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Russia's War on Ukraine; Russian Drones Strike Ukraine, Destroying Grain Hangar; Russia Strikes Ukrainian Grain, Sending Chicago Grain Futures Up 6%; Private Meeting in St. Petersburg of Putin and Belarusian President; Lukashenko, Belarusian President, Claims Wagner Fighters Desire to Visit NATO Member Poland on "An Excursion"; Belarusian President Lukashenko Informs Putin That Wagner Fighters "Stress" Him by Wanting to Travel to Poland; Meadows Made Light of Trump Election Claims Before January 6th, According to WAPO; Special Counsel for 2020 Election Investigation Contacted Georgia Governor; Twitter Rebranded by Elon Musk with "X" Symbol; Heat Warnings in Effect for 35+ Million People in Florida, West, and Plains. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 24, 2023 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: If those drones had missed their intended target and landed a few hundred meters on the other side of the river, then that, potentially, would have been a Russian strike on NATO territory and there could be potentially very escalatory consequences for that.

This time though, it appears that Russia's following up, potentially on strikes on grain silos in Odessa over the weekend. One of the silos that hit at that poor facility was a grain storage warehouse and another silo storing other agricultural project -- product was also hit.

But I think, significantly, think about the Danube in this way. The Danube River has been one of the principle ways that Ukraine has been using to get its grain out of the country when Russia has been blocking the Black Sea. It's increased its amount of grain that's pushed out of Ukraine along that route to international markets. Now, Russia is targeting that, having just stopped the Black Sea route as well, this is why the prices are up. This is why there's concern.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Nic, let me ask you about this bilateral meeting. Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko set to meet for a second day in St. Petersburg. Some of the threats (ph) on the first day have raised a lot of eyebrows. What more can you tell us?

ROBERTSON: Yes, it was planned that they would have two days of talks, it's not clear why they should meet. Two days of talks, obviously Putin relies a lot for the war in Ukraine for support that it's getting from Belarusia. Lukashenko is seen as much of the weaker partner. Putin is placing nuclear missile sites and systems inside Belarusia, and Belarusia itself is now taken in the Wagner mercenary fighters that Putin wanted them to do. So, Belarusia is helping Russia.

Now, what are they actually discussing? Well, Putin has used this opportunity to say, look, Ukraine's counteroffensive has failed. So, that's been part of the narrative to emerge from here. And Lukashenko has said, hey, these Wagner fighters, some of them want to go and attack in the west, meaning Poland. So, you know, threatening escalatory language there, if you will, from both of the leaders. But you have to remember that this is the propaganda that they want to push. This is the narrative that they want to push and it may or may not bear any reality at all.

SOLOMON: Yes. No indication that Lukashenko is necessarily taking those Wagner fighters wishes seriously. Nic Robertson, great context for us. Thank you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: All right. This morning, there's some intriguing new reporting from "The Washington Post" as a new indictment against Donald Trump could come any day, one dealing with the events surrounding January 6th. "The Post" reports, "Mark Meadows -- ", who was serving at Trump's chief of the staff at the time, " -- wrote to a White House lawyer that his son, Atlanta-area Attorney Blake Meadows had been probing possible fraud and had found only a handful of possible votes cast in dead voters' names, far short of Trump was alleging. The lawyer teasingly responded that perhaps Meadows' son could locate the thousands of votes Trump would need to win the election."

CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams is with us now. And Elliot, why would Mark Meadows, involve in a joking conversation about the lack of widespread voter fraud before January 6th? Why would that be important?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, AND FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT GENERAL, DOJ: So, humor is itself knowledge. He could not be joking about the fact that he thought that these claims were baseless if he didn't believe they were actually baseless. And so, it certainly could be relevant evidence of, number one, the president's knowledge that he lost the election. But also, more importantly, number two, the knowledge of people around him, like Mark Meadows, as to whether what they thought as of the president's claims.

