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More Kevin McCarthy Audiotapes Revealed; Explosions in Russia?; Russia Cuts Off Gas to Two European Nations; Russia Frees U.S. Prisoner Trevor Reed. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 27, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:24]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

We begin with major developments involving Russia that go beyond the war in Ukraine. American Trevor Reed was released from a Russian prison today as part of a prisoner swap. This happened on a tarmac in Turkey. Russian state TV, they broadcast the exchange of Reed for a convicted drug smuggler.

Reed is now on his way back to the U.S. He's a former Marine. And he's been held in Russia since 2019. His parents just spoke to reporters a few moments ago. Their concerns were primarily about his health.

Russia, meantime, has shut off supplies of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria after the countries refused to pay for the gas in rubles. Now, both countries are NATO allies of the U.S. and strongly support Ukrainians' defense against Putin's war.

The E.U. calls Russia's move blackmail.

CAMEROTA: Now, on the battlefield, parts of Eastern Ukraine again under intense bombardment today, Ukrainian armed forces now acknowledging they have lost several towns in the Donbass, but they say Ukrainian troops were able to destroy multiple Russian tanks and artillery systems.

Also, there are reports of blasts inside Russia in three regions that border Ukraine, including an ammunition depot in Belgorod. Ukrainians are not claiming responsibility, but a senior adviser to President Zelenskyy did say -- quote -- "How can this be explained? Very simply. If you, the Russians, decide to attack another country, kill everyone there en masse, crush peaceful people en masse with tanks and use warehouses in your regions to provide the killings, then, sooner or later, the debts will have to be paid back. Karma is a cruel thing."

BLACKWELL: CNN's Anderson Cooper joins us from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Anderson, there are a lot of people wondering if there's going to be some overlap, if the release of Trevor Reed will impact U.S.-Russia relations and the U.S. strategy toward Ukraine. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, Victor and Alisyn, an official in the

Biden administration said the prisoner swap is going to have absolutely no impact.

The official told CNN -- quote -- "It represents no change, zero, to our approach to the appalling violence in Ukraine."

For much more than what led to the release of Trevor Reed, I want to bring in CNN's national security correspondent, Kylie Atwood. She is at the State Department.

Kylie, give us the backstory here on what you know.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, senior administration officials say that this was months and months in the working.

They had been having conversations about this that accelerated, of course, in recent days to bring Trevor Reed, who, of course, was detained in Russia more than two years ago on trumped-up charges that the United States say he didn't actually commit anything that the Russians claim that he did.

And we should note that his health is a key factor here. We have administration officials explaining that the fact that his health was deteriorating accelerated their concern here. We know he had COVID-19 last year. We also know that he was coughing up blood last year. His family said that he has symptoms of tuberculosis earlier this year.

And, of course, his family is welcoming the fact that he is coming back to the United States. Listen to what his mother told reporters just this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA REED, MOTHER OF TREVOR REED: Finally, after waiting all this time, I'm going to be able to hug my kid, and put my arms around him.

I had a little bit of a panic attack when he told me he was going to spend the whole summer in Russia, so nine months, and then now it's been almost 1,000 days. So I'm just excited to see him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: And she also spoke about his health. She said that he did not look well in the images that have come out of his release that took place, the prisoner exchange that took place in Turkey today.

His father said is that their understanding is that there were some medical professionals on the plane ride back to the United States with him. And the last thing is that they expect him to go and get some medical treatment here in the United States. We're still waiting for more details on that.

COOPER: And what do we know about the prisoner who went back to Russia? ATWOOD: Konstantin Yaroshenko, he was charged here in the United

States for 20 years, serving a prison sentence for cocaine, for trafficking cocaine, for importing cocaine.

And, of course, he served about half of that sentence before he was released as part of this prisoner exchange. A senior administration official saying that it doesn't mean that he is no longer guilty, right? And that is a key differentiating factor here, because we know that Trevor Reed wasn't actually guilty, according to all of our reporting and according to what his family and the United States have said about what the Russians were charging him with, violence towards the police in Russia.

