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Biden Says, I Don't Think NATO Has Ever Been Stronger; U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine; Source Says, China-Based Hackers Accessed Commerce Secretary's Email Account. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 13, 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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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden wraps the final leg of his European trip. This hour, he's holding a joint press conference from Finland, facing questions from reporters. We will take you there live.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And a radical change on the battlefield. The Ukrainian general tells CNN that U.S. cluster munitions are now in his country. Why he says it gives his troops a major advantage.

BOLDUAN: A government breach under investigation. What we're learning about the China-based hack targeting government agencies. The secretary of commerce, her email was even breached.

I'm Kate Baldwin with Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: All right. In less than 30 minutes, we expect to hear from President Biden as he wraps up his high stakes trip to Europe with this pivotal summit in Finland after the very important NATO summit. He and the Finnish president are expected to answer questions from reporters. And we'll bring that to you as soon as it starts.

BOLDUAN: This is Biden's first meeting with Nordic leaders since Finland joined the NATO alliance, a key addition to NATO's eastern flank, as Finland shares an 800 miles border with Russia. President Biden celebrated the strength of the bloc now with Finland and soon likely Sweden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're stronger together. I really mean that. You're an incredible asset to NATO and to the world.

I've been doing this a long time. I don't think NATO has ever been stronger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Wolf Blitzer is in Lithuania on the ground awaiting to hear the president and the Finnish president take questions from reporters. But, Wolf, you also had the opportunity to sit down for an exclusive interview with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin around this NATO summit, important to hear his position as he's been working so hard on the war in Ukraine and efforts to support Ukraine, but to hear his thoughts about Ukraine's path to NATO, NATO membership as well.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: He was very, very blunt. I got to tell you, Kate. He was very blunt in giving his assessment on what's going on as far as the NATO alliance is concerned right now, especially the prospect, which he hopes will happen at some point, that Ukraine will become a full scale member of NATO, just like Finland, and about to happen Sweden right now as well.

The defense secretary and I, we talked about what Ukraine needs to do in order to gain full scale membership to this NATO alliance. And he was very, very blunt.

The Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, of course, has been pushing very hard for NATO's admission into -- for NATO to allow Ukraine to be admitted as a full scale ally in this alliance, very, very important for Ukraine. That's how the Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, sees it.

Let me play a clip, a little bit of our exchange that we had this morning here in Lithuania. Listen into this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: So, you have no doubt that after the war, Ukraine will become a member of NATO.

LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I have no doubt that that will happen. And we heard just about every country, heard all the countries in the room. Say as much. And I think that was reassuring to President Zelenskyy.

But there are other things that have to happen as well. Judicial reform, things that make sure that the democracy is in good shape. And so those things will take place over time.

BLITZER: How much time do you think it will take after the war -- let's assume the war ends, God willing, it will end someday -- how much time will it take for NATO to join, for NATO to welcome Ukraine as a full member?

AUSTIN: I won't speculate on that, Wolf. I will just say that all the countries that I've witnessed are interested in moving as quickly as possible.

BLITZER: So, you think all 31 members of NATO right now want Ukraine in?

AUSTIN: I think it will be 32 by that time.

BLITZER: With Sweden.

AUSTIN: Right. But I do believe that everyone wants Ukraine to be on board.

BLITZER: As I said, Sweden is now set to join NATO. From your analysis, and you got good analysts, how is Putin reacting to this expansion of NATO?

[10:05:05]

AUSTIN: Well, I'm sure Putin is very concerned. This is probably something that he didn't expect to happen, although President Biden warned him of this at the very beginning. But he's brought NATO closer to his doorstep. And so if you were him, you'd certainly be concerned about what you're seeing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And, clearly, Putin is very, very concerned. I want to go to Helsinki right now, where President Biden is preparing for this news conference in Helsinki. He will make some statements, deliver some remarks, along with Finland's President Sauli Niinisto. He's going to be there as well. It's going to be a joint news conference in Helsinki.

