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Zelenskyy Dismisses Two Officials, Accusing Staff Of Treason; Biden Criticized Over Fist Bump With Saudi Crown Prince; Putin Set To Make Rare Visit To Middle East Tomorrow; Texas Mom Had To Wait Weeks For Treatment After Miscarriage; JLo, Ben Get Hitched in Surprise Vegas Wedding. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired July 18, 2022 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he had dismissed two of his top officials amid an investigation that some within their departments committed treason.
Zelenskyy says that some staffers for the prosecutor general and the head of the state security service have been accused of working against Ukraine and collaborating with Russia.
Joining me now, John Kirby, he's the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.
Sir, good to see you. Let's start here with that reporting on Zelenskyy's decision. Did the U.S. have any advanced notice on this, and what can you tell us about it.
JOHN KIRBY, STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: No, we didn't, Victor, and nor would we expect to. These are decisions that President Zelenskyy has to make as head of state. We respect his decision making authority.
We weren't involved in this at all, and I can tell you that for our part, it's not going to change at all the support that we're going to continue to give Ukraine as they prosecute this war.
BLACKWELL: All right, let's turn toward the president's trip to the Middle East and specifically on Saudi Arabia, I want you to listen to what Senator Bernie Sanders said about the decision to visit the Saudi kingdom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): No, I don't think so. You have a leader of that country who was involved in the murder of a "Washington Post" journalist. I don't think that that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: What's your reaction and response to that? KIRBY: The president believes that if you're going to make values of
human rights the center of your foreign policy, which he does, the best way to advance those rights, to advance those values, protect and promote them is to actually, go overseas, and talk to foreign leaders and be direct and candid and in the room.
You can't say that values matter and then stay at home and refuse to talk to people or refuse to make the case. The president felt it was very important that in every stop on this trip, Victor, he'd talk about human rights, and he did.
These are not easy conversations to have, but they're important to have if you're going to try to make a difference overseas.
BLACKWELL: Did the president directly bring up the Americans who were held in Saudi Arabia who are either imprisoned or not allowed to leave the country.
KIRBY: It all stops, the president has talked object wrongfully detained Americans, and that was no different on this trip at all.
BLACKWELL: So, he did mention to the Crown Prince those Americans who were being held and not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia.
KIRBY: He talked to the Prince about a range of our human rights concerns, including Americans that are wrongfully detained.
BLACKWELL: OK. Let me ask you about the fist bump, which "The Washington Post" -- obviously Jamal Khashoggi was a columnist there -- and they said it was shameful.
Congressman Schiff, a Democrat said a fist bump worth a thousand words. Once the White House decided that the president was going, of course there would be a public greeting of some sort, the Crown Prince would be at the meeting.
What was considered? Were alternatives considered or were you prepared for that moment and you're OK with what you saw?
KIRBY: Throughout this trip, Victor, as the president greeted leaders from all around the region and he greeted them all in different ways, based on his personal relationships with them.
Some he shook their hands, some he did fist bump, including in Israel, the first stop. So, it wasn't unusual for the president to kind of mix it up based on who he was meeting at the moment.
[15:35:00]
He was much less worried about the greetings than he was about the meetings. And the meetings in Saudi Arabia were important to have, and they produced results, and they will probably produce results going forward in the future that are in the best interest of the American people.
The president went on this trip because it was in the national interest that he do it. Whether it was Israel or Bethlehem with President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and certainly, in Saudi Arabia, meeting with nine heads of state across the Gulf Cooperation Council.
There was an awful lot on the agenda that we weren't talking about and the president feels like those items on the agenda, they were important, the meetings were much more important than the greetings.
BLACKWELL: I understand that John, but the greeting is important. The optics are important.
You and I had this conversation when you were working here at CNN in 2018 and Donald Trump was meeting with Kim -- with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and we talked about the importance of the optics and how those pictures speak without people going to read the columns on what was actually accomplished or not.
So does this offer the Saudis the degree of potentially rehabilitation, the image alone that they hoped for.
KIRBY: There was no way the president wasn't going to greet the Crown Prince who was hosting on behalf of the King, the Gulf Cooperation Council Meeting and was part of these bilateral discussions Friday night in Saudi Arabia.
There was no way they weren't going to meet one another and have a greeting. It was a one-second fist bump, the president moved on and was much more focused on what the agenda was in the room.
BLACKWELL: All right, let's move on and talk about Russia and Iran. President Putin leaving Russia I believe for the first time since the invasion. He's going to be in Tehran.
And we know that the White House says that Russian officials were there looking at some potential weapon-capable drones there, your concerns about Iran's assistance and this meeting that's coming up?
KIRBY: Yes, obviously it's concerning, and we wouldn't have put the information out in the public if we didn't believe that it's concerning, that Mr. Putin could be arming himself with some advanced drone capabilities that have actual kinetic effects.
