The Lead with Jake Tapper Aired April 02, 2024 - 16:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. [16:00:05] …council right now as a member, a man who marched in Charlottesville alongside the neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the new organized effort taking place today to kick him out of that city council seat. … The Lead with Jake Tapper Aired April 02, 2024 - 17:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. [17:00:00] JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Plus, less than one week out from the solar eclipse, what cities will have a full view of the event? Plus, who will only see parts of the eclipse? We'll map out where you need to travel as you scramble to find those specially designed glasses. Please do not look up at the eclipse, please. We're going to start this hour with breaking news. We're less than two weeks away from the start of Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York, the case involving his alleged affair with porn star and director Stormy Daniels. And now his legal team is making another move to try to get the judge on the case thrown off. Let's get straight to CNN's Paula Reid. Paula, with the breaking news, what exactly are Trump's lawyers attempting here? PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we're less than two weeks out from the beginning of this trial. And here, Trump's lawyers are asking the judge to allow them to file a motion for the judge, Juan Merchan, to recuse himself. They are arguing that he is conflicted by his daughter's work as a Democratic political consultant. Now, last year, they made a similar request which was rejected by the judge and saying that it would not be in the public interest for him to recuse himself. But now Trump lawyers are arguing that since Trump is the 2024 GOP nominee, this should be reconsidered because the judge's daughter, they argue, is in a position to potentially financially benefit from this trial. Now, it's unclear if this will succeed, Jake. But again, this is just another effort by the Trump team, it appears to, if nothing else, delay this trial further. TAPPER: All right, Paula Reid, thanks so much. From Trump, the defendant to Trump the candidate, the former president returned to the campaign trail this afternoon. He's getting ready to hold a rally in the key battleground state of Wisconsin. That's where we find CNN's Kristen Holmes, specifically in Green Bay, where Trump's event is scheduled to start in less than an hour. Kristen, Trump trying hard to win back some voters. He won there in 2016, but lost in 2020. What sorts of opportunities is he looking for? KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What we're going to hear from Donald Trump and his campaign is essentially them painting the status quo of the country under President Biden as so terrible that it reenergizes Republicans to come out to the polls in November. Now, they are very aware that there is a section of Republicans that are particularly critical in a state like Wisconsin, which he narrowly lost in 2020. That just didn't show up to vote in 2020 because they were exhausted after four years of Donald Trump. So what he is doing is he is using things like the economy, immigration, to try and reenergize some of these Republican supporters. You heard him just now in Michigan, he gave a speech on what he called the Biden border bloodbath. He is stoking fear about immigration the same way he did in 2016. But he might have a little bit more help this time around given the fact that voters rank immigration as one of their top issues when they are going to the polls in November. So you heard him there talking about how violent crime was linked to immigration. And one thing we should note, as we have done before, is that all of the data shows that immigrants and migrants are far less likely to commit a crime than citizens. However, there have been a number of high profile cases lately that Donald Trump has completely latched onto. So he is using that fear, stoking once again, hoping that this topic of immigration will tell -- help him back to the White House in 2024. TAPPER: All right, Kristen Holmes in battleground Wisconsin, thanks so much. While Trump focuses on Wisconsin and Michigan, his current home state is becoming the center of a different battle, an American battle over abortion. Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court said that the state's six week abortion ban can take effect in 30 days. At the same time, the court also ruled that Floridians in November can vote to enshrine abortion rights in the Florida state constitution. Let's discuss with our panel. And we're joined, we have Jonah and Eva with us, and Mehdi Hasan joins us as well. Eva, if Florida voters want to get rid of the abortion ban, the six- week abortion bill, they need to get 60 percent turnout. Sixty percent, that's the margin they have to get support to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. Sixty percent, how are Democrats and abortion rights activists reacting to this ballot measure? EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, so that's not going to be easy. But what I can tell you is that