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Euro Drops in Value; String of Robberies at 7-Elevens; NASA Releases Images; Iran Giving Drones to Russia. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired July 12, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Here is a bit of good news for Americans traveling to Europe. For the first time in 20 years, the euro is now worth the same as the dollar.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's pretty remarkable. The euro has lost about 12 percent of its value just since the start of this year.

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik following.

I mean it's good news for travelers. Bad news, of course, this is the result of real concerns about where the European economy is heading.

HARLOW: Yes.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're right, Jim. And good morning to you, Poppy.

What Europe has got going here is a growing energy crisis that essentially could make it much harder for the ECB, the European Central Bank, to fight inflation. The ECB being the equivalent of the Fed. So what we saw is the euro crumble. It hit $1 on Tuesday. That is down 12 percent since the beginning of the year.

There are also the fears of inflation that are taking hold. We're dealing with that here in the U.S. But that high inflation, along with the energy supply uncertainty, caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is really pressuring the euro. We are seeing that Russia has pulled back on gas supplies to some EU countries and recently cut the flow in the Nord Stream pipeline as well for 10 days because of maintenance. There's a concern that Russia may not turn the pipeline back on.

So, we've got this energy crisis in Europe, coming alongside an economic slowdown and doubts whether the ECB can adequately tighten policy to bring down inflation.

I mean, think of it this way, the ECB just announced that it's going to hike interest rates for the first time this month since 2011. But here in the Fed, the Fed's already ahead on tightening. So many are saying that the ECB is late to the party.

And you mentioned this at the beginning, this is great news if you're an American tourist, you're traveling abroad this summer. A stronger dollar gives Americans more spending power when they're outside the country. But here's the thing, if you're invested in the stock market, and 58 percent of Americans are, it's not necessarily a good thing for stocks since it eats into the value of corporate America's international sales and profits. You know, U.S. firms generate about 30 percent of their sales from abroad. So this puts yet one more pressure on its earnings, corporate America's earnings. And we're going to get a better look at what those earnings are this week, Poppy and Jim, when Thursday comes, second quarter earnings really begin in earnest.

Back to you.

SCIUTTO: We'll be watching those, watching the effect on the market certainly.

Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

KOSIK: You got it.

HARLOW: Thanks, Alison.

Well, two people are dead, three others wounded after a string of robberies at a number of 7-Eleven stores across southern California very early this morning.

SCIUTTO: Authorities are now working to determine how many of these crimes might be connected.

CNN's Josh Campbell, he's been following the story for us.

So, what do we know at this point, do authorities see a connection?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's truly a brazen crime spree here in the southern California area yesterday. This all started around midnight. Authorities believe that some of these incidents are connected. They're still working to investigate them.

But the company, 7-Eleven Corporation, taking this drastic step of actually recommending that all stores here in southern California, in the Los Angeles area, close overnight. That after this string of incidents.

Again, the first incident began around midnight yesterday. This was in the city of Ontario. A suspect displayed a handgun. He robbed an employee according to police, thankfully not shooting anyone there. There were no injuries.

But later, in the city of Riverside, around 1:50 a.m., a customer was shot after a suspect entered the store, brandished a firearm and robbed the clerk. The victim there was listed in grave condition.

Later in the city of Santa Ana, another person fatally shot. Police say that they believe it's the same suspect. That based on security camera footage.

Another incident following that in the city of Brea. Police responding to a call of someone suffering from a gunshot wound. When they arrived they found the man who was then pronounced deceased.

And yet another incident in the city of La Habra. We're working to confirm a sixth incident. But this, obviously, very troubling for officials. You can see there, police have released a -- video camera footage showing the person that they believe responsible. He's described as 5'10", about 160 pounds. He was wearing all dark.

Now, I got a statement in from 7-Eleven Corporation. They tell us that our hearts are with the victims and their loved ones. We are gathering information on this terrible tragedy and are working with local law enforcement. Right now our focus is on the franchisee, associate and customer safety. They say that, with all this in mind, they encourage stores in the L.A. area to close overnight. Again, taking that drastic step because this person is still on the loose.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that obviously yesterday was 7/11, July the 11th. Police say it's too soon for them to make a connection to that date, but that's, obviously, something that they're looking into. Last check overnight, no new incidents. This suspect is still on the run. And obviously police have - they want to - they want to get him off the street.

HARLOW: Yes, of course.

All right, Josh Campbell, thanks very much for that reporting.

