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ABC News Reports, Trump Allegedly Shared Nuclear Submarine Secrets With Australian Billionaire at Mar-a-Lago in 2021; Biden Says, Can't Stop Border Barrier Appropriations; Armed Man Arrested Twice in Same Day at Wisconsin State Capitol. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 06, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Attrition than they have so far.

[09:30:01]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Colonel Cedric Leighton, always great to have you on. Thank you so much for your help this morning. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: : Coming up for us, did Donald Trump share nuclear with a foreign cardboard tycoon, and why the special counsel's office now has that tycoon on its potential witness list.

And a major move from President Biden on the migrant crisis, now restarting deportations of Venezuelans who cross into the United States illegally. We have more on this new CNN reporting just ahead.

We will be back.

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BERMAN: This morning new reporting on Donald Trump nuclear secrets and a cardboard tycoon who is a Mar-a-Lago club member.

[09:35:05]

According to ABC News, months after leaving the White House, Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago club, this Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others. The Australian billionaire is Anthony Pratt, who runs one of the world's biggest packaging companies, a lot of cardboard. And CNN has confirmed he was interviewed by federal prosecutors and is on their potential witness list.

Sources tell ABC News that according to Pratt's account in 2021 at Mar-a-Lago, he told Trump that Australia should start buying its subs from the United States. That's when Trump allegedly leaned and discretely told Pratt the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads U.S. subs routinely carry and exactly how close they can get to a Russian sub without being detected.

In emails and conversations after Pratt relayed the information to 6 journalists, 11 employees, 10 Australian officials and 3 former Australian prime ministers. So, by this account that information, it got out there. In response to ABC, Trump's team maintains, quote, they did nothing wrong. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Joining us now is Juliette Kayyem, CNN's senior national security analyst and former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

Juliette, what is laid out, and John sums it up perfectly, what do you think of this, just first and foremost?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, I mean, it's obviously in the outrage zone but it actually is also very dangerous. So, you know, we have a tendency now to sort of think, oh, Trump just does things like this.

I just want to put it in perspective or at least chronological perspective for viewers. So, we think of Australia, most people don't know, it's one of our major intelligence partners in the partnership called Five Eyes. It also is part of a deal just sealed by the Biden administration of the selling of nuclear submarines to Australia to -- our nuclear submarines to counter the China threat. So, it's a key player in geopolitics geopolitics.

This billionaire is well-known in Australia. He has lots of contacts, as we've seen, journalists, prime ministers and others, is not -- you know, joins Mar-a-Lago and everyone -- if you are a member of Mar-a- Lago now, you know what you're going to get out of it. You're not there for the golf, you are there for the closeness to Donald Trump, who is more than willing to abide with two pieces of information that are not public for a reason, how many nuclear weapons are on each of these submarines, in other words, what's their capacity, and, second, how close they can get to enemy territory, whether it's Russia or China, without being detected. Those numbers are -- if an adversary knows them, they will be able to calculate what counterstrategy they would want against us. So, this is not just him being careless, this was purposeful.

BOLDUAN: Juliette, is one set of facts more troubling or, as you said, dangerous than the other, sharing the exact number of warheads that U.S. subs typically carry, or how close they can get to a Russian sub without being detected?

KAYYEM: Yes. I think it's the detection issue more. I mean, obviously, no one wants sort of these weapons to be utilized. It's going to be the proximity issue because -- so think about an adversary aligning its strategy around what they know now, excuse me, which is can we get our submarines out without being detected by the U.S. submarines. So, I'm not thinking about Russian anymore, I'm thinking about China.

And so that is the kind of information that you would want as our adversary because then you can plan your tactics, as many of our military analysts have said.

I think the second issue is, regardless of the specific number, right, our allies, including Australia, but also the U.K., other members of Five Eyes, NATO, now know that that number is out there. They also know that Trump, unless something happens, is likely to be the nominee.

So, if you are aligning your intelligence-sharing apparatus now in anticipation of what the United States could look like a year from now, you are paying attention about how much information about your own systems you would want the United States to know now with the possibility that Donald Trump could be president again. So, this is not about 2001 and what Trump did --

BOLDUAN: That's exactly what I was going to ask you because a lot of the documents --

KAYYEM: That was a long time ago.

BOLDUAN: Yes, a lot of -- if you want to talk about the documents investigation is looking in the past, right, documents that he should have obviously turned in, that he kept and that's where that investigation is.

[09:40:04]

But something that you pointed out here to our producers, which I thought was interesting, is that you don't think this is a story about the past. This is actually -- this element of this story is about the future.

KAYYEM: Yes, it's about right now. I mean, honestly if you see this story and you wake up and you are an intelligence agency that is sharing information with us, maybe you trust this team or you trust the career civil servants because you know that the political -- the White House won't share it, isn't known to share it, but now you're calculating about -- you know, they look way ahead, right? You're calculating what could happen to the United States if Donald Trump gets the nomination. And, remember, if he gets the nomination he begins to get intelligence briefings at that moment. It doesn't wait until he's president because, if he wins, you want him to be ready on day one.

So, access to information is going to be available to Donald Trump. Secret Service are going to be assigned to him as they -- not just as a former president but a future one, access to the intelligence apparatus will be afforded him in some measure when and if he gets the nomination. So, you're looking at a couple months, you know, less than a year where our allies are now going to assess how much do you want to share. So, everyone has to think of this as a future story, not just the past story.

