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Biden Sends Stark Warning Over Putin's Nuclear Talks; Dozens of Children Among 36 Killed at Nursery School; Herschel Walker Controversy; Closer Look at the Decisions of Judge Aileen Cannon; Republican Herschel Walker Embroiled in Abortion Scandal. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired October 07, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Putin has failed in every strategic, operational and tactical objective he has set for himself over the last seven months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I didn't expect he would also kill the kids, she says, describing how he repeatedly used a knife to kill the children and a pregnant teacher.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not deterred. I'm not scared and I'm not going to back down. The stakes are way, way too high.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think every Republican knew there was baggage out there. But the weight of that baggage is starting to feel a little closer to unbearable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.

FOSTER: It's Friday, October 7th, 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States where we start in New York.

And that's where U.S. President Joe Biden gave a stark warning about nuclear talk coming out of Russia. President Vladimir Putin recently hinted that using nuclear weapons is not off the table. The statement came after the military racked up losses in Ukraine. But Wednesday night Mr. Biden responded to that threat saying there's no such thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up in Armageddon. After the speech U.S. officials made it clear they did not see any change in Russia's nuclear posture. As Phil Mattingly explains, Mr. Biden's statement caught even some U.S. officials by surprise.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: For the White House there have been months where they have warned of the potential for escalation that could reach the degree of the nuclear weapons by President Vladimir Putin. President Vladimir Putin has obviously warned of it himself, saber-rattling as recently as Friday. His speech announcing the annexation -- the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories.

But never has President Biden or anybody on his team been as vivid, as blunt, as jarring as the president himself was at a fundraiser in New York. Warning of the potential for Armageddon making very clear that in his mind there has been no comparison since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis where there's been such a direct threat of nuclear war that world is now confronting.

It was a sharp departure from what has been a very steady warning system that the administration has put in place across the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House podium over the course of the last several months. They have made clear that saber-rattling is dangerous but they have also made clear that they have not seen any indication President Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons, has move in that direction. The U.S. has not shifted its posture. None of those things has changed in the last 24 hours. It's something that caught some U.S. officials by surprise when they saw the president's comments.

But the warning is real and the threat is very acute. Administration officials do acknowledge that even if in a less blunt way. And in the wake of Putin's speech just six, seven days ago regarding the annexation it has caused administration officials from the president on down, sources tell me, to really grapple with this moment, a moment where Putin's army is flailing, failing to some degree. Suffering major losses, achieving none of the goals Putin has laid out. Backing Putin into a corner.

Even Biden himself said one of the concerns that the administration has is they don't know what the off ramp is with Putin. They don't know what will get him to the negotiating table. Something the administration officials have repeatedly said, they're looking for signs that they want to move towards. That, President Putin cornered, his penchant for escalation and the realities of this moment are real and so is the threat. That more than anything else, officials tell me, was what the president was trying to convey, even if it was in blunt and very unsettling terms.

One thing the president made particularly clear, the idea that Russians are using a tactical nuclear weapon, a smaller scale strike, is not a half measure in his mind. He said regardless of the scale, the end game would be the same -- Armageddon. Something the administration would be dealing with, grappling with and facing, not just tomorrow or the next day but for months ahead.

Phil Mattingly, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FOSTER: A CNN military analyst Gen. Mark Hertling suggested Mr. Biden

may have a point. He spoke with us earlier.

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[04:05:00]

LT. GEN MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: A lot of people have been concerned about this from the very beginning of this conflict. Let me tell you, the last time I observed a Russian exercise in Moscow, outside of Moscow, they have a tendency in their exercise, their training events to always end their training events with a nuclear index, end of exercise. It's something they practice and it's something they're very comfortable with. Now, they've never used them for real other than in tests. So, this is something -- and I think it's why the Biden administration rightfully so in my view has had this concern in the back of their minds since the beginning of this conflict.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Do stay with CNN for more on the developments on the ground in Ukraine, including the deadly aftermath of Russia's missile strike in the city of Zaporizhzhia. Now that's coming up in half an hour here.

Now President Biden has taken his first major steps towards decriminalizing marijuana, meanwhile. On Thursday Mr. Biden announced he would pardon thousands of people convicted federally of marijuana possession. Mr. Biden also ordered a review of the scheduling of marijuana. That could lead to potentially easing of federal declassification that puts marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana. It's already legal in many states. And criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, to housing, and educational opportunities. And that's before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences.

