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Trump Speaks Of "Highly Confidential" Doc In Recording; McCarthy: "I Don't Know" If Trump Is GOP's Strongest Choice; Satellite Images Shows Two Planes Linked To Wagner Boss Prigozhin At Belarus Airbase. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 27, 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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[15:00:36]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It is all on tape, CNN obtains audio of Donald Trump claiming to retain secretive military documents well after leaving office, documents he admits on tape he had not declassified. How he plays, how it plays into the Special Counsel's played (ph) case.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Plus, CNN is on the scene of an early evening attack on Ukraine and its civilians. Russia striking a populous city center destroying a restaurant frequented by residents and soldiers. We have a live report from Kramatorsk ahead.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And for the first time in 20 years, a disease thought to be eradicated is spreading within U.S. borders. The CDC putting out a warning about malaria. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SCIUTTO: A 2021 recording of Donald Trump discussing classified documents is at the heart of the Justice Department's indictment of the former president. And CNN has now exclusively obtained that tape. In it, you hear the former president speaking about a secret document that he says he was holding on to literally holding after he left office admitting he no longer had the power as well, to declassify it. The conversation appears to undercut - seriously undercut Trump's publicly stated defense. CNN's Sara Murray has been following this.

And Sara, he says on tape, I've got the document, he describes the document being among the most sensitive one could hold which is about U.S. military plans to attack the serious national security threat to the U.S. being Iran, and also says he no longer has the power to declassify it. How does he - how do you - how does he claim to do this all in one place?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it's tough. You can see why this is such good evidence for prosecutors. You can see why as we were reporting this out, people were saying, look, when you hear the tape, you will understand why this could be so damning for Donald Trump. But I just want to get right to it, because it is really striking to hear Donald Trump in his own words. Take a listen to what he said in this meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are bad sick people, but --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was your coup, against you. That's --

TRUMP: Well, it started right at the beginning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- like when Milley is talking about, oh, you were going to try to do a coup. No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trying to overthrow your election.

TRUMP: Well, with Milley, let me see that, I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't it amazing? I have a big pile of papers; this thing just came up. Look this was him. They presented me this - this is off the record - but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.

TRUMP: We looked at some. This was this. This wasn't done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff - pages long, look.

Wait a minute, let's see here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mm-hm.

TRUMP: Except it is like lie, highly confidential.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now Jim, Trump is in this meeting with two staffers who do not have security clearances and writers who are working on a Mark Meadows book, the former White House chief of staff who also don't have security clearances, and they're having this very casual conversation. And Trump has already done an interview with Fox, where he sought to downplay what was happening and insisted there actually was no document he was talking about. Take a listen to what he previously told Fox. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There was no document that was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not but that was not a document. I didn't have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: I'm just want to point out again in that tape, he says things like, I'll show you an example and these are the papers. And he's just talked to Fox again today where he is still insisting you know that he did nothing wrong here, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Presumably investigators will ask folks who were in that room what did they see.

[15:05:03]

MURRAY: Yes. Oh, they already have.

SCIUTTO: Right.

MURRAY: I mean, we know that they've talked to Mark Milley, the Chairman of Joint Chiefs who Trump was fuming about as he was in this call. We know they've talked to at least one person in this meeting. And again, the Trump team is going to get transcripts of the witnesses that prosecutors have interviewed as part of discovery in this case so soon, if not already, they're going to know what people might have had to say about this document.

SCIUTTO: Okay. So, of course, the Special Counsel's other focus beyond Trump's handling - mishandling of classified documents, alleged mishandling, are his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and a key witness has testified now.

MURRAY: Yes, I mean, we've said that there is a robust January 6- related investigation ongoing, that's still the case. Jack Smith's investigators, Special Counsel's investigators are set to interview Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger tomorrow, feels a little late in the game given we've known since January 2021 that Trump called Raffensperger --

SCIUTTO: Right.

MURRAY: -- put all this pressure on to try to overturn the vote count in Georgia. But it is coming as we've seen this sort of flurry of activity from the Special Counsel's office and try to lock down witnesses.

SCIUTTO: And that, of course, the focus of the other investigation, the Fulton County DA's investigation --

MURRAY: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: -- in the efforts to overturn the election in the state of Georgia.

Sara Murray, thanks so much. So much to follow every day. Boris?

