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President Biden Campaigns in Pennsylvania; Consumer Confidence Increases; Ukrainian Counteroffensive; Judge to Decide on Special Master in Mar-a-Lago Case. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 30, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:22]

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 the escalating conflict in Ukraine and new details on exactly how the U.S. is helping the country. White House officials revealed today that America has for months now been fulfilling specific arms requests, including ammunition and artillery and Javelins.

Now, these weapons are crucial in Ukraine's counteroffensive, which is happening now, to claw back territory from Russia. President Zelenskyy vowed that he will chase Russian troops all the way to the border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): If they want to survive, it's time for the Russian military to run away. Go home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: An adviser to President Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian military broke through Russian defenses near the southern city of Kherson. Ukraine says they have shelled bridges over a river near the city, so Russian troops cannot cross to bolster their front-line units.

Ukraine says they have also knocked out electricity and water in a Russian-occupied town. The war, of course, continues to take its daily toll. In Northeast Ukraine, a top Ukrainian official said Russian shelling there killed four people in Kharkiv today.

CNN's Melissa Bell is in the capital of Kyiv for us.

So, Melissa, when President Zelenskyy says their goal is to grind Russia down, what would that look like?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is very difficult for us to tell, because, for the time being, Ukraine has not provided either images from that counteroffensive or indeed access either to Western or Ukrainian journalists.

What we're hearing, we're hearing from their regional officials, but also from their military spokesmen, as you say that there have been gains for the time being. This is how it's being explained. There's a great deal of hope here in Kyiv.

This is a counteroffensive, Alisyn, that had been long planned and that everyone here in Ukraine had their hopes pinned on. We have heard about those villages that were taken yesterday. And what we have heard about today is those supply routes that would help Russian forces bring manpower, equipment over to the right bank of the Dnipro to help protect Kherson that have now, say Ukrainian military sources, been entirely cut off.

Now, that would be significant, because it would mean that, although the fight will be a long one, although, as Ukrainian officials are keen to point out, this country needs to prepare for a long grind, it would give some hope that, if the counteroffensive has a sufficient number of men on its side, that weaponry that Victor mentioned a moment ago that we know has been much more specifically targeted than we'd understood before, that would give them a fighting chance, Alisyn.

BLACKWELL: Melissa, let's turn our attention to Zaporizhzhia now.

President Zelenskyy met today with the head of the U.N. inspection team that's going to that nuclear power plant. What does President Zelenskyy want that team to do?

BELL: Well, for the time being, President Zelenskyy meeting with the head of that IAEA mission here in Kyiv today, called once again -- and this is a longstanding Ukrainian claim -- that that zone should be entirely demilitarize, because here's the position, from Kyiv's point of view -- and this is backed, by the way, by American intelligence -- is that that plant has been used as a military base.

What they were saying today, as we were hoping to hear from the head of the IAEA mission himself, Rafael Grossi -- that press conference did not happen. Instead, we heard from President Zelenskyy and his aides in a series of tweets as well, calling not just for the demilitarization, but saying that there had been more shelling, there had been military exercises around the base that for the time being were disrupting that planned IAEA visit.

Now, we have also heard from the Russian side, them accusing Ukrainians of shelling in the area. The fact is that, for the time being, we wait to hear whether the IAEA inspectors will be able to get to the plant. And, of course, it is that very violence that is making it difficult, that very fighting, that shelling that is precisely why it's making it so necessary -- Alisyn and Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Melissa Bell for us there in Kyiv, thank you.

Let's bring in now Retired Brigadier General Steve Anderson. He just returned from Ukraine. General, you were talking to people there about the logistics and the

maintenance of the weapon systems they have received from the U.S. and other countries, we should say. What are the biggest issues that they're facing at this point in the war?

BRIG. GEN. STEVE ANDERSON (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Well, really, there's two issues, Victor, that they're facing right now.

