On this “Face the Nation” broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:
- Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut
- Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
- John Bolton, former national security adviser
- Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker
Click here to browse full transcripts of “Face the Nation.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington.
And this week on Face the Nation: more severe weather across much of the U.S. And former President Trump prepares for his arraignment on criminal charges Tuesday in Manhattan.
Powerful storms and tornadoes ripped through several states this weekend, killing at least 26. We will have the latest.
And as the former president prepares to be formally charged in a New York case involving hush money payments to a porn star, his political allies and his Republican presidential rivals are publicly standing by him and focusing on Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.
(Begin VT)
GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS (R-Florida): They’re trying to do all these legal gymnastics to try to act like it’s a felony. This guy is doing politics. He has an agenda. That is not the rule of law.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: The indictment and facts of the case are still under seal.
But we will talk with a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and Bragg’s former boss, Preet Bharara.
Plus, Robert Costa talks to a key witness in the case, Mr. Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
(Begin VT)
MICHAEL COHEN (Former Attorney/Fixer For Donald Trump): This is really about accountability. I went to prison in part for another man’s dirty deeds.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: And, of course, the politics of the case. Will the indictment hurt the former president’s chances at winning the Republican nomination or help?
(Begin VT)
MAN: I think the magic of 2016 has passed.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, so far, two key campaign components, fund-raising and poll numbers among Republicans, are both up.
Former Trump National Security Adviser and potential Republican presidential contender John Bolton will be here.
Then: Washington’s at an impasse on what, if anything, will work to stop mass shootings, particularly those in schools. We will talk to Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy. He’s one of many who have not given up.
It’s all just ahead on Face the Nation.
Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.
We begin with the severe weather that affected millions this weekend in the South, Midwest and Northeast. Dozens of tornadoes touched down in at least eight states. And there are more severe weather alerts for later today in parts of North Texas and Southern Oklahoma.
CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca is in hard-hit Wynne, Arkansas, this morning — Omar.
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: Good morning.
We are 100 miles east of Little Rock in Wynne, a town that took a direct hit from this tornado. And let me show you the kind of damage that residents are having to clean up.
We’re talking roofs ripped off of homes, trees that were knocked down. And look at this. This is turf from the high school football field, which is about a quarter-mile away. The police chief says this town suffered — quote — “total destruction.”
(Begin VT)
OMAR VILLAFRANCA (voice-over): At least a dozen tornadoes sliced through Arkansas on Friday. But the one that hit Wynne basically cut the town in half.
Four of the five people who died in Arkansas were killed in Wynne.
GOVERNOR SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R-Arkansas): We will ensure that every Arkansan who needs assistance has it. The people come first, and the paperwork will come second.
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: The tornado caused major damage throughout the state.
JANE SMITH (Tornado Victim): We had no idea was doing this much damage out here. It was so fast.
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: Jane Smith, an 80-year-old grandmother, surveyed what’s left of her home. When the tornado hit, she huddled inside with neighbors.
Drone footage showed the devastation caused by a tornado in this Little Rock neighborhood. The massive storm system unleashed over 50 tornadoes across the South and Midwest on Friday and Saturday, killing at least 26 people.
MAN: Here, this is where that tornado came across.
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: Tennessee officials confirmed the largest number of storm-related deaths at seven.
(SHOUTING)
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: In Belvidere, Illinois, 90-mile-an-hour winds brought down the roof of the Apollo Theatre, where over 200 people were inside at a rock concert. Dozens were injured, some severely, and one person was killed.
(End VT)
OMAR VILLAFRANCA: The storm system moved northeast last night. Delaware was hit by at least one tornado. And a 13-year-old girl was killed in Ohio when a tree fell on her home.
And the weather down here in the South is not over. There’s a possibility for more storms early this week — Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Omar Villafranca reporting from Arkansas.
And, as Omar noted, the storms in Tennessee resulted in at least seven deaths. Governor Bill Lee said yesterday that the storm capped the worst week of his time as governor. His week, of course, began with the horrific shooting at Covenant School, a private elementary school in Nashville.
Our Mark Strassmann reports.
(Begin VT)
CALLER: Please hurry. I’m hearing shots.
DISPATCHER: They are coming. They are coming.
MARK STRASSMANN (voice-over): Nashville’s school massacre, another muzzle flash point about guns in America, six people killed, three of them 9 years old.
MICHAEL ANESTIS (Executive Director, New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center): These large mass public shootings, they represent about 1 percent of gun violence nationwide.
MARK STRASSMANN: Michael Anestis runs New Jersey’s nonpartisan Gun Violence Research Center. One of its inescapable conclusions:
MICHAEL ANESTIS: Where there’s more firearms, there’s more firearm injury and death.
MARK STRASSMANN: America has roughly 400 million guns in private hands. Gun violence, like heart disease or opioids, qualifies as a public health crisis.
