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U.S. Congress Funds $25 Million for Gun Violence Research; Coast Guard Warns Mariners About Russian Spy Ship; Trump's Scorching Letter to Pelosi; House Panel Sets Rules for Impeachment Debate; Former Pakistan President Sentenced to Death; Escalating Situation for Muslims in India; Congress Funds Gun Violence Research. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired December 18, 2019 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause, live from Studio 7 at CNN World Headquarters.
Coming up this hour on CNN NEWSROOM. On White House stationery, Donald Trump's letter of rage to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Six pages of anger, insults and threats.
India pushes back on mass protests against an anti Muslim citizenship law deploying troops, ordering a curfew and shutting down the Internet.
And welcome back, facts and science. For the first time in more than 20 years the U.S. Congress will fund research into gun violence. Why that could be a seismic moment for gun reform.
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VAUSE: It could be the stigma, the reputational stain or perhaps just the shame of impeachment which is finally weighing on U.S. president Donald Trump. On the eve of his likely impeachment, Trump went into full victim rant mode, in a rambling six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he cut loose. Think stream of consciousness meets Trump's Twitter feed.
He was the victim of an attempted coup, the innocent victim of hateful Democrats and he warned that, come the 2020 election, they would come to regret this because Americans will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.
In Trump's world, more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem witch trials.
Nancy Pelosi was offending Americans of faith, by continuously praying for the president when you know this statement is not true unless it is meant in a negative sense. Earlier on Tuesday Pelosi said she hadn't read the entire letter but called it "sick."
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MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Your reaction to the president's letter?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: My reaction is it is ridiculous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have no reaction?
Why not?
PELOSI: No, I haven't really fully read it. We have been working. I've seen the essence of it, though. And it is really sick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Not long after that, the House Speaker wrote her own letter to Democrat colleagues. She reminded that oath makes us custodians of the Constitution, if we do not act we will be derelict in our duty.
While Trump was raging, the business of impeachment was moving forward. The House Rules Committee outlined the rules for the impeachment vote. There will be six hours of debate divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, before they vote on two articles. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the latest.
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REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): This is a day where we're going disagree and disagree very strongly.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Partisan divide on full display, on the eve of just the third vote in history to impeach a president. The ground rules being seat by a House panel for tomorrow's final vote.
REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): Now it's up to us to decide whether the United States is a nation where no one is above the law.
MARQUARDT: Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin representing the House Judiciary majority arguing that the president has been unrepentant.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): We believe this conduct is impeachable and should never take place again under our constitutional system. He believes his conduct is perfect and we know, therefore, it will take place again and again.
MARQUARDT: While House Judiciary Republicans represented by ranking member Doug Collins held the line for the president. REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): The clear and present danger right now in
this room is the pattern of attack and abuse of rules and decisions to get at this president.
MARQUARDT: A new CNN average of recent polls shows that Americans are split on impeaching and removing the president by a narrow margin more oppose it. All of this setting the scene for the Senate trial to come with leadership contentiously disagreeing today on the Senate floor over what the trial should look like.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shooting down Democrats' proposals which called for more high-profile Trump administration witnesses.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): If House Democrats' case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it over here in the Senate. The answer is the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.
MARQUARDT: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had requested subpoenas for, among others acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: What is Leader McConnell afraid of? What is president Trump afraid of, the truth? But the American people want the truth.
MARQUARDT: For Schumer to win this argument, he needs four Republican senators to vote with Democrats.
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MARQUARDT (voice-over): But so far, the eight moderate Republicans in Schumer's sights are showing little signs ever defecting.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I'm talking to colleagues, listening to the leadership and giving it a great deal of thought.
MARQUARDT: So Schumer and McConnell are no closer to agreeing how this historic trial will look when it's expected to start in just a few weeks.
Now after speaking on the Senate floor today, Schumer said McConnell is using the Senate to participate in what he called a cover up while McConnell told reporters because this is a political process, he does not intend to be an impartial juror at all -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Allan Lichtman, presidential historian and distinguished professor of history at the American University joins us now from Washington.
Professor, thank you for coming back. It is good to see you.
When it comes to all of, this, when it's one it's all said and done, you predicted Trump would win the election, you predicted he would be impeached. Look into the future. If this all goes according to the plan, he is impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate, November 2020, who benefits the most from the impeachment?