The first is front-line leadership. They have taken tremendous casualties in the front line. Their junior leader, their small unit leaders have been -- perhaps 30 to 40 percent have been killed over the course of this war. So they have got to replace those.

[14:05:01]

But the other big issue is logistics. On my 10 days on the ground, I got to see this firsthand. The big issue really is distances. You're talking about essentially a huge, huge area out here that's trying to cover this entire area here. This is a very, very big area.

And what's going on is, unfortunately, they're trying to take out these bridges, but they don't have sufficient logistics firepower to really overwhelm the troops. Remember, the Russians have been digging this area now, dug in this area now for six months. They're in hardened position.

And, normally, American doctrine says that you need to outnumber -- if you're conducting an offensive operation, you need to outnumber the defenders that you're fighting by a 3-1 ratio. They don't have that. They don't have the logistics capability to sustain that. They don't have the personnel.

Now what they are doing, though, is, they're doing everything they can to knock out these bridges. And that's really a good thing. And, as Melissa just reported, this is incredibly important. It stops them from resupplying their forces. They're on the bank of the Dnipro River. And what they want to do is trap them on the west side over here, and ensure that they can cut them off from their supplies, trap them against the banks of the river, and hopefully destroy them.

That is really what they're trying to do right now. I wouldn't get too carried away, however, because they have got a very, very tough fight ahead of them.

CAMEROTA: General, can you just show us these -- where these four villages are that the Ukrainians have reportedly taken from Russian control?

And, again, these aren't cities. They're villages. So why are these so strategically important?

ANDERSON: Well, they are important, because what they have got to do, obviously, is trying to change the tide of the war and build a little momentum.

Now, my teammate, my friend Alex Vindman was in talking earlier today, and he was talking about the importance of retaking Kherson before the winter sets in. But, as I mentioned, logistics is a big issue. Right now, they're having to evacuate all their equipment all the way to Poland.

Now, Alisyn, Victor, if your car broke down in Atlanta, you wouldn't take it to Chicago to get fixed. So the problem is that they don't have the capability to fix up front. We don't have maintenance expertise that are training the Ukrainians on how to use this new equipment that we given them, and they don't have the repair parts.

What we need to do is put some sort of facility in the middle of Ukraine here, perhaps around Vinnytsia, and push supplies, push technology, and push training to the soldiers that so desperately need it on the front.

BLACKWELL: Yes, that's totally understandable, especially when you make that analogy, to taking your car from Atlanta to Chicago.

CAMEROTA: That, we understand, yes.

BLACKWELL: We got that one.

General, let me ask you about President Zelenskyy and his assertion that his country's forces will chase Russian forces to the border. The Russians aren't just going to roll over and then leave town. The resources -- and you have talked about the logistics that the Ukrainians have -- now suggests that there's a better chance of making that happen, or that this counteroffensive will be greatly successful any more than it was six months ago?

ANDERSON: Certainly, they're more capable now than they have ever been.

I believe that, every day, Ukraine gets stronger, and Russia gets weaker. And I saw that during my 10-day trip over there, but, again, as I mentioned, a very, very tough road ahead. I'm optimistic that they can make some inroads in Kherson, but to push them all the way out of that area down here, that's going to take a major offensive operation. That's going to be very difficult.

They don't have the logistics. Now, let's also talk about what they're going to need to get all the -- push the Russians all the way out. I mean, that's going to take a concerted effort. That's probably going to take next year to do that. And, again, their problem is logistics. They haven't pushed enough forward.

It's one thing to maintain the status quo. It's another thing to overwhelm the enemy and push them all the way out of Ukraine and ultimately, as President Zelenskyy says, all the way out of Crimea back to where the borders were in 2014.

CAMEROTA: Brigadier General Steve Anderson, thanks for helping us understand that. Really helpful.

BLACKWELL: A new court filing could come down at any moment related to the classified documents found at Donald Trump's home. The Justice Department has a deadline today to submit its written

response to Trump's request for a special master. Now, that's a third party to oversee the FBI's review of materials received -- or retrieved, I should say, from Mar-a-Lago.

