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U.N. Security Council Meets Tomorrow on Russia-Ukraine Crisis; Ex-NFL Player Vows to Give Michigan Sex Abuse Victims a Voice; New Version of Omicron Now in 49 Countries, Including the U.S.; Irish Fishermen Celebrate After Russia Moves War Games. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 30, 2022 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:28]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, the high-stakes situation on the Russia-Ukraine border. And new intel on Putin's likely intentions.

LIZ TRUSS, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: We think it's highly likely that he is looking to invade Ukraine.

ANDREY KORTUNOV, DIRECTOR GENERAL, RUSSIAN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL: The West that doesn't want to listen to us, so we need to do something dramatic to get the West's attention.

BROWN: Meantime, Donald Trump teasing a presidential run and dangling pardons for January 6th rioters.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: We will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol.

BROWN: How concerned should you be about the newly detected version of Omicron?

SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: It appears to be more contagious. Does it invade our immune system, does it evade the immunity that we've acquired from Omicron infection or the vaccines? Most of the evidence so far is preliminary, suggests it doesn't.

BROWN: Also tonight, around 100 bags of fentanyl found in the bedroom of a 13-year-old boy who died from presumed fentanyl exposure at his school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fentanyl that was found in the bedroom had a very high purity rate, 60 percent pure, where you normally see 1 percent to 2 percent pure.

BROWN: And finally, the former University of Michigan and NFL football player who won't give up until abuse victims' stories are heard. (END OF VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday.

And tonight, a new measure of the escalating fears that Russia could soon invade Ukraine. A U.S. Senate aide tells CNN that all senators will get a classified briefing Thursday from senior administration officials on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. And tomorrow the United Nations Security Council will take up the matter.

Take a look. These are satellite images of some of the 100,000 Russian troops along the border of the U.S. ally and two senior American Defense officials tell CNN there are indications Russia has moved blood supplies to the area as part of its military ramp-up.

Today Ukraine's foreign minister delivered a blunt message. "If Russia wants to avoid war, it must pull back its forces and continue diplomatic talks." And his British counterpart echoed that growing sense of urgency today, saying it's highly likely that Vladimir Putin is planning an attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUSS: We think it's highly likely that he is looking to invade Ukraine. That is why we're doing what we can through deterrence and diplomacy to urge him to desist.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's senior international correspondent Sam Kiley joins us live from Kyiv.

So, Sam, what are you hearing in the capital tonight?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the really striking things is admit this high-level tit-for-tat exchanges, if you like, between top diplomats, the Russian foreign minister saying that movement of troops offered by the United States, the United Kingdom to reinforce NATO positions in the east would be provocative and aggressive moves, and of course that statement coming from the Ukrainians.

On the ground here in Kyiv, Pamela, there is a sense of normality, really. People here frequently point out that this country has already been invaded in 2014. There's a low-level war going on in the east. And whilst they do believe, they agree with the British foreign secretary that an attack is likely, they are conducting their everyday lives in a very unmoved sort of state. There have been openings of air raid shelters, there's a little bit of training for home guard, but no sense of panic -- Pamela.

BROWN: And alongside the troops and conventional weaponry, Putin also seemed to be waging a parallel track of hybrid warfare. Tell us about that. KILEY: Well, yes, the hybrid warfare is something that really concerns

the Ukrainians. Now in the first level they're saying that there's a danger that the British now and the United States could play into the hands of Putin by saying there's an imminent war which could cause economic -- has caused economic effects and ultimately political instability, which could play into Russian hands. And, of course, they've also been suffering cyberattacks. All part of this mixed bag of weapons that the Russians like to use. This is more from Liz Truss, the British foreign secretary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUSS: What we are seeing is attempts by the Russian regime to destabilize Ukrainian democracy.

