Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Biden, McCarthy Reach Debt Ceiling Deal; Children's Deplorable Living Conditions in Pennsylvania; Texas Attorney General Impeached; Ukraine Downed 11 Missiles Launched by Russia over Kyiv; Increased Attacks on Kyiv; Interview with Representative Adam Smith (D-WA); House Expected to Vote on Debt Limit Deal; China Set to Launch Three Astronauts to Fully Operational Space Station; Venice's Grand Canal Turns Green; Uganda President Passing Extreme Anti-LGBTQ Law; Turkey's Historic Election; Flying Tire Avoid Indy 500 Crowd; Gunfire on Board North Carolina Bus; Boston Celtics beat Miami Heat; Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 29, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: -- one week from today. Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: This morning, two parents in Pennsylvania are facing multiple felonies, their seven children were found living in what police are describing as just deplorable living conditions. The refrigerator in the home padlocked and the children living with dozens of rats. CNN's Brynn Gingras, she's got more details on this as it's coming in.

I mean, there's a lot here. And, Brynn, the mom is actually defending herself in all of this. What's happening?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. According to police she said that they were garbage disposals with legs, if you can believe that. And yes, there are so much to uncover here. Basically, let me back up and tell you how police came to this house.

It's in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And essentially, what we've learned is that police arrived to a call, basically there were teenagers rummaging through a mobile home in the area, they determined that these teenagers actually lived next door at a different mobile home. They didn't sound right, they didn't look right, they had ill- fitting clothes. They connected with the parents, that's when they went inside their home, found that refrigerator with a padlock on it. Found there was barely food inside. There was feces on the ground. It was just a pretty disgusting scene for these police.

They actually left that scene, you know, connecting these teenagers with their parents, then returned back with the state children services and uncovered four kid four more kids inside the home hidden in the back -- bedroom. Seven kids in all, ages four through 16.

And basically, they said they were malnourished, they didn't have any education, didn't even know their own birthdays. They were all taken into the state custody. These parents whose names are Shane William Robertson and Crystal Robertson charged with endangering the welfare of all seven of these kids actually posted bond (ph). But the goodness here is the kids are now in the care of the state and are getting actually the nutrition that they need. Some of them have actually gained some had weight. But just a horrific scene that they uncovered here in Bucks County.

BOLDUAN: A horrific scene and a very long road ahead at getting justice --

GINGRAS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- and also, caring for these poor children.

GINGRAS: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for staying on top of that, Brynn.

GINGRAS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: Right. This morning, political turmoil in Texas. The Republican-led House there voted to impeach the state's Republican attorney general. And now, by law, he's suspended from his job until the Senate trial. Just minutes after the vote, the attorney general, Ken Paxton, called the impeachment a political motivated sham. But remember, this was a Republican-led effort. Ken Paxton, a third term Republican, has been accused of a years' long pattern of corruption.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is joins us. Ed, this is like upheaval in Texas. Where does it go now?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the politics of this, extremely rich, John. But that vote was decisive on Saturday afternoon. 121 house representatives to 23 voted to impeach the Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. And now, this case moves to the State Senate side where the math becomes a little more difficult. There are 31 state senators in Texas, 12 of them are Democrats. One of them is the wife of Ken Paxton.

And so, they would need nine Republicans to vote with those Democrats, assuming that all the Democrats vote to convict Ken Paxton for him to be removed from office. But Ken Paxton is facing 20 articles of impeachment, which include a long litany of abuse of power, bribery, among other charges that House representatives are filing against the attorney general.

But what is interesting is that Ken Paxton, even though he is one of the most controversial politicians here in the state, he does have the support of extreme right-wing Republicans here in the state and especially, he has the support of Former President Donald Trump who tweeted support for him over the weekend before the vote was cast. And even Trump is going after the Republican governor here in Texas, Greg Abbott, saying missing in action. Where is the governor of Texas on all of this?

Of course, really, right now, there is not much for Abbott to do other than possibly appointing someone to temporarily fill Ken Paxton's seat as attorney general. But right now, John, we're waiting on when the timing of this trial in the State Senate will be. We have not heard from the lieutenant governor who presides over the State Senate and would have to set the timing for all of that.

