Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ukraine Launches Major Military Push In Russian-Held Territory; Fears Rise Of Potential Nuclear Accident Amid New Shelling; Duke Volleyball Player: BYU Failed To Stop Racist Heckling; Britney Spears Posts 22-Minute Audio About Conservatorship. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 29, 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: A military source tells CNN that Ukrainian troops have now retaken four villages from Russian control. The source said the villages are in the southern part of the country near Kherson.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: This is part of a counter offensive by Ukraine to claw back Russian gains. Russia claimed today the counter offensive, quote, failed miserably.

Let's bring in CNN's Jim Sciutto. He broke the news of this offensive. Jim, we know you've been talking to senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, including former Ukrainian president, so tell us about this counter offensive, why now?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: So, first, why now I suppose is that the Ukrainians believe in the simplest terms that they have the capability here. They have the forces and they have the opportunity when they believe that Russian forces are not as well manned, well-armed as they had been in the past.

U.S. intelligence assessments have shown that a lot of those Russian frontline units are going to the frontlines. First of all, in fewer numbers than have been expected, but also without the same manpower, the same weaponry.

There's also a bit of a seasonal aspect here that the fighting window was assessed to be now and the middle of October. It'll get colder then, that this is then an opportunity, sort of the end of the fighting season to some degree, you might say or the peak fighting season.

But really, it's a judgment where Ukraine believes it can do this now. And they have been citing, as part of that assessment of their own capability the arrival of key western supplied weapons system, including this HYMARS mobile artillery system that we talked a lot on the air about, which has allowed the Ukrainians to hit Russian targets far away with great accuracy and cause a lot of damage.

So, this counter offensive had been talked about for a number of weeks. You've heard Ukrainian officials up to President Zelenskyy say we're not going to live with this territory that's been taken by Russia.

We're going to fight, we're going to get it back. And what the U.S. is seeing now, and what we're seeing Ukrainian officials now acknowledge is that this is the beginning of that.

I did, as you mentioned, Alisyn, speak to the former Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko this morning, and here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: It was started today at 7:00 a.m. with shelling and missiles attack, and this is first time since February 2022 when such a concentrated of Ukrainian troops with their Western artillery, and with the western HYMERS, and western missiles was collected together for these counter attacks. Putin understands only one language, language of strength.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: So, the big test now, Alisyn and Victor, is how much territory can Ukrainian forces credibly gain, and can they hold that territory? Because, yes, Russian forces may be weaker than expected in these areas, but still a significant capable force on the Russian side.

BLACKWELL: So, Jim, there's this IAEA team of inspectors, they're on their way now to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant where Russian shells have fallen 300 feet from nuclear reactor buildings. What's behind this shelling?

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, there is fighting close to what was until recently an active nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. It's the first time we've seen war really in world history shut down a nuclear power plant. So, everyone is alarmed by this --certainly the Ukrainians, Western officials as well.

I spoke to John Kirby yesterday who said there is still a danger of a nuclear accident. So, this mission in seen as crucial, it does appear there's some indications that Russia does not want a major accident here either.

Although, it was the suspicion of U.S. and other Western officials that Russia did -- was conducting something of a game. You might call it chicken here or extortion, right, you know, all of this fighting around there to scare Ukrainian forces into some sort of concession.

[15:35:00]

But listen, we've seen activity in recent days that got so close that it seems the level of alarm rose, and there's frankly a concern that Russia wanted to steal the power from this plant, right, cut off from the grid and redirect the power back towards Russia, which, you know, would be yet another alarming development in this war as to what Russia is willing to do to carry it out. But this IAEA team going in there, an essential step now to judge the

risk to that plant, its current operations, and hopefully to avoid a more serious disaster.

BLACKWELL: All right. Jim Sciutto, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: All right, we're inching towards the end of an era in tennis, Serena Williams is hitting the court tonight at the U.S. Open. This is just weeks after announcing her retirement. We have more on all that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:00]

BLACKWELL: A Duke volleyball player says that Brigham Young University officials failed to stop racist heckling during a game on Friday. The university has since issued an apology and said because of the incident, one fan is now banned from its athletic venue.

But sophomore Rachel Richardson said she heard more than one person using racial slurs toward the black players.

