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CIA Chief Met with Zelenskyy; Evelyn Farkas is Interviewed about Zelenskyy's Crimea Comments; Pence Says No Pressure on Arizona Governor; Buttigieg Slams DeSantis; Block Party Shooting in Baltimore. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 03, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:30]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In a CNN exclusive, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says the war will not be over until Ukraine takes Crimea back from its Russian occupiers. Zelenskyy also taking a swipe at Vladimir Putin, calling him weak, just as Putin is about to make his first appearance since the revolt on the world stage.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A violent holiday. A mass shooting at a block party in Baltimore kills two people, dozens more hurt. Police, this hour, still searching for at least two shooters.

SIDNER: Plus, if it seems like the crowds are really, really, really a lot in the airport, well, travel records have been broken. You're right. The TSA just screened the most passengers ever for a single day. Right now we're tracking the July 4th travel delays.

I'm Sara Sidner alongside John Berman. Kate Bolduan is off. These major stories and more all coming in to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

This morning one-on-one with President Zelenskyy. In a CNN exclusive, Zelenskyy says Vladimir Putin is weak and calls out the Russian president's vulnerability. His words will be fresh in Putin's mind as he makes his first appearance on the world stage since the Wagner mercenary revolt.

Ukraine's leader tells CNN's Erin Burnett the war will not end as long as Crimea is occupied by Russia. His quote, we cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. Crimea is also the center of a stunning new assassination claim. Russia, overnight, accused Ukraine of trying to kill the Russian-backed Crimean leader.

In another development, new details on the trip CIA Director William Burns recently took to Kyiv. Zelenskyy saying his talks with him should always be behind the scenes as Burns reveals the war is now helping the U.S. recruit more Russian spies.

Several developments to cover for you now. We begin with Zelenskyy's reaction to Putin's power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. President, you know, you recently said that you have dealt -- and I'll quote you the way - the way it quoted -- with different Putins, it's a completely different set of traits in different periods. Now, of course, he's faced a rebellion, an attempted coup from Yevgeny Prigozhin. Have you seen any changes in -- in how you think he's acting, in his behavior since the attempted coup?

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): Yes, we see the reaction after certain Wagner steps. We see Putin's reaction. It's weak. Firstly, we see he doesn't control everything. Wagner is moving deep into Russia and taking certain regions shows how easy it is to do. Putin doesn't control the situation in the regions, he doesn't control the security situation. All of us understand that his whole army is in Ukraine. Almost entire army is there. That's why it's so easy for the Wagner troops to march through Russia. Who could have stopped them? We understand that Putin doesn't control the regional policy and he doesn't control all those people in the regions. So, all that vertical of power he used to have just got crumbling down.

BURNETT: Do you believe he's fully in charge of the military right now? When it comes to your front line and this counteroffensive, do you believe Putin is fully in charge of the Russian military?

ZELENSKYY: I don't think he fully controls all the processes. He gives orders to the commanders. It's understood. They are scared to lose their jobs, but he doesn't understand and doesn't control the middle layer of the Russian military, nor the lower ranked officers and soldiers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: You can watch Erin's full interview with Zelenskyy Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

John.

BERMAN: So, Zelenskyy also told Erin he was, quote, surprised when his most recent meeting with the head of the CIA made headlines. A U.S. official told CNN that William Burns visited Kyiv last month, but it's clear this morning that Zelenskyy felt that sit-down should have stayed secret.

CNN national security reporter Natasha Bertrand joins us now.

This gets to sometimes how difficult it is to actually be allies, Natasha.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: That's right. And there are many reasons, of course, why Zelenskyy would not necessarily want these meetings with the CIA chief to be public. Remember that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it a point to repeatedly say that the war in Ukraine is a CIA-U.S.-backed, western-backed operation and that Russia is essentially fighting against the U.S. and NATO.

[09:05:12]

And so the fact that he is meeting with the CIA chief, really on a regular basis, of course he would rather keep private.

But, look, the CIA director, William Burns, he has traveled to Ukraine many, many times since the war began, including as recently as January that we know of. And his main goal every time he goes there, we are told, is to essentially reiterate that the U.S. is committed to sharing intelligence with Ukraine, of course, about Russia's moves on the battlefield. And Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians, in turn, tell the U.S. and William Burns and U.S. intelligence officials the information that they need in order to better prosecute the war against Russia.

So, what we're learning, of course, is that Bill Burns, when he went to Kyiv, he did have these conversations with Zelenskyy and he also said separately over the weekend that this is actually right now a boone for the CIA in terms of recruitment from Russia because of the disaffectment that so many Russians are feeling with Vladimir Putin's leadership, with the war that he's carrying in in Ukraine. Here's what he said during a conference in England this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BURNS, CIA DIRECTOR: Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership.

That disaffection creates a once in a generation opportunity for us at CIA.

We're very much open for business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So, the Ukrainians have limited how much intelligence they share with the U.S. because, of course, of that major Pentagon leak that we saw earlier this year where all of those classified documents and information, including information about Ukraine's war planning, ended up online. But the U.S. really has not curtailed its intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians. They have said that they are going to give Ukraine the support that it needs in order to be as successful as possible on the battlefield, John.

