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Ukrainian Sea Drone Targets Russian Naval Warship; Putin Critic Navalny Sentenced To 19 Additional Years; CNN Poll: Majority In U.S. Oppose More Ukraine Aid; U.S. Official: Putin "Trying To Hold Out" Until 2025; NY Officials Identify Another Victim In Gilgo Beach Slayings; State Dept Expects To Be Able To Evacuate Americans From Niger On Charter Flight Taking Diplomats Out. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 04, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:32]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A daring strike as Ukraine takes its counteroffensive right to the Russian Navy. New dramatic video appearing to show a Ukrainian drone attacking a Russian warship. This comes as top U.S. and European officials worry the Kremlin is dragging out the war waiting to see what happens in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

CNN's new reporting straight ahead.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And political collision course, Donald Trump's legal calendar filling up just as the race for the Republican nomination is heating up after Trump's third arraignment yesterday. We'll show you why he's hoping the Supreme Court could throw him a lifeline.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a major development in the Gilgo Beach murders investigation. Police say they have identified the victim whose remains were found nearly three decades ago. We are following these stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: A brazen drone attack on the Black Sea and a potential warning to Russia's Navy that more could be on the way. Look at this video obtained by CNN. It appears to show a Ukrainian unmanned sea drone approaching a landing ship at a Russian naval base. The video shows the drone inching closer and closer until you see there.

The camera cuts off likely the moment it hits and the ship explodes. You can also see here later, video of the Russian ship being towed near the Navy base. You see it was kind of leaning over to one side.

Let's take you now live to Ukraine and CNN's Nick Paton Walsh who's in Zaporizhzhia for us. Nick, surprisingly, we're getting two different narratives over what happened. One from Ukraine and one from Russia. What have we been able to confirm about the attack? NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes. Look, it looks pretty clear at this stage. Even Russian bloggers suggesting that one compartments of Olenegorsky Gornyak ship was indeed flooded by this explosion. That's a remarkable new feat appears to be achieved by the Ukrainians.

This Novorossiysk port on the Black Sea potentially hundreds of miles away from where Ukraine would have had to have launched this over water it seems surface water drone hitting that amphibious assault ship as it sat in a Black Sea port that Russia would, frankly, matter of months ago considered to have been impregnable and far outside of Ukraine's range.

In fact, one Russian military analyst has referred to this as a quantum leap in the conflict and it really does, I think, show that after seeing Moscow's glass towers hit by intercepted drones, according to Russian officials, after seeing the Kremlin's dome towers being hit by drones as well, we're now seeing Russia's naval dockyards places where they feel they can put their substantial Navy away to dock safely, now indeed being targeted.

As, in fact, was the Kerch bridge that runs from the Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland hit by another Ukrainian drone a matter of weeks ago. So important change here certainly in what Ukraine showing itself capable of doing.

We have heard CNN, a direct claim that a big naval ship was hit by this drone, more oblique statements from some Ukrainian officials about how unidentified floating objects are to blame for this, but make no mistake, this is exactly not what Vladimir Putin thought you'd see at this stage in his war. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Perhaps a sign of more to come from Ukraine. And Nick, Russia is also claiming that it fended off a drone attack near an oil storage facility in Crimea. How is Kyiv now responding to that?

WALSH: Yes, look, I mean, they have suggested that something like that they just see a diesel plant, fuel plant would be an inevitable target. And we've seen this over the past months, Boris, strategic careful attacks against vital parts of Russian infrastructure, fuel depots, ammo depots, bridges, railway tracks, the things they need to keep their brutal occupation here afloat.

And eventually, it will take a toll on their capacities at the frontline, not seen it just yet, as far as we can tell, but soon, that's likely to be much more palpable. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Nick Paton Walsh live for us in Zaporizhzhia. Brianna?

[13:05:01]

KEILAR: Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has just been sentenced to an additional 19 years in prison. He was found guilty for creating a, quote, "extremist community". The Kremlin critic was already serving an 11.5 year sentence in a maximum security prison. We have CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson with us on this story. Nic, what does this mean for Navalny and for the people who have been working to appeal these sentences?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, it means he's going to be an under even stricter guard and under having an even stricter prison regime around him. The penal colonists has been into so far have been bad, but they're going to get worse. That's where their sentence will be served out.