Richardson tweeted in part, quote: My teammates and I had to struggle just to get through the rest of the game, instead of just being able to focus on our playing so that we could compete at the highest level possible. BYU officials also failed to adequately address the situation immediately following the game when it was brought to their attention again. No athlete, regardless of their race, should ever be subject to such hostile conditions.

And BYU's athletic director Tom Holmoe joins us now. Mr. Holmoe, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate being able to talk to you. So, why didn't BYU officials do something during the game to intervene and stop the racist slurs and threats?

TOM HOLMOE, ATHLETIC DIRECTOR, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY: Well, I think it's a good question that has a lot of answers that start now and continue into the future.

We did take action, but obviously, it wasn't sufficient at the time. At the time when this went down and what we had heard, we didn't have any people that we noticed or had evaluated, hadn't scoped out, but still, we at that time, we placed four uniformed police officer -- or one police officers and four ushers in that area.

We look king back at that at that time, there's a number of things that we could have done different, and that's what we're focusing on now is how to move forward.

CAMEROTA: But just so I'm clear. You placed the police officers there because you heard the racist slurs.

HOLMOE: No, it was reported by a Duke University volleyball player after the end of one of the matches.

BLACKWELL: Yes, but if the officers are there, posted and Rachel Richardson said they continued, did those officers hear any additional slurs, any additional heckling.

HOLMOE: Yes, that's what we're going through right now in this investigation. And one of the things that we believe that there was slurs that came and were directed at Rachel.

One of the things that we're looking at now is we would invite anyone to be able to send -- we would think with the technology that we have and the people that were there, that if there's someone that has video or a photo, we want to be able to find these people, whoever they are, and be able to take care of them as far as putting them out. They'd be out of the game. They'd be out of school if they're students at BYU.

So, they'll be expelled. In other words, she says it was more than just one student. Has that one student been expelled from the university?

HOLMOE: That student wasn't a BYU student, but that student has been banned. That's what we can do from him from any of our games.

CAMEROTA: But if there was -- she says there was more than one. So, you're saying -- do you know of any other students yet?

HOLMOE: They haven't been identified by any of the Duke players. There was one, the person that was banned was identified after the game, and that is the person that has been banned. They were identified by the Duke University.

We don't have any reports from any of the Duke people specifically for people. So, we have spent a lot of time in the last three days pouring over our video. The game was on BYU broadcasting. So, we have a lot of opportunities to get in and see those views. But we haven't seen those views yet of anything like that.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about the investigation. This game was Friday night. The statement posted on Twitter was on Sunday afternoon. Did anyone inform you between the Friday night game and the Sunday posting?

HOLMOE: Oh, yes. So, I was out of town in Utah, but I was not at the game. And from the time that it happened, we went right to work about that. It was important that we tried to find out first and foremost how Rachel was.

We knew and as soon as I heard that, I contacted the coach from Duke volleyball, and I was able to meet with Rachel the next morning. I felt that that was the most important thing that I could do regardless of what was happening on the peripheral to make sure that he was OK.

We had a great conversation. She was gracious. She was kind. We had a very personal conversation. I trust her, I feel like she was harmed. I know she was.

[15:45:00]

Everybody can see that. But one of the things that was very important for me coming out of that is that I was able to say to her, and she to me that we're both in this fight together.

At BYU, I and our leadership, we want to root out racism. We think it's disgusting. There's no room for it. The fact that it happened here in our gym is very disturbing to us.

But we will continue to do everything we can from the time that it happened, from the time that we were notified at the end of the second game. There were steps that were taken and were still into it to see if there were other people that may be perpetrators that we can take care of and get them out.

CAMEROTA: And very I didn't quickly, Mr. Holmoe, what does it say about the BYU community and culture that this happened?

HOLMOE: Well, I don't believe that this is a culture that is at BYU. I don't believe that. What I really feel is that we have people in the society that are wrong. They're egregious, they're hateful. They're harmful and that occurred.

I saw Rachel. I met with her. I could see it in her eyes. I could feel it in her voice. I could feel it in her emotion. And that should never happen. It shouldn't happen to anybody, let alone a student athlete from another team at our facility.