And in other news, today is the last day of the legislative session. So, this is something that's going to happen here presumably at some point this summer or later this summer. John.

BERMAN: Yes. It's just as extraordinary. And as you said, Ed, the numbers in that House vote, I think, shocked everyone. This was a landslide vote to impeach. I get it. The Senate is a different place where we'll watch his wife's vote very carefully. But it will be telling to see what the numbers say there.

Ed Lavandera, keep us posted. Thank you very much. Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, Ukraine had said that it has downed 11 missiles launched by Russia over Kyiv today. The unusual daytime attacks sent residents rushing to shelter, including a group of children that we'll show you running down the sidewalk to try to get to safety.

[09:35:00]

And it also came just hours after an overnight bombardment on Ukraine's capital and also followed a weekend of brutal attacks. Ukraine said that its air defenses have shot down more than 60 of those missiles and drones aimed at the city, though one person was killed Sunday from falling debris and another person injured in today's attacks.

Joining me now for much more on this Democratic congressman from Washington, Adam Smith. He's a top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thank you so much for coming in.

You know, one thing that people have been watching for and waiting for is the long awaited and promised counteroffensive from Ukraine to begin. Now, seeing this rare kind of daytime aerial attack from Russia over Kyiv, do you think that the counteroffensive, from your perspective and everything that you're read on, the counteroffensive should have -- should already be under way?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA), RANKING MEMBER, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Well, I don't know about already. It is definitely imminent. And also, you know, the Ukrainians have also stepped up their attacks in Mariupol, in another occupied portions of Ukraine by the Russians already. So, it's probably coming soon and I think that's why Russia is launching these attacks. Well, there's really two reasons.

One, you know, they're desperate to try to disrupt that counteroffensive. And also, the Ukrainian air defenses have been incredibly successful. So, Russia is poking and prodding with the daytime attack, with the drones, they're trying to mix up their attack so that those air defenses are not as successful.

But overall, it just really underscores the brutality of what Russia is doing to Ukraine and the necessity of supporting Ukraine and being able to take their country back.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's a really interesting perspective in connecting those dots. Congressman, I want to ask you also happening and very importantly happening in Washington right now is this deal that was struck over the debt ceiling between Kevin McCarthy and President Biden over the weekend. What is your reaction to the agreement and the details that are coming out?

SMITH: Well, the dominant thing is I think President Biden did the best he could in a very difficult set of circumstances. Because understand, this is basically a budget deal. This is something we do in Congress every single year. The discretionary portion of the budget expires on October 1st. That's the fiscal year. So, roughly between April and October, we're negotiating over that.

And in this case, you've got Republicans controlling the House, Democrats controlling the White House, and as always, I like to say, nobody controlling the Senate. Well, with the 60-vote requirement there. So, it's a tough negotiation.

What Republicans did this time is they took the debt ceiling hostage, which is an unbelievably irresponsible thing to do. There are plenty of incentives for the budget deal. If we get to October 1st, as we've seen in the past, we have government shutdowns, we have continuing resolutions, we negotiate and haggle over how to get that resolved.

The Republicans took debt ceiling hostage. And the president was absolutely right, that shouldn't happen. But he was also absolutely right that they did it. So, he had to deal with it. And he dealt with it, I think, in the most responsible way possible to cut what was basically a deal that we would have cut sometime between now and October 1st anyway given the Republican control of the House and how we had to negotiate. So, like I said, I think that the president did the best he could in tough circumstances.

BOLDUAN: But at the same time, I mean, when you consider where this started, which was the president and all Democrats saying that there's nothing to negotiate here because, as we know, Republicans have agreed to clean debt ceiling increases in the past and many times before. And where -- and that is where this began, the president saying, we will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. And then, given that as a starting point and where things have ended up, do you see this as a loss?

SMITH: No. I mean, there's two separate things. Look, there was always a lot to negotiate on the budget, OK?

BOLDUAN: Right.

SNOW: We had to negotiate that. Again, it expires October 1st. And we're supposed to pass appropriations bills. I mean, in days gone by, and I was there back in the '90s when this happened, we would resolve the budget in April and then, we would, you know, negotiate the appropriations bills. That always had to be negotiated.

