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Kremlin Says Prigozhin Met With Putin After Mutiny; Disgraced Doctor Larry Nassar Stabbed In FL Federal Prison; State Of Emergency In Orange County, NY Amid Deadly Flooding. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 10, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:07]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: At least four people killed, 11 others injured after a Russian strike on a school in Ukraine. This, as the Kremlin surprised the world saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently met with Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the same man who led a rebellion against Russia.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And President Biden is headed to Lithuania now for what could be a hugely consequential meeting of NATO leaders, Ukraine and its quest to join the Alliance and now what's happening with Sweden.

SIDNER: Right now millions of people are under flood alerts as the East Coast is bracing for more rain. I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Baldwin in New York. This is CNN News Central.

New clue or false claim either way, Russia is now speaking about the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin deepens. The Kremlin now claims that the man who led a revolt against Putin met with the Russian president just days after the attempted mutiny. The meeting happened on June 29th, according to the Kremlin five days after Prigozhin's short-lived rebellion, it apparently lasted about three hours. Four weeks though Putin and the Kremlin have been dodging questions about Prigozhin, especially where he is at the moment. So why is this claim happening now?

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen leads us all. Fred this claim is significant, not only because of the mystery that surrounds Prigozhin, but also the future of those Wagner mercenaries who have in many ways, you know, been some of the strongest fighters for Russia against Ukraine. What can you tell us?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL: Hi there Sarah. Well, first of all, I think you're absolutely right, this meeting is absolutely significant. And I think it does show just how important the Wagner private military company and its mercenaries are to Vladimir Putin and for his war in Ukraine.

Now, what we heard from the Kremlin today is that they also said that that meeting lasted about three hours that there were 35 commanders at that meeting, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Now one of the interesting questions that was then raised, well, were there any people actually from Russia's Defense Ministry because we know that Wagner, and specifically Yevgeny Prigozhin had a lot of beef with the defense minister and his top general.

And the Kremlin would not answer that question. But it certainly does seem to indicate that those Wagner fighters are something that Vladimir Putin might be missing on the battlefield, and that still seem to be very important to him on the battlefield. If we look at, for instance, in the situation around the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where the Russians were advancing mostly thanks to these Wagner fighters. Since the Wagner fighters have left, the Russians have been pulling back not much, but they certainly are under a lot of pressure.

I think one of the interesting things that we picked out of what the Kremlin said today about that meeting, which as you said, was only five days after the mutiny took place, is that Vladimir Putin spoke about the mutiny, apparently they all pledged their allegiance to Vladimir Putin and to the Russian state. And so they wanted to serve the Russian state.

But Putin apparently also talked about possible future combat roles. Now that could indicate that Wagner might make some sort of return to the battlefield. The other thing that we can see, Sara, and I think this is something that's so interesting to see and to talk about, as well, because Kremlin controlled media, which had been talking Wagner up over the past couple of months, as they've been fighting in Bakhmut, the last couple of days had been tearing apart, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In fact, only last night, they ripped into him saying he's not a Robin Hood. He's someone who has a criminal past. Interesting to see what they do now that the message seems to be changing again, Sara.

SIDNER: And you will be watching all the twists and turns. I do want to ask you about another chapter in this story. Someone from the defense ministry, one of the top generals sort of went missing for a while right after this revolt. And now there's been video published of him. What is happening there?

PLEITGEN: Yes, this is Valery Gerasimov who's actually the top General of the Russian military. He's someone who's directly under the Minister of Defense there, hadn't been any video out of them. And there were some people who were speculating that maybe his role had been curtailed. It was only a couple of months ago, Sarah, that he was actually lifted into the role of overseeing the entire Russian war in Ukraine.

So obviously, someone who has been extremely important for Vladimir Putin, but also someone who's sort of been off the radar since that mutiny, again, he's one of the people that specifically were attacked by Yevgeny Prigozhin. And one of the reasons why he said he was going to try to go to Moscow. Now he's resurfaced, possibly Vladimir Putin trying to bring some calm into the situation. Sara?

