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Biden Lands In Lithuania For NATO Summit; Kremlin Says Wagner Boss Met With Putin After Mutiny; U.S. Attorney Who Led Hunter Biden Investigation Refutes Whistleblower's Claims Of Political Interference In Probe; Schumer Asks FDA To Look Into "Prime" Energy Drinks. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 10, 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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[15:00:30]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The world leaders meeting for key talks and big decisions. President Biden attending a jam packed NATO Summit but some potentially riffs are already rising with allies. A major focus, Ukraine's push to join the alliance with President Biden making his position very clear.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And this just into CNN, the Pentagon says it is engaging with the Republican senator who is now blocking military promotions. His status now left the Marines without a confirmed commandant for the first time in more than 150 years. How does that impact the nation's national security?

We are following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: Right now, President Biden is in Europe on a mission to keep NATO's unified front intact. A short time ago, he landed in Lithuania, head of a pivotal NATO Summit there. Divisions have emerged within the group about whether to expand the alliance and which countries to let in.

Earlier today, Biden was in the United Kingdom part ceremonial visit, part diplomatic visit. He met with King Charles and the British prime minister. So let's take you now to England with CNN's Max Foster.

So Max, what did Biden achieve with this quick stop tour of the U.K.?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you probably got a sense some key ally that there are some divisions in the Alliance, frankly, on the way that America is handling Ukraine currently. So Britain, for example, wants to bring Ukraine quickly into NATO and it's pretty clear that President Biden isn't so sure about that. The big division, though, is on these cluster bombs that America is sending to Ukraine.

Many allies in Europe do not see that as a possibility. They do not agree with that, because those munitions are illegal in these countries. So there's a bit of division, they're going into that NATO meeting. We then saw President Biden coming here to Windsor to have a ceremony,

frankly, with King Charles. It's interesting to see them together. They work very well together and they had tea together. There's an inspection of guard here, a moment to really celebrate the long-term alliance between the U.K. and the U.S., which remains strong. We call it a special relationship here. We like to think that America sees it as the same.

But American presidents generally enjoy these visits. Normally, they're completely confidential once they go into the castle. But slightly different with King Charles this time was he (inaudible) what they discussed. They went to meet some senior bankers from the U.S. and the U.K. to discuss the idea of getting more investment money into clean energy projects.

I spoke to President Biden's climate envoy, John Kerry afterwards. He said it was really positive meeting. But it's interesting to get a sense of what happened to that meeting, when in the past with Queen Elizabeth, we never got any sense of that at all. So a bit of a taste of how King Charles is treating his monarchy as well.

SANCHEZ: And Max, as always, the case with the Royals protocol is so important. And there was a bit of a protocol issue here with President Biden, what happened?

FOSTER: Well, some of the traditionalists did notice how President Biden put his hand on the King's back and people were talking about breaks in protocol. I spoke to a royal source saying absolutely not a break in protocol. This sort of warmth is really encouraged and enjoyed, frankly, by the King. So we're learning a bit about that as well.

You'll remember a few years ago, Michelle Obama put her hand on the Queen's back, and that was seen as a real shock. Maybe they're just different characters. I think it's interesting, actually, that King Charles is being bit more formal than he - informed that he used to be. And actually he welcomed that. I'm told it wasn't actually an issue at all, but a lot of the commentators did pick up on it.

SANCHEZ: A notable shift, Max Foster in Windsor, England. Thank you so much, Max.

Let's go now to CNN's Natasha Bertrand who's in Vilnius, Lithuania. The site of the NATO Summit that President Biden is going to attend.

And Natasha, NATO has serious business to take care of which Biden aims to make sure that he bridges the gaps in these disagreements among the allies.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Boris. A number of major issues at stake here over the next couple of days, including, of course, as Max alluded to that key question of Ukraine's membership in NATO and whether and when they're going to actually become full- fledged members of that alliance.

[15:05:06] This is something that Ukraine has been pushing for, for the better

part of a decade, frankly, since 2008 when it was enshrined in their constitution that they would one day join NATO. And NATO told Ukraine that they would want to have a place there. This is now Ukraine's moments. They are coming here, Ukrainian officials, and they are saying that they want a clear timetable and a clear path towards NATO membership.

Now, not everyone is on board with that. Of course, we saw President Biden expressed some skepticism about that. He has been reluctant to provide that very clear timetable for Ukraine's accession to NATO.

Of course, the big problem with that is that they are at war with Russia. And if they were to join NATO, even when some kind of ceasefire or some kind of peace were reached, the question that is lingering is always going to be will they be at war with Russia and therefore will NATO have to come to their aid, including, of course, the United States.

