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Wall Street Journal Reports, Prigozhin Planned to Capture Russian Military Leaders; New York Times Reports, Russian General Knew About Mercenary Chief's Rebellion Plans, U.S. Officials Say; Trump Responds to Audio, I Did Nothing Wrong. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 28, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Stunning new reports this morning that the revolt in Russia was designed to go much further to capture top Russian officials. New claims about who was involved and new questions about who wants this intelligence public right now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And scorching temperatures putting millions of Americans under alert. We're tracking the record-breaking heat that is bringing triple-digit temperatures to several U.S. cities.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And today, Georgia's secretary of state and Rudy Giuliani, they take center stage, both speaking to federal investigators looking into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right, we have new reports just out this morning about the Russian revolt, about how high it was designed to go, and about how expansive the goals really were. That, plus, President Biden just spoke out about Vladimir Putin. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's hard to tell, but he's clearly losing the war in Iraq, he's losing the war at home, and he has become a bit of a fly around the world. And it's not just NATO. It's not just the European Union. It's Japan. It's (INAUDIBLE).

REPORTER: President Biden, how involved were you in your son's Chinese shakedown text message? Were you sitting there? Were you involved?

BIDEN: No, I wasn't and I don't --

REPORTER: Were you.

BIDEN: No. REPORTER: Do you think Vladimir Putin is weaker today than he was before all those events?

BIDEN: I know it will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. You heard President Biden there. He did answer one question about Hunter Biden, said he was not there when Hunter Biden said sent a WhatsApp message that people are talking about.

He also said that he believes that Vladimir Putin is weaker today than he was last week and that he is losing support at home. This comes as The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the revolt, intended to capture two of Putin's top ranking military leaders, the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu and the chief of Russia's general staff.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us now from Kyiv. And, Nick, if this is true, this would be an expansive plan from Prigozhin that didn't obviously succeed.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Absolutely. And it does tally with some of the facts that we know of publicly. Western officials are cited by The Wall Street Journal saying that Prigozhin had intended to capture Shoigu and Gerasimov, the top two Russian top brass he'd been railing against for months.

But, essentially, that plan was found out by Russian domestic intelligence services. And we do know also publicly well, according to Prigozhin, certainly, and one of his many audio messages he released on Friday, he claims that Shoigu, who we know from footage of him in the area late last week, was down in the southern front area. We know, according to Prigozhin, that Shoigu fled Rostov late on Friday at about 9:00.

So, these tally with part of the picture we're hearing from The Wall Street Journal. The report doesn't provide evidence for the suggestion that indeed there was attempt to capture Shoigu. But as I say, there's also public remarks quoted in that Journal report by the head of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, who in fact says that the Prigozhin camp had been leaking bits of information about some sort of mutiny between the 22nd and the 25th. The Journal goes on to suggest that that leaking had perhaps caused Prigozhin to bring his plans forward.

Look, it's important to put all of this in context. And this gives us two real pieces of information here. Look, I mean, Prigozhin, essentially, by Saturday, appeared to be en route to try and topple the entire Putin administration. Although he scaled his plans back radically on that highway, capturing two top brass wouldn't have been a massive departure from that.

What we do know for sure is it does appear that the Russian government had wind of this plot before it happened. And that leads you to wonder why on earth were they not able to stop Prigozhin in his tracks? Did they really have enough information or did they have enough potency domestically to be able to do that?

[10:05:04]

And the other more obvious thing is that we're going to have western intelligence agencies having a field day right now because they're going to put as much misinformation out there as they can or true information to make Russians in the top command doubt each other and turn on each other.

BERMAN: Yes. In that vein, Nick, there is a report in The New York Times today that a top Russian general, not one of the ones we were just talking about there, not a top military, if you were just talking about a different top general, knew about Prigozhin's plans beforehand. What's the significance of that?

WALSH: Yes, General Surovikin, known as General Armageddon for his tactics in Syria. For a while, a pretty effective commander of the war in Ukraine, dismissed and replaced by Putin with the chief of Staff, who now Prigozhin has been railing against, and a man who Prigozhin has spoken of relatively complementarily.

Now, the suggestion by The New York Times is that Surovikin knew about this plot beforehand. Possible, you might think, but it does not really tally with the fact that we saw Surovikin on television quite quickly telling everyone to go home, telling Wagner not to get involved in this. That's odd.

