That

didn't come up.

It undermines the credibility.

No, it didn't come up, and it undermines the credibility of the defense.

As I said, I think they feel like they're on a roll.

What happened now is that the judges had a hearing, even reporting, and the judge said, look, I'm going to take under submission your motion that I should toss the charges because no rational, sane jury on the planet... could have found her guilty.

Well, that's a real stretch.

They picked a lot of

And that's what they are looking for to get back.

Yeah, so essentially, there's a big kerfuffle over the fact that nowadays in our digital era, you've got podcasters, you've got influencers.

We saw this with the Lindsay Clancy trial in Massachusetts.

A lot of folks were trying to get access to the court and have various press privileges, even though they weren't exactly ABC, CBS, or NBC.

So that's a separate issue.

But yeah, if you're one of the usual suspects and you have the hard pass, These folks now are entitled to go back in and cover the White House.

And it was kind of unanimous among all the networks, ones you might consider on left of center or right of center, the networks expressing the view that really politics shouldn't come into play and we don't want to be wondering if we're going to get kicked out depending on the politics of a different president.

So this is not without precedent, it sounds like.

Royal Oaks, thank you very much for taking the call here this evening.

Hey, my pleasure, Frank.

And yeah, you got it right.

Very intriguing legal wrangling behind this merger.

You know, everybody remembers the background of Paramount Skydance said, hey, we want to get Warner Brothers and Discovery.

We'll pay $110 billion for them and put under one roof, you know, CNN, HBO, CBS.

Federal government said, yeah, you got the green light.

How does it work when a lawsuit like this is filed and it's in the federal court system now? So the lawyers have to go back there and say, hey, this is what we've come up with, and then the judge has to give his or her blessing?

So Royal, for those that aren't locked into the news all weekend like we all are, how did this come to be? You're telling me the president, the White House denied press credentials or they actually took them away from organizations that had them already?

Yeah, several days ago, Donald Trump kicked it off by saying, you know what, CNN and a few others are guilty of fake news, and I'm just going to go as far as I can to ban them.

Well, what does that mean? Well, the next day we found out what it meant is that he basically discontinued their credentials.

So in your flash, your CNN badge at the White House, sorry, no admittance.

And so that led to them lawyering up.

They hired Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.

one of the fancy white shoe firms in the United States, and they filed a lawsuit in D.C. By coincidence, they get, by random chance, the same judge who ruled against Trump eight years ago when Jim Acosta of CNN said, hey, you can't take my credential away.

So my question related to that is, could the White House revamp their process, have a new press access system of some sort that doesn't formally ban organizations, but reconfigures who's allowed in there and why or make access more difficult?

So Royal, for those that aren't locked into the news all weekend like we all are, how did this come to be? You're telling me the president, the White House denied press credentials or they actually took them away from organizations that had them already?

Yeah, several days ago, Donald Trump kicked it off by saying, you know what, CNN and a few others are guilty of fake news, and I'm just going to go as far as I can to ban them.

Well, what does that mean? Well, the next day we found out what it meant is that he basically discontinued their credentials.

So in your flash, your CNN badge at the White House, sorry, no admittance.

And so that led to them lawyering up.

They hired Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.

one of the fancy white shoe firms in the United States, and they filed a lawsuit in D.C. By coincidence, they get, by random chance, the same judge who ruled against Trump eight years ago when Jim Acosta of CNN said, hey, you can't take my credential away.

So my question related to that is, could the White House revamp their process, have a new press access system of some sort that doesn't formally ban organizations, but reconfigures who's allowed in there and why or make access more difficult?

Royal, from ABC News, the legal analyst, how are you?

Hey, doing great, John.

Yeah, it is a little messy.

I mean, bottom line is today, Supreme Court has refused to let Trump put his new postal service restrictions on mail voting in effect for the midterms.

It all started back in March.

He had an executive order.

He said, hey, I want to tighten citizenship verification and mail-in procedures.

Plus, there was hardly any time to implement his rules.

Royal, how are you?

I'm doing great.

What a bizarre case, though, as you say, ultimate in frustration, John.

What it came down to is that, you know, you have to have a unanimous vote on a criminal case, and it was 11 to 1, not guilty.

The one guy who was holding out allegedly wasn't playing by the rules.

The foreman went to the judge and said, hey, your honor, kick him off.

He's not following your reasonable doubt explanation or instruction.

He didn't have reasonable

And I'm just kind of curious, where does that stand? Do you know?

Yeah, those rumors are persistent, and I think they have been verified.

Yes, Sam, what happened is, of course, you remember late last year, Donald Trump's board of trustees for the Kennedy Center, which he appointed to most of the members, they said, hey, you know what, we're going to change the name and add Trump's name.

Well, a Democrat congressman went to court and sued and said, oh, your honor, he can't do this.

Look at the law.

Congress gets to decide what the name of the Kennedy Center is.

And the judge agreed.

I mean, does it need to be completely remodeled? Does it mean need to be demolished? And where does that stand from a legal standpoint?

Let's get Royal Oakes on.

Hey, John, you're exactly right.

And, yeah, people do get their knickers in a twist, although I don't think people wear knickers too much anymore.

