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Officials Say, U.S. to Send Cluster Munitions to Ukraine; Special Counsel Zeroes in on Chaotic Oval Office Meeting; Pence Urges GOP Voters to Think Carefully About Who Can Win. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 07, 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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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. now expected to supply a highly controversial weapon to Ukraine, so controversial, most nations ban it. Why the United States is now agreeing to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.

JOHN BERMAN: CNN ANCHOR: A CNN exclusive, investigators probing a chaotic Oval Office meeting before the January 6th insurrection. Does this mean they're closing in on charges?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A Lyft driver is shot and killed in Washington, D.C. And we're now learning that he not only recently escaped the Taliban finding refuge in the United States, he also served along U.S. troops in Afghanistan as an interpreter for a decade. The search is on now for his killers.

I'm Kate Bolduan, John Berman and Sarah Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: A military weapon so dangerous to civilians, it's banned by more than one nations, but the U.S. is expected to send it to Ukraine to be used against the invading Russian forces. The U.S. says controversial cluster munitions will be included in a new U.S. aid package for Ukraine.

The move is in light of Ukraine's struggle to make gains in their Russian counteroffensive. Ukraine has been for those munitions. But cluster munitions are a major risk to civilians because when they're fired, they release bomblets that sometimes don't explode. Those explosives pose a threat similar to landmines to civilians for years, even decades.

CNN's Ben Wedeman joins us from Eastern Ukraine this morning. Ben, is there any sense of what kind of an impact that these powerful and controversial weapons could have on Ukraine's offensive?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, I can give you a pretty good example. We were today at a Ukrainian artillery battery that was firing 155 millimeter high explosive antipersonnel munitions. These are artillery shells that burst over the trenches, spraying shrapnel over a large area.

But a cluster munition drops dozens, hundreds, sometimes, of these small bomblets over a much larger area, sometimes several football fields. So, their effectiveness is much larger than the sort of ammunition that we saw being used today.

And it's particularly necessary around Bakhmut, where, according to the Ukrainian army, the Russians have deployed 50,000 troops in a pretty small area, and they are deployed in multiple layers of trenches that are dug deep.

And cluster munitions, despite all the problems that go with them, are an effective weapon to try to basically destroy these defenses. But, of course, there are problems. For one thing, the United States actually discontinued the production of these weapons in 2016.

And as you said, the problem is they have a very what's called the high dud rate. The number of these bomblets that don't actually explode can be up to 40 percent, and they can stay in the ground for months, years, decades afterwards. And, hopefully, when this war is over, the problem is civilians will come back to these areas, which are farmlands, by and large, and there's a real danger that there could be injury and perhaps death to them for decades to come. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes, it's a really good point. We know that the U.N. has accused Russia of using these cluster bombs on civilians in Ukraine.

But Ukraine is also in talks with the United States to try and get some long range weapons. What can you tell us about that effort and if it's going anywhere at this point?

WEDEMAN: Well, President Zelenskyy mentioned that in a press conference last night that he's in discussions with the United States, and we know the American officials are considering.

Now, weapon system they would like to get their hands on is known as the ATACMS. That's the army tactical missile system.

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This is a missile system that has a range up to 190 miles.

Now, what's important to keep in mind is that last summer, the United States started to provide Ukraine with HIMARS, which is High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, very effective, but not long range.

What happened is, after the HIMARS were introduced, the Russians pulled their command and control centers further away from the frontlines. By providing the Ukrainians with weapons that have a further range and that are very accurate as well, it definitely will give the Ukrainians that necessary advantage at this critical time when this offensive seems to be gaining some ground. Sara?

SIDNER: Ben Wedeman, you are in the part of the country in Eastern Ukraine where the fighting is fierce. Thank you and your team for being there. John? BERMAN: All right, Sara. We want to talk a little bit more about these cluster munitions that do seem headed to Ukraine. We have a 1960s version up here on the screen just to show you how many bomblets are part of this, how much destruction can be delivered.

These have been used in Ukraine already by the Russians on Ukrainian civilians. You can see the series of explosions. But I want to point out one thing here. You saw the explosions. You also see right here on the ground an unexploded bomblet. And that's the concern that some of these explosives don't go off right away. They could be found by civilians, by children later.

With us now, CNN Military Analyst, former commanding general for the U.S. Army, Mark Hertling. General, great to see you. Can we talk about the theoretical pros and cons of these munitions? First, let's talk about theoretically. Why do people argue that they are effective?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, because they do have the film that Ben showed during his piece showed the cluster munitions in a desert environment covering a wide area, as he said, several football fields. That is absolutely correct. The problem is well, we'll get into the cons in just a second, it can cover a wide area when those cluster munitions, U.S. munitions are fired by U.S. artillery, not the HIMARS type, the rocket type, but the artillery round, you get between 72 and 88 bomblets that come out of that shell over a target land and that can strike both soldiers and equipment. John.

So, it does cover a wide area but in order to explode, they have to hit something whether it's the ground, a vehicle, a group of people. They were designed in the '80s against large elements of Soviet, both equipment, primarily artillery and air defense, but also large consolidations of people, men.