So, I think that when Rachel and I talked about it, we talked about going forward. We're in the same battle. What she is asking for right now in her very beautiful statement, where she's calling for an end of racism. We're on her side. We're in that battle with her.

BLACKWELL: It was a gracious statement. I think the question still stands, if this happened throughout the game, and there are people that have been posted there, and they are surrounded by BYU students and others, how was that person allowed to continue to heckle and call out these racial slurs without there being some interruption with that person being escorted out. Tom Holmoe, thank you so much for being with us. And we're follow up. You're still in this fight with Rachel, we will check back in. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

HOLMOE: Thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: Well, after 13 years under conservatorship, Britney Spears is speaking out. She says a lot in this 22-minute audio clip. We'll explain.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Britney Spears is accusing her family of abuse during her 13-year conservatorship. BLACKWELL: She opened up in a now deleted 22 minute video posted on

YouTube and Twitter this weekend. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRITNEY SPEARS, SINGER: I'm sharing this because I want people to know I'm only human. I do feel victimized after these experiences and how can I mend this if I don't talk about it. If you're a weird introvert oddball like me, who feels alone a lot of the time and you needed to hear a story like this today so you don't feel alone, know this. My life has been far from easy, and you're not alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Elizabeth Wagmeister is a chief correspondent for Variety and cohost of Variety's The Take. Elizabeth this is sad and fascinating to hear Britney speak so openly.

She clearly is trying to heal, and she's sort of processing out loud, but then she deletes these things after she posts them on YouTube, and so it seems as though she's really ambivalent, I guess. I don't know -- I don't quite understand why she posts them and deletes them. Do you understand what's going on behind the scenes?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, VARIETY: You know, we're not sure obviously Britney's thought process with posting this and then quickly making it private so that the public couldn't see.

I did reach out to a representative for her. They didn't comment. But I think that the takeaway here is exactly what you said, Britney is trying to heal, and she's reconciling with what she's been through for the past 13-plus years in a very public forum.

Obviously, this conservatorship that she went through is abnormal to say the least for anyone, certainly someone at her age being this young and also at her level of fame.

So, dealing with that on one hand is highly atypical, and then dealing with it in front of the entire world with hundreds of millions of fans across the globe waiting to hear what you have to say. I think you're exactly right that she is in the mode of healing, and probably the only way that she knows how do that is in public in front of her fans.

BLACKWELL: You know, she said that the part that hurt most was her family, mother, her sister, not coming to her rescue. Does she have any communications with her siblings, with her mother?

WAGMEISTER: You know, we have seen this play out quite frankly on Instagram. That Britney Spears has been taking aim at, of course, her father, James Spears, who was her conservator, but also her mother, Lynne Spears, and her sister, Jamie Lynn. Now all of them have denied any wrongdoing, whether it's through lawyers or whether it's through their own social media.

And actually, last night, after Britney posted this 22-minute message, her mother did post and say that this breaks her heart. She feels helpless, and she claims that she has tried to get in contact with Britney. She said that she's tried to call her, that she's tried to get on a plane.

[15:55:00]

But obviously, there is a huge rift in between Britney and her family, and as she says, not just on this audio message, but also in her testimony last year in court, she blames her family for putting her through this conservatorship.

CAMEROTA: Elizabeth, I just want to take a few seconds here and play her new music. She has this collaboration with Elton John for the first song that she's put out since her, you know, conservatorship ended and it's getting a lot of attention. So, here's a little snippet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELTON JOHN AND BRITNEY SPEARS, "HOLD ME CLOSER": Hold me closer tiny dancer. count the headlights on the highway ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I love it because I think it's cool how they meld their voices together. It's a really interesting effect, but it's also sweeping the globe. What do we know?

WAGMEISTER: It is, yes. Britney, this is her first music to come from the conservatorship. And as you said, it's sweeping the globe. It's topping the charts. Was number one on iTunes last night during the VMAs.

You know, a lot of people throughout this entire Free Britney Movement and when Britney Spears was free from this conservatorship, they were asking what's next for her.

And of course, we know that she got married and now she's out with a new song. And I think there's no way better than to collaborate with Elton John, who of course, is just legendary. So, bringing him together with Britney really successful.

CAMEROTA: Elizabeth, we have to let you go. Thank you very much for all of that. And "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)