BOLDUAN: Juliette Kayyem, thanks, as always, for coming in. John?

BERMAN: Australia part of the Five Eyes, the cardboard guy, not so much.

BOLDUAN: Shocking. BERMAN: The Biden administration is expanding the border wall, but the president says he's not happy about it. Why he says he was forced into this decision.

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[09:45:00]

BERMAN: This morning President Biden and his team are insisting that construction on a new section of border wall along the U.S./Mexico border is not a change in policy, they say. The Biden administration announced that it waived 26 federal laws to build 20 miles of border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley. The funding comes from a Trump era 2019 appropriations bill.

Now, President Biden says his hands are tied and he is required to use this money, despite his stance that border walls do not work.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate -- to redirect that money. They didn't. They wouldn't. And in the meantime, there's nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can't stop that.

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BERMAN: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us now. He's doing it but he doesn't want to, Priscilla.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, John. That's really the resounding message from the administration over the course of yesterday and going into today, that these were funds that were appropriated in 2019, that they were going to -- they were facing deadline and they had to use these funds that were only for the purpose of border barriers, so they had to do it. And the president, that you are hearing there, saying that he doesn't agree.

And we also got a pretty forceful statement from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas yesterday who similarly said he doesn't agree with this either. He doesn't think that the border wall is the answer, but the reality, John, is that you have a president who campaigned on not building an extra mile of wall when, because of these funds, they say, they're going to have to do exactly that and up to 20 miles of it.

BERMAN: And it comes during this same 24-hour period where there appears to be a shift in posture towards Venezuelan migrants. Explain what's going on here, Priscilla.

ALVAREZ: This is a major breakthrough. So, for years, the U.S. hasn't been able to carry out regular deportation flights to Venezuela. And now, starting this week, they're going to do exactly that.

Here is why that's important. Most of the border crossers that are crossing today are Venezuelan. That is because there is a historic wave of Venezuelans across the western hemisphere. In fact, more than 7 million Venezuelans have left that country.

To give you some context, John, that is more people that have fled Ukraine which is -- where there is an active war. And it's economic and political turmoil that has pushed people to leave that country and many of them move north.

And so that has been a very unique challenge for this administration. Just in the month of August, they had more than 30,000 Venezuelans at the U.S./Mexico border. That number went up in September and is expected to continue to go up.

So, this is a way for the administration to say we are going to levee consequences against this population and we are now going to deport them. And it sort of suggests a bit of a thawing of that frosty relation with Venezuela, which up until this point had not accepted their nationals. We are still trying to get answers as to what was the big breakthrough that had Venezuela changed their position on that.

But, nonetheless, the hope here by senior administration officials is that by deporting them directly back to Venezuela, it shows consequence and, therefore, tries to drive down those border crossings.

BERMAN: 7 million Venezuelans have led that country. That is an enormous number. Priscilla Alvarez, I always learn something from you, thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And it shows just how consequential this shift could be in this -- as the crisis continues to unfold.

We've got much more ahead for you. Coming up, a potentially huge meeting is now in the works. New reporting, planning is under way for a sit-down meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Considering everything that has transpired since they last met last November, this face-to-face could mean a lot.

And a Wisconsin man arrested not once but twice the same day with a gun at the state capitol building there in Wisconsin. Why he was demanding to see the governor and what happens with him now.

[09:50:00]

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BOLDUAN: This morning, a Wisconsin man is in custody and here's why. Police say that he showed up armed to the state capitol two times in the same day. This happened on Wednesday. And both times he had a gun and was demanding to see the governor. So, what happened after that he was arrested after the first time?

CNN's Whitney Wild is following this. She's joining us now. Whitney, what happened here?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: So, here's what happened. Again, as you pointed out, this all happened in the course of about seven hours.

So, the first time he showed up to the capitol, it was 2:00 in the afternoon. As you pointed out, he had a handgun, he had no shirt on, he had a dog on a leash, he went right up to security outside the governor's office in Madison, in that state capitol, and said he wanted to talk to the governor. And he made some other concerning comments. Police said that you cannot have a firearm inside the state capitol. He refused to leave. Police took him into custody. He posted bail. He got out.

Seven hours later, he went back to the capitol, again spoke with police.

[09:55:00]

This time, he had a loaded AK-47-style rifle, obviously extremely concerning to the police. And they were able to talk to him. And in some of the video that we have obtained, he is seen laying on the ground holding that rifle, police having this dialog with him.

During this incident, he consented to the search of the backpack. And inside his backpack, police found a collapsible police-style baton. That is considered a weapon. Because it was in the backpack, it's considered concealed carry of a weapon. So, he was again taken back into custody, and he went back to -- again, into police custody.

There was a recommendation for him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Currently, he is in protective custody. That's the last information that we have from police up in Madison, Wisconsin. But, certainly, Kate, this could have been a much more frightening and violent situation given that he had firearms twice.

Here's what Governor Tony Evers said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TONY EVERS (D-WI): Yes, I am okay. The capitol -- to the credit, the capitol police took control of the situation. And so it is over. But, yes, it's always something that is things you don't want to see happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Certainly a frightening situation, Kate, many more questions to answer as this case is moves forward. Back to you.

BOLDUAN: Yes, many questions left unanswered here. Thank you so much, Whitney. John?

BERMAN: So, if you are a Republican moderate in a district won by Joe Biden, how does a Donald Trump endorsement impact your vote for speaker? This morning we are beginning to find out.

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