But what they're dirtying up Mr. Davidson in the jury's eyes. They're dirtying up this whole scheme. And I think, to Elliott's point, Donald Trump's lawyers want to paint

him as sort of floating above and beyond all this.

And there's this whole world, underworld of opportunists and liars who are trying to threaten each other and profit off each other. And what that was -- whatever they were all doing -- this is Trump's line of argument -- Donald Trump was not part of that.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, that --

WILLLIAMS: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

BORGER: Well, the whole point is, to me, they're trying to portray Donald Trump as the victim here.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BORGER: And that he was being shaken down, essentially, by Davidson and his clients and that he had really nothing to do with it.

But the reason they had to pay this money was because there was a shakedown. And he was just responding to that. And Michael Cohen was doing that on his behalf. But Trump had nothing -- or floated above it, as you put -- put it.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And I think, on that point, I've seen precious little evidence presented yet that Trump wasn't floating above. I mean, I've seen very little evidence of Trump's direct involvement in getting this accomplished, right? Correct me if I'm wrong.

HONIG: No, you're right. A lot of that's going to come from Michael Cohen.

But also there was there was a few tidbits in David Pecker's testimony, right, that there were direct communications.

But it's a great point, David. There hasn't not been much evidence yet directly of Donald Trump's involvement and knowledge.

BORGER: Well, there is an audio tape of Donald Trump talking to Michael Cohen about how much they're going to pay Karen McDougal. And there are canceled -- there are checks with Donald Trump's signature on them.

Now, if he was signing the checks and didn't know what it was about, that was one thing. But we had his former assistant testify that, you know, he knew when he was signing checks what things were about.

So, you know, that he paid -- or Pecker said he seemed to pay attention to detail. But --

WILLIAMS: Public service announcement on behalf of all prosecutors and, frankly, defense attorneys, too, which is that when a trial is four or five weeks long, not every witness is going to present the entire case. Right?

And prosecutors certainly haven't proven their entire case, you know, their burden now by any stretch of the imagination. And in all likelihood, if they're doing their jobs, future witnesses will -- will help tease a lot of this information out.

But something that certainly has not been established, thus far, eight or nine days in is, well, what was the -- what can we say about the involvement of the actual defendant?

BORGER: We need the receipts.

BLITZER: Let's not forget that Trump's former executive assistant testified earlier that Trump never engaged in email, doesn't do email. So that would have been a record of something.

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: But that would have changed everything there.

BLITZER: Yes.

BORGER: That turns out to be very smart.

HONIG: Lucky him.

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: David Chalian, our reporter inside the courtroom told us that Trump was paying much closer attention to Keith Davidson's testimony during cross-examination and, quote, "turned in his chair toward the witness stand."

What do you make of that?

CHALIAN: Well, I would imagine -- these guys are the courtroom experts.

But I would imagine most defendants probably pay a little bit more attention to cross-examination when their defense counsel is now skewering the prosecution's witness.

Because you're eager to see how, OK, guys, I'm paying you money here, and how are you going to dismantle this, this witness for the prosecution?

So you could imagine Trump being a little more interested in that than hearing the prosecution try to build up its case with a witness.

WILLIAMS: And to be blunt, cross-examination is a lot more like what people are used to seeing on television, where the questioning is more contentious. It's faster paced.

People might -- people's tempers might get raised on cross-examination --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:55:02]

WILLIAMS: -- and it's intense in a way that direct examination is where you have a guy literally going through document after document, saying, is this your signature? Is this for three hours straight?

BLITZER: Good point.

Everybody stand by. A lot more coming up. Our special coverage will continue just ahead. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)