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GOP House Leaders Press Blinken Over 2020 Letter From Ex-Intel Officials Casting Doubt On Hunter Biden Laptop Story; Suspect Accused Of Shooting 6-Year-Old Girl Waives Extradition; Biden Announces New Action To "Advance Environmental Justice"; $15M In Gold, Other Valuables Stolen From Toronto Intl Airport; States Urge Recalls Of Kia, Hyundai Cars After Jump In Thefts; "The Whole Story" Airs Sunday At 8PM ET/PM. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired April 21, 2023 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This individual also allegedly has information that would contradict testimony by Attorney General Merrick Garland about there being no political interference in this case.
Of course, I want to caution, this person does not yet have whistleblower status. They have not presented any evidence of these claims.
And also there have been -- as you know, there have been claims about whistleblowers related to the Biden family, where nothing has come to fruition. So we're watching to see what comes with that.
But it's certainly sparked a lot of questions about what exactly is going on with the criminal investigation into the president's son.
As CNN was the first to report last summer, the investigation was heating up. They had narrowed it down to a few charges, tax crimes and one possible false statement related to the purchase of a gun, not disclosing his addiction.
But as of now, there's no indication that anything has changed with the case. And obviously there have been no charges.
But in the absence of the criminal investigation, manifesting anything Republicans are really seizing on this narrative, going back to sort of arguments in the court of public opinion and trying to bring Hunter Biden's name back into the public square.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And we'll have to wait and see what evidence, if any, that whistleblower might have.
REID: It's going to be really interesting.
SANCHEZ: Yes. Paula Reid, thank you so much for your reporting.
Jim? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST; All right. In court today, the man accused of shooting this 6-year-old girl and her parents after a basketball just rolled into his yard.
And 24-year-old Robert Singletary turned himself into police in Hillsborough County, Florida. That's more than 500 miles from Gastonia, North Carolina, where the shootings took place.
A short time ago, he waived extradition, and so will be returned to North Carolina.
CNN's Dianne Gallagher joins us now from Charlotte. North Carolina.
I wonder, Dianne, what's been the reaction among neighbors. I know there was some surprise that he left town, right, but I'm sure there's relief now that he's in custody.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that's the best word to describe how people in Gaston County in that neighborhood or feeling right now, Boris (sic), relief.
It also gives them the opportunity to not be so afraid. Many of those neighbors told me that they really hadn't slept since the shooting because they've been afraid that he may come back to the home or back to the neighborhood, and they knew that he was to be considered armed and dangerous.
When I spoke with the mother of that 6-year-old girl -- remember, the mother herself was grazed by a bullet in her arm. She texted me and told me, "I am just so glad. I can't believe he made it all the way to Florida."
Now that little girl's father, actually, Hildebrand's husband, remains in the hospital. He was shot in the back.
Police say the shooter was 24-year-old Robert Singletary, who did appear before a judge in Hillsborough County, Florida this morning.
He waived his right to extradition. The Gaston County authorities have a couple of days to bring him back, to transport him to North Carolina before there's another hearing there in Florida just to determine sort of the status of the extradition.
Once he arrived here, Boris (sic), Singletary faces a whole host of charges, although authorities say that there is still an open investigation, and there could be more, including four counts of attempted murder.
SCIUTTO: Dianne Gallagher, thanks so much.
And you know, I always look at this poor little girl's face and that scar there from the bullet fragment to show just what the shooting was.
Brianna? BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Let's go now, right to the White House,
where President Biden is speaking about building healthy communities and also the environment.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I announced that I'm going to ask Congress for $500 million to protect the Amazon deforestation and get other countries to do said the same.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: It's an irreplaceable resource that the whole planet depends on. But to lead the world, we have to start here at home.
My first week as president, I signed an executive order directing my administration to take sweeping action to tackle the climate crisis.
And we set a historic goal to direct 40 percent -- direct 20 percent of the overall benefits of all federal investment in climate change to clean air, clean water, clean transit and more to communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation.
With your support, we're living up to that pledge through are just for Justice 40 initiative. We passed --
(CHEERING)
BIDEN: We passed the bipartisan infrastructure law to modernize our roads, bridges, ports, airports and so much more, replacing every single lead pipe in America because we think everyone should be able to turn on the faucet at home -
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: -- or the 400,000 schools and drink clean water.
Property school districts across the country electrify their school buses so kids don't have to breathe polluted air from diesel exhaust.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Across Appalachian and the Great Plains for plugging the so- called orphan wells, which admit methane, which is significantly more dangerous and toxic than anything else that comes out of the ground. More dangerous gasses, poisoning air and water in rural communities.
[14:35:01]
We're delivering clean water, clean sanitation to millions of families. We're cleaning up toxic pollution, including brown fields and superfund sites, which have been a blight on communities for decades.
The vice president wanted to be here today, but she's in Florida announcing investments we're making to strengthening infrastructure in coastal areas that are vulnerable to storms.
