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Supreme Court Decision On Next Step For Abortion Pill Due Today; Russia Accidentally Bombs Own City, Leaves 65-Foot Crater; NATO Chief Reaffirming Ukraine Will Eventually Join Alliance; McCarthy Calls On Biden To Negotiate On Debt Limit. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 21, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:46]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A consequential decision at any moment, the Supreme Court could rule whether the most commonly used abortion bill should be wiped from pharmacy shelves. It's a precedent that could alter abortion access across the country, including in states where it's legal.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: A self-inflicted wound for Vladimir Putin, Russia mistakenly bombs a city of more than 400,000 of its own people leaving a massive crater, blowing a car all the way onto a roof. It comes as Ukraine is making gains, NATO reaffirming that Kyiv will soon join the alliance and the U.S. says it will begin training Zelenskyy's soldiers on those powerful U.S. Abrams tanks that could be on the front lines by summer.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, extensive notes, new details on what could have motivated the Louisville bank shooter. Remember, he killed five of his co-workers in that massacre. We'll talk about what police found at the gunman's home and we're following all these stories and more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTER.

KEILAR: At any moment, the Supreme Court could issue a decision on the abortion pill that may send shockwaves throughout the nation. It's not the final call on the pill, but it could restrict the way that many women get abortions or treat miscarriages, including in states where abortion is legal. That is all of the purple that you see in our map here.

The court set a deadline of 11:59 pm Eastern to issue a decision on the next step for this drug Mifepristone. It's the most widely used drug for medication abortion. And the justices are expected to rule on whether to let lower court rulings stand in the interim as this case moves forward. And that could mean some big restrictions taking effect.

They include reducing the window of getting the drug to women who are seven weeks pregnant versus 10 weeks pregnant, changing the dosage to 600 milligrams from 200 and requiring an in-person visit by the patient in which the doctor only could administer this drug. And it could also ban the use of the generic version of Mifepristone. Joining us now, we have CNN Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider and CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams who's a former federal prosecutor.

Thank you, guys, for being with us. Jessica, take us through the options here that the justices were looking at.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There are a number of options here, Brianna, including the Supreme Court fast tracking this and taking up this case. But really, as I see it, the two big options here are extending this stay while the appellate process plays out below.

If they did that, none of these restrictions would go into effect. It would remain status quo, women would continue being able to take this pill as they have in the weeks and months and years past. However, if the Supreme Court doesn't extend the stay, either all or some of these restrictions that you just mentioned, would go into effect. And it would really change the way that this pill is administered. Women might have a harder time getting it, a harder time seeing doctors, because that would be a requirement here.

KEILAR: Yes. I mean, there would be more need to see doctors, right, and the demand would go up. You, Elliot, traced this current situation that we are in here, right, with the lower level judges, in particular, this Texas judge, to the success that former President Trump had in nominating and confirming justices.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's historic success. Right now between, I think, a quarter and a third of the entire federal bench is judges put on the bench by former President Trump, which is remarkable, even in the history of all the presidents, but also given that President Trump only served for one term as president.

So what ended up happening here was, number one, you had a trial judge in Amarillo, where litigants knew they could go to that court and be guaranteed that judge for the outcome they wanted. Then an appeals court that was likely to end up with a favorable ruling, and frankly, a Supreme Court also - where a third of them are former President Trump appointees.

It's an astonishing success on the part of the former president working in concert with Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate. And this is what happens when federal courts go a certain way.

[15:05:00]

And I think you're seeing now the Biden administration really prioritizing, putting judges on. But as you see, there's a big fight happening in the Senate over the seat of one senator, Dianne Feinstein, which is going to have an impact on the Biden administration's opportunity to put their own judges on, but it's a big deal.

KEILAR: Yes. You see why it matters so much.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: Jessica, this is a bit of an interim decision, but no matter what, I mean, if the justices here do something other than that first big option, you mentioned, just sort of keeping the status quo, aren't they setting a big precedent when it comes to the FDA and allowing the bench to meddle in FDA approval for drugs, because obviously there's all kinds of drugs, birth control, other forms of abortion medication.