During the COVID pandemic, the U.S. firearms homicide rate spiked by 35 percent. On average, gun violence kills more than 100 Americans a day. Just as unsettling, guns are now the number one cause of death among children.
DANIEL SEMENZA (Assistant Professor, Rutgers University): Every shooting has this vast ripple effect that affects so many more people and tears apart families and communities.
MARK STRASSMANN: Nashville is now one of those communities, like Parkland, like Buffalo, like Uvalde, so much indiscriminate carnage in a country polarized by what to do about it.
PROTESTERS: Save our kids! Save our kids!
MARK STRASSMANN: Thousands of Tennesseans last week demanded state lawmakers limit access to guns. Unlikely in a state where gun rights are expanding.
At the federal level…
REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-California): It’s not just legislation that solves these problems.
MARK STRASSMANN: … it’s paralysis.
JOE BIDEN (President of the United States): I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do on my own anything about guns.
MARK STRASSMANN: Nashville’s shooting sparked this congressional dust-up between Democrat Jamaal Bowman and Republican Thomas Massie.
REPRESENTATIVE JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-New York): Are you listening to what I’m saying?
REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS MASSIE (R-Kentucky): Calm down.
REPRESENTATIVE JAMAAL BOWMAN: That’s — what — calm down? Children are dying, 9-year-old children!
MARK STRASSMANN: Nashville’s grief is still raw, weekend memorial services for Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney.
DANIEL SEMENZA: Reducing gun violence should be the number one priority for our country. Anything less, we are failing our children.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s Mark Strassmann reporting from Nashville.
And we are joined now by Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.
Good morning to you, Senator.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (D-Connecticut): Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We have you here after some of the most tragic events in our country, and, this week, three of the victims were just 9-years-old.
This was a private Catholic school — or — excuse me — Christian School attached to a church. And people who survived that now know their teachers, their parents, their caregivers cannot keep them safe.
Do we need to shift the conversation to supporting more trauma treatment? Is that where we are?
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: I think we have to do all of the above.
I mean, there’s no doubt that our kids are going through something unique today. I just don’t understand why we choose to live like this. Why we choose to make our kids fear for their lives when they walk into their schools, why we choose to have children who grew up in violent neighborhoods fear for their lives when they walk to and from school.
Only in America does this happen. And you can’t explain it through a prism of mental illness or a lack of school security. The thing that’s different in the United States is the number of guns, the number of high-powered weapons of mass destruction and the ease with which we allow criminals and dangerously mentally ill people to get those guns.
So we’ve got to change the nation’s gun laws. We’ve got to put more trauma resources into our schools. But doing nothing cannot be an option. More school shootings than days in the year so far in 2023.
MARGARET BRENNAN: One of the things you said this week is, you would look to require more training for people buying automatic weapons.
Explain that, because how — does — would that require more vetting of the person doing the buying?
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: So, last year, we passed the first gun safety measure, bipartisan, in 30 years. And we did that because we found common ground.
Listen, I want to…
MARGARET BRENNAN: After Uvalde.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: After Uvalde.
I want to ban assault weapons. I think it’s just absolutely unconscionable that we allow these weapons of war to be in commercial circulation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But there aren’t the votes to do that.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: But there’s not the votes to do that. So what are there the votes to do?
Let’s explore the potential of what’s possible. And so what if we said, before you get an AR-15, you have to show that you are responsible, that you know how to operate it. What if we applied background checks universally simply to the purchase of those weapons?
Ultimately, I want those weapons off the street. But I think we’d be a safer nation if we required just a little bit of training before you bought the most dangerous weapons commercially available.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, the shooter in Tennessee apparently went to five different places, bought seven different weapons.
Tennessee doesn’t have a red flag law. It’s unclear if it would have made a difference here,since the parents of the shooter apparently claimed not to know the guns existed. But shouldn’t the purchasing itself, stockpiling weapons, set off some kind of alarm somewhere?
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: I think that the different states have different laws that would require some of those triggers for law enforcement. But I do…
MARGARET BRENNAN: But not in Tennessee.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: But not in Tennessee.
And I — and I do think that a proper red flag law in Tennessee could have made a difference here. If parents know that they have the opportunity to take firearms away from an individual in their family that they know is in crisis, then they are, frankly, going to be more vigilant about searching for that potential connection to a weapon.
In Tennessee, they couldn’t do anything about it even if they knew about the weapons. And so what we know is that in states that have red flag laws, they are used responsibly and frequently to take guns away from people in crisis. Florida, a red state, has a red flag law that’s been used 8,000 times to take weapons away from people who are contemplating violence against others or contemplating violence against themselves.
They — they work. And if Tennessee had a red flag law, and the parents knew about it, maybe this situation wouldn’t have happened.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The bill that you co-sponsored provided financial incentives for states to create red flag laws. Tennessee apparently just doesn’t want one.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So…
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Tennessee is moving the other way, right?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Tennessee is talking about allowing you to be able to carry loaded assault weapons on the streets.
