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CNN Live Event/Special
Testimony Finished for the Week in Trump Hush Money Trial; Michael Cohen Expected to Begin Testimony Monday; Solar Storms Could Disrupt Communications this Weekend; VA School Board to Restore Confederate Names to 2 Schools. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired May 10, 2024 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:32:43]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Week three of witness testimony in former President Trump's criminal hush money trial now a wrap.
The focus moves now to former Trump attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. He's expected to take the stand on Monday.
The prosecution says it's entirely possible that they will actually rest their entire case by the end of next week.
And we are back with our panel.
As we are looking, Elliot, towards Michael Cohen this testimony here, he's very possibly the prosecutions final witness. What could the defense look like here?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Dealing with his credibility, number one. And this is not unique to Michael Cohen. It is incredibly common for defense attorneys to attack, number one, inconsistent statements that someone has made.
Now, we all make mistakes. If I were to ask you where you were eight years ago on a given day, you'd probably mess up the day or the outfit you were wearing or whatever else.
Now in front of a jury, that's not good, even though it's an honest human mistake. Now, you amplify that into things you signed under oath, statements you made under oath.
Now, Michael Cohen himself has convictions for lying as well. So all of these things can be used to pick apart him and his memory.
And then finally, you've just got bias, like a tremendous amount, and all of this popping off on YouTube and Twitter where there is a very long record of statements he's made that the defense can confront him with.
And in their closing statements, say, ladies and gentlemen, the star witness for the prosecution hates the defendant. Can you really believe a word this man says?
Now, again, the important takeaway in all of this, as we were talking about a little bit earlier in the hour, people are convicted all the time over the testimony of complicated witnesses. And you can still have a conviction.
But it's just something the prosecution has to deal with. And he's a defendant that comes with baggage. He just is.
(CROSSTALK)
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- the same thing about him is he has a podcast.
KEILAR: That's right.
CORNISH: I'm on it. And I don't know. I just mean interested.
But he -- actually, in the opening of it, his whole premise to the listener is, I've lost my friends, family, I've been humiliated, I've been convicted. I have nothing to lose. But I'm spending my time this way because I strongly believe X about Donald Trump.
And it's going to be interesting for me to, like, listen to him actually play that out. Again, it's one thing to do it on a mic where no one can stop you or ask a question.
[14:35:02]
It's going to be another thing when you have Trump's attorneys poking holes and saying, well, actually what is your motivation? What is your motivation? What is your motivation?
(CROSSTALK)
JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: -- in front of him.
CORNISH: Right.
KUCINICH: In front of him and --
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: But he knew in prepping, is what I'm saying. He has been spoiling for this fight for a very long time.
(CROSSTALK)
KUCINICH: But I think they hate each other. Now these two -- back in the day, when you used to try to get a hold of Trump, you would call Michael Cohen and he would connect you.
And when I, you know, was -- when -- during the 2016 election, like that's who I would call to talk to not then-President Trump, Candidate Trump.
Now and he was also the enforcer. He would threaten reporters. He probably threatened other people.
But -- so these two were really close. Trump trusted him. And now, the fact that they're going to be faced, literally facing off. And we know that Trump was agitated at the beginning of the Stormy Daniels testimony from reporting in the room.
I think it's going to be fascinating just from, you know, body language, how they react to seeing each other, being in that room. You can't prep for that.
WILLIAMS: There are -- I'm sorry. There are glimmers -- we've seen glimmers of this phenomenon you described in earlier witnesses were, on direct, where it's a friendly questioner, it's much easier on the witness and the questions are open-ended and the person can narrate, unless the judge cuts them off.
Cross-examination happens with leading questions that are often hostile, maybe even combative and contentious. And particularly, for a witness that is known for getting a little bit hot under the collar, that could be a real vulnerability for Cohen.
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ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Michael Cohen so unusual, so unique. I've never seen a witness with bigger credibility problems than Michael Cohen.
I've definitely seen witnesses. I've definitely used witnesses who've done way worse things than Michael Cohen.
But I've never seen a witness who has lied to Congress, whose lied in court, who' lied to the IRS, who's lied to the Southern District of New York, who lied to his banker. The entire prosecution witness team has been lied to by Michael Cohen.
But as Audie pointed out, he has a kind of good narrative as to, I've turned a page now. I am what I am. I'm an open book. I lied my face off every day when I was with Donald Trump. I've come clean since.
It's not quite exactly accurate. He's continued to lie since.
(LAUGHTER)
HONIG: But it's a plausible narrative for the jury as to why you should believe this former liar now.
KEILAR: You can see it's a narrative that people would want to believe.
