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Former Marine's Hearing in Russia Postponed After Positive COVID Test; Obama Acknowledges UFOs Are Objects We Can't Explain; Department of Homeland Security Warns of Tulsa Race Massacre Commemorations Becoming Targets. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired May 28, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Go ahead.

JOEY REED, FATHER OF FORMER U.S. MARINE TREVOR REED, JAILED IN RUSSIA: They met with him on Monday for a meeting at the courthouse and where the jail sent him the day after he was tested but they didn't have results yet. And then on Tuesday the lawyers were notified that he was positive, so he could have exposed the entire legal team and the judges in the courtroom.

BLACKWELL: When is the last time you were able to speak with your son?

PAULA REED, MOTHER OF TREVOR REED: The Thursday before that. We get a phone call Thursdays.

J. REED: Sometimes.

P. REED: Sometimes.

BLACKWELL: OK. Let me move on here. We talked about this summit that's coming up in about three weeks between President Biden and Vladimir Putin. Starting just broadly, should President Biden meet with President Putin if your son is still detained? As to say, should his release be a condition of that summit?

J. REED: I don't think we want to commit to national security situations and things that the administration is having to deal with because they obviously have more to deal with than our son, but our son is obviously the priority for us.

We do believe that it should be a major part of their discussions and any discussions and we would hope that both President Putin and President Biden can come to some sort of an agreement to release our son and Paul Whelan, who we believe are both imprisoned illegally and are innocent. And in Trevor's case, video evidence and witnesses were shown in court to prove that he's innocent and yet he was given the longest sentence in modern Russian history for that charge. BLACKWELL: Paula, you told us -- one of my colleagues actually that

back in February, I believe it was, the Secretary of State assured you that the administration would take any opportunity that it had to speak in person with the Russians directly about your son's status, they would do that. Do you have assurances that he will be one of the topics of conversation at this summit?

P. REED: Absolutely. We totally take him for his word. I mean, we know that he's already spoken out about Trevor on the leadup to this just via some phone calls and things that we have learned from the State Department. So, I trust him totally. I know that Trevor will be a topic of the conversation.

BLACKWELL: Joey, you mentioned that all of the facets, all of the depth and breadth of the issues that the U.S. and Russia have to discuss. When you get a breaking news alert like the one that came out about this new cyberattack, what goes through your mind? Do you feel like this will make it harder for the U.S. to bring my son home? Do you think there's some residue, some overlap?

J. REED: Absolutely. Our heart sinks every time we hear of some negative engagement between our two countries. When our peoples are more the same than they are different, the Russian people are wonderful people. Our governments have different strategies and beliefs, and they need to come together and they need to solve some of these problems and be able to at least be affable or work together on the things that we have in common.

P. REED: And, Victor, I want to say that, you know, when Trevor was serving in the Marine Corps, he had to sign serve time on his term to do presidential guard. And he served during the Obama administration, when President Obama and then Vice President Biden were at Camp David. Trevor was there helping to protect them. And we are begging, and hoping and praying that President Biden will do his best to bring our son home because he protected him at Camp David.

BLACKWELL: I know, Paula --

J. REED: My son --

BLACKWELL: -- the idea you have not just a son who is there, but a sick child now that you know is so far away. Just the feeling of not being able to speak with him.

P. REED: OK. It's really hard -- I know as almost every parent knows their child, so if we could just talk to him and hear him say he's OK, then I'm able to tell through his voice if he really is OK or if he's saying he's OK because he doesn't want me to worry but he's really suffering more.

It would just be nice even if it's not just us, if they could call the embassy and they could relay that to us. We just want to know how he's feeling.

BLACKWELL: Well, Paula and Joey, we, of course, hope that your son comes home soon as well and that there is some comfort that you at least get a phone call from your son. Paula and Joey Reed, thank you both for being with us.

J. REED: Thank you, Victor.

P. REED: Thank you for having us.

BLACKWELL: Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, coming up, the federal government is supposed to release a report as soon as next week detailing what it knows about UFOs. The former head of the Pentagon unit that investigated UFO sightings joins us live with what he knows, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

CAMEROTA: The U.S. government is set to release an unclassified report on UFOs maybe as early as next week.