[14:05:09]

So, that is a key differentiating factor here. But I think that this does open a host of questions about prisoner exchanges. Traditionally, that is not something that is U.S. policy to engage in, but, clearly, here, that is what led to the release of Trevor Reed, a welcome development -- Anderson.

COOPER: Kylie Atwood, appreciate it.

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is with me here in Kyiv.

There were blasts overnight in three Russian regions. What do we know that?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, basically, Ukrainian authorities have not yet officially claimed responsibility for these blasts.

But we did have a statement from an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who basically intimated that a debt would have to be repaid at some point if you go into another country and kill a lot of people. He said -- quote -- "Karma is a cruel thing."

So, the understanding, I think, for most people is that the Ukrainians were behind these blasts. They took place in three different locations, most significantly in Belgorod, which is a city just by the border, 30 miles away from Kharkiv, a key supply line for the Russians as they try to bolster their offensive in the east.

So, interesting and strategically important, significant that the Ukrainians are now able to hit the Russians on their own soil.

COOPER: And the Ukrainian forces have acknowledged the loss of several -- several towns in the east?

WARD: Yes, this is the first time we have heard them really acknowledged that things are getting difficult and that Russia's offensive in the east is picking up some steam.

Up until now, there was only one town that they had talked about, Kreminna, that had fallen under Russian control. They say there are now several towns and villages.

What's extraordinary, though, is that some of those other towns that we have been talking about a lot on our, Popasna, Rubizhne, Severodonetsk, continue to be contested. Despite weeks and weeks of intensive fighting, Russian forces have not yet been able to take them.

But the Ukrainians are in a really tricky position here. They are being pushed down on from the north, up from the south, squeezed from the east as well. So, it's a huge three-pronged offensive.

COOPER: The Ukrainian supply lines have gotten much longer than they were when the battle was here around Kyiv.

WARD: And this is going to be the big challenge for them going forward, right?

I mean, what they have always said is that, we can win this thing. They believe they can win it if they have the weapons and the support. But whereas Russia, we know, is resupplying directly from the Russian border, across that Russian border, Ukraine has to move things all the way from Lviv and parts of the western part of the country along the border with NATO countries.

COOPER: Yes.

WARD: That is a long, long way away. And that's why I think we have seen a lot of railway stations, for example, being targeted, as Russia tries to cut off those supply lines.

COOPER: Yes.

Clarissa Ward, thank you, as always. Appreciate it.

Turning now to what the E.U. is calling blackmailed by Russia, the Kremlin apparently weaponizing energy in shutting off natural gas supplies to Poland, as well as to Bulgaria, after the two nations refused to pay in rubles.

CNN's business editor at large, Richard Quest, joins me now.

So, Richard, significant move here. How are Poland and Bulgaria responding?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Both of them are trying to work out a solution that will allow them to keep the lights on and to keep the heat going.

But it's not easy to see that there will be a solution, because, to do what Russia wants is, in the view of some, breaching the sanctions. It basically provides Russia with foreign currency. And the goal here is to avoid doing that.

The problem, of course, is that Bulgaria and Poland is just the shot across the bows, if you will understand, Anderson. The real ones here are Austria, Italy, and Germany in particular, and whether or not they will also go along with the scheme cooked up by Vladimir Putin to pay for their oil and gas in a convoluted way that avoids the sanctions.

If that happens, then all bets are off, because, if gas gets cut to Germany and those other countries, then you're talking about a full- scale recession in Europe.

COOPER: It's a very delicate balance trying to keep this coalition of NATO countries together.

QUEST: Yes.

Oh, and I would say you have got two coalitions you're trying to keep together. NATO is certainly one of them. And they are holding together. But you have also got the E.U. 27, the European Union. And you have already got mavericks like Viktor Orban in Hungary, recently reelected, saying, well, hang on. We will go along with this scheme. We will pay for the oil and gas in rubles.

And the E.U. saying, whoa, no, no, no, we have got to have unity on this. So the first whiff of disunity is there. And Vladimir Putin, that master of spy and Machiavellian policy, knows how to play it for the umpteenth.

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What he's going to do, he is going to split Europe. He's going to threaten and blackmail Germany, Austria and the others, and then wait for the whole thing to fall apart.