He's going to a penal colony, which is the sort of place that lifers normally go to, that people -- the Russian government describer as recidivists go to where they'll have very strict controls on the amount of movement that we can have. We've really seen him suffer in jail with lack of sleep, lack of food, being made sick by the prison authorities, any number of things to try to break his spirit and well.

But we saw the exact opposite of that in the courtroom today. There he was, almost sort of nonchalantly with his arms folded. We saw at one point him turned to his lawyer and seemed to make a joke. And Navalny had tweeted earlier in the day, he expected exactly this type of sentence. He said it will be a Stalinist sentence. He thought it might be 18 years, it was 19. He won't be surprised by that.

But what he did say was for his supporters, to look at this and understand why it's being done, why the sentence is so big, not for him but to scare them off. He's said in previous hearings, he is ready to take this punishment because he believes there can be a better Russia.

KEILAR: He is so frail, Nic, as you look at him. He is pulling up pants that are almost falling off of him. His arms are skinny, I mean, you really get a sense of how his health has suffered through his detainment.

ROBERTSON: And we've heard that from his daughter, we've heard that from his supporters, that they've sent him food for him and he gets shown the food and then it gets taken away from him. He is made sick by putting other detainees, other convicts in a tiny cell with him, convicts who've got heavy colds.

And when his immune system is run down by having been kept awake at night by loud noise and bright lights, being going through the interrogations that he had to go through in the early stages. He is weaker than he was before. And this is becoming very visible.

You know, he's not even getting mental stimulation, he's not getting that contact with his lawyers or with his family, he's being denied writing materials, even reading materials. The physical confines of his jail as well just mitigate to -- try to reduce him physically and mentally as a person.

KEILAR: Yes, he's sending a loud message with his body language, though. He's sort of -- he's casual. He's greeting the other fellow there much to the chagrin of that corrections official there and that does not go unnoticed. And he's doing that on purpose. Nic Robertson, thank you so much for the latest on this. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Back here in the U.S., new CNN polling shows that most Americans now do not believe Congress should authorize more funding for Ukraine. 55 percent now oppose it. 45 percent support it. This comes as CNN is learning the top U.S. and Western officials are now concerned that Vladimir Putin is unlikely to change course in Ukraine until he knows who will win the 2024 presidential election here in the U.S. They believe he's hoping President Biden will lose, Trump might win, which could lead to diminished American support for Ukraine.

Senior National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood joins me. This is notable because it would seem to indicate that this man believes he will have an easier course in Ukraine if Biden is no longer president and if perhaps Trump is.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly it. So U.S. and European officials are concerned that he's factoring in the U.S. presidential election, which we should know is more than a year from today into his strategy on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Essentially, banking on the possibility that if Joe Biden doesn't win this election, there's a Republican in office, of course, potentially, Trump being one of those get considering he's the leading player in the primary right now that U.S. support for Ukraine is going to diminish. And that would, of course, benefit Putin. Essentially incentivizing him to drag out this war for longer.

Resources, of course, are a question. Now there isn't an intelligence assessment into his mindset on this, but this is what sources are saying, you know, Putin knows Trump will help him and so do the Ukrainians and our European partners. So they really --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ATWOOD: -- believe that he's going to try and drag this out to see what he can get --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ATWOOD: -- from that election.

SCIUTTO: Putin knows Trump will help him. That's remarkable. Now, I wonder as we consider what Dan Freed said to you as well about how the next election year complicates things, how do Ukrainians feel. Do they feel the pressure that they have to get things done while Biden is still in office?

[13:10:09]

ATWOOD: Yes. I mean you talk to U.S. officials who have talked to Ukrainians recently, or experts who have traveled to Ukraine recently. What they say is that the Ukrainians feel even more pressure with regard to their current counteroffensive because of that looming U.S. presidential election. They know that they need some sort of win, or something to change the trajectory on the battlefield if they're going to change the course of how things are going over the course of the next few months, which could actually impact how Putin approaches the next year.