Does Trump make the case that they have been after him forever, I'm persecuted, vote for me, or do Democrats benefit from this?
ALLAN LICHTMAN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The history of impeachment is that it is not a happy event for the party of the president. Every president who has been impeached, been convicted by the Senate and Richard Nixon who resigned to avoid impeachment, in each case, their party lost the next presidential election.
Andrew Johnson's Democrats lost in 1868. He was impeached and tried in an election year. Nixon's Republicans lost in 1976. And Bill Clinton's Democrats lost in 2000, in an election they could have easily won, at a time of peace, prosperity and domestic and foreign tranquility.
So impeachment on my system has been correct since 1984, is one mark against the president and his party. But impeachment alone and the scandal that it involves is not enough right now to defeat Donald Trump.
It is important that while the Democrats may have made a legal argument that the actions of the president rise to the level of impeachment, it seems to have not won that case with the American public. The opinion polls have flatlined. The country remains evenly divided.
After a series of public hearings, it has been out there for the public to see, some polls are showing support for impeachment has declined.
LICHTMAN: It is been somewhere around the high 40s to 50 percent, that is 20 points higher than the high point on public sentiment to impeach Bill Clinton. And the Republicans went ahead and did it.
I have always thought the time in which the public mind might be changed is not in the House hearings but in the Senate trial. People will follow the Senate trial. For the third time it happens in U.S. history, that is why Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are so desperate not to have a real trial.
And they've made the most absurd argument, that all the evidence, the articles, of course, witnesses and documents and evidence is presented. Plus Republicans have given us what is going to be the ultimate in circular reasoning.
They claim the Democrats don't have many witnesses in direct contact with the president. But of course, we are not going to let you hear from any witnesses that have contact with the president, like Mulvaney or Bolton.
VAUSE: Let's listen to the leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, on precisely the trial, which does sound as if it will be very favorable for the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: I think we are going to get an almost entirely partisan impeachment. I would anticipate an almost entirely partisan outcome in the Senate, as well. I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process.
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VAUSE: If this was a trial, McConnell would be forced to recuse himself, wouldn't he?
LICHTMAN: He would be booted out by the judge faster than you could say Andrew Johnson. He is fundamentally wrong about impeachment. Impeachment is a constitutional process. It stands equally with election as a way of deciding who should be president.
And the framers put impeachment on an equal footing into the Constitution, as a legal, peaceful and orderly means for dealing with a rogue president, as opposed to the remedy of the 18th century, assassination or revolution.
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LICHTMAN: And they fully expected a real trial, in the Senate and they put it in the Senate, because they expected senators to be men of wisdom and circumspection, who didn't face election for six years, who are not elected directly by the people but by the state legislatures in those days.
And they expected the Senate to be impartial, nonpartisan and have a real trial. It is a travesty what McConnell has said. He knows nothing about the Constitution and nothing about history or only cares about partisan affairs.
VAUSE: Democrats failing to make the case to win over the public.
Is that testimony a smokescreen?
LICHTMAN: It has been very effective. What Trump does really well and his Republican backers have picked up on it, is distraction and deflection and that is what the Republican tactics have been all about. Complain about process, falsely say the impeachment, even though there is constitutional about it, is a cancellation of an election.
Say the Democrats have always wanted to impeach him. Even though Nancy Pelosi, the leader, has resisted that and then blame it on everyone but the president. It wasn't anyone but the president, who started to shake down a vulnerable ally to help him cheat in the election.
Go back to what President Clinton said during his impeachment. He said, I was wrong. And I apologize to the American people. I have real remorse for what I did.
Trump takes responsibility for nothing. It is always someone else's fault. And the crimes he committed in the Ukraine?
They are going on right now even as we speak here. His personal attorney, at his direction, is collaborating with the most corrupt, disreputable elements in the Ukraine to cheat in the 2020 election.
The Republicans thought the dossier from trials like this using Russian sources was the crime of the century. But what Giuliani is doing in the Ukraine is 10 times worse. He is not just compiling information, he is collaborating with the corrupt elements in the Ukraine and promoting corruption in the Ukraine and the U.S.
VAUSE: Allan, thank you so much. Good to see you.
LICHTMAN: My pleasure, John. Take care.