CAMPBELL: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: All right, those sequoias, right now, in California, more than 500 firefighters are racing to protect a grove of giant sequoia trees as a raging wildfire continues to spreads inside Yosemite National Park.

HARLOW: Aircraft are dumping fire resistant chemicals across the area. Fire crews have set up a sprinkler system to try to protect the park's iconic 209-foot-tall grizzly giant sequoia, all of this, warning the fire is only 22 percent contained.

[09:35:06]

As of now, more than 2,500 acres of land, though, have burned so far.

SCIUTTO: Ahead, something you really want to see because we've never seen this before. It's an unprecedented look at our universe billions of years into the past. We're just minutes away from new pictures that will give scientists an entirely new way to look at galaxies, thousands of them, in just that one picture.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:06]

HARLOW: In the next hour we are going to see some of the highest quality images ever captured in deep space. This is already blowing my mind. Likely to blow your mind as well. NASA is going to release next hour the first set of high-resolution full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope. President Biden unveiled this photo, the first image, last night at the White House and it shows a massive group of galaxy clusters as they appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The rest of the images showing cosmic clouds, exo-planets and nebulas are expected to be found. The cutting edge Webb Telescope launched on Christmas Day and will be used by researchers around the world for years to come.

So happy to bring in our friend Miles O'Brien, CNN aerospace analyst now.

This is so - it's so great to report good news, fascinating news, news it will - you know, images that will change the lives of us and our children and generations to come. How big is this moment, Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Yes, Poppy, this is kind of why I love this beat. You know, there are - there are very few things in our lives, in our news budget that bring us together that are actually positive. And this is one of them.

This is a moment in history. This is a telescope that has been envisioned by astronomers for many, many decades. And finally coming to pass. And we are going to be able to see, to the very, very edges of our universe. Right back to the beginning of time, the so-called big bang. And to say we are fortunate to be alive at this moment seems almost like an understatement.

HARLOW: So, when we look at these first images, well, this first image, and then we get the next, you know, next hour we get, I think, five more, one of the things they're going to help us do, or help smart scientists do, is research exo-planets. What are exo-planets and what could we learn about them?

O'BRIEN: Well, exo-planets, interestingly enough, were nothing when the Webb Space Telescope was first envisioned. Since that time, we've discovered thousands of them. And that's to say, when you look at every star out there, there's a planet that is orbiting around it, at least one. And we have, over time, identified many of them. Some of them are kind of what we call rocky goldilocks type planets. In other words, in that perfect zone where you might have a solid surface, you might have the right temperatures for water to exist. You see where I'm headed for this.

HARLOW: Yes.

O'BRIEN: It could very well be a place where there could be some ore kind of life.

Now, it's worth pointing out, Webb is not designed to be a life detector, but it will gets us closer to identify some places where maybe, just maybe, somebody's looking back at us.

HARLOW: OK. I think it also gives us a lot of perspective, right? I mean we all know we're small and little specks and insignificant, but this really gives us a sense of perspective because when this first image was released yesterday at the White House early last night, it showed this galaxy cluster 4.6 billion years ago. And what they said when they released this image was the slice of the vast universe that we're seeing here covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground. So, if you held it up to the sky, this image of many galaxies would be like one grain of sand. What does that mean?

O'BRIEN: That's in the category of mind-blowing, isn't it? I mean, so you take that tiny piece of the night sky, which to our eyes, or even a normal telescope, looks like darkness, the void. You spend a little bit of time focusing on it with this amazing instrument and out comes literally thousands, millions, billions of potential targets. Where did they all come from? We've never seen them before. That image identifies galaxies that we have not even seen here to fore.

So, here we are, in an era where we are seeing more and more of these possible locations for planets, for life, for galaxies, as we know them, and you have to ask the question, isn't it almost inconceivable that we are alone in the cosmos?

HARLOW: Yes, it is, Miles O'Brien. It's amazing. I can't wait for us all to see this together in less than an hour's time when we get the new images.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HARLOW: Thanks so much for the good news this morning.

O'BRIEN: All right. A pleasure.

HARLOW: All right.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Cannot get enough of those pictures.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Well, coming up, Russia's war in Ukraine finds a new lifeline, this time from Iran.

[09:45:02]

New intelligence shedding light on the Kremlin's new ally in its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: A new entrant in the war over Ukraine. U.S. officials now say that Iran is prepared to supply Russia with drones to use against Ukrainian forces. According to newly declassified U.S. intelligence, Iran will also train Russian forces to use those drones as early as later this month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, NSC: I think it was important to make it clear to the world that we know that Russia, a, needs these additional capabilities.

