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CIA Assesses Vladimir Putin Likely Directing Anti-Biden Influence Campaign; Louisville Declares State of Emergency in Anticipation of Breonna Taylor Announcement; COVID-19 Stimulus Negotiations Stall. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 22, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Now to just a really stunning headline, and this comes just 42 days from Election Day. This is new reporting in the "Washington Post" that a recent CIA assessment reveals Russian president Vladimir Putin is right now likely interfering and, quote, "probably directing" an influence campaign to undermine Joe Biden, not super-surprised, right, Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, but a big deal. Four years later --

HARLOW: Huge deal.

SCIUTTO: -- echoes of 2016, Russia interfering, directed by Putin, help Trump, hurt Biden. it's remarkable. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details.

So, Alex, tell us exactly what is detailed in this report because it's consistent with the intel community's assessment that we learned of a couple weeks ago, again, about Russian interference: denigrate Joe Biden as they did Hillary Clinton in 2016, and help Donald Trump.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. The intelligence community has been repeatedly saying that Russia is once again interfering in our elections, once again working against the Democratic candidate in favor of Donald Trump. What this report in the "Washington Post" says is that the CIA is assessing that President Putin of Russia and his senior-most officials are probably behind this Russian effort, essentially that Putin is at it again.

[10:35:20]

This comes from a classified document known as the Worldwide Intelligence Review. It is a CIA product that is seen by national security officials across the U.S. government.

And what the top line of this assessment that came out at the end of August says is, "We assess that Vladimir Putin and the senior-most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia's influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. vice president" -- so that's Joe Biden -- "supporting the U.S. president" -- Donald Trump -- "and fueling public discord ahead of the U.S. election in November."

Now, Jim and Poppy, on August 7th, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence came out with a report saying that Russia is working to actively denigrate the Biden campaign, and therefore work in favor of the Trump campaign. They talked about Moscow, they talked about the Kremlin, which many of us and many experts and intelligence officials say, that means Vladimir Putin. Now -- and we also heard Director Wray of the FBI last week, saying that the Russians are very active in their influence campaigns.

Now, this is quite remarkable because as you know, the president does not speak out against these Russian efforts to meddle in the 2020 elections. He seems to feel that that -- that he cannot talk about the Russians helping his campaign.

And so what he did after Wray said last week that the Russians are very active, is he said, well, what about China? Because the intelligence community has also assessed that China would prefer that President Trump not get re-elected.

Now, the difference is that the Russians are being extremely active, while we're still waiting to see whether the Chinese will be active in terms of meddling in this campaign -- Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: And we should note, the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has met with a Ukrainian politician who CIA identifies as a known Russian agent. It's significant stuff, Alex Marquardt, thanks very much.

Well, the city of Louisville has declared a state of emergency ahead of an announcement on the investigation into the killing of Breonna Taylor. We're going to take you there, live, next with all the news.

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[10:42:06]

SCIUTTO: Watch this news, because soon Kentucky's attorney general is expected to make an announcement. This, in the deadly shooting of Breonna Taylor there.

HARLOW: That's right. And right now, the city of Louisville is tightening security ahead of this announcement. Let's go to our colleague Shimon Prokupecz, our crime and justice reporter on the ground there; Joey Jackson, our legal analyst, also joins us.

Shimon, talk to us about what the city is doing to prepare. Again, the question has been why for five-plus months have we not known if there, you know, will be any charges brought against these three officers? And we'll know more today.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: We could know more today. It is certainly expected this week. The city officials, the police department, community members all are anticipating some kind of announcement from the attorney general here this week. That's why, as you can see behind me, the police overnight decided --

without really giving any notice -- that they were going to close some of the streets, some of the access ways, the roadways into the courthouse and other government buildings here in downtown Louisville.

I walked around here this morning, and almost virtually every business, every restaurant, every store is boarded up and they continue to board up a lot of the area here in anticipation of this announcement.

And it has been five months. Of course, the added pressure from celebrities, from politicians, from community members has finally at least brought action in this investigation, where the attorney general has finally presented this case to the grand jury, and we could learn what their decision is any day now.

SCIUTTO: All right. Joey Jackson, you've been a trial attorney for some time. You look at the moves being set -- I don't want you to look at a crystal ball, but look at the moves there, the preparations, the state attorney general prepared to make an announcement. What do those preparations indicate to you?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So remember this, Jim, we're in unprecedented times, right? And as much as we're seeing protests across the country, those protests being more diverse than we've ever seen and people taking more of an interest as it relates to police conduct and police misconduct.

And so on the one hand, Jim, it could be simply precautionary, right? We've seen what happens. You learn the lessons of history, perhaps it's time to do something about that.

On the other hand, it may be a suggestion that there's some internal information. Remember, grand jury's supposed to operate in secret, there shouldn't be any leaks but perhaps there is an indication that, you know, there's not either an indictment or an indictment of all the officers.

Simple guess, we don't know. But on the one hand, precaution; on the other hand, perhaps there's some issues there which they believe are going to incite the community towards a level of accountability, and therefore it's better to be safe.

HARLOW: We'll watch again --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: -- it could come today or, as Shimon said, at any point this week. Joey, Shimon, thank you both.

