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Biden Promises Abortion Rights Law As Democrats To Rally Voters; Zelenskyy: 30 Percent Of Ukraine's Power Stations Destroyed After Russia Intensified Assault; Ukraine Intel Agency, Russian Missile Supply Critical Low. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 18, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Good afternoon, I'm Erica Hill. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell, good to be with you.

Three weeks now before the midterm elections decide who controls Congress. And today President Biden is putting abortion rights front and center for voters. This afternoon, the president promised to make Roe v. Wade, the law of the land if Democrats remain in power.

HILL: Vowing to send Congress a bill to codify Roe and guarantee a federal right to abortion. Now the president is betting big here that a woman's right to choose will galvanize voters enough to keep Democrats control of the House and the Senate.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you care about the right to choose, then you got to vote. That's why these midterm elections are so critical, elect more Democratic senators to the United States Senate and more Democrats to keep control of the House of Representatives. And folks, if we do that, here's the promise I make to you and the American people. The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade. And when Congress passes it, I'll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe has first decided the law of the land.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: CNN's Phil Mattingly is at the White House this afternoon. So, Phil, what's behind this strategy here of making abortion a major focus of the midterms? But we know the polling shows that at this point, it's not the booths that it was a few weeks ago for Democrats.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly the strategy behind the event today. Look, the president can make as many legislative promises -- prospective legislative promises as he wants. The reality is the number is on Capitol Hill, and it's the lawmakers to decide bills that are introduced and bills that passed. What this event was and you could tell by the signs, by what people were holding up the fact that was a Democratic National Committee event, was an effort to reassert this issue as a significant component of this primary election.

And that is something that Democrats have seen wane over the course of the last couple of weeks. And that's brought some concern. In fact, you could almost hear implicitly in the president's remarks that very fact. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I want to remind us all how we felt that day when 50 years of constitutional precedent was overturned. The unbelievable fact that for the first time in our history, the Supreme Court didn't just fail to preserve a constitutional freedom, it actually took away the right that was so fundamental to America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Guys, twice, the president called on voters to remember the day that the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Again, an implicit acknowledgment that they feel at the White House and Democratic officials gender that I've spoken to that some of the energy is weighed, and that energy was very real. Democratic officials viewed overperformance in special elections in Minnesota, in Nebraska, a victory in New York, obviously, the ballot measure in Kansas that was decisively rejected in a ruby red state as clear signals that this was a salient issue that could play.

Obviously, the economy has become a major issue and it's sustained as such. First, we'll be talking about that tomorrow as well, but a clear effort today to reassert abortion rights as a significant factor with just three weeks to go until the votes are counted, guys.

BLACKWELL: All right, Phil Mattingly, thank you.

HILL: Well, as Democrats battled to keep control of the Senate, the economy and inflation do remain top of mind for voters.

BLACKWELL: Last night, candidates across the country faced off in pretty heated debates to make the final pitch to voters. We're already seeing record early turnout in Georgia. More than 131,000 people cast their ballot on Monday alone. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker are holding events across the state today. CNN's Eva McKend is in Atlanta following the key Senate race and the race for governor as well. What's going on there?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Abrams, in just about two hours is going to kick off her bus tour here in the Atlanta region, Governor Kemp about three hours away from the Atlanta region making his appeal to farmers. But last night at that debate, Kemp and Abrams largely revisited familiar themes. Kemp argues that he has led on the economy and that he is well-positioned to continue to lead Georgians through inflation. Meanwhile, Abrams, a champion for Medicaid expansion reinstituting free Technical College, she has long argued that Kemp's position on guns and abortion, are too extreme for Georgia.

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GOV. BRIAN KEMP, (R-GA): There's a federal background check on every individual that buys a firearm in the United States of America so --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which should exist either?

STACEY ABRAMS, DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, GEORGIA: That's not true. That is not true.

KEMP: Well, the point -- I understand --

ABRAMS: Mr. Kemp, that's not true.

KEMP: I understand the point you're making. But the point is, when you buy a firearm, you get a background check. None of the --

ABRAMS: Mr. Kemp --

KEMP: None of the laws changed.

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: Mr. Kemp, if you bury -- purchase a weapon in Georgia through a gun sale or a private sale --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Candidates, we have to move on.

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[14:05:26]

MCKEND: And, Victor, as you mentioned more than 131,000 Georgians casted their ballot yesterday during the first day of early voting in this state. Compared to 2018, that was around 70,000. So we are seeing a lot of enthusiasm here on the ground. People are voting in big numbers.

