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Court Grants Sackler Family Immunity From Future Lawsuits; Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting Trial Continues; DeSantis Slams Trump; China Tensions; House Set to Vote on Debt Ceiling Bill. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 31, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: No Biden staffers have backed up her story, and Reade has since faced a number of credibility concerns. President Biden has strongly denied her allegations.

This quick programming note: Sunday night, live from Iowa. Jake Tapper moderates a CNN Republican presidential town hall with the former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. The evening kicks off Sunday 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Thanks for your time. We will see you tomorrow.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Time is running out, and the pressure is ramping up.

We are following all the developments in the House, where lawmakers are on track to vote on a bill to raise the nation's debt limit. A key vote in this race to avoid default is just over two hours away. And we're on it.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: U.S.-China tensions soaring. A Chinese fighter jet gets so close to a U.S. spy plane, it causes turbulence. The Pentagon is calling it an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver in international airspace. We will have more on this close call ahead.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And NASA tracking UFOs. The space agency holding its first ever public meeting on unidentified aerial phenomena. The truth is out there.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SCIUTTO: Heading to the House floor with no time to lose. Soon, the House will hold a critical vote on President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling deal.

With the nation barreling towards June 5, the day the Treasury Department says it will no longer be able to pay all its bills, leaders from both parties are expressing confidence the deal will get passed today. There are two significant numbers to watch; 218, that's how many votes

the bill needs to pass the House if every lawmaker is present. The other number to watch is 111. That is half the Republican membership. If the bill does not get a majority of Republican votes. Kevin McCarthy could be in trouble. Hard-line conservatives have suggested they would move to oust the speaker if the bill does not reach that threshold.

CNN's Manu Raju, he is on Capitol Hill.

Manu, I know both parties have been counting heads on this deal. I'm sure -- I'm sure they're hard at it. Do they believe, do Democrats and Republicans believe they have the votes?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They do. And they believe that, actually, it could pass by a comfortable margin tonight.

I just spoke with a very upbeat House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who indicated that he is confident. He believes that they will have a majority of House Republicans who will support this bill. Now, that is not going to be enough in order to get this over the finish line. They will need Democratic support as well.

And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, behind closed doors, urging Democrats to get behind this bill and expecting that a sizable number of Democrats will eventually push this over the finish line.

Now, when I just asked the speaker about this and the political fallout. He downplayed any political fallout for him and efforts to try to oust him for the speakership, as he remained confident this bill will pass by a healthy margin tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you expect a majority of the majority?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Oh, yes.

RAJU: Do you think you will get 150 Republican votes?

(CROSSTALK)

MCCARTHY: I haven't -- I haven't said any number. I know Jeffries said -- tried to set a number for us. I think we're going to do quite well.

RAJU: Have you talked to people like Dan Bishop and the like who have said they may support vacating the chair?

MCCARTHY: No, I haven't talked to him about that.

Look, everybody has the ability to do what they want. But if you think I'm going to wake up in the morning and be ever worried about that, it doesn't bother me. If someone thinks they have a right, they have the right to do it. Call the vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, as part of McCarthy's deal to win the speakership back in January, he did agree to allow for a single member to call for a vote seeking his ouster.

Right now, even those hard-line critics are divided over whether to go that far. Some have suggested they might. But if McCarthy is able to succeed in getting a majority of his Republican Conference to support this plan tonight, that effort to push him out will only -- will certainly dissipate among a lot of those members who are considering going that route.

So the expectation is, tonight, McCarthy will get the votes on the House side, enough Republican votes, and then the Democrats will come break ranks, side with the White House. A handful of progressives are expected to vote against this plan. And then expect it to go over to the Senate, where we expect final action and likely enough votes to overcome any filibuster attempt in the days ahead, putting this standoff, this messy standoff and risky standoff, behind them starting tonight -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: And, hey, you might call it a bipartisan vote, if all those numbers come together in the end to avoid that fiscal cliff.

Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, thanks so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: U.S.-China tensions literally hitting new heights after a close encounter over the South China Sea.