We should also know that U.S. officials believe that because Putin is taking 2024 into consideration, they are really focused on getting that long-term support that Ukraine needs --

SCIUTTO: Right.

ATWOOD: -- to sustain that support if the U.S. backs off.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And it's notable because if you look at this map here, following last fall's counteroffensive, which gained a great deal of territory in the Northeast, and also down here by Kherson --

ATWOOD: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- really the battlefields has been largely stuck in place. And that's something that observers are becoming very conscious of.

Kylie Atwood, thanks very much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that Donald Trump's latest indictment is serious, according to a new ABC News poll. That is a bigger share than those who thought the same about his classified documents indictment or his hush money indictment. With criminal cases piling up today, the former president took to social media to beg the Supreme Court to step in.

Quote, "My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, which require massive amounts of time and money. The Supreme Court must intercede". We should point out it's not actually his money paying those legal fees, it's his donors. That's where over $40 million of campaign donations have gone.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is here with us. So Jessica, is there an actual court filing in the works to try to get some of this sorted out by the Supreme Court, or is this just the former president posting on social media as he often does?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: At this point, Boris, I was going to say bluster. It appears to be political bluster, and that's what I was trying to say.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, we don't know of any legal filing currently in the works. I mean, this would have to be challenged at a lower court level before it gets all the way up to the Supreme Court. But it is possible that at some point in either of these cases, the January 6 indictment or the classified documents case, that elements of the case or the ultimate ruling decision from the trial jury itself might ultimately be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. But right now, we haven't seen any indication of that. It's important to note though, every other time that any of Trump's challenges to the 2020 election, every little time they've gone up before the Supreme Court, the court has either decided not to hear the case or has just rejected Trump's arguments, even though three of the nine justices were appointed by Trump.

So he does not have a good track record at the Supreme Court. But it is quite possible in the coming months or even years. His team will try to challenge it to the Supreme Court.

SANCHEZ: And he does have a track record though of demanding loyalty from those around him and perhaps he feels like Supreme Court justices fall --

SCHNEIDER: Yes, for sure.

SANCHEZ: -- in that realm. I did also want to ask you about Trump's newest attorney, John Lauro. He's been vigorously defending his client. And last night, I don't know if he did this on purpose, or if it was unintentional, but he appeared to admit that Trump was actually trying to delay the certification of the 2020 election.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, and this has really been the push of Trump's allies throughout this case, saying that it was well within the president's rights to, you know, use his First Amendment rights to challenge the election results. And that's what John Lauro was sort of getting out when he talked about this, but maybe taking it a step farther. Take a listen.

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JOHN LAURO, TRUMP DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Ultimately, what President Trump said is, let's go with option D. Let's just halt. Let's just pause the voting and allow the state legislatures to take one last look and make a determination as to the -- as to whether or not the elections --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

LAURO: -- were handled fairly. That's constitutional law. That's not an issue of criminal activity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: I mean, so this is John Lauro, Trump's attorney there constantly talking about, well, this was a free speech issue, not exactly. The prosecutors are going to say this crossed into conduct and criminal conduct did that at that, so we'll see what transpires in the coming weeks. The next hearing in this case just a few weeks, August 28th.

SANCHEZ: We look forward to that. Jessica Schneider, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: A break in the case of an unknown Gilgo Beach murder victim. Police identifying this woman 27 years after finding her remains. But right now they are not linking a suspect to her death. Plus, the July jobs report just came in weaker than expected why the markets and leading economists say that's not such a bad thing. And a new poll showing Americans have a huge appetite for weight loss drugs, but what are the costs? We have those details and much more ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL?

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[13:18:55]

KEILAR: There are new developments in the Gilgo Beach killings investigation. Investigators announced they have identified the victim previously known as Fire Island Jane Doe, missing for 27 years. She is now identified as Karen Vergata.

Her feet and legs were found along New York's Fire Island in 1996, 15 years later in 2011. Her skull was discovered not far away in Nassau County. Authorities were able to determine through DNA testing that the legs in the school belong to the same person.