[18:05:04]

Last week we revealed intelligence that showed an attempt by the Kremlin to install a puppet regime in Kyiv. We've seen cyberattacks. We've seen other attempts to destabilize Ukraine at the same time we've seen this big buildup on the border. There is a real threat of invasion.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

KILEY: Now, Pamela, the results of all of this is still being rejected by the Ukrainians. They're saying that they don't fear that an attack is imminent. They think it's possible but not probable. They're out of step really, I think, in messaging perhaps and just over the timing. But there's no doubt at all that you've now got north of 100,000 troops on not just the Ukrainian border but also the border with Belarus. Barely two hours' drive from where I'm standing right now are Russian tanks -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Sam Kiley, thank you for that.

And joining me now is retired Army Brigadier General Peter Zwack. He is a global fellow at the Wilson Center Kennan Institute and the author of "Swimming the Volga: U.S. Army Officers Experiences in Pre- Putin Russia."

General, tell us, do you feel like this crisis is spiraling toward military conflict?

BRIG. GEN. PETER ZWACK (RET), U.S. ARMY: Good evening, Pamela. Thank you for having me on your show. This is deadly serious. It's hard to negotiate in good faith with the barrel of a gun basically faced at you. The fact that whatever their number, 100,000, 130,000 more forces in the hinter land, reserves, National Guard, Russian troops now in Belarus, and activity in the Black Sea, and now we're trying to negotiate in good faith and we must because that's the only way we're going to work our way out of it, and it's really dangerous.

And at least the -- this is not now just about Russia, Ukraine, the West, NATO, U.S. This is a global issue. One data point I would say out there that is a wrinkle here, and I know you talked of it, is in five days President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to be sitting in Beijing for the opening of their Olympics on the 4th of February. Even with the good partnership they have with China, I think that Xi Jinping would move dimly, a war opening in Europe that would basically shut down his Olympics.

I think it's all there. It's extremely dangerous. It's high-level brinksmanship, it's over the top. The West has held. I think that surprised the Russians. But we are -- especially dangerous to accident, incident, or as you discussed at the top of the show, a provocation that gives the Russians justification for an intervention instead of what's looking like naked aggression against Ukraine.

BROWN: Do you think that's what they're waiting for at this point? Because there have been 100,000 troops and then that has been building since early December. Do you think that that is exactly what Russia is waiting for to kind of give them the justification for going in?

ZWACK: It's certainly -- it's a great question, Pamela, and that's certainly a factor. If it served up an incident whether they contrive it, or Ukraine or one of our nations falls into it, there's justification to go. However, again, there's a side of this, just maybe, though it doesn't look like it, again, moving, if you will, from chess to playing poker and high stakes, high gambling to get the West to back off. Maybe put some fractures in NATO and the West which is a surprise, it's held together.

I think the Russians have got to challenge because they may have pushed themselves into a diplomatic cul-de-sac and at this point what's most dangerous is, do they back off? And the world would breathe a sigh of relief. They should be happy with that. Or do they double down and go in and some blinkered way seeing it as a sign of weakness if they back off without getting major NATO concessions?

BROWN: And it's interesting because certainly part of what Russia wants to do here, although we cannot read Vladimir Putin's mind, is create that fracture in the relationship between America and other NATO countries and that is partly why the U.S. is convening this meeting tomorrow of the U.N. Security Council to get other nations on record about this to show that unity.

[18:10:09]

I want to ask you about this, this morning the leader of a Russian diplomatic think tank seems to dismiss the Russian threat. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": President Putin or certainly the Russian government has at various points said it doesn't want to fight. It does not plan a military invasion of Ukraine. So what are 150,000 Russian troops doing on the border, and why have they been massed in that case?

KORTUNOV: If your goal is to attract the attention of the West, to Russians' concerns about the security system in Europe, and Putin stated it quite bluntly, that the West doesn't want to listen to us so we need to do something dramatic to get the West's attention.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What do you make of that claim, General?