If you're wondering why we're standing in this parking lot here in Atlanta, it is because Herschel Walker is going to hold a rally here in just about an hour. We are also tracking that key Senate contest between the former NFL star and Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, Victor.

HILL: All right, Eva, we'll take it. Thank you. I want to look now at Ohio where Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance faced off for the second time last night. CNN's Omar Jimenez is with us. What were some of the key takeaways there, Omar?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, for starters, it was contentious for the second time in as many debates here, Tim Ryan and JD Vance. Now it also felt personal at times Vance was criticizing Tim Ryan for sucking up to Nancy Pelosi, Tim Ryan was criticizing Vance for sucking up to Trump. Now, Tim Ryan has an ad where he -- an ad about disagreement where he jokes about only agreeing with his wife 70 percent of the time. And Vance jumped on that to make a point.

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J.D. VANCE, REPUBLICAN SENATE CANDIDATE, OHIO: It's actually a pretty funny TV commercial, Tim.

TIM RYAN, DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE, OHIO: Thank you.

VANCE: Congrats to you, Tim.

RYAN: Thank you.

VANCE: Where he says that he only agrees with his own wife 70 percent of the time, yet he votes and agrees with Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time. Let's make things a little awkward in the Ryan household.

RYAN: You were calling Trump, America's Hitler. Then you kiss his ass.

VANCE: It's not true.

RYAN: It is true. And then you kissed his ass. And then he endorsed you. And you said he's the greatest president of all time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And that's how a lot of the debate went. Among one of the most heated moments was when the two begin discussing the so-called White replacement theory that white people are being replaced intentionally by minorities and immigrants. And Ryan said that Vance is hanging around with people who support those types of things. And Vance took exception to that, saying it's hits like that, that open up attacks toward his biracial children both online and in person. We'll see if any of this makes a difference three weeks to Election Day now, Victor and Erica.

BLACKWELL: Omar Jimenez for us, thank you, Omar.

Let's go to Utah now. Independent Evan McMullin is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Mike Lee. CNN's Dan Merica is following this race for us, and post-2020 election, big focus of the debate last night.

DAN MERICA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, this is a unique race beyond just the fact that the Democrats didn't run a candidate and that Evan McMullin is sort of trying to bring together Democrats and Utah independents and a number of those kinds of anti-Trump Republicans.

It's worth noting, yes, Donald Trump won Utah twice in 2016, in 2020, but he had a much lower vote share in that state than any other -- than many past Republican presidents. Part of that is an antipathy towards Trump among Republicans in Utah. And that is why Evan McMullin has focused so much of his attention on Mike Lee, and the 2020 election. Take a listen to how he framed that in the debate last night.

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EVAN MCMULLIN, INDEPENDENT SENATE CANDIDATE, UTAH: Senator Lee, it is a betrayal of the American republic. You were there to stand up for our Congress -- for our Constitution. But when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in.

SEN. MIKE LEE, (R-UT): There is absolutely nothing to the idea that I would have ever supported -- ever did support a fake electors plot? Yes, there were people who behaved very badly on that day. I was not one of them. I was one of the people trying to dismantle this situation.

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MERICA: Now, the center of McMullin's attacks really were reporting that CNN had done earlier in the year about a text that leads sent to then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows kind of cheering on some of the efforts around the 2020 election. Now, will this matter is an open question. Utah is a difficult state for Democrats and independents even to ever win in, the last time the state elected a Democratic Senator was in 1970. Actually, were lost re-election in 1970. So, this is a long shot for any party outside of the Republican Party to win in Utah. And we'll obviously keep tracking to see whether that's even a shot with three weeks ago until Election Day.

HILL: We will keep watching. Dan Merica, appreciate it. Thanks.

BLACKWELL: All right, joining me now is Kate Bedingfield, the White House Communications Director. Kate, good to see you again.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS: Nice to see you too. Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: All right. So, let's start here where the president is today discussing abortion rights saying that his first bill is going to send over to Congress will be to codify Roe.

[14:10:02]

Now, the latest polls we see show that abortion rights are not at the top of voters' priority list. 44 percent in the new New York Times Siena College poll shows that they say that the economy, inflation are the most important problem facing the country, nothing else hits double digits here, abortion at 5 percent. So why is Roe the first priority when Congress returns?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, remember, Victor, Roe was established law of the land for 50 years. It was precedent. It gave protections to women to make healthcare choices but also helps ensure a right to privacy. It has a massive impact on people's rights. And what we've seen is that Republican-elected officials across the country are trying to advance an effort to take those rights away.