Joining us now we have criminologist Scott Bonn, he is an author and the podcast host of "The Killing Hour with Doc Bonn". Tell us why you think we're in a -- perhaps it's just because we have a bigger, broader database that people are participating in, Scott, is that why we're getting this information about who this victim is so many decades later.

SCOTT BONN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Well, thanks for having me, Brianna. And yes, I mean, from what we were told, this was connected through familial DNA, not unlike the way the Golden State killer was was caught through ancestry DNA.

[13:20:07]

But it's, you know, it's fascinating how this is unfolding because they apparently have known her identity since October of last year, which is nearly a year and that dovetailed with the investigation into Rex Heuermann. So what I believe is that this was a conscious decision by law enforcement to get Heuermann off the street first, lock him up, secure him and then make this announcement so that it would not be a distraction, or perhaps even spooky Heuermann.

KEILAR: They have not linked this particular victim to Rex Heuermann, who has been arrested for murder of three of the Gilgo four. Could this be him? When would a serial killer of the ilk of the Long Island serial killer start killing? At what age generally do they begin their first killings?

BONN: Well, it could be a perfect fit, Brianna, because serial killers typically begin in their early to mid-20s. He's 59. So it would have been a, you know, the perfect time really, with the profile of a serial killer like this. And this body -- well Vergata -- is the first one that went missing in '96 and the first one to be there on Gilgo Beach. So she was the earliest.

And I have a theory that a plausible theory on how this could have evolved. Because the earliest bodies, the ones that were discovered in April of 2011, many of them are dismembered and actually had parts left elsewhere, just like Vergata.

Now, if you're a serial killer, and over time, you realize that, you know, dismemberment is a lot of work, it's a problem, and you know what, I don't need to do it because these bodies weren't found. Well, I could see how that serial killer could then evolve, and ultimately just wrapped his victims in burlap and leave them on the beach. So that could be consistent with a serial killer who evolved over time.

KEILAR: Not weird for their MO to evolve, which was a question I had for you that you answered there. I think this also comes down to there are so many more bodies between -- besides the women whose murderer Rex Heuermann has been charged.

And it comes down to families and members of the public, Scott, wanting to know if there's someone else out there responsible for some of this, you know, are they convinced, are they feeling confident that the person responsible for this is already behind bars?

BONN: Well, you know, Brianna, it's such a good question. And yes, I mean, there's just -- this has so many tentacles to it. And we don't know what law enforcement discovered over the last couple of weeks in his house. Does it link him to any of these other bodies? Does it link him potentially to bodies that haven't even been discovered yet? These are all unknowns.

But I believe that he is responsible for some of the other bodies that were found there on Gilgo Beach, certainly number four. I'm just waiting for the, you know, the shoe to drop there so to speak. I think he's going to be charged with that very soon.

KEILAR: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, yes.

BONN: And as I say -- yes, exactly. And I think it is very possible that he's responsible for some, if not all, of the other bodies on Gilgo Beach.

KEILAR: Scott Bonn, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time today.

BONN: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes, quite an unfolding mystery there.

Well, GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie travels to Ukraine, meets with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy. We're going to dig more into new CNN reporting on the impact the 2024 election could have for Russia's war.

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[13:28:52] SANCHEZ: The State Department expects to be able to evacuate some Americans who wish to leave the African country of Niger. They plan to transport them on a charter flight for non-emergency diplomats and family members. This comes after the nation's democratically elected president says he was detained by soldiers in a military coup.

Now, President Biden is called for his immediate release. Keep in mind, the country of the year is a key U.S. partner serving as a base for hundreds of U.S. troops to assist with counterterrorism missions. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was sentenced to an additional 19 years in a Russian prison today. He was clearly not shocked by the decision. We've just received this statement posted in Navalny's official telegram channel. He says he already knows he's serving a life sentence.

CNN Political and National Security Analyst David Sanger joins me now. He's White House National Security Correspondent, of course, for the New York Times. David, good to see you.

DAVID SANGER, CNN GLOBAL & NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good to see you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Putin tried to kill Navalny, we know that, tried to poison him with Novichok. His agency say he survived. CNN has documented this in a documentary. Does Putin hope, in effect, that not only dies in prison?