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Dmytro Gurin, Ukrainian Parliament Member, Discusses New Evidence Of Russian Atrocities In Mariupol & Putin Agrees To Allow U.N. And Red Cross To Evacuate Civilians From Azovstal Steel Plant; Family Files Wrongful Death Suit In Teen Freefall Accident At FL Amusement Park; Twitter's Future & Free Speech In Focus As Musk Takes Over. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired April 26, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:33:54]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: There's some horrifying new evidence of Russia's atrocities in Ukraine.
The mayor of Mariupol says that a third mass grave has been discovered near the city. New satellite images appear to show the site, although CNN has not confirmed the mayor's claim.
Also, moments ago, the United Nations say that Russian President Putin has agreed, in principle, to allow the U.N. and the Red Cross to evacuate the civilians from this sprawling steel plant in Mariupol where they have been sheltering for weeks now.
Ukrainian parliament member Dmytro Gurin, is with me now.
Thank you for being back with me.
Let me start with the discovery of these mass graves. The mayor also said that because humanitarian aid in the city is running low, that the Russians are forcing people to work for food and water.
Your reaction to that? And if you can tell us any more about that.
DMYTRO GURIN, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Around 10 days ago, bodies from the streets of Mariupol began to disappear.
My parents, who was in Mariupol, who were in Mariupol during four- month of siege, after seeing photos from Bucha said that, in Mariupol, there were much more people -- dead people on the streets.
[14:35:08]
And after Bucha, Russian troops, they closed the city, totally, no in or out, and started to collect and started to collect bodies from the streets.
And now, we see on Maxar satellite images, we see mass graves that are, by size, they are already comparable to mass graves that were made by Nazis during Mariupol occupation in late 1940s. And by Soviet regime during mass murders during the 1930s and of 1920s.
So, that's the situation.
BLACKWELL: You know, we have also been watching the Azovstal Steel Plant where Russian forces have surrounded it. We are told there are hundreds of civilians there, wounded fighters as well.
The U.N. says that in this meeting with the secretary-general and President Putin, that he agreed, in principle, to allowing the U.N., Red Cross to get involved in evacuating the civilians from that plant.
Your reaction to that agreement in principle?
GURIN: Mr. Putin lies to all the world. I'm really pretty pessimistic about what Mr. Putin says, because when he lies to all the world, I don't understand why he wouldn't lie to general-secretary of United Nations.
In Azovstal, there are civilians, and mostly families of Ukrainian soldiers, wives and children. And after Bucha, we know what will happen with these people, with families of Ukrainian soldiers, if Russian troops will capture Azovstal completely.
They will be raped, and they will be killed. So, Ukrainian soldiers, they stand now not only for Ukraine but also for their families. And of course, they will stand until the last bullet and until the last man.
Of course, we all hope that humanitarian corridor that Russia blocks all this time is possible with the help of United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross.
But once again, Azovstal is under assault all the time. Already two days after Mr. Putin said he gave an order to stop assault.
BLACKWELL: Mr. Gurin --
GURIN: So I have to trust his words.
BLACKWELL: Mr. Gurin, you say that you'll have to trust his words. The deputy prime minister says that she does not trust his words. And has good reason.
She writes that, "The Russian side once again announced the existence of a corridor for civilians to leave Azovstal." This was yesterday.
"This could be believed if the Russians had not broken the humanitarian corridors many times before."
And that is true that the Russian word, their reliability to allow these people to get out, you have no reason to trust them.
But if you don't trust that Putin will allow them out, and you don't have any confidence in his commitment to the Red Cross or the U.N., how does this end?
How do you get those hundreds of people, the more than thousand that you say are there, out?
GURIN: Whenever our soldiers, our Ukrainian army, do in Mariupol, it's far beyond heroic. And we understand that any supplies or any storage, what you have in storage, is always, in this siege, it can be over.
We don't know now, how more do they have food and armory? And of course, we understand that the better decision of situation in Mariupol is to unblock the city military way, and all this time, we ask for offensive weapons to -- also to duplicate Mariupol.
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BLACKWELL: There are more weapons on the way. Mr. Gurin, there are more weapons on the way.
And I know that there are certainly people there. We're, told last week, that they had days, maybe hours, that there were fighters who were rotting from these open wounds.
Hopefully, there's some solution to this. The U.N. and the Red Cross can possibly be part of that.
Dmytro Gurin, thank you for being back with us, sir.
[14:39:51]
The mother of a teen who fell from a ride at a Florida amusement park says that her son's death could have been prevented. The latest on that investigation is next.
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BLACKWELL: Authorities say the investigation into the death of a teenager who fell from a Florida amusement park ride is still active.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: The parents of 14-year-old Tyre Sampson have filed a wrongful death lawsuit. His mother says she wants this ride taken down and claims what happened to her son was no accident.
[14:45:00]
CNN's Leyla Santiago is following the story for us.
Leyla, Sampson's mother and her attorney spoke out today. What are they saying?
LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn and Victor, a month after their son fell off the ride, the parents demanding answers, demanding change, and legal and financial accountability.
Just moments ago, I want to show you when the father for the very first time visited the site of where his son died last month. You can tell when you watch the video how emotional he is from afar.
And I can't help but think of the last conversation I had with him where he was demanding, had a lot of questions, and didn't have answers. Again, a month later, still has those same questions.
So now the family is suing the park, the ride operator, the manufacturer, saying they were all negligent because, according to the ride's manual, Sampson was over the weight limit.
The family claims the seat should have had an additional seat belt.