What we know is that states that have tougher, tighter gun laws have dramatically lower rates of gun violence. And so, in Connecticut, our rate of gun violence is half that, one-third that of Tennessee. So, my hope is that this new federal funding that we passed…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: … on a bipartisan basis last year will prompt states like Tennessee to take a look at red flag laws.
They’re wildly popular. Eighty percent of Americans want them. There’s no political risk in enacting a red flag law. If Tennessee had it, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Tennessee’s Governor, a Republican, is reportedly proposing funneling millions now into new school security measures, including grants for private schools, like where this happened, to have armed guards.
A version of this was brought up on the Senate floor. You had a pretty heated exchange with Senator Ted Cruz. But explain why you think he’s wrong when he says this.
(Begin VT)
SENATOR TED CRUZ (R-Texas): I do not understand why our Democrat colleagues in this body do not support having police officers keep our kids safe, why, when it comes to this issue, the only thing that interests them is disarming the people at home who pose no threat, rather than protecting our kids.
(End VT)
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: So, Senator Cruz opposed our bipartisan legislation last year that would take weapons away from domestic abusers.
So, when he says that our interest is only in taking weapons away from people who pose no threat, he’s squarely out of touch with the American people, who don’t think that domestic abusers should have guns.
And what Senator Cruz’s legislation is talking about is not just putting police officers with guns in schools, but teachers in our schools with firearms. My constituents in Connecticut, they want school security. They want door locks. They want more physical protection, but they do not want their teachers to be handed AR-15s, our schools loaded up with weapons.
What we know in this country is that more weapons don’t equal less crime. If more weapons equaled less crime, then we would be one of the safest places in the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What the — his fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn, who was your partner last time…
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Correct. Correct.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … said: “We’ve gone as far as we can go unless somebody identifies some area we didn’t address.”
We heard President Biden say: I’m done here.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, is this really up to grassroots groups and state governments at this point? Is that the reality?
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Listen, I think if you had asked pundits two months before we passed last year’s bipartisan bill whether Congress was going to act on guns in 2022, people would have said it wasn’t going to happen.
Things change pretty quickly in Washington. And my goal is to try to find that common ground that John Cornyn is talking about. I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We’ve got to show parents and kids and families in this country that we can make bipartisan progress to try to make our country safer.
That’s why I’m talking not about an assault weapons ban this year, but around training, around raising the age, around background checks, just trying to make some progress to make sure that weapons are only getting into the hands of law-abiding citizens.
So I’m open for any discussion with Republicans about how we can show this country that we take their kids’ protection seriously. Doing nothing for Republicans on both sides of the aisle, conservative parents and progressive parents right now, is not an option.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Murphy, thank you for your time today.
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to turn now to the historical first.
Former President Trump is now the first president to be indicted. We do not yet know the charges against him, but he will be arraigned Tuesday in New York City. Arrangements are under way to handle security and processing, but it is likely to be quite a spectacle.
Since word of the indictment came out Thursday evening, Mr. Trump and his allies have controlled the narrative on this case, as the indictment remains under seal.
A person familiar with the matter told CBS News that former President Trump is being charged with falsifying business records in the first degree, a felony.
Our Robert Costa is in New York this morning.
Good morning to you, Bob.
We know this is 2:00 p.m. Tuesday in Manhattan. You have spoken with the Trump attorneys. What is their strategy at this point?
ROBERT COSTA: Good morning, Margaret.
The Trump lawyers say they want to immediately move to dismiss this case. That is going to be point number one. And there are discussions among some Trump allies about thinking about a venue change at some point, though, at this early crossroads. They’re not officially talking about that on the legal team, because they have not yet seen the indictment.
But you can expect a very aggressive strategy, both in public relations and legally, from the Trump team at this point.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We know there are roughly 30 counts against the former president. And you have spoken with one key witness here who spoke to the district attorney 22 times.
This is former personal attorney Michael Cohen. What did he share?
ROBERT COSTA: Sitting down with Michael Cohen yesterday in New York City, it’s evident that he is going to be the crucial witness for the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, in this case, especially should it go to trial.
But Cohen told us that this investigation is about far more than him. Let’s listen.
(Begin VT)
MICHAEL COHEN: Yes, I lied to Congress, at the direction of, in coordination with, and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump.
And if there’s anyone out there that thinks that that lie is going to prevent me from being the credible witness that I am, based on the documentation, the testimony, the e-mails, the recording, it’s not going to happen.
ROBERT COSTA: You brought up an interesting point. In your view, this case is bigger than Michael Cohen’s testimony.
MICHAEL COHEN: Yes.
ROBERT COSTA: I have never said that it was about me. This is not what so many people want to make it look like: Oh, it’s Michael Cohen’s vengeance against Donald Trump. That’s not what this is about.