I wonder though, and we've seen some of the testimony set up late this week for Michael Cohen, which is this February meeting at the White House that Madeleine Westerhout, the gatekeeper at the White House, setup between him and Donald Trump.
No doubt Cohens going to explain what that meeting was about.
HONIG: Yes.
KEILAR: What wouldn't be kind of like the smoking gun sort of thing that he might testify to?
HONIG: Right. Well, nothing coming out of Michael Cohen's mouth will be a smoking gun because it will be subject to cross-examination and undermining.
But, yes, that meeting is going to be key. Because let's be clear, it's not a crime to pay hush money, not a crime to know about paying hush money, not a crime to reimburse Michael Cohen with a bunch of checks for hush money.
The crime is in, let's set this up in this sort of unusual way with retainer fees paid every 12 months, $35,000. Let's do it that way so it looks like attorney's fees. But we really know what this is, is I'm paying you back for hush money so we can evade campaign finance -
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KEILAR: To provide a link directly --
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: -- to Trump. What does that look like in a way that it is believable to the jury?
HONIG: Right. So the way -- if Michael -- the squarest shot that Michael Cohen could land is to say, at that meeting, one-on-one with me and Donald Trump, we talked about what we're going to do here.
And look, this is the Stormy Daniels money. We paid to shut her up, obviously. What we're going to do to hide this is we're going to set up this structure, me and Allen Weisselberg - I'm being Michael Cohen.
Me and Allen Weisselberg sort of worked out this thing. We're going to make it look like you're paying me an illegal retainer. And Trump said, sounds good to me. Let's do it that way.
That would be --
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HONIG: -- a smoking gun.
CORNISH: That is something that relies on his testimony in his -- it's not corroborated.
HONIG: Yes.
CORNISH: So far there has not been a piece of paper that has passed before, is this correct?
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: That is passed before the jurors that says this piece of paper indicates the falsifications.
WILLIAMS: Right. You've got -- you've got the checks, and you've got the business records within the Trump Organization that - again, both prosecutors hate the term smoking gun because it almost never is.
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WILLIAMS: But the most persuasive piece of evidence would be one sentence in that meeting, Donald Trump told me to falsify these records to help my campaign.
Now, that can be said in more vague terms. I understood Donald Trump to be saying blank, less persuasive, but good. Donald Trump winked at me when he said -- any of these things could be you know. But that's how you would establish it.
KEILAR: Elie reminded me of something in the commercial break, which was so interesting, which was, OK, see like they completely by Michael Cohen, they completely by Stormy Daniels, the jury does.
Let's see they convict Donald Trump. He may not get jail. In fact, he really probably does not get jail time. He's probably more likely headed towards probation. Right?
HONIG: Yes.
KEILAR: And in that case, I think it's so informative about how Donald Trump is looking at this trial, this prism, that it is so much more through a political lens for him.
[14:40:08]
How do you think that informs how he is kind of behaving and relating to this, Jackie?
KUCINICH: I mean, I think he trying to win in the court of public opinion. Which is, again -- we've talked about earlier -- why he's going out and saying the things that he says right when he walks out of the courtroom, talking about fairness at his rallies, talking about how he is being - his First Amendment right is being -- is being violated.
He's trying to -- he's trying -- he's talking directly to voters and he's making that case that he is the victim here over and over and over again. And trying to make that sticky and take root.
KEILAR: He's got a rally this weekend. He's going to do that.
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: We'll have to see how he does it.
Everyone, stay with me.
Still ahead, you've heard of bomb cyclones. You've heard of giant hail. Well, now it's a very different type of storm that's set to hit earth for the first time in almost 20 years. We're going to tell you what it is and what this means for you, next.
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[14:45:37]
KEILAR: Starting tonight, solar storms could potentially disrupt the power grid, navigation systems, radio and satellites. The Space Weather Prediction Center just issued what is known as a severe geomagnetic storm watch. The last such watch was back in 2005.
On the plus side here, the storms could also trigger some amazing views of the northern lights across the U.S. as far south as Alabama.
CNN's Chad Myers is joining us now.
All right. That would be something to behold, Chad. But at what cost here? What should we expect?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There's -- there's an awful lot of cost possibility here. This is almost like a Y2K kind of event. We don't know if it's actually going to happen but, if it does, it could be really bad.
Remember that? It was 24 years ago when we didn't know whether the computers would be able to get it to use zero, zero for the last two digits?
Well, yes, the auroras will be farther south. But the possible grid surges could really ruin some electronics, could ruin a lot of things out there. And satellite navigation may actually be disrupted. Because some of the satellite providers may actually have to turn off the satellites.