SIDNER: Fred Pleitgen spent a lot of time in Russia, you know all the goods. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: President Biden is left the United Kingdom after a quick and busy round of meetings this morning. The President met with King Charles and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. He now heads to Lithuania where NATO leaders are gathering for what is definitely to be a high stakes Summit. CNN's Nic Robertson is in London. He's tracking it all. And Nic, Biden's stop in the U.K. brief but important, and now also some real work ahead in Lithuania.

[11:05:22]

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, absolutely. With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, this is ongoing conversations. They've met now for six times over the past six months. So no big headlines out of it. There was a little challenge, if you will, from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the United States decided to give cluster munitions to Ukraine. But there was a level of understanding there as well.

And the climate, obviously an important deal when he met with King Charles. But what awaits him in Vilnius seems to be sort of brewing into something unexpected by everyone. There was a real hope, remembering that yesterday on his flight over there, President Biden to talk with the Turkish President Erdogan, about allowing Sweden to become a member of NATO.

Turkey as a principal country that's blocking that at the moment that the feeling is and the belief is that Turkey rather sweetness than everything, that Turkey had asked it to do. Yet now today, President Erdogan has said hold on, whoa, wait up a minute. Let us join the E.U. first, which is something Turkey has been wanting for some time. And then we can talk about Sweden joining NATO.

This is such a strange term because just a few months ago, the issue for Turkey about Sweden had been the fact that it didn't feel its counterterrorism measures, particularly for Kurdish, for members of the Kurdish opposition living in living in Sweden. The Turkey didn't feel that they were strong enough. The rest of NATO seems to believe that Sweden has done everything that it should do.

And now Erdogan has come up with something else. Well, we've heard from Jens Stoltenberg today saying, despite this, he still feels that there can be a positive message about Sweden, we've had the German Chancellor as well, saying that he thinks Sweden should become a member. It's not quite clear how this impasse is going to be gotten around. But wow, has this issue really come up and it's going to bedevil the unity of NATO.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And what of Ukraine, now there was some question we heard from Zelenskyy over the weekend. Me, I don't know if it was really questioning if he was going to attend but more saying he doesn't want it to just, he's not going there to just have fun. There's clearly a huge moment in talking about where Ukraine is the point of the war that it's in, and what it means for the future in its quest to join NATO.

ROBERTSON: Yes, and it's kind of super in keeping with the way that Zelenskyy has carried on throughout this whole war. He really is not afraid to call out his allies and partners to give him more, to give them the fighter jets, to give him the tanks, all of that. And this seems to be in the same boat. What we've heard from the foreign minister in Ukraine today saying, look, we do believe we're actually going to get swifter membership of NATO.

Going back to the NATO Summit 2008, the roadmap there has now been shortened, so that's a positive. But what the new roadmap is going to look like, is unclear.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Good to see you, Nic. Thank you so much. Much more to come, as President Biden now heads to Lithuania. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, joining me now is Jill Dougherty, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a CNN contributor. And Hagar Chemali, former National Security Council and Treasury Department official. All right, I'm going to throw this question to you, Jill, you know, we're hearing this news, which really is stunning. The more you think about it that Putin met with mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

This is a person whose troops killed Russian members of the military, on his way to try to march in to Moscow. First of all, do you think this is possible that they sat down and talked? And the second thing about that is why?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, yes, I mean, the reality show continues. So yes, I do believe it probably happened, even though a lot of this is really strange. But I think if that happened, we -- the Kremlin wants us to know two things. Putin is in charge, as usual, everything's fine. And he's kind of calm the waters after that revolt.

And number two, which is really important that fighters of Wagner have saluted and said we, you know, we follow our leader, the commander-in- chief, and we will fight for our motherland. So those are the two things I think they want to get across. I think it's interesting that the Wagner fighters apparently saluted and said that they were going to stay on the side of Putin, but there's no indication that Prigozhin himself did. That's still a question.

But I think, you know, the bottom line is really, Russia, as a country needs private military contractors, not only in Ukraine, because they fight that than the regular military. But I think around the world for Russia's foreign policy they can't do it with the structures that they have. They have to bring in private contractors.

