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No Bail for NYC Subway Shooting Suspect, Doesn't Enter Plea; Teen on School Field Trip Took Photos of Suspect; Thousands of Russian Professionals Flee Due to Putin's War; Elon Musk Submits $43 Billion Bid to Buy Twitter; "Being Barry Manilow" Airs Saturday at 11:00 P.M. Eastern. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 14, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:33]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Minutes ago, the New York subway shooting suspect made his first appearance in court. Law enforcement sources say Frank James called the CrimeStopper tip line himself before he was arrested yesterday.

James is accused of opening fire on Tuesday on a subway train in Brooklyn. Nearly 30 people were injured. Ten of them were shot.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is outside the courthouse in New York.

So, Shimon, what happened?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, Dana, this was a presentment, his initial appearance. The prosecutors asking that he be detained. The defense attorney not objecting to that. So he's going to be detained as he awaits trial here.

A couple of notes here from the prosecutors. They argued for this detention because they say that this was entirely premeditated, that this was a premeditated mass shooting. They talk about how he had a stockpile of ammunition.

Prosecutors also say that he came to Brooklyn prepared with all the weapons and tools he needed and that he was a danger to society because of these videos that they say he has posted claiming he wanted to kill people.

So all of that -- because of all of that, they ask he be detained. The judge agreed. So he's been detained.

Also, just briefly, the -- his attorney had asked he get some medical attention while at the jail here in Brooklyn. They asked for a psychiatric evaluation. And they also asked that he be able to take some medication because he gets leg cramps.

But he's been detained and that's the news here -- Dana?

BASH: Shimon, you spoke to a teen who captured photos of the suspect. What did he have to say?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, he's -- this is a really fascinating story. He is 17 years old. He's in high school. His name is Jack Griffin. He's on a field trip here in Manhattan. He lives in Manhattan but on the lower east side.

At school, he's taking photography class. And as he's walking he comes around the corner and sees the alleged shooter, Frank James, sitting there on the bench.

And just take a listen to him describing about what he did and how he felt seeing him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK GRIFFIN, TOOK PHOTOS OF SUBWAY SHOOTING SUSPECT: Right here, from about 20 feet away, I saw Frank James sitting down at that bench over there.

So I got out my camera, and I quickly took a photo of the street. And that's when he noticed that he was being photographed. And he started walking away.

PROKUPECZ: But you were one of the first people to probably put him in this area?

GRIFFIN: Right.

PROKUPECZ: What do you think of that?

GRIFFIN: I think that's crazy. And I think the only reason I was able to do that is because I was looking for things to shoot.

So many of my friends and I are on our phones scrolling through TikTok or Instagram and looking at social media and looking down. That day, I was looking up and looking for things to shoot. That's when I saw him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And last night, Dana, the police came and interviewed him and thanked him. They said that he really did help them.

And so they're going to use some of the information that he has to try and build this timeline of where the alleged shooter has been while they were out searching for him.

BASH: So interesting, Shimon. What an honest teenager talking about the phone addiction and how -

PROKUPECZ: Yes.

BASH: -- if you don't look at your phone, you could really do something to help society in a major way.

Thank you so much, Shimon. I appreciate it.

[13:33:57]

As the Kremlin unleashes on Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of professionals, many of them young, have fled Russia. Why? I'll talk to two of them next.

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[13:38:57]

BASH: The global crackdown on Russia might not be the only thing hitting the country's economy. Hundreds of thousands of professionals have fled the country since this brutal war began.

Joining us now is Natalia Chebotar. She is a former top manager at an Internet company in Russia. Also joining us is Nik Shevchenko, the founder of the San Francisco-based startup, welovenocode.

Thank you both for joining me.

You both decided to leave Russia.

Natalia, first to you.

Explain your decision and was it hard?

NATALIA CHEBOTAR, FORMER TECH MANAGER WHO FLED RUSSIA: It was not easy, of course, just to pack up your things in one evening.

But I don't feel safe for myself and for my family -- I have a daughter -- knowing that any of my words against this war presume 15 years in prison. And new law has been introduced recently, in March.

And I can just -- I just can't bear the mere thought that my country is bombing its neighbor. And my relatives are in Ukraine. Also have lots of friends and relatives there.

I just don't want to support this war with my -- with paying taxes. And it just -- I just can't believe this is happening. I'm so much with people from Ukraine, with my heart.