COOPER: I'm not sure how much of a master spy he ever actually was. I think he...

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: That's true. All right.

COOPER: ... was sort of more of a mid-level official.

But, Richard Quest, I get your point. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

QUEST: Thank you.

COOPER: Victor and Alisyn, back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Anderson, thank you very much. We will check back with you shortly.

We want to bring in now retired Army Brigadier General Peter Zwack. He's a global fellow at the Wilson Center and author of the book "Swimming the Volga: A U.S. Army Officer's Experiences in Pre-Putin Russia."

General, always great to see you.

Let's start with those explosions that were heard over the border in Russia in these three towns. In this one -- and I'm not sure that I'm pronouncing it right -- Voronezh, this is 200 miles from the Ukraine border. So, how do you think -- if this were -- if this was Ukraine, though they're not taking responsibility, how do you think they did this?

BRIG. GEN. PETER ZWACK (RET.), U.S. ARMY: First of all, I have driven through all three towns back in 2013 and 2014. They're middle-sized towns.

Voronezh is a small city of about 900,000. The others are close to half-a-million. And they are both rail hubs and road hubs. And in the buildups of 2014, these were staging areas for the first invasion. So it would make sense, from a tactical operational perspective from the Ukrainians, anything that they could do to disrupt, if you will, the also-challenged Russian logistics lines that go directly through them.

So we're all reading, we're all wondering how they did it. Was it drones or other way, how it happened, and that will -- only time will tell, but they would be logical targets if you wanted to take pressure off of the Russian thrust into the Donbass, both the flank and right up through the center.

BLACKWELL: General, let's talk about the cutoff of Bulgaria and Poland, because you know more than the military strategy. You also know the geopolitical.

We have got the gas lines here from Russia, of course, Poland here, Bulgaria down here, relying heavily on Russian energy sources. How this plays into the larger strategy from Putin, and is this really a surprise? This is the leverage he has over his neighbors.

ZWACK: Yes, and I think it's dual-edged, because, in doing so, he is in some ways playing, if you will, into those believe that policy, both in Europe and the United States, that Europe needs to wean itself from Russia.

And if anything is an accelerant is Russian extortion, basically, to cut off oil supplies into Bulgaria, Poland and anywhere else. This may accelerate the process on the other side, because, in the end, Russia's invading a free, independent nation, terrible bloodshed, and it's very hard to argue that we need our oil and gas supplies, so we're going to forsake Ukraine.

The Russians may very well have accelerated the process inadvertently, though, obviously, there's a lot of folks in Europe right now looking in their wallets and purses.

CAMEROTA: General, I want to ask you about Russia's losses. This is according to the U.K. defense minister, who testified -- or who spoke in front of the House of Commons.

He says that it's their assessment that Russians have lost 15,000 soldiers thus far in the war, 2,000-plus armored vehicles, and 60-plus helicopters and fighter jets. Does this make a dent in their fighting capability?

ZWACK: First of all, even if it were half that, it makes a dent. And it's more than just in combat capabilities. And, yes, a lot of first-line equipment has probably been knocked out, and they're having to bring other stuff back up from the hinterland. But the other dent is the -- is the sorrow and the human tragedy playing out in Russia when they find out, the population that is supportive generally of Putin -- but we're already seeing cracks in the facade, especially when the Moskva ship was sunk.

This is going to play out in a big way when bodies either come back in body bags or don't come back at home -- at all. And this is -- so there is a -- so it is a major, major, I think, effect. And it's how happening so fast, in a couple of months, rather than years and years, as what happened -- they have lost more by this statistic than they lost in Afghanistan in 10 years.

[14:15:11]

This is a big deal.

BLACKWELL: Let's head to the east, because we know this is the center of the new Russian strategy, phase two.

Some of these smaller towns, Novotoshkivske, Zarichne, are lost, according to Ukrainian officials as well. There are some advances in that portion of the country. In this larger discussion of does the Ukrainian army have the support that it needs, is this indication of something larger, or is this what you would expect as this phase of the war continues?

ZWACK: Well, what we're seeing, it looks like, is a grinding type of offensive attrition, lot of artillery, tanks, infantry just grinding it out, but especially firepower.

