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Serhiy Kiral, Deputy Mayor, Lviv, Ukraine, Discusses Russian Invasion; CNN Obtains 2,000-Plus Of Mark Meadows' Texts Revealing Exchanges Between Election Day 2020 & Biden's Inauguration; Judge Holds Trump In Civil Contempt, Fines Him $10K A Day; Beijing To Roll Out Mass Testing For 16 Million Residents Amid New Outbreak; Woman Convicted Of Killing Her Toddler Gets Stay Of Execution. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 25, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

SERHIY KIRAL, DEPUTY MAYOR, LVIV, UKRAINE: But yet, indeed, I mean, this is, again, a demonstration of how Russia cannot be trusted in anything.

This also refers to the constant bombardments of Azovstal, of the Ukrainian defenders, despite the fact that Putin, himself, has ordered his defense minister not to do that.

And today, we have the reports about line painting on the sidewalks in Mariupol, which you can only imagine what sort of event they are preparing for.

Maybe the so-called Victory Day and the parade of the Ukrainian defenders as prisoners of war, which is against the Geneva Convention.

So Russia can do anything. And I would not be surprised if all the civilians, which are currently there hiding in the basements of the Azovstal, are in grave danger.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Yes Absolutely.

Deputy Mayor Serhiy Kiral, thank you very much for your time.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: CNN has exclusively obtained text messages between former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and some of Trump's staunchest allies. What they discussed leading up to the election and on the day of the insurrection.

CAMEROTA: Plus, a New York judge holds Trump in civil contempt and fines him $10,000 a day until he complies with a subpoena. What's going to happen now? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:04]

BLACKWELL: CNN has exclusively obtained more than 2,000 text messages that former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows sent and received between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden's inauguration.

CAMEROTA: The trove of texts reveal how Trump's inner circle and Republican lawmakers worked behind-the-scenes to try to overturn the election results.

It also includes real-time reaction to January 6th, that insurrection.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is on Capitol Hill.

Ryan, let's start with the texts on January 6th. Who was trying to reach Meadows?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, it's pretty alarming when you read these messages from members of Congress inside this building on January 6th that were pleading with the then- chief of staff to try and get the former president to do something to help quell the violence.

Like, for instance, his own son was among those trying to reach out to Mark Meadows. Donald Trump Jr saying that, "He's got to condemn this ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough."

Meadows responding, "I am pushing it hard. I agree."

Trump Jr then going on to say, "This is one you have to go to the mattresses on. They will try to F his entire legacy on this it gets worse."

Then there's the members of Congress themselves that were on the frontlines of all of this happening, some of the former president's most ardent supporters and pushers of the Big Lie.

For instance, Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is what she said to Meadows, "Mark, I was just told there's an active shooter on the first floor of the capitol. Please tell the president to calm people. This isn't the way to solve anything."

And then a myriad of former officials, advisers, members of Congress all texting Meadows, telling him to try to convince the president to say something.

"Mark, he needs to stop this now. Can I do anything to help?" This is Mick Mulvaney, the former White House acting chief of staff.

And then-Representative William Timmons, saying, "The president needs to stop this ASAP."

A then Reince Priebus, a former chief of staff himself, saying in all caps, "Tell them to go home."

So it was clear that there were people urging Meadows to try and get the president to do more. And as we saw it play out on that day, a lot of that went on deaf ears.

BLACKWELL: It was then for the people who say the president had no responsibility, they knew who to call to try to call off the people at the capitol that day.

Let's go to -- about the Election Day period, the conversations that were happening inside Trump's inner circle. What did we learn from the texts?

NOBLES: You're right about that, Victor. And the point you raise is so important.

Because what the January 6th Select Committee believes is that the sowing of this distrust in the election results is what led to the violence on January 6th. And we saw this play out big time in the Meadows text exchange.

This is a text message that was sent on November 5th from Ivanka Trump to a group of people in the Trump inner circle. It says, "You are all worriers of epic proportions. Keep the faith and the fight."

Also, a text from former energy secretary, Rick Perry, to Mark Meadows on November 7th, "We have a data-driven program that can clearly show where the fraud was committed. This is the silver bullet."