This is the view from the U.S. reconnaissance plane. And that's a Chinese fighter jet that is highlighted there. Just keep an eye on the jet, because the Pentagon says the Chinese pilot carried out this aggressive maneuver, cutting directly in front of the American plane. You can see it shudder there a bit from the fighter's turbulence.

[13:05:05]

The Chinese military says the U.S. plane -- quote -- "deliberately intruded" over a training area.

We have CNN's Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon on this story.

Oren, we should be clear. These are widely understood to be international waters. China disputes that.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

China claims much of the South China Sea as its own territorial waters, not recognizing it as international waters, and, therefore, the airspace above that as Chinese airspace, not international airspace. And that is part of the dispute here.

The U.S. doesn't recognize that, nor does international law or many other countries. So, the U.S., from its position, can operate there, can fly there, just like we saw this reconnaissance airplane, an RC- 135 Rivet Joint. Take a look at this video as we're watching it here. This is on

Friday, the RC-135 Rivet Joint, again, a reconnaissance airplane, flying over the South China Sea, when that Chinese jet from the right cuts in front, forcing the larger, heavier Rivet Joint to fly through the aircraft's wake turbulence.

And that shaking there is the shudder as the airplane passes through that turbulent air. We have seen Chinese aircraft do this before, not only against U.S. aircraft, but others as well. For example, back in December, another Chinese fighter jet from the Navy came within 20 feet of the nose of a similar aircraft, another RC-135 Rivet Joint.

So, the U.S. sees this as a pattern of aggressive behavior. But it's not just these aggressive interactions between U.S. and Chinese military aircraft. The broader problem here is a lack of communication between the sides.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin right now traveling in the Indo- Pacific, where he will be at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in just a couple of days. The U.S. had reached out about a chance to meet his Chinese counterpart, Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu.

They hadn't gotten back for some time, until they were rejected by the Chinese. So there will be no meeting, and the U.S. sees that as a major concern.

Here's John Kirby from the National Security Council.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, NSC COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: When you have tensions as high as they are, you want to be able to avoid miscalculations and misunderstandings.

Just over the weekend, there was a -- an unsafe and unprofessional intercept by a PRC fighter jet with one of our Air Force aircraft over the South China Sea. When you have tensions like this, you want to make sure you can talk. That's why we want to keep the lines of communication open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Worth noting that President Joe Biden said earlier this month he would eventually meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Worth asking, Brianna, under what conditions something like that might even happen right now.

KEILAR: Yes, we will see.

Oren Liebermann live for us at the Pentagon, thank you -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: As Oren pointed out, this incident comes at a very sensitive time.

So let's expand the conversation now with CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark. He is a former supreme allied commander of NATO.

General, thank you so much for being with us.

At the core of this incident is the dispute between China and the United States over the South China Sea. China says this happened over their training ground. The United States says this was international waters. I'm wondering what you make of that dispute.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think it's very important for the United States to continue to insist that this is international waters.

Something like a third of the world's commerce goes through the South China Sea. That's not China's territorial waters, under the Law of the Sea Convention. It is something they declared with a so-called nine- dash line that was -- some government wrote up from China in 1948, and they have suddenly seized on it.

This has gone on for several years. They built up the atolls. They put air bases on these atolls, after they promised they wouldn't. They armed them with air defense missiles, after they promised President Obama they wouldn't do that.

And so we're continuing to assert freedom of navigation in the seas and freedom to do air reconnaissance in the skies. And we must continue to insist on this.

SANCHEZ: Obviously, one of many points of contention between the two powers, but perhaps the most likely to lead to a dangerous escalation, right, because, as we saw in this video, the surveillance plane encounters turbulence.

If there's any kind of miscommunication or miscalculation, there could be a serious incident.

CLARK: That's right.

It could cause an incident. And it's happened in the past. Some 20 years ago, an American reconnaissance plane had its wing clipped by a Chinese fighter. It had to make a forced landing in Chinese territory. The Chinese got an intelligence bonanza out of that.

I'm sure our Rivet Joint crews are very well aware of this incident. They're very cautious. And if anything were to happen, of course, the number one thing is protect the intelligence collection information that's on board that Rivet Joint. That has to be protected at all costs.