SCHNEIDER: Well, that's a big concern from the FDA drug manufacturers, that if these judges or justices start messing with their approval process in this way, it could really upend the way that drugs are approved and the whole process.

However, I will note, this is just an interim measure. The Fifth Circuit set those restrictions out. They were stayed by the Supreme Court. But all of this - and whatever the Supreme Court does - will be an interim measure, while the underlying issue here plays out in the lower courts as to whether the approval process was proper by the FDA.

So in terms of setting precedent, it doesn't totally set precedent until the other courts hear this case, but it would have a huge chilling effect in the drug industry.

KEILAR: The judge that those plaintiffs were looking for that you mentioned, the Texas judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk ...

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: ... he was confirmed, right? He had a confirmation process. Part of that is mentioning where you have appeared in the press and he failed to mention - CNN's KFILE has uncovered a couple of appearances in 2014 that he made and here is part of one of those.

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JUDGE MATTHEW KACSMARYK, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS: People who experience the same sex attraction are not responsible individually or solely for the atmosphere of the sexual revolution. It's a long time coming. It came after no-fault divorce. It came after we implemented very permissive policies on contraception.

KEILAR: Does anything come of that?

WILLIAMS: No. It - look, I think it probably looks bad for the judge. But the - it's a recognition of the fact that judges came onto the bench, expressing political views that frankly got them appointed. And this was sort of the point we were talking about before, where the politicization of the federal courts.

It's really hard to get a judge sanctioned or removed. There would have to be serious misconduct or like a conflict of interest or something like that. But I think as a general matter, the judiciary appearing to look political and appearing to sort of endorse policy outcomes that litigants are pushing. I don't think it looks great for the judiciary or the country generally.

KEILAR: No, it doesn't. Jessica, Elliot, thank you so much to both of you. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, a violent explosion overnight. I mean, just look at the video here as it happened, a car driving over the street. This is in Belgorod, Russia, near the Ukrainian border, not a strike from Ukrainian forces, but a Russian fighter jet striking Russian territory.

You can see the smoke and debris flying through the air. The Kremlin says one of its own warplanes accidentally dropped a bomb right in the center of the city. Russia says it injured two people, caused this huge crater, 65 feet wide, as you can see there.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in eastern Ukraine.

Nick, I mean, it's notable that the Kremlin is acknowledging this, not trying to blame Ukraine, for instance, one, does that surprise you? And what exactly are Russian officials saying?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I suppose it's less embarrassing, perhaps to admit that your own plane accidentally dropped a bomb in your own territory than it is to suggest that maybe the people you used to think you could conquer in three days managed to attack your own territory and caused this kind of damage.

But it is startling to learn that an SU-34 jet piloted by two Russian pilots perhaps accidentally dropped this munition or incorrectly targeted their own city of hundreds of thousands of people. The damage caused there are enormous visually, but actually a loss of human life none, two people injured, one woman suffered a head trauma, another lacerations that were treated on the scene.

Some damage certainly to the apartment block there and it could have been catastrophic, frankly for just a matter of feet, even closer to that building. But for many Ukrainians observing this is yet another example of the indiscriminate, inaccurate, inept use of heavy munitions by the Russian military. Often it's been landing here in Ukraine to hit civilians, and so a rare moment in which that firepower is accidentally, it seems, turned on Russia itself.

In fact, we were in a basement in one of the cities on the front line, and the only outside connection the people in there had was one radio in which they've heard the news of this blast and said it was the best thing they'd heard since the war began. Obviously, cold comfort here. Any loss of life is awful.

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But a clear example, again, that the Russian military long-fated as being something the third most powerful military in the world is increasingly exposing how poorly it's functioning in the most basic of tasks. And this either a jet mistakenly targeting over a long distance, something inside its own borders or just dropping a very powerful bomb, a startling example of that, Jim, as the war gets into its second year. SCIUTTO: Yes. Perhaps a standoff weapon here. They had to fire from Russian territory, because this is notable as well, that they cannot fly safely over Ukrainian airspace because of Ukrainian air defenses. Good to have you there, Nick. Please keep you and your team safe. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Meantime, NATO is giving its clearest assurances yet that Ukraine will join the military alliance, the very thing that Russia claims it was trying to prevent when it launched the invasion.