CNN's White House Correspondent Arlette Saenz is standing by for us. She's there at the news conference. Arlette, what can we expect to hear from the president of the United States?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Biden is here in Helsinki, Finland, with another show of NATO unity, a show of force right in Russia's backyard. The president has spent the morning meeting with the president of Finland, as well as Nordic leaders, including Sweden.

Of course, it is important that Finland is the most recent addition to the NATO alliance, joining in April, and it shares an 800-mile land border with Russia, significantly expanding NATO territory.

And also at this summit of the Nordic leaders, the president also met with the prime minister of Sweden. Of course, Turkey gave President Biden a big win heading into this summit by dropping its objections to having Sweden join the NATO alliance. They still need to have an official formal parliament vote. That may not happen until the fall, but very soon the NATO alliance will be looking a whole lot bigger.

And it all strikes with the message that the President has been trying to drive, not just here in Finland but throughout his trip. As he met with Nordic leaders today, he said that the group has common challenges and also common values. And that is something that he has been trying to stress throughout the course of his trip, especially as he has sought to reinvigorate the NATO alliance.

That is something that has been key over the course of the war in Ukraine and also prior in his presidency. And the president also came into that NATO summit over in Vilnius, where you are, trying to strengthen and rally more support around Ukraine.

Of course, there were some tensions at the start of that summit with Zelenskyy over what exactly he wanted the NATO alliance to give his country. But by the end of it, the president came out with a G7 declaration to give these long-term security commitments towards Ukraine. So, here in Helsinki, it will give the president a chance for us to ask him some questions about the summit. But he also likely will be reinforcing that he accomplished the goals that he was set to try to meet when he came to the summit. That's what he told reporters yesterday. And the White House has been feeling like they've been riding on a bit of a high after that summit over in NATO, where they not only strengthened the alliance but also showed support for Ukraine through all the allies.

BLITZER: Clearly, it was a successful summit here in Lithuania. Arlette, stand by, we're going to get back to you. We're going to have the news conference in about 20 minutes. I'll be back when that news conference is about to begin just ahead, and we'll find out what the president is going to be saying, and this is going to be very, very important to wrap up his visit to Europe this week. He'll be joined, as I said, by the Finnish president as well.

In the meantime, I want to send it over to Kate and Sara. They've got more in New York. Guys?

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Wolf. And it's great to see you there on the ground in Lithuania. We're looking forward to hearing from the president. We'll be back to Wolf very soon.

So, it is a highly controversial weapon and a Ukrainian general says that it can radically change the battlefield. This morning, CNN has learned that American cluster munitions have already arrived in Ukraine. That general speaking to CNN's Alex Marquardt, who joins us now.

Alex, the general, if anyone knows the dangers that these bombs pose, and that is why they are so controversial and why so much has been made about cluster munitions being sent over, what is he saying about that, considering they're going to be using these weapons over Ukrainian soil?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And this is why, Kate, the U.S. held off for so long before agreeing to send these cluster munitions and then finally did, the Biden administration says, because of a shortage of the more standard artillery shells.

But General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi tells me that when these cluster munitions are used, and they have not been yet, he says, they will be used within a very strict framework, and that is a framework that has been agreed to with the United States.

And the biggest priority is to not use them around civilians. These will not be used in heavily-populated areas. They will only be used, according to this agreement against Russian soldiers.

[10:10:02]

They will be carefully recorded so that, in the future, Ukraine can carry out demining operations and clear out any duds.

And very important to note, Kate, that the general said that this isn't like another smaller weapon, like a rifle, a gun, or even artillery that can be used with sort of much lower rules of engagement. Senior leaders are going to have to sign off to use these clusters, these cluster munitions, against these Russian forces.

But these cluster munitions, highly controversial, as you say, are now in Ukraine, ready to be used. Here's a little bit more of what the general had to tell me earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Have you used them already? And how much do you think they're going to change the fight?

BRIG. GEN. OLEKSANDR TARNAVSKYI: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Kate, he says that Russian forces are going to be very worried about coming up against these cluster munitions and he expects them to vacate areas where they could be most effective.