VAUSE: And two sources have told CNN that the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine will be stepping down in the coming weeks. Bill Taylor was a key witness during the House impeachment inquiry and was labeled as the president as a Never Trumper.
He came out of retirement earlier this year to fill the vacancy in the U.S. embassy in Ukraine after the former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ousted. Taylor's appointment was scheduled to end in early January.
Still to come, neither side willing to give in despite days of violent protests, India's government stands firm on a conversational citizenship law. Also ahead, record breaking heat and raging bush fires creating a dangerous mix across Australia.
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VAUSE: Pakistan's armed forces says news of Pervez Musharraf's death sentence is being received with pain and anguish. The former Pakistan president and head of the military was sentenced in absentia for high treason following a trial that lasted more than five years.
A special court in Islamabad ruled he unlawfully declared emergency rule while he was in power in 2007. But his lawyer is slamming the sentence.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This case is wrong. No one has given so much progress to this country, so much respect to law, so much respect to the media as Musharraf did.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: This is the first time in Pakistan history that an army chief has been tried and found guilty of treason. He seized power in a military coup in 1999 and was president until 2008. He is now living in exile in Dubai.
To India now, where troops are on the streets in more than a dozen cities to end a week of unrest which has seen tens of thousands of people on the streets angry over a new citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims.
As the violence escalates officials have ordered a curfew in some parts as well as an Internet shutdown for part of the country, leaving tens of millions of people cut off from the outside world. Police have been accused of committing state-sponsored violence on one university campus during clashes with students, who now seems to be taking the lead in protests. Sam Kiley is in New Delhi with the latest.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, one of the striking things about the protests against the citizenship amendment act, this new piece of legislation that was passed by the BJP's -- as a result of the BJP's dominance of the parliamentary process here in India, is that it is the students who are very much at the forefront of a lot of the demonstrations against it because intellectually, at the very least, they object to the idea that it undermines the founding principles of India's constitution.
Some of those students have put their lives or bodies on the line to protect one another. This is my report.
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KILEY (voice-over): A small woman with a big heart comes between Indian police to protect a fellow Muslim student from a beating. Aisha Renna (ph) admonishes the officer.
This video has gone viral. And for opponents of India's new citizenship law, her stand against authority reflects widespread anger against a powerful state. She has been in hiding since the incident last Sunday when demonstrations were broken by police who forced their way into her university library, firing tear gas.
Did you ever think you would find yourself scolding a police officer?
AISHA RENNA, STUDENT: No. At that moment I wanted to save my brother. So in order to do that, I wanted to make those people -- if God saved only because there were a lot of people came around us. If the media people did not came, there would be brutally having a killing my brother.
KILEY (voice-over): As for the man she saved ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to regroup and we are going to proceed.
KILEY (voice-over): Many parts of the country were and still are rocked by protests against the citizen amendment act passed into law by a government led by prime minister Narendra Modi just over a week ago. He has appealed for calm and has rejected claims that the new law discriminates against Muslims.
It allows migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan to seek Indian nationality but not if they are Muslim. It comes after he won a landslide election campaigning on a Hindu nationalist platform. India's 200 million Muslims make about 14 percent of the population.
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KILEY: They see the new legislation as part of a Hindu dominated government plan to marginalize them amid fears that their own Indian identities could be questioned soon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They do not want to give citizenship to Muslims. This is again the principles of injustice and inequality. Because you cannot discriminate on the basis of religion in this modern world.
KILEY: But it is an act of parliament that has been passed by a majority of people that have been democratically elected here in India.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, but the thing is, you cannot let your democracy go into the hand of a humanitarian (ph) view.
KILEY (voice-over): India's supreme court has been asked to rule whether the new law is unconstitutional. Its deliberations may take some time.
Meanwhile, at least five opposition led state governments have said that they will ignore the citizenship act, setting the stage for more clashes inside and outside the courts.
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KILEY: Now John, there are more demonstrations scheduled for tomorrow here in Delhi and elsewhere in the country. Even overseas. There have been marches against this in places as far as London and Oxford.
But the issue really is one of a broader idea of the government, being felt at least by Muslims. But also who wonder and see how the continued secular nation can continue to flourish as a secular nation. A sense that Mr. Modi is steadily drifting toward increasing authoritarianism.