So, those are the pros. It does cover a wide area but as you said, it has a very high dud rate as well.

BERMAN: So, let's talk about the cons here, because there is a reason and we have a map up here. We can show you all the NATO nations that ban these. So, obviously, there are people who think they are either, A, not effective or, B, not moral.

HERTLING: Yes. Well, the cons are, first of all, that the Human Rights Watch has said they are an indiscriminate type of munitions that should be banned from the battlefield because of exactly your reporting, saying that civilians after the battle can pick them up and injure. And, in fact, Russia has been using it in the Eastern Donbas since 2014 there have been over 1,000 Ukrainians killed by just -- Ukrainian civilians killed by picking these up.

The Human Rights Watch also says there's been about 400 children who have seen these small little cans, picked them up and they've exploded. So, it leaves what's called a dirty battlefield afterwards.

And, John, what we're talking about is the potential for the U.S. to deliver about 100,000 of these artillery rounds. If you even go with the 3 to 5 percent dud rates that I've experienced personally, that's about four or five small grenades per round, times 100,000. You're talking about close to a half a million. And that's a conservative estimate of these small grenades that will be left on the battlefield.

They're dangerous. They need to be destroyed after a period of time. They're not self-destructive. And, in fact, in this kind of a fight, even though Ukraine is asking for them, for trench lines, for defensive positions, they have some other problems. Because once a commander fires these rounds at a location, like a trench line, it spreads out over a very wide area and friendly forces then have difficulty maneuvering into that force or into that area, excuse me, because they will then experience the same kind of rounds going off that we're duds.

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So, usually, when you have a planning factor as a commander, you say, once you fire DPICM, the Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, into an area, you don't want to maneuver there because of the safety concerns for your own soldiers.

BERMAN: General, you said you have some personal experience. We have a photo up here of you. I think this is a dashing Mark Hertling on top of tank here some years ago. Talk to us about your own personal experience.

HERTLING: Yes, that was on top of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, John, and that was in 1991. During that period, in fact, at 2:00 in the morning on February 27th, I remember it well, our cavalry squadron was hit by five rounds of Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions from an artillery battery that evidently fired at the wrong place.

We had, in a period of a short few minutes, about 33 soldiers injured. It damaged, did not destroy any of our equipment. It sheared the antennas off my Bradley, the one you just showed in the picture, and it also punctured the Tow, the missile launch tube on the Bradley, but it didn't debilitate any of the armored vehicles.

So, we learned firsthand that some of the publicity about what DPICM can do to armored vehicles, rather than just trucks or soft-skinned vehicles, as we call them, was overblown by the artillery community.

The 33 soldiers that were wounded, 29 of them returned to continue to fight. I was one of those. I still carry a couple of pieces of shrapnel in my right leg from that attack. There were only two that had to be medevac, and both of them survived the attack. So, they had to have a little bit more medical treatment.

And that was in a desert environment, a flat surface. When you're talking about launching these rounds against a trench line, those trench openings are only about two feet wide, two or three feet wide. So, you're talking about covering an area that's several football fields but not a lot of them are going to go into the trench itself.

As Ben said before, that Ukraine thinks this is going to be a very good weapon to fire against trenches. I would debate that. But, again, I'm not a commander on the scene. I can't question General Zaluzhny and his request for this. I'm just suggesting that these things are not as effective as some of the other munitions, like the airburst artillery.

One other thing, these munitions were all designed before the age of precision guided artillery, which the Ukrainians have a lot of, because we've given them the (INAUDIBLE), the HIMAR rounds that can precisely hit a target.

So, whereas this is an area to fire weapon that basically takes away the maneuver space around an area, those more precise rounds will hit targets, not human targets, because you're not going to waste an artillery round on an individual, you certainly do have those air bursts that can cover the ground with shrapnel and not leave some of the residual bomblets that come out of a DPICM shell.

BERMAN: General Mark Hertling, great to have you with us, glad you were not seriously injured. You must be fun to go through airports with. Great to see you this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's turn now to ACNN exclusive. The special counsel investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election is now focusing in on a chaotic Oval Office meeting held in the final days of his administration. The meeting happened on December 18th, a few days after the Electoral College had named Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election.

During that meeting, a wild array of ideas were offered up to the president to try to stay in power. Ideas were floated like having the military seize voting machines, invoking martial law, even appointing Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud.

Here's how people described what it was like inside the room to the January 6th congressional committee.

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PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I was not happy to see the people in the Oval Office. I don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice.

DEREK LYONS, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I mean, at times, there were people shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other.

SIDNEY POWELL, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Cipollone, Herschmann and whoever the other guy was showed nothing but contempt and disdain of the president.

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I think that it got to the point where the screaming was completely out there.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I'm going to categorically describe it as you guys are not tough enough, or maybe I put it another way, you're a bunch of (BLEEP).

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: CNN's Katelyn Polantz, part of the team behind this exclusive reporting, she joins us now. Katelyn with this information, who is the special counsel focusing in on?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We don't know exactly, but we do know that they are focusing on this meeting, that they are talking to witnesses about it.

