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Russian Missile Hits Apartment Building in Ukraine; Yevgeny Prigozhin's Whereabouts?; President Biden Touts Economy in South Carolina. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 06, 2023 - 13: 00   ET

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

[13:00:03]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: And thank you for joining us at INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Welcome to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Right now, President Biden is speaking at a manufacturing plant in South Carolina. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... says, Biden is so stupid, he didn't know there were no seats.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Anyway, I also want to thank the leadership of Enphase and Flex for hosting us.

I'm here to talk about what we're doing to invest in America, and I mean invest in America, all of America, starting here in South Carolina, and to talk about the progress we have made in building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not trickling down.

When you build from the middle out and the bottom up, everybody does well. The wealthy still do very well. But that trickle-down economy, not a whole lot dropped on my dad's kitchen table growing up. It's all part of an economic vision for this country.

I came to office determined -- it's to the point of some my own team thought I was too determined -- to change the economic direction of this country, to move trickle-down economics and get rid of it, where everyone from "The Wall Street Journal" to "The Financial Times" called the program Bidenomics.

I'm not sure they meant it as a compliment at the time. Our plan is working. And one of the things I'm proudest of, it's working everywhere, not just in the coast and big cities, like previous recoveries. This time, investment is working in factories being built and jobs being created, happening in rural America to the heartland, all across America, in communities that have been left out and hollowed out.

This is what it looks like across the country. Over 13 million new jobs since I have been elected to office, more jobs than any president's ever created in the first two years, nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs, including 14,000 in this state alone, this state alone.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And, again, that's more -- that's more in two years than was created in four years in any other administration.

Unemployment been below 4 percent for the longest time in 50 years. Inflation is less than half of what it was a year ago, and we're continuing to work on it. You know, I know we have more to do. Bringing down inflation remains one of the -- my top priorities.

Job satisfaction nationally, nationally is at a 36-year high. The share of working-age Americans in the work force is as high as it's been in 30 years. Remember, they used to say, Biden spent all this money to keep people from working? People are off the sidelines, 20 years, 20 years' high, higher than every single one of my predecessors.

And to pay for low-wage workers -- the pay for low-wage workers has grown at the fastest pace in two decades. And, folks, it's no accident. It's Bidenomics in action. Trickle-down economics has failed the country for decades. It means slashing public investment on things that helped America lead the world in innovation.

We used to invest 2 percent of our entire gross domestic product in research and development. You know what it is now? Point-seven percent. We used to be ranked number one in the world in research and development. Know where we're ranked now? Number nine. China is number eight a decade ago, and now China is number two. And other countries are closing in fast.

This is the United States of America, for God's sake. We used to have the fastest infrastructure, the best infrastructure in the world, rated number one. Now we're rated number 13 in the world in infrastructure. How can you have the best economy in the world and not have the best infrastructure in the world?

Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punchline every month. Anyway, it just -- I won't get into it.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: On my watch, we're making infrastructure a decade headline, a decade.

Yesterday, we announced that, since I took office, we have attracted a half-a-trillion dollars, $497 billion, in private investment in American manufacturing both here and around the world. It's historic. It's Bidenomics in action. Instead of exporting jobs to cheaper labor costs, what we did for decades, we're creating jobs here and exporting American product, product, not jobs. That's the story here in South Carolina.

[13:05:01]

Earlier, we heard the leadership of Enphase say that $60 million they're investing here. Well, that's 1,800 jobs across the country, and 600 permanent jobs right here in South Carolina, all a direct result of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act I wrote -- we wrote and passed.

Well, that's the legislation that passed where so much money is coming in, make all this happen. And, by the way, parenthetically, I want you to -- you hear about the deficit? I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion in two years. Nobody's ever done that.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Cut the debt 1.7.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: This generates income. It generates growth.

Enphase first commercialized the component that converts solar energy into electricity.

KEILAR: All right, President Biden there speaking in South Carolina, pitching his Bidenomics economic plan, and really trying to convince Americans that the economy is turning around, that inflation is turning around, even for those folks who aren't seeing it, that the numbers are working to their benefit, and that they are going to be feeling it soon.