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FOSTER: Well, the pardons came just weeks before voters head to the polls in the mid-term elections. As part of the announcement Mr. Biden also encouraged governors to take similar steps in their states.

Analysts are predicting the U.S. economy added a quarter of a million jobs in September. We'll find out soon when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its monthly report. It's a bit of a catch 22 as the U.S. Federal Reserve is trying to fight inflation by raising interest rates but higher unemployment may be the cost. Job growth slowed in August with 315,000 new positions added. The U.S. has been averaging more than half a million new jobs a month. The unemployment rate is starting to tick back up after huge decline from pandemic highs. The federal reserve projects it could hit 4.4 percent by the end of the year. Chairman Jerome Powell and company are widely expected to hike interest rates yet again in November.

On Thursday we'll -- we learned that weekly jobless claims rose again 219,000 Americans filed first-time unemployment claims last week. That's 29,000 more than the previous week.

The closing bell couldn't come sooner for Wall Street as the markets fell into negative territory for the second straight day. The Dow drops nearly 350 points falling back below the 30,000 threshold. The Nasdaq was down 3/4 of 1 percent and the S&P fell 1 percent. The U.S. futures could give us an idea of how the markets will fare when trading begins in just a few hours it is pretty negative as you can see. The U.S. economy has been flashing warning signs for months and that has one financial expert concerned. Take a listen to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

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LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: I think it's more likely than not sometime in the next year or 18 months we will have a recession. I think that's a consequence of the excesses that the economy has been through and historical experience suggests that the kind of inflation we have rarely returns to normal levels, to target levels of around 2 percent without some kind of recession. Now I don't think that means we're going to have something like we had after COVID or something like we had during the financial crisis.

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FOSTER: We have new details now on the horrific massacre at a daycare center in Thailand. At least 36 people were killed including two dozen children when a former policeman armed with a knife and several guns forced his way inside. A local hospital says the youngest victim was just three years old, the oldest was 69. Police say most of the children had died from stab wounds.

Relatives are gathering at the site of the massacre to remember their loved ones. Members of the Thai military in all white laid a wreath outside the nursery and family members dressed in all black, placed white roses on the doorstep.

CNN's Blake Essig is following developments live this hour from Tokyo. And people are obviously struggling with what happened here. But the nature of how it happened as well, the use of a knife.

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BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, Max, an investigation is underway to try to figure out what motivated a man to carry out this violent attack. Believed to be Thailand's deadliest massacre ever carried out by a single person. At the same time, there's a sense of shock, sadness, profound disbelief felt throughout the community. Emotions that were on display today when relatives and mourners gathered outside of the nursery where 23 out of 24 kids inside the nursery at the time of the attack were killed. Heartbreaking number of victims that one of the teachers who survived

the massacre says could have been a lot worse. That's because on a normal day she says there are 70 to 80 kids at the nursery but because of heavy rains, along with the fact that many kids stayed home with older siblings who had a break from school. It likely saved dozens of lives.

While authorities and local residents still are trying to, again, piece together exactly what happened. Thailand's Criminal Investigation Bureau says that the attacker was a 34-year-old man armed with multiple guns and a knife who entered the nursery while kids were asleep. And police say that the attacker's 2-year-old stepson was enrolled in the childcare center that was attacked. Officials say 34-year-old went there looking for this child who wasn't there at the time and it was then that the attack started. And according to the police chief, most of the victims killed were stabbed.

One of the school's teachers said that she was eating lunch with co- workers when the attack started. She said as she heard what sounded like fireworks and described the moment that the attackers shot, kicked in the door before entering the nursery. She said what she saw next was horrifying. This man going through and essentially slashing the heads of these kids, these dead bodies over and over again.

And as for what else we know about the attacker, authorities have identified him as a former police officer who was fired and charged with a drug-related offense last year involving crystal meth and yabba-yabba. Of course, means crazy medicine in Thai It's a combination of meth and caffeine -- Max.

FOSTER: Blake, thank you.

Deny and deflect is a strategy that's worked for Donald Trump, but will it save Republican Herschel Walker's struggling Senate campaign? We'll have that.