Let's get straight to CNN's Oren Liebermann, who's live for us at the Pentagon.

And Oren, the NATO Secretary General made clear that Ukraine's future is in NATO and the Russian Foreign Ministry is responding. What are they saying?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Russia responding quite angrily to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg when he was in Kyiv, in Ukraine, saying that the future of Ukraine is in NATO as part of the Alliance. Russia's foreign ministry issued this statement, short but angry.

"Such statements," the Foreign Ministry said, "are short-sighted and downright dangerous. This can lead to the final collapse of the European security system." A bit of an exaggeration there coming from the Russians who have predicted their own victory before. We, of course, have seen that not happen, as well as predicting problems with Europe.

And we've seen Europe and NATO remain united after more than a year of war here. It's also worth pointing out that Finland just joined NATO, nearly doubling NATO's border with Russia. So you've seen NATO expand ostensibly at least for Russia. This was a war about - in response to NATO's expansion.

They viewed and claimed this was in response to NATO growing closer to its own borders and yet you see NATO growing more united in response. Of course, the key timeline - the key question, I should say is the timeline with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, asking, when will this happen and how long will it take. That's a process that may not move very quickly, even if Stoltenberg promises this is what the future may look like.

SANCHEZ: Oren, a very key point of the question over the timeline is whether Ukraine can join if there are Russian forces on its territory, because obviously Article 5 is important context in that scenario.

LIEBERMANN: Correct. Article 5 is essentially the mutual defense part of this, an attack on one is an attack on all. So how do you have Ukraine join while they're still at war, it would immediately put NATO at war with Russia and that's why this process of bringing Ukraine into the alliance is likely to take perhaps a long time.

The war there essentially needs to come to some sort of resolution, an end to the conflict and then they can join without a war going on in the country whatever that solution looks like. So that process will take time. It's essentially a signal of support coming from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to Ukraine that even if they can't join the alliance now, the aid, the military support, the humanitarian support, that will keep on coming even as they look to the future in and the long-term, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Oren Liebermann from the Pentagon. Thank you so much, Oren. Jim?

SCIUTTO: The question would be would Western powers be willing to go to war for Ukraine. Well, coming up, sources tell CNN plans are underway for President Biden to announce a bid for a second term next week. Is that, though, what Democrats really want?

And we've learned that the gunman behind a mass shooting in Louisville earlier this month left behind two extensive notes detailing what he said were his motives. We will have those details.

Plus, a CEO is being called out after praising an employee who sold his dog so he could return to the office. Wait until you hear what he said about working moms.

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SANCHEZ: Perhaps the least surprising news of the week. He is running. CNN has learned that President Biden plans to announce his reelection campaign on Tuesday. Not exactly a shocker to beltway obsessives, but it will mark a major shift in the dynamics around the 2024 race.

Now, Democratic donors know whom to make those checks out to and Republican contenders will undoubtedly sharpen their attacks. Let's talk about the implications with two of our favorite beltway obsessives, CNN Political Director, David Chalian and CNN Chief Political Correspondent, Dana Bash.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: That's a new introduction.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Is that a compliment?

SANCHEZ: It is a compliment.

BASH: Okay. All right.

SANCHEZ: I mean, come on.

BASH: (Inaudible) with it.

SANCHEZ: David, first to you, does President Biden have the support?

CHALIAN: Well, I mean, the campaign will bear that out, of course.

SANCHEZ: Right.

CHALIAN: But where his current level of support is in our poll of polls he's at about 41 percent approval rating. And when you look at how that compares with his modern era predecessors, he's down towards the bottom. That is not where a president running for reelection wants to be.