And then, of course, his text exchanges with Sean Hannity of FOX News, who was helping to peddle the Big Lie across the FOX News airwaves.

He asks, "Hey, is North Carolina going to be OK?"

Meadows response, "Stress every vote matters, get out and vote," on the radio.

Then he says, "Yes, sir. On it. Any place in particular we need a push?"

"Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona."

Hannity responds, "Yes."

"Nevada."

Hannity responds, "Got it, everywhere."

This is on November 3rd.

So you see this coordinated effort amongst all these people who were supporters of the president. They all had a direct line to one man, and that was Mark Meadows -- Victor and Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Yes. And the FOX News host, who is conspiring with the Trump administration, still has a job, we should point out.

[14:40:00]

Ryan Nobles, thank you. Stay with us, if you would.

Let's bring in Elie Honig, a former U.S. assistant district for the Southern District of New York and a CNN legal analyst. OK, Elie, of those texts that we just heard -- although there's 2,319

of them, I know you've read many of them -- which are most, if any, legally problematic?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think what's so interesting here, Alisyn, is we're talking about a set of texts, 2,300. Those are the ones that Mark Meadows voluntarily turned over to the committee.

So the ones that I want to see are the other 1,000. There's 1,000-plus more texts than Mark Meadows is claiming somehow are legally privileged. That may be a legitimate privilege. That may not be. But we don't know because no one has challenged that yet.

So if I'm at the committee, if I'm at the Justice Department, I want to see those texts. I'm going to go into court and I'm going to say, we want to know if they're privileged. They may not be.

That's what I want to see. These 2,300 are remarkable and damning. God knows what's in the other 1,000.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Ryan, before we go too far into this conversation, what's the status of trying to get those other 1,000 text messages?

NOBLES: It's a good question, Victor. To Elie's point, there are large swaths of these text messages that Meadows didn't hand over from a lot of key figures.

And this is an ongoing lawsuit. There's a civil litigation that's happening right now. The committee put a filing out on that on Friday in response to it, arguing that this information has to be handed over. That's one end of it.

And then, of course, there's the criminal contempt referral that the committee issued to the Justice Department on Meadows' contact saying that he ignored their subpoena.

So all of this is part of the litigation that's happening. There's the privilege claim on one end of it from a civil perspective, but there's also the criminal action that's taking place where the committee is accusing Meadows of basically standing in the way of their investigation.

CAMEROTA: Elie, I mean, of the ones you've seen, are there any that are particularly problematic?

HONIG: Yes. The ones that I think are most interesting are -- two things. One, you can see that as the January 6th attack was happening, people close to the president understood exactly who those people were acting for and exactly who had the power and the ability to call them off.

We just saw a whole string of texts where people are saying, you've got to get him to act.

The other thing that I think is really interesting is you can see that the people around Trump understand very early on, we need some evidence of voter fraud if we're going to proceed with this.

There's one text where they say, "I think we have a silver bullet of data analysis." None of that, of course, ever came to fruition.

That's so telling because they knew they needed evidence of voter fraud. And they knew shortly after, they had no such evidence. Yet, they continued to push these fraudulent theories.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about the decision from a New York Supreme Court state judge here.

Former President Trump now being held in civil contempt for not handing over the documents related to his business as part of the subpoena from the New York A.G., $10,000 a day until he does that.

Explain what happens here and what could happen next.

HONIG: It's a hefty bill. He will be billed $10,000 a day starting from when the order officially issues. It could be today. It could be tomorrow.

Trump is going to try to appeal this. If he loses, he gets billed for all of that. And he has to keep paying until he either complies or shows the judge, I've looked everywhere and I have nothing to the judge's satisfaction.

CAMEROTA: Or he could go to jail?

HONIG: In a few extreme circumstances. He can't just blow this off. He can't just say I refuse to pay. In extreme circumstances, yes, the judge can send him to prison.

BLACKWELL: All right, Elie Honig, Ryan Nobles, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: So Beijing is announcing more testing as the city races to stem a COVID outbreak. We have an update from the region, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:48:09]

BLACKWELL: Just into CNN, the FDA has approved the first COVID-19 treatment for children.

CAMEROTA: Remdesivir will be available for COVID positive pediatric patients as young as 1 month old who weigh at least seven pounds.

