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Can Floating Seaweed Help the Planet?; New Details Emerge in January 6 Investigation; Putin Taking Control of Ukraine Military Strategy?; President Biden Visits Asia. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 20, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:03]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: You heard what you heard there.

We will note for the record Russian officials defend the conditions he was kept in, saying Trevor Reed was treated in line with Russian law.

You can watch the full interview, Trevor Reed, Sunday night 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

Thanks for your time on INSIDE POLITICS. We will see you Monday.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello, and thanks so much for being here. We made it to Friday. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And we begin this hour in Seoul, South Korea, where President Biden is kicking off his first trip to Asia since taking office. Today, he toured a Samsung facility to demonstrate the two nations' partnership on technology, a key part of the administration's overarching goal to bolster economic and national security interests of the U.S. and its allies, with a wary eye on China and Russia's war on Ukraine.

But other tensions are ratcheting higher and closer. Across the border, North Korea may be preparing to fuel an intercontinental ballistic missile. That would mean Kim Jong-un's regime could conduct a test launch while President Biden is in South Korea.

Meantime, in Ukraine, Russia has replaced senior military commanders who are blamed for bungling the early stages of the invasion. That's according to British intelligence. And Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says Russia's relentless shelling of the Donbass region has left it destroyed. His words: "It is hell there."

CNN's Melissa Bell is in Kyiv, but first to Jeremy Diamond in Seoul.

And, Jeremy, what is the message President Biden is delivering to that region?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Ana, President Biden has arrived in this region with the goal of shoring up the U.S.' key alliances in the region, not only on a national security front, but also in terms of increasing economic cooperation in this region.

But we begin with this increased threat in North Korea, where U.S. intelligence now assessing that it is very likely that North Korea could conduct an intercontinental ballistic missile or a nuclear test while President Biden is in the region.

President Biden beginning his day on Friday in South Korea by talking about the fact that he sees the U.S.-South Korea relationship as a lynchpin of peace, stability and prosperity. But he did draw on the conflict in Ukraine as he talked about increasing economic cooperation. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Putin's brutal and unprovoked war on Ukraine has further spotlighted the need to secure our critical supply chains so that our economy -- our economic and our national security are not dependent on countries that don't share our values.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And while the president didn't mention China by name, the subtext could not have been more clear.

President Biden isn't just talking about Russia ending the disruptions to the supply chain that we have seen from its war in Ukraine, but he's also talking about the U.S. and its allies needing to rely on each other more for critical technological components, and not so much on China, which presents potentially an economic threat to the region and to the United States' influence in the Indo-Pacific as well.

So, you -- that -- you can expect that that will be a message that President Biden will deliver over the next several days as he focuses on economic issues as well, unveiling a new economic framework and meeting with other key allies in the region beyond Japan and South Korea, including India and Australia.

CABRERA: And that's all on the backdrop of what's happening right now in Ukraine.

Melissa, let me ask you, how significant is Russia's firing of military commanders in Ukraine?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think pretty significant, Ana, because it contributes to this picture that we're getting and increasingly getting of just how catastrophically badly this campaign, this war has been waged by Russia over the course of the last three months.

The man who was in charge of trying to take Kharkiv, for instance, sacked, the man in charge of the Black Fleet -- Black Sea Fleet -- I'm sorry -- you will remember the sinking of the Moskva back in April -- also sacked, this according to British intelligence.

And it's important because, here in Kyiv, we also have been getting here today, Ana, a clearer picture of just how catastrophic those first few days of the war were, because we're hearing from some of those junior soldiers, the ones -- one of whom was on trial today, another of them also testifying these last few weeks, in that -- the first war crimes trial being held here in Ukraine, whose testimony has essentially painted a very clear picture of the chaos and the fear that they themselves were facing as they came in, in those tank divisions here into Ukraine in the first few days of the war.

What was come out of that today is that the man on trial, Vadim Shishimarin, one of those soldiers I mentioned a moment ago, pled one last time, his defense lawyer saying, look, it is not he who should be blamed for this, but, rather, Russian leadership.

He will get his verdict on Monday. and we will find out whether the 21-year-old is or is not to spend the rest of his life in jail, Ana.

[13:05:02]

CABRERA: And, Melissa, quickly, what is the latest on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol?

When we spoke yesterday, a commander was refusing to surrender.