But the background is this.

You know, Trump started to demolish the East Wing.

Then the National Trust sued, saying, oh, no, only Congress can decide to tear down a federal building.

So Trump loses in the trial court and appeals court, but the Supreme Court takes it up.

Can you go into the details here?

Royal,

how are you? Great, John.

I don't know if I'm doing so well, though, because you're right.

They've got two big cases on their docket right now.

And as you know, they go on vacation every July one for three months.

And so now they're having to work.

I understand they even sign yearbooks, things like have a bitch in summer clearance.

I mean, is that the whole thing? It's like he doesn't have the right to do this?

So ultimately, a, a robot, uh, told this person, "You're fired," uh, looking at his, uh, attendance record.

Yeah, I mean [laughs] and that's, that's the funny part here, uh, the AI manager was actually nicer.

I mean, if it were Frank Motek as boss, I bet you would just fire that guy automatically if he was late 17 out of 23 shifts.

I, uh, there's sort of an irony here, Frank.

Maybe, uh, think about Waymo.

Statistically now we're told that these self-driving cars, Waymo is actually statistically safer than human drivers.

Waymo never gets drunk.

Anything else, uh, that, uh, makes you laugh or, or cry that you've seen lately that, that's been impacting the legal profession, uh, that's AI impacted?

These federal charges, they can carry a very long, tough sentence, can't they?

Yeah, it could be life in prison, and there's no parole in the federal system.

So if the judge in December gives this guy life, he's there forever.

Now, if the judge gives him anything lower than life, like 40 years or 30, then he can serve 85% of that.

That's the standard sentence.

Plus, he's already served a few years.

So, for example, John, if the judge by chance goes kind of low and gets in 20 years, he could be out in about 15 years.

And that's very likely.

This was premeditated.

Yeah, not really.

It's a great question because a lot of people, they hear this idea of premeditation and planning, and they ask, well, how long? Is there some rule? Do you have to think about it for a day or a week? No.

I mean, it can be a matter of seconds.

But then if the DA is going to say, well, he premeditated it in the scope of a few seconds – They really, it's a tough putt.

They have to really work hard to prove that the guy did plan during that period.

It's a rule of reasonableness.

How does a defense attorney handle a guy who may not be capable of making that decision to do it in 60 days or wait until you get a whole ream of experts to analyze the situation, you know, pushing the trial back a year? How does a guy like Nick Reiner do that if he's out of his mind?

... 111 times invoking the Fifth Amendment?

Yeah.

I, I think he has a pretty weak defense.

Uh, he's got a couple of arguments.

The first argument is, "Well, okay, I get a, I have a get out of jail free card from Joe Biden his day before he left the presidency, but y- you, Rand Paul, y- you're on record saying I should be in jail, and here you are asking me questions under oath in 2026, which is after my, uh, pardon applies.

It only applies to stuff I did when I was COVID guru.

So I know what you're up to.

[laughs] But what's the point of, of, uh, still trying to defend him to the, to the death?

There's no threat of incarceration.

Well, there is in the sense that you take an oath to tell the truth, and therefore you're subject to perjury penalties.

In California, it's five years behind bars if you're found guilty of perjury.

So in that sense, yeah, theoretically, you always have a right to take the fifth sentence.

If you've taken an oath to tell the truth.

So in that sense, he certainly has has the right to do that.

But it's so frustrating because, you know, one of the purposes Rand Paul had was to get to the bottom of, you know, why were you so aggressive and just shoving down the nation? Countless kids lost countless days of school.

Just seems like Fauci, as a public servant, has a duty to explain to America why he did what he did all these years since it had one of the largest impact on our lives probably that anything has had since World War II.

Shouldn't it be?

Should be, should be.

But today, John, the DA turbocharged the case against Burke.

This was the final day of the five-day preliminary hearing.

As you're reporting, the judge has decided now, yes, Burke has to go to trial.

But it was the texts that had been hinted at by the DA.

So now we know the day before the murder, John, She, Celeste, the victim, is texting Burke saying, I will freaking kill you.

Yes.

And Royal wanted to get the latest on what's going on with this trial in the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez because it got pretty gruesome pretty quick last week.

Oh, my gosh.

Not only gruesome, but seemingly overwhelming for the district attorney.

You know, with the body of Celeste showing up in David Burke's car, and he's going on Amazon to order body bags and chainsaws.

Well, you ain't seen nothing yet, because today the district attorney has released texts between...

David Burke and Celeste that make it clear that as the DA has been sort of teasing, she threatened to kill David Burke.

She said, are you really saying you'd end our relationship just to be friends with her? I threatened to end your career and your life.

It seems like a really tough sell, though, for the defense to claim that Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a 14-year-old, was somehow able to dismember herself and throw herself into the trunk of his car.

It was the county who told the city that everything was safe.

safe.Yeah, and whoever says something that isn't true that makes the situation worse is gonna get added to the lengthy list of defendants.

I mean, certainly they're gonna sue the owners, uh, of the property.

They're gonna sue the people who maybe caused it.

Allegedly some folks were up on the roof fussing with some sort of solar panels or something, and they caused it.

