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WAPO: Leaked Docs Show U.S. Talked Ukraine Out Of Moscow Attack In Feb; DOJ Joins Investigation Into Southwest's Holiday Travel Meltdown; Widow: Cruise Line Stored Husband's Body In Drinks Cooler; Schools Swap Reading Programs After Drop In Literacy Scores. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 24, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:09]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: The White House says it is not safe enough to conduct an evacuation of all private American citizens from war-torn Sudan at this time.

On Saturday, U.S. Special Forces safely evacuated just under 100 government personnel and their families after suspending all embassy operations in Khartoum. That rescue team spent less than an hour on the ground.

The secretary general of the U.N. says he has been in constants touch with the two fighting factions. Warns that the violence is continually being ignited, and it could soon engulf the entire region if those battles do not stop.

President Biden is expected to announce his campaign for re-election as soon as tomorrow. Sources say he will make it official via a video. He spent the weekend at Camp David meeting with campaign staff. Tomorrow marks four years since the president declared himself a candidate for the 2020 election.

And former Minnesota police officer, Kim Potter, was released from prison this morning. Potter, you'll remember, was convicted of two counts of manslaughter after she shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.

Potter yelled "taser" during the arrest, but she instead shot Wright with her handgun. She served about 16 months of her two-year sentence and will remain on supervised release until December -- Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Another bombshell report stemming from those leaked Pentagon documents. According to "The Washington Post," one classified NSA report shows a top Ukrainian official instructed troops to prepare for mass strikes inside Russia to coincide with the one- year anniversary of the invasion.

A later CIA documentary went out showing Washington had successfully persuaded Kyiv to scrap that planned attack.

CNN's Alex Marquardt is here now.

And, Alex, an attack like that would have been a serious escalation. Ukrainian officials are now saying that this is essentially misinformation put out to make them look immature and impulsive.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A serious escalation. That's exactly what the U.S. is worried about, provoking Vladimir Putin in a way that he would react potentially with nuclear weapons.

So, yes, we have a top Ukrainian official today dismissing this, saying "The Washington Post" piece was "conspiratorially reported."

We have a statement from a senior adviser in President Zelenskyy's office saying, "Why would there be a need for us to do this? What task would such a one-time action solve? Would it change the course of the war?"

Now some in Ukraine would argue that Ukraine striking Russia in Moscow would send a very strong message about their capabilities.

So let's break down how this essentially happened. You touched on some of it.

But these documents that "The Washington Post" has obtained, that we have not -- we haven't been able to verify -- says that, in February, in the lead up to the anniversary on February 24th, there was a national security agency document that showed -- remember, the NSA, they're in charge of eavesdropping. They were clearly listening in.

They're saying that the military intelligence directorate, which is led by this young Ukrainian general named Budanov, that they were ordered to get ready for mass strikes on February 24th on the anniversary with everything that the agency had.

Now fast forward just a few days to February 22nd, just two days before this anniversary, and there's a CIA assessment that "The Washington Post" obtained in which it says that this directorate, the military intelligence directive, had agreed at Washington's request to postpone strikes on Moscow.

Now this tells me two things. First of all, again, the U.S. has remarkable insight into the highest levels of Ukrainian intelligence and politics.

But there are still differences -- and this is the second thing -- differences between the U.S. and Ukraine about what Ukraine should be doing in terms of attacking Russia.

Of course, American officials say that everything inside the borders of Ukraine is fair game, everything in Russian-occupied Crimea is fair game, though Americans are a lot more worried about that.

But when it comes to striking inside Russia, particularly striking the Russian capital, that is something that is a lot more sensitive.

We have seen Ukraine striking inside Russia multiple times during the course of this war, including multiple attacks on air bases.

There's one famous air base called Engels that has been hit multiple times. We've seen drone activity near Moscow. But striking Moscow would take that to a much higher level.

Ukrainian officials never confirmed that they're carrying out these strikes inside Russia, but they're very coy about it. They say things like, oh, you know, Russian officials shouldn't stand too close to ammunition depots with their cigarettes lit. That kind of thing.

But this is certainly something that would be much more sensitive. The U.S. still very afraid of Ukrainian provocations that could lead to an escalation by Russia.

SCIUTTO: Yet more fallout from the Pentagon leaks.

[13:35:00]

Alex Marquardt, thank you so much.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Southwest Airlines' Christmas travel meltdown, the Justice Department is now joining the investigation into the nightmare. We'll have details ahead.

Plus Celebrity Cruises hits with a lawsuit after a passenger's body is stored in a drink cooler. We have a live report coming up.

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SANCHEZ: Remember that terrible Southwest Airlines meltdown over the holidays? That was rough. The Department of Justice hasn't forgotten either.