BLACKWELL: What was once considered a joke is now seen by a lot of people as a genuine national security issue. Ex-government officials are increasingly outspoken about it. Even former President Barack Obama conceded this month, there are things that they simply cannot explain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What is true, and I'm actually being serious here, is that there are -- there's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:40:00]

CAMEROTA: Our next guest is the former Director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program at the Pentagon, and here's what he said on "60 Minutes" a few weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUIS ELIZONDO, FORMER DIRECTOR, ADVANCED AEROSPACE THREAT IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM AT THE PENTAGON: Imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 g-forces, that fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that can fly through air and water and possibly space. And oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: And Luis Elizondo joins us now. Lou, great to have you here. I don't think there's any question anymore. These are real. I mean, Navy pilots are on the record with what they've seen flying around. Military videos have caught images of these UFOs. What do you think this report, maybe as early as next week, is going to say?

ELIZONDO: Well, I hope the report provides Congress what it asks for and, frankly, what it deserves. And that is a current assessment of the situation. My only fear is that 180 days is really not a sufficient enough time to provide a comprehensive report. When I was -- when I was working in the Pentagon, we did this for nearly a decade. And there's a lot of information to comb through. And again, my fear is that 180 days is simply not going to be long enough to provide that comprehensive report to Congress that it asked for.

BLACKWELL: So your expectation of this won't be comprehensive, then?

ELIZONDO: Well, I think it's going to be a start. My hope is this is going to serve as an interim report. And frankly, I hope that there's a more long-term enduring capability that's established within the government. Perhaps a whole of government approach, to look at this issue.

This issue is not a recent issue. It's been going on for many, many years if not decades and it's finally coming to the point where the U.S. government really, it's reached this critical mass where we just can't simply deny it anymore.

CAMEROTA: And so, Lou, when you were the Director of this special program at the Pentagon, what information did you see that the rest of us don't know about?

ELIZONDO: Sure. Well, I think what's important is we're talking about eyewitness testimony from trained observers. These are individuals we have spent millions of dollars training for them to recognize the silhouette of an F-16 versus an SU-22 versus a MIG-25. In some cases from 25 miles away. And what they're reporting to us are really extraordinary vehicles doing extraordinary things. And furthermore, it's backed up by electro-optical data such as gun camera footage. And further backed up by radar.

So in essence you have three distinct pieces, or if you will, collection sources that are all providing the same information at the same time, at the same place, under the same circumstances and all really validating what the pilots are seeing. And so it's very compelling and at this point we know it's real.

BLACKWELL: You make an interesting point. At this point you know it's real. Not too long ago, as I mentioned, this would have been a joke but now you've got a president, former president acknowledging this. What changed that now we have former President Obama saying, serious now, there are things we cannot explain?

ELIZONDO: Yes, well, it's not just former President Obama. We have former Director of National Intelligence Radcliff, we have former Director of CIA John Brennan, former Director of CIA Woolsey, all of them have come forward along with some of our elected officials in Congress who stepped forward, all have received classified briefings on the topic. And what they're being provided is extremely compelling. I think again we're well beyond reasonable doubt at this point. So the real question is, what exactly are we dealing with? Are we

dealing some sort of a foreign adversarial technology or are we really dealing with something that's a paradigm moment for our species and dealing with something completely different?

CAMEROTA: What do you think it is? I mean when you say that something can travel at 13,000 miles per hour, you don't see any propulsion, it can go up and down, it defies the laws of technology and gravity as we know it. What do you think it is?

ELIZONDO: Well, to be completely honest, it's too early for us to make any type of conclusion right now. I think we're still in the phase of data collecting and analyzing. I think all options have to remain on the table until, frankly, they're no longer on the table. And I just want to be very careful offering my particular opinion right now because, frankly, we just don't have enough data to make any type of logical conclusion yet.

BLACKWELL: Well, it certainly is fascinating and again we're awaiting this unclassified report. We will all read it when it comes out. Luis Elizondo, thank you so much for your expertise and time, sir.

ELIZONDO: Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure.

BLACKWELL: All right, up next, a full weekend of events is planned in Tulsa to honor the victims of the race massacre there it's about -- well, actually 100 years ago this weekend. But the Department of Homeland Security is warning about a possible security threat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:00]

BLACKWELL: The Department of Homeland Security is warning about possible security threats around the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre this weekend. On May 31, 1921, hundreds of people were killed. Homes and businesses were destroyed when a white mob attacked and burned a then-thriving black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[15:50:00]

CAMEROTA: A series of planned event being called the "Black Wall Street Legacy Festival" kicks off today and CNN's Ed Lavandera is following this for us. So Ed, are there any specific threats?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point we don't believe that there are. That's according to the Department of Homeland Security. But DHS officials do say they have alerted local authorities in Tulsa and Oklahoma that an event like this could be an attractive target to white supremacist groups in the United States.