In other words, they can launch weapons and missiles and rockets from these drones and further prosecute the war in Ukraine, further cause death and destruction inside Ukraine, so of course it's concerning.
But Victor, it's indicative of a couple of things. Number one, how much more isolated from the international community Iran is becoming. There's a deal on the table to deal with their nuclear ambitions, they need to take that deal.
This is just another example of how they are continuing to isolate themselves from the international community and, two, it's indicative of Mr. Putin's efforts to try to replenish his weapons and capabilities, and the trouble that he's having, due to the sanctions, due to the export controls. He's having trouble with microelectronics in replenishing his
precision guide ammunitions, and obviously his done capability, so he's going out to Iran.
So, here you have over the course of the last weekend, an interesting split screen. You've got President Biden in the Middle East working for a better integrated, more stable, more secure Middle East with multiple heads of states across the region, and you've got Mr. Putin saddling up to the Supreme Leader in Iran to get some drones so he can continue to kill more Ukrainians.
BLACKWELL: All right retired rear admiral, John Kirby, always good to have you, thank you, sir.
KIRBY: You bet, Victor.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, now to this important story. Without Roe v. Wade, women who suffer miscarriages are being subjected to more trauma. Ahead, one woman shares the story of what her state forced her to endure.
[15:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: As more states ban abortion, the fear of life or death complications for women is becoming reality.
BLACKWELL: In Texas, for example, some who suffer miscarriages say doctors are denying the care they need because of the strict antiabortion law passed last year. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen shares one woman's story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marlena Stell and A.D. DeSilva have always wanted a little brother or sister for their daughter Adelina. Instead, what they got was a nightmare because of a Texas anti-abortion law.
MARLENA STELL, WAS DENIED MISCARRIAGE TREATMENT: I get so angry that I was treated this way because of laws that were passed by men who have never been pregnant and never will be.
COHEN (VOICE-OVER): Stell's nightmare started out as a dream come true. After months of trying, she became pregnant late last summer.
STELL: We were super-excited because we didn't think I could get pregnant.
COHEN (voice-over): An ultrasound at 7 1/2 weeks showed all was well. But at an ultrasound two weeks later --
STELL: She said there is no heartbeat. There is no viable pregnancy.
COHEN (voice-over): Stell asked her doctor for a standard treatment -- a surgery to remove the fetal remains. She says her doctor refused. That surgery, commonly known as a D&C, is the same procedure used to abort a living fetus.
STELL: She said, well, because of the new law that's passed you're going to have to get another ultrasound for me to be able to even do anything for you.
COHEN (voice-over): Overwhelmed emotionally and physically --
STELL: The pain would get so severe it would be hard to walk.
COHEN (voice-over): -- she went to get a second invasive ultrasound at an imaging center, describing it later in a YouTube video.
STELL: Someone shoves a wand in my sensitive area and tells me hey, you lost your baby again. I shouldn't have to go through that twice.
COHEN: So, you had to hear it twice that you lost a baby?
STELL: It's gut-wrenching. Sorry.
COHEN: That's OK.
[15:45:00]
STELL: Because you already know what you're going to see. It's just like seeing it twice and being told that you're not going to be a mom.
COHEN: Even after that second ultrasound --
STELL: Yes.
COHEN: -- would your obstetrician give you the surgical procedure?
STELL: No, no.
COHEN (voice-over): Stell had to get yet another ultrasound showing her dead fetus.
COHEN: So, you were walking around carrying a dead fetus?
STELL: And just emotionally carrying it around and just knowing that there's nothing you could do, it just feels very -- it's like I can't grieve or most past is because I'm just walking around carrying it.
COHEN (voice-over): Dr. Lillian Schapiro has been an OB-GYN in Atlanta for more than 30 years.
COHEN: When a woman is walking around with a dead fetus for weeks because she can't get a surgical procedure, what's the danger to her?
DR. LILLIAN SCHAPIRO, OBSTETRICIAN-GYNECOLOGIST IN ATLANTA: She can develop an infection that can make her sterile and never able to have children again.
COHEN (voice-over): Or even worse -- SCHAPIRO: When the baby dies inside, the baby starts to release parts of its tissue that can get into the mother's blood supply. And it can cause organ failure. It can cause death.
COHEN (voice-over): In Texas and some other states, a doctor who does the right thing and surgically removes a dead fetus could be vulnerable to an expensive lawsuit.
STEPHEN VLADECK, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: Any private citizen can walk in the court and say I think Dr. Smith performed an abortion.
COHEN (voice-over): And citizens are incentivized to bring such cases. They can win more than $10,000. And even when doctors can prove the fetus was dead, the doctor still has to be responsible for their own legal fees.
