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Texas Gov. Defies DOJ Request To Remove Floating Border Barriers On Rio Grande; Mayor Victor Trevino Discusses About The Issue In U.S.-Mexico Border; Special Counsel Now Has Thousands Of Documents From Giuliani Team That Tried To Find Fraud After 2020 Election; Ukrainian Drones Strike Moscow As Russia Targets Agricultural And Historic Sites. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 24, 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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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Top of the hour now. Texas governor, Greg Abbott, is now pushing back at the threat of a Justice Department lawsuit vowing that he is ready for a major legal showdown over these floating barriers in the Rio Grande. He'd finally missed this afternoon's deadline to commit to removing the 1,000-foot barrier.

In a recent letter to Abbott, the DOJ claims the barrier violates federal law, raises humanitarian concerns, also presents serious risks to public safety and the environment.

CNN's Rosa Flores, she's right by the river there in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Describe to folks who are seeing this or just hearing about this from afar what it actually looks like and I think frankly what it's accomplishing.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's accomplishing nothing. Let me show you because this is what defiance on the border looks like. This potential legal battle is over the buoys that you see here in the middle of the Rio Grande.

Now, these buoys were deployed by the state of Texas and according to the State Department, without consulting with the federal government, without getting permits. Now, this is an international boundary, the Rio Grande, and there are treaties that govern the flow of this water, the flow of this waterway, and these treaties are between the U.S. and Mexico.

Mexico's top diplomat complained to Washington about the deployment of these buoys, saying that they violate two treaties. And Mexico is even concerned that these buoys could be on Mexican territory. Mexico's sending a team to this area to try to verify that they're indeed in U.S. soil and not Mexican soil.

But of course, the latest is that the U.S. DOJ gave the state of Texas a deadline of today at 2 p.m. Eastern and the state of Texas responded by digging in its heels and saying, Mr. President, Texas is going to see you in court.

Now, the White House has responded saying that the actions by the state of Texas and the letter specifically from the U.S. DOJ references the floating barriers and related structures. So could that be this concertina wire? There's two levels and layers of concertina wire on here, we don't know, but it could.

But the White House specifically referencing the unlawful nature of the construction along the border, how cruel it is and how dangerous it is for migrants on the border. Now, the White House also taking credit for the drop in migrant encounters since February of 2021, that's shortly after President Joe Biden took office. They say that the encounters now are lowest since February 2021.

And Jim, I've got to state the obvious here, because if you look at these buoys, if you look at them, they have a start and they have an end. And I've got to state the obvious and that this is not stopping illegal immigration. We've seen migrants walk across and also skirt these buoys and walk along the concertina wire and turn themselves into immigration authorities.

So this huge legal battle between the U.S. and Texas is over something that is not even effective at stopping illegal immigration, Jim?

SCIUTTO: Walk around it.

Rosa Flores at Eagle Pass, Texas, thanks so much. Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's get some perspective now from someone who's very familiar with what's happening on the border, the mayor of Laredo, Texas, Victor Trevino.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us this afternoon.

First, what's your reaction to this looming legal battle between your state and the federal government?

MAYOR VICTOR TREVINO, LAREDO, TEXAS: Well, we have to understand that border challenges have always existed in our border communities. This is a way of life that we see for us here at Laredo, Texas. It's the largest port in the United States to Mexico.

So we are very well aware of what's going on. We know it's 1,200 miles of border and there's 28 international bridges. But our formula here in Laredo has been working without barriers or without walls. That's because of a lot of factors.

And one of those factors is binational relationships.

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Another factor is presence of law enforcement, virtual surveillance, cameras and drones and all that equipment that replaces physical barriers. So to us, I think this formula has worked very well and we do not need those physical barriers here at this point. SANCHEZ: So what's your reaction to hearing the details and some

reports about the way that migrants have been treated, reportedly being pushed back into the Rio Grande and not being offered water when they've made that treacherous journey?