They do not have to be hospitalized to be eligible. They only have to exhibit mild to moderate symptoms and be considered high risk for progression of the virus.

Previously, Remdesivir was only approved for certain adults and pediatric patients who contracted COVID.

Now to this. Beijing is set to roll out a round of mass testing for 16 million residents because of this recent COVID-19 outbreak. BLACKWELL: There's growing concern over a mandatory lockdown after

officials reported more than two dozen new cases over the last 48 hours.

In Shanghai, fences are now barricading people inside their homes in areas that are considered hot spots.

Here is CNN's David Culver.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The determination to contain this virus, leading to disturbing videos circulating on social media here in Shanghai.

They show crews installing steel fences inside residential compounds to prevent people in buildings with reported positive cases from getting out, essentially caging them in. Many raising the obvious fire hazard concerns.

In other communities, like mine, we've got a paper seal on the door. And there's a community COVID guard on duty 24/7 to make sure we don't wander out of our homes without permission.

On the streets here, workers also putting up blockades, trying to keep people from traveling to other districts.

This latest Omicron-fueled surge has the city now reporting more than 500,000 cases since the start of this outbreak in early March.

And there's now concern growing outside of Shanghai, especially up in Beijing. Only double-digit case numbers were reported so far.

But it's concerning enough for one of the capital city's largest districts to require its three million residents to get three rounds of PCR tests this week.

[14:50:02]

Authorities have also locked down dozens of residential compounds across eight districts in Beijing where residents, like us here in Shanghai, are banned from leaving their doors or their complexes.

Following the horror stories of Shanghai and the challenges to get food here, Beijing officials are trying to reassure the public that the city has enough supplies.

But it did not stop the panic buying. Many fearing the city is going into a citywide lockdown like Shanghai.

And that news causing global stocks and oil prices to fall Monday.

China's Shanghai Composite Index had its worst day since February 23, 2020, when the initial coronavirus outbreak first rocked the nation's stock market. The lockdown here in Shanghai has already forced many factories to

suspend production and made shipping delays worse. In turn, placing more strain on global supply chains.

This, as officials stand by their zero-COVID strategy.

David Culver, CNN, Shanghai.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: And our thanks to David for that report.

A Texas court just granted a stay of execution for a mother convicted of killing her own 2-year-old daughter. We'll have more on that and what happens next in this case, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:55:52]

BLACKWELL: Breaking news now. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a temporary stay of execution to a Texas woman who was scheduled to be executed within days.

CAMEROTA: Melissa Lucio is on death row for the 2007 murder of her 2- year-old daughter.

Let's get right to CNN's Natasha Chen.

Natasha, what prompted this stay, and now what?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn and Victor, there was a tremendous effort on the part of her lawyers from the Innocence Projects, a lot of attention from the public that got to this point.

What this court ruling means is that now a lower court has to do a huge review of a lot of evidence.

This has been an emotional whirlwind for Lucio and her family. In fact, one of her lawyers sent us a statement from Lucio, from her central Texas Prison, in reaction to this. If we can pull up that statement.

She says, "I thank God for my life. I have always trusted in him. I'm grateful the court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence."

"Mariah" -- that's her daughter -- "is in my heart today and always. I'm grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren. I will use my time to help bring them to Christ."

"I'm deeply grateful to everyone who prayed for me and spoke out on my behalf,"

And to review, this death of her daughter happened in 2007. Investigators, you know, pinned this on child abuse.

And what the court today said was not necessarily agreeing with all the claims the defense team made but highlighting four specific claims that a lower court should now review.

And that includes the claim that the state used false testimony related to what the medical examiner said back in 2007, 2008, when the trial happened.

Secondly, previously unavailable scientific evidence.

And the claim that she's actually innocent.

So could that point to a new trial? Perhaps, if the lower court has to now consider her possible innocence -- Alisyn and Victor?

BLACKWELL: Yes, we know there are a lot of people who have rallied for her stay. She now has that.

Natasha Chen, for us, thank you.

CAMEROTA: So will the U.S. sanction one of the wealthiest women in Russia? This is Putin's reported girlfriend. That's coming up.

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