So that's one of the big topics that's going to be weighed here over the next couple of days security assurances to Ukraine, short of that NATO membership, what can the Alliance actually do to help them in the shorter term, protect them against Russia, practical things like weapons, ammunition, all of these weighing very heavily here, of course, on the U.S. and the allies as they try to come to some kind of an agreement on this Boris.

SANCHEZ: Natasha Bertrand in Vilnius, Lithuania. Thank you so much. Jim?

SCIUTTO: He led the most serious threat to Vladimir Putin's reign in 23 years, and yet, he managed to get three hours of face time with Putin. The Kremlin has revealed that less than a week after that failed revolt by Wagner, Putin sat down with the man who orchestrated it, the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, he's been tracking this from Berlin.

And Fred, quite a revelation from the Kremlin here that this meeting indeed, took place first reported by the French paper Liberation (ph). What is behind this? I mean, was this a show of power? Is that our best interpretation of this by Putin or to some degree of show of weakness or deference to Prigozhin?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's very difficult to tell, Jim, but it certainly is something that we can only say is, is a little bit puzzling to hear that Yevgeny Prigozhin just a couple of days after that mutiny was actually inside the Kremlin.

Now, one of the things that could be behind is that possibly these Wagner mercenaries, the Wagner fighters who, of course, fought so much, for instance, in Bakhmut, that they're so important maybe to Russia's war efforts that Vladimir Putin thought that it was very important to have them back on the battlefield somehow, but it really is very difficult to tell. And I think it's hard to overstate just how bizarre all this is,

because just as that mutiny was unfolding, as Yevgeny Prigozhin, in the end, said that his troops were then not going to go to Moscow, Vladimir Putin had a video message where he called this a betrayal. He essentially called Yevgeny Prigozhin a traitor, that Kremlin said he would be - essentially be ousted to Belarus, and now he had a meeting only five days later in the Kremlin.

And there's some of the things that we've learned from that meeting, from the Kremlin itself and the Kremlin spokesman that really indicate just what a big turnaround this was for Vladimir Putin, where, on the one hand, now he was saying that there was 35 commanders there, unclear whether they were all from Wagner or possibly from the Russian military and other groups.

But then there's one sort of sentence that we picked up on where apparently Vladimir Putin spoke about the mutiny itself, but then also spoke about possible further employment and even further deployment of some of those who were involved. Now, that of course, could indicate that there might be a return to the battlefield for Wagner.

It's unclear what role, if any, Yevgeny Prigozhin could play in that. But certainly the fact that he was in the Kremlin only five days after that mutiny, that's pretty telling, Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. It raises the question of dependence. Wagner forces have been some of the most competent in the war in Ukraine, for instance, does Putin need them to some degree. What is our best p - and I know everyone's trying to interpret this from the outside - what is the best assessment right now of where Prigozhin is and what his position is? Is he under threat? Will he go to Belarus do we know?

PLEITGEN: Yes. Well, first of all, it seems as though almost everyone is under threat who crosses Vladimir Putin and who - where Vladimir Putin said something like, this was a betrayal. But I think you're absolutely right to point out that there could be a question of dependencies. Because one of the things, of course, that we've been looking at a lot over the past couple of months that we've been watching the war in Ukraine unfold is that when Wagner forces were in Bakhmut, it was bloody, they were losing a lot of people, but they were making progress and the Russian military has been going in the other direction ever since those Wagner military forces left.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PLEITGEN: And so that could be one of the issues where Yevgeny Prigozhin is, difficult to say. The last thing we heard was from Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian strong man saying that he was in St. Petersburg in Russia, but really impossible to tell, Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Enormous moments of upheaval.

Fred Pleitgen in Berlin thanks so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Right now, over 10 million people are under flood watches across the Northeast. The National Weather Service's warning of life threatening flash floods and even landslides. In West Point, New York, a once in a thousand-year rainfall.

Officials recording more than seven and a half inches of rain in just six hours. Some trap drivers had to jump out of their cars and swim out as floodwaters overtook the roadway.

Let's bring in AMS Meteorologist Chad Myers now.

So Chad, how much longer are we going to see the system moving across the Northeast?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Probably another 24 hours, Boris, but then really things are tapering off right now, especially for Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, the places that had the rainfall yesterday.

There's still going to be some heavy rainfall overnight tonight for some spots, but this is from Canandaigua Fire, that's what they were dealing with in Ontario County there. This is the rainfall that we are seeing and we still have this high risk in level four of four of heavy enough rainfall to cause more flash flooding, especially in Vermont.