SANCHEZ: And a lot to follow right now, just into CNN, the former president now responding to the audio tape that CNN obtained and just played for you.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is on the trail with the former president in New Hampshire where he spoke earlier today. And Kristen, in Trump's response, did he again reiterate that these were not classified documents?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually, he did not talk about this document at all. You heard that clip that Sara just played for you from that Bret Baier interview in which he talks about how that was no classified document. There wasn't anything there.

Notably in this response, he doesn't talk about that at all. Instead, he says this, he says he had a whole desk full of papers that included "copies" of different plans and news articles covering quote "many, many subjects."

Again, not saying there is no classified document and I want to note that we have reached out to Trump's team to see what exactly he meant by copies of plans, because as we understand it, a copy of a classified document is still a classified document, and Trump was ordered to turn over not just the originals, but any copies and notes that he had as well.

So this is the first time we are seeing this response. But again, he says he did nothing wrong and he was also asked if he believed there are more recordings. He says he was not sure but he shouldn't be concerned because, again, he did nothing wrong.

SANCHEZ: Yes, an interesting argument to make as you hear him in the recording saying these secrets, these documents and then saying those weren't actually classified documents.

Kristen, I also want to get your reporting and your response from the Trump team to some comments made by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He was asked if Donald Trump would be the strongest Republican candidate in 2024 and his answer was noncommittal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could he win an election and get --

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Can he win that election? Yes, he can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think he can.

MCCARTHY: The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don't know that answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: So Boris, I mean, noncommittal to say the least here and

Trump's team was outraged not just his advisors, but allies that I talked to. They said they'd been on the phone all day fielding calls why was Kevin McCarthy not prepared for this question. You have to remember that Trump and his team believed that they got McCarthy the speakership, that they were the ones who convinced these outliers in the Republican Party to vote for McCarthy to turn the tide there. He even made calls on McCarthy's behalf.

And for months, I have been asking advisers, why it is that McCarthy has not outwardly endorsed Trump in 2024. And they've really brushed that off saying that he has to please a lot of people if he's going to be running for speaker if he's going to actually be the speaker, (inaudible) of course, he was.

But today, it seemed as though he crossed a line. Now we are still trying to get some kind of reaction here from McCarthy's team. I'm trying to figure out if there's been any outreach. I've reached out to Trump's team to hear about that, but we do know that there was a lot of outrage and a lot of anger at these remarks from Kevin McCarthy.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Please keep us posted if there's any communication between the two. Kristen Holmes live for us in Concord, New Hampshire. Thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Boris.

Let's talk more now about this with Norm Eisen. He was special counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in Trump's first impeachment trial. And also Juliette Kayyem, former Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

Norm, I have one question for you as we hear Trump talking here and saying really that he didn't do anything wrong and I may know the answer to this question, I think. But is it wise for him to be out there saying this?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, Brianna, it is not. In over 30 years of representing defendants, many cases, as a defense lawyer, the first thing I told my clients was from this moment forward.

[15:10:07]

You're about to be charged, you've just been charged, no more talking, not even to other people about the case much less publicly. Every time he offers a different and frequently inconsistent explanation or justification, he just makes his situation in front of the jury that is going to have this documents case worse.

KEILAR: Juliette, why is this - we'd seen the partial transcript of this conversation, but now we're hearing it. Why is it different having the audio than having the transcript?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: As a legal matter, it's going to just have more resonance with the jury. You hear the voice, you know the voice, you hear the egging (ph) on the laughter. And I think that that will have significance in terms of its weightiness, even though a transcript would have been satisfactory, if Jack Smith had only had that.

So some of this is just the drama of it, I think, for people listening to it now that this sort of incomprehensibility of hearing a former president, say this was my least favorite part of it, when he says to the people in the room, this is off the record, as if that somehow excuses the fact he's about to disclose massive amounts of classified information.

And it also goes to what the world is hearing, what people are forgetting is that really is the - it's still the - I think until like next week it's still the joint, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He is - was - is still in charge of our military branches, so to speak. His job is to advise whatever president and so we advise both Trump and now President Biden.

And so it wasn't like Trump was talking about some past person, a former cabinet official, the Joint Chiefs is still in power as - and still reflecting the U.S. position. And that's a sort of disclosure of present information. This is not past conduct.

KEILAR: He's talking about a current one. Any admissibility issues here --

KAYYEM: Yes.

KEILAR: -- norm in court?

EISEN: Well, Team Trump will fight it and that the hearsay rules are complex in bringing in and out of court tape. But when you have this kind of an admission, it's so powerful. There are a set of exceptions that have evolved, really over centuries of litigating cases. The tape may not even count as hearsay or if it does, there are a number of exceptions that apply. It'll matter whether Trump is testifying or not testifying a little easier to get it in, if he's not testifying.