Remember John of course, you recall there have been months now that the Muslim, predominantly Muslim area in the north of the country, where it used to have a degree of semi autonomy has been completely cut off entirely from the Internet now for several months. That is beginning to apply elsewhere in the country, particularly in Assam.
VAUSE: Sam Kiley from New Delhi, thank you.
An already scorching hot summer in Australia is set to go from blistering to searing this week. With a forecast of temperatures north of 40 degrees Celsius in the coming days, as a heat wave spreads eastward.
In Queensland, police are urging care in the extreme weather with a little help from Baby Yoda. They tweeted a GIF of Disney's popular character, adding this. It is harder than a Baby Yoda in a toy store today. Stay cool and hydrated.
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VAUSE: U.S. Congress remains divided over impeachment, there has been surprising bipartisan support on an issue which not only divides Republicans and Democrats, we will see what they are doing when we come back.
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VAUSE: Welcome, back I'm John Vause with an update on our top news this hour.
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VAUSE: Amid all the impeachment turmoil and chaos the bipartisan bickering which seems to go on without end, something odd is happening in Congress.
On Tuesday, a defense spending bill was overwhelmingly passed by the Senate. That bill will see the creation of a sixth branch of the U.S. military known as Space Force. But more importantly, provides 12 weeks parental leave for federal workers.
Also on Tuesday, the House approved a spending bill which for the first time in more than 20 years, specifically funds research into the cause of gun violence. It may not sound like it but for Democrats and gun reform advocates, that is a big win and a big deal.
Until now with the country in a grip of gun violence, federal funds have been effectively streamlined from studying why. Ever since Congress urged on by the NRA, passed what became known as the Dickey amendment, named after a lawmaker from Arkansas. Matt Littman is the executive director of the organization pushing for gun reform. He is with us from Los Angeles.
We will get to the amendment in a moment and whether it was bad or not. When senator Chris Murphy tweets out this, it is not often that you can feel a seismic political shift at the very moment it is happening. 2019 started with bipartisan House passage of background checks and ends with landmark $25 million investment gun violence research. Our movement is winning. And this is just the start.
I know you work to win support among gun owners, that kind of thing when it comes to government reform. So I guess, is this helpful or, do you see in the same way as Senator
Murphy does?
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MATTHEW LITTMAN, PRESIDENT, 97 PERCENT GUN REFORM: Well, Senator Murphy is hopefully right that this is the start of something significant. But you know, Congress hasn't really been able to do anything on guns for decades. It was only about ten months ago, John, that for the first time in a decade, Congress held a hearing on gun violence.
Now, the United States has an epidemic of gun violence. For us to go ten years without a congressional hearing on gun violence is something. To be able to fund the Center for Disease Control and the NIH, which is what this legislation calls for, is very, very significant, because a few years ago, we weren't able to do those things.
So yes, there's a big change. John, one of the big changes, also, is that in the 2018 elections, there was more funding on the gun reform side from gun reform groups than the NRA to help get people get elected. So we can see some changes happening on a congressional level.
VAUSE: One of the more bizarre aspects of the Republican talking points over the years has been to blame gun violence on mental health issues but then, effectively, prevent the government from funding any research.
So I guess you touched on the midterm elections, which saw, you know, a lot of pro-gun-reform advocates elected to Congress. Has that been the tipping point?
LITTMAN: Well, that is a very important point. But also, just to go back to your point from a second ago, mental health is really not an issue when it comes to gun violence. People with mental health issues are more likely to be the victims of gun violence than to be the perpetrators of gun violence.
And the Trump administration made it easier when Trump came into office, for people with mental health issues to actually get guns. So mental health, that's really the easy way for people to say that it's a problem that's not them.
But the issues with guns are that people who should not have guns very often have guns, right? So that's why we need certain things like universal background checks, which is why a lot of these people got elected to Congress in 2018. That was one of the big issues that they voted on.
But also, John, more recently, we saw in Virginia, for example, in these state elections, a lot of money put into those elections in Virginia -- this was a month ago -- to get people elected like groups like Bloomberg, Everytown for Gun Safety. Put in a ton of money in Virginia, which used to be the home of the NRA. And a lot of people who were pro-gun reform got elected in Virginia, as they did in 2018. It's continued in 2019.