The only thing that was different is this time the Republicans, you know, in an act of basically legislative terrorism, took of the full faith and credit of the United States hostage. The president was absolutely right, that shouldn't be on the table. And he was right to say, look, we shouldn't be doing this. But after a certain point, the Republicans said, well, whether we should or shouldn't, we're doing it. And the president rightly didn't want the Republicans to shoot this particular hostage being basically the U.S. economy and probably the global economy. So, he had no choice to use those budget negotiations within this context.

And then, I don't know (INAUDIBLE). I guess he could have said, no, we're not going to do it, and just watch the whole thing default, but President Biden is actually a sensible responsible leader. I know, as you were just reporting from Texas, that's a weird thing to consider these days, but that's what President Biden is doing and I think that he did it in a reasonable and intelligence way.

[09:40:00]

BOLDUAN: Do you -- really quick. Do you think this is a done deal? I mean, it's a done deal agreement between the two of them. Do you think this is done or do you think there's any room that this could still get blown up with -- I mean, we don't need to go into all of the machinations of differing motivations on Capitol Hill right now?

SMITH: Well, a big cliche, you know, it's not over until it is over. But I think, you know, I've seen the Republican leadership, you know, they are strongly for it. I think it likely gets the votes. I'm not in love with some aspects of the permitting reform that was included in this, but again, you know, default is right around the corner and from a budget deal perspective, anyone paying attention to this, this is about where we were going to be given how the House, the Senate and the White House are controlled right now. So, I think passage is highly likely, I would put it that way.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time.

SMITH: Thanks, Kate. Appreciate the chance.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. John.

BERMAN: A historic day in space, but not for the United States. So, who else is setting up camp in orbit?

And a world-famous canal in Venice turns green. What's behind all of this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:00]

BERMAN: In a few hours, China is set to launch three astronauts to its fully operational space station. The flight will include the first crew member who has not been a member of the armed forces there. They will man the space station until November and perform two docking missions.

Officials in Venice have launched an investigation into why the city's famous Grand Canal turned that fluorescent shade of green. So far, they do not think it is toxic. They say it could be some kind of a tracing agent, the kind of stuff that's normally used in small quantities to find water leaks. It's not clear if that's the case, how such a big quantity would have ended up in the canal.

The president of Uganda has approved a new law that would create some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws in the world. It criminalizes sex education for the gay community and calls for widely discredited conversion therapy. It also makes it illegal to not to report perpetrators of a new category of crime called aggravated homosexuality that is punishable by death. Civil rights groups are already preparing to challenge the law in court. Kate.

BOLDUAN: And President Biden and other world leaders are congratulating Turkey's incumbent President Erdogan who has just won a historic third term. This was a highly contested and closely watched runoff election, and a campaign that drew out then for weeks. Erdogan now enters his third decade as leader of Turkey.

CNN's Nada Bashir has the very latest for us from Istanbul.

Nada, this is clearly a huge moment for Turkey, but it's also being closely watched by leaders all over the globe.

NADA BASHIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL REPORTER: Absolutely, Kate.. And this election result will have far reaching consequences. Turkey is a key NATO ally. It is an influential power broker in the region. Of course, its relations with the U.S. government are of importance to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

And in the past, we have seen tensions between the two nations, the two allies. We've seen the U.S. government taking issue, for example, with Turkey's decision to purchase Russian-made air defense systems and in turn, Turkey has, of course, had tensions with Kurdish fighting groups allied to the U.S. that Turkey considers to be terrorist organizations. So, there are certainly challenges to overcome there if those relations are set to be reset between Turkey and the Biden administration.

We've heard from Biden, as you mentioned, congratulating President Erdogan yesterday. He took to Twitter to say that he looks forward to continuing to work together as NATO allies on bilateral issues and shared global challenges. And of course, Turkey has, over the last year or so, become a key player, a key negotiator in the war in Ukraine.