I mean, it would be suicide, given all the things he said for him to actually appear on the stand, very often defendants don't. But bottom line, Brianna, the jury is going to listen to this tape. It may be one of the first things that the jury hears, because the admissions on it, that he's had - he's doing the essential thing that he's on trial for, possessing highly sensitive, dangerous, classified information, no longer has a president and showing it to other people who are not authorized to see it, wow, that captures what this prosecution is all about.

KEILAR: Juliette, does the DOJ need anything else here, the actual document, do they need to sort of link this up with the actual document that they think Trump was referring to or is it confirmation from the aide who was in the room enough, because obviously, we know that she was in the room and she testified to the Special Counsel?

KAYYEM: Right. So the testimony of the witness will be sufficient, just as a legal matter to attest to, this is the document they're speaking of. And in some ways, you don't need the document, Trump's going to try to get out of it and Trump is talking about a document that he is stating exists that he has read and that has been provided to him.

Also, there are other means to access that document. And what is going to be - the mean other people obviously have versions of it, so the contents of it can be found out through other means even if it wasn't in Trump's possession. This is going to be one of the challenges in all these classified information cases and why many of us suspect that there's probably information that Jack Smith did not come forward with, because he could not get the intelligence agencies to declassify them.

And I think part of this is just going to be - he's just going to pick and choose which pieces are you going to fight over in terms of classification, and which ones do - are not necessary and you can make the case without them. These are complicated cases regarding classified information procedures. And speed is of the utmost importance at this stage as we're seeing.

So there's going to be choices that Jack Smith makes about which disclosures he's going to insist on and which not.

[15:15:05]

With Trump speaking about it, you kind of don't need the document.

KEILAR: Look, this is big day hearing this audio, this exclusive audio --

KAYYEM: Yes.

KEILAR: -- obtained by CNN.

Juliette, Norm, thank you to both of you. Boris?

KAYYEM: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, Ukrainian officials say at least three people including the child are dead after Russian strikes hit a popular restaurant. We're going to take you live to the scene.

Plus, the Supreme Court deciding a case that would have radically changed U.S. elections. We're going to tell you how the justices ruled.

Plus, the CDC telling doctors to be on the lookout for symptoms of malaria. Cases spreading within the United States for the first time in 20 years, what you need to know straight ahead

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[15:19:54]

SCIUTTO: We have breaking news from Russia's war on Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say at least three people now are dead, including a child after a Russian missile hit the busy center of the city of Kramatorsk in the east, dozens of people are injured.

CNN's Ben Wedeman, he is on the scene and Kramatorsk.

And Ben, we spoke last hour. We spoke last hour. I'm curious what you've seen in the last several minutes as rescue teams work frantically to save people caught in the rubble.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, actually, we had to leave the area because there's a war - there was a warning of an airstrike. So he was sort of left to the immediate vicinity.

So this is really the worry in these situations is that strike like this takes place and then there could be what's known as a double tap, a hit afterwards when the area as it is now full of rescue workers and civilian onlookers. So we've moved away, hopefully it's a little better here.

So - but what we've seen is that it's a scene of huge destruction. By all indications it was not one missile, but at least two. We saw a separate building, not far from the restaurant that appears to have taken a direct hit as well.

Now, the latest information we have, Jim is that three people so far, according to the president's office were killed among the dead, a child and 25 people wounded. Now, they're still looking for more people under the rubble.

In fact, just a few moments ago, our translator did see another person, a worker from the restaurant being pulled out and injured from the restaurant. And there's also a woman in front of the restaurant desperate to find out news of two of her adult children who were working in the restaurant as well. So this is still very much a desperate ongoing effort.

Under difficult circumstances here, we're being told by a member of the armed forces that we should move further away, but at the moment, things seem to have stabilized again.

SCIUTTO: Yes, please Ben, get to safety, don't mind us. The danger of secondary strikes is always real there. Thanks to Ben Wedeman and his team.

We also have our Nick Paton Walsh here. Because Nick, a question hanging over the fallout from this armed rebellion inside Russia has been the fate and location of the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin. New satellite photos give us a clue. What do you know?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. There seems to be suggestions from satellite images showing an airbase on the outskirts of Minsk that planes affiliated with him have indeed landed there. Now, that will provide some sort of independent verification of the statements we heard from Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, earlier on today who said indeed that Yevgeny Prigozhin had landed in Belarus. I think we have to wait given the bizarre, opaque nature of the last three days around this particular armed rebellion for Prigozhin himself to admit that he's gone to Minsk.