He also believes that the Russian forces are going to -- that they may respond in kind. We have heard that warning from the Russians that they would also use cluster munitions reciprocally. The former president, Dmitri Medvedev, said that it is now time for Russia to clear out its arsenal of what he called these inhuman main weapons.

But, Kate, as the U.S. and Ukraine have both noted, as these cluster munitions came to Ukraine, Russia has been using their own since the very beginning of this war. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes, great point. Good to see you, Alex, great reporting, important interview to get with the general there. Sara?

SIDNER: Right now. An investigation underway after China-based hackers breached government email accounts. We're learning more about who they targeted.

And a six-year-old girl fights back against an alleged kidnapper. We will tell you how she actually managed to send him off.

Also, you're seeing there the Hollywood strike, something that hasn't happened in 60 years. Both actors and writers on strike now. We will explain the major impact of that, coming up.

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SIDNER: New details for you now about that security breach by hackers in China. The Commerce Department, turns out, is one of the U.S. government agencies that has been targeted. A source tells CNN the hackers got access to commerce secretary Gina Raimondo's email account. Microsoft says more than two dozen organizations were also affected by the hack. CNN Cybersecurity Reporter Sean Lyngaas is joining us now. Sean, do we know why the Commerce Department and Secretary Raimondo were targeted here? Do we know what exactly they were looking at?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Well, Sara, I could certainly make an educated guess. The Commerce Department has targeted Chinese telecommunication companies, like Huawei and ZTE, has sanctioned them. That's the enforcement arm of the U.S. government in terms of export controls. And it's been pretty tough on some Chinese companies, not to say that this is some sort of retaliation, just more the Chinese hackers would be interested in any communications that senior officials at the department are having, perhaps planning a next level of sanctions against Chinese companies.

We don't know that that's actually happening, but that's a very valid reason why they would want to gather information from those officials.

And I would also expect that the Department of Commerce and other federal agencies instruct their senior officials, including cabinet secretaries, not to put sensitive communication in emails. That doesn't mean you can't derive useful information from those interactions from meetings or who they're meeting with and when they're meeting. So, that's just kind of the general reason why they might target the Commerce Department.

They also went after the State Department. And the State Department first confirmed to CNN that they were sort of patient zero in this hack, in that several weeks ago, around the time when Secretary Blinken was preparing to visit China for a high-stakes visit, the alleged Chinese hackers got into some email accounts at the State Department.

We don't know what they accessed. The State Department, you know, touted its defenses and how it reported to Microsoft this incident and not vice versa. So, there's a lot of fast-moving parts of the story and it's just kind of a broader challenge of dealing with a pervasive Chinese cyber espionage threat that the Biden administration is facing. Sara?

SIDNER: Sean Lyngaas, we will be checking in with you to see what the full extent of this might be in the end. Thank you so much for the new reporting. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, Chris Christie and Senator Tim Scott, they say they have hit an important marker both now with enough donors to make it on the stage for the first Republican presidential debate coming up in August. Among the requirements put in place by the RNC is that presidential candidates must have at least 40,000 individual donors.

The former New Jersey governor and South Carolina senator now joined Donald Trump and three other White House hopefuls to meet that threshold. But there's more to it, of course, friends.

CNN's Political Director David Chalian has much more on this. David, there are other requirements to make it on the stage, including a polling requirements. Where do folks stand on this one?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, and the polling requirements are for a specific window of time, Kate.

[10:20:01]

So, this started -- the window opened July 1st and it will go up until a few days before that first August 23rd debate. So far, even though we're at July -- what are we at today, July 13th -- that I believe only one poll has been released.

So, you need three national polls at 1 percent or higher, or you need a mix of two national polls and two state polls at that threshold that meet the RNC requirements. So, it's got to be a poll of Republican primary voters, 800 of them at least in the sample size, which is a pretty big size.

So, right now, only one poll has been released that meets that threshold. And you have a lot of the folks there that you mentioned who do indeed get above 1 percent in that poll, Kate, but they need more polls to come out that meet the requirements to make sure they hit that threshold as well.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And has Donald Trump announced whether or not he's going to take to the debate stage, because the impact of that decision is going to be huge among Republicans?