BERMAN: All right, watching this closely. Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, joining us now for more on this, Evelyn Farkas. She is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. She's also the executive director of the McCain Institute.

Thank you for coming in this morning.

I want to start with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's words to Erin Burnett. He said that the war is not going to be over until Ukraine can take Crimea back from its Russian occupiers. Russia has been in there since 2014. What does this tell you about just how long and protracted this war may be?

EVELYN FARKAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MCCAIN INSTITUTE: Well, Sara, I mean it tells us, obviously, that it has been long and protracted and it's in our interest to stop the -- you know, the bloodletting and to bring this to an end as fast as possible.

You know, interestingly, when he says, you know, that he wants to reclaim Crimea, it doesn't mean that he has to do it by military means, but he has to make enough military progress to either break the Russian military and cause them to flee, which I don't think they will flee Crimea. So, ultimately, really, the second option is at the negotiating table. And that - that has to be his best hope.

But we're far from that right now. As you can see on the battlefield, there's not enough progress being made and they need air - they need air cover, the Ukrainians do, and they need longer-range missiles, the so-called ATACMS that we have yet to provide them.

SIDNER: We saw this attempted mutiny and Zelenskyy came out and said, look, from my view Putin looks really weak. Do you agree?

FARKAS: Well, yes, it definitely demonstrated that Putin was weak. He was unable to stop a military force basically from getting very close to Moscow. Having said that, you know, he's clamping down now. So, it doesn't mean that we're going to see a swift change in the government. And it could take a while for Putin to really ultimately lose all of his power.

You know, there will be a day when Vladimir Putin will no longer be ruling Russia, but we don't know when that day will come. He's definitely weakened and people will take advantage.

But I will just caution one more thing, Sara, is that behind the scenes the Ukrainians and others are warning about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, that the Russians are planning another, you know, sabotage similar to what they did when they blew up the dam also in southern Ukraine. So I'm very worried about that. Also in light of what your earlier reporting was saying about how much control Putin has and how much the military has, I'm worried about what's happening there.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about that control. We know that two generals now have sort of disappeared from public view, including, of course, a third person, the head of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin. What do you think Putin is up to now in Russia when it comes to his military brass? Is he purging? What is he doing now to try to strengthen his ability to fight this war in Ukraine and to keep power?

[09:10:03]

FARKAS: I think he's -- he seems to be hesitant to purge his minister of defense and the chief of armed forces. And that's because these two men have been loyal to him all along. And that's the most important thing for Putin is this loyalty.

The other thing is, of course, he doesn't want to show that Prigozhin was right and that he somehow caved to Prigozhin because Prigozhin's number one demand to Vladimir Putin was that he replace those two men. So, I think that Putin will be trying to figure out how he can purge below those two. There have been reports of other military -- members of the military who were close to Prigozhin. So he'll be looking to see if those individuals had communications with Prigozhin in the run- up to the revolt and he'll - and he'll put them in jail or perhaps worse.

SIDNER: Can I quickly ask you your thoughts on the CIA chief going in- person, meeting with Zelenskyy, and the words that he used about, you know, basically the door is open for us to create Russian spies. How significant is this moment?

FARKAS: Yes, I mean, it's really startling and good for him. I would say, Sara, that, yes, these meetings probably shouldn't be public because, as Zelenskyy said, they create a narrative that's not helpful. But, you know, the CIA director is absolutely right, there must be a lot of disgruntled Russians. And now that they see that Vladimir Putin is weaker than they thought, they will probably look for ways to exercise their freedom of, you know, operation. If they're greedy they'll, you know, inform to the CIA for money. If they - if they're patriotic and they're upset with how the government is running Russia, then they'll inform for that reason.

SIDNER: Evelyn Farkas, thank you so much for that analysis. That was great this morning. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: Former Vice President Pence responding to reports that Donald Trump pressured the Arizona governor to find fraud in the 2020 election. How Pence is now describing those calls.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, under fire from inside his own party for this aggressive video that goes after Donald Trump's stance on LGBTQ rights.

And new details about the convicted arms dealer who was set free in the prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Now he's running for office.

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[09:16:34]

BERMAN: This morning, a new CNN K-File investigation reveals that Donald Trump once said that a president under felony indictment would, quote, create a constitutional crisis. Trump made the comments back in 2016 when he was running against Hillary Clinton for the White House and before he became the first former president ever indicted on federal charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT (2016): We could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.

If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government. She's likely to be under investigation for many years, and also it will probably end up, in my opinion, in a criminal trial. I mean, you take a look. Who knows? But it certainly looks that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Trump, of course, now finds himself in that exact situation. He was charged with 37 federal counts for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving office. He pleaded not guilty.

And this morning, former vice president, and presidential candidate, Mike Pence admits he called then Arizona Governor Doug Ducey after the 2020 election, but claims there was, quote, no pressure from Trump to ask for Ducey's help in overturning the election results.

CNN previously reported Trump repeatedly pushed Pence to help find evidence of voter fraud and stop the certification of Biden's win.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now.