Now, some suggest in The New York Times that his body language may have suggested he wasn't particularly comfortable. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone being comfortable in that particular time. Also, too, Surovikin head to the Air Force, which did a lot of the bid to resist Wagner's advance.

This is also clearly, true or not, aimed at trying to get Russian generals to turn on each other and to make the job of Ukraine's forces easier by sowing further disarray in Russia's already catastrophically managed invasion here. John?

BERMAN: All right. Nick Paton Walsh for us in Kyiv, Nick, keep us posted. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Let's get a look at the bigger picture here, what this all could have meant for Putin if Prigozhin had been successful, and what it means going forward for him.

Russia and cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch joins us now. You just heard The Wall Street Journal reporting that we were talking about. And I'm curious from you if you think that some of this is intelligence trying to get into Putin's head or if this is a possibility that there was going to be a much larger revolt here that just fell away.

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH, CHAIRMAN, SILVERADO POLICY ACCELARATOR: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. I think The Wall Street Journal story certainly tracks. We know that Shoigu was in the city of Rostov. We know that he fled before -- hours, really, before Prigozhin's troops got there.

But this was such a harebrand scheme from the start. Even if Prigozhin had succeeded, even if he had taken Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov hostage, what then? Did he think that Putin would really negotiate with him and adhere to his demands to keep Wagner? I don't think so. I don't think Putin would have fallen for that blackmail, and I don't think it would have changed anything.

SIDNER: I'm curious what you think about what will happen to Prigozhin and anyone else that the FSB or that Putin's close corners decide were involved in this.

ALPEROVITCH: Well, I think Prigozhin is in a very precarious situation. Yes, he's exiled to Belarus. Yes, Putin promised very publicly him amnesty, but the key thing is that the amnesty was for the mutiny. There are other charges that he can be brought on. And, in fact, Putin yesterday alluded to the fact that he may have been stealing some of the money from the state contracts that he was given, both for running Wagner as well as for catering to the Russian military.

So, he can be prosecuted for misappropriations of funds. He can be prosecuted for tax evasion, which, as Henry Kissinger once said, has the added benefit of actually being the truth. It doesn't even need to be made up. And Belarus extradites to Russia, by the way, so he can still find himself in a Russian jail.

SIDNER: I'm curious how interesting you think it is, because I found it a bit fascinating when Russia and Putin start talking about just how much money they have paid to Prigozhin's Wagner mercenaries, a billion, about a billion dollars, 86 billion rubles. When you hear those kind of numbers, why do you think that information is being put out now?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, I think Putin is clearly livid. The one thing you cannot do to Putin is be disloyal. And this is the red line that Prigozhin had crossed, even though I don't think he intended to, but it certainly received that wave by Putin. So, he is now trying to paint Prigozhin as not only a disloyal figure, but show just how disloyal he's been, that he's gotten a billion dollars for Wagner, by the way, on top of a billion dollars that he has gotten for catering meals to the Russian military.

So, he's gotten very, very rich off of these contracts. And that's just in the last year. So, you can imagine how long it's been going on since early 2010. So, he wants to show to everyone that this is not what you are going to do. If you're making money off of me, you better not be disloyal.

SIDNER: Russia is known for poisoning people, throwing people out of windows.

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I mean, there's a lot of things that could happen here or just arresting you and putting you in a work camp for the rest of your life.

I do want to ask you one thing about neighboring country Belarus. We heard from President Victor Lukashenko. What do you think he's up to? He was basically bragging about his ability to get Prigozhin to come to Belarus and to stop this all from happening. What's he up to now? Is he trying to show his prowess, or is he always going to be a Putin puppet?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, Lukashenko has had an amazing month, one of the best months he's ever had in his ruling of Belarus, because, remember, earlier this month, he had received tactical nuclear weapons from Russia. They're now placed in Belarus, although still maintained by Russian forces there. And now, he has Prigozhin, and he has shown how he is a peacemaker, conflict resolution professional, if you will. And now he believes that Putin also owes him for saving him, effectively from this march on Moscow by Wagner troops. So, he is relishing the spotlight, and he's relishing the increased reputation and relevance that he now has.