ZWACK: Well, I mean, if they want to get the world's attention, not in particularly a positive way, they've accomplished that in great measure. However, they have really, really boxed themselves in an autocratic, authoritarian, almost 1930s type of brinksmanship that does not -- that doesn't bode well for them one way or the other. Again, they have a chance now to back off. The world would breathe a sigh of relief.

They can say they made their point, and there can be negotiations, but the West has stayed even with our warts steadfast. And maybe an unintended consequence, Pamela, is what Putin has done is that he has done opposite what his intent, or one of it, is he has more focused NATO in a way it hasn't been focused since the end of the Cold War.

BROWN: Interesting point there. General Peter Zwack, thank you so much.

ZWACK: Good evening.

BROWN: Thank you.

And let's continue this conversation with Glenn Gerstell. He was general counsel for the National Security Agency, the NSA, and served in both the Obama and Trump administrations.

So the British foreign minister warned that a Russian invasion is highly likely and a kind of hybrid warfare is already under way.

Glenn, what are you seeing along those lines?

GLENN GERSTELL, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: I think we can look at what Russia has done in the past and that's going to tell us what they're going to do in the future. They're focused on two things, two tools in their playbook. One is cyberattacks, which we've seen against the Ukraine already. Some 70 Ukrainian government Web sites were taken down.

We know what they've done in the past going back to the 2014 forcible annexation of Crimea using cyber as a weapon to help them achieve their goals by shutting down electric grids in 2015-2016, releasing the most damaging software bug the world has ever seen, the NotPetya computer virus in 2017 that was aimed at the Ukraine. So we know what they can do in the world of cyber, in terms of cyberattacks and causing harm.

And then the other piece of this which we've already alluded to in your program, Pamela, is the disinformation piece. Both are concerted and coordinated in reinforcing. They each reinforce the other and it's part of an integrated campaign that Vladimir Putin can be engaged in.

BROWN: The U.S. government has warned that there could be cyberattacks on U.S. targets if Russia invades Ukraine as retaliation for American sanctions. What do you think that could look like?

GERSTELL: Well, we know that Russia has and Vladimir Putin has the motive here because he wants to sow dissent between Europe on one hand, which may not be fully in favor of very strict sanctions the way we are, and the United States, and also wants to cause economic harm. We've certainly seen that in the past with Russian ransomware and Russian attacks against Estonia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, et cetera.

And we know he has got the capability. There's no question about that. And then finally, the experience. We can look at their playbook and we know exactly what they're going to do. So far we have not seen any destructive attacks against U.S. infrastructure. What we have seen in other parts and pages from their playbook is the disinformation. We saw that in the 2016 elections here where Russia mounted a disinformation campaign against our democracy.

And we know that they're capable of far more including ransomware attacks and attacks that can destroy our economy. What we haven't yet seen is actual physical damage. I hope we don't see that. But they certainly have the capability of doing that as they've shown elsewhere.

[18:15:06]

BROWN: All right, Glenn Gerstell, thank you so much.

And just in to CNN a member of the congressional delegation that just returned from Ukraine has tested positive for COVID-19. Texas Democrat Colin Allred was part of the bipartisan group that met with Ukraine's president Friday. This is a photo of that meeting. As you can see no one is wearing a mask. Allred says he is fully vaccinated, boosted, and experiencing mild symptoms. He is the only member of the delegations so far to announce a positive test result.

And up next, more than 1,000 students were sexually abused at the University of Michigan over several decades. An ex-NFL player isn't giving up until they are given a voice. Jon Vaughn joins me live in just a moment.

Also ahead, former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb about how concerned we should be about the newly detected version of Omicron. And forget football. Peyton Manning has a new obsession.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEYTON MANNING, FORMER NFL QUARTERBACK: Oh, my god, Colin. This show has everything.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:23] BROWN: This month the University of Michigan reached a $490 million settlement with attorneys for more than 1,000 people who say they were sexually abused by Dr. Robert Anderson. Anderson died in 2008 but an independent report published last year found that Anderson sexually abused hundreds of students during his nearly 40-year career.