Now, we already have had one surge here of the six that are coming. There are so many surges still to come. And so far, so good, on this one surge that happened about an hour or so ago. Haven't heard of any big disruptions.
But there are more of these coronal mass ejections. Not solar flares. They are plasma blobs that are flying toward the earth that are going to get into our atmosphere and they are going to charge our atmosphere. And they may charge our power lines. They may do a lot of other things, too.
And those power lines really could be the biggest threat to everyone. In fact, right now, I have my washer and dryer turned off by the breaker.
There's the first one. Just came through. Another one right behind it. So these ejections, these little puffs of almost smoke, but it's not smoke. It's plasma and it's really, really hard to describe what that is other than a big magnetic ball. And makes this. Yes, solar flares can do this, too.
But what I want you to notice is this. This is what all day long the solar wind has looked like, just a little flat law, nothing, nothing, nothing. A lot like, you know, like when you look at the seismometer out in California, nothing, nothing, nothing. Then, all of a sudden, bang. And here's your earthquake.
Well, this isn't an earthquake. This is actually the solar wind fluctuating in speed, fluctuating in power, and probably fluctuating some power lines as well.
So take care of your electronics today if you can. But it should be a very pretty sight. If we get these views all the way down to the south.
There's a lot more -- a lot more bad than there is good. But hopefully, everybody gets to see the good or at least half the population gets to see it.
KEILAR: All right, tell me about this washer, dryer situation. I mean, should I be liked shutting it all down in my garage?
MYERS: Yes, you should. In fact, I have my microwave off. My stove is off, to my wife's chagrin. My dishwasher is disconnected.
You can't unplug some of those things, so you can go to the breaker and you can read the word that says "washer," click, "drier," click.
It's the computer inside that you don't want to fry if there's a power surge. You know, you can unplug the back of the dryer maybe, but that's a lot of power, so don't do it. Use the breaker, it's a lot safer.
KEILAR: Very good information there.
Chad, thank you so much for that. We do appreciate it.
And do not miss our special tonight at 10:00 Eastern. "CNN NEWS NIGHT: SOLAR STORM" with Abby Phillip and Bill Weir.
[14:49:03]
New outrage after a Virginia school board votes to bring back the names of Confederate leaders that had been banned. Ahead, hear from residents who say the school board is taking students back to a time in history that was very cruel.
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KEILAR: A dramatic about face in Virginia where a local school board has just voted to restore the names of Confederate leaders at two public schools.
The late-night decision reversed a move made by a different group of board members four years ago in the wake of George Floyd's death.
CNN's Rafael Romo is following this for us.
Tell us what's happening here, Rafael. RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, it's been less than four years since the Shenandoah County School Board changed the names of two schools in their district named after Confederate leaders.
That 2020 move was part of a resolution condemning racism and affirming its commitment to an inclusive school environment, according to school board documents.
But in a marathon meeting that started Thursday evening and ended early Friday morning, the board voted five to one in favor of restoring those names.
The schools have been called Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School since July 2020.
Now, they will be called Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School. The schools had been named after Confederate Generals Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby.
The meeting was tense with parents and residents expressing both opposition and support to restoring the names.
One of those speaking was a student who said it's the board's job to make decisions that are in the best interest of all students.
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[14:55:05]
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It is your job to make our schools and a place for all students/ And your names of Mountainview and Honey Run do not devalue an entire race of people.
But names like Ashby, Lee and Jackson do. To honor them with value and worth is wrong. I'm upset this board decided to restore the names. I would not feel like that is valued. And you will not be doing your job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMO: Now, Brianna, CNN reached out to the Shenandoah County School Board members.
Gloria Carlineo, one of those members, told us her vote was based on how the names were changed in 2020. Carlineo said the decision was made in a matter of days. And with Covid-19 restrictions, that limited the community's input.
But others said this is also about preserving a part of American history that is important to some people, especially in the south.
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STEVEN HEISHMAN, ATTENDEE: You're removing monuments and erasing history. Indoctrinating children is exactly what Adolf Hitler did.
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ROMO: Shenandoah County Public Schools serves more than 5,600 students, according to data from the state's Department of Education. About 75 percent are white, 18 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent are black.
You may ask, what has changed since 2020 when the decision was first made to get rid of Confederate names? Well, the composition of the school board is completely different now, Brianna, than it was during the 2020 decision. All six seats are now held by different people.
Back to you.
KEILAR: Very interesting.
Rafael Romo, thank you for following that story for us.
And still to come, why former President Trump said he'd be proud to go to jail.
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