BERMAN: It gets to the issue of intent, which we've been hearing about so much --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BERMAN: -- the last few weeks where the special counsel has been focused, yes?

WILLIAMS: Yes, absolutely. Now, the tricky thing, John, is that humor, I think as you know well, out of context can be very hard to convey to other people. And particularly, when you're dealing with text messages, they're going to have to -- the prosecutors are going to have to establish for a jury what, number one, Meadows meant in the text message. And number two, what the person who received it understood it to be.

And that's a harder burden than to you think because think about, you know, social medial posts or texts of our own or from anybody else's from years ago, out of context, they sort of don't really make a lot of sense. You're going to have to convince the jury that -- these -- that this information can help establish proof of a charge beyond a reasonable doubt, and that can be tough.

BERMAN: So, there was another line inside "The Washington Post" reporting. This, sort of, had blinking red lights sirens around it. I want to read that for you here, Elliot.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

BERMAN: People in Trump's orbit have grown increasingly concerned about what they see as Meadows' retreat from the public scene as a prominent defender of the former president. He reduced his public appearances, particularly on television where he was once a frequent guest. He has not posted on Twitter in five months. Why does Mark Meadows make the Trump team nervous?

[10:35:00]

WILLIAMS: Well, the plot thickens. Now, certainly Mark Meadows' ought to make the Trump team nervous because he's valuable, potentially, as a witness. In general, when running an investigation, John, there are two types of witnesses. One, people who heard or saw things firsthand, spoken out of the mouth of the target of the investigation, or two, people who saw things secondhand.

Mark Meadows falls in that first bucket. He would have been number one, privy to firsthand conversations with the president. But number two, have overheard countless conversations that the president had with other people or views the president had expressed. Mark Meadows could potentially be a very valuable witness.

Now, I wouldn't advise reading too closely into whether somebody chooses a tweet or not or whether, you know, he goes on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" or not. But the simple fact remains, Mark Meadows in an incredible -- could be an incredibly consequential witness when his boss is being investigated for any number of federal offenses.

BERMAN: For Mark Meadows, for his attorneys to let him go in and talk extensively to investigators, if in fact he did, would they have to get him some kind of immunity and/or potentially? And I'm not getting -- I don't want to get too far out ahead here, but some kind of plea agreement if potentially Mark Meadows had any legal exposure?

WILLIAMS: If he had legal exposure, of course, it would be in his interest and his attorneys' interest to get some sort of immunity deal. Now, he might, and prosecutors may not be looking at him, either in terms of the evidence they have or just the fact that they just don't think he committed any crimes. But if he is aware of or prosecutors are aware of it that he might have committed crimes, then certainly it's in his interest to get some sort of deal from prosecutors to either lessen the sentence they'll give him eventually or just not charge him at all with a crime down the road.

BERMAN: And again, we have no knowledge that he did commit any crime or not --

WILLIAMS: No.

BERMAN: -- in his involvement of plea deal. We're just trying to figure out how he would talk. Anyone else you would think of quickly that would make the Trump team as nervous as a possible witness? As nervous as they might be about Mark Meadows?

WILLIAMS: So, certainly, again, the White House chief of staff, if a president is being investigated is critical. All of those staffers would have been incredibly consequential. Number, one, Cassidy Hutchinson. We've heard her testimony of the January 6th Committee, testifying as to the things she heard the president say.

You know, I would also say some of these officials that the president had interacted or correspondence with, Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, there was an audio recording of a conversation the president had with him. I'm not saying it's necessarily the smoking gun that leads to the president's conviction, but it's the president's voice talking about the subject of the investigation that the Justice Department's looking into. And that's an incredibly valuable testimony.

So, folks like that, anyone, either around the president that he spoke to ought to, you know, they ought to be concerned about their testimony.

BERMAN: Elliot Williams, great to see you today. Thank you so much.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right, John. Coming up for us, protest erupt in Israel after as the parliament there passes part of a controversial new bill that dramatically reshapes the power of the courts.