This is solely about accountability. I should not be held accountable for Donald Trump’s dirty deeds. Let him be held accountable. Let those in his orbit that are truly accountable, like Bill Barr, right, who he used to weaponize the Justice Department against his critics, let them be held accountable, because it saves and it preserves democracy.
ROBERT COSTA: Are you ready to testify?
MICHAEL COHEN: Yes.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Bob, to date, Republicans have largely circled the wagons around the former president. And this includes Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis.
They have done it by attacking the Manhattan district attorney. But then, this morning, we have the former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, on ABC News saying he’s going to run for president and very clearly saying that Mr. Trump needs to drop out of the race.
What’s happening inside the party?
ROBERT COSTA: It’s a fascinating political moment.
That Republican outrage publicly is also coupled privately with a lot of political calculation. Could there be an opening for a Trump critic, whether it’s former Governor Hutchinson or someone else, to now enter this 2024 Republican primary and seize on this new dynamic in the race, where Trump has legal and political challenges?
And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t in the race yet, nor consolidating support. Talking to some donors this morning, Margaret, it is not just Hutchinson who’s on their minds. They’re also thinking about trying to draft Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to think harder about jumping into this race sometime later this year.
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is a fascinating race, Bob, and we’re going to be very busy.
Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: For more on the indictment of former President Trump, we go now to CBS legal analyst Rikki Klieman.
Good morning to you, Rikki.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can you hear me? OK, good. I’m glad you can hear me.
Can you walk us through it? We have never seen anything like this before, literally. So, what are the next few days going to look like with this arraignment of the former president?
RIKKI KLIEMAN: We expect the president to fly into New York City on Monday night.
And what will happen on Tuesday morning is, he will emerge from his residence at Trump Tower. He may or may not speak at that time. But he will be in the custody of the NYPD and his own Secret Service. I expect that there will be a motorcade that will take him from Trump Tower, down to the courthouse.
And at the courthouse is also the district attorney’s office, the NYPD, as well as the Secret Service, who will never leave him, by the way — they’re not supposed to. He is within their protection. And it’s really within their circle. So they go into the DA’s office. He must be processed, like any other defendant.
What does that mean? He will get a picture taken, which becomes a mug shot. In New York, mug shots are not usually released to the public. He will also be fingerprinted electronically, and he will be given a booking number. At the time that he receives that booking number, he is officially — quote, unquote — “under arrest.”
He then must wait, as any other defendant would, for the fingerprints to go through the electronic process of review. They will go up to Albany. They will bounce back. That takes usually a couple of hours. Right now, we are told that the arraignment itself is set for 2:15. He is then in the custody of the court personnel, as well as his Secret Service people and the NYPD.
I do not expect him to be handcuffed. He will be brought into the courtroom. The indictment will be unsealed. And for the first time, the defendant, Donald J. Trump, and his attorneys and the rest of us will learn what the charges are.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that’s a great ticktock, Rikki, of what to expect.
It seems the former president expects that he will be able to hold a press conference that evening to discuss what happened back at his home in Florida. So can he expect to give that round of remarks? Or will there be some sort of gag order?
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Well, I think one of the things that the president, former president, ought to consider, since he does like to give speeches, is perhaps he’d rather give that speech before he goes to court at Trump Tower.
Once he goes to court, in addition to the question of bail — there will be no bail here. It’s not an offense that demands bail. But there may be some conditions that either the district attorney’s office wants or the judge himself wants. And if the judge himself or the DA decides that there should be conditions, there’s simple ones like turning in your passport, perhaps reporting your — on your travel.
But the real question here, in light of the potentially inflammatory continuing statements of Mr. Trump, that the judge or the DA may ask the judge to impose a gag order on Donald Trump, on his lawyers. If a gag order is in place, the judge can stop him from speaking, period, but the judge can certainly stop him from in any way talking about the case.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: A gag order would go to both sides. Both sides would have to remain silent.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
So, the former president will be able to continue to campaign, but not, in theory, talk about the details of the case. We will see what happens.
Rikki Klieman, I know you will be covering it. Thank you this morning.
We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s been concern that Pope Francis would not be able to participate in Holy Week due to his being hospitalized for severe bronchitis.
But we’re happy to report the pope’s out of the hospital, and he presided over Palm Sunday mass this morning, addressing thousands.
We will be back in a moment.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.
Joining us now is the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara.
Good morning.
PREET BHARARA (Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York): Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I do want to mention to our viewers as well that you, obviously, know New York very well.
PREET BHARARA: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you also know the district attorney, Alvin Bragg.
PREET BHARARA: I do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You hired him at one point.
PREET BHARARA: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You endorsed him when he ran for this office.
PREET BHARARA: I did. And I supervised him for a while as well.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. So I want to dig into your knowledge of that man, who is now very much in the spotlight.
But let me start first on the case itself.
The previous district attorney of Manhattan didn’t prosecute this case. Your former office, the Southern District of New York, also chose at the federal level not to move ahead with it. So, what do you think is different this time?