And so, President Biden believes it's important to restore Roe to make -- once again make Roe the law of the land. You heard him talk today in really stark terms about the impact this has had on women across the country who can't get access to medicine that they need, for example, if they're having a miscarriage because of some of these laws that have now gone into effect in states around the country since Roe was repealed. So this has a massive, massive impact on women, on men, on families across the country.

But it's also not the only thing he's talking about. Obviously, he is relentlessly focused on the economy. He's focused on bringing prices down. As he said last week, you're going to hear more from him this week on gas prices, which continue to fall and have come down $1.12 a gallon over the course of the last few months. So he continues to focus on all of the things that are significant in people's lives.

BLACKWELL: So, Ron Klain tweeted out -- White House Chief of Staff tweeted out that tomorrow, the president will be talking about gas prices. And our reporting is that the president is expected to announce the release of roughly 14 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, part of the 180 million barrels that he announced several months ago. That is, as one of our economic reporters says it's on the margin. So as OPEC cuts production, what is the total plan? What more can the president do?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I won't get ahead of specifically what the president will announce tomorrow. Let him do that. But you know, across the board, he has taken every effort to try to increase supply here in the United States to ensure that supply is meeting demand, and also to begin to wean us off -- for the long term to wean us off of dependence on foreign oil. You know, we are at the mercy of the fluctuation of the price of oil around the globe and long term for our country. We need to wean ourselves off of that. We need to be able to --

BLACKWELL: Is there a short-term plan?

BEDINGFIELD: So -- well, as he's -- as you've said, he made an announcement that we would release barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which we've done to increase the supply here in the United States. He has strongly encouraged the oil companies to continue to pump to increase. Ultimately, what we have to do in the short term is supply has to meet demand, so that price has continued to come down.

And what I would say, Victor, is we have seen them come down. We've seen them come down $1.12 a gallon over the last month, we're now at about 30 cents higher than we were when Putin invaded Ukraine back in February, which of course, had a dramatic impact on the price of oil, and was destabilizing an energy markets around the world. So, the president has taken steps that over the course of the spring, summer, and fall have brought gas prices down.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I will point out --

BEDINGFIELD: And he's continuing -- he's continuing to do that. And you'll hear more from him on that this week. BLACKWELL: I will point out that the gas prices are higher today than they were the last time you and I spoke back in late September. But we will await the president's announcement on his strategy to keep up --

BEDINGFIELD: But they've also fallen over -- I would just say quickly, they've also fallen over the last week. They --

BLACKWELL: OK.

BEDINGFIELD: They went up but they've also come back down over the last week.

BLACKWELL: We can agree that they're still high, though.

BEDINGFIELD: There's no question that they are too high and the president --

BLACKWELL: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: That's why the president's taking every step to bring them down. But we are seeing them come down across the country. I think there are 15 states now where the average is less than $3.50 a gallon.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: So, we're in seven states where it's less than $3.30 a gallon. So we're continuing to see it come down. The president is relentlessly focused on this. And again, I won't get ahead of what he will say but you'll hear more from him on this tomorrow.

BLACKWELL: OK, we'll stand by for that. Let me ask you about Brittney Griner. Today is her 32nd birthday. A senior Administration official tells CNN that the administration has had some communications with Russia about plans to release or some strategy to release Griner and Paul Whelan who are being held in Russia. What's the status of those talks?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, you can understand that the specifics of those negotiations, we can't really talk about publicly, I can't talk about publicly, those are conversations that necessarily have to be kept private, but certainly the president is focused on this. You know, he's spoken with Brittney Griner's wife, he's spoken with Paul Whelan's sister, he knows the personal impact. He understands how critically important it is to continue to move these processes forward. And as I say he's spoken personally with their families and is dedicated to doing everything he can to bring them and every American who is wrongfully detained around the world home.

[14:15:10]

BLACKWELL: You know we have certainly in the last administration focused on the previous president's visits to his properties, to Mar- a-Lago, to Bedminster. Our analysis shows in the last 21 months, President Biden has spent more than a quarter of his time in office at one of his homes in Delaware. Some are all of 174 days in Delaware, all to sum up of 64 days at Camp David. He's now outpacing former President Trump. Why?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, Delaware's home, Victor. He spent the entirety of his time in the United States Senate commuting home every night on the train to be home with his kids to be home with his family. So Delaware's home, it's where he's from. It's where he grew up. It's where his community is.

But I think, you know, as I'm sure everybody watching you right now knows, the President of the United States works wherever he is. Wherever he goes, he is always working. And I think you know, he has always been Delaware's first and foremost in his heart, and he's always going to go home, but that doesn't mean he's not working. Of course, he is. Everywhere the president goes, he's always working.

