Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Smaller Airports Hurting; Coronavirus Surging in Florida; Trump Under Fire Over Russia Bounty Intelligence. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired June 30, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:32:37]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And we're back with our world lead today.

A U.S. official confirming to CNN that intelligence about the Russian bounty on U.S. service members in Afghanistan was included in the president's daily briefing sometime earlier this year. The White House continues to deny that President Trump was ever briefed on reports that Russian officials offered bounty to Taliban terrorists for killing American and British service members in Afghanistan.

Joining me now are two people who used to work on the presidential daily briefing, Phil Mudd, who worked in counterterrorism at the CIA and served as an FBI senior intelligence adviser, and former CIA counterterrorism analyst Nada Bakos.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

So, Phil, let me start with you.

A U.S. official confirming to CNN that the information was included in the PDB sometime earlier this year. Is it possible that the president still did not know about it?

Oh, we lost Phil.

Let me go to Nada.

Nada, is -- Nada, rather -- is it possible that the president still did not know about this? Or do you think that the White House is, rather, just parsing the idea of being told something directly to his face, as opposed to being handed papers he is supposed to read, but he's not really known as a big reader?

NADA BAKOS, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think they are absolutely parsing this language around whether he knew it from a briefing.

I think, obviously, we're hearing from "New York Times" and other reporting and from CNN that this was in a PDB. It was in written form. So, the onus is on him to make sure that he's reading that and is up to speed. And he's making excuses that he hasn't read the PDB? That's an entirely different problem, and really not excusable, especially when it comes to threat intelligence. TAPPER: So, you helped track key members of al Qaeda in Iraq after

9/11. You say that intelligence is usually not definitive. It's not verified.

So, is it a logical excuse for the White House to continue to claim that the president was not briefed -- quote, unquote -- "briefed" because the intelligence was not verified? Or is that just standard intelligence?

BAKOS: That's standard intelligence.

So, intelligence collection, intelligence written product or briefing is more of an art than a science. And during that whole process, the CIA continues to corroborate that information.

[16:35:03]

So, they're not going to stop at one point and say, this is 100 percent true, unless they have like really definitive evidence that they have come to some kind of conclusion.

This is a constantly evolving situation, especially when it comes to threat intelligence in a fast-moving environment like a war zone. Afghanistan obviously meets that criteria. So the right response from the president should be, what more can you tell me? And tell me about the veracity of this information.

TAPPER: And, Phil, I think your satellite is back now.

You noted that this is not information that a president should learn about from "The New York Times" or from CNN. But if President Trump was never briefed, that certainly could have happened here, never personally told about this intelligence, as opposed to receiving it in a document, this is already a president who does not have a particularly good relationship with the intelligence community, also known -- not really known as a big reader.

Tell us about what this might do to that kind of relationship.

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Boy, that's going to depend on the next couple days.

I was interested in the story that we just heard from the congresswoman you interviewed about the White House not having intel people in the room saying, hey, we didn't -- the president didn't get this, this stuff wasn't validated.

You know why, as an intel guy, that's interesting to watch? The question is not whether it was validated. The question is whether anybody, including the secretary of defense and the national security adviser, spoke to the president.

My point, Jake, is, if they did speak to the president, and there's a whitewash now, that will tick off the intel guys, because they're going to say, we told you in a written product. Now you're trying to throw us under the bus because you didn't want to go tell the president about it.

This is going to create friction between, as you're suggesting, the White House and the intel guys.

TAPPER: Well, speaking of friction, Phil...

BAKOS: I want to add to that.

TAPPER: Well, Nada, let me come -- I will come to you in one second.

But speaking of friction, Phil, Kayleigh McEnany just said -- she started hypothesizing that these leaks might have come from rogue intel operatives trying to get the president in trouble.

I would love both of you to briefly comment on that.

Phil?

MUDD: So, really, there's leaks in Washington, D.C. They come from the White House. We have seen repeated even books from the White House. They come from the Defense Department. They come from the CIA. They come from the FBI.