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They have been asking about it for quite some time. They've spoken to a lot of people. They've even brought people into the grand jury previously who were there.

But, again, they are doubling back and making sure they're talking to even more people about this meeting, December 18th, well into the night, where things really escalated inside the White House.

And, basically, this is a moment in the Trump presidency where all of the ideas about how to challenge the election, they are there, and they are there in the room, and people are sharing them with Donald Trump himself.

So, there are Trump advisers in the White House, oeople like the former White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. You just heard him there. He's saying, there is no fraud, there's no fraud, this is done, you have lost the election.

And then there are other people on the other side who are in that meeting that are causing this escalation, people like Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne, Michael Flynn, outsiders who come into the White House to meet with Trump and are trying to tell him he should harness the powers of his presidency to question the result of the election. He should consider seizing voting machines. He should consider appointing Sidney Powell as the special counsel, things that his administration was vehemently pushing back against.

And then you also have Rudy Giuliani there well into the night, also as a voice in the mix talking about this plan, using fake electors to question the election or overturn Trump's loss.

And so all of this comes together, and this is a moment where Donald Trump is confronted with both these extreme ideas, as well as the fact that there aren't votes that are flipped against him in the election unduly.

And so all of that is now of interest to the special counsel office. They've even talked to Giuliani about it himself. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes. Katelyn, great reporting, thank you. Sara?

SIDNER: Two New Jersey firefighters ran towards the burning cargo ship to put the fire out and ended up being trapped in the fire, killed in the line of duty. Union leaders now speaking out, saying the crews battling the flames didn't have the equipment they needed. Former President Donald Trump heads to Iowa today on the campaign trail as his former vice president sends a warning to voters in that state.

And pop star Britney Spears says she was struck by security guards over NBA pick Victor Wembanyama. He is the big new pick. What the rookie is saying about the whole drama, coming up.

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SIDNER: Just a few hours from now, former President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail in Iowa. It comes as his former vice president, Mike Pence, well, he turned GOP primary competitor as well, made a thinly veiled jab at his former boss, telling Iowa voters to think carefully about which Republican can win back the White House.

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MIKE PENCE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Look, I honestly believe that different times call for different leadership. And I'm very confident, more so after this week, that the people of Iowa are going to take a fresh look not only at us, but at the former president and all the candidates.

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SIDNER: Veiled indeed, Pence making those comments as the special counsel's investigation into 2020 election interference looms over Donald Trump.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us now. Kristen, President Biden today announced a series of moves aimed at lowering the costs of health care as part of this new scheme that he's doing, which is called I don't know that he likes this name, but Bidenomics. What can you tell us about that message and whether or not that message is actually resonating?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's very clear that Bidenomics is part of his race to the White House for 2024. But the question of whether or not it's resonating with voters, well, it's just still not clear.

We have to remember that so many voters across the country have been experiencing inflation for the past several years. So, even when you hear Biden come out and say he's taking these cost-cutting measures that inflation is down, even if it's just a phantom effect, a lot of people are still feeling like they are having a hard time affording gas, affording groceries at the grocery store. Even over this summer, we know that that July 4th barbecue, it was a little bit cheaper but it was still very expensive for so many people.

So, as he kind of starts this campaign on Bidenomics, the question is whether or not voters are going to actually believe him that the economy is better. Remember, they believed that the economy under former President Trump was better because they were actually seeing those low interest rates. And right now, it is just too early to tell.

This is likely something that's going to be a continual push for the Biden White House and also going to be something that we're not going to really see the effect of until closer to that November election.

SIDNER: Kristen, can you give me some sense of what is happening between Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on the campaign trail? There was Pence defending himself to some of the folks he was talking to who were asking him why he didn't flip the election in 2020. And now you hear this veiled, very veiled, but jab at Donald Trump saying, you need to be careful who you choose to be the next president.

HOLMES: Yes, Sara. I have heard from a lot of people who have asked me, does this mean that Pence is going to war with Donald Trump? And the answer is no. He cannot go on to a full-fledged war with the former president because part of his campaign strategy is really basing it off of the Pence or the Trump/Pence administration and those policies.

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He knows that so many of those policies were very popular among Republicans, and he wants to take credit for those popular policies, which means he can't distance himself too far from the former president.

But when you look at Trump's legal issues and we were talking about how now we had this news story about how this 2020 meeting is a big focus of the special counsel, we obviously know he's been in indicted twice, the question is whether or not these legal problems that Trump has had will actually impact him with the voters.

And when we look at those polling numbers, right now, the answer is no. But I do want to say that even the Trump advisers that I talked to know that this is an unprecedented time, that anything could change that at any time. Does a third indictment move the needle? Does a trial during a campaign move the needle? And no one really knows the answer to that, Sara.

SIDNER: Yes. It's a wait and see situation. But so far, the base is behind Donald Trump.

All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right. Brand new jobs data out just a short time ago shows hiring slowing a bit, but still the 30th consecutive month of gains. What this means for your summer spending. We have new reaction from the administration, next.

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