VLADECK: They're going to lose even though they win, and that's the chilling effect. They face this specter of potentially endless, ruinous litigation that they just can't stop. They can't avoid. They can't preempt.
COHEN (voice-over): As I spoke with Stell, I thought back to how between my second and third children I had a miscarriage that was handled very differently.
COHEN: They saw there was no heartbeat. They did a D&C. It allowed me to move on quickly and get pregnant again. And then I got pregnant again, too.
SCHAPIRO: Right, and that's great. And that is the story that we want to hear from people.
COHEN (voice-over): Stell was not so lucky. She did finally manage to find a doctor to perform her D&C but it took two weeks. She worries the nightmare could happen to her again.
COHEN: Are you trying to get pregnant again?
STELL: No.
COHEN: Why not?
STELL: I'm worried about getting infected, have something happen to me, and then my daughter's left without her mom.
COHEN (voice-over): Now they are contemplating moving away from Texas -- away from their extended family -- just so they can try to get pregnant again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN (on camera): Marlena Stell pointed out the irony that a law intended to force women to have children they don't want is forcing her and her husband to consider not having a child that they do want -- Victor, Alisyn. CAMEROTA: I'm so glad you point that out, Elizabeth, this isn't a
family building law, as she so painfully learned. Thank you very much --
COHEN: Thanks.
CAMEROTA: -- for that report.
BLACKWELL: Nearly 20 years after the original wedding date, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, they're married, the Bennifers. Details ahead
CAMEROTA: Is that their last name now?
BLACKWELL: We're going with that.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: Oh, love everlasting.
CAMEROTA: I agree.
BLACKWELL: About 20 years after their first celebrity courtship, Bennifer, they're married now. Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez secretly tied the knot over the weekend at a chapel in Las Vegas.
CAMEROTA: This was a low-key affair. No star-studded reception. No body doubles for the bride to throw off the paparazzi. That was the last one.
Just family and the few other love birds who were also lined up to say I do. CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas is here. I love these hopeless romantics. They waited 20 years.
CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: They waited 20 years. They finally, their lives brought them back together. So, here are the details that we do know.
So, on Saturday, Jennifer and Ben, they're standing in line to get their marriage license in Las Vegas, with four other couples just like the rest of us. But Jen says she barely made it in because she announced this on social media.
Barely made it in to the white wedding chapel where they posed for pictures in a pink convertible.
Just before midnight, she said, the chapel stayed open for them, but as if they would close the doors when they see it's Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
They took pictures. Jennifer's kids were there. I don't know if Ben Affleck's children were there. We don't see them in the pictures and stuff.
But there's Jennifer getting ready in this white dress that she says she had in her closet. Ben got a white coat from his closet.
He showed a video of himself getting ready in the white wedding chapel bathroom. And we're talking so low key here.
We don't know if they're going to have some big extravaganza in Hollywood like a reception. Maybe actually we're hearing they might go back to Georgia where they were supposed to have their original wedding 20 years ago.
Remember, they met on the set of "Gigli," that they starred in. Then they got engaged the following year. Then they called it off -- you know, the wedding. And then they called off the engagement --
CAMEROTA: They called it off because they said there was too much paparazzi.
MELAS: Too much paparazzi attention. They went on to marry other people. She went on to marry Marc Anthony. He went on to marry Jennifer Garner. You know, then she was engaged to Alex Rodriguez recently.
But remember, Ben and Jen, they just recently announced their engagement just a couple months ago. I know, we were talking about her engagement ring, this green diamond.
BLACKWELL: Well, she has every other color. I mean, green is all that's left.
MELAS: (INAUDIBLE) Let's be honest.
BLACKWELL: The first Ben ring was pink diamond. Marc Anthony's was blue. A-Rod's was yellow --
MELAS: She's been married before.
BLACKWELL: -- then she's got two diamonds from the first marriages.
MELAS: The question is, does she keep them?
CAMEROTA: She keeps them. Oh, she keeps them. Let's be honest.
MELAS: And also, this. Jennifer --
CAMEROTA: What's happening?
MELAS: OK, so that's her in her bed showing off her wedding ring, understated compared to the green engagement ring.
We do know this, she has taken Ben Affleck's last name. She's now Jennifer Affleck. Now I don't know if she's going to change her Instagram handle just yet, it still J.Lo.
But exciting, people seem to be happy for them. Jen said, you know, love, it's meant to be. And she's so happy that they were 20 years patient.
CAMEROTA: And they got a lot of practice.
BLACKWELL: Well, if she changes the Instagram, it's official them. Thank you, Chloe.
MELAS: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: All right, we're just months away from the midterm elections, and the president's low approval rating is dragging down Democrats. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper has new CNN polling just ahead.
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