they are ready to mobilize. If you look in Ohio, for instance, anti-abortion advocates were heavily outspent. A lot of attention recently for the Alabama race where Marilyn Lange (ph), she just won a statehouse contest. And folks there were trying to get me to pay attention to that race prior to her winning. And I was sort of not really paying attention to it. And she got a significant amount of help, a boost, a funding for that contest. So, I don't think we should underestimate how willing people are to invest when it comes to this issue of abortion. It was underestimated in the midterms. I spoke to young men who were worried about the women in their lives who were motivated to vote for Democrats on this issue. [17:05:04] And I think that it does put Florida in play. I don't know if Democrats win there. They've suffered a lot of heartbreak in Florida, but it certainly helps. TAPPER: Yes. And obviously, the Biden-Harris team are going all in on it. There's a brand new ad bashing Trump on this issue. Jonah, take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturned Roe v. Wade. Now in 2024, he's running to pass a national ban on a woman's right to choose. I'm running to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again. (END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: What's interesting, Jonah, is that Trump has not yet taken a position on the six-week abortion ban in his home state. How long can he not take a position? JONAH GOLDBERG, CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Well, I think he did during the primaries. He kind of (inaudible) it and said what DeSantis did was a terrible thing about six weeks. I think the, look, I think it's very unlikely that this puts Florida in jeopardy of going for Biden. I think that's unlikely. I think it's really bad news for Rick Scott, the senator. TAPPER: Running for re-election. GOLDBERG: Running for reelection in Florida. And it's still good for the Biden team because at the very least, when Biden has a lot more money and will have a lot more money, it could very easily cost the Trump campaign to spend money in a very expensive state out of fear of possibly losing it. TAPPER: What's your take on this? Can this actually potentially bring enough turnout to, A, get 60 percent to enshrine abortion rights at the Constitution? B, maybe even help Democrats running for the House and whoever ends up facing off against Senator Rick Scott? MEHDI HASAN, JOURNALIST: So on the first point, yes. I mean, it would be mad for anyone to underestimate the power of the abortion rights movement given what we've seen in the last couple of years, given what we've seen in Iowa and many other states in Ohio and Alabama. No, don't write it off. There's a very good chance they could pull it off. And that leads to the second point. I agree with Jonah. Even if they can't win Florida, and what, he win by four points or whatever it was in 2020, it will force Trump and the Republicans to defend their both down ballot and the presidential ticket, which only helps the Democrats. Anything that gets the Democratic base out is a good thing right now because the parts of the Democratic base are not that enthused. This is the issue -- this is one of the issues that enthuses them. TAPPER: Mehdi has an op-ed in the Guardian. I want others to weigh in. Mehdi, you praise 69-year-old U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor while also arguing she should do what her sister, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, did not do and step down now while the Democrats control the White House and the U.S. Senate so they can appoint a Democrat to take her place. You write, quote, "With Joe Biden trailing Trump in several swing states and Democrats also in danger of losing their razor thin majority in the Senate, are we really prepared for history to repeat itself?" You agree? GOLDBERG: Yes. So, look, first of all, I'm skeptical of the way you portray the 6th justice majority as this monolithic thing. You've had Gorsuch siding with criminal defendants more than almost anybody. You've had Kagan siding with the conservatives. You've had Ketanji Brown Jackson and Gorsuch having an alliance. I just don't think it says all that monolithic. At the same time, by all means, if the Democrats want to spend a lot of time having a confirmation battle in the Senate, I'm not sure it's the highest, best use time of media exposure and arguments. But, you know, no skin off my nose. TAPPER: But what is your essential argument? HASAN: So, first of all, I don't think they're modeling anything I say in the piece that actually currently you're able to get some five, four wins for progressive causes. That doesn't happen. GOLDBERG: You have six, three one (inaudible). HASAN: That doesn't happen -- that doesn't happen under seven two. My worry is seven two. I have PTSD from 2020. I think the Democrats didn't learn lessons. Look, what are we talking about? Abortion rights. How did that happen? Dobbs. How did the Florida decision happen today? DeSantis appointed five of the seven judges. Republicans are very good at stacking courts, at getting their people on courts, at stinking strategically about filling