Turning now to the former president, we have some new details on the classified documents case that involves former President Donald Trump. Just a couple hours ago, Walt Nauta, who is Trump's personal aide and accused co-conspirator, pleaded not guilty to helping his boss hide classified documents.

The arraignment comes after a judge unsealed more of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit, that justification for searching Mar-a-Lago last summer. And it reveals the prosecutors have surveillance video showing someone moving dozens of boxes before the FBI search.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is outside of the federal courthouse in Miami for us.

Carlos, what can you tell us about the arraignment?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, that arraignment lasted about five minutes; 40-year-old Walt Nauta did not say a word as he left the federal courthouse here behind me in downtown Miami after pleading not guilty to obstruction charges and lying to federal investigators.

Now, inside of the courthouse, he was joined by his D.C.-based lawyer, as well as a new South Florida-based attorney. Her name is Sasha Dadan. We're told that she is a former public defender with experience trying cases across South Florida, that according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Nauta is being accused of moving several boxes with classified documents from a storage room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort to other parts of the property and lying to federal investigators about it.

Now, prosecutors say that all of this was in an effort to keep some of these classified documents from a Trump lawyer who had been tasked to find them after a grand jury subpoena. Prosecutors have said that they have surveillance video of Nauta moving these boxes around the Mar-a- Lago property before the FBI searched the property.

And the feds say, Brianna, that Nauta lied to them about the whereabouts of these boxes, and, more importantly, he lied about not moving them -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Carlos, thank you so much for the very latest.

Very important developments today, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Tale of the videotapes again.

Let's focus on what we're learning about the new surveillance video in this case taken outside a storage room at Mar-a-Lago showing a person moving boxes to an unknown location.

CNN's Paula Reid joins us now with more.

To be clear, the affidavit, the search warrant affidavit, does not explicitly identify Nauta as the person who moved the boxes, right? Do we have any details of who else it could be?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We have some context clues, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REID: They're talking about someone who moves these boxes multiple times, who leaves the storage space with 60 boxes and returns with only 30.

Now, additional details in these documents suggest that this individual was interviewed by the FBI multiple times, where moving the boxes was a significant issue, Jim. And we know from our reporting all of that suggests that yes, this was indeed Walt Nauta.

But what's really remarkable in this less redacted affidavit is just how much investigators knew in early August 2022, before they searched Mar-a-Lago, how much information they had already gleaned from surveillance footage, from photos, right, things that we didn't learn about until nearly a year later, when the indictment came out.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean, it fights the notion that they went in there willy-nilly to some degree. So, Nauta and Trump, they're co-defendants here. They have both been

indicted. Is it possible that their legal interests could diverge? Because that, of course, would present the possibility of one testifying against the other.

REID: Not only possible, Jim. I would say that it's highly probable at some point that Walt Nauta is going to have to make a decision if he wants to stick by his boss, the former president, continue to fight this case together.

SCIUTTO: Right.

[13:10:01]

REID: His legal fees are, of course, being paid by a Trump-linked PAC.

His lawyer is associated with that political action committee that is this very pro-Trump. If you -- quote, unquote -- "flip" on the former president, that legal representation is going to go away.

SCIUTTO: Right.

REID: And the resources that it takes to go up against the Justice Department, that is a significant adversary.

But, at some point, you have to ask yourself whether you are possibly willing to go to jail if this doesn't go your way. It appears they're playing the long game. They're trying to delay this case. So, these little delays, like his arraignment being postponed twice, that adds up over time, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REID: So, it's unclear when this would go to trial, but, at some point, Walt Nauta is going to have a really serious decision to make.

SCIUTTO: That, of course, raises a question whether that financial legal support has an intent behind it.

I know you will continue to follow. Paula Reid, thanks so much -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's discuss these threads further with the two Lauras. We're joined by CNN political analyst Laura Barron-Lopez. She's the White House correspondent for "PBS NewsHour." And CNN chief legal analyst Laura Coates, also a former federal prosecutor.