Anderson led the University Health Service and was its top sports doctor. Most of his victims were male, many of them black, including former Michigan football player Jon Vaughn, who went on to play in the NFL.

These days Vaughn is devoting his time to accountability. He has spent months camped outside the university president's home demanding the school take responsibility for its role in the abuse, and he says UM continues to ignore the allegations.

Jon Vaughn joins me now.

Thank you so much for coming on to share your story. If you would, take us back to when Anderson first abused you, and then when you realized what you had gone through was actually abuse.

JON VAUGHN, FORMER UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AND NFL PLAYER: So the first time was in August of 1988. It was my freshman year. It was the first physical that we as incoming freshmen on the football team had to take, and in that first exam, it was pretty much similar to any other physical that I had gotten at this, you know, at that time in my life. And then as he's going through the exam, he's talking about family history.

He noticed or he noted that my mother had breast cancer, was still recovering, and toward the end of the exam, he said, well, now it's time for me to do a testicular cancer screening exam and then a prostate cancer screening exam. And at 18, I didn't even know what a prostate was, but I knew what cancer was. I was terrified of it. And how it had been positioned that everything at Michigan was different in that we had the best medicine, the best coaches, the best living, the best food, you know, and so on and so forth.

So I just thought this was a part of the process of becoming a Michigan man. And then I turned 50 in March 12th, 2020, and two weeks to the day one of my ex-teammates sent me an e-mail that described an article that a reporter that Kim Kozlowski of "The Detroit News" had written I think February 19th, 2020 that talked about a doctor -- a team doctor that under the guise of medical treatment was digitally raping players by these unnecessary prostate exams.

I should never had my first prostate exam at 18, and I shouldn't have had 49 subsequent prostate exams before I left for the NFL at the age of 20.

BROWN: Oh, yes. And you had said that you didn't obviously as you pointed out didn't realize that what you were going through at that time was sexual abuse until years later. I want to point out up front CNN has tried unsuccessfully to reach Anderson's relatives but his children told "The Detroit News" earlier this year they didn't believe the accusations.

For its part the University of Michigan gave CNN a statement saying, "The University of Michigan always has taken sexual misconduct seriously. We have been increasing our efforts steadily." And also pointed to a sexual assault prevention and awareness center that has been on campus for almost 40 years and said last summer it created a new office with what it calls significant new resources for support, education and prevention. Why is that not enough for you?

VAUGHN: Because the history of the University of Michigan, at least in the last half century, has been one of uncontrolled, unpoliced sexual assault, rape and cover-ups, and all of the institutions that are a part of the university's reporting systems are just black holes that victims go to for protection or for help that actually are just there to mitigate the responsibility and the liability of the office of the president and the board of regents.

[18:25:12]

Those programs -- you know, I started my protest in front of the house October 8th on a Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. and in that time I probably have heard 500 to 600 individual reports of abuse and rape on that campus from male and female students. And I never once heard a positive or a hopeful case that a student went to the university to report its trauma and that the university actually had a successful protection in place for any of those students.

So to say that the university has always taken sexual assault and sexual abuse serious is something that I have witnessed, one, firsthand, because there were coaches, trainers, administrators that had been proven to know over the course of this doctor's 36-plus years' tenure at the University of Michigan who knew, who enabled, who empowered, and basically gave him unfettered access to athletes and other students.

And once they made the decision from reports of his sexual misconduct as director of student health they made the decision to not fire this man but to fire him, rehire him and then a conspiracy was then set in motion to bury him in the athletic program with the majority of those athletes were African-American young men.

BROWN: And I want to ask you on that point, Dr. Anderson may have abused thousands of students over his years at U of M, many who have never come forward, but I do have a quote from one of the attorneys who is representing some of them. And this attorney says, "I think our society looks down on men who are sexually abused let alone big, strong athletic black men who are sexually abused, compared to what they perceive to be innocent white women, because they have this societal influence and asks men how can they allow themselves to be sexually abused?"