CAMEROTA: The judge is allowing the DOJ to go beyond the 20-page limit after its attorneys wrote they needed up to 40 pages in length in order to adequately address the legal and factual issues raised by Trump's filings.

Joining us now to help explain all of this, we have CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor. He's the author of "Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department." We also have Peter Strzok. He's a former FBI deputy assistant director and author of "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump."

[14:10:08]

Elie, let me start with you.

Why does the DOJ need 40 pages to make their case?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Clearly, Alisyn, something is on DOJ's mind.

And this is a real departure, because one of the ethics at DOJ is, you say it as quick and concise as you can, and they have done that so far in this case. They have chosen their words very sparingly. The filings we have seen so far have been notable for how brief they are.

What do I think we're going to hear today? I think they're going to say essentially two things. One, when it comes to executive privilege, they're going to argue there is not here, it's not applicable. And, two, on attorney-client privilege, they're going to argue -- and they have previewed this -- we already did this ourselves. We have this separate attorney-client privilege review team. Donald Trump's lawyers took too long. We have already done that review.

So I think that will be their arguments as to why either they don't need a special master or only maybe in some very limited capacity.

BLACKWELL: Peter, there are occasions on which redundancy has its place. Is this one where there should have been, as there was, this privilege review team, but also, because this is unprecedented, there's also a need for a special master?

PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENT: No, I don't think so.

I mean, the reality is that the procedures that the Department of Justice offered in terms of having a filter team not only on site at the search, but also to go through any potentially privileged material after the search, were approved by a federal magistrate judge.

So this isn't something DOJ just decided on its own to do. They had the court's approval to do it. The other thing is, there is some urgency to this. We're talking about classified documents that potentially still implicate existing sources and methods. So, to the extent there is a person, there's a technique, there's some sort of intelligence collection system that's at risk, there isn't this luxury of having ongoing litigation to talk about whether or not and when the government can provide access to it.

There is a potential threat right now. That threat needs to be identified and, if necessary, protected and/or mitigated in some way.

CAMEROTA: Elie, the former Florida solicitor general, a man named Chris Kise, has joined Trump's legal team. Why do you think this is a big deal?

HONIG: The quality of defense learning is so important in these cases, Alisyn.

And Donald Trump needs to get his legal team straight here. I mean, if you look at the motion they put in on this very issue that we're talking about, it was a disaster. It was a procedural mess. The judge threw it back at them. She said you did essentially everything wrong.

CAMEROTA: And this was a Trump-appointed judge.

HONIG: Yes, exactly. I mean, any judge would have done this. It was so obviously deficient.

And it seems so obvious, it's almost silly to say out loud, but defense lawyering really matters. I have seen cases that I thought were going to result in conviction result in acquittals because of excellent defense lawyering. And I have seen the opposite as well.

So Donald Trump has a mixed bag right now. He has some people who simply don't have the legal credentials to be handling a big-time case. He has others -- and it sounds like this new hire falls into this category -- who do have substantial credentials.

So I think he needs to straighten out who exactly is going to represent him.

BLACKWELL: Elie, I have got one more legal question here. Let's say there is a special master that is appointed for this case, and there is a disagreement between what the special master thinks that the DOJ should have access to and what the privilege team, what the DOJ or the FBI's filter team determines.

Who solves that? How's that resolved?

HONIG: There's always going to be an internal dispute mechanism.

And, typically, Donald Trump's team would have a chance to object, say, we disagree. We think that document is privileged. Then, if necessary, it would go to the judge. I do want to say one thing. I think what Donald Trump's team is going to argue in response to the argument that Peter just laid out, which absolutely will be DOJ's argument, is, it's nice that you, DOJ, have done your own review. But the point of a special master is, we don't trust you. We want an

outsider. We want a neutral third party.