This comes as DHS officials have been warning for some time that the most urgent terrorist threat in the United States right now is from domestic terrorism. And so that is one of the reasons behind all of this. But at this point, no credible or specific threats to this festival. But this is key because President Biden is also expected to visit Tulsa next Tuesday at the heart of this festival.

BLACKWELL: So Ed, there was an event planned for Monday. John Legend, Stacey Abrams were headlining. That has been canceled. Any explanation of why?

LAVANDERA: Yes, it was the event known as the "Remember and Rise" portion of this. Remember, this event has a series of different events within the program. And organizers for that specific event say that John legend and Stacey Abrams were supposed to be there, will not be there, because that event has been canceled.

Organizers will only say at this point that, quote, due to unexpected circumstances with entertainers and speakers, that event has been canceled.

And we -- just to be clear here, we don't have any indication right now that the DHS warnings and the cancellation of this event are connected in any way. But all of this unfolding here as this commemorative event here in Tulsa, Oklahoma is beginning here this weekend.

CAMEROTA: Let's pray for a peaceful weekend. Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

A reminder, the new CNN film "Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street" premiers Monday night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, on CNN.

And next, movie theaters are opening back up this Memorial Day weekend. But are people ready to go back?

BLACKWELL: No.

CAMEROTA: Victor has some strong feelings on this one.

BLACKWELL: But first we want to honor this week's CNN Hero, Rahul Dubey. The Washington, D.C.-based health consultant, but one year ago, when the protests over the murder of George Floyd came literally to his front door, he made a decision that changed his life. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAHUL DUBEY, CNN HERO: That night of June 1st, what I saw were people confused. I saw fear. They were trapped on the street, trying to get home. And you hear this loud bang. And I saw the clubs coming out and pepper spray flying everywhere. All I could do was fling open the door, and like, "get in the house!"

They were getting pepper sprayed as they were running up. It was pure chaos. They were washing their eyes out with milk, baking soda. Everybody was tending to each other.

Protesting in an organized way was not my thing. I would hear of these verdicts and yes, I would say to myself, oh, my god, that's terrible, and then I would still go to dinner. But to see the atrocity show up on your front door, if people like me don't open their door, then really who will? (END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Well, he stayed close to some of the protesters that he let inside that night and is helping them develop their careers. You can see more of their story at CNNheroes.com. And while you are there nominate someone you think should be a CNN Hero.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You always tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This doesn't have to be a scene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really, really does.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd like to remind you that I'm doing this in heels.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was your name?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cruella.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That does look fun. The summer blockbuster is back. But will movie watchers want to go on into a theater? Disney's "Cruella" and the thriller sequel "A Quiet Place 2" kick off the season as more theaters open.

BLACKWELL: In fact, "A Quiet Place 2" in fact can only be seen in theaters, no streaming for this one. We spoke to some people in Atlanta today about what is bringing them back to the theaters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like that you can select the seats and they're enforcing the social distancing with the selected seats. So that made us feel a little more comfortable. Excited for the reclining seats, sit back in the air conditioning and watch a nice movie on the big screen. It's been a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming in and smelling popcorn, seeing these behind us, seeing all the pictures of the new movies coming out. It feels pretty good to be back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Victor, what's your beef with movie theaters? Why aren't you into this?

BLACKWELL: so let me preface this by I hope everybody goes back, I want the industry to thrive.

CAMEROTA: The disclaimer.

BLACKWELL: I'm not built for movie theaters.

CAMEROTA: Why, what's wrong?

BLACKWELL: The nonstop chewing. I can't focus with people chewing for 90 minutes.

CAMEROTA: That's just me.

BLACKWELL: You have given folks a trough of food and they're chewing through the whole movie. I can't. I just cannot focus.

CAMEROTA: OK, I have never seen it that way. But now I won't be able to unsee it.

BLACKWELL: I just can't.

CAMEROTA: So thank you for that.

BLACKWELL: But you're in the movies, you like movie theaters?

CAMEROTA: I do, and I like popcorn, and I like reclining, and I like a $10 nap.

BLACKWELL: OK, well, also close your cellphone. The Lead with Jake Tapper -- and we're on time -- starts right now.

END