And just into CNN, the DOJ is now joining the investigation into that travel mess that left so, so many people stranded.

[13:40:01]

CNN's Pete Muntean is looking into this for us.

Pete, what does it mean that the DOJ is now involved here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This is taking an entirely new turn now. We knew the Department of Transportation was looking into this when it came to refunds and reimbursements for passengers. And 16,700 flights canceled over those last few weeks of December 2022.

But now that the DOJ is looking into this, that is really interesting because it essentially is a whole new layer of this investigation.

The Department of Transportation is speaking on behalf of the DOJ here. It will not say if DOJ prosecutors are getting involved here.

I want to read this statement from the Department of Transportation in which it says:

"The investigation is focused on whether Southwest engaged in unrealistic flight scheduling, which is illegal under federal law, and whether Southwest Airlines provided timely refunds and reimbursements to affected passengers as required."

Southwest has already taken a huge reputational hit here. They've lost about $850 million as a result of this. We're talking about millions of passengers, if you consider 16,700 flights, 180 people on each flight, we're talking about three million passengers left in the lurch here.

So now that the DOJ, the Department of Justice, is looking into this, we'll see if there is any sort of criminal liability that the Southwest Airlines has here.

That would be a huge, unprecedented move, something we have never seen in the industry's history.

SANCHEZ: I mean, it messed up a lot of folks' Christmases.

And quickly, we should point out Southwest had some issues last week, as well.

MUNTEAN: Yes. There was a brief ground stop imposed by Southwest because of these computer issues. Unclear if those were related to the computer issues that Southwest said it had back during the holiday travel meltdown.

The most recent one only resulted in delays. And we can pretty much tell that Southwest was trying to go out of its way to try and avoid canceling flights.

But we're talking a lot of people inconvenienced again by another Southwest issue, just not as big as what we saw over the holidays.

SANCHEZ: Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Who doesn't want a four-day road trip from Texas to D.C. with small children? That was my Christmas.

Now to some of the other headlines we are watching this hour.

A Disney World employee has just been charged with video voyeurism for recording a video under a woman's skirt without her consent. And 26- year-old

Jorge Diaz Vega told police he took over 500 such videos of women at various Disney parks over a six-year period.

Vega says he is still employed at the "Star Wars" retail store at Disney's Hollywood Studios but Disney tells CNN he is no longer with the company. Also, some wild video from Draper City, Utah, that shows houses just

sliding entirely off of a cliff. Local officials say with snowpack melting and the ground shifting, some homes' foundations had become unstable.

Luckily, no one was injured in the landslide. And engineers are evaluating remaining structures.

And the ballroom dancing world is mourning one of their modern-day icons. "Dancing with the Stars" head judge, Len Goodman, died of bone cancer. He was 78.

Goodman began his dancing career in the U.K. when he was just 19 and he taught at studios he owned before getting into television.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right. A really disturbing story now. A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises claiming the cruise line improperly stored her husband's body in the ship's drink cooler instead of the morgue. This after he died on board just last year.

CNN's Nick Valencia joins us with details.

Nick, I feel for the family. I'm trying to imagine the circumstances where this would be necessary. Do we know how this happened and what exactly the lawsuit alleges?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is one of those hard-to- believe stories, Jim, but apparently Robert Jones died of a cardiac arrest somewhere mid cruise on the Celebrity Equinox.

And his wife was given the option of whether or not she wanted to remove his body when they stopped in Puerto Rico or have his body stored, she believed, in the morgue, a working morgue on the ship. She elected to do the latter.

When the cruise finally ended, an employee with funeral services came to retrieve that body, but what they found, according to this lawsuit, was Jones' body on a bag on the floor on a palette inside of a drinks cooler.

Here's what the lawsuit went on to say here and allege:

"The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside the cooler and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead bid to prevent decomposition."

The lawsuit alleges that the body was in advanced stages of decomposition. Of course, it should have not been held in the cooler. It should have been held in that working morgue.

We did reach out to the Celebrity Cruises, which runs the Celebrity Equinox where this happened in August of 2022. They have not yet responded to CNN. Meanwhile, that lawsuit, Jim, they're seeking $1 million in damages --

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Lord, I mean, for the family, I can only imagine.

Does Celebrity Cruise have a response to all this?

VALENCIA: Yes. As I mentioned, we did reach out to this cruise ship. It's been several days, we've still not gotten a response just yet -- Jim?

[13:45:02]

SCIUTTO: Nick Valencia, well, our thoughts to the family.

Brianna, over to you.

KEILAR: One in three American children are reading below their grade level, and now some schools say the problem is so dire that they are changing the way they introduce reading to young kids. What parents need to know, ahead.