But what we heard from Lukashenko today essentially tallied with the statements we'd heard from the Kremlin and also from Prigozhin himself in a sprawling 11-minute audio message we heard yesterday.

Lukashenko saying that he got in contact with Prigozhin and (inaudible) laden rant, essentially Prigozhin after multiple calls had agreed to turn his tanks around on the way to Moscow and go to Belarus where he's being offered safe haven. But the Lukashenko version of these events starkly in contrast to Vladimir Putin today, multiple meetings with soldiers, dignitaries, desperate, I think to refashion the narrative in his favor after a startling two and a half day silence, whatever you think about Putin's reluctance to put himself in the public eye during moments of crisis, startling misjudgment after surviving a coup attempt like that to suddenly disappear.

But today, there he was standing in front of soldiers, part of the land forces, who essentially had done very little to prevent Wagner from marching up the M4 Highway from Rostov towards Moscow. But instead, Putin said thank you, you saved Russia. You saved us from civil war, baffling and I think many Russians will listen to that and think that perhaps the President has overstepped that sort of sidelining of reality that's so common in his rule.

And later on, he went on to tell people that in fact, Wagner who got a billion dollars in the last year from the Russian state, so a lot of messaging now from Moscow and from Belarus. It appears to tally together. But ultimately, Prigozhin is now in Belarus, no longer facing prosecution and possibly with a safe haven there where he can regroup. We simply don't know of his fate. But this is yet to finish, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Pentagon saying a short time ago that at least some Wagner forces remain inside Ukraine. We'll continue to follow their disposition as well.

Nick Paton Walsh in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Thanks so much, Boris.

[15:25:00]

SANCHEZ: Let's break down all these latest developments with CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kimberly Dozier. She's also the Managing Editor at the Military Times.

Kim, always great to see you. Before we get to the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Let's talk about this recent strike in Kramatorsk that we just saw, not the first time that Russia has targeted civilians.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, what the Russian military has to do now is prove that it can make progress, bloody progress without the backing of the Wagner forces. And truly what the big army does at best is to hold territory and mostly right now it's going to have to try to hold territory against the Ukrainian offensive. But as we know, with past Russian tactics, they will hit populated

areas, they will hit civilian areas to try to hit the population that is supporting the military. That seems to be their strategy overall. They don't care about civilian casualties.

SANCHEZ: And sort of, as you noted, the limited progress if you could call it progress that Russia has had in the last year or so always come at the hands of Prigozhin in Bakhmut. So now that he's gone, the question is, how will the MOD respond and also is he safe in Belarus?

DOZIER: Not likely. Look, he was stuck with a deal, a bad deal to survive. He could have taken a jet flown somewhere in Africa, try to spend his billions. But he always would have been within Putin's reach somehow, somewhere. Or more likely, he could have been extradited to the U.S. or somewhere where there are charges against him for past crimes.

So he's taken the option where by going to Belarus, throwing his lot in still with Putin hoping probably that his popularity with the public will keep him safe. He also has until this weekend to find out how many of his own forces are going to stand with him, because of course, Putin gave them a deadline. By this weekend they can either go back home, go to Belarus or sign a contract with the Russian military.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I'm also curious to get your perspective about Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, because historically, we've seen him sort of as a pawn of Putin's, but he's taken on an outsized role here describing himself as a broker of peace between these two sides.

DOZIER: Yes, he seems to be trying to get all the credit --

SANCHEZ: Right.

DOZIER: -- he possibly can for this maneuvering. And for once, after months, years of being dismissed as Putin's poodle, saying I was the power broker in this situation --

SANCHEZ: Right.

DOZIER: -- that defuse this crisis for Moscow. But the crisis remains. We don't know at this point, if the reason that there was so little Russian military response to the Wagner onslaught, marching towards Moscow is because did they not realize at first that these were Wagner forces and not regular Russian troops? There's very little way to tell them apart or was it that typical Russian military thing of waiting for orders from hire, in this case to attack your own troops. This is not a military known for innovation. They wait for the top generals to tell them what to do and then that filters on down.

SANCHEZ: Lately, they've been mostly known for their incompetence on the battlefield.

Kimberly Dozier, we got to leave the conversation there. Always appreciate your time.

DOZIER: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Brianna?

KEILAR: Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, a damning report from Senate Democrats claiming U.S. Intelligence dropped the ball ahead of the January 6 insurrection, ignoring serious tips about how deadly the day could become.

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