SIDNER: Yes. When it comes to politics, favors are never free. Thank you so much, Dmitri Alperovitch. We appreciate your analysis. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And this morning, the death toll in Ukraine is rising after a Russian missile strike in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. At least ten people have been killed in this and dozens more injured. Showing you the scenes here, this is as rescuers were trying to move rubble around in hopes of finding survivors after the strikes.

Officials say this area was just packed with people a restaurant, a popular shopping mall, shopping area, apartment buildings, all were hit.

Three of the victims killed were kids, including twin sisters. And you see them here, Julie and Anna. They were supposed to turn 15 years old in just a couple of months. This is a picture of them just smiling, as they were recently celebrating at their school.

CNN's Ben Wedeman, he's live at the scene in Eastern Ukraine. He joins us now. Ben, what have you been seeing there? I mean, you can see it behind you. What are you hearing from people as well?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. Within the last hour, we watched as rescue workers brought out a black body bag. We understand that he was a worker in the kitchen. They found his body crushed under a refrigerator. And it does appear that the missile that hit the restaurant hit directly on the kitchen of the restaurant.

We understand that there are still several workers from the restaurant who are still unaccounted for. So, it appears. I guess, we can say, that the death toll is now at least seven.

And also around us are some relatives who are waiting for news of they're hoping people who might have survived this blast. But, certainly, rescue workers are telling us it's highly unlikely. Now, we've also learned that the missile that hit the restaurant was called is known as an Iskander. That's a hypersonic ballistic missile that the Russians have been using throughout this war. It has a very large payload and it is very accurate.

Now, for the people in the city that has already been repeatedly struck since the war began, this is just another blow to their lives.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I ran here after the explosion. I lease and run a cafe near here. Everything has been blown there. There is nothing, no windows, no doors. That's what I see, destruction everywhere. It is fear, horror 21st century. I do not even know how to describe it. My son was killed in the war, and now this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEDEMAN: And, of course, the best way to describe it is perhaps what we heard from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last night in his national address. He called it a manifestation of terror. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Ben, for being there. And thanks for bringing that to us. John?

BERMAN: Major travel headaches already underway ahead of a big holiday weekend, severe weather leading to thousands of delays and cancelations at some of the country's busiest airports.

And new developments in the investigations surrounding Donald Trump. CNN has exclusively learned that Rudy Giuliani has been interviewed in the 2020 election interference probe.

And that news comes just as Trump responds to the audio first obtained by CNN, where he appears to discuss the secret document in his hands after leaving the White House, what he now claims he was talking about.

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BERMAN: Donald Trump on the campaign trail, responding to the audio recording first obtained by CNN, where he seems to be discussing a secret document in his hands after leaving the White House, Trump defended himself, saying he, quote, did nothing wrong, despite the statements in his voice repeatedly referring to something he described as secret and not declassified.

CNN's Alayna Treene joins us now. So, Alayna, in these new comments from Trump, what is he denying and not denying exactly?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right. Well, John, his responses have been a bit muddled. Initially, he didn't even mention the documenting question that you can hear him referencing in the audio that CNN obtained. [10:20:02]

He said that he did nothing wrong in that first response and then argued that he had a lot of papers on his desk and copies of plans. Let's listen to what he initially said in his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: My voice was fine. What did I say wrong in those recordings? I didn't even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of paper stacked up. In fact, you could hear the rustle of the paper. And nobody said I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which, of course, is Fox, too.

I had a whole desk full of lots of papers and mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, John, we did reach out to the Trump campaign and ask him, what was he referring to when he said copies of different plans? Because the notable thing about that is that we know that prosecutors asked not only for the original documents that may have been in Donald Trump's possession but also copies of those documents. And the Trump campaign told us that they believed they were political plans.

But then later, when Donald Trump was on his plane traveling from New Hampshire, leaving his campaign stop, he told reporters that he was referring to building plans and plans for a golf course. And then he added that there was no document.

And so it's just very interesting to point out, because as we've been covering this for weeks now, and after the news of the indictment, he's had different responses to what exactly had happened. I remember when I was covering him following his arraignment in Florida, when he went back to his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, he said that, essentially, he was entitled to taking documents with him. He later told Fox News and then reporters yesterday that he didn't have any documents at all.

