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5 Dead In Russian Strike On Lviv Apartment Building; Lukashenko: Revolt Leader In Russia, Not Belarus; Trump Aide Pleads Not Guilty In Classified Docs Case; New Pence Ad Slams Trump's Friendliness With Dictators. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 06, 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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[15:00:39]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: According to plan, that's the message from Ukraine's commander-in-chief to his U.S. counterpart on the state of the counteroffensive. This comes as we learn new details about the mercenary boss behind that brief revolt against Vladimir Putin.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: A Trump aide in court, Walt Nauta, leaving his boss' side to enter a not guilty plea on several counts related to the classified documents case. A brief hearing that moves Nauta and Trump one step closer to a possible historic trial.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: How hot has it been this week? Try the hottest in at least 100,000 years. No, I did not misspeak. We're going to show you the dire warning from climate scientists. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEW CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: Just in, a new top level assessment on Russia's war in Ukraine, the military commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces says the counteroffensive against Russia is going "according to plan," but Ukraine is reeling today from a major attack far from the usual front lines.

Five people were killed and several dozen were wounded in Lviv, a large city in the west near Ukraine's border with Poland. Local officials are calling it the most devastating attack on civilians in the Lviv region since the beginning of the full scale war.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is live for us in eastern Ukraine.

And Ben, before we talk about Lviv and the attack there, bringing us up to speed on the state of the counteroffensive.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we heard an assessment from Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukrainian armed forces, who spoke with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, according to a message on his Facebook page.

He said in this, I'm quoting, "He told Milley that the situation is developing according to the plan. The initiative is in our hands." Now, we assumed that they both know what that plan was. Of course, there's been lots of talk that the offensive isn't going according to plan, that it hasn't really resulted in the sort of progress that they were hoping for.

According to this note in Facebook also Zaluzhnyi spoke with Milley about Ukraine's needs for better and more munitions and weapons. And in fact, we know that the United States is considering announcing tomorrow a new aid package, a weapons package for Ukraine that is supposed to, we believe, going to include cluster munitions that Ukraine desperately needs to make progress in punching through the very deep Russian defenses all along the 600-mile long front, Boris?

SANCHEZ: And Ben, bring us an update on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We understand that he is currently not in Ukraine.

WEDEMAN: Yes, he seems to be doing a round of capitals before the meeting next week in Vilnius to discuss, basically, to sort of pave the way for that meeting. He was in Bulgaria early today. Now he's in the Czech Republic.

And we understand that tomorrow he's going to be in Turkey to discuss with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a renewal of the deal, which allows Ukraine to export its grain through the Black Sea. And that was a deal that was worked out between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey and the United Nations.

And the Russians apparently are threatening to end the deal not to renew it. So the Ukrainians are very interested in speaking to the Turks and make sure the deal - that this arrangement continues, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Ben Wedeman live for us in eastern Ukraine. Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right. So where is the leader of the failed Russian revolt? The mercenary who led the first ever rebellion against Vladimir Putin is back in Russia, at least that's what Belarus' president says. The Kremlin will not comment on it.

[15:05:04]

Yevgeny Prigozhin's private Wagner forces known for their brutality in Ukraine, Syria and around the world. Prigozhin threatened a mutiny in Moscow after a contract dispute in effect with Russian military leaders. Then, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko claimed to have set up a deal. Prigozhin pulls back his troops from their trip to Moscow, gets a safe haven in Belarus. Today, Lukashenko said, however, Prigozhin is not in his country.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: St. Petersburg, Putin's old stomping grounds. Prigozhin has not been seen in public since June 24, that - during his attempted mutiny. Today, Russian state media showed police raiding his homes in Russia. They reported finding multiple passports, wads of cash, guns, um, wigs were found as well. Brianna, it appears to be part of a campaign to possibly take down his reputation.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly does.

Let's talk more about it now with David Sanger, CNN Political and National Security Analyst. He's also White House and National Security correspondent for The New York Times. And Dmitri Alperovitch who is on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. He's also a Russia expert and the Chairman of the nonprofit Silverado Policy Accelerator.

Dmitri, you have said that Putin values loyalty above all else. I wonder what you think the prospects are for promotions, health and safety.

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: Well, it's certainly a very peculiar situation, Brianna, because one of the things we know is that he actually is in St. Petersburg, now just because this is what the president of Belarus, Lukashenko, has said, but because there's sightings of him in photos. And his helicopters are being used in St. Petersburg, his plane is there as well. So it's quite clear that he is there.

And one of the things that he may be actually doing is trying to ask for an apology, at least through intermediaries with Putin trying to get forgiveness, trying to convince him that this was not about Putin, that this was not a coup, that maybe he overreacted a bit, got overly excited at the front and that we should just forget all about this. At least that might be his pitch to Putin.

KEILAR: David, how trustworthy is Lukashenko when it comes to his reporting of where Prigozhin is?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Not very, Brianna. We - he said back on June 29th that Prigozhin was in Belarus. We're not certain he actually ever really was in Belarus. And his testimony here about the deal he brokered is also a little bit suspect.