PREET BHARARA: We don’t know. I know the man pretty well, Alvin Bragg, as you said. Excuse me. I don’t know what the charges are. We’ve been speculating about them. Maybe there’s new evidence. Different people who are reasonable, like Cy Vance is, and like Alvin Bragg is, can come to different conclusions about different matters.
You know, there were two prosecutors in Alvin Bragg’s office who resigned with great fanfare over a different set of charges that might have been brought against Donald Trump, and there was a difference of opinion about that. Alvin Bragg is a careful person, based on my experience with him, a deliberate person, you know, not an overly political person, and he decided, based on things that we don’t know about yet because we haven’t seen the indictment, or any evidence at trial, that it was a worthwhile case to bring. I can’t, you know, speculate as to why Cy Vance didn’t bring the case or why my former office didn’t bring the case, although there are some reasons to think maybe it was because they were concerned that Michael Cohen had not been fully forthcoming, and they have a policy of not putting on witnesses as cooperating witnesses if they haven’t divulged everything about themselves and everyone else. That was a policy that was in place when I was the U.S. attorney. So, different policies, different legal considerations may be the reason why there’s a divergence, but we don’t know for sure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So one of the things that CBS News has confirmed here is that the former president is being charged with falsifying business records in the first degree, which is that class e felony if I understand it correctly.
PREET BHARARA: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that would require them to prove, in other words have evidence here, that it’s more than the misdemeanor of falsifying records, that it was done to hide a second crime. That seems fairly complex. What kind of evidence do you need to have there?
PREET BHARARA: Yes. It’s not that complex. It’s done all the time. So, you know, the predicate offense, falsification of business records, is pretty simple. It seems to have been conceded in large part by various people, including some of the president’s own lawyers, that on the business records of the company, it has been suggested that the payments made to Stormy Daniels and other payments were legal fees when they obviously weren’t. Michael Cohen was a pass through for, you know, $100,000-plus to someone else. And then the other crime we believe to be a campaign finance violation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But that part is fairly novel here.
PREET BHARARA: Well, it —
MARGARET BRENNAN: In fact, the former Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance, was on another network this morning making that point. He said, we’ve historically filed cases of false documentation to a felony level when federal statutes were involved, but has never – this has never been done with regard to federal election law.
So, would the Alvin Bragg you know, who you said doesn’t really take a lot of risks here, and is not political, would he take this risk?
PREET BHARARA: Well, he’s probably done a legal analysis and his people have told him that you can have a federal crime be the thing that’s being concealed or being furthered by the falsification crime. And just because it’s never been a campaign finance violation before, I’m sure his people have told him, and have research to back this up, that there’s no distinction between one kind of federal violation or another.
So, it is true that that’s not been tested in court, and there are going to be legal challenges here. I don’t think anybody thinks, and I haven’t heard anybody say, even though we haven’t seen the charges yet, that it’s a slam- dunk, 100 percent winner. But I believe, based on the Alvin Bragg that I know who is careful and was so careful as not to bring that other case that people were clamoring for him to bring, that he has soundly legal ground to bring this one.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The former Trump attorney general, Bill Barr, spoke about the indictment in an interview Friday. I want to hear what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL BARR (Former Trump Attorney General): It’s the archetypal abuse of the prosecutorial function to engage in a political hit job.
And, legally, I think it’s a — it’s — from what I understand, it’s a – it’s a pathetically weak case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARGARET BRENNAN: You just told us that Alvin Bragg is not overtly political. That’s the exact opposite impression from the former attorney general.
PREET BHARARA: Yes, well, there are a lot of people who think the former attorney general was overtly political and weaponized the Justice Department. So it’s a little bit rich to hear him calling someone else political.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But on the grounds that he says pathetically weak case.
PREET BHARARA: Yes, well, we don’t know that. We don’t know –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Just – you’re saying until these charges are unsealed Tuesday –
PREET BHARARA: Yes, we don’t –
MARGARET BRENNAN: No one can speak with authority?
PREET BHARARA: We don’t – like I feel — I’ve been talking about the case because I think we have some credible reporting and I think we have, you know, good sources that were telling us what the case might be about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Uh-huh.
PREET BHARARA: And we have Michael Cohen talking about it. It does feel a little funny, given my prior job, to be openly speculating about the strength of the case before we’ve seen what the charges are.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
PREET BHARARA: And, by the way, even when we see the charges, we won’t necessarily know what all the evidentiary basis of those charges are. I believe it will be a speaking indictment, which is parlance for lots more detail than sometimes you need to have in an indictment, but we don’t know the quality of the evidence. We can speculate about the credibility issues that Michael Cohen. But beyond that, you know, we know some of the documents, we know some of the checks that are signed in Donald Trump’s own name to reimburse Michael Cohen for the hush money payment, 11 checks in all, that continued, by the way, into Donald Trump’s term as president, when he was sitting in the Oval Office. But we don’t know all the evidence.