[11:10:09]

SIDNER: Yes, it's a really, really good point. They need them in Ukraine as well. Let me ask you, Hagar, you know, this for a lot of people from the outside looking at it, looks like this is the weakest that Vladimir Putin has ever been when it comes to his power. How do you think that might be exploited by President Biden and the other members of NATO as they gather for this really important summit?

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER TREASURY DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Sure, Sara. Well, you know, what's interesting is that Putin really showed his cards when he cut this deal with Prigozhin. And it's not something he typically does. In all of his control over Russia in the years that he's been in power, this was the real first significant threat and really expose his vulnerabilities and weaknesses, as you said.

And so what that does, when he shows his cards to show the circumstances that force him to the table, that's something that I certainly hope, President Biden, all of Washington, all of our international partners and those at the NATO summit, are going to be discussing, because the question of whether or not to give more military equipment, advanced military equipment, like F-16 fighter jets has been in our public discourse now for several months, it's something President Zelenskyy has pushed very hard for.

And the argument against it has always been, well, we're afraid that if we give them something like this, it would allow Ukraine to go on the offensive inside Russian land. However, we've now seen that threats to Russian territory, violence inside Russia is what forced Putin to the negotiating table. And so they really need to have a serious discussion as to whether that's a step they might want to take given that it's clear that that might be ultimately what leads to diplomatic negotiations.

SIDNER: Yes, that's a really interesting point. I want to go back to you, Jill, to ask you about how Putin is seeing some of the things that have come out recently, NATO saying, look, we might speed up the process for membership for Ukraine to join. But President Biden told our Fareed Zakaria, in no uncertain circumstances that that entry into NATO is not going to happen during this war. What does Putin do with that?

DOUGHERTY: Well, that's part of the debate right now. I mean, you could argue that if Ukraine is never going to become part of NATO until the war is over, then you could take the position that why doesn't Putin just keep fighting, ad infinitum, fighting forever, to keep the war going. But I think what Biden is talking about is, you know, the U.S. position is right now, if you got involved, if Ukraine became a member, you would immediately be involved in the war, and you would be at war against Russia.

So that's -- that is the debate. But I'll tell you anything that separates the allies, which this is, to a certain extent, Putin will try to exploit.

SIDNER: Hagar, just quickly, I want to ask you about Putin's power, because a lot of people see this as an erosion of his power. But he's still very much in power, right? We shouldn't sort of go to the extreme that, oh, this might be a chance for a change of leadership.

CHEMALI: Yes, that's right. It's -- I would -- I'm very cautious about this. And the reason is that, in my 12 years in the U.S. government and I worked on a lot of dictatorships within my portfolio, countries like Syria, Iran, Venezuela, countries where we thought when I was on the inside that their leaders were so weak and so feckless that and they were such cowards, that for sure, they were going to fall. And we always believed that.

And those leaders are all still there, and their regimes are all still there. And so I would caution in believing I know, it's very tempting, of course, I'm tempted by it, too. But it's actually smarter to expect him to last because dictators set up their systems in a way that that weaken the population, that weakened the their cabinets that pit people against each other, that is a tactic Putin has used consistently, including the Wagner group versus the military.

And so it's -- and they do that so that it's hard for them to unite against the leader. And so I do not expect him to fall anytime soon, perhaps get assassinated by one of his own. But I don't expect him to fall at all very time, anytime soon. And we have to take that into our calculation. The U.S. does and our partners when pursuing our foreign policy towards Ukraine and in seeking potential diplomatic negotiations.

SIDNER: Hagar Chemali, Jill Dougherty, thank you both, for such great insight. Appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: We are getting some new details on the breaking news from last hour about Larry Nassar, the disgraced us gymnastics doctor stabbed multiple times inside prison. The man who pleaded guilty to molesting dozens of young gymnasts, hundreds of girls in his serving decades for it, he's now recovering from this attack. What we're learning that's next.

[11:14:58]

Plus, it was a one in 1,000 year rain event. Record flooding forcing people to even swim out of their cars and it's not over yet hitting the Northeast very hard. And a 14-year-old girl goes missing is found weeks later on a military base. What we're learning now about the marine being questioned and in custody.