[13:40:13]

BASH: And, Nik, what about you? Why did you decide to leave?

NICK SHEVCHENKO, FOUNDER, WELOVENOCODE: It was a very hard decision. It was a very hard decision for me as well.

Right after the news happened, first thing I did is bought tickets to Portugal and left the country.

I don't really plan to come back to Russia -- well, until like Russia has 100 percent democracy because I disagree with what is happening right now.

And the reason why I left Russia is because I am fit for Russian military service, and I don't really want to be sent to Ukraine to kill innocent people. So that's why I decided to leave.

Unfortunately, I left my parents, my friends in Russia, which is kind of not very awesome to be honest. Very sad.

BASH: I'm sure. And now you're able to see the atrocities that Russian soldiers are committing against Ukrainian civilians. Some of them babies.

And what you are saying is that you would have been conscripted to be a part of that Russian military.

Have you been able to communicate with some of your friends who didn't leave, who are a part of this war, of these attacks?

SHEVCHENKO: Yes, I communicate with my friends both in Russia and both from Ukraine. Those who actually support -- so those who are in Russia, they basically track all the events at the same time.

Unfortunately, many of them are still in Russia because they either don't have, you know, international passports or they just don't have, you know, like possibility to leave Russia. So, yes, that's pretty much it.

BASH: And, Natalia, you talked about the fact that you didn't want to stay in Russia, a place where if you spoke out against the war, you would have been imprisoned.

I know you are still in touch with friends and family who are in Russia. Are they getting any information about what's really going on there?

CHEBOTAR: I think they get a lot of information. They have VPN and some services to reach different kind of news sources.

But some of the people, like quite many, my mom, my mother, they support this war. And each time they find new reasons to justify what's going on, thinking that all the photos are fake, no one knows the truth. Ukrainians have been lied to.

Like the West is like something, like everyone hates the West. Actually, most of Russians have never been to any West country.

Most of Russian people, like I would say, 47 percent of all Russians have foreign passports just to ever visit, to go out of the country. So they just have some clouds in their brain and fantasies about what's going on.

But I think that one of the most important things that struck me is that they don't believe that Ukraine has the right to decide about its own future and decide whether it should be like kind of democratic or Western culture or not.

BASH: Natalia, did you say --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- your own mother?

CHEBOTAR: Yes, my own mother, unfortunately.

BASH: Do you try to convince her, and she just says, I don't believe you?

CHEBOTAR: Of course, I do. And I also have relatives in Ukraine. And some of those relatives are against this. They are on Ukraine's side. And some of them are now on Russian side.

And I just -- I can't understand this. I don't know what to say about this.

BASH: Nik, do you have the same experience when you're speaking to some of your friends and family who are still in Russia?

And just even more broadly, we obviously have a good sense of what's happening on the ground in Ukraine.

But the independent media outlets from the West, they're not -- for the most part, they're not in Russia anymore. So we don't really know what the popular opinion is among regular everyday people in Russia.

SHEVCHENKO: I might say that a popular opinion in Russia is obviously that it's a Special Operation and Russia didn't invade Ukraine.

At the same time, if we are talking about my case, fortunately, my people, they are just -- they just feel very, very, very deeply sorry and sad about innocent people killed in Ukraine. So, yes.

As for the total population, I think that most of the Russians, unfortunately, they agree with the war. They agree that -- well, yes, that Putin did the right thing, unfortunately.

[13:45:07]

BASH: Thank you both for joining me. You, obviously, took a very big leap disrupting, both of you, your lives, and leaving your home country. And I'm sure it's not easy to have these conversations with your family back home.

Thank you so much.

SHEVCHENKO: Thank you for having us.

BASH: The world's --

CHEBOTAR: Thank you.

BASH: The world's richest person says it's time for Twitter to be transformed. So now Elon Musk wants to buy it for $43 billion. What's Twitter saying? That's next.

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[13:50:01] BASH: Elon Musk officially submitted a massive and unsolicited bid to buy Twitter. He's already the company's largest shareholder, owning a roughly 9 percent stake, but now he's offering about $43 billion for the whole thing.

Musk says it is his best and final offer. Twitter is holding an all- staff meeting later this afternoon to discuss the bid.

CNN chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, is here with me now.