But you see, it spreads all the way into parts of upstate New York and as far east as Maine as well. Flooding is already ongoing. Right now. There are rivers, there are lakes streams that are well out of their banks, and there's your live radar, it is still raining in places.

Some of these places are seeing an inch of rain per hour. On top of land, that can't absorb any rainfall at all anymore, because there were spots four, six and 10 inches of rainfall deep over 24 hours. That's the numbers you were talking about how rare this type of event is.

Months' worth of rainfall in just six or 10 hours in some spots across the Northeast on your Sunday. Still raining right now, but there you see later on tonight, tomorrow, Tuesday, it is all just a bad memory.

One in a thousand-year rain event and now that was just for one place, that was for West Point and this is not a one in a thousand-year flood, this is just for one spot. They had so much rain in so little time that that would be considering you would only see that once in about a thousand years and that was West Point, New York, so keep that in mind for the next couple of rain events we're going to see up here in the Northeast while we're still so saturated.

SANCHEZ: Yes. We know you'll be watching them closely.

Chad Myers in The Weather Center, thank you so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

SANCHEZ: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes, it seems like we're getting to historic weather events every other day now.

Well ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, CNN has just obtained a letter written by the U.S. Attorney overseeing the probe into the President's son, Hunter Biden. Hear what he has to say about whistleblower accusations around his case. He refutes them.

Plus, the FDA is being asked to investigate a new energy drink that has six times the amount of caffeine as a single can of Coca Cola. Is that a good idea? Is that even safe?

And Pennsylvania Police say they've discovered small campsites near during the search for an escaped inmate with survivalist skills, the latest on the manhunt for a suspected killer.

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SCIUTTO: We do have several big developments in two high profile cases by the Justice Department. We're going to begin with the investigation of President Biden's son, Hunter. The U.S. Attorney overseeing that probe, David Weiss, has just refuted some of the most damaging claims from a whistleblower, a veteran IRS investigator named Gary Shapley. We should note that U.S. Attorney was appointed by Donald Trump.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Shapley is alleging that there was political interference in that investigation and that the case was deliberately slow walked.

Let's discuss now with CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Evan Perez.

Evan, this pushback against Gary Shapley is coming directly from David Weiss and he is contradicting many of the most significant claims from the alleged whistleblower.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. I think these are the most significant claims, because these are the claims that Republicans are saying, a reason to hold - to impeach ...

SANCHEZ: Right.

PEREZ: ... the sitting U.S. Attorney - I'm sorry, the sitting Attorney General, Merrick Garland. They say that he lied. And so what this letter from David Weiss, who is the U.S. Attorney in Wilmington, Delaware and he's been overseeing this investigation now for several years.

What he says is that he has not been denied the authority to bring any charges anywhere he wants to. He also says significantly, I have not requested special counsel designation under the Justice Department's regulations. He says, I have had discussions with the department regarding another appointment, which is a special attorney designation, which it - which basically would allow him to bring charges in any jurisdiction that he wants.

And so the other thing he says is that he can't answer certain questions on this other matter, this letter that the Republicans have been focused on, which is a letter or a document from the FBI, that seems to indicate there was a claim by someone that there was some allegations of bribery involving President Biden. And he says he can't discuss it because it's part of an ongoing investigation. So that's something that he will not talk about.

But at least when it comes to these allegations, again, the central part of what Republicans have been pushing, he's saying it's just not true.

SCIUTTO: So the Republican claim was based on two things, one, political interference that gave him in effect a sweetheart deal and ...

PEREZ: Right.

SCIUTTO: ... two, that there was other interference here and that there's more to this case in effect than that was actually investigated given that those two things, at least based on what the Trump appointed U.S. Attorney has said have fallen down, what remains of the Republican allegation and the push for a further investigation.

PEREZ: Well, one of the things that you can bet that Republicans are going to want is that they're going to want David Weiss to come in ...

SCIUTTO: Right.

PEREZ: ... and do some testimony before the House committees that have been doing this investigation. And one of the things that they're going to want to do is want - they're going to want to explain or at least have him try to explain why there was this big conflagration in October - last October - in which these IRS investigators say that they had - that they came to this perception.

[15:20:00]

Now, if you talk to Shapley's attorneys and the lawyers representing the whistleblowers, they say that Weiss has changed his tune. So again, that's something that Republicans, for sure, are going to want to explore.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn, now let's turn to the Donald Trump classified documents case because his personal aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, made a filing today arguing that there should be a delay in the trial and Jack Smith fought back.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, this is about scheduling this week, but it's actually about something much more ...

SANCHEZ: Right.