Plus, the Florida federal judge at the center of Donald Trump's legal fight over classified documents, is she making sound judgments or not. We'll take a closer look at Judge Aileen Cannon in just a few moments.

[04:15:00]

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FOSTER: CNN has learned that indictments in the Georgia investigation into efforts by former President Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election could come as soon as December. Fulton County's district attorney says her team is gearing up to make moves after the November mid-term elections. The issue a January 2021 phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Take a listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, cause you know, this is -- it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it. So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.

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FOSTER: Trump is not the only person under investigation in the Georgia probe. It's not clear who could be indicted.

Now in the legal battle over classified documents between the Justice Department and Donald Trump, Justice Department officials are demanding to Trump's attorneys that he return all documents marked as classified that he may still have. In recent court filings officials pointed to empty envelopes with classified banners that were seized in the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago beach property in August. CNN's Jessica Schneider has more now on the judge presiding over this high profile legal battle.

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AILEEN CANNON, FEDERAL JUDICIAL NOMINEE: My sincere thanks to the President for the honor of his nomination.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Judge Cannon owes her nomination, to the federal bench, to Donald Trump. And now, she's front and center, in the former President's legal fight, siding with Trump's team, to grant a Special Master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, and decide what should be kept off limits, from federal investigators. A decision which is now being appealed and has been criticized.

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR: It's really a very pro- plaintiff, pro-Trump ruling, in all respects.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Not only by political pundits, but also three judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, two of them Trump appointees, who described Cannon's initial ruling pausing DOJ's review of documents marked "classified" untenable.

The Eleventh Circuit ultimately allowed the DOJ, to continue its probe, into the handling of classified material, while the Special Master reviewed thousands of other documents. Judge Cannon also ruled last week that Trump did not have to officially declare in court whether FBI agents planted items at Mar-a-Lago, something Trump and his allies have repeatedly said in public. The Special Master had requested Trump prove his claims. But Cannon stepped in and stopped it.

Judge Cannon has not responded to CNN's request for comment on her decisions. But when asked in 2020 during her confirmation if she had any discussions about loyalty to President Trump, she unequivocally wrote, "No."

SCHNEIDER: Do you think she has any bias toward Trump?

JASON MENDRO, FORMER COLLEAGUE: I don't think she has any bias at all.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jason Mendro worked with Cannon, while both practiced at Gibson Dunn, a decade ago.

MENDRO: We never talked about politics or judicial philosophy because it wasn't relevant to what we were doing. I still don't know anything about her politics today.

SCHNEIDER: So, she wasn't overtly political?

MENDRO: No.

[04:20:00]

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Aileen Cannon was working as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fort Pierce, Florida, when Senator Marco Rubio's office first reached out about a possible nomination to the federal bench in June 2019.

Senator Rubio, gave CNN, this statement, today.

Judge Cannon is a great judge who I am very proud to have enthusiastically supported. The attacks against her are just the latest example of hypocrisy from leftists and their media enablers, who believe the only time it is acceptable to attack a judge is if that judge rules against what they want.

Rubio isn't the only Florida Republican Cannon is linked to. She met with counsel for Republican Senator Rick Scott just before she was nominated.

CANNON: My sincere thanks though go to my home State Senator.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): And records show she donated $100 to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in 2018.

She's been a judge for less than two years. But she told senators her judicial philosophy would be to follow the text and the history of the Constitution. And she shared her personal story to stress her respect for the rule of law, talking about how her mother fled Communist Cuba.

CANNON: At the age of 7, had to flee the repressive Castro regime in search of freedom and security. Thank you for teaching me about the blessings that this country and for giving -- and the importance of securing the rule of law for generations to come.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

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FOSTER: Now yet another Congressional Republican who voted to impeach Trump is leaving office. U.S. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska planned to resign by year's end to become the president of the University of Florida according to a source according to a source familiar with the situation. The move is a surprise since Sasse was just reelected two years ago but he's made little secret of his frustration with the changing nature of the Republican Party. Sasse's resignation will not change the balance of power in the Senate. The Nebraska governor will appoint a temporary Republican replacement.