TREVINO: Yes. So - well, these are concerning - this concerning information and we have to understand that border security goes hand in hand with humanitarian efforts. And United States of America is the beacon for humanitarian efforts. And I think that these incidents might not go in line with what we are all about.

This is a country of immigrants. So we have to do a better job. We have to do better immigration reform also. There's a lot of things that can be done in spite of what's going on.

SANCHEZ: What would be your message to Gov. Abbott as he says he wants to see the federal government in court?

TREVINO: Well, that is something legal, but I think there's always a happy medium that will appease everybody. It'll be humanitarian. It'll be also security wise. But it has to be discussed. You have to live and work here locally to understand what the dynamics are here.

And when you do that, then you'll get a better perspective. It's not the same as looking at the pictures and thinking that's a situation that exists besides living here - with living here.

SANCHEZ: Mayor Victor Trevino, thank you so much for sharing your time with us this afternoon.

TREVINO: Thank you. Appreciate it for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right. This just in to CNN, Special Counsel Jack Smith now has thousands of documents, more of them related to efforts to find voter fraud after the 2020 election. Of course, no significant fraud was found.

CNN's Paula Reid has this first on CNN reporting.

And Paula, thousands of documents --

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Mm-hm.

SCIUTTO: -- but reviewed by the Trump campaign before being handed over. What's the significance of them?

REID: So investigators have never seen many of these documents, Jim, because back when congressional investigators were looking into January 6th, Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, who worked on the team assembled by Rudy Giuliani looking into this alleged fraud, he said that some of these materials were privileged.

He claimed that he was part of the legal team so that he didn't have to hand over everything. But flash forward about a year when special counsel Jack Smith reached out and expressed an interest. He decided to take another look at this privilege claim.

So he brought all these documents to the Trump campaign. They reviewed them and they said, look, we're not actually going to assert any privilege here. So that allowed Bernie Kerik to hand over thousands of documents to the special counsel.

Again, some of these have never been seen by investigators before. And these are the materials that were produced by the team and Rudy Giuliani put together and they worked to look for this alleged fraud. These include witness statements and research.

But it's also a reminder, Jim, that as many people are waiting and watching for a likely Trump indictment, the special counsel is continuing with its investigation, not only gathering evidence, but also scheduling interviews. We learned that Bernie Kerik will sit down with them in the next few weeks.

SCIUTTO: So given that they did not find significant fraud, what would be the legal significance of their research, in effect, their homework on this that really didn't lead anywhere?

REID: They're likely looking at the extent to which people had reason to believe these claims of fraud. A central thing that investigators are looking at is whether people truly believed ...

SCIUTTO: Right.

REID: ... what they were saying.

If you have, for example, former president, Trump, who is hearing at best mixed messages from different advisers, both inside and outside the White House. They then look at this team that was assembled to find fraud, what did they find? Did they have a good faith reason to believe that there were fraud.

Was this a good faith effort, right? Or were they trying to illegally interfere with the election? That's at the core of this investigation. So these documents, depending on what they say, could help with that.

SCIUTTO: And from a legal perspective, does wishful thinking count in terms of good faith? I mean, you could believe anything if you want to, right?

REID: No, certainly not. I think also the privilege claim here was ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REID: ... in question, because Bernie Kerik is not an attorney. He was working with the legal team. He had this sort of work product privilege claim that he was making. It wasn't clear that that was going to hold up in court.

So it appears that they made the right move once Jack Smith came calling to just turn these over, sit down with investigators ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

REID: ... tell him what you know and hopefully - they're hoping - that he will not be among those charged in this case. We'll see when that indictment decision comes through.

Paula Reid, thanks so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Coming up, finally an acknowledgment by North Korea about the U.S. soldier who bolted across the DMZ last week, is this a breakthrough?

Plus, a startling result of the dangerous heat, people getting burn injuries after falling on scorching hot pavement.

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And later, is Barbenheimer reviving the troubled box office? We're going to find out if the summer double feature is just what audiences wanted and what the film industry needed. Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: Hostile drones breaching Moscow's airspace, striking two buildings not far from the Kremlin. And this time, Ukraine is taking credit for the brazen attack. It's part of an escalating tit for tat in recent days. Ukraine says that Russia took out yet another grain silo at a key port, adding more volatility to the global wheat market as Russia's destroyed some 60,000 tons of food stores in the past week.