And what’s interesting to me is when people attack Alvin Bragg ahead of time for being political and being weak, they are themselves doing the exact same thing, defending someone who is their political ally.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re going to talk about some of that later on with another guest on this show on the politics of this, but because you know Alvin Bragg, and this is the — I mean Republicans aren’t unified on a lot of things these days, but the unified Republican defense of Trump is not to talk at all about the case being built against him –
PREET BHARARA: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But rather to attack Bragg himself.
How would you characterize him in terms of policy? He ran as a Democrat to this office. Is — does he have higher political ambitions?
PREET BHARARA: I don’t know that he does. When I said he’s not overtly political, obviously every district attorney in almost every jurisdiction in the country with the exception of a few is a political office. You run for office. The Alvin Bragg that I know has always thought about the facts and the law.
And I keep going back to this point. If he was so overtly political and didn’t mind bringing pathetically weak cases, and he was on a witch hunt to get Donald Trump by whatever means possible, and as soon as possible, he would have brought this other case. That very well respected prosecutors in his office were adamantly urging him to bring and he didn’t. To me that indicates someone – and, look, this case may fail. It may not go well. Maybe it will be dismissed. I don’t think so because I think the law is probably on Alvin Bragg’s side, but we’ll see. Maybe he’ll lose a trial. But the idea that this is frivolous when someone who has gone to prison, who’s less culpable and gone to prison at the direction of the person we’re talking about now, Donald Trump, the idea that this is frivolous or purely political or stupid or anything else is nonsensical.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because falsifying business records on its face, whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony, is still a crime.
PREET BHARARA: Yes. There should be one standard of justice, right?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Uh-huh.
PREET BHARARA: And if there’s a crime that’s being brought — that’s being charged against people in New York City on a regular basis, and in particular has been charged in this kind of context, then to say that someone, because he was the former president of the United States, should get away with it doesn’t seem right.
I understand the concerns, the potential Democratic concerns. I’m not giving them short shrift. That if you’re going to charge a former president in an unprecedented way, you want to be careful, you want to have your t’s crossed, your i’s dotted, you want to do it not in a casual way, you want to be very, very serious about it and explain in the documents that you file in court and in the indictment that this is serious, and someone else has gone to prison for this. And I get that we don’t want to be in a position where we’re incentivizing local prosecutors to do this kind of thing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
PREET BHARARA: But, on the other hand, it is not frivolous, it is not silly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Preet Bharara, thank you for your insights today.
PREET BHARARA: Thanks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under former President Trump.
Good to have you here.
JOHN BOLTON: Glad to be back.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, as we were just discussing, Republicans seem to be avoiding explicitly defending Mr. Trump’s actions and instead attacking the district attorney of Manhattan. But we don’t know the details of these charges. We won’t until Tuesday, if then.
Don’t you see there being a danger for Republicans to do that, because they are still aligning themselves with the former president, whom I know you are sharply critical of?
JOHN BOLTON (Former National Security Adviser): Yes, I think it’s a big mistake politically for Republicans to do that. And I think it’s important to stress that in this case that involves hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair that later involves cooking his company’s book, you have not heard a single Trump defender stand up and say, oh, that’s not the Donald Trump I know.
And it goes to the question of character and fitness for the presidency. I think that Trump’s obviously trying to attack the prosecutor and his supporters are following that.
Look, prosecutors have broad discretion, and they should, but they don’t have unlimited discretion. If Trump thinks there’s prosecutorial misconduct here, violating the laws, violating the prosecutor or lawyers’ ethical obligations, he has plenty of opportunities to raise that. But if he can’t show that Alvin Bragg has violated the law or violated the ethics rules and they’re applicable –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
JOHN BOLTON: Then he’s got to run his own chances. And, to my mind, there is a kind of rough justice here because it’s deeply ironic that a person who spent a good part of his four years in the White House trying to weaponize the Justice Department against his political enemies is now saying he’s the victim of persecution. It’s sort of, what comes around goes around, Mr. Trump.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you agree that the Justice Department was weaponized under the Trump administration?
JOHN BOLTON: I can attest to it personally. I don’t need to look at other stories.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean by that?
JOHN BOLTON: Well, when Trump and his lawyers in the White House and in the Justice Department brought both a civil and a criminal against me for publishing a book –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Your book.
JOHN BOLTON: That didn’t go through the pre-publication review process when they know that it had been cleared in the regular order, that’s – that is abusing the Justice Department. And there are plenty of other examples besides.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you brought up your book. In it you talk about President Trump being obsessed with media coverage of his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who’s now very much at the heart of this trial — case, who was on trial himself, and you said it was a big distraction in the midst of the trip to Hanoi, where the former president was negotiating with Kim Jong-un. I mean, nuclear security. But he was obsessed with the Cohen case.