But in addition to the people who actually owned the building, maintained the building, i- i- if you're a public entity, if you're representatives of the county or the city and you give bad advice, guess what? You're gonna be added to the list of defendants.

And of course, the more defendants, the more deep pockets you have, because everybody has some sort of insurance.

Is this a win-win for Collins and ICE, or is this a sign that ICE is going to slow down enforcement, immigration enforcement?

It was the county who told the city that everything was safe.

safe.Yeah, and whoever says something that isn't true that makes the situation worse is gonna get added to the lengthy list of defendants.

I mean, certainly they're gonna sue the owners, uh, of the property.

They're gonna sue the people who maybe caused it.

Allegedly some folks were up on the roof fussing with some sort of solar panels or something, and they caused it.

But in addition to the people who actually owned the building, maintained the building, i- i- if you're a public entity, if you're representatives of the county or the city and you give bad advice, guess what? You're gonna be added to the list of defendants.

And of course, the more defendants, the more deep pockets you have, because everybody has some sort of insurance.

Is this a win-win for Collins and ICE, or is this a sign that ICE is going to slow down enforcement, immigration enforcement?

Is that typical or is that long or short? How would you characterize it?

It's a little longer than average because, you know, it's an abbreviated mini-trial.

For example, a detective gets to go up on the stand and start repeating what other people say, read from his notes.

Normally, the defense would say, as hearsay, I get to cross-examine everybody he's quoting.

They do a trial, but...

But at the preliminary hearing, the evidentiary rules are somewhat relaxed.

One problem, though, is that the prosecution does still say they want the death penalty.

How long does this process go on? What's the next step? Are we looking at months or is it a matter of weeks? What can we look forward to?

What are we to believe from all of this? How does this look going down the road?

It is really complex, isn't it? And the reason it's complicated is because there's not only a constitutional clause, 14th Amendment, that suggests birthright citizenship is legal, but there's a federal statute that also says essentially the same thing.

And, you know, Justice Kavanaugh, in a separate dissent here, he said, I don't think that Trump should be able to have an executive order, but he did suggest that Congress could change the federal law saying birthright citizenship is the law of the land.

The problem is, I think most people look at that and say, nice try.

The Constitution has to be changed by two-thirds of the House and Senate, three-quarters of the state legislatures.

You can't overcome the notion in this decision that it is a constitutional right to have birthright citizenship simply by changing a congressional law.

But who knows? Maybe there will be some kerfuffle and dispute in the courts over whether you could change it by statute versus constitutional amendment.

I kind of doubt it has much of an impact in California, but go ahead and give us your read on that, if you would, Royal.

Was there any one that really stood out for you?

Yeah, Sam, one of the big decisions was that it turns out Donald Trump does not have the right to fire a Federal Reserve Board member.

Lisa Cook is one involved.

Trump says she committed mortgage fraud.

So she sued and said, no, I'm innocent.

And Trump's position is, well, I'm the president.

I should be able to fire her without proving in court that she committed fraud.

Could it possibly be, in terms of counting mail-in ballots, could that be another next initiative for voters to look at maybe in 2028? Possibly.

and Mrs. California?

Yeah, no, the trial lawyers were not going to put up with that because, as you know, when you walk into the trial lawyer's office and you've been injured, you get the news that you're going to have to pay one-third of what you get, even if the guy settles it tomorrow.

And then if it has to go through trial, maybe they want 40% or 50%.

Well, this would have capped those percentages at 25%, and that's just kind of a non-starter.

The compromise, Uber agreed to adopt stronger passenger safety measures And the trial lawyers agreed to drop their effort to classify rideshare companies as common carriers because the law, the proposal by the trial lawyers was we're going to say Uber and Lyft, just like taxis and buses.

Well, why does that make a big difference? If you're a taxi or a bus, it's much easier for somebody to sue you because you have to show utmost care and diligence to protect your customers, your passengers.

That's different from the ordinary negligence standard.

Give us your initial impressions of the legal issues that are going to be coming up and all that.

these people are staying for years and years and years and trump finally said enough and some lower court justices said trump was wrong went to the supreme court six to three in his favor let's talk to royal oaks how are you abc news legal correspondent

Yeah, John.

Yeah.

It's actually a double barreled win for the Trump administration because you absolutely got it right in terms of the Haitian deal.

Three hundred fifty thousand Haitians were here.

They were allowed.

Maybe they had jobs.

And whether they're legally allowed to vote or not, they may well be on the voter lists.

How do you see this is a big victory for Trump, right?

it's a double victory for trump and you can boil down these two immigration cases by pointing out that they really involve the same two issues the first issue is all right somebody is worried that if they have to go back to their home country they're going to be killed or injured they need asylum there's a civil war there's unrest they've been threatened so traditionally we give asylum to people In two ways, in two separate cases today, the Supreme Court has limited the protection of these folks.

So the first one is involving Haitians and Syrians, about 350,000 Haitians, about 6,000 Syrians who are in America already.

with work permits.

They're here legally.

They're not citizens.

But they're here because they have gained the right to do specific jobs in America.

area of immigration