CHALIAN: So, he hasn't announced. And in classic Donald Trump fashion, Kate, I think you should anticipate weeks of will he or won't he. Donald Trump loves to sort of gin up that kind of drama. And so I would imagine all the way through middle of August, he's going to try to get that attention of will he or won't he.

He has said, why should I debate if I am 30 points out ahead of all of these other folks and just let them take potshots at me? Not a totally unreasonable point of view from political strategy. To your point about impact, obviously, if he is not on the stage, the dominant frontrunner, there may be a television ratings impact, but I actually think the debate itself will still be valuable for the race of who's going to be the one to take on Trump at the end of the day.

BOLDUAN: It's a great point. David. It's good to see you. Sara?

CHALIAN: You too.

SIDNER: On our radar, this morning, a stranger tried to snatch her, and at six years old, she fought back and won. Police in Miami crediting the bravery of the six year old girl for stopping the man who tried to kidnap her outside of her home last week. They say she was playing outside when a stranger tried to carry her away. She used the only weapon she had available to her, so cute, her teeth, to get away from his grip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: When he came and grabbed you, did you scream? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

REPORTER: And then what did you do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I bit him.

REPORTER: And then what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then he slapped me and threw me on the floor.

TISHA MCGILL, MOTHER: I told her, don't talk to strangers. And if anything happened, just try to pick up something that's close to her and just dealing with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That beautiful little girl clearly learned her lesson, and she is safe now.

All right, police tracked down the 32-year-old suspect seen on nearby surveillance video. He is being held without bail on charges of kidnapping and child abuse.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration this morning approved the first non-prescription birth control pill in the United States. It's called Opill. It's a once daily mini pill that uses the hormone, progestin. Officials say it is expected to be more effective than other options already on the market for preventing unintended pregnancy.

Also, a return of the king, yes, that king. LeBron James says he will play another year of basketball after hinting at a possible retirement in the post-season. The NBA superstar made the announcement during the S.B. awards last night in Los Angeles. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES FORWARD: I don't care how many more points I score or what I can or cannot do on the floor. The real question for me is can I play without cheating this game?

The day I can't give the game everything on the floor is the day I'll be done. Lucky for you guys, that day is not today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And the crowd goes wild. James received the S.B.'s best record-breaking performance after -- award after surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar last season to become the NBA scoring leader. That is a huge honor. Kate?

BOLDUAN: I would really love that opportunity to just be like, you're welcome.

SIDNER: We see that every day, Kate, every day.

BOLDUAN: You're welcome. America. But also he wants to play with his son. So, there is also that, which is also very cool.

Okay. From the fun to now the serious and the -- who knew we would have to continue reporting on something like this. We have an update now on the investigation into the bag of cocaine found in the White House, White House West Wing earlier this month.

Jeremy Diamond is back with us. He's got the very latest on this. So, Jeremy, I just left you a moment ago, and then the Secret Service was about to brief on Capitol Hill. What are you learning?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Kate. I've just learned, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, that the Secret Service has concluded its investigation into this baggie of cocaine that was found inside the West Wing nearly two weeks ago, and they have been unable to identify a suspect.

One of those sources tells me that they combed through hundreds of individuals in visitor logs and surveillance footage, but they were ultimately unable to link this baggie of cocaine to one individual.

[10:25:05]

Now, the second source who is familiar with the investigation told me that the leading theory remains that it was one of these visitors who was entering that West Wing entrance where visitors come in to take these West Wing tours over that holiday weekend, who is believed to have left this baggie of cocaine. That has not been confirmed. That is not the conclusion, the official conclusion of the Secret Service, but it does remain the leading theory, despite the fact that they were not able to identify a suspect.

As you mentioned, Kate, the Secret Service is currently briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill in a classified setting about the status of this investigation and I expect they're sharing many of these same details with them right now. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. We'll check back in with you. Thank you so much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. In just a matter of minutes, President Biden will speak side by side with his Finnish counterpart as he wraps up a pivotal trip to Europe with a meeting with Nordic leaders. We'll bring that to you live in just moments here. Stay with us.

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