Once again a former president and former vice president and two current presidential candidates face questions about the last election, Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. So, here's what we knew. We did know that former President Trump had talked to then Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. That was made clear to us. Doug Ducey had confirmed that at that time.

We learned over the weekend from sources who learned about this from Ducey himself that privately he said that Trump had pressured him to find results of fraud or evidence of fraud to overturn the results of the 2020 election. We also learned from sources that Pence had called Ducey on multiple occasion toss talk about the 2020 election. Now, we were told by sources close to Pence that there was no pressure involved in that, that he was trying to see if there was any evidence of voter fraud so that he could then report it up to President Trump.

Take a listen to what Pence said about these calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE (R), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I did check in with not only Governor Ducey but other governors in states that were going through the legal process of reviewing their election results. But there was no pressure involved, Margaret. I was - I was calling to get an update. I passed along that information to the president. And it was no more, no less than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: And, John, as we know, and we've reported this multiple times, and it was very public at the time, former President Trump was putting an enormous amount of pressure on then Vice President Pence to try to find any indication of fraud to overturn the 2020 election results. And I do want to note one thing. Obviously we know about this other call to the Georgia secretary of state, Raffensperger. That was recorded. This call with the Arizona governor was not recorded at the time.

[09:20:00]

Raffensperger has met with Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump's actions around the 2020 election. He has not reached out to Doug Ducey about their interaction.

John.

BERMAN: Important to note that.

Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for that reporting.

Sara.

SIDNER: Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is facing criticism this morning after his campaign shared a video slamming Donald Trump for vowing to protect LGBTQ rights. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is the first openly gay cabinet member, reacted on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: And I'm going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled up shirtless body builders.

And I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he's going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live in Washington, D.C.

It isn't just the Democrats who are coming after DeSantis for this ad that was put out, is it?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Sara.

No, some of the Republican rivals, including former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, has come out trying to referee this or actually try to rise above it.

But let's start at the beginning here. If you may have missed this over the weekend the DeSantis campaign sent out really a copy of a tweet of this video that was going back to 2016 when then a candidate, Donald Trump, was speaking out positively about supporting LGBTQ rights in the wake of this shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, of course, where scores of people were killed. So, that was one of the comments. He was saying he would support the rights. And then this went on.

What is happening here is Governor DeSantis is trying to run to the right of Donald Trump. He's trying to appeal to some social conservatives in this Republican primary. He's also trying to get attention, perhaps first and foremost here, in this long summer where he's having a bit of a slog here trying to overtake or even compete with the former president.

But we heard Chris Christie on "STATE OF THE UNION" with Dana Bash yesterday trying to rise above all of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a teenage, you know, food fight between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. And I don't think that's what leaders should be doing. And it certainly doesn't make me feel inspired as an American on the Fourth of July weekend to have this type of back and forth going on at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: And the back and forth was sort of bizarre. You have to see this video to really understand it. But it was a spliced copy of some comments from the former president mixed with some images of Brad Pitt and others from videos. So, it -- you can see it on the screen there. Just kind of a bizarre thing that voters clearly are not basing their votes on.

But the Florida governor is trying to run to the right of Donald Trump on this matter and other.

But, Sara, it really raises the question here by doing so really a homophobic comment with the Log Cabin Republicans, a Republican groups, said, this is nonsense and it's hurting the candidates for a general election when they need to reach out to some of those moderate and independent voters as well.

Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, very interesting to note. And we are playing the ad silently on our screen. You can see all those images there.

ZELENY: Right.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Jeff Zeleny, appreciate it.

ZELENY: Right.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: The search is on for multiple suspects involved in a Baltimore mass shooting. The majority of the victims just teenagers.

And severe storms caused major disruptions in the air. Thousands of flight delays and cancellations. More could be on the way.

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[09:28:18]

SIDNER: On our radar this hour, nearly three dozen people were injured when an SUV plowed into a roadside bar and restaurant in New Hampshire. It happened Sunday afternoon in the town of Laconia. Police say a three-car crash in front of the building sent one of the vehicles crashing into the restaurant. None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening.

Now to Houston. A young man who was missing for more than eight years has been found alive. Rudy Ferias was just 17 years old when he disappeared in March of 2015 while walking his two dogs. The Texas Center for the Missing says he is recovering in the hospital. It is unclear where Rudy has been or what his injuries might have been in that hospital.

Now, in New York, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin will hold a CPR training class at Yankee Stadium today. For the last few months, Hamlin has been on a multicity tour to distribute medical equipment and promote techniques that help save lives. We all know why. The 25- year-old went into cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a game in January, shocking everyone watching. It happened on the field. First responders performed CPR on Hamlin, who had to be revived.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, good on him for using this moment to spread important, potentially life-saving knowledge.

So, new developments this morning in the shooting at a Baltimore block party. It left two dead and 28 injuries. The two people killed were identified as 18-year-old Aaliyah Gonzalez and 20-year-old Kylis Fagbemi. No arrests have been made yet. Police say they are searching for at least two suspects.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is in Baltimore with the very latest.

Good morning, Gloria.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

[09:30:00]

And, you know, what unfolded here on Saturday night was a scene like many other around the country right now. We are in the middle of the holiday leading into July.