The question is not even whether the president was briefed by the intel guys. The question is whether somebody spoke with him about potentially dead soldiers, because it's not about the intel. The question for the president is, did you ask for options for what to do about it? Did you consider speaking to Putin about it? And did you ask the intel guys, including at the Defense Department, what they think the risk to U.S. soldiers is today?

The White House is taking us down the road to saying, it's about the quality of the intel, it's about whether he was briefed or not. It is not. It's about whether the president is sitting in the chair saying, this is what I'm going to do about a threat to U.S. servicemen?

TAPPER: And, Nada, what's your response?

BAKOS: So, I agree with Phil.

But, at the same time, we know from Gina Haspel's statement the other day that not only was the -- basically, a White House brief. She doesn't specifically talking about the White House, but she says it was widely shared. It was briefed to our U.S. allies.

I have a hard time believing that the White House wouldn't have known about threat information that was also briefed to our U.S. allies, because this is coalition forces that are also under threat. It's not just U.S. military members. So we owe them a response as well.

And back to what Elissa Slotkin was about with the veracity of the information and the verification and then disagreement with NSA, I know, from my experience, NSA really speaks to their own collection. They're not going to talk about whether or not they necessarily agree or disagree with a collection of CIA. What they're going to talk about is, we only have collection X, Y and

Z. We can't verify what CIA is saying. We can't -- the collection we do have, we can say, well, with medium confidence, we think it's accurate.

So there's not like this dispute that they're trying to display.

TAPPER: OK, Nada Bakos and Phil Mudd, thank you so much for your expertise. We appreciate it today.

The one governor who says he's not closing his state down again. even though there are thousands of new cases every day.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:43:45]

TAPPER: In our health lead today: Some local officials in Florida are closing beaches ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, in an effort to slow the worsening spread of coronavirus.

But Republican Governor Ron DeSantis today said he has no plans to pause the state's reopening. Florida reported more than 6,000 new coronavirus cases today.

Joining me now is the ICU medical director at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami-Dade County, Dr. David De La Zerda.

Doctor, thanks so much for joining us.

We will get to what the governor said in a second.

But, first, your hospital reported last week a 108 percent increase in coronavirus hospitalizations over a two-week period. What's the status now? Have hospitalizations continued to go -- specifically in the ICU, continued to go up?

DR. DAVID DE LA ZERDA, JACKSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: Yes.

Probably, we doubled the number since last week. We have 260-plus patients in the Jackson system, and we have 35 percent of those patients in the ICU, probably.

TAPPER: I want to get your response to Governor DeSantis this afternoon explaining he's not going to roll back reopening, as other states seeing surges have.

[16:45:03]

He said -- well, listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We're not going back closing things. I don't think that that really is what's driving it.

I mean, people going into business is not what's driving it. I think, when you see the younger folks, I think a lot of it is more just social interactions. And so that's natural.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Do you agree that the spread has nothing to do with businesses reopening and is just from younger folks naturally socializing?

DE LA ZERDA: I disagree with him, actually.

I do believe that one thing is open some businesses, and one thing is to have full restaurants open and all these stores open, as we have seen. So I do believe that is not correct. I believe that opening the economy the way he did is causing a lot of the problems we have right now.

TAPPER: Are the patients in your ICU, the hospitalized coronavirus patients, are they younger than in the first wave, when it seemed primarily to be people over the age of 60 and 70?

DE LA ZERDA: Much younger. And that's really our major concern.

So let's say like an average age at this point will be between 25 to 45 years, more or less. The previous time, it was most of the time more than 65. So, answer to your question is yes, much younger patients and much sicker, which is something I cannot fully understand, why they seem to be much sicker than the first time.

TAPPER: Have you been able -- and I don't even know if Florida has the capacity to do this -- but have you been able to contact trace and find out how these individuals got the virus?

DE LA ZERDA: I work in an ICU.