Now, here's one (inaudible) says Ronald Reagan was at about the same place at this point in his presidency, but so two were one term presidents, Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter. So listen, we live in a time where we are polarized and Joe Biden won the White House in 2020 by a total of 44,000 votes across three states. This is going to be a hard-fought campaign. There's no doubt about that.

SANCHEZ: Dana, we have to talk about age.

BASH: Mm-hm.

SANCHEZ: I mean, it is perhaps the most consequential factor in a presidential election that we can remember, right, in terms of this specific context. Let's take a look at this graphic.

Right now, President Biden is 80 years old. President Trump is 76. By the end of the next presidential term, Biden would be 86 and Trump would be 82.

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There it is right there.

BASH: Mm-hm.

SANCHEZ: Which do you think has the advantage when it comes to convincing voters that age isn't an issue for them?

BASH: Neither. Neither, but - which is why President Biden is going to have much less of a challenge, because there's a little challenge so far in getting the Democratic nomination. But when it comes to the Republican nomination, which Donald Trump is very much in the hunt for still and will be for many, many months, the whole question of his temperament, the whole question of his history, the question of January 6, those are all big issues.

But his age is going to be another issue, because so many of those who have already declared are a generation younger than he. And so that will be a question when it comes back to President Biden. When it comes to President Biden, this was a question in the last election for him.

And what people around him acknowledge fully is that in the last election, we were in the middle of a pandemic. So he didn't have to deal with the rigors that young people have trouble with when they're running and so we'll see how that plays out.

CHALIAN: Yes. This is - again, he's the oldest person to hold the office. This is the first time we're going to see somebody in their 80s under the glare of a presidential campaign spotlight. And you talk to advisors in the White House as do I. One consistent thing, Boris, that does come up in focus groups and their research and their polling, this will be a question that hangs over the American electorate about his ability to perform this job at that age throughout the entirety of the campaign. This isn't something they're going to be able to put to rest. This is going to be with him.

SANCHEZ: Republicans have been attacking him on this since day one, right? Let's dig deeper on the Republican side and specifically, Dana, I want to ask you about Chris Christie. There are hints that he may run. He made some comments to staff that sounded like he was gearing up for a potential run. And he hasn't tiptoed around Donald Trump, let's listen to this.

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CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) FORMER NY GOVERNOR: But one of the reasons I think he can't come back is he failed us. Donald Trump is a TV star, nothing more, nothing less. A TV star. And let me suggest to you that if we put him back in the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show was.

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SANCHEZ: Very distinct from the other Republicans that try to avoid mentioning Trump at any cost. What do you make of it?

BASH: He doesn't have a choice, because remember back in the 2016 campaign, Chris Christie also ran for president and he got out of the race shortly after the New Hampshire primary when he didn't do well and spent a lot of time there. And he was the first of those contenders or competitors to endorse him.

And so - and had stuck with him through the final debate of the 2020 campaign. And then it wasn't until January 6th that he said I'm out. So he doesn't have a choice but to talk about, forgive me, the elephant in the room about Donald Trump.

The other thing that I thought was interesting about Christie's speech there was that he was very focused not just on the personal, but on the policies, talking about the fact that yes, a lot of Republican voters will say, I didn't like the drama, but I did like his policies. He argued, well, the policies, he didn't even make good on his promises, he didn't repeal Obamacare, he didn't build that wall. And so he's coming at it with both sides, the policy and the personal.

SANCHEZ: Let's talk about another Republican that has not yet announced that he's running, but we expect he likely will. And that's Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I found this fascinating, a Republican congressman, a former Republican congressman tells Politico about DeSantis and I quote, "I sat right next to Ron DeSantis for two years on the Foreign Affairs Committee and he never said a single word to me. I was new to Congress, and he didn't introduce himself, or even say hello.

David, that's a big contrast with President Trump, who's known for his personal touch. CHALIAN: Yes. And we saw this on display this week. The Trump campaign was very smart in sort of playing this out as DeSantis came to Washington this week to meet with members of the House Republican Conference. And they understood the dynamic that DeSantis was not sort of beloved as a colleague when he was there and didn't do much of the personal politicking and until they started rolling out Florida Congress - congressional endorsement - after Florida congressional endorsement, despite the fact that DeSantis was here trying to woo people.