VAUSE: I want to show you the headline from the conservative "National Review" talking about the Dickey amendment. "Reminder: There Has Never Been a Ban on Studying Gun Violence." You know, that's kind of technically true, but it leaves a lot of context out on what this ban has actually did in terms of, you know, essentially warning off CDC research when it comes to gun violence and a whole bunch of other stuff, right?
LITTMAN: Well, it wouldn't have been my preference to have somebody write an article like that. Because it's not really honest.
So what happened was you talked about the Dickey Amendment, which was in 1996. A couple of years before that, the Center for Disease Control was doing research on gun issues. And they found that if you have a gun in your home, there's more likely to be gun violence in your home.
Well, the NRA went absolutely bananas, and so they got this Dickey Amendment passed by this congressman who is their point person in Congress. And so what happened was that they literally took out two and a half million from this part of the CDC's budget, the Center for Disease Control's budget. That two and a half million was what they spent on that previous research.
The head of that division of the CDC a little while later was also fired. Right?
So they said, you can't do -- you can't talk about gun safety. You -- the person is fired. And we're taking away your money. So that effectively made it so that the CDC was no longer doing research on that issue.
So for -- it's now 23 years, the CDC has not done research on gun violence. And they won't even -- they won't even talk about it, because people there are truly frightened for their jobs. So Congress is certainly not appropriating money for it until now.
VAUSE: And when it comes up, Republicans have not done anything to actually repeal it or to make it any easier for the CDC. In fact, back in 2015, John Boehner, the Republican, he was the speaker of the House. This issue of this Dickey Amendment came up. And he was very much in defense of this amendment, which prevented, essentially, the CDC from studying gun violence. This is what he said at the time.
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JOHN BOEHNER (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The CDC is there to look at diseases that -- that need to be dealt with to protect the public health. I'm sorry, but a gun is not a disease. And guns don't kill people. People do.
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VAUSE: And then that gets us back to the Republican talking point. Yes, a gun is not a disease. And you know, people killed people. But people with mental health diseases kill people. So it does seem bizarre that they're not looking into this.
LITTMAN: Well, the CDC and the NIH, which is where this money is going, is focusing on public health. And this is a public health issue. There are 23,000 suicides a year in the United States.
So of those 40,000 gun deaths, 23,000 are suicides, right? And so the CDC, the NIH want to know why that's happening. Do people have access to guns, people who should not have access to guns? That's a possibility, right?
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But we need to have the answers, and we need to have the data. And one thing that's come up from some of these people in Congress on the Republican side is that we should not listen to what scientists say. We should not listen to data. And we know that that's ridiculous. We need all the information. We shouldn't be afraid of information.
There are Republicans, by the way, John, who also do believe in gun reform. There are many of them, but they're outweighed by their leadership. If their leadership -- and I'm talking about specifically Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump -- would let the -- would let a vote happen on some of these issues like universal background checks, they'd pass. And you'd get some Republican votes on them, as well.
VAUSE: Well, in fact, Congressman Jay Dickey had a sort of a death bed come-to-Jesus moment.
LITTMAN: That's right.
VAUSE: In 2017, he wrote an op-ed with the former boss of the CDC at the time. This how it reads, part of it, at least. "We were on opposite sides of the heated battle 16 years ago, but we are in strong agreement now that scientific research should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries and that ways -- that ways to prevent firearm deaths can be found without encroaching on the rights of legitimate gun owners." Which is sort of what you're doing.
So beyond the win, beyond paying the wave for maybe tighter gun laws here. You know, do you see this as being the moment when maybe, you know, science and facts and reason take over an argument, which has seen anything but those qualities for, you know, the last 20 years?
LITTMAN: I think that we're starting to see changes in a positive direction. But the answer is not solvable. Tomorrow, there are 340 million people in the United States. There are 340 million guns in the United States. It doesn't mean every gun owner has a gun. Some people just have a lot of guns. But there's an epidemic of gun violence. We need to lower those numbers, and we need to lower the temperature.
Things, John, like universal background checks work and take a few days before somebody's able to get a gun. They really make a difference when you're talking about suicides. If somebody wants to use a gun to commit suicide, 95 percent of the time, they're going to succeed. If they use anything else, any other way to try to commit suicide, less than 50 percent of the time, they're going to succeed.