BELL: The very latest are some very poignant messages coming from inside the plant, including from the Azov Battalion commander, posting one last time some of those pictures that we have been seeing, and his own, in particular, saying they were his last posts and that he is now essentially handing himself over to Russians.

It is more than 2,000 evacuees that are now prisoners of war and in Russia's hands, essentially at their mercy. Ukraine had been hoping to organize some kind of speedy prisoner of war exchange. At this stage, that looks far from certain, Ana.

CABRERA: Melissa Bell and Jeremy Diamond, thank you both.

Even with its soldiers on trial, its top military commanders being replaced, and its army having to destroy entire cities just to gain control, U.S. intelligence officials believe none of it, no matter how disastrous, will persuade Russia's president to end this war or persuade those around him to attempt a coup or something else.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis joins us with this new reporting.

Katie Bo, why do intelligence officials believe this?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Ana, Putin has successfully -- he has successfully built an alternate -- a false alternate narrative to the war through propaganda. He's established a repressive media environment. He's cracked down on protests.

And, maybe most importantly, he's been able to insulate the Russian people, at least for now, from some of the worst economic consequences of the sanctions put in place by the West. So, as a result, for now, the war in Russia remains broadly popular. And U.S. intelligence officials are skeptical that that's likely to change, at least in the near term.

But, perhaps most interestingly, Ana, officials that we spoke to are also doubtful that, even if there were to be a massive swing and public opinion against Putin's war in Ukraine within Russia, it's unlikely that that would force Putin to change course. It's unlikely he would have to be terribly responsive to that, in part because he could simply move to crack down further on any kind of public dissent.

CABRERA: And your reporting also reveals Putin is intimately involved in day-to-day details of the fighting happening in Ukraine some considered minutia. Tell us more about this.

LILLIS: Yes, I mean, look, Putin is uniquely devoted to prosecuting this war on his own terms, as in fitting his own vision, right?

He sees himself as somebody who is kind of fulfilling a sense of personal destiny to kind of sort of bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold. And so what we are told by multiple sources familiar with the intelligence is that officials believe that Putin is involved in kind of the day-to-day operational planning of this campaign, down to sort of the level that in Western militaries would generally be reserved for more junior officials.

And what this gives you a sense of is why officials believe that Putin is sort of unswerving in his commitment to this conflict and therefore unlikely to be swayed by public opinion.

CABRERA: Katie Bo Lillis, thank you.

Now I want to bring in retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He is a CNN military analyst and served as commanding general of Europe and the Seventh Army.

General Hertling, happy Friday. Thanks, as always, for being here.

First, just your reaction to Katie Bo's reporting, specifically those details about Putin's involvement with battlefield decisions.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Ana, it is amazing.

I'm smiling because what Mr. Putin is doing is only exacerbating the problems he's having. First of all, you reported he's firing many of his generals. When you start doing that at the top level, the generals that remain don't want to give any more truth, for fear that they might be fired.

So you exacerbate the problem in terms of giving the senior leaders what kind of advice they need. And then you talk about that not only has he not taken advice, and he's scared off the generals, but as Katie Bo just mentioned, he is also now making tactical level decisions.

This isn't just junior officials that make this. From what I'm getting from my sources on the ground, he is making decisions at the tactical level, moving forces around. When you get the strategic leader, the president of a nation, doing those kinds of things, with -- basically, he does not have a military background either.

It's only going to cause more and more problems. You're seeing the Russian forces come to a stalemate, as many predicted several weeks ago, and it's turned into an artillery duel with continued attrition on both sides on the front lines in the Donbass.

CABRERA: As you know, we have been following this first war crimes trial of a Russian soldier. He pleaded guilty.

And, today, this 21-year-old soldier expressed remorse, saying -- quote -- "I'm sorry and sincerely repent. I was nervous the moment it happened. I didn't want to kill."

And his lawyer is arguing that he was in a state of stress caused by the combat situation and the pressure from his commander. Your reaction to that?

[13:10:00]

HERTLING: Yes, watching this trial very closely, Ana, because it is just going to be the start of a floodgate.

And this young soldier also pleaded the fact that he was ordered to shoot, when he didn't want to, by his superiors. That, in and of itself, as everyone knows, is not an excuse for conducting any kind of war crime. So you have a bunch of young conscripts who haven't been trained and professional values that an army normally does.