[10:45:01]

So millions of Americans, we know -- our friends, our neighbors, families, struggling. They are on edge, and investors are on edge as stimulus talks hit the back burner. The bleak reality a stimulus deal failure could mean, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well as the fight to fill late-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat consumes -- frankly -- Capitol Hill, millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet are now left to wonder, did any hopes of Congress reaching a stimulus deal any time soon just get completely dashed?

We have seen these images, they are heartbreaking. People waiting for hours and hours at food banks, and the lines only getting longer as this pandemic enters what could be a grueling fall and winter.

[10:50:09]

With me now are congressional reporter Lauren Fox and our lead business writer for CNN business Matt Egan.

Lauren, is anyone on Capitol Hill right now talking about stimulus and a deal?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well Poppy, the short answer is no. And if you remember just a week ago on Capitol Hill, you had some moderate Democrats really starting to push Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, into whether or not they were going to have a stimulus deal, whether or not she would be willing to go back to the negotiating table.

Remember, for members who are up for re-election, this is a really tough issue to go back home and explain, even if Democrats had their own proposal in the spring and Republicans didn't act on it.

Now if you remember, Republicans in the Senate also passed their own proposal, but Democrats argued it didn't go far enough, it didn't have enough bipartisan support to pass. But now, the political rancor on Capitol Hill, the commentary you're hearing, it just doesn't bode well for getting a deal --

HARLOW: Wow.

FOX: -- the negotiations and goodwill that are necessary, they're just not there right now -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Right. So there's the pain that that extends for millions of Americans that are literally hanging on by a thread. And then Matt, there are the implications for an economic recovery that the White House and the president have promised. How fragile is this economy right now?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS LEAD WRITER: Well Poppy, the good news is the economy is recovering from this historic collapse. The bad news is, it probably needs more help from the federal government for this recovery to continue.

We have to remember that unemployment claims, they remain extremely high. We've seen so many small businesses close -- Yelp recently warned that more than half of the small businesses that have closed because of the pandemic, they may never reopen their doors.

HARLOW: Wow.

EGAN: Feels like every day you hear about another company that is filing for bankruptcy. And all of that's going to continue if the federal government can't come up with more money to stimulate the economy.

And Poppy, the other big issue here is the state and local governments. They are dealing with just historic declines in revenue, and if they don't get any help from Congress, we're going to start seeing significant layoffs of government workers.

HARLOW: Right. And then to the political extension of that, Lauren, you've got 25 Senate seats up for -- in the election coming up, and you've got vulnerable seats in both parties. And is it not a political win for all of them to strike some sort of deal when you talk about constituents? I mean, I just wonder how you think politically this plays out.

FOX: Well, I certainly think that if you're Joni Ernst and you're going home right now, you want to be able to tell your voters that you --

HARLOW: Right.

FOX: -- did something when it comes to the stimulus. But I also think that what is playing out right now is that Republicans can say, we tried, Democrats didn't stay with us. Democrats can say, we tried, we couldn't get enough Republicans to vote with us. That's the dynamic.

That's why you saw Majority Leader Mitch McConnell bring a standalone bill to the floor after the August recess, because his members were going home and they were hearing an earful from their constituents. They needed to be able to go home and make an argument.

But obviously, now, the entire conversation, the entire election dynamic has shifted to the Supreme Court fight -- Poppy.

HARLOW: OK, so Matt, when that $600 a week federal unemployment bonus was coming -- right? -- during the height of the pandemic, and then that ended at the end of July. And the fight over it was, do we extend this or not.

And the White House and Republicans and Larry Kudlow kept saying, no, because it disincentivizes people to go to work if you pay them more than they were making at their job. Now there was evidence out of the University of Chicago against that, but now there's a new report this morning from the San Francisco Federal Reserve that is pretty clear.

EGAN: That's right, Poppy. This idea that it just doesn't incentivize people to go and work? That does not seem to be the case. There really doesn't seem to be enough evidence to make that argument. In fact, there's research pointing the other way.

And I think that what's really important is, what happens to consumer spending? Because, you know, as much as we talk about manufacturing and trade in the United States, which is so important, this remains a consumer-driven economy.

And so when Americans are getting less money come in, they're going to start spending less. And we're already starting to see that. Retail sales went straight up over the summer until August, and that's when they started to slow.

And I think that what could happen is if there's no more stimulus, if we don't see these unemployment -- enhanced unemployment benefits, we could see consumer spending really slow down or even start declining again, and that would (INAUDIBLE) a really big negative for the economy.

HARLOW: Lauren, 10 seconds left. Yes or no, a deal before Election Day?

FOX: No, I just don't see it.

HARLOW: Wow. Lauren, thanks, Matt, appreciate it.

Thanks to all of you for joining us today. We'll see you back here tomorrow. I'm Poppy Harlow.

[10:55:02]

SCIUTTO: Such an important conversation, it's what people are talking about, care about. I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with John King starts right after a short break.

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JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Hello everybody, I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing your day with us, and a very busy news day it is.

[11:00:00]

The president says he will reveal his Supreme Court pick on Saturday, and a swift confirmation now appears very, very likely.