And remember, just last week, we reported that Florida released some findings from a report of forensic engineers that someone, we still don't know who, loosened -- adjusted and tightened a harness sensor in the seat where Tyre was the night of that fatal fall.
So today, as Tyre's mom talked about it, what was very clear, what was very evident was the raw pain as she remembers the last time she spoke to her son.
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NEKIA DODD, MOTHER OF TYRE SAMPSON: I'll see you Saturday or either Sunday. And that was my last time speaking to my son.
And that Sunday, I was waiting for my son to come home because that's what he told me. I'll see you Saturday or Sunday. So to get a call to say, he's not coming back, I mean, I'm still, like, in shock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANTIAGO: And the park says it is deeply troubled by what the state found in the report that we were talking about.
The ride's operators insisting that protocols, procedures and measures were followed as provided by the manufacturers.
And as for the manufacturers, they did not respond to our request for comments.
BLACKWELL: And 14 years old, just a boy.
Leyla Santiago, thank you.
CAMEROTA: Well, Elon Musk is taking over Twitter, and employees are speaking out. What does this mean for Donald Trump? What does this mean for all of us? That's next.
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[14:51:46]
CAMEROTA: The question many people are asking told, what will billionaire, Elon Musk, do with Twitter when he takes it over.
Here's one clue. Musk tweeted, quote, "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated."
Let's talk about it with "New York Times" opinion contributing writer, Kara Swisher, the host of the Sway podcast.
And her new piece is titled "Musk's Twitter, Weed Means Editable Tweets and the Return of Trump."
Kara, great to see you.
CARA SWISHER, OPINION CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Good to see you.
CAMEROTA: I've read the title a couple of times, and each time, I thought it said, "edible tweets."
SWISHER: I know, that's why I did it. That's why I did it. It could be edible tweets.
You know what?
SWISHER: It could have been edible tweets.
CAMEROTA: Yes, he's an innovator. That would be changing things up if you could eat the tweet after you posted it.
SWISHER: I often think he's eating edibles when he tweets, so, whatever. Free country.
(LAUGHTER)
CAMEROTA: Here's what I'm most interested in. As a journalist and as an American, which is the proliferation of misinformation.
So what's his plan? Has he stated what his plan is to deal with it? And what does he mean when he talks about free speech?
SWISHER: I don't know, Alisyn, I have to say. Who knows, it's whatever rules he puts into place.
He's a free speech maximalist, which means anything goes. He doesn't think people should be tossed off for bad speech.
He does agree you should stick to the rules of violence, et cetera, et cetera, but it's not clear what he wants to do about it. He has a scheme about time-outs rather than permanent bans.
He objected to when Trump was kicked off the platform permanently, for sure, which a lot of people were not doing actually.
So he has this idea that the more speech the better, the more ability for people to disagree the better.
I think he's going to run into complexity when he takes over. Some things aren't as cut and dried as that when you get on the platform and are running it at the same time.
CAMEROTA: No doubt.
Here's one example we pulled up. This is what Donald Trump tweeted two and a half weeks before January 6th. I'll read a portion of it.
He says, "It's statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild. Exclamation point."
Tragically, obviously, his followers took that suggestion to heart. And so would that tweet be allowed to stand under free speech?
SWISHER: It was allowed to stand. It was there forever. It didn't come down, actually, until after he was banned. So yes, it would have been, and it was.
Twitter didn't do anything about that tweet. They may have put a warning signal, I don't remember.
CAMEROTA: They did.
SWISHER: But you can't anticipate what's going to happen. That's like you're in the middle of one of those movies where you don't -- you know, you jail people before they commit crimes.
So I think that's not the issue. It's what he was doing on that day was why Twitter threw him off. And he had a history of violations of all their rules.
One of the issues is Twitter never enforced its rules. It was capricious in how it enforced its rules and somewhat ineffective.
I think that's the point Elon is making, that it's so capricious and random, maybe we shouldn't have those rules in the first place.
[14:55:02]
CAMEROTA: Yes, and I don't mean -- clearly, he ginned up his followers. I don't mean he could have predicted what would happen on January 6th. I mean the part about it is statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election.
No, it isn't. That's misinformation. That's information --
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SWISHER: But he should be able to say that. In that case, Twitter did not deem that as a take down.
People can lie. People do it on dating profiles all the time. Let's be honest, people don't tell the truth.
And I agree this is very dangerous stuff, especially when it's organized and it's used and amplified and weaponized. And that's been a problem around anti-vaxx stuff. It's been a problem, et cetera.
The problem with these platforms is they're designed to allow this to happen. And the problem is the architecture of these social media sites, the fact that enragement equals engagement. It's a bigger problem than which ones to take down. That's going to be
an impossible task, including gray areas, where it's not clear what you should take down, it's not clear whether you should put a warning up.
So the problem is so intractable, it's almost that it's not solvable because it's humanity doing what it pleases. And this is what you get when you have this kind of architecture.
CAMEROTA: I only have 10 seconds left. Senator Elizabeth Warren says this is dangerous for democracy. Is it?
SWISHER: I think Twitter is too small. The overall issue should be dealt with by legislators like Elizabeth Warren. They should pass data and privacy laws.
If they really cared about this, they should have been doing regulation a long time ago. That's my feeling.
It's not up to the social media companies to -- we need Congress to act, and they haven't in the entire history of the Internet, and it might be time for them to actually do their jobs here.
CAMEROTA: Kara Swisher, great to have you on. Thank you so much for being here.
SWISHER: Thanks a lot.
BLACKWELL: It is one of America's longest-standing health recommendations until now. Why a federal task force says the millions of Americans who take aspirin to lower their risk of heart disease should stop.
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