We need to be able to lower those numbers. We need to have things like universal background checks, red flag laws. And I think that people can agree on those things. We call ourselves a 97 percent, because 97 percent of the United States agrees on universal background checks. So let's do these common-sense things. And I hope, John, that we're on our way to doing that.
VAUSE: Yes. It has to be a realization that it is a multi-pronged strategy. There's not going to be one solution to all this. And that's when there will be progress. It looks like that's where it's heading, which is, I guess, you know, positive news and something which has not seen a lot of positive news in, you know, many, many years.
Matt, thanks. Good to see you.
LITTMAN: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: Hello, comrade, you're a long way from home. So exactly what is this Russian spy ship doing off the U.S.'s coast, operating without running lights, not responding to hails? More next.
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VAUSE: The U.S. Coast Guard has issued a warning about a Russian spy ship, the Viktor Leonov, which appears to be operating in what they call an unsafe matter off the coast of Georgia and Florida. But what's it doing there in the first place?
CNN's Brian Todd reports.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's known for playing "Hunt for Red October" style games with the U.S. Navy, but according to U.S. officials, the Russian spy ship the Viktor Leonov is sailing recklessly right off Americas shores.
Two U.S. officials telling CNN the Leonov has been operating off the coast of South Carolina and Florida in a, quote, "unsafe manner," not using its lights in low-visibility whether; not responding to signals from commercial ships, which are trying to avoid colliding with it.
STEPHEN BLANK, FORMER PROFESSOR, U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE: It's absolutely purposeful. First of all, this is an intelligence ship, so it's not going to disclose its point of location to anybody. They like to be able to intimidate people and bully them, and this is another way of doing it.
TODD: The U.S. Coast Guard says the Viktor Leonov is making other erratic movements and warns other ships to maintain a sharp lookout for the Russian spy ship. The Leonov has been prowling around America's East Coast for more than
four years near some key U.S. Navy installations. Cape Canaveral, which handles underwater operations. Kings Bay, Georgia, home to nuclear missile submarines. Norfolk, the world's largest naval complex. And New London, Connecticut, another major submarine base. Experts say those U.S. bases offer a treasure trove of possible intelligence for Vladimir Putin's Navy.
BLANK: They'd be looking for the schedule of ships entering and leaving the port. They'd be trying to monitor as much of their communications as is possible. They would also be trying to monitor underwater developments, if they can track submarines.
TODD: Experts say Russian vessels have even been spying on undersea Internet cables.
MICHAEL KOFMAN, RUSSIAN MILITARY EXPERT, CNA: And the reason why they want the map is so that, in future conflicts or crisis, they actually have the opportunity, if they can, to attack and destroy it or otherwise tamper it.
TODD: But despite the dazzling unveilings of hypersonic missiles and other weapons, Putin's military hasn't been hitting on all cylinders recently. Its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, caught fire last week during repairs at an arctic seaport.
In August, during what U.S. officials believe was the testing of a secret nuclear-powered missile, a mysterious explosion occurred, killing five.
This summer, a fire aboard a Russian submersible killed 14 crew members. Tragic examples, analysts say, of the Russian president overextending his military.
JEFFREY EDMONDS, FORMER NSC OFFICIAL: There are certain parts of their military that are very formidable. But they pushed the entire military as much as they can, and so those parts that might be weaker or older might be more subject to accidents and mishaps.
TODD: Analysts say despite the recklessness, the accidents, all the setbacks, we shouldn't expect any of it to deter Vladimir Putin from pursuing his grand strategy. Not only of projecting Russian military power across the globe, but also of signaling his American and NATO adversaries not to mess around with his turf: those naval bases in the Black and Baltic Seas, the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans that the Russians value so much.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. Please stay with us. WORLD SPORT is up next. I'm John Vause.
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VAUSE: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm John Vause. Coming up this hour on CNN NEWSROOM, off his chest and onto White House stationery, Donald Trump's letter or rage to the speaker of the House. Six pages of anger and insults, falsehoods and threats.
India pushes back on mass protests against an anti-Muslim citizenship law, deploying troops, ordering a curfew, and shutting down the Internet.
And Australia braces for a blistering heat wave that could break all- time records.
It could be the stigma, the reputational stain, or perhaps just the outright shame of impeachment which might be finally weighing on U.S. President Donald Trump. On the eve of his likely impeachment, he went into full victim rant mode. In a rambling six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump cut loose.
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