POLANTZ: ... which is about how much can the Trump side of things, Trump and his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, argue to delay, right, either now or delay a trial at a later date. There isn't a firm date yet on the calendar for a trial.

But what was supposed to happen and what is still is supposed to happen on the calendar on Friday is an initial hearing, the first time that they would go before Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce, Florida. So that would be a big moment in and of itself. It's also where they

kick off discussing the classified issues around this case. And Walt Nauta, his attorney, made this filing that says we can't do it on Friday. We need more time. It took us a while to get an attorney for him in Florida. Also, I'm in trial. We need to delay this and the Justice Department came back pretty strongly and said there is no reason that there should be a delay right now. And it's in the public interest to have things move forward expeditiously here.

We're also waiting today for some sort of indication of when Trump and Walt Nauta want to have that trial date to be set. The Justice Department is staking out December right now of this year. We're waiting to see today, they have a deadline, they got to pick a date at some point, so ...

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, of course there's an election cycle underway, presidential election cycle underway. In Trump's case this play out the clock kind of strategy is something we've seen before in multiple investigations (inaudible) ...

PEREZ: It's worked for him, right?

SCIUTTO: And it works.

POLANTZ: Yes, it (inaudible), right? You start early and you delay the early things and then the things that are supposed to be later like the trail end up being much later on.

SCIUTTO: The Special Counsel concern here that this delay is part of that - of a larger attempt to just kind of push this out as far as possible until well ...

POLANTZ: I mean, you're ...

SCIUTTO: ... maybe someone else's president.

POLANTZ: Yes. You are seeing a little bit of the hints here, even from when the indictment was coming down. The Justice Department very quickly said we want to have a speedy trial. We want to do this fast.

And so they have made their position quite clear in a case that a lot of people would say it's pretty complex, totally unprecedented in some ways, but there is this going to be this ongoing theme of this case where the defense side, Trump-Nauta, are going to say, wait, we need more time. We need to drag things out. We have other things we're working on right now. Donald Trump has other cases and investigations he has to deal with and then the Smith team is going to keep coming (inaudible) they got to move.

PEREZ: And they haven't even raised yet some of the complicated legal issues that for sure are going to go to the appeals court and perhaps even to the Supreme Court.

POLANTZ: Yes. Totally.

SANCHEZ: And Jack Smith pointed out today that Nauta's attorney hasn't actually even filled out the form to get security clearances to review the evidence.

POLANTZ: He hasn't.

SANCHEZ: So they are dragging their pieces.

POLANTZ: He was indeed in court all day today with a trial. I saw him over there and they're busy. They've got other clients, stuff to do.

SCIUTTO: (Inaudible) sound deliberate ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SCIUTTO: ... is the is the hard fact of this, yes.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez, thank you so much for the reporting.

Next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, for the first time in more than a century, a major branch of the U.S. Military lacks a confirmed leader as a Republican senator digs in on his block of military promotions. What this means for national security?

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[15:28:07]

SANCHEZ: The popular energy drink PRIME is getting a jolt of its own. Sen. Chuck Schumer is now calling on the FDA to investigate how much caffeine it contains. He says that PRIME targets children despite a warning on the can cautioning use by anyone under 18.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): A lot of parents may never heard of it, but their kids have because prime is engaged in a vast advertising campaign aimed at kids, even though kids aren't supposed to drink a drink with this much caffeine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN Medical Correspondent, Meg Tirrell, and CNN Business and Politics Correspondent, Vanessa Yurkevich are both with us.

And Meg, we're talking about PRIME'S energy drink not its sports hydrating drink, which doesn't contain caffeine. How much caffeine is in the energy drink though?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The energy drink, it's about 200 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce can. And to put that into some context, that's about the same amount of caffeine as you'd find in six cans of Coke or about two cans of Red Bull. And that's a lot more than pediatricians recommend that kids and adolescents take in, in a day.

The American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends kids under 12 don't have any caffeine. And for kids over 12 some pediatricians say maybe up to a hundred milligrams per day is okay. For adults, the FDA says about 400 milligrams per day is probably what won't tend to bother most people.

There are health concerns about this for kids, including disrupting their sleep, causing dehydration, anxiety, increased heart rate and blood pressure and even affecting their development in terms of their neurological systems and cardiovascular system.

So the AAP says that really kids and adolescents shouldn't have energy drinks at all, Boris?

SANCHEZ: Meg, we should note that CNN reached out to the FDA, we've yet to receive a response or comment. What could the FDA actually do here?

[15:30:01]

TIRRELL: Yes. I've been talking with folks who are familiar with how the FDA purchased these things, including former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.