So what do you think about that assessment? Do you think that gender and race makes it easier, made it easier for Anderson to get away with so much abuse?

VAUGHN: Well, absolutely. Michigan, which was founded in 1817, has a history of discrimination and marginalization of ethnic groups but specifically African-American groups, and I think when you look at the typical racial makeup of scholarship athletes, most of them come from middle to lower middle to lower income area where that scholarship is their way out.

There's so much pressure not only in their communities but in your families and as African-American men for far too long in this country we've been unable to, you know, really share our mental health, our trauma or anything that showed weakness because we were bred, when we were first brought to this country, to be strong producers, work men, and so pain was weakness, feelings were weakness.

And when you put yourself in a position that you're risking your scholarship, you're willing to do whatever it takes not only for your scholarship but also for your team. And so you're constantly being, you know, made into a warrior, and warriors don't cry. Warriors don't complain. And warriors don't think of themselves. They think of the entire organization or the team. And so for anyone at 18 when our brains aren't truly developed you're really just trying to fit in a mold, you're trying to find your way.

And I think that just permeates itself throughout society where, when you take the sociological issues, trying to have a voice and trying to be considered a full human being for much of the time that African- American men have been in the United States, it's very difficult to break that mold that you -- you know, the same trauma that affected the young gymnasts, let's say, in the Nasser, in U.S. gymnastics, could be the same trauma that we feel.

[18:30:26]

And people aren't willing to widely accept that the face of abuse and rape doesn't just look like young, privileged white gymnasts, and I think society as a whole is scared that if we as big, strong, athletic men can get raped, then anyone can get raped, and I think that's the biggest fear.

BROWN: Thank you for sharing your powerful story, Jon, and bringing light to this important issue. We really do appreciate it. Thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

VAUGHN: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:35]

BROWN: It was shocking enough to learn a 13-year-old died this month after he was exposed to fentanyl at his Connecticut school. And now there is this. Police say they found about 100 bags of the highly addictive drug in the young teen's bedroom in Hartford. Another 40 bags were also removed from his school. The teen's mother is cooperating with police. They found no evidence she knew anything about her son's possession of the drugs. Well, there is yet another version of the coronavirus, it is called

BA.2. It is a new version of Omicron. It was first identified in December and is already infecting people in 49 countries including the U.S. The former FDA commissioner says it may be more contagious than other variants but doesn't appear to be as dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOTTLIEB: It appears to be more contagious data out of Denmark from (INAUDIBLE) suggests it's about 1.5 times more contagious than the strain of Omicron that has made it around the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which is already so transmissible.

GOTTLIEB: Exactly. Does it invade our immune system? Does it evade the immunity that we've acquired from Omicron infection or the vaccines? Most of the evidence so far, and it's preliminary, suggests it doesn't. And in fact there's data out of the U.K. that suggests that a fully boosted person may be more protected against this new variant than they were against the original strain of Omicron.

And the final question is, is it more virulent, is it more dangerous? And so far based on what we've seen out of Denmark and the U.K., which are collecting very good data on this, it doesn't appear to be a more virulent strain.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen joins me.

Hi, great to see you, Doctor, as always. Do you agree with that assessment of this new variant?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I do agree, Pamela. I definitely think that this new variant is something that we should be on the lookout for. We should be researching this and preparing for it as we will for the foreseeable future. I mean, COVID is going to be with us. We are going to have new variants. But just the fact that there may be new variants doesn't mean that we have to stop everything that we're doing now.

The good thing about this new variant is that it looks like there is no immune escape meaning that all those individuals who are vaccinated and boosted are still well protected and also there have been many, many people in the U.S. and around the world who have been infected with Omicron. Those individuals are very unlikely to be reinfected with this new variant. And so I think that should give us a sigh of relief even as we are still being vigilant in making sure that we're preparing for the worst.