And so I think this is something that prosecutors are tracking very closely and seeing how he's responding to this and also using it to determine the intent that may have been there if he had these classified documents, John.

BERMAN: Alayna Treene, thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, CNN has learned that Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former attorney, has been interviewed by federal investigators. This is part of the special counsel's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

And also on that front, the special counsel, Jack Smith, is set to interview today Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Here with me now for more on quite a bit of this, Nick Akerman. He's a former assistant U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York and former assistant special Watergate prosecutor.

So, Nick, let's start on this exclusive reporting that Rudy Giuliani has spoken to investigators in the elections probe, if I want to shorthand it that way. Our CNN's reporting, as my colleagues say, that some sources say that some of the grand jury questioning in that investigation has centered on the actions of people around Donald Trump, not just Donald Trump, and that includes Rudy Giuliani. So, him going into to speak to investigators now says what to you?

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Well, it says to me that he is certainly a subject of the investigation, if not a target at this point. I mean, he was there with Donald Trump on January 6th at The Ellipse. He was dealing with people in the war room that Steve Bannon was in charge of at the Willard Hotel, where Roger Stone appeared, where General Flynn appeared. Basically, all of the people that were there were either people that Donald Trump had given pardons to or people who had asked for pardons.

So, these were people, also like Stone and Flynn, who were dealing with the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys. So, of course, the Justice Department is going to be interested in getting to the bottom of what Giuliani's role was in this. Certainly, he was also out there with the fake electors. He was dealing with Georgia legislators, other legislators, trying to get state legislatures in the battleground states to essentially change the vote for Donald Trump from Joe Biden.

So, I don't think he could have talked too much. I mean, I think whatever he said would be used against him. He went in with a lawyer. And my sense is that he was very careful about what he said. And I would bet anything that most of the talking was done by his lawyer.

On the classified documents case, the reaction from Donald Trump now, as John Berman was just discussing, is that he maintains now that he's done nothing wrong, even after this audio recording has now come out.

This kind of gets to -- my question is kind of on the narrative front. We know prosecutors look at every -- we are going to look at everything and every statement that's made it publicly and privately they have access to. But what is the narrative that you see now that Donald Trump and his legal team may be trying to paint around all of this?

AKERMAN: Well, I don't think it's much of a narrative at all. I mean, it's all over the boards. I mean, Idea he did nothing wrong when he basically confesses on tape that he's got a top secret document, that he shouldn't have it, that he could have declassified it when he was president, but he didn't, that he's telling people this is off the record.

[10:25:02]

There's no such thing as providing classified information off the record. I mean, even his own attorney general said that based on this tape, he is toast.

Personally, I think he's burnt toast. I don't see how he gets out from underneath this at all. There's no defense to it.

BOLDUAN: So, that audio recording that we're talking about is from a meeting at Bedminster, his property in New Jersey. The New York Times has some more reporting about that property, and it's that investigators, they considered looking -- seeking a search warrant for it. And here's part of their reporting. In it, it says, investigators were concerned that more documents were stashed at the club, and the only way to account for them was to search the property.

But one of the people said that the Justice Department lacked probable cause to obtain a warrant from a judge. You think this is significant. Why?

AKERMAN: Yes, it's significant because they didn't have probable cause. When you have probable cause, it has to be current. It can't be something that is stale. I've done 40, 50 search warrants as a prosecutor. The big hurdle always is having current information that the evidence of the crime exists on the property.

And here, it was like a year before the search at Mar-a-Lago that they knew that he had this document relating to Iran, that he had a map that he showed to people, but there was no current information that it existed at that time when they did the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

So, I would bet dollars to donuts that there are lots of classified documents still at Bedminster. The problem is that there is no probable cause that the government can come up with. There's no insider like there was at Mar-a-Lago, who basically laid out for them exactly what happened with the documents.

BOLDUAN: That's interesting, another wrinkle in this. We'll see where this goes now. It's good to see you, Nick. Thanks for coming in.

AKERMAN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Moments ago, CNN learned the. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy called and apologized to Donald Trump, begging forgiveness. Why he says he misspoke when talking about Trump's chances in 2024.

And nearly 90 million people are under excessive heat warnings, watches and advisories today. How hot might it get? We'll explain, coming up.

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