So, Brian, he's offering to buy it for an 18 percent premium. But he's also threatening to ditch the shares he has if they don't accept.

Is it safe to assume that Twitter is taking this very seriously?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": They are. Board meetings are under way.

I think there's every indication that there will be an initial rejection of this hostile takeover bid. But this may take days, weeks or months to play out.

So far, investors are not sold on Elon. He is offering 54 bucks a share. The stock right now is around $46. That means investors don't really believe he's that serious.

But he's on stage right now speaking at a TED conference in Vancouver and he says he is serious.

Here's part of what he said he would do with Twitter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, SUBMITTED BID TO BUY TWITTER: I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things and have -- just be very cautious with permanent bans. You know, time-outs are better than sort of permanent bans.

It won't be perfect, but I think we want to really have, like, the obsession of reality that speech is as free and reasonable as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: So it sounds there, Dana, like he thinks he is going to do this. He thinks he is going to buy Twitter, he's going to own Twitter, have it privately held.

But as I said, a lot of skepticism out there because he would need financing, he would need help, and then he would need someone to run it.

BASH: Yes. Let's talk about the substance of what he just said there. Elon Musk has a very rocky relationship with Twitter. He personally has been suspended by the platform. He had to settle fraud charges with the SEC for past tweets about his company, Tesla. So how does that and what he would potentially do with this,

especially at a time when misinformation, disinformation is such a very big problem, how does that affect how the board is considering this?

STELTER: Right. I think that's one of the reasons why there's so much concern about this.

Yes, you do have some folks cheering him on. Musk does have many fans who would like to see this happen.

But there's also a lot of folks out there that say, you know, it's troubling enough that private companies control these key communication platforms around the world. Maybe it's even worst to have the world's richest person trying to buy one and take it private.

These are thorny, complications questions. And I'm not sure if Musk or anybody has really through them fully.

But, look, he does have the money. Well, at least, he has the stock. He has all the stock that makes him the richest man in the world. Whether he can convert that wealth to money and actually follow through.

This is going to be wild to watch, biggest tech story of the year.

BASH: Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

STELTER: Thank you.

BASH: And last night was the New York premiere of a musical called "Harmony." It is the story of a music and comedy troupe in Germany in the 1930s. They were torn apart and tormented as Adolf Hitler was seizing control.

Popeye time. Barry Manilow and his long-time writing partner, Bruce Sussman, spent 25 years creating and perfecting this musical.

And "Harmony's" relevance now is chilling, with the war raging in Ukraine, innocent lives disrupted and lost.

As one character says in the show, it's the same hate, just different uniforms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE SUSSMAN, CO-WRITER OF BARRY MANILOW (voice-over): These six brilliantly talented young men, not only found musical "Harmony," but they found personal harmony.

(SINGING)

SUSSMAN: Even in their relationships. A Jewish fella marries a gentile woman. A gentile member of the group marries a Jewish woman. It was harmonious in every way, standing in stark contrast to what was happening in the world around them. (SINGING)

BARRY MANILOW, SINGER/SONGWRITER: We don't know them in America but they were so famous that the story is even weirder because, what happened to them, they just disappeared.

All their records were destroyed, all their movies. Twelve movies were burned. They just annihilated them after being so tremendously popular around the world.

(SINGING)

BASH (voice-over): Harmony's relevance now is chilling, with war raging in Ukraine, innocent lives disrupted by hate.

(on camera): Doing this musical now with everything going on, in not just the world, but anti-Semitism on the rise.

SUSSMAN: Unprecedented new levels of anti-Semitism.

MANILOW: Yes.

SUSSMAN: I think one of the joys about doing this show now is that it seems to be resonating more than ever.

MANILOW: Right.

[13:55:02]

SUSSMAN: And that's remarkable that, after everything we've been through, that it's landing at this time.

(CROSSTALK)

MANILOW: But it sounds very current.

SUSSMAN: It sounds very current.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Manilow missed last night's premiere after testing positive for COVID. But he told me, of all the songs he wrote and the hits he produced over 50 years, "Harmony" is what he wants as his legacy.

And you can see there more of this will be in a special on Saturday, "BEING BARRY MANILOW." That's Saturday night.

Thank you very much for joining me. I'm Dana Bash.

The news continues with Alisyn and Victor right now.

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