Do you look at that differently now? Do you think there was a real reason for him to be worried or was it just a PR concern?
JOHN BOLTON: Well, I think — I think he does have reason to be concerned about the substance of the case here, and I think while we’re all obviously and appropriately focused on the indictment, that’s just the beginning. The real issue here is whether Alvin Bragg gets a conviction at some point in the near term.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
JOHN BOLTON: Or whether Trump springs free because the political implications are vastly different.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I mean, the timetable for this goes right into 2024. And we don’t have clarity on that.
JOHN BOLTON: Well, we’ll see whether Trump runs the courtroom or whether the judge runs the courtroom.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean?
JOHN BOLTON: Well, the — I have no doubt a lot of trees are going to die to support the motions to dismiss the case that Trump’s going to file.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Delay, delay.
JOHN BOLTON: So if the judge keeps the pace going, you know, people talk about the importance of speedy trial, let’s see if we can get one here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you said it was a mistake for Republicans in messaging around this, but even Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who I know in the past you’ve said good things about, came out and said, ah, it’s a misdemeanor. Oh, this is political.
JOHN BOLTON: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A misdemeanor is still a crime. But, I mean, the only Republican of prominence that has really remained silent that I’ve noticed is Mitch McConnell. Most everyone is defending in some way.
JOHN BOLTON: I think Asa Hutchinson said earlier today –
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s true.
JOHN BOLTON: In addition to announcing –
MARGARET BRENNAN: He should –
JOHN BOLTON: He’s running for the presidency –
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s true.
JOHN BOLTON: That Trump should stand aside. And I think that’s an absolute minimum.
Look, Trump is basically extorting –
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, that’s two, plus you, that’s three.
JOHN BOLTON: That Trump is basically extorting the Republican Party. He’s threatening that if he doesn’t get the nomination, he’ll blow up the presidential campaign, and whoever the Democrats nominate will win.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And it seems to be persuasive.
JOHN BOLTON: Well, I think what Republicans need to do to save the party and, frankly, to save the country, is, they can be as concerned about poor Donald Trump being mistreated by this prosecutor as they want, but they — the reward, the cure for that mistreatment is not to make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee. Those are two completely different subjects.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. I understand your point.
You have said in the past, if this indictment happens, it’s rocket fuel to his campaign to get the Republican nomination for the president. And you think that’s what Democrats want essentially because they –
JOHN BOLTON: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It benefits whoever the Democratic nominee is, presumably the current president.
JOHN BOLTON: I’m not worried about Alvin Bragg hurting Donald Trump. I’m worried about Alvin Bragg benefitting Donald Trump. And this is where I think the outcome of the case is so important. If Trump is acquitted, or he gets the case dismissed because it’s not legally sufficient, or for whatever reason, that will be rocket fuel because he can say, I told you I was a political prosecution, I told you I was being picked on and now I’ve been vindicated. If he’s convicted, however, at some point before the campaign ends, I think that will have a very different impact on people. You can – you can say it’s a sleazy case and it involves sleazy people.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
JOHN BOLTON: But if he’s convicted of a crime, I think most Americans actually don’t want a convicted felon to be their president.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, if he does end up being the nominee, will you support him as the Republican nominee?
JOHN BOLTON: Absolutely not. I didn’t support him in 2020. I wanted to vote for a real conservative, and neither — there was neither the Republican nor the Democratic nominee were real conservative.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
JOHN BOLTON: So, I wrote in a name. And I would do the same.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you have said you might be considering a run. Have you ruled that out or are you still considering?
JOHN BOLTON: No, I’m still considering it. I have to say, watching the response to the indictment has not been encouraging for the future of the party.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
JOHN BOLTON: Trump is a cancer on the Republican Party. We need his supporters. That’s absolutely true. Most of them have correct values. The distortion —
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does it disappoint you that —
JOHN BOLTON: Is the magnetic field of Donald Trump.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, does it disappoint you that someone you have in the past said good things about, Ron DeSantis, is part — part of the group circling the wagons around Mr. Trump?
JOHN BOLTON: Well, I believe in redemption for everybody, so I think there’s still a way ahead here. But I tell you what – what the – what the people really want in the nominee, I think, is somebody who will say, this conduct is unacceptable to us, and we have higher values, we have higher principles, than simply defending whatever Donald Trump does.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you’re willing to forgive that of DeSantis. You also, however, have to be upset with his foreign policy positions. He said, while the U.S. has many vital national interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. He tried to soften that a little bit afterwards, but it reveals kind of this thread we’ve seen reflected in some House Republicans of more of an isolation, or at least less likely to be as muscular.
JOHN BOLTON: Well, as I said before, I was disappointed that Ron DeSantis said that. I’m hoping that his view is changing. But I think this isolationism, I attribute a large part of it to Donald Trump. Not that he has any coherent philosophy, but his knee-jerk reaction drives people to take positions that I think they otherwise wouldn’t take.