Georgia's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate is quadrupling down on his denials after he was accused of paying for an abortion. But the uproar isn't going away. With "The Daily Beast" reporting new details about the woman behind the allegations. Herschel Walker who insists he opposes abortion with no exceptions, is a key player in Republicans' hopes to retaking the Senate. But CNN's Eva McKend explains he is locked in a tight race in the scandal just isn't helping.

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HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: You don't quit. You keep going. You keep getting up.

EVA MCKEND, CNN U.S. POLITICS REPORTER (voice-over): A defiant Herschel Walker on day four of rebutting allegations that have rocked his campaign for Senate.

WALKER: I'm not deterred. I'm not scared. And I'm not going to back down. The stakes are way, way too high.

MCKEND (voice-over): Taking the stage Thursday at an event in Wadley, Georgia, the candidate made no mention of the latest development from "The Daily Beast," but once again faced questions about the report he paid for his then girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009. And the new reporting that the woman says she is the mother of one of his children according to the site.

WALKER: This here, the abortion thing is false. It's a lie.

MCKEND (voice-over): CNN has not independently verified the allegations reported by "The Daily Beast." Earlier today Walker appeared on a conservative radio program to defend himself.

WALKER: if that happened, I would have said it. Because there's nothing to be ashamed of their.

CHRISTIAN WALKER, HERSCHEL WALKER'S SON: I'm done. Don't lie.

MCKEND (voice-over): Walker also asked about his son Christian's comments earlier this week calling his father a liar and making a series of accusations against him.

WALKER: I'll always love him no matter what my son says.

MCKEND (voice-over): With a little over a month until the midterms and locked in a tight race against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, Republicans facing questions about Walker's path to victory after the latest revelations.

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): I think every Republican knew that there was baggage out there and -- but the weight of that baggage is starting to feel a little closer to unbearable at this point.

MCKEND (voice-over): The former NFL star brushing aside those concerns.

WALKER: People told me I couldn't play football. So, do you want me to listen to someone like that? I'm here to win the seat for the Georgia people. Because the Georgia people need a winner.

TRUMP: So, Herschel please say a few words.

MCKEND (voice-over): Walker allies say they want to see him give a more Trumpian response to the allegations. Many supporters say they simply believe him.

ROB HOLLEY, GEORGIA VOTER: I take Herschel for his word. If he says that it didn't happen, I believe it didn't happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe Herschel and I do not believe he's lying.

MCKEND (voice-over): Meanwhile, the Warnock campaign up with a new TV ad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New details tonight about accusations that continue to follow Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

MCKEND (voice-over): Part of a sustained effort by Democrats to highlight Walker's turbulent past even as they avoid focusing on the latest allegations.

MCKEND: At least publicly the Walker campaign really maintaining confidence suggesting this entire episode has been a fundraising boost. The next big test for them though, a crucial debate between Walker and Senator Warnock next week in Savannah, Georgia.

Eva McKend, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:25:00]

FOSTER: The death toll will keep climbing following the Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia. That story just ahead along with other developments in Ukraine.

Plus, the U.S. and South Korea begin yet another round of strategic Naval drills in response to North Korea's latest provocations. We'll get the latest from Seoul just ahead.

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FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date on the latest stories this hour.

Thailand's King and Queen are set to visit a hospital in the coming hours to meet with victims and family members of Thursday's massacre at a nursery school. Dozens of children were amongst the 36 people killed. U.S. President Joe Biden issued a startling warning about the danger

of nuclear threats from Vladimir Putin saying the world could, quote, face Armageddon if Mr. Putin uses a tactical weapon trying to win Russia's war on Ukraine.

Now the U.N. nuclear watchdog is not giving a nod to Russia's claims on Europe's largest nuclear plant. The agencies had Rafael Grossi said the Zaporizhzhia plant is still considered a Ukrainian facility despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent decree that claims otherwise.

Ukraine says its forces have liberated 120 settlements in the northeast and south over the past two weeks while more European military aid will soon be heading Ukraine's way. According to the French President, it will include this type of howitzer made by his country. Salma Abdelaziz is keeping an eye on Ukraine developments for us. She joins me now with the very latest. First on that nuclear plant, it's worrying to think that two different countries own it when it's so sensitive.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a flash point since the beginning of the conflict but matters have really escalated.