And they will, in cases under combat and under extreme stress, be concerned about what they do next. It's the first time any of these young soldiers have what's called in the military seen the elephant of combat, be under the stress of these kinds of things. And, certainly, you rely on your leaders.

When your leaders are crooked, when your leaders are criminal, which have been shown to be the case in the Russian army time and time again, and they order soldiers to do these kinds of things, soldiers will execute, for fear of being disciplined or harshly condemned by their commanders, and, in some cases, punished to the extreme.

So this is going to be the start of a war -- a war crimes floodgate. We're going to see more and more of this, where young soldiers are claiming that they were ordered to do things. But the fact of the matter is, they killed, raped and looted, which are all war crimes.

CABRERA: And the Russian tactics continue to be just so barbaric, so heartbreaking, so awful.

President Zelenskyy says the Donbass region is completely destroyed. And we have heard from other Ukrainian officials that Russia has basically been having to completely obliterate the territory they're trying to take in order to make progress.

I just wonder, if they turn this territory they take into a wasteland, then what does Russia really gain?

HERTLING: Not a thing, Ana, not a thing.

And this is reminiscent of the battlefields of World War I, the trench lines that existed between 20 -- 1914 and 1918. It was just -- we're going to use the expression no man's land. It has to do with wire, trenches, artillery duels. People that try and come out of the trenches to attack are going to be killed by long-range artillery.

And it's going to be worse, because modern-day weapons are so much more lethal than they were in 1918. So, you're going to see an increasing devastation of this wonderful territory that was once the Donbass, an area which was part of the bed -- the breadbasket of Ukraine, further deteriorate as this stalemate continues in the east.

CABRERA: Well, thank you so much for offering your expertise and helping to guide us through and make sense of what is so hard to explain.

Thank you so much, General Hertling.

New details on former President Trump's desperate attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Right-wing attorney John Eastman now revealing Trump sent him handwritten notes with information he thought might be useful in the legal fight. More on that.

Plus, less than one week after the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, the Justice Department is unveiling its new plan to fight hate crimes.

And a fierce competition to capture carbon dioxide and help save the planet. The prize? One hundred million dollars for the winner and a healthier world for all of us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: With his beloved Gulf of Maine getting warmer and more acidic by the day, Marty Odlin quit chasing mackerel, built a team of geniuses, and went fishing for carbon dioxide with seaweed, because kelp grows and gobbles CO2 much faster than trees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:58]

CABRERA: A key architect of former President Trump's election reversal scheme says he has handwritten notes from Trump himself about the plan to overturn the 2020 election, but he doesn't want the January 6 Committee to see them.

In a new court filing, right-wing lawyer John Eastman says a pair of notes from Trump discuss information Trump thought would be useful for their election lawsuits. Eastman also claims he was in touch with three Trump campaign staffers and three White House staffers about this effort. Let's bring in CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot

Williams.

Elliot, thanks for being here.

If this paper trail shows Trump had direct input on how to carry out this attempt to overturn the election, just how significant is that?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It is significant, Ana.

Look, big picture, if someone is representing a client as an attorney, they're entitled to -- entitled an attorney-client privilege, even if that's an unpopular client, right?

There's a big exception there, which is that your conversations can't be protected if they're being used to shield fraud or criminality. And that's the question at issue here.

Now, look, this judge in this case -- and we have been to this party before -- is quite suspicious of the communications and conduct of both Trump and Eastman. So I'm not seeing where anything's new in this pleading that they filed that's going to be more appealing to the court.

CABRERA: In fact, it was this particular judge who said that Trump and Eastman were -- quote -- "more likely than not" -- end quote -- planning a crime after the election.

Now, again, Eastman is saying these are private attorney-client discussions about legal efforts. Do you think ultimately the select committee will get to see these communications?

WILLIAMS: They're going to see a lot, if not all of these communications, just because, look, Ana, a big part of being an attorney, in addition to being right on the facts and right on the law, is not getting under the judge's skin.

And what we're seeing here is conduct by the attorneys and by the former president that are just sort of either, number one, trying to delay and, number two, trying to put documents under the banner of attorney-client privilege that really appear to not be.

[13:20:10]

And if you read through the document, he really lays out a number of communications that really stretch the definition of attorney-client privilege. So, it's really hard to see how at least some of these are not going to end up in the committee's hands.

CABRERA: The other big news on the January 6 front is, this committee is investigating a Capitol tour given by Republican Congressman Barry Loudermilk the day before the attack.