But this is the nature of the intelligence game. We have got to fly there. We have got to get their radars to alert at us. We have got to pick up the emissions from those radars to understand what's there and what the threat might be.

[13:10:08]

SANCHEZ: And, General, while we have you, speaking of the intelligence game in Asia, North Korea apparently failing in its effort to launch a spy satellite.

The South Korean military, as we understand it, is trying to recover it right now. Why is launching this spy satellite a priority for Kim Jong-un?

CLARK: He wants to be independent of reliance on even his so-called friendly neighbors.

And it's another sign of national sovereignty and power, and it's part of the game against South Korea. So, this is all political, as well as geopolitical, but it's also military, so he can have a satellite that can look at whatever he wants. It's just a long pattern of North Korean behavior.

They were under the Missile Technology Control Regime. They weren't even supposed to be able to launch ballistic missiles and so forth. But, 10 years ago, Russia began assisting them with the development of their ballistic program, as well as their nuclear program, as an offset against China.

So, North Korea is adroitly playing off Russia and China, as well as pressuring the South Korean government continually for concessions.

SANCHEZ: General, the North Koreans have said that they intend to launch another one as soon as possible.

What does this failure tell you about their capabilities, especially in the context of an ICBM?

CLARK: Their -- these capabilities are -- are not robust. They're not as far along as they'd like to be. But it's also possible that things happened that interfered with that satellite launch.

That's been known to happen before. There's known to be, let's say, foreign interference in these -- in these programs that North Korea has tried to advance. So we will just have to continue to watch it.

But, yes, they're going to continue to press us on this.

SANCHEZ: General Wesley Clark adding some intrigue to this North Korean failure on the spy satellite launch.

We appreciate your insight, sir. Thank you so much.

CLARK: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course -- Brianna.

KEILAR: In Iowa, new presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is shaking hands, he's posing for selfies, and he's unleashing his sharpest words yet about his presumed presidential rival, Donald Trump, although DeSantis is still holding back on actually referring to his political nemesis by name, at least in public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He used to say how great Florida was. Hell, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship.

(LAUGHTER)

DESANTIS: Are you kidding me? Look, if someone is saying that, I am going to counterpunch. I'm going to fight back on it. I'm going to focus my fire on Biden, and I think he should do the same.

He gives Biden a free pass. I'm focusing on Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

DESANTIS: That's my focus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN political director David Chalian is with us more -- is with us for more on this.

What's he doing here? Is he trying to kind of reframe the narrative after that disastrous launch last week?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, listen, I think most people have probably forgotten about that launch with the Twitter snafu last week.

What he's doing is introducing himself to voters, in terms of -- in the context of being a presidential candidate. This was his debut trip on the campaign trail as a candidate. And I thought we saw a pretty interesting approach from him, because, in his speech, Brianna, he made it clear he is pursuing sort of a two-pronged message.

One, I am the person that represents the people against the powerful elite in Washington, sort of like we heard from Donald Trump about the swamp creatures back in 2015 and 2016. But he is also saying, I am the person who has proven I can win and defeat a -- what he sees as sort of a leftist, woke ideology.

His 19 percentage point victory for reelection last year, his slew of legislative victories with his Republican legislature in Florida, he uses that as data points to say, I have actually accomplished this stuff.

KEILAR: He wants to be seen as the alternative, right, the logical alternative to Donald Trump, as compared to these other folks who are in the race.

CHALIAN: No doubt about it.

And what do you do when you're in a political campaign? You punch up. You don't punch down. And, for Ron DeSantis, he's holding a pretty unique position. There's only one person above him. The other 10 folks who are running, they have got folks ahead of them, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. They got to kind of find their way around that. For Ron DeSantis, there's only one person if you're punching up, and

that's Donald Trump. And he showed, as you just played there, he's willing to take him on directly.

KEILAR: So he's offering a lot of red meat to conservatives, which is very Ron DeSantis of him, right?

He's saying statements like, it's time we impose our will on Washington, D.C. How are Republican voters reacting to that?