We heard from President Erdogan actually speaking to CNN exclusively talking about his relationship with President Putin, he described this as a special relationship, often of course at odds with the views of Turkey's own NATO allies. But we have seen Turkey positioning itself as a sort of mediator, again, in the past when it came to potential peace negotiations, as we saw with the grain deal secured by Turkey and the United Nations. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Nada, it's great to have you there. Thank you.

Coming up for us, wild moments at the Indy 500. A fire flying off one of the cars flying over the stands. What happened next, that's straight ahead.

And also, later, terrifying moments aboard a bus in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bus driver and a passenger start shooting at each other. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:00]

BERMAN: All right. This morning, new video shows the incredible moment from the Indy 500. There was a crash, you can see it right there, and a tire flies off of the car over the crowd and into the actual parking lot. It apparently hit a fan's car in said parking lot. Thankfully, no one was hurt. CNN's Carolyn Manno watching this video with us right now.

You know, explain what happened there? Oh, my gosh. Look at that.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, this is a reminder, John, of the ever-present danger that exist in this sport when these cars are eclipsing 200 miles an hour. Now, for spectators, that danger is normally a good length distance away. And there is a netting there. But in this case, you see Felix Rosenqvist's car going into the wall. That was just enough time for Kyle Kirkwood to just touch him a bit and his rear tire just spun out.

Luckily, the tire went over the spectators and landed in the parking lot. And when it did land in the parking lot, it did some pretty significant damage there to the car that it ended up on, which is, you know, just kind of underscores how dangerous this is. I mean, spectators could have been really harmed. Kirkwood was OK. Everybody watching was OK. But the woman whose car this is said that she was also really surprised by how this all unfolded.

BERMAN: Well, when you go to like a Little League Baseball game, you know not to park in foul territory, right, because the ball is going to come and hit your windshield. I don't think you think about it at the Indy 500. That's' just remarkable.

All right. Carolyn, somewhere Derek Jeter is the thinking, oh, my God, finally, I'm not going to be the only one to blow 3-0 lead to a Boston team. Jeter maybe vindicated tonight.

MANNO: You think that. You know, I honestly -- and I don't even know why I'm previewing this game when I'm standing here next to you and you could probably do it for us, the diehard Celtic that you are. I don't have a feel for who is going to come out victorious here.

I am not surprised that the Celtics have clawed their way back into the series and put themselves in position to win this game seven and make history. They're the top seed in the conference for a reason. They have lacked a lot of discipline. There have been defensive lapses, there have been mistakes that have been made, uncharacteristic decisions that have really cost them down the stretch.

[09:55:00]

That being said, they've been able to string it together the last couple of games and they're riding this momentum from this incredible game six with this put-back at the buzzer.

BERMAN: By Derrick White right there.

MANNO: Right there. Now, they need to forget about that. I mean, that was --

BERMAN: I'm never going to forget about that. Ever.

MANNO: This is -- now, you're allowed to remember it until the end of time, but right now, they need to dial in and focus because if Jimmy Butler can rebound from the past couple of games where he hasn't really scored as much as we're used to seeing, then they could really present a problem. I'm not sure that this thing is not over yet, but it's entirely possible that the Celtics could be in the finals.

BERMAN: You know, either team. I have to tell you, I've watched that video like 30 times of Derrick White putting in the buzzer beater, and I still am not convinced he made it. At least when I was watching it real-time. I didn't he got it in time.

MANNO: We don't have enough have time to get into the clock conspiracy theories, did he, didn't he? I mean, it was just a remarkable finish, and that's where it stands right now. 8:30 tonight. Everybody will be watching.

BERMAN: Go Celtics. Go Celtics.

MANNO: I can't. I can't because I am unbiased, but you can say it.

BERMAN: You're a good reporter. Me.

BOLDUAN: Completely shoddy reporter.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Clearly. I mean, I'm not as good (ph) in this game and I can't wait to watch it. It's going to be fantastic to see how this plays out tonight.

Coming up for us on "CNN News Central," Biden and McCarthy come together and strike a deal. Can they convince get enough of their own members to sign on and avoid a debt default? That is the question this hour. We'll take you back to Capitol Hill.

Plus, a nationwide shortage of lifeguards is forcing communities to really rethink how they can keep swimmers safe this summer. Stay with us. [10:00:00]