And what we're not seeing is, the Ukrainians are probably giving back as much as they're getting. But, here, the Russians have fixed the Ukrainian positions, meaning they have got them locked in. And they're -- and they're probably getting hit with an awful lot of artillery.

The big -- I think a major difference between the two as the X-factor is the Ukrainian will to fight and spirit. But, yes, this is the grind-it-out-type fight the Ukrainians don't want. Yet, saying that, they're probably very much working in agile ways and building defenses in depth and working along the flanks of the Russians.

The farther the Russians push, the more their flanks get exposed, as we saw in Kyiv, which is, I think, going to be a major factor in the offensive in the south.

BLACKWELL: All right, retired Brigadier General Peter Zwack, always good to have you, sir. Thank you.

ZWACK: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Back here, more leaked audio reveals how worried House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was about the extreme rhetoric from members in his own party and fears that they would incite violence. We will tell you what he's saying now.

BLACKWELL: And newly revealed text messages show how a Pennsylvania Republican repeatedly asked the White House to push investigations into election conspiracies. He reacts to the CNN reporting next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:21:40]

BLACKWELL: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is playing defense again after more leaked audio of his private conversations.

In this latest clip, the Republican leader expresses concern about far right House members, including Congressman Matt Gaetz, and whether he would incite violence in the aftermath of the insurrection. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Well, he's putting people in jeopardy, and he doesn't need to be doing this. It's -- we saw what people would do in the Capitol.

And these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.

Tension is too high. The country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt. I don't want to play politics with any of that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, at a closed-door GOP meeting today, McCarthy gave a full-throated defense of his comments, and argued the tapes are just an attempt to divide the party ahead of the midterm elections.

CNN's Ryan Nobles, he's our congressional correspondent.

So how did McCarthy explain his previous comments to his caucus members today?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in many ways, Victor and Alisyn, he's just doubling down.

He's suggesting that what he was talking about in these private conversations were just ideas, that he wasn't attempting to try and undermine the former president or the other members of the Republican Conference that he was critical of, and that these were just conversations.

And, again, he basically blame the media for taking him out of context and said that the Republican Party needed to stay united ahead of the Republican -- or, I should say, ahead of the midterm elections in the fall.

And, to a certain extent, most of the conference appears to be buying that line. We're told that he received a standing ovation in this closed-door meeting of Republican members. But it is still worth pointing out that there are still factions in the Republican Party that are unhappy with the way McCarthy conducted himself during this period of time.

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz was among those that he was very critical of in these leaked audiotapes of being very critical of Kevin McCarthy and suggesting that he is not a real leader.

So, even though, at this point, it seems as though most of the Republican Conference remains behind McCarthy, there are still signs of cracks leading up to these midterm elections. And it still could play a role in whether or not he's able to attain the speaker's gavel should Republicans win the majority in the fall.

BLACKWELL: Ryan, there's a response now from Congressman Perry to your reporting about his text messages that he sent to Mark Meadows leading up to January 6. What's he saying?

NOBLES: Yes, that's right, Victor.

And let's first show one of those text messages to show what he's responding to. This was one of the text messages from our report. He says to Mark Meadows on November 12: "From an intel friend, DNI needs to task NSA to immediately cease and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion. Was China malware involved?"

And what's interesting about this, this is Scott Perry basically leaning into a conspiracy theory, of which there was no any -- there was not any hard evidence or related to.

And, yesterday I tried to find Scott Perry. I ran into him. I asked him whether or not he could provide any evidence as to why he thought this was necessary to bring to the chief of staff and also get involved with the director of national intelligence. He ignored me.

Today, he spoke to reporters. And his argument was that he was just looking into things, and that was the responsibility of a member of Congress, and that, if he thought there were problems with the election, he thought that was something that needed to be investigated.

[14:25:07]

So that's his response to these revelations. Of course, it is still something that is of great interest to the January 6 Select Committee. And they are still considering their next steps as to what it means in bringing some of these Republican members like Scott Perry, Kevin McCarthy and others, before the committee -- Victor and Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill, thank you very much.

