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Russia's Strikes on Ukraine; Managing the Flow of Venezuelan Migrants; Former Texas Officer Charged in Shooting; Fetterman Uses Closed Captioning to Understand Conversations. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 12, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:37]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is vowing to support Ukraine for the months and even years to come following a meeting with the Ukraine defense contract group in Brussels this morning. This after at least seven people were killed and several others injured as Russia launched a third day of heavy strikes across Ukraine overnight.

Joining me now is CNN military analyst Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He previously served as commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army in Europe.

Always great to see you, especially on this topic.

Let's talk about what we've seen launched by Russia over the past few days because it's the largest barrage we've seen and attack into the heartland of Ukraine since the start of this war. I'm just curious how long, in your opinion, this barrage, at this scale at least, can continue.

We had Admiral Kirby on our air say yesterday that the U.S. believes that Russia's stockpile, at least of precision guided missiles, is running short. What do you make of that?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I agree with Admiral Kirby.

Bianna, good morning to you. It's good to see you.

One of the things that I think is interesting is, that one-day strike, with 84 missiles and about 24 drones, was the most that Russia has produced in a long time. That was on Monday. On Tuesday that was drastically reduced. In addition to that, Ukraine had been able to shoot down, they claim, about half of those cruise missiles and other type of missiles that were coming into their area of operation.

But the interesting factor about this is this was a scatter shot. And it's more of the same from Russia. They launched rockets and missiles at all parts of the Ukrainian territory. And, truthfully, I think that the combination of sanctions, the failure in their weapon systems, intelligence indicates about 60 percent of Russian missile systems have failed in either launch or in guidance, and the attempt at trying to ramp this up for one or two days is just going to hurt them more than help them. And none of those rockets and missiles were geared against military targets. So, it's just, again, more of the same from Russia. He -- Mr. Putin's a one-trick pony trying to intimidate the civilians of Ukraine.

GOLODRYGA: Though with fewer precision-guided missiles and more dumb bombs, as they are called back from the Soviet days. You could see more civilians being targeted if this barrage does continue.

And kudos, we have to say, to the Ukrainians for at least intercepting half of them, or nearly half of them. But you know President Zelenskyy's ask and plea all of this time is for more air defense systems, more sophisticated air defense systems, because now he's having to protect both civilians in major cities and those forces on the battlefield.

What can the U.S. do more that it's not doing right now in your view?

HERTLING: Well, we're certainly -- the U.S. and NATO forces are certainly supplying Ukraine with a lot more air defense systems. But, Bianna, you know, the -- President Zelenskyy -- and I'm a huge supporter of the man and great supporter of Ukraine, as you know, but his use of the term "shield," "missile shield" yesterday was really unfortunate. There is no country in the world that can provide a "missile shield" against incoming rounds like that. And it's an understanding of how air defense work. They are static. They are stable. They are on a certain point of the battlefield and they protect specific systems.

[09:35:04]

What you saw in the shot earlier, and you had this on your map, the missiles went everywhere throughout Ukraine. A country that is the size of the state of Texas. In order to defend against all of those incoming missiles which, by the way, are coming from various directions and from various types of launch systems, air, sea and ground, it's very difficult to get in a position and have high technology systems provide a shield. You just can't do it. It's impossible to do. Even advanced nations really protect certain things with their air defense systems.

GOLODRYGA: And we are, and the U.S. has promised and pledged, to provide two more systems over the next month and perhaps six into next year. Germany pledged to provide three next year.

Is there anything, though, that can be done, are you concerned at all about the timing, that there's a delay, if for no other reason than production issues in getting them all of this sophisticated equipment that they need?

HERTLING: Well, it's a combination of production issues Some of those things were not on the pipelines. Most of them are very difficult to make because they are precision-made weapons. They are technologically advanced. And while Ukraine is a very good army, it takes a lot of training to learn how to use these very advanced air defense systems. They are much more comfortable using the old Soviet S-300, S-400s if some of our NATO nations, that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, could give them to them.

You're showing an a HIMARS rocket system. That doesn't do a whole lot of good against intercepting in-bound missiles. What it does do is attack ground supplies, the so-called ammo dumps that Russia has been establishing. And Ukraine has been brilliant in using that HIMARS systems to do that.