Now, as Dmitri points out, this is a really peculiar deal. It's not clear why Prigozhin is a free man right now. It's not entirely clear why he's alive right now and he's got to be worried about these continued searches of his house, the publication by the Russians of pictures of gold bullion and other findings in the home.

So clearly, they're taking down his reputation, but that may be on the way to indicting him and imprisoning him. And certainly, that's what he's got to be worried about.

KEILAR: Dmitri, what do you make of the raids on his home, the video? And just to remind our viewers, you have deep insight when it comes to the FSB. You were the one who revealed in 2016, the hacking of the DNC emails. So you're very familiar with some of the tactics here that the intelligence agency uses.

ALPEROVITCH: Well, what I think we're seeing here is a clique of the - a class of different cliques inside Moscow where clearly some of the people that are surrounding Putin, like the FSB, his main intelligence agencies, they've never been fans of Prigozhin. He's always been afraid of, of them.

But there are others that are also quite powerful that have been supportive, particularly Russian military intelligence known as the GRU. They are the ones that funded Wagner. They arm them, they gave Prigozhin a lot of money. So there are people right now that are probably trying to convince Putin to let this go that Wagner could be useful, that Prigozhin could be useful and there are others like the FSB, they're trying to pursue a case against them, at least imprison him, if not, to potentially kill him.

KEILAR: I think David, it's just unclear some of what is going on here, right? Like you said, was Lukashenko telling the truth that Prigozhin was in Belarus. Was he ever really there? When you look at that, when you look at Prigozhin supposedly being in Russia and then you look at these raids in the videos.

[15:10:01]

I mean, what questions do you want answers, what questions are raised for you about what may or may not be going on here?

SANGER: Well, a few things. First, Belarus has never made sense to me as a place for Prigozhin to go. He's as vulnerable there as he is in Russia. It's also never made sense to me that the Wagner soldiers would be invited to set up camp in Belarus where they could be an object of considerable instability.

One of the things that we heard from President Lukashenko was that they could be used to defend Belarus or to train the troops in Belarus. I'm not entirely sure the group that you want training your troops is one with the brutality and absence of any of respect for the rules before that we saw with the Wagner group.

And then the big question which is one that goes beyond Prigozhin himself is, is Belarus really going to deploy Russian nuclear weapons as both Lukashenko and Putin has said, when is that going to happen?

There's been some suggestion it could happen fairly quickly, remembering that President Biden will be in Lithuania next week at the NATO meeting. And it's up - I'm sure that Putin is trying to think about what he can do around that time.

And then there's this worrisome expansion of some of the civilian casualties in the war. You saw the attack on Lviv. You've seen the harassment of American airplanes, aircraft and drones over Syria. All of this suggests that there are tensions here that could expand the war.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly. We're watching that as well.

David Sanger, Dmitri Alperovitch, thank you so much for being with us.

ALPEROVITCH: Thank you.

SANGER: Thank you.

KEILAR: Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right, back home here in the U.S., the man accused of helping Donald Trump move and conceal secret documents, classified documents at Mar-A-Lago has pleaded not guilty to federal charges all why CNN - all while CNN learns that the FBI interviewed a key figure in another Trump investigation. We're going to have what this all means for the Special Counsel.

Mike Pence still having to defend his actions on January 6th. See his exchange with a voter who just didn't seem to have the facts while out on the campaign trail.

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[15:16:35]

SCIUTTO: Walt Nauta for a moment steps out of Donald Trump's shadow and into a blistering legal spotlight. Trump's personal aide and now co defendant pleaded not guilty to helping his boss, the former president, hide classified documents. But here's a twist, the arraignment comes after a judge unsealed more of the Mar-A-Lago search warrant affidavit, which reveals prosecutors have surveillance video showing someone moved dozens of boxes before that FBI search.

I want to bring in both CNN's Katelyn Polantz and CNN Legal Analyst Norm Eisen, who's a former counsel to the House Democrats during Trump's first impeachment.

Katelyn, first to you, tell us what we learned in the courtroom today?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, not a lot because it was really a very short hearing, but it's an important hearing.

SCIUTTO:

POLANTZ: It's the hearing where Walt Nauta finally after a month from the indictment of both him and Donald Trump, he gets to enter his not guilty plea. He himself showed up in court and now they're off toward a trial where he and Donald Trump are both linked as co-defendants.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

POLANTZ: They both want trials. We also know from our reporting that Trump's defense team is pretty clued in to what Walt Nauta's defense team is doing as well. And so now they're on this path of when will the trial be, will Donald Trump, as he loves to do in court, be able to drag this out, and at any point in time does Walt Nauta's interests diverge ...

SCIUTTO: Right.

POLANTZ: ... from Donald Trump.

SCIUTTO: That's - so to that point, Norm Eisen, could those interests diverge thereby putting pressure on Nevada to turn state's evidence perhaps against the former president?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jim, having defended individuals for more than three decades, I would argue their interests already are divergent.

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

EISEN: Nauta is looking potentially at decades, if convicted. The normal thing to do with a lower down person in this kind of an alleged criminal scheme is to - I would always tell my client, look, cut a deal, cut a deal as early as you can to save yourself from that risk.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

EISEN: Nauta hasn't done that, so yes, that pressure will continue.