Listen, there was a brand new poll out today in The Wall Street Journal. It showed Donald Trump is the dominant force still right at this moment in this Republican nomination race. You see there 51 percent for Trump, 38 percent for DeSantis in a two-way hypothetical matchup.

If you look at when they tested all 12, Donald Trump has doubled the level of support of Ron DeSantis. He is the dominant front runner at this point - at this juncture.

SANCHEZ: And Dana, quickly that dynamic flipped after Trump was indicted, right? DeSantis was in the lead.

BASH: That's right. And so at least as we speak, all of the predictions about how that indictment would play out have come to bear.

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He's doing better with Republican primary voters right now.

SANCHEZ: We got to leave the conversation there. We look forward to more in the future. Dana and David, thank you so much.

BASH: Good to be here.

SANCHEZ: Pleasure. Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right. Well, the 2024 presidential election is eons away compared to the looming debt ceiling deadline late summer. That's when the U.S. Treasury could run out of cash if the White House and Congress don't agree on raising the debt limit as they've done dozens of times in recent years.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has offered up his plan. Now he is calling on the White House to negotiate with him.

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): People should negotiate together, especially when you're talking about the American public. The President said he wanted a plan, we put forth a plan.

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SCIUTTO: CNN's Melanie Zanona is on Capitol Hill. So Melanie, the President and the White House basically saying here, we're not going to negotiate. This money has been passed by Congress. You have raised the debt ceiling dozens of times before. I just wonder, though, because now that some Democrats seem to be getting nervous, is the White House going to have to relent and talk here?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, Biden and senior Democratic leaders, they don't want to give up their leverage right now. They're watching to see whether Speaker Kevin McCarthy can actually pass his own plan to raise the debt ceiling. And if he isn't able to pass a bill, Democrats feel confident that they are going to have the upper hand, they are going to continue to insist that Republicans raise the debt ceiling without any conditions, which is, as we should remind viewers what they did multiple times under former President Donald Trump.

But if Kevin McCarthy is able to pass his own debt ceiling plan, well, then they might have to reassess. Democrats, at least the rank and file, privately acknowledged that the position of no negotiations is probably not sustainable and that they're going to have to solve this problem somehow.

So we're starting to pick up on a lot of anxiousness from the Democratic rank and file, but it still remains to be seen whether Kevin McCarthy can actually pass a bill that is certainly a driving force behind the GOP right now. They recognize that the onus is on them right now to prove that they are capable of unifying, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So I remember this math, because it was the same math for the House speakership, basically like he couldn't lose four votes, which is where we are right now. Can he get to those votes? What's the betting on the Hill?

ZANONA: Well, Well, they are not there yet. They do not have the 218 votes that they need. There are a number of lawmakers who are still undecided or leaning no. And it's because you have a number of groups who have concerns with this bill, they are the moderates who don't like the tighter work requirements for government assistance programs like food stamps. Then you have conservatives who are just generally sort of uneasy about the idea of raising the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

And then now we are hearing that there are some Midwestern Republicans who are worried about repealing tax subsidies for ethanol. That was something that GOP leadership decided to include in order to get conservatives on board with their plan. But now, as you can see, they're at risk of losing support from the middle.

So it really just shows the challenges in writing a plan that can unify the razor thin Republican majority. But GOP leadership, I'm told, is working through members' concerns, they're expected to work through the weekend, still pushing for a vote next week. But it is a big challenge for McCarthy and one that we are going to be watching very closely next week, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, as they say, all politics is local. You've got a lot of local interests influencing this. Melanie Zanona, thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Coming up, sources telling CNN the gunman responsible for a mass shooting in Louisville earlier this month left two extensive notes revealing his motive.

And just in, the NFL announcing it is indefinitely suspending three players. We'll tell you why.

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