courts. Democrats aren't very good at seeing the power of the Supreme Court. And that's why I worry. I worry that why would you want to repeat history? Why take the risk? You have a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and you have a justice who's about to turn 70. MCKEND: I've only really heard Mehdi make this argument. I haven't heard this become sort of a battle cry among Democrats as yet. So maybe you were the first one out on this issue. And I could understand why, because Democrats do have PTSD from Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I will say not so sure with Sotomayor, it's a personal choice, but that Republicans have shown more of a ruthlessness when it comes to the courts. TAPPER: They even have a podcast called "Ruthless." MCKEND: And a determination. TAPPER: Yes. MCKEND: You know, not only the Supreme Court but remaking the federal judiciary. It's sort of Senator McConnell's entire reason for being. TAPPER: Although Biden has done a pretty good job in getting a lot of progressives -- HASAN: Yes. TAPPER: -- on the bench. HASAN: On the personal choice, I just want to say a very important point because you said personal choice. Karine Jean-Pierre said personal choice when she was asked about this the other day. It shouldn't be a personal choice. The U.S. Supreme Court is one of the only supreme courts in the Democratic world that has lifetime tenure. It's mad. Now, England doesn't have it, Belgium doesn't have it, Spain doesn't have it, Australia, New Zealand, you either have term limits or you have a 70 retirement age. What are people doing in their eighties on the Supreme Court? All running for president somewhere. [17:10:07] MCKEND: If the shoe was on the other foot, I think Republicans would be pushing even maybe harder -- HASAN: Anthony Kennedy, Brett Kavanaugh, right? MCKEND: -- on their side -- on their side because they are a little bit more aggressive when it comes to the courts. TAPPER: They did, they did orchestrate that pretty well. The Kennedy Kavanaugh swap. Thanks one and all for being here. Eva McKend, Jonah Goldberg, Mehdi Hasan. If Trump were to win a second term, just what does he want his controversial aide Stephen Miller to tackle? We have some brand new reporting on that. Plus, Trump repeatedly calls people jailed for crimes on January 6, quote, "hostages." I'm going to do this or that, hostages. So, who exactly are these hostages? What did they do? We'll tell you in a new feature, Trump's January 6 hostages, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: In our politics lead, for anyone out there who desires a return of former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller to the seats of power, new reporting from Axios says that Miller has a new mission should Mister Trump win reelection. Miller wants to dramatically change how the Department of Justice looks at the issue of race, dismantling civil rights era laws to turn the focus on what Miller and his allies call anti-white racism. Axios' Alex Thompson broke the story. He joins us now. [17:15:24] What exactly is he planning here? ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS: Yes, essentially what he wants to do is, in response to the Black Lives Matter era, he wants to make the federal government be All Lives Matter, which essentially is, if there is any program, not just in the government but in private enterprise that is meant to benefit minorities, make sure to, you know, remedy some past injustice of racism. He is basically saying that is implicitly discriminating against white people. And he -- you know, he's already started this. He's already started suing, filed a civil rights complaint under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against the NFL for their Rooney Rule, which requires you to interview minority candidates for open coach (ph) positions, arguing that it's inherently discriminating against non- minority or white candidates who want those jobs. TAPPER: So, it's his position that there is no discrimination in America today against minorities? I mean, these, as you note, I mean, this is about the historical legacy of racism in the United States, not just past, but current. THOMPSON: What he's saying is that there is discrimination against, you know, black and brown people. But his argument is that there's also a lot of discrimination against white people and that these civil rights era laws that are meant to basically remedy the past injustices of white racism against black people, against brown people, have ignored this plight of anti-white racism. And so what he wants to do is, and what they do is they justify it as saying, we're going to make civil rights era laws colorblind. And so we are going to, you know -- and that these laws have not been used to defend white people. TAPPER: In response to your reporting, Trump's campaign said, quote, "As President Trump has said, all staff, offices and initiatives connected to Biden's un-American policy will be immediately terminated." How expansive would this overhaul be? In some cases of now established basic civil rights. THOMPSON: It could be incredible. And this is not just DEI offices or HR trainings, like, what we're