Also, coming up for us, bye-bye birdie and hello X. Twitter gets rebranded with a new logo and a new look. We'll explain, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

BERMAN: Happening now, protest have erupted up in Israel after the Knesset passed part of a controversial new bill that dramatically reshapes the power of the court. Really reshapes the balance of power in that country. Opponents say, it places too much power in the hands of the government -- the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

In South Korea, officials say conversations have begun with North Korea over the U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea last week. Private Travis King was on a tour of the demilitarized zone when he bolted. He has not been seen or heard from since. The U.N. Command says King's welfare is now their primary concern.

In Greece, wildfires are devastating the southern part of that country. Thousands of residents and tourists have been forced to flee. In Rhodes, a popular tourist destination, a beautiful island, 20,000 people are scrambling to get off. Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right. John, thank you. Well, the Twitter bird has apparently flown the coop. Elon Musk says that he's rebranding the social media platform. The iconic blue bird is being replaced by an X. Musk says that gradually all of the birds will be replaced.

Let's bring in CNN Chief Business Correspondent and anchor of "Early Start" Christine Romans. So, Christine, we know Twitter has had some revenue issues.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF CORRESPONDENT AND CNN ANCHOR, EARLY START: Yes.

SOLOMON: What more do we know about this rebrand?

ROMANS: Well, this was from Elon Musk himself. In a tweet -- or I guess, now will it be an X.

SOLOMON: An X.

ROMANS: This weekend where he said, just X. And the he had said, and soon, we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually to all the birds. We know that he has said before that he wants Twitter to be a gateway to something bigger. An app for everything.

So, moving away from that iconic Twitter bird and on to something next, the next phase for Elon Musk here. It's interesting because most companies would kill for something as iconic as the tweet. I mean, the brand --

SOLOMON: Have you turned --

ROMANS: -- tweet into a completely different thing, right? We all know what that means. And now he's moving, sort of, the away from all of that branding. So, behind this, you're right, a big drop in ad revenue since he took over where he vastly overpaid $44 billion to take this company private. Big interest payments. And revenue in 2023, he says, $3 billion, that's down substantially. That's down from $5.1 billion just a couple of years earlier.

SOLOMON: Incredible. What's the significance of X? Because we've heard X with Elon Musk before. What's the significance of that?

ROMANS: Right. So, he's got SpaceX, he's got -- Tesla there is a model X. I believe he named one of his children, X. So, there is an X factor for Elon Musk that he's trying to translate onto this new company.

[10:45:00]

This old company that that he took private now, if you go to x.com, it'll -- takes you right over there to Twitter. You can still see tweet and Twitter, a lot of places on the site. We'll see if there are more graphics changes in the days ahead.

SOLOMON: Christine, do we know how long this plan has been in the works? The reason why I ask is because the elephant in the room, I think, is Meta's Threads, right?

ROMANS: Right.

SOLOMON: Which has seen some -- gained quite a bit of popularity. So, is this a new rebrand? Is this something that they had been thinking about for some time?

ROMANS: With Elon Musk you never know how long and deeply he's thought about something. And honestly, sometime he's just trolling people, right? But you have the new CEO of the company, who's also this weekend talking about rarely in a corporate iteration to get a chance to completely remake it. And they're -- she's excited about that. So, with -- but with Elon Musk, you never know how long he's been plotting here.

SOLOMON: And we'll see if this has the X factor to get Twitter --

ROMANS: Or --

SOLOMON: -- back to its glory days.

ROMANS: -- or it's a Hail Mary, you know.

SOLOMON: We shall see. Christine Romans, good to see.

ROMANS: Thanks.

SOLOMON: Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: They're trying to extend the bad luck and big losses they've had of late.

All right. Scorching temperatures and no relief in sight. Where forecasters say they're expecting to see the new heat records, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN. The world's news network.