BROWN: In your new opinion piece in the "Washington Post" you say new studies find a booster dose is essential yet you write that less than half of Americans eligible to get a booster have done so, and you put the blame on mixed messaging from the federal government. How so? What has gone wrong? WEN: Well, the mixed messaging even continues today. Previously the

FDA and CDC, the advisers and the health officials themselves, were unclear about who should be getting the vaccine. First it was a small group and then it was a larger group and the messaging sounded as if they were saying boosters are something that's nice to have. It's a top off of your immunity as opposed to something that's really essential.

New data have come out showing that if you are vaccinated and boosted it protects you from hospitalization, severe disease, quite substantially. 90 percent over 57 percent if you are vaccinated and boosted versus if you just have the two doses. And also it reduces your chance of symptomatic infection, and therefore potentially also of transmitting to others. So I think it's time, beyond time for us to be changing the definition of fully vaccinated to mean three doses of Pfizer or Moderna or two of Johnson & Johnson.

BROWN: All right. I've got a personal question for you here. I always try to think of questions that other people would want to know the answer to. And so whenever I go into a restaurant, right, we have to wear -- we wear masks, my family, me and my family, we wear masks. We walk down and we sit at the table. We take our masks off and eat and drink, and then walk out with our masks on.

Is there any point to that of wearing a mask, walking in and out of a restaurant where everyone is like eating and drinking with their masks off?

WEN: I do think that there's a point, and I get asked this question a lot. So I appreciate it.

BROWN: Oh, really? OK, good.

WEN: But --

(LAUGHTER)

WEN: So it depends on the layout of the restaurant. So let's say that you're going to a table that's actually pretty far away from others or you're in a booth that's, you know, six feet away or even three feet away from others.

[18:40:04]

The people that you're most likely to be infecting if you are actually asymptomatic and don't know that you have COVID are the people at your table because they are the ones who are sitting close to you. You're pretty unlikely to be infecting others at a table that's 20 feet away. It could happen but pretty rare. On the other hand, if you're walking through the restaurant, if you're talking to the hostess, if you are hanging out by the bar before you are seated and you are surrounded by a lot of maskless people, that's the situation where you could infect others.

Remember, too, that a mask protects the wearer. So even if other people around you are not wearing masks, even if you're wearing a mask and other people are eating there maskless, you are still protected from them. So there is a point. And my family does the same.

BROWN: OK.

WEN: We wear a mask when we're going to the table then we take off the masks to eat.

BROWN: OK. Good to know, Dr. Leana Wen, always can count on you for giving the best practical advice. Appreciate it.

WEN: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: Well, to be a successful fisherman in Ireland it doesn't hurt to have international diplomacy skills.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you had a message for Vladimir Putin, what would it be?

ALAN CARLETON, FISHERMAN: Maybe just go to deeper water where it won't affect the fish stock as much.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Coming up, hear from the fishermen who were able to get Russia to move their naval war games.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:45:55]

BROWN: In the modern-day David and Goliath story, I just love this story, Irish fishermen are celebrating after Russia backed off a plan for live naval exercises off the Irish coast. The fishermen worried about their livelihoods called the Russian ambassador. Some even declared they would peacefully disrupt the war games. Russia listened and its defense minister decided to relocate the drills as a, quote, "gesture of goodwill."

Last night I spoke to one of the fishermen, and he said this was the best result for everyone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK MURPHY, CEO, IRISH SOUTH AND WEST FISH PRODUCERS ORGANIZATION: It was a story that caught the imagination, as you said, David and Goliath, you know, and it snowballed from there. But, look, it's a great result for us. The fishing grounds are going to be safer. The fishing ground is going to be safer. The biological areas are going to be safer. We're safer. The Russians are going to be safer, you know, so it's safer all around.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has more on this incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURPHY: You can imagine the tool are here and the next thing a rocket goes flying over your head and you're going, Jesus, what was that?