Let's go to CNN's Nic Robertson in London.

Nic, starting with the Moscow attacks, it appears that Ukraine did some serious damage to these targets. What more can you tell us?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, we don't know what was in those rooms that you can see are destroyed there at the top of the building.

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But we do know that at least one of these buildings is associated with Russia's ministry of defense. The location of the target was very close to the main ministry of defense building on the river there in Moscow. But this particular building has been associated with the GRU, Russia's military intelligence.

They also connect this building or the Ukrainians do at least, with cyber warfare, Russia's offensive cyber warfare capability. So it does appear in this case that the Ukrainians have actually been able to hit a target that's being used against them by the Russians to try to perpetrate cyber warfare against Ukraine, which has been happening in the background all through this war. But the actual equipment damaged, whether or not the capability -

Russia's capability there is affected, isn't clear. But the fact the drones appeared to get through defies perhaps what Russia was saying that it was able to disable them using electronic warfare to put them off target. It appears to have hit a target.

Was it the intended target? Maybe not, but it was ministry of defense. That's what we know at this time.

SANCHEZ: Nic, on the other side, Russia has been targeting Odesa for about a week now, especially those grain silos. President Zelenskyy is making it seem like he does not believe Ukraine has the defensive capabilities to protect them.

ROBERTSON: Yes. The air defense systems is something that they've had - the Ukrainians have had a capability with - that has been pretty effective around cities like Kyiv and relatively effective in cities like Odesa in the past.

But for whatever reason, Russia is now managing to get some, not all of its missile systems through. And Ukraine - rather, Russia has been doubling down on Ukraine's grain storage facilities, in fact, hitting a port today that's on the River Danube that is actually Ukraine's backup exit route to get grain to export grain to the rest of the world. Now that Russia has shut down the Black Sea grain deal, stopping the grain getting out through the Black Sea.

So the Danube port was also a target of Russia. And interestingly, only several hundred yards away from the border with Romania. Now, had they struck Romania, a NATO member, that could have been a whole different picture there.

But Russia is getting more missiles through than it was in the past. Has it switched up its targets because it knew it wasn't getting through to some to be able to get through to those that don't have the protection that President Zelenskyy needs? I mean, when you talk to any of the NATO planners, one of the big lessons out of Ukraine is you have to have dominance in the skies. And Ukraine just doesn't have that air defensive shield that it requires to have that.

SANCHEZ: Nic Robertson, thank you so much for the reporting, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, U.S. officials now tell CNN that North Korea has acknowledged that the United Nations reached out about the U.S. Army Private Travis King. So far, however, no conversations have taken place between the two sides on the topic.

King, you'll remember, crossed the DMZ into the hermit kingdom, as it's known, last week, has not been heard from since. He is considered by the military to be AWOL, is believed to be the first U.S. soldier to cross into North Korea voluntarily since 1982.

Bill Richardson is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He has visited North Korea several times, has also negotiated with the country to release Americans held there in the past. Ambassador, thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. BILL RICHARDSON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Thank

you. Nice to have (inaudible) ...

SCIUTTO: So first, I want to ask about King's safety at this point. Based on our country's experience here, including that of Otto Warmbier, an American who, of course, died during or while he was stricken horribly during his time in North Korean captivity and died later. Do you believe that King's life is in danger?

RICHARDSON: I was encouraged by the moderate statement of the North Koreans. They acknowledged that King had crossed in an unauthorized way. And what we need to do, Jim, is keep this on a humanitarian basis. We've got enormous tension with North Korea right now. We've got the nuclear submarine. We've got exercises with South Korea. We've got the North Koreans shooting missiles.

The fact that the North Koreans acknowledge that the U.N. high command, military to military, the right channel had reached out and the North Koreans did not make any negative denounce statement. So I think it's important that we, the United States politicians, the White House, just stay cool. Don't provoke the North Koreans.