I think you go back to a Reagan-ite foreign policy and a Reagan-ite optimism, that it’s morning in America. In fact, it’s always morning in America. It’s not Donald Trump’s version –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
JOHN BOLTON: It’s Ronald Reagan’s that will get people’s support.
MARGARET BRENNAN: John Bolton, thank you for your time today.
JOHN BOLTON: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be back in a moment.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now to discuss Russia’s detention of “Wall Street Journal” reporter Even Gershkovich, is “The Journal’s” editor in chief, Emma Tucker. And she joins us there New York.
Good morning to you.
EMMA TUCKER (Editor in Chief, “The Wall Street Journal”): Good morning, Margaret. And thanks very much for having me on.
And also I just want to say, before we get going, thank you to CBS and all the other news networks and news outlets that are continuing to focus on this story.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
EMMA TUCKER: It’s really important for us to keep focus on Evan’s plight at a time when I know the news is very busy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we agree with you.
And I want to ask you this morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. It is very rare that they speak. But according to the State Department, the secretary had grave concern over the unacceptable detention of a journalist, and that is Evan.
What do you know about this? Has any of it helped Evan’s case?
EMMA TUCKER: Well, one of the big problems in this case is we know so little. We know very – we — to the best of our knowledge, we know that Evan is being held in a prison in Moscow, but we haven’t been able to get any messages to him. We haven’t heard anything from him. There’s been very little official information.
The fact that Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his counterpart today is hugely reassuring to us. We know that the U.S. government’s taking the case very seriously right up to the top. And as I say, that – that, for us, has been, you know, gratifying to know that they take it as seriously as they do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There is a legal determination being wrongfully detained, and it comes with it a little bit more leeway for the fight that the U.S. government can put up here. What difference do you think that will make in this case, and how quickly will it come?
EMMA TUCKER: Well, we’re hoping that the government will move swiftly to designate Evan as wrongfully detained. It can take a long time, but we’re hoping — we’re optimistic it will move a bit more swiftly in this case. When that happens, it’s an official recognition that the charges against Evan are entirely bogus. And once that official recognition comes, things can then move a bit more rapidly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we know that when Evan was taken, there was also a very swift hearing. His lawyer was not allowed in. The State Department said that U.S. officials were not given any access to him. Do you have any timeline? It sounds like you don’t have much more clarity, but will he be given what are supposed to be the legal standards here of access?
EMMA TUCKER: Well, I think that’s – that’s anyone’s guess. We are hopeful that a lawyer will get to see him next week. We’re pressing constantly for reassurance that he’s not being mistreated in any way, but we’re dealing with the Russian authorities here. It’s – it’s difficult to know what will happen next. I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to make some sort of contact with him next week, but who knows.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, from the very top of the Russian government we have seen this commented on. Vladimir Putin’s own spokesperson claims Evan was caught red-handed. According to our CBS contributor, John Sullivan, who was former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, he said, “The Wall Street Journal” is too high-profile an organization for this to have been a mistake, for this not to have been targeted, and it had to have been approved at the very highest levels in Moscow.
Do you have any idea what the motivation was?
EMMA TUCKER: I have no idea. Evan — Evan is a very talented, experienced reporter. He’s accredited to report from Russia, and he was on a – on an assignment doing what he always does. He was gathering information. He was reporting from the ground to provide our readers with eyewitness accounts of what it’s like to be in Russia at the moment. He — it’s a complete outrage that he was arrested like this. And I — you know, I really don’t understand. None of us can – the — what the Russian authorities are saying is utter nonsense.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There was some Russian reporting he was working on a story about the military, and others, potentially about a mercenary group known as the Wagner Group. Was that true?
EMMA TUCKER: Evan was doing what he always does. He was out reporting. He’s a very experienced reporter. He’s covering all sorts of stories. He was on a mission over in the east, writing about — I don’t — he was just doing what he always does, he was news-gathering, and talking to his contacts out there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know that — I’ve read you’ve pulled your Moscow bureau chief from her post. How important is it to be able to continue to report from Russia, and do you plan to be able to continue this in some way?
EMMA TUCKER: Well, look, reporting out of Russia has become increasingly difficult, not just for foreign reporters, but especially for Russian reporters. You know, “The Wall Street Journal” is committed to covering stories from Russia, from — stories from around the world, but we’re also, obviously, we put the safety of our journalists first. A lot of other news organizations no longer have a presence in Russia. It’s — it’s clearly and particularly with this, what’s happened to Evan, Russia is sending a very, you know, a bad signal that it’s not a safe place for journalists, even journalists who are accredited to work there, to work from.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Yes.
EMMA TUCKER: So, you know, we are committed to covering the news.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good.
EMMA TUCKER: We are also committed to the safety of our journalists.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So important.
Emma Tucker, thank you for your time. We wish you well.
We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