talking about is almost any federal government program that is meant to help minorities, people of color, even just women, access federal funds in a way that they haven't historically been able to, those could be completely canceled. In fact, this was not Stephen Miller's doing. But just recently, you know, a Trump affiliated group has managed to stop a Commerce Department program that allowed minorities to access business funds. Essentially, they said, this is inherently discriminatory, you have to let white people access these funds, too. You could see basically any minority program in the federal government outlawed under a Trump administration. TAPPER: Alex Thompson, thanks so much. Interesting reporting. Continuing in our law and justice lead, a new feature from the lead launching today about Donald Trump, the all but certain Republican presidential nominee. Mr. Trump has declared that the criminals in prison for their role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 are, quote, "hostages." The former president has repeatedly made this reference to hostages. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: You see the spirit from the hostages, and that's what they are, as hostages, they've been treated terribly and very unfairly. They ought to release the J6 hostages. They've suffered enough. They ought to release them. I call them the J6 hostages, not prisoners. I call them the hostages. What's happened -- (END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: In point of fact, these are not hostages. They are locked up, convicted of breaking the law. In light of Mr. Trump's insistence on using this term J6 hostages, we thought it might behoove the American people to know exactly who it is that he's talking about. So here are two of Trump's J6 hostages that prosecutors say are seen in photos from that day. Their names are Farhad and Farbod Azari, a father and son from Richmond, Virginia. The Azaris both pleaded guilty this past January to felony charges, including one count of civil disorder and one count of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain law enforcement officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Outside the Capitol, prosecutors say that the son, Farbod, spat at officers and threw a water bottle at law enforcement officers. The father, Farhad, tried to break a police line with a bike rack and hurled a flagpole at police officers. Prosecutors say the dad, Farhad, was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol, getting in through a broken window. And that's where prosecutors say Farhad tried to direct other rioters to rush the police while his son was outside throwing another flagpole at police. This father and son are currently in the D.C. jail and will be sentenced to May 21. [17:20:17] Trump said in March on Truth Social that one of his first acts as president will be to, quote, "Free the January 6 hostages being wrongfully imprisoned." These two are two of those so called January 6 hostages. Stay tuned. We're going to tell you about a bunch of them. Coming up next, a stunning new account from a woman held captive by Hamas in Gaza. And her story featured in a new documentary from former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:25:10] TAPPER: In our world lead now, United Nation's report last month said that they found, quote, "clear and convincing information," unquote, that some hostages suffered sexual violence while being held captive in Gaza and that there is reason to believe the sexual abuse by Hamas is ongoing. And now one Israeli woman is speaking up publicly, a former hostage, about the sexual abuse she endured. Amit Soussana was abducted from her home by at least 10 men. On October 7. She told her story to Sheryl Sandberg's documentary crew recording these atrocities. We want to warn viewers even this excerpt of her story is quite disturbing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AMIT SOUSSANA, RELEASED HOSTAGE: I was chained for three weeks in Gaza. I was kept in a really dark room without being able to move. And whenever I needed to go and use the bathroom, I needed to ask for permission. His name was Muhammad. He used to sit on the bed in front of me wearing his shorts and laying down. I remember I couldn't look at him. I was just like looking away and covering myself with a blanket so I wouldn't have to look at him. It made me feel really uncomfortable. He also kept asking me, do I like sex? Do I have sex with my boyfriend? And whenever he talked about it, I just giggled and said, oh, come on, stop, stop, trying to change the subject. I knew that he is up to something. I knew that something bad is going to happen. So one day, Muhammad came and gave me woman sanitary pads. He said, blood. When you get your period after that, you'll take a shower and you'll wash your clothes. And he kept repeating that every couple of times a day. And then I got my period, and the period was just for one day but I fooled him to think that the period is continuing until I could not lie anymore. He untied me and took me to the kitchen and showed me a pot. I remember thinking, how can I avoid that? There's nothing I can do. (END VIDEO CLIP) …