But what really you're looking for in air defense systems are like the S-300, S-400s, the NASAMS, which President Biden said yesterday we are giving to Ukraine, the Irish Ts (ph) that other countries are giving to Ukraine, those can be incorporated very quickly, but those are also short to mid-range rocket systems. They're not the long-range rocket systems that are even more advanced, more difficult to use, more difficult to train upon.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, those NASAMS, at least two of them, should be arriving in the next few weeks from the United States.

Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thank you, as always. We appreciate your time.

HERTLING: Always a pleasure, Bianna. Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the Biden administration is now weighing a new plan to better manage the flow of Venezuelan migrants into the United States that mirrors a program actually implemented for Ukrainians fleeing to the U.S. earlier this year. Sources telling CNN that the idea is to encourage Venezuelans to enter the U.S. at ports of entry rather than trying to cross the southern border illegally.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins me now from Washington.

So, Priscilla, what more are you learning about this plan?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN IMMIGRATION POLITICS AND POLICY REPORTER: Well, Bianna, ultimately the idea here is to reduce the number of unlawful crossings, especially Venezuelans, where there has been an influx of them coming to the U.S./Mexico border. And sources tell me that this plan under consideration would have Venezuelans apply to come to the U.S., they have to show they have a preexisting tie here as well as meet other criteria, and then they would be able to fly into the U.S. and enter through, say, a U.S. port of entry like an airport.

Now, this is very similar to what the administration did for Ukrainians fleeing war torn Ukraine. They also were able to apply and come -- and fly into the United States to live and work legally for a temporary period.

But this is all especially urgent because there are more than 6 million Venezuelans who have fled the country because of deteriorating conditions there. They are moving about South America, and many have come to the U.S./Mexico border as conditions in South America have been deteriorated because of the pandemic.

To give you a point of comparison, this past August, 55,333 Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans crossed the U.S./Mexico border. That's up 175 percent from August of 2021. So, it is a shift in demographics that the administration is dealing with here.

And the other part of this plan that we should note is that Mexico seems willing to take Venezuelans under Title 42. That is an authority that allows officials to turn migrants away. Again, we're waiting for details to be finalized.

Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: And you'll be following those details for us.

Priscilla Alvarez, thank you.

And still ahead, a San Antonio officer now charged in the dramatic encounter at a McDonald's parking lot that resulted in a 17-year-old on life support. We're live in Texas with the very latest.

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[09:44:24]

GOLODRYGA: Authorities in Texas have charged a now former police officer in the shooting of an unarmed teenager. Police body camera shows then Officer James Brennand walk up to a car and order 17-year- old Erik Cantu out. The visibly startled teen put the car in reverse and was backing out when Brennand opened fire. His family says Cantu is now on life support.

CNN's Ed Lavandera joins me from Dallas with the very latest.

And what do we know, Ed, about these charges?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant. That is one count for 17-year-old Erik Cantu, who was hit multiple times.

[09:45:03]

His family says that several bullets struck major organs, and because of that he remains on life support and sedated, in critical condition. The police chief says he is in critical but stable condition. And the second count of aggravated assault by a public servant is for the female passenger that was in the car sitting next to Erik Cantu when those shots were fired at the car last -- on October 2nd, which was a couple Sunday nights ago, just before 11:00 at night.

The police chief says this is a case of one bad officer, not a problem with the systemic wide training in the police department.

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CHIEF WILLIAM MCMANUS, San ANTONIO POLICE: Someone questioned our training and our policies. And my response was that this was a -- was a failure for one individual police officer. It had nothing to do with our policies. Policies did not allow that. Our training did not - does not teach that. So, this was a fail for one particular police officer, and here we are as a result of that fail.

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LAVANDERA: Officer James Brennand had only been on the force about seven months. He was still on a probationary period. He had graduated from the police academy seven months ago and joined the force there.

But what is interesting is that he was fired three days after the shooting, but initially it was 17-year-old Erik Cantu that faced several criminal charges. Those charges, Bianna, have since been dropped.

GOLODRYGA: Erik Cantu, as we said, on life support right now. We are wishing him a speedy recovery.

Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

Well, right now the jury charged with deliberating the sentencing for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz is receiving instructions in that Florida courtroom. Jurors are deciding whether to recommend Cruz spend the rest of his life in prison or receive the death penalty. Defense attorneys say Cruz is a broken person who should not die for his crimes. Prosecutors argued Cruz wanted to kill and deserves the death penalty. Cruz pleaded guilty to killing 14 students and three adults in 2018.

And still ahead, Democratic Senate Candidate John Fetterman reveals he uses closed captions to understand people following his stroke in May. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next to discuss the trajectory for recovering from a stroke.

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[09:51:48]

GOLODRYGA: A new interview reveals Pennsylvania Senate Candidate John Fetterman uses closed captioning to understand people in conversations. He suffered a stroke in May, which left him with lingers symptoms. Fetterman and his campaign insists that his auditory processing issues are part of the recovery process and will improve with time.

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LT. GOV. JOHN FETTERMAN (D), PENNSYLVANIA SENATE CANDIDATE: As long as I have captioning, I'm able to understand exactly what's being asked. But even after the stroke, immediately after that, I was able to read everything. And I haven't lost any memories or anything like that. It's just really the lingering issue that I have.

I feel like we have been very transparent in a lot of different ways. When -- our doctor has already given a letter saying that I'm able to serve and to - to be running.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, respectfully, that letter from your physician, that was six months ago. Don't voters deserve to know your status now?

FETTERMAN: Being on -- in front of thousands and thousands of people, and having interviews, and getting around all across Pennsylvania, that gives everybody and the voters to decide, you know, if they think that it's -- that's really the issue.

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GOLODRYGA: I want to bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to discuss.

Sanjay, it really was something to see that camera behind Fetterman where you could actually see the closed captioning that he was reading.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: What are the impressions that you're seeing from this?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting, Bianna, when we talk about speech, we typically talk about your ability to express yourself through spoken and written word, but also to receive speech, reception of speech through spoken and written word. Listening to him, he sounded like he was fairly fluent in his speech, able to speak pretty clearly. Every now and then he would have a little work sort of mashup as he calls it.

But what's interesting - let me show you here something. The stroke, which was on May 13th, so about five months ago, seemed to affect his ability to sort of comprehend or understand spoken speech. So what he seems to be doing then is then sort of relying more on his visual part of his brain, which is back here, to read the words. And then he's responding pretty quickly.

So, you know, we don't -- as you heard there, we don't know what his medical records show. We don't know how much this affected him immediately after his stroke, so what his recovery has looked like so far, but that is sort of what we're seeing here, and that's not that unusual in someone who's had a stroke that affects that part of the brain. As he sort of indicated, intimated as well, you can - you can have recovery. Recovery can go for some time, certainly. But six months, 18 months, you know, whatever the time period may be, people may continue to have improvements.

GOLODRYGA: And it's been five months since his stroke. So, from what you've just seen, and, obviously you're not his physician or don't know him personally and his medical records, but does he appear to be on some sort of path to recovery? What does recovery look like for someone who's experienced what he has?

GUPTA: Yes. Yes, I mean, you know, we, again, we're at a bit of a disadvantage because we don't have those medical records so we don't know sort of what he was like immediately after this stroke. It sounds like it was a pretty serious event, meaning that there was a blockage of blood flow to some of the blood vessels to his brain.

[09:55:05]

That blockage had to be sort of removed through a procedure at that time five months ago. So, serious stroke. But, yes, recovery is possible certainly. We see that. In fact, there's a scale that sometimes neurologists will use. It's called a Rankin Scale, modified Rankin Scale. It gives you an idea of where people are.

Physically he seems to be doing fine. But in terms of his speech, somewhere between a two and a three there on that scale. But the - but the -- again, the idea is that people who are - who are recovering six months, you know, which would, you know, sort of be another month from now, roughly, you should start to see a significant amount of recovery. And then it can continue that recovery for around 18 months.

It's, again, hard to say here because we're at a disadvantage sort of knowing the trajectory of his recovery overall. But as a general rule, Bianna, the quicker someone recovers, the better their overall outcome will be. So, serious event, it sounds like, but, yes, a significant recovery possible.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, Fetterman says that he is recovering over the course of these past few months.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you for explaining all of it to us. We appreciate it.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: And still ahead, President Biden spoke at the White House just moments ago. Stay with us. We'll bring you what he said.

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