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Irish fishermen worried about rockets that would be fired as part of a Russian military exercise off the Irish coast this week.

CARLETON: We don't want anyone in our waters. It's our backyard, it's where we make our living and our livelihood.

O'SULLIVAN: Concern here in Castletownbere, a fishing village on Ireland's south coast that Russian naval drills could pose a threat not only to the safety of fishermen but potentially to the environment and fish stocks.

CARLETON: We're worried about what damage this live fire might do to the fish stocks and the marine life. And (INAUDIBLE). It's bound to interfere with them as well, and frighten them. It could frighten me. I'm definitely going to say this, so bound to frighten them.

O'SULLIVAN: Fishermen like Alan Carleton had planned this week to go fishing off the Irish coast like he always does despite warnings from the Russian embassy in Dublin that doing so could be dangerous.

CARLETON: We keep a lookout for our ships and things like this.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Keep a lookout for the Russian Navy?

CARLETON: Well, hopefully we don't see them.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): At O'Donahue's (PH) pub on the Castletownbere harbor, locals worried about the Russian military.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fishermen in general are very anxious about the whole thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are worried, yes. It is affecting our fishing. It's affecting our safety of people.

O'SULLIVAN: Fishermen turned diplomats, fishing representatives met with the Russian ambassador to Ireland last week to express their concerns about Russia firing rockets where they normally fish.

(On camera): When you went in to speak to the Russian ambassador, what did you say to him?

MURPHY: Well, first of all we gave them some prawns.

O'SULLIVAN: If you had a message for Vladimir Putin, what would it be?

CARLETON: Maybe just go out to deeper water where it wouldn't affect the fish stock as much.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And Saturday night that's just what happened. The Russians saying after appeals from the Irish government and the fishermen themselves Russia would move its ships further out to sea away from the Irish fishing boats. The news reaching this community by tweet.

MURPHY: Wow.

O'SULLIVAN (On camera): How do you feel?

MURPHY: Shocked really, like, I didn't think that little old us in the Irish South and West would have an impact on international diplomacy.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The news a relief for the whole community here.

(On camera): You must have felt a great sense of relief, happiness.

CARLETON: Everybody did. Everybody did. We think of our stocks, our livelihoods.

O'SULLIVAN: You're hoping to have a good catch this week?

CARLETON: Hopefully. Everyone is a good catching.

O'SULLIVAN: And not catching any Russian ships?

CARLETON: Definitely not, or any ships.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was our Donie O'Sullivan reporting there.

Well, Peyton Manning makes a confession on "Saturday Night Live." He hasn't watched any playoff games this year. So what is he watching besides this show?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANNING: Oh, my god, Colin, this show has everything.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: The answer is next here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[18:50:04]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Peyton Manning stopped by "Saturday Night Live" to talk about football, but ended up talking tongue in cheek about his new favorite show. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN JOST, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE HOST: How great were those games?

MANNING: Yes, I heard they were incredible.

JOST: You heard they were incredible?

MANNING: Yes, it sounds like all the teams did a great job, lots of passing and all the touchdowns were in the end zone.

JOST: So you didn't watch any of the games?

MANNING: Well, I planned to but I had an hour to kill before the first game so just for fun I put on the first episode of "Emily in Paris" season two, and I watched the entire season straight through.

[18:55:04]

Oh, my god, Colin, this show has everything. Romance, adventure, sensuality, culture, a fresh take on feminism, finally, not to mention a culinary tapestry so rich I could only describe it as food porn.

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BROWN: Wow, based on that endorsement, I'm going to have to check that out, too.

And up next, former President Donald Trump dangles pardons for the January 6th mob that ransacked the Capitol. How some senators whose own lives were at risk on January 6th are reacting, up next.

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