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[13:49:59]

KEILAR: One in three kids in America cannot read at a basic level of comprehension. This alarming new statistic is, according to a key national exam. And the troubling downward trend now has some schools rethinking their approach to teaching our children by going back to the basics like phonics,

CNN's Athena Jones is joining us now.

So, Athena, I mean, these statistics are quite stunning. What is behind the drops here?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It really is stunning, Brianna. And certainly some of it has to do with the pandemic learning laws, and there's been a lot of talk about that.

Because think about how difficult it is to teach the 5, 6, 7-year-olds how to read, how to -- just to teach them the basics So some of it is attributed to the pandemic.

But I have been looking into this for the last week or so, and I have been surprised by what I am learning.

That is that many of the schools across the country, and by no means all of them, but many of them have been adopting, over the last two decades, an approach to reading that is unproven and relies on the flawed theory that just not working.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREAM JAMES, 8-YEAR-OLD WHO STRUGGLED TO READ: My name is Junie B. Jones and --

JONES (voice-over): Before this school year, 8-year-old Dream James was struggling to read. Now --

DEBORAH JAMES, DREAM'S MOTHER: She's reading everything.

DREAM JAMES: I just like B and that's all.

DEBORAH JAMES: Before, it was, I can't do it, I can't spell, I can't read, too. Now it's, oh, I know how to sound this out and I know how to read this.

JONES: The third-grader at Panther Valley Elementary School in rural Pennsylvania had a hard time learning the basics of reading.

Her school had introduced a new curriculum a few years ago based on the Balanced Literacy Theory, an approach used in some classrooms nationwide for over two decades.

Rather than learning to sound out letter combinations, also called phonics, teachers focused on what's known as cueing, instructing children to use context and other clues to figure out words.

AMANDA KUSKO, THIRD GRADE TEACHER: This just explains to them what each syllable actually means.

JONES: Teacher Amanda Kusko at first embraced this new approach.

KUSKO: But then as we started kind of digging deeper and getting into the instruction, I sort of noticed something was missing.

JONES (on camera): So how did it work?

KUSKO: As they're reading, they are supposed to look at the picture. Oh, what's this word? Well, look at the picture. Do you maybe know a word part? What could that word be? What word would make sense there?

So they weren't actually reading the letters. They weren't reading the words. They were guessing.

JONES (voice-over): That didn't work.

ROBERT PALAZZO, PRINCIPAL, PANTHER VALLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: We realized very quickly that students weren't acquiring the skills to actually sound out words, to decode words, spell words. They weren't actually learning to read.

JONES: By year-end, just a quarter of Panther Valley's third-graders could read at grade level.

In fact, much of the country is facing a child literacy crisis. Just one in three fourth-graders was at or above proficiency in reading last year, with nearly four in 10 performing below basic level.

DAWN BROOKHART, AIM INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING AND RESEARCH: It's a social issue for all of us and it's an equity issue across America. JONES: But a shift is underway. Education Week reports over the last decade at least 29 states and the District of Columbia have begun to require an evidence-based approach to reading instruction.

BROOKHART: Mississippi started back in 2013 when they enacted legislation and policies around requiring teacher prep programs to base their training on the science of reading. From 2013, fast-forward to 2019, they have 10 points gain.

JONES: At Panther Valley Elementary, principal Robert Palazzo also changed course, replacing Balanced Literacy after trying it for just a year and a half.

(SHOUTING)

KUSKO: Good job. Cold.

STUDENTS: Cold.

KUSKO: Syllable?

PALAZZO: We've seen students in third grade's decoding skills, meaning sounding out words, increase from 20 percent at grade level in the beginning of the year to approximately 60 percent currently.

JONES: Dream began the year reading at a first-grade level and is now closer to a middle or end of second-grade level. She and her mother couldn't be more proud.

DEBORAH JAMES: Now, this is what she wants. This is what she likes. She loves to read. She's eager to, like, oh, I can't wait to start fourth grade. I can't wait to -- you know, to do all of it because she's not low self-esteem no more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: And that is really so important, because the kids who are struggling with reading struggle with self.

And of course, reading is a fundamental. You need to be able to read in order to do the other learning you're going to do over the course of your school career.

And now we've seen that a lot of the states, more than half, are requiring that the teachers be trained a on the students be taught with more of a focus on this proven method of what they are calling the science of reading.

That's sounding out the words and letters and letter combinations. That is the way that, for decades, research has shown works and that is what we are seeing -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Great to see Dream get back on track. And hopefully other kids will as well.

[13:55:02] Athena, thank you for the report.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: On the ground for less than an hour. U.S. Special Forces pulling off a bold evacuation of Americans in Sudan. But thousands are still trapped in the war-torn country, their lives are in jeopardy as they are waiting for rescue. What the White House is saying, when we come back.

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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