Laura Barron-Lopez, let's start with you on Walt Nauta. We have seen so many Trump aides come and go, but he has stuck around. Talk to us about your reporting in his role in all of this.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He has stuck around.

And what was interesting about today, Boris, to me, that really stands out is the fact that he really waited until the last minute to be able to have this arraignment. He delayed for about 28 days, saying that he needed to find a local lawyer to represent him.

He's represented broadly by the same lawyer as former President Trump, but really waiting, dragging this out as much as possible. And that delay is a tactic that I think we're going to see repeatedly, not just from Walt Nauta, but also from the former president, because it's a part of the political strategy broadly as well, which is that the former president wants to delay this as much as possible, all of these potential indictments, to go beyond the 2024 election cycle, so, that way, he could potentially pardon himself.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the 2024 election cycle, as you noted, the Iowa caucuses begin very early in the next year.

Delay the name of the game for these two, Laura.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I mean, he's collected, what, 30-something-million dollars since being indicted at a federal level

SANCHEZ: That's a good point.

COATES: It's obviously not hurting his campaign.

And then you have got the RNC pledge about trying to support whoever the eventual nominee is. If you look at it right now, and he is the presumptive winner of the RNC nomination, it bodes well to keep it going. It doesn't hurt him.

However, in the real world, where the rest of us live, where you can get federally indicted, and you don't get 30 million bucks, you get -- maybe get 30 days behind bars at the onset before trial, I mean, this is a really astonishing moment in time. You have got a former president of the United States, an redact -- unredacted portions now have an indictment, of a criminal indictment, of an affidavit that shows probable cause as to why this entire thing began down in Florida.

It includes surveillance footage. And before they even had an indictment, before they went through everything else, they were aware they saw boxes moving, the boxes you're seeing behind the screen, of course, put in one area, not removed -- not put back in full. This is part of what will be the evidentiary basis in a court of law.

SANCHEZ: To your point about that surveillance video that Jack Smith now has of boxes being moved before the FBI ever went into Mar-a-Lago, how does that boost Smith's case?

COATES: Well, remember, affidavits are for probable cause, not for beyond a reasonable doubt.

So they still have to prove all these allegations to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. But what it does is suggest they were looking with an eye towards grand jury testimony, witnesses they were going to call. They already knew what they wanted to know. They wanted to see whether you were credible when you spoke about it.

They could then guide their entire prosecutorial development, in terms of which witnesses to call who would buttress the testimony, who would corroborate other aspects of it. So, when you begin with, essentially, the gift of the receipts, you can work backwards to figure out how to get a timeline, a chronology, and the fact-based patterns and witnesses to actually build your case.

SANCHEZ: You can see who is being dishonest and when, right?

COATES: Absolutely. Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Notably, Laura, she had mentioned the sort of agreement among Republicans that, whoever's the nominee, we're going to support them.

You haven't seen too many Republicans, even as Donald Trump is the front-runner, going after him for this. In fact, they're defending him.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes

Speaking of earlier, when I said that the former president has said that he would potentially pardon himself if he's reelected...

SANCHEZ: Right.

BARRON-LOPEZ: ... we also are seeing a number of Republicans hint that they would do that as well if they were elected to the president, notably, Ron DeSantis.

And you could see it kind of becoming this litmus test among the Republicans in the primary, that they would potentially pardon the former president or others involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

The only ones that you're seeing go after Trump a bit are Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Will Hurd. And we have heard from former Congressman Hurd that he is not going to necessarily say yes to this RNC pledge that he would just support whoever is the ultimate nominee.

And I think that you're going to see that from those three. But the rest of the field, they're not going after the former president at all.

[13:15:00]

SANCHEZ: You would imagine they might try something different, given that the polling has really trended in one direction since the initial indictment.

Laura, I had a question for you about Nauta's relationship with Trump, because, from our understanding, Trump-aligned entities are paying all his legal bills. And yet the judge in this case has said that the two cannot communicate about the classified documents case. Who's verifying that? How are they being held accountable for that?

Those are conversations that could be had in private, especially if one of them is paying the bills. COATES: Of course.