[09:50:02]

They are expending their resources at an accelerated rate. And, b, that they're leaning towards a nation like Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now, retired Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. He's a former assistant secretary of state for political military affairs under President George W. Bush.

Good to have you back on. Thanks for taking the time.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Hey, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, first of all, how do we read Iran's aid to Russia here. On the one hand it shows an expansion of this conflict to one degree to have Iran supplying weapons, but does it show weakness from Russia's military machine that it needs those weapons?

KIMMITT: Yes, Jim, I think it's all of the above. Clearly the Iranians are doing this linked to the pace of the nuclear talks with the west. I think this was probably released by the Pentagon in advance of the Biden visit to the Middle East to show what a threat Iran remains. And it also shows, as you say, that the Russians are running out of capability. The drones, the Russian drones, have got limited capability and the drones from Iran are pretty advanced. So I think it's significant assistance to the Russians, but they're not silver bullets.

SCIUTTO: OK, let's talk big picture because you wrote recently in "The Wall Street Journal" a criticism in effect of the broader NATO U.S. strategy with Ukraine. You write that rather than win through maneuver, the goal is now to win through exhaustion. Both Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seek to wear the other side down and the NATO promise of indefinite resupply to offset the Russian artillery advantage will likely result in even more static front lines.

I wonder, what is the fix, in your view, for NATO and the U.S.? Is it more weapons? Is it a different category of weapons? What changes that stalemate?

KIMMITT: Yes, first of all, this was not meant to be a criticism. It was meant to be analysis, an observation of what I'm seeing on the ground.

Look, I think we're going to get to a stalemate because, as the Russians continue to fight, we're going to continue to help the Ukrainians, and that could lead to, as I say, static warfare. What could change on the part of the Americans in the west, we could expand the kinds of weapons and capabilities we're giving them. We've talked about F-16s, we've talked about no-fly zones, we've talked about longer range missiles. And on the part of the Russians, they could do a full conscription of the military, get more weapons in there. There are a number of things that either side can do to try to tip the balance literally, in this case, on what, to me, seems to be heading towards the static stalemate.

SCIUTTO: Now today one of the barriers to further western assistance has been a fear of further antagonizing Russia and therefore ending up in a broader conflict between the NATO alliance and Russia itself, but we have seen some of that wear down over time. Their whole categories of weapons going in now, such as the HIMARS missile system that would not have been considered in the early days or weeks of this war.

Do you believe the west? Do you believe the Biden administration has overestimated the risk of direct conflict with Russia here and, therefore, that has held them back?

KIMMITT: Well, I think the entire west has felt that way. I believe if we are conducting a unilateral operation, just the Americans, we may be less cautious about deterring ourselves in this conflict.

But when you're doing this as an alliance, you, in many ways, have to go to the lowest common denominator and understand the concerns and fears of some of the European partners in this and make sure to keep the unity and the alliance that you basically give as much as necessary, as I say, enough to fight but not enough to win.

SCIUTTO: Final question. We showed some pictures there earlier of an explosion overnight in a Russian-controlled area of Kherson in the south. It's not the first time we've seen this and we're seeing it with more frequency, what would appear to be counterattacks, right, Ukrainian forces going after Russians in an attempt to push them out of territory they've already gained.

Are they having success?

KIMMITT: Well, I think they're having minor success. There seems to be a back and forth of small amounts of territory between both sides. But I think the real success is when we're starting to use our precision weapons to go against the logistics of the Russians. They're depending so much on fires and artillery that their Achilles heel is really those ammunition dumps and the supply dumps that are necessary to keep this fight going on their part.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes, some of these new weapons able to hit them, you know, 40, 50 miles away, behind their lines.

KIMMITT: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, always good to have you on.

KIMMITT: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: Well, in Tokyo this morning, family and close friends attended the private funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated last week while campaigning for candidates in his party.

[09:55:04] SCIUTTO: A true shock for the entire nation of Japan. This ceremony held at the centuries old Zojoji (ph) Temple. Crowds gathered outside to pay their final respects to Abe. He was Japan's longest serving head of government there. The suspected gunman is now in custody. Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, reports investigators believe the suspect decided to kill Abe as long as a year ago.

HARLOW: Wow.

Well, coming up, right-wing extremists take center stage at the January 6th committee hearing today. The committee is examining their role in the insurrection at the Capitol and their connection to the former president's inner circle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

[10:00:00]