CHALIAN: So, our colleagues who were on the ground in Iowa for this DeSantis debut on the trail spoke to some potential Republican caucus- goers there.

[13:15:03]

You hear a very -- a range of opinions here. Give a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have not made up my mind. I want to learn more. I love Trump, because I love that he did what he said he was going to do. He was not bought.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like Trump. I voted for Trump. However, I think he's got too many legal irons in the fire, and I think that this is going to really help push DeSantis to the forefront.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I voted for Trump on the last one, and I thought he did a lot of things, but it was constant criticism all through the whole thing. And I just feel like maybe another president in there can work across the lines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHALIAN: Brianna, those last two voters, you heard from there, right, these are people who supported Donald Trump in the past.

This is Ron DeSantis' opening or other candidates not named Trump, which is this concern we hear from voters time and again among Republicans about a level of Trump exhaustion to some degree, either the legal troubles or the chaos of the Trump administration, despite being a fan of his policies, may not be the best path forward for the party this time around.

That's the opening provided. Now, Donald Trump's the front-runner in this race, and he's seeking to close that opening. But that is the opening that Ron DeSantis is going to try to run through.

KEILAR: He will have to convince people that he can carry that mantle.

CHALIAN: Exactly.

KEILAR: And we will see if he does that.

David Chalian, thank you so much.

CHALIAN: Thank you.

KEILAR: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Running out of time. People are still missing, if you could believe it, after the partial collapse of an apartment building in Iowa -- you can see it there -- days ago. But the danger of letting what's left of the building to stand is growing.

Plus, new strikes inside Russia sparking strong actions from Moscow, also from Washington. What Ukraine is saying about this -- just ahead.

And there's a lot of talk about arming teachers among gun advocates to protect children from shootings at school. Now we know how teachers feel about it. Details of a new survey and much more.

All this ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:21:06]

KEILAR: In Davenport, Iowa, city leaders delayed the demolition of a partially collapsed apartment building. They are still trying to decide if they should allow rescuers inside the structurally unsound building to do more searches, after dogs and thermal imaging showed no signs of life.

Five people right now are unaccounted for, and some loved ones are demanding that the missing be found before the building is razed, with a few holding out hope that there are still survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: They're buoyed by this, teams rescuing a ninth person yesterday, two days after six floors of 324 West Main Street suddenly fell.

They also brought out several pets. The cause of this collapse still under investigation, the mayor saying that it's not known at this point if criminal charges may be warranted -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: The second day of testimony is under way in the federal death penalty trial of Robert Bowers, this man accused of killing 11 Jewish worshipers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue back in 2018.

Victims' family members were back in court today hearing more about that deadly October day in grueling detail.

CNN's Danny Freeman is in Pittsburgh watching the trial proceedings.

And, Danny, there was more powerful testimony today from family members.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris.

In fact, we today heard the first family member of a victim who was killed in this shooting testify earlier this morning. We also got some new exhibits earlier this morning that we had not seen before that really paints a picture of what actually happened inside of that synagogue.

But, first, I want to get to that emotional testimony we heard. We heard from Carol Black. Carol Black is the sister of Richard Gottfried. Richard was one of the victims who was killed in this shooting back in October of 2018.

And Carol Black was also a survivor of this shooting. She described the day she was in the synagogue. The shots started to ring out. She and three other congregation members ran to a closet. They actually bunkered inside of a closet, she said on the stand today.

But one of the other members who was hiding with her in that closet was half in the closet and half-exposed. And the shooter came and killed that congregant who was half-exposed. That's Melvin Wax. And Carol describes seeing her friend fall right in front of her and talks about just how visceral that was and how terrifying that was that the shooter was so close to all of them hiding out in that particular spot.

She also remembered not only her brother, Richard, Melvin Wax and Dan Stein, as really hearts of this congregation. That's the New Light Congregation that was worshipping in the Tree of Life Synagogue.

But I also want to mention these new exhibits that we saw today for the first time. These are exhibits that were entered into court yesterday, but we're allowed to finally show them to the public today. We saw a lot of different things. We saw crime scene tape, some blood in the hallways of the synagogue as well, even a magazine from a rifle on the ground.