I mean, the power dynamic and the leverage one has is unbelievable to think about. It's not unheard of. Imagine spouses who may be prosecuted together...

SANCHEZ: Sure.

COATES: ... or people who are in the same business for some respect.

It's not unheard of to have that. What is difficult is the point you raise, Boris. How do you police that? How do you ensure they're not actually communicating? But, also, when you're thinking about how this will play out in an actual trial, at some point, defendants find themselves with the realization that their interests no longer align, either because the leverage or because one might be viewed more favorably by the jury than the other.

One might become a kind of a scapegoat. And they can be fearful of that very preposition. So there are moments when two different attorneys are going to come to -- not come to blows, verbal ones, again, but will be at odds about trying to figure out how to best represent their individual clients, and then be a part of the team.

They say, keep your enemies close, but, really, your co-defendants even closer, particularly if you are the person with the more leverage and might have more to lose.

SANCHEZ: The other aspect of this, to, me that's fascinating is that, while Republicans are defending the former president, the White House and Joe Biden, theoretically, who Trump would face if he were to win the nomination, in a rematch of 2020. President Biden hasn't said much about all of this.

He has sort of let it speak for himself.

BARRON-LOPEZ: And he's not going to say much more at all...

SANCHEZ: Right.

BARRON-LOPEZ: ... because of the fact that he wants to demonstrate that he is treating the Justice Department as a totally independent branch, that they are doing this on their own, that he has not spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland or any of the prosecutors working on these cases, even the ones -- the one being brought against his son Hunter Biden, that he is not involved in this whatsoever, that this is totally separate.

Because, of course, we have seen that the former president, as well as a number of Republicans, have tried to argue that this is some political persecution. We saw that that's why Trump, I think, got -- jumped into the race so early, was that to say, look, I'm a candidate and I'm being politically persecuted, and to refute at all of what the evidence is clearly showing.

One other point, Boris, on the -- on today and Jack Smith when it comes to the potential -- that special counsel -- when it comes to the potential for this indictment and this case to be delayed further, because we know that that's a tactic that Trump is going to deploy, is that potentially looming all over this is that Jack Smith is pursuing more evidence.

He's saying that he's not done investigating this at all, and that there could even be future charges looming.

COATES: I mean, there is not a fully redacted affidavit. There are still portions that are still -- for that very reason. There could be more ahead, something about a woman named Laura.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

COATES: God, what a name.

SANCHEZ: Important points. Great to have the two Lauras with us, Laura Coates, Laura Barron-Lopez. Please come back, because there will be no shortage of news on the Donald Trump front.

Appreciate you -- Brianna.

KEILAR: He failed to march on Moscow, and now he is out in the cold. Why mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to be losing friends after his brazen challenge of Putin's power.

And Mark Zuckerberg versus Elon Musk,. Facebook's founder taking aim at Twitter, as he launches a rival app, and he's giving Musk 30 million reasons to worry about it.

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[13:22:49]

SCIUTTO: There are new signs today that the mercenary chief who led a weekend mutiny in Russia against Vladimir Putin may be in a perilous limbo.

Belarus' president says that Yevgeny Prigozhin is not in his country after all, but in Russia. Prigozhin, you will remember, threatened to march his private Wagner army on Moscow two weekends ago, until Alexander Lukashenko is said to have brokered a deal that allowed him to enter exile in Belarus. He has not been seen in public since June 24, though.

Today, our Matthew Chance asked Lukashenko exactly where he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wonder if you could provide us all with a bit of an update on the whereabouts of the Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Is he in Belarus or not?

ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, PRESIDENT OF BELARUS (through translator): In terms of Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg, or maybe, this morning, he would travel to Moscow or elsewhere, but he is not on the territory of Belarus now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: St. Petersburg, of course, where Putin came from.

The Kremlin would not confirm to CNN if Prigozhin is indeed in St. Petersburg, but Russian state media did show raids on his homes, allegedly uncovering multiple passports, gold bars, wigs, and wads of cash.