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Let's let the U.N. high command, a British officer there named Harrison (ph), work with the North Koreans and see if we can get Travis King deported. He came in an unauthorized way. The North Koreans did not seize him.

But let's keep this separate from the geopolitical tension that exists right now.

SCIUTTO: North Korea and you know this better than most, given your experience there. They usually want something in return. Congressman McCaul made the point earlier that he expects North Korea to jack up the price in effect because they have a soldier in this case. Let me play his comments and I want to get a sense if you agree.

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REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): I'm sure that he's not being treated very well. I think it was a serious mistake on his part and I hope we can get him back. To me, the question is, is he defecting? I think he was more running from his problems. That was the wrong place to go.

But we see this with Russia, China, Iran, when they take an American, particularly a soldier, captive, they exact a price for that and that's what I worry about.

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SCIUTTO: We are in a new era, you might call it hostage diplomacy, a number of countries holding Americans for hostage and for ransom. What is North Korea likely to ask for here?

RICHARDSON: Well, in my experience, North Korea in the past, it's not a prisoner exchange issue. They've asked for visits by high level officials. President Clinton went there once, Secretary of State, at a lower level, I got some prisoners out.

But I partially agree with the congressman. I don't agree with the one thing he said, yes, it could be that the North Koreans asked for something in return. But the last thing we want to do is provoke them, is make them mad, is put a lot of standards up there that they're not dealing with this in a legal fashion. Let's face the facts.

This young man, troubled, crossed in an unauthorized way. He's going to face disciplinary action. But he's an American. He's a serviceman. We want to get him back. He's troubled. He has a family. So what we don't want to do is exacerbate the situation.

And so political leaders and the congressman is a good chairman and the White House they should cool down. Just let the North Koreans deal with this, with the U.N. high command that North Koreans acknowledged that King went unauthorized way, but they didn't denounce him. They didn't say they wanted something in return.

So let's stay cool. Let's ...

SCIUTTO: Okay.

RICHARDSON: .,, be careful, careful diplomacy.

SCIUTTO: So ...

RICHARDSON: Let military to military handle this. Politicians stay out.

SCIUTTO: Okay. That's the status now. You know that the North Korean government is paranoid, right? And I wonder, would they necessarily believe that he is a humanitarian case? Might they suspect it's a deliberate operation or might they claim that they suspect it's a deliberate operation in an effort to get something else in return?

RICHARDSON: Well, what happens all the time with Americans detained in North Korea is they go through a very, very strong interrogation process. And I think they're going to see that this young man, he's 23, he's troubled. He escaped with a tour group. He'd been in prison in South Korea in some kind of altercation that he's facing American disciplinary action.

Hopefully, they don't think that he's a defector or a threat to them. And they treat it as a humanitarian basis and deport him. That would be the best outcome. But you never know - in years that I - I've been to North Korea eight times, you never know what the North Koreans are going to do. They're very unpredictable.

The danger is that this is a period of enormous tension between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the North Koreans are shooting missiles almost every day. We've got a nuclear sub in the region. We have exercises with South Korea. But we want to keep the humanitarian issues separate from the

geopolitical tensions. I'd say the odds are not that good that that will happen. But let's not exacerbate the situation by making declaratory negative statements against North Korea when they've simply acknowledged this unauthorized visit without any negative comments.

So let's stay cool, for God's sakes, politicians, others, just let the military, the U.N. high command, this British officer and the North Korean military deal with this.

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SCIUTTO: Yes. And there's always that temptation for a sort of one- upmanship on the rhetoric. And of course, you have a family here very worried about him.

Ambassador Bill Richardson, thanks so much for sharing your experience.

RICHARDSON: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Boris?

RICHARDSON: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Ahead, new indications that the White House strategy to avoid a recession is working. Plus, heat is the deadliest type of weather, killing on average more than twice as many people each year as hurricanes and tornadoes. Officials are now bracing for the worst as temperatures keep soaring. Your forecast straight ahead.

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