BERMAN: This morning, tens of millions of Americans are struggling to stay cool with no end in sight to this unrelenting heat wave. Over the past 30 days, there have been more than 5,000 records broken or tied in the U.S. These are not the kind of records you want to break either.

CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is with us now. Derek, it is just awful and it just keeps going.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST AND AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Records for all of the wrong reasons, right? 150 additional heat records can be added to that 5,000, too, by the way, John. And it's just incredible to see what has happened in Phoenix, for instance. The heat is so intense that it is literally baking the asphalt and the pavement there. That people when they become in contact with it, they're getting second and third degree burns. That is how hot it is.

Let's talk about what's happening in Vegas. They've broken their record consecutive streak. 10 consecutive days with temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or greater. I should say, that's a tie in these previous record streak set back in 1961. That should come to an end today because their temperature has dropped to only a high of 108 for the forecast temperature. Wow, what a cool down, right?

You can see that we rebound right into the triple digit heat once again for the next foreseeable future. Phoenix, another scorcher, 24 days, that continues. Temperatures above 110. This is astounding to me, six consecutive days though with temperatures above 115, that comes to an end today, too.

But look at this, we keep jumping up and down about these records because we continue to smash these historic record books. I mean, when we start putting this into perspective, 35 million Americans, that's quite a few people, but look what's going to happen with this heat wave. It's going to impact more and more Americans that haven't -- quite had the heat yet this summer.

So, places like the Midwest and into the Southern Plains, and eventually the east coast, where you're located, John, we're going to see that mercury climb. Look at D.C., 97 by Thursday, 32 -- 92 for Thursday in New York City, we'll reach the triple-digit mark for St. Louis. By the end of the work weekend, the heat continues to build further past that into the early parts of August, you can see that above temperature outlook across the deep south.

So, yes, it's summer. But the fact that we are breaking all these records.

BERMAN: Yes. No thanks to that heat coming this way, by the way, Derek.

VAN DAM: Right.

BERMAN: What about the oceans? They've been, like, you know, steam baths the last few weeks.

Van dam: Yes, I was actually in Miami about a week ago. And felt that air you can wear, we like to say that. You can literally drink the air, it was so muggy, it was so thick. And it is all about the ocean temperatures right now. We keep jumping up and down about this because they're off the charts high. And we're talking about near global record temperature high, especially into the Southern Florida Peninsula where some of these buoys, granted this is very shallow water, have reached about 97 degrees in some instances early last week.

But this is a problem because coral reef thrives on ocean temperatures that are in the lower to middle 80s. So, when they get this hot, they become bleached and eventually they can die. And this is NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, and anywhere you see that dark shading of red, that's their highest alert level for a coral bleaching event that they're anticipating. It's already occurring across much of the Caribbean. But South Florida, unfortunately, scientists fearing they are next. John.

BERMAN: Yes. And obviously the ocean heat can mean bad things for hurricane season as we head deeper and deeper into it as well. Derek Van Dam, thank you very much.

VAN DAM: All right.

BERMAN: Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right, John. Just ahead for us, Ukraine is taking credit for new drone strikes in Moscow. While the Ukrainian port region of Odessa is bombarded once again. We're live in the region with the latest.

Plus, border showdown. The president and the governor of Texas square off over a floating razor wire barrier. The Biden administration is ready to sue but Texas is also not backing down. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:00]

BERMAN: Russian attacks inching closer to NATO territory as they target a river depot right along the border.

SOLOMON: The Justice Department is planning legal action against Texas Governor Greg Abbott unless he commits to removing a floating barrier aimed at deterring migrants. We have a live report just ahead.

BERMAN: Major protests in the streets. A major turning point for Israel.

Kate and Sara are off today. I'm John Berman with Rahel Solomon. This is "CNN News Central."

All right. New this morning, Ukraine says that the Russians have launched new attacks on locations that could really change the shape of the conflict there, right across the river from Romania, which is of course a NATO country.

[11:00:00]