But together --
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: -- together we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes the most significant investment in dealing with climate change ever anywhere in the history of the world, literally, not figuratively.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: $370 billion investment, which will reduce annual carbon emissions by one billion tons in 230 -- 2030.
And folks, for example, it offers working families $1000 a year in savings for Friday rebates for to buy new efficient appliances, weatherize their homes, get tax credits for purchasing heat pumps and rooftop solar, and energy efficient ovens, dryers, and so much more.
It provides tax credits for electric vehicles, new and used, because we're convinced -- we convinced the auto companies on this lawn out here a year and a half ago to move to all electric vehicles in the near term.
It's a gigantic game changer. And that's not all. The Inflation Reduction Act also is the most significant law in U.S. history when it comes to environmental justice.
Here's just one example. Air pollution around ports. Folks who live near ports know air pollution can be extreme because all trucks and all the vehicles moving goods in and out of ports and on the backs of ships are polluting the air significantly.
Well, the Inflation Reduction Act includes major investments in adopting clean heavy duty trucks and clean port equipment. And folks, it's going to make a real difference for families who live near those ports.
We're investing --
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: We're investing in air quality centers in communities near factories, so people who live near them can know what the risk is and how safety area is.
Because we know historically redlined communities are literally hotter because there's more pavement, fewer trees, so we're planning millions of new trees to cool down our city streets.
And we're also making major investments in clean energy in disadvantaged communities to lower energy costs and create good paying jobs.
Brenda was recently in Houston, where we're building a solar farm on the site of a former landfill right in the middle of a neighborhood. (APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: Another example. What's good for the environment is also good for jobs. And a thank you.
And these are the kinds of projects for funding all across the --
KEILAR: President Biden there speaking on the environment and building healthy communities. He will be on his way here shortly to Camp David ahead of his expected announcement Tuesday that he is running for reelection.
And we'll be right back here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:42:25]
KEILAR: It sounds like the plot of a blockbuster movie. Kind of like a sequel to the Italian job maybe.
Investigators are stumped after thieves at Toronto's International Airport stole a shipping container full of gold and other valuables worth more than $15 million. So far, they've gotten away with it.
CNN's Tom Foreman is with us now.
How are police saying that this all went down?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does sound like a movie because they're saying this plane landed on Monday evening. This stuff was taken off the plane in a -- in a container they described as five square feet.
I don't know if they mean five linear feet or five cubic feet. Different sized containers. But then the container went missing.
Listen to their description.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN DUIVESTEYN, INSPECTOR, PEEL REGIONAL POLICE: Well, our investigators have got their eyes opened all avenues, so we really don't want to be making an error and sort of focus on one particular area. We're keeping a broad outlook on it. So we're looking at all angles on how this item was going missing.
So for me to come on the record and say it's professional at this time would be really, really early for me, and I would be hesitant to say such a thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: There's your Italian job reference, or is it a professional job? The truth is, this is somebody had to know something to know that it's
inside the container. Canada is the third-largest gold producer in the world. We know there was gold inside. We know there's some other -- other things have some kind of value.
And we also know that's a very big airport. This airport describes itself as 12,500 hockey arenas in space. Maybe it's easier to think about it as 100,000 curling rings.
(LAUGHTER)
FOREMAN: But the bottom line is it's a lot of space.
(CROSSTALK)
FOREMAN: There's a lot of cargo handled here every day. Millions of people coming and going from this airport. It's a big challenge to figure out what happened.
They haven't said anything about security video. But you've got to know there must be some there.
KEILAR: Yes.
FOREMAN: And that will help them figure out what happened to this container.
And then where it is now, they're not even saying whether they think it's necessarily even in the country still and that could complicate it even more.
KEILAR: It is quite a mystery.
FOREMAN: Yes.
KEILAR: Tom Foreman, thank you for that.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: I look forward to watching that in theaters someday.
Another kind of heist now. Attorney generals in more than a dozen states plus D.C. are calling for a recall of Hyundai and Kia vehicles because of an unprecedented spike in theft.
From 2011 to 2022, both companies failed to include anti-theft systems in their vehicles. An alarming new trend on TikTok is shining a light on just how easy it is to steal these cars. All it takes is a USB cord.
CNN's Pete Muntean is here with us now.
[14:45:01]
And, Pete, thieves are making viral videos of themselves stealing these cars and then going on joyrides. PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That is why these attorneys general are sending this letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to say there needs to be a mandatory recall on these cars because this is too big of a problem.
"Too easy to steal" is what the headline of the letter is 10 pages. I have it right here. And it essentially says that these Hyundais and Kias can be stolen using just a USB cord, like you mentioned. And a screwdriver.
So not very hard to do. And people are posting this over and over again on TikTok.
This is a problem really coast to coast, the attorneys general say. And this is such a big deal in L.A. because there 85 percent was the increase of these car thefts last year in just the city of L.A.
And 20 percent of all cars. That is what these Hyundais and Kias made up. So we're talking one in five car thefts were these Hyundais and Kias.