Let's go now to GOP political adviser Scott Jennings and CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson.

Welcome to you both.

Scott, let's start with you, and this standing ovation for Kevin McCarthy after the defense of these calls, more leaked audio. What's your interpretation of that standing ovation during the conference meeting? Is that in support of McCarthy, or is it just, they tried to get me, they took my words out of -- out of context, anti-media rallying?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think some of it is wrapped up in anti-media rallying, frankly.

The allegations, the tapes, everything that's happened to McCarthy over the last few days have been coming from a media source that, of course, Republicans despise or distrust greatly. And so I'm sure that's helping McCarthy as he mounts a defense to this.

The other thing going on is just the political dynamic. I think everybody in the House Republican Conference and the party at large believes it's almost a mortal lock that Republicans are going to win or should win the House majority back. And so I think there's a strong sense of the teamwork, the team unity the team effort going on here, that we can't let anything, even if it's uncomfortable, divide us because we're on the cusp of kicking Nancy Pelosi out of the speaker's chair.

And so I'm sure that's working in McCarthy's favor as well.

CAMEROTA: Scott, I have a follow-up, because one person who doesn't seem to be getting that unity memo is Tucker Carlson.

And so, last night, I just want to play for you what he said about Kevin McCarthy. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Unless conservatives get their act together right away, Kevin McCarthy or one of his highly liberal allies, like Elise Stefanik, is very likely to be speaker of the House in January.

That would mean we will have a Republican Congress led by a puppet of the Democratic Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, Scott, how much sway does Tucker Carlson hold in the GOP?

JENNINGS: Well, he's highly influential. And his nightly monologues and commentary like this does definitely catch people's attention.

And Republicans follow carefully what he says. On the flip side, they also pay very close attention to what Donald Trump says. And, right now, one of the things that I think is really working in Kevin McCarthy's favor is that Donald Trump doesn't appear to be upset about this, and, in fact, may be amused by it all, and still supports Kevin McCarthy.

So he's got a counterbalance force there, Alisyn, working in his direction. If you had both Tucker and Donald Trump out to get you, that could be different, but, right now, because the former president is in McCarthy's camp, I think his position at the top of the conference and as he heads towards being speaker is pretty secure.

BLACKWELL: Well, there is one outspoken member of the conference, Nia, who is disappointed, at least, with what they heard from Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, GOP whip.

Let's listen to first the exchange between the leaders in January about some comments that congressman Gaetz made about then leader Liz Cheney. Let's play it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: So, I'm calling Gaetz. I'm explaining to him -- I don't know what I'm going to say, but I'm going to have some other people call him too.

But the nature of what -- if I'm getting a briefing -- I'm going to get another one from the FBI tomorrow -- this is serious (EXPLETIVE DELETED) to cut this out.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Yes, that's out of -- I mean, it's potentially illegal, what he's doing.

MCCARTHY: Well, he's putting people in jeopardy.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Gaetz tweeted out that these -- the comments on this call are the behavior of men -- of weak men, not leaders.

That was out on the statement on Twitter. Also, some sources in this conference said that there was this testy exchange between Scalise and Gaetz. How big of a problem is this for the two and that goal of being speaker if Republicans win control?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, listen, Gaetz probably won't vote for Kevin McCarthy should the House GOP get the majority and Kevin McCarthy runs for speaker, as is anticipated, at this point, at least.

Listen, I think, if you're Kevin McCarthy, you're not worried that you're sort of enemies with Matt Gaetz. It's not like Matt Gaetz has a bunch of friends in the House GOP. He's a bit of a fringe character. I don't even think he could get booked on FOX News at this point. So I don't think that is a real worrisome point for Matt Gaetz.

I do think the Tucker Carlson sort of divide here is interesting. The question is, can Tucker Carlson convince Donald Trump, who also is a big, avid fan of FOX News, an avid fan of Tucker Carlson, can Tucker Carlson convince Donald Trump that there's someone else other than Kevin McCarthy who would make a better speaker?

Right now, as Scott talked about, he is on board. Donald Trump likes Kevin McCarthy. And he hasn't had a problem with these tapes so far. But there's a long way to go at this point before we see the midterms and see who wins