BLACKWELL: Kate Bedingfield, thank you.

BEDINGFIELD: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

HILL: Russia launches a new series of attacks targeting energy facilities across Ukraine. President Zelenskyy says 30 percent of its power stations are now destroyed. We're live on the ground next.

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[14:20:48]

BLACKWELL: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that his country is suffering from another kind of attack in the war, Russians targeting energy and critical infrastructure. He tweeted that Russia's recent bombardments have destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine's power stations causing massive blackouts.

HILL: In Kyiv, the mayor said three people killed in the capitol today were employees of one of the critical infrastructure facilities attacked by the Russians. CNN's Nic Robertson joining us now live from Kyiv. So give us a sense, how were things in the capitol today? How are people coping not only of course, with these attacks, but with this added loss of power?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. And we were doing a live broadcast at the time of the strike. We didn't hear it where we are here but it took us off air because there was a big ripple effect as the power was hit across the whole city. Now, there are still parts of Kyiv here that the electricity is out, people -- some people don't have water, some people have low-pressure water.

The mayor of the city is asking people, turn off your lights, when you look around here, a lot of lights in this neighborhood are turned off in some of these office buildings, to telling people that they need to save electricity when they can because that will prevent the country sort of using rolling blackouts. But, to Zhytomyr to the west of here, Dnipro to the south and east, also power generating stations in there, those cities as well having blackouts in some areas, losses of -- losses of water in those areas.

What we're hearing from the power generating companies here and officials, they're saying, look, when it's power lines and small transformers that get hit, we can repair that fairly quickly, 48 hours. But the problem is the power stations in Ukraine were built at the same time by -- during the Soviet Union, as those built in Russia. The Russians know just where to hit the power stations to get to the critical infrastructure. And what the officials here are saying is when that -- when those big critical bits of infrastructure that generators are hit, that's going to take much longer to repair. So the picture that's emerging is Russia into a war of attrition to try and just take down the electricity supplies in the country, turn the winter dark o-- turn the country dark as it -- as it goes into a cold winter.

BLACKWELL: Yes, an increasing number of people around the world calling these war crimes hitting these industrial facilities. Nic Robertson for us, thank you.

HILL: Well, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence Agency believes that Russia's supply of some missiles is critically low. The head of that agency has said the Russian defense industry cannot produce enough new missiles, the ones they went to war with on February 24, are already running out. Going on to say for many items, this figure has already fallen below the critical level.

BLACKWELL: Now that lines up with the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia is going through its stock of precision weapons at an unsustainable rate. CNN's Katie Bo Lillis has more on this. So tell us what the Director of National Intelligence is saying about the weapons supply.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: So, what we heard from Avril Haines last night echoes what we've heard from other U.S. officials, which is that the United States believes that Russia is firing its precision- guided munitions at "an unsustainable rate." And this is part of the reason why Haines and other officials believe that Russia has been forced to turn to countries like Iran and North Korea to supply it with weapons. In particular, Russia has leaned quite heavily on these Iranian-made drones that it has used in recent weeks and months to strike Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

They're using these drones as kind of a replacement for some of these precision-guided munitions as one Western military analyst described it to me, they're kind of a poor man's precision munition. But what Haines went on to say that is also interesting is that the United States now believes that its sanctions and export controls are contributing to Russia's supply problems inside Ukraine. So, it's not just that Russia is burning through its stocks of missiles. It's also struggling to replenish those weapons because it's having a hard time getting a hold of the components because of Western sanctions.

This is something that we've heard from multiple U.S. officials in recent weeks. So, I want to share with you what Haynes said specifically last night, which was that export controls have forced Russia to rely on contraband chips where it can and frankly, jury rig micro-electronic components when no alternatives exist, steps that are probably leading to weapons and systems that are less capable.

[14:25:12]

Now look, I also spoke to a source familiar with Western intelligence who emphasized that Russia still has plenty of older, less precise Soviet-era missiles that it can use to bombard Ukraine. And both Ukrainian and U.S. sources say that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable from the air in particular to these Iranian drones, which have been so effective. So important not to read Haines's comments he's suggesting that Russia is running out of bullets anytime soon, but it is a sign of a really profound weakness in their war machine.

HILL: Yes, definitely something I'll continue to watch, I'm sure. Katie Bo, appreciate it. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: CNN has exclusively obtained recordings of Donald Trump speaking with journalist Bob Woodward. Hear what the former president had to say about Vladimir Putin and these letters from Kim Jong-un.

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