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SIDNER: We're following the breaking news we brought to you last hour. Convicted former USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed multiple times inside federal prison in Florida and is now in stable condition. The former physician is serving decades behind bars after being convicted of sexually assaulted -- assaulting hundreds of gymnasts, including a Olympic medalist, many of whom spoke out at his trial. CNN's Carlos Suarez is joining us now from Miami. What more are you learning about this?

[11:20:28]

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, we know that the former USA gymnastics doctor is recovering in a hospital after he was assaulted and stabbed 10 times in the neck, back and chest that according to a local Corrections Officers Union, all of this happened in a federal prison at northwest of Orlando on Sunday.

Now, Nassar as you noted there, Sara, is essentially spending the rest of his life in prison after he admitted to sexually assaulting athletes when he worked at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics which trains Olympic athletes. Now back in 2018, he was sentenced up to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women and girls have testified in his court case that Nassar sexually abused them over several years, several decades, while he was a member of not only the Michigan State University, but as well as USA Gymnastics.

A number of the women of the girls that testified in his case, were part of the USA gymnastics team. Nassar also pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography again. Sara we're told that he is recovering in a hospital after he was assaulted by another inmate in federal prison, and he was stabbed 10 times.

SIDNER: Carlos, so many of us watched each of those gymnasts coming up with their devastating stories. Thank you for the update on the man who was convicted of sexually assaulting them. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Right now there is a state of emergency in place for Orange County, New York officials saying at least one person has been killed in the flooding this weekend in at least 100 homes impacted. The threat is not over. Local authorities say there's a high risk for excessive rain and more flooding across New England again today. CNN's Polo Sandoval is Rockland County, New York with more on this.

This is one of the areas that was hard hit over the weekend, Polo. And it's not over yet for parts of New York especially up in Vermont, other parts of New England. What have you been seeing there today?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They still have millions of people, Kate, that are under potential flood alerts not to mention the cleanup. I'll give you a small preview of what's ahead for some of the residents here. We're actually in Stony Point, New York. We're about 45 miles north of New York City.

That water you see off in the distance, that's normally a babbling brook that overflowed its banks during the height of the storm. Obviously the water has receded now but it's left behind just tons of debris for Cindy Beyers who actually calls this home, fortunately she tells me that the water only made it into the basement.

Right next door is Richard Beyers who has lived 80 -- 55 of his 80 years here. He said he's never seen it so bad. When you look at the photos that were taken just yesterday during the height of the storm, he tells me that he was reluctant to evacuate yesterday. It wasn't until first responders made it to his doorstep knocked on his door and basically pleaded with him to accept some help that he decided to get on that raft and get floated to safety. Here's what he told our -- my colleagues and I a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: When we see that picture of you and that and that raft, that boat, what's going through your mind at that moment?

RICHARD BEYERS, RESCUED BY BOAT FROM HIS HOME OF 55 YEARS: I'm just depressed. You know, I just didn't -- I'm just depressed and sad that this is happening, you know. I knew I was going to lose a lot of stuff you know. So what more can I do? That's it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Yes. He's depressed, sad but he's grateful to be alive. Back to Cindy's property, this is actually usually a driveway but the water causes it to cave in. And then finally, I'll leave you with this, just the sheer power of the water Cindy telling me that the big trunks were carried onto her door -- onto her property here. So it really gives you an idea of just how swift those currents were, and just how powerful those waters were in neighboring Orange Counties.

Sadly, there was a young woman who was trying to evacuate her home, she lost her footing and then was carried off into the ravine, the one confirmed fatality after yesterday's historic storm. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Cindy. I know you have for letting us see what kind of what's happened on her property. A good example of what everybody in that community is probably dealing with right now and more to come in other parts as well. Polo, thank you. Sara?

[11:25:01]

SIDNER: Coming up, the 14-year-old girl is back with her grandmother after she went missing for weeks. She was found at a military base in California now Marina (ph) is in custody and being questioned.

Also candidates vying for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination flocked to Iowa trying to get voters' attention. But should they have been focusing elsewhere like New Hampshire? That's ahead.

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