So, for me, it's difficult to answer that question. So, we sometimes ask families. But once the patient came to us, we already know, the patient is intubated on a breathing machine , so it's really hard to trace who exactly and where they got the virus.

TAPPER: If you could tell Governor DeSantis what he needs to do to help slow the spread, if not stop the spread, what would you tell him to do?

DE LA ZERDA: That you need to open the economy in a smarter way. You have to open businesses. Restaurants should do deliveries, no seating in restaurants.

I live close to a beach, and you can see it's like a party every single day. So I would close the beaches and the parks again, because people need to be more responsible. And you don't see that in the streets. People don't wear masks. You see people in the parks, in the streets.

So, I will close back those businesses related to the beach, and restaurants should be open, but only for takeouts and deliveries.

TAPPER: Should there be a mandated mask requirement in Florida?

DE LA ZERDA: Oh, 100 percent. I have no idea why there's so much politics involved in the mask.

We know the mask help, help you and help others. So, yes, should be mandatory. And I think the Miami Beach mayor is on that direction. So, hopefully, we will see some changes in the behavior of people. But people going to parties, home parties is really bad down here.

TAPPER: Dr. David De La Zerda, thank you so much. And thanks for what you do. We really appreciate it.

Only three flights a day, that's what's happening at one of the country's smaller airports because of coronavirus. And that airport is not alone -- why this could have a devastating ripple effect.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:52:35]

TAPPER: The money lead now.

The spread of coronavirus is so out of control here in the U.S., the European Union today barred Americans from traveling there when it reopens its borders tomorrow.

The virus is hurting smaller airports as well, big time.

CNN's Pete Muntean takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eric Bjorkman earned a degree in aviation management five years ago, back when the industry was booming.

But here we're at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport in Michigan, the coronavirus pandemic has brought airline service to nearly a standstill.

ERIC BJORKMAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, KALAMAZOO/BATTLE CREEK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: It's pretty unsettling. And we just hope it bounces back as soon it -- as soon as possible.

MUNTEAN: Bjorkman helps run operations and maintenance for the airport. It now sees no more than three flights each day.

On one day in April, the restaurant here recorded only $50 in sales. The pandemic has cleared out airports everywhere, but it is hurting small city airports even more.

CRAIG WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR, KALAMAZOO/BATTLE CREEK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: It's disappointing to see.

MUNTEAN: Airport director Craig Williams says an average of 63 people now fly through here each day, an 85 percent drop from a year ago. Even still, airlines are required to keep serving Kalamazoo and other small cities, but only until restrictions tacked on to a federal bailout expire October 1.

WILLIAMS: We're still trying to figure out, OK, what does it mean for the industry?

MUNTEAN: Not long after the pandemic cratered air travel, the federal government allowed the airlines to stop flying to some cities with other airports nearby. Airports such as Norfolk, Virginia, picked up passengers that typically flew out of nearby Newport News.

Airport director Mike Giardino fears things could get even worse for smaller airports.

MICHAEL GIARDINO, NEWPORT NEWS/WILLIAMSBURG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: We're thinking about strategies on how to ensure that communities don't become air service deserts.

MUNTEAN: Small city airports are shedding jobs. Newport News cut 46 positions. Kalamazoo's airport received $19 million in federal stimulus money, enough to keep this terminal operating through next year.

Airport officials say it's vital for the metro area, with three colleges and the headquarters for companies like Kellogg's.

WILLIAMS: If we're not here, then the comfort and the convenience for some of these companies are not here. And they might move to other places, where they can get that air service.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[16:55:00]

MUNTEAN: We have been sampling a lot of small city airports to see how bad this problem really is.

And what's so interesting is that some spots are seeing passengers come back, places like Flint, Michigan, which is more reliant on leisure travel. Even still, some cities are struggling, spots like Grand Forks, North Dakota. That airport saw only 300 passengers for the entire month of May -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Pete Muntean, thanks so much.

It's in China. It can infect humans, and it's a new virus scientists say has pandemic potential.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:00]