It's a huge deal there and in places across the country. And we're talking, if there was a recall here, it would be really big, 3.8 million. Hyundai's, a 4.5 million Kias. So a grand total of eight 0.3 million cars.
But you can see why the manufacturers are reluctant to do this because this would be so huge in scope and they don't really want to admit much in the way of fault here.
Hyundai is saying, essentially, we're doing this voluntary campaign. We're trying to put out these software updates for these cars. But these attorneys general just say simply, not enough, and the feds need to step in here and go a little bit further.
The issue, though, is that they say this is really a law enforcement issue. This involves car thefts. This is not necessarily a car problem, they say.
So, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says they're going to continue monitoring this, although they're just trying to stay not involved just yet. A bit of a laissez faire approach.
SANCHEZ: Each side, pointing the finger at each other, saying the other is to blame. If you're a Hyundai or Kia driver, you've got to be sweating right now watching this.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: I hope we don't get any mean tweets.
MUNTEAN: Not as high stakes as Tom Foreman said.
(CROSSTALK)
MUNTEAN: But it's a big deal still. (CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Pete Muntean, thank you so much.
Jim?
SCIUTTO: All right. Next hour. The NFL takes action against players for violating its gambling policy, including three suspended indefinitely now for betting on games in the 2022 seasons. How their teams are reacting, next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:51:57]
SCIUTTO: Now to the race to save our planet. And we are still racing. Scientists say that cutting back on fossil fuels is no longer enough to reverse climate change.
So over the next 25 years, the data shows we have to actually pull billions of tons of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere out.
There are multiple ways to do this, but they are all either newly developed or still in development.
In Sunday's "WHOLE STORY," hosted by Anderson Cooper, CNN's chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir, takes a look at some of the proposed solutions, including one by a CEO named Marty Odlin. He runs a company called Running Tide.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While he was studying robotic engineering at Dartmouth and earth systems at Columbia, he realized a man-made monster was destroying his beloved Gulf of Maine, warming it up at a rate now faster than 95 percent of the rest of the world.
MARTY ODLIN, CEO, RUNNING TIDE: It's a Godzilla. There's a thing out there, and it's like ruining everything that we love. Right? All the good stuff is getting ruined, all the stuff that's free and fun.
It's burning forests down. It's stealing our fish. It's devastating our crops. It's hurting our farmers. Get mad and go, go kill that thing, right?
WEIR: And right there on a dock in Maine, Marty's metaphor is a lightbulb moment for me, a whole new way to think about a giant problem that began when people figured out how to move lots and lots of carbon, that stuff of ancient life.
From the slow cycle locked in rock and under oceans into the fast cycle in the sea water and the sky. And we've moved so much carbon that monster now weighs a trillion tons, give or take, more than every living thing on earth. So not only do we have to stop making the monster bigger. We have to
catch it, chop it up and bury the pieces back into these slow cycle with something called carbon removal.
ODLIN: Removal is chopping Godzilla down. We got this 400-foot-tall lizard, and we're just chopping that thing down. That's what removal is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: CNN's Bill Weir joins me now.
Bill, I have to say the carbon capture is always sounded a little bit to me, well, one, lazy. It's always like I just put it up there. We'll get it out later. But also to a little a little bit of fantasy that we could pull that off.
You're saying this is necessary now. We have no choice. What are we going to learn on Sunday?
WEIR: Well, it's -- yes, for a long time, it's been resisted by environmentalists. They say that's just a fig leaf for oil companies to keep drilling and burning as usual right now.
But, no, it is necessary. All the science says we have to do this and create a whole industry, a trillion-dollar industry in reverse.
And so you've got entrepreneurs, from Marty, who uses the power of kelp and oysters, marine -- sort of accelerating the Marine cycles.
Some want to recede the oceans with artificial whale poo, which brings back marine biomass, which draws down more carbon. There are machines to pull it out of the air, injected into rock.
[14:55:01]
Just in this hour, the Biden administration we have news is going to try tough new regulations on gas-fired power plants. That kind of regulation could spur big oil into getting into the game earnestly with the kind of earnestness that you see from guys like Marty there as well.
But we also get into the people proposing that it's time to start thinking about maybe spraying the upper stratosphere with the natural materials to create shade and buy time. That's how dire the situation is right now.
But there's a lot of hopeful ideas in this hour. And it's great to see people taking action, even as things seem so dire.
SCIUTTO: No question. And it is good to have hope, right? Because we got -- we got to do something. And you always tell us what it is we got to do.
Bill Weir, thanks so much. And you can't catch Bill Weir's full report in "THE WHOLE STORY, How to Unscrew the Planet" this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. "THE WHOLE STORY," a new weekly program on CNN, hosted by Anderson Cooper. One "WOLE STORY," one whole hour.
SANCHEZ: In just a few hours, a deadline for a case with huge implications for the entire country. A Supreme Court decision could drop at any moment on access to the country's most commonly used abortion pill. We're tracking the potential impacts next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