And I just want to revisit what that congressman said about this visit on January 6 as the attack was unfolding. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

REP. BARRY LOUDERMILK (R-GA): We actually had about a dozen people up here that wanted to come by and visit. We had them in our office. They definitely were peaceful people, people that we have met at church.

They were supporters of the president. And they just wanted to be up here as if it was another rally. And we have actually checked on them to make sure that they're safe.

When they saw what it was turning into, they immediately turned and went back down the Mall to get away from the crowd here.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CABRERA: Again, that was on January 6.

Yesterday, Loudermilk released a statement essentially reiterating that account, saying -- quote -- "No place that the family went on the 5th was breached on the 6th. The family did not enter the Capitol grounds on the 6th, and no one in that family has been investigated or charged in connection to January 6."

Elliot, would this be easy to corroborate? Would there be some kind of visitor log, like with the White House, or security footage?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think security footage is the obvious one.

It's the United States Capitol Building. There's cameras everywhere. Look, this is a really serious claim being made by the committee. So, they -- I would think that they have some sort of evidence or information backing up what they're saying.

If they don't, they're accusing a sitting member of Congress of actively bringing people into the Capitol Building to help plan out an insurrection. One of those two things is true. I don't think there's a gray area here. And this can probably be cleared up pretty easily with either testimony or checking the records.

The one thing that's a little bit alarming is that the Capitol Building was largely empty on that day. This is January 5, at the height of the pandemic. So it would have stood out that someone was getting a tour from a member of Congress.

But, look, if it's a family, and he's a member of Congress giving them a tour, there's a perfectly plausible explanation there. Someone's got to come forward and clean it up.

CABRERA: OK, hopefully, we learn a lot more, and soon. We know that they are expected -- this committee is expected to hold public hearings starting in June, which is just a couple of weeks away.

Elliot Williams, happy Friday, my friend. Thanks for being here.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Ana. Take care.

Help from kelp. A fisherman ditches his day job to fight climate change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTY ODLIN, CEO, RUNNING TIDE: There's this thing out there, and it's, like, ruining everything that we love, right? All the good stuff is getting ruined.

WEIR: Your dream was to have a boat.

ODLIN: Yes, I just wanted a boat. I really just wanted a boat.

There just aren't any mackerel. Like, they're all -- they're all -- they swam north, they swam east, and they are now probably up in Iceland.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:27:58]

CABRERA: Now, here's an idea that could be worth $100 million, could also combat climate change and help save the planet.

The story from CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (voice-over): To avoid cascading disaster, science agrees that it won't be enough just to stop using fossil fuels. Humanity must remove trillions of tons of planet-cooking pollution already in our seas and sky.

And whoever figures out how to do that might just get $100 million from Elon Musk.

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA MOTORS: Sometimes, people say, well, just plant a bunch of trees. And, like, that's not so easy. You need to get fertilizer. Are you going to water them? Where's the water going to come from? What habitat are you potentially destroying where the trees used to be?

WEIR: With his-year-old carbon XPRIZE, the controversial billionaire says he wants to lure out the geniuses who will figure out how to capture and store carbon dioxide on massive scales.

ODLIN: It's a Godzilla.

WEIR (on camera): Yes.

ODLIN: It's burning forests down. It's stealing our fish.

WEIR (voice-over): And among the finalists is a humble fisherman from Maine.

ODLIN: There's this thing out there, and it's, like, ruining everything that we love, right? All the good stuff is getting ruined.

WEIR (on camera): Your dream was to have a boat.

ODLIN: Yes, I just wanted a boat. I really just wanted a boat.

There just aren't any mackerel. Like, they're all -- they're all -- they swam north, they swam east, and they are now probably up in Iceland.

WEIR (voice-over): With his beloved Gulf of Maine getting warmer and more acidic by the day, Marty Odlin quit chasing mackerel, built a team of geniuses, and went fishing for carbon dioxide with seaweed, because kelp grows and gobbles CO2 much faster than trees, needs no land or fertilizer.

And when it sinks to the deep ocean, the carbon can be locked away for 1,000 years.

(on camera): But kelp needs sunlight and something to hold on to. So, Marty, who is also an engineer, went to the drawing board, and he settled on floating thousands of high-tech buoys in the North Atlantic, each holding a little kelp forest, while a ring of limestone serves as the antacid for the ocean.

Solar power runs a camera and instruments connected to the cloud.