In Ukraine, Russia has exactly one of the most devastating attacks on civilians in Lviv region -- this in Western Ukraine -- since the war began, this according to officials there. A cruise missile missile struck a residential area. It left five people dead, several dozen wounded. Lviv is the largest city in Western Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the front lines, quite close to the Polish border, in fact.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is in Ukraine.

Ben, an orphanage among the buildings struck here. They have struck Lviv before, but this is considered a relative safe haven from Russian strikes. Tell us how devastating this one was and also what that does to any sort of sense of calm or safety in the western part of the country.

[13:25:00]

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the city, Jim, was woken at 2:30 in the morning by these blasts.

And, of course, the blasts were caused by Kalibr missiles. Those are Russian cruise missiles that have a payload of about 1,000 pounds of high explosives, causing massive destruction, as you can see from those pictures, at least five people dead, nearly 40 wounded.

And it does shatter the feeling in Lviv that -- even when we leave Ukraine, we usually pass through Lviv. It's a city, if you didn't know there was a war, you wouldn't -- you just -- there's no sign of it around you.

And so this is going to change. And, in fact, as a result of this sense of security there, 10 bomb shelters were locked shut. So, those who were rushing to the bomb shelters when they heard the alarm couldn't get in. So the local prosecutor is now conducting an investigation -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I spent a lot of time in Lviv. It must be a real shock to the people there.

I want to talk about another issue here, because it does appear now that the U.S. has made a decision to supply to Ukraine cluster munitions in the upcoming aid package, this, of course, a highly controversial issue, because cluster munitions, certainly, when Russia has used them, there's been enormous international criticism, because they have a very high risk of impacting civilians, not just the intended targets here.

Can you explain the decision-making here, why Ukraine has pushed for this and why it appears that the West is now accommodating?

WEDEMAN: Well, one of the reasons why this counteroffensive, Jim, has not moved forward as quickly as many were hoping, were expecting is that the Russians have had months to dig in.

They have dug in deep with multiple layers of defenses and trenches and bunkers. And cluster munitions are anti-personnel weapons. They're the sort of thing that, if you want to clear trenches in a quick and efficient manner, they're certainly the weapon of choice.

Now, human rights organizations have objected to this proposal of providing Ukraine with these munitions. But what I have seen myself in front-line towns and in the trenches is that the Russians use them quite commonly.

And for the Ukrainians, who are already struggling with a lack of proper airpower -- the Russians really beat them when it comes to their presence in the sky -- these cluster munitions might be able to provide the Ukrainians with the ability to knock through, to shove through those trenches and finally make some significant progress -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, trouble is, those munitions, they often stick around, right, provide risk after the fact.

A final question before I let you go. Even in the midst of war, there are discussions between the warring parties, specifically on prisoner exchanges, and it appears there's another one under way.

WEDEMAN: That's actually completed.

This is the 47th prisoner exchange since the war began between Russia and Ukraine. Today, each side handed over 45 prisoners. We understand, from the Ukrainians, most of them were sergeants and privates. We don't know the identity or the ranks of the Russians who were handed over.

Now, we did have an opportunity to speak to some Russians, convicts- turned-soldiers, and they described the conditions on the front lines as really grim.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEDEMAN: "When they put me in prison, I heard they were recruiting. Serve six months, and a pardon, he tells me.

It was very different from what I saw on TV, a parallel reality, says Sergei. "I felt fear, pain and disappointment in my commanders."

(END VIDEO CLIP) WEDEMAN: And what we understand is, though, that the Russians in these prisoner exchanges aren't really interested in these convicts- turned-soldiers.

They're the meat for the meat grinder in the battle of Bakhmut. They're more interested in pilots, officers and professional soldiers in these exchanges -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, it shows you the disdain they show for some of their fighters.

Ben Wedeman, please keep yourself and your team safe. Always good to have you on. Thanks so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still to come: so-called forever chemicals in nearly half the nation's tap water. Coming up, how you can make sure what you're drinking is safe and what you should do if it's not.

And, later, with Twitter in turmoil, Instagram launching a new social media app, so could it be a Twitter killer?

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just moments.

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