And that will be up to the judge.

CAMEROTA: Here's an aside, Peter, but I want to get your take on it. And that is that Peter -- sorry -- Tony Ornato is leaving the Secret Service.

He's the man who was thrust into all of our consciousness because of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony. He had been at the Secret Service for a long time. Then he became the deputy chief of staff in 2019 for Donald Trump. And he was apparently the witness to what was happening on January 6 when Donald Trump was demanding to go with the crowd to the Capitol.

But his security detail I felt that he shouldn't be doing that. This man, Tony Ornato, says that he had always planned to retire now. Do you think that it was Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony that changed the equation somehow?

STRZOK: Well I'm not sure what drove his specific date for retirement.

Clearly, he's eligible to retire. So he is. I think what I'm going to be looking for is, there were all these statements immediately following Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony from named and unnamed people in and around the Secret Service that somehow were trying to cast aspersions or doubt about her testimony. And people, again, unnamed folks saying, well, they look forward to testifying, they look forward to filling in and correcting the record.

Well, we haven't seen that. And, clearly, the January 6 Committee has indicated an interest. They have already spoken once to Mr. Ornato and expressed an interest to speak to him again. Now that he's soon to be a private citizen, if he's not already, I'm very interested to see if he does return to the committee, if he doesn't, whether or not the committee decides to issue him a subpoena, and what plays out from that.

[14:15:17]

But I don't think we have heard the last in terms of the interaction between the committee and Mr. Ornato. And I think there's some potentially very interesting information to come.

BLACKWELL: All right, that filing deadline, the 40 pages potentially coming from DOJ, today.

Peter Strzok, Elie Honig, thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: Now to this. There's a water crisis in Mississippi. Thousands of residents in Jackson have no running water today. We're going to speak to one about how he and his family are coping.

BLACKWELL: Plus, President Biden is sharpening his midterm message. Next hour in Pennsylvania, he is set to unveil his plan to invest in

police forces nationwide.

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[14:20:15]

CAMEROTA: Americans growing more confident in the direction that the U.S. economy is going this month. The uptick comes after three months of decline. Consumers' assessment of the job market also improved.

CNN business reporter Matt Egan is with us now.

Matt, I saw the numbers. Don't really understand what they mean.

CAMEROTA: They're in the right direction.

BLACKWELL: But explain to us. Green arrow. All good.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Exactly.

Some of the gloom and doom that we have seen on Main Street seems to be fading just the bit. Consumer confidence is still low, but it has gone up. The Conference Board found that more people are ramping up their plans to make purchases. That includes a jump in the number of consumers who are planning to take a vacation.

About 19 percent of consumers say the current business conditions are good. That's up from 16 percent in July. All this is a big deal because consumer spending is the main engine of this economy. And if it breaks down, all bets are off.

Now, no coincidence that this rebound in consumer confidence is happening at a time when there are signs that maybe the worst of this inflation crisis is behind us, including, of course, gas prices, right? The national average for gas is down 77 days in a row. In mid- June, a gallon of regular was costing over $5 nationally. It's now $3.84, not cheap, but certainly a big improvement.

I do think it's a little too early to say that there's a clean bill of health for consumers, because if you look at their short-term outlook on income, business and jobs, it remains pretty low. And the Conference Board says that that means that there is still a risk of recession.

CAMEROTA: Tell us about this unexpected surge in job openings last month. That sounds like a good thing. But we don't have enough workers, right?

EGAN: That's right.

I think this is one of those good news/bad news situations. We just learned that the number of job openings in July rose unexpectedly to 11.2 million. For context, that's about 60 percent higher than pre- COVID. It is also not that far from the record high in March of 11.9 million. Another way to think about it is, there's two available jobs for every

worker. If you're unemployed, you're trying to get a better job, that is great news, right? It shows that you have got numbers on your side. You have some leverage.