But there was one object that stood out to us in particular. It's a prayer book, an image of a prayer book on the ground. Now, Jeffrey Myers, he's the rabbi of the Tree of Life Congregation. He said that he grabbed that prayer book from the synagogue and has kept that with him as a reminder of what happened.

And he said that he kept it because -- I have this right here -- "That prayer book," he said on the stand yesterday, "was a witness to the horror of that day. And one day when I'm not there, this book tells a story that needs to be told."

I should also mention we also saw a new video that was brought up in court yesterday as well of the rabbi running out of the synagogue after police officers rescued him on that day.

He testified to that video yesterday, saying, when prosecutors asked what was on your mind when you were rushing out there holding onto your kippah, your yarmulke and your prayer shawl, he said: "I asked God to forgive me because I could not save fellow congregants" who had already been killed inside.

So, Boris, again, it's just been a heart-wrenching two days so far and, again, I think a preview of what we're going to continue to see for the next coming weeks -- Boris.

[13:25:08]

SANCHEZ: Yes, excruciating to listen to, but prosecutors believe it is important to share that with the jury, so they understand the scope of what this suspect did.

Danny Freeman, thank you so much for that from Pittsburgh -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, a major ruling in the legal battle over the opioid crisis.

An appeals in New York ruled the Sackler family will be immune from any current or future lawsuits in exchange for a $6 billion settlement. The Sacklers, they own Purdue Pharma, which began selling the opioid OxyContin back in the '90s, branding it as a nonaddictive drug.

The company is accused of helping fuel the opioid epidemic, which, according to the CDC, has killed more than half-a-million people in this country over the last 20 years.

CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now.

Jean, walk us through this settlement. It's quite an exchange here, yes, $6 billion payout, but immunity from future lawsuits.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's been so much litigation since 2019, so much compromise, and this is really an affirmation and afference of the original plan that the bankruptcy judge agreed to in 2019.

In 2019, when the Sackler family was thinking about declaring bankruptcy for their company, big pharma, Purdue Pharma, they -- they said, you know, we will do this and we will put our own money. We will put $4.5 billion into the bankruptcy, but we want all of the civil cases that are against us to go into the channels of bankruptcy, which is protocol anyway.

But we want immunity from those cases and any future cases. Well, at the time, all the lawsuits between Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers, according to legal documents, $40 trillion is what it amounted to. And so that's when the negotiation started.

And as the appeal went on, the Sacklers went up to $6 billion that they would put into the bankruptcy action. And here's what's going to come from those $6 billion. First of all, they are going to go to victims compensation, because all of those suits went into the channels of bankruptcy.

It's going to go into the opioid crisis abatement programs for the local level, for the state level, all around the country. And it will also go for overdose rescue medicines, which are so important. And Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family agreed that they would do that. There is no more Purdue Pharma. That company is gone.

But the Sackler family will make sure that those medicines are available on the local level, on the state level, around the country. And so, for the next years, this $6 billion will be put to good work.

Now, we do have a statement from Purdue Pharma. Let's read that: "Our creditors understand the plan is the best option to help those who need it most, the most fair and expeditious way to resolve the litigation and the only way to deliver billions of dollars in value specifically to fund opioid crisis abatement efforts."

And 95 percent were agreeing with this. And now those that appealed, they're relatively happy too, because it went up to $6 billion during that appeal process.

SCIUTTO: Do we know what portion of the Sackler family fortune they retain after a settlement like this?

CASAREZ: Yes, they will retain a lot.

And they -- they have so much money, offshore accounts, trusts. Hard to get to all of that money. But in the money that they will make from that money, they will still have much more in their own possession, correct.

SCIUTTO: Important to keep in mind.

Jean Casarez, thanks so much for covering -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Coming up: Moscow is vowing revenge after a series of drone attacks inside of Russia. What is Ukraine saying about this? We're going to take you live to Kyiv.

Plus, right now, NASA is holding a public meeting on unidentified anomalous phenomena. That's another way to say UFOs. So, are we alone, or are we not?

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