SCIUTTO: And he, of course, doesn't have the conflict, if you want to call it, that of currently running for president. Nauta does not - only the other defendant does.

In the midst of this, Katelyn, we learned about surveillance video from Mar-A-Lago showing boxes being moved prior to the FBI search. They don't identify who that person is, but we have some indicators as to who it likely is.

POLANTZ: It's pretty clear it's Walt Nauta.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

POLANTZ: Because these details arise again in the indictment against him. And we know that this is the sort of thing prosecutors are going to be showing at trial, the video that they would have of Nauta moving these boxes, what prosecutors say was done at the direction of Donald Trump.

But we get this new document yesterday or more redacted - redactions are lifted from the document. It's the documents submitted to court before the FBI search last August. And actually, this surveillance footage was quite extensive. There were four different angles around the storage room, so they could see who was coming and going. They were watching this room.

You could see - they describe people being seen moving behind a refrigerator, which indicated they were going in and out of the storage room.

[15:20:05]

And they see this witness, now we know Walt Nauta, moving 50 or so boxes out on one day and then taking more out, and not all of those boxes come back. And that's the reason they say to the judge, we need to go and search the property.

SCIUTTO: So Norm, from a legal perspective, and I don't want to minimize the difficulties in this case and you got to prove it and so on into a jury. But if you have video of them moving documents, you knew that they had been informed they needed to hand this stuff back. This was taken place before the search, et cetera. I mean, it sounds like they have a lot of pieces of the case together here.

EISEN: This may be the single strongest of all of the cases that have been brought or that are potentially on the horizon.

SCIUTTO: Right.

EISEN: You just have such damning evidence that's laid out in the indictment. As Caitlin points out, now we have even more because of the lifting of the additional redactions out of the materials supporting the search warrant. To the Nauta question, it makes you wonder why deals never get better over time, Jim. Why wouldn't he want to leave the Trump Train earlier to cut a better deal.

Perhaps he's gambling and perhaps Donald Trump himself gambling on a return to the White House where the pardon power or simply Trump ordering the Department of Justice stand down on this prosecution is available. It is puzzling the loyalty that Nauta has shown, particularly since it seems overwhelmingly likely they have video evidence on hand.

SCIUTTO: Right.

POLANTZ: Well, it's also possible the Justice Department isn't interested in offering him a plea deal or Walt Nauta thinks that he could take this to trial and win.

EISEN: I have never known in 30 years where they would not want to make an offer of some kind. It's not always a sweetheart deal, maybe Nauta has to deserve some jail time. But even a moderate amount of jail time is better than the high risk of decades in jail.

SCIUTTO: Yes, many --

EISEN: And he can testify to have an insider say yes, if this - if the government proves its case, Donald Trump ordered me to do that. That would be devastating.

SCIUTTO: Right. Well, that would be remarkable. And listen, decades in prison, it's quite a penalty to face.

Norm Eisen, Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much. It's going to be an interesting next few weeks. Brianna?

KEILAR: This just into CNN, a member of the House Freedom Caucus says the group has voted to remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from its membership, why? We're going to take you live to the Hill to find out.

Plus, stocks falling over heightened concerns that the Fed will raise interest rates for longer than expected. All of this is we learned that the jobs market remains red hot, how this all impacts you. We'll have that ahead.

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[15:27:45]

SANCHEZ: In the race for 2024, a Super PAC supporting Mike Pence is taking new aim at his former boss, Donald Trump, releasing a new attack ad slamming Trump's coziness with dictators, watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America doesn't stand with thugs and dictators. We confront them. Or at least we used to.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologist for Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Kristen Holmes is here with more.

Kristen, this Super PAC essentially likening Trump to dictators.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. Look, this is the farthest that we have seen Mike Pence or his allies go. And big question is, can you take on former president, Trump. And he's not going to be able to in a full way because part of Trump's or - excuse me - Pence's strategy is campaigning off of the Trump-Pence administration and those policies.

But again, this is the furthest that we've seen him go. And I do want to point out one moment from last night, because it is clear that Pence is going to continue to try to differentiate himself from former president, Trump, as well as trying to distance himself and this is what happened at an event in Iowa last night.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you ever second guess yourself? That was a constitutional right that you had to send those votes back to the states ...

PENCE: I did exactly what the Constitution of the United States required of me that day. I kept my oath. I'm sorry, ma'am, but that's actually what the Constitution says. No vice president in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had. But I want to tell you, with all due respect, I said before, I said when I announced President Trump was wrong about my authority that day and he's still wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: I thought this was really a powerful moment. This is something that his campaign has actually wanted. They knew that they were going to be confronted about January 6th. They knew they were going to be confronted about what the former president has said. And they wanted Pence to be able to directly address this issue to voters, which obviously he did.

Now, I will tell you after 2020, when I was in Iowa, I heard from a lot of people saying that he didn't do his job, Pence. That he should have not certified the election. But our colleague, Kyung Lah, is on the ground with him now in Iowa, been traveling around with him.

[15:30:05]

And she told me this morning that voters are really receptive to him.