But when it comes to dealing with the biggest problem in this economy, which is inflation, this is not good news. It's actually exactly the opposite of what the Federal Reserve wants. They want to try to cool off this economy, try to fix this imbalance between the supply of workers and the demand of workers, because they're worried that if there's too much demand and not enough supply, it's going to fuel wages, and that's going to fuel inflation.

So today's report suggests that the Fed has some more work to do on that front.

BLACKWELL: Key report on housing prices out today. What does it tell us?

EGAN: Well, we have seen another sign that this housing market has started to slow down from really, really blockbuster levels.

It shows that home prices climbed by 18 percent year over year in June. Now, at any other point in the last few decades, that would be an incredible number, but this is actually a 13-month low for home price gains. And it's a slowdown from May, when we saw 20 percent gain.

Mostly, this is happening because home prices, they just got way too hot, unsustainably so. And then you had mortgage rates spike, and the higher borrowing costs go, the less home that people can afford.

Still some housing markets that are, of course, on fire, up 30 percent-plus gains year over year for Tampa and Miami, Dallas also going up big time. Goldman Sachs put out a report saying that they think this home price growth is going to slow down significantly. And, eventually, in 2023, there's going to be no home price growth .Prices are essentially going to be flat.

CAMEROTA: OK, Matt Egan, thanks so much.

EGAN: Thank you, guys.

CAMEROTA: A lot of information there.

BLACKWELL: President Biden is in Pennsylvania, where he will deliver remarks on gun safety next hour. His Safer America Plan includes more -- more funding for police and public safety, along with a renewed push for an assault weapons ban.

CAMEROTA: This is the first of three trips to the key swing state over the next week and his 13th trip there since taking office.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is there with the president in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

So, Arlette, what do we expect to hear today?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, Victor, President Biden will be speaking in just a short while talking about efforts to try to tackle gun crime and violent crime in this country, as Democrats are preparing their midterm campaign push.

Now, this is all part of President Biden's Safer America Plan which calls for hiring for 100,000 police officers over the course of the next five years, as well as includes billions of dollars in investments for community violence prevention programs and other initiatives.

The president is also looking to build off the momentum of that bipartisan gun reform bill that was passed earlier this summer. And he is expected to push and really renew his call for an assault weapons ban.

[14:25:02]

But this speech also offers the president a chance to president more of a contrast with Republicans and what he has come to calling an extreme MAGA agenda. That is something we have really heard the president lean into over the course of the past week.

And one argument officials say that the president is expected to make today is that Republicans can't say that they support law enforcement, while also calling for defunding the FBI or defending the rioters who were up on Capitol Hill on January 6.

Now, this speech is over a month in the making. The president was supposed to travel here to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in July, but then contracted COVID the day of that campaign event, so they had to call it off. But he is making an all-out push here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania over the course of the next week.

After his speech today, on Thursday, he will be in Philadelphia, where he is set to renew and reprise his campaign theme of talking about battling for the soul of the nation. On Monday, he is traveling to Pittsburgh for Labor Day events there.

There are, of course, very hotly contested races for both the Senate seat and the governor's mansion here in Pennsylvania. And this is also a state that has personal significance to Biden. He was born just a short ways from here in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And it's also been the center of so much of his campaigning for president and his work over the past years.

BLACKWELL: Arlette Saenz there.

And, of course, we will bring the president's remarks to you live.

Arlette, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: There is a crisis in Mississippi's capital of Jackson, where thousands of residents are living without drinkable water today. We're going to hear from a lawmaker who represents one of the districts that is hardest hit next.

BLACKWELL: And Hall of Famer and Jackson State football coach Deion Sanders talks about how his football program has been impacted by this water crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEION SANDERS, JACKSON STATE HEAD FOOTBALL COACH: We don't have air conditioning. We can't use toilets. We don't have water. Therefore, we don't have ice, which pretty much places a burden on the program.

So, right now, we're operating in crisis mode. I got to get these kids off-campus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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