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Putin Institutes Martial Law in Annexed Regions of Ukraine; Another Mar-a-Lago Search Possible?; Biden Campaigns in Pennsylvania; British Prime Minister Liz Truss Announces Resignation. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 20, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Out West, a big-name Republican stumping for an election denier, the Virginia Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, campaigning in Arizona for the Republican running for governor there, Kari Lake.

Youngkin just fine, apparently, putting his sweater vest behind her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN (R-VA): You need a fighter, and you have got one. That's what you have got.

You need a leader who's going to understand that she works for you. And let me tell you, I think you should hire her!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Thanks for your time today.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. Great to have you with us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And we're following several major stories unfolding this hour. President Biden is campaigning in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where a critical Senate race is getting tighter and tighter. The president hopes to boost Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman first at a fund-raiser, and then, minutes from now, talking infrastructure next to a bridge that collapsed earlier this year.

Meantime, a political shakeup with America's closest ally, British Prime Minister Liz Truss announcing her resignation after just 44 days in office. She will now become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, and triggering a power struggle in a country wrestling with a deeply troubled economy.

And will there be another Mar-a-Lago search? Sources tell CNN former President Trump may go along with a supervised search of his Florida property. The FBI already seized 22,000 pages of documents during its August search. But the Justice Department has made clear that more government records remain missing.

We will get to those details in a moment.

Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly at the White House and what President Biden is up to in these final two-plus weeks before the midterms.

Phil, what can we expect in Pennsylvania today?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president to talk about infrastructure.

And that might seem a little bit odd just less than three weeks out from a midterm election where you're trying to energize voters. I'm not taking anything away from those who love infrastructure, but it really underscores how the president and his team are trying to thread the needle in -- at this moment for the most endangered candidates or for their front-line candidates, and also some of the restrictions they're facing, given the president's own popularity in this country.

What the president will be doing, as you noted, he will be speaking in front of a bridge that actually collapsed when he was on his way to Pennsylvania in January of this year. That bridge is now on pace to be rebuilt and up and running by the end of this year, in part because of what the infrastructure law the president signed gave space for Pennsylvania local officials to be able to move money and speed that process up.

At that event, he will be joined, as you noted, by Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, among many others, who is the Democratic Senate candidate. It's an official event. It's not a campaign rally. There's not going to be thousands of people and blaring music necessarily.

John Fetterman is even in a suit, at least what we saw when he greeted the president on his arrival. And this underscores what the White House has been trying to do here. Have small official events, where you kind of lay out what the president has delivered on, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's on several other major legislative achievements, have a critical campaign -- Democrat campaigning with the president and then, later, raise money.

And I think it's that latter part that you noted he will be doing in Philadelphia. Fetterman will ride on Air Force One with the president to Philadelphia, and those fund-raisers have been critical. The president has raised tens of millions of dollars for Democratic candidates. While his approval may not be soaring, the campaign rallies may not be numerous, he's certainly showing up.

And he says he's going to do it more. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: John Fetterman is going to appear with you today in Pennsylvania.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes. QUESTION: But there haven't been that many candidates campaigning with you. Why are more...

BIDEN: That's not true. There's been 15. Count. Take count.

QUESTION: OK. And are there going to be even more?

BIDEN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The president a little quick to respond to the idea that he's not out campaigning with a bunch of front-line Democrats.

The reality is, he's not in Georgia. He's not in Nevada. He's not in a number of front-line areas in states with members. But he is out campaigning, just maybe in a different way than people are used to, one that underscores what the White House thinks he can do best just a few weeks after the midterms, Ana.

CABRERA: Phil Mattingly at the White House, with the leaf blower going, no less, powering through. Thank you so much, Phil.

To former President Trump now and his fight over classified documents, CNN exclusively learning Trump's legal team is now thinking about letting federal agents come back to Mar-a-Lago for a supervised search.

This, of course, comes after the Justice Department said they don't believe Trump has returned everything that belongs to the federal government.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is on this.

Kristen, what more can you share?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, we have learned that Trump's legal team is really weighing how to best handle the Department of Justice and these presidential records.

They're looking to protect the former president from legal jeopardy, but they're also looking to alleviate some of the pressure that Trump is under amid a mounting number of legal battles. And one of the options that they are looking at is to bring federal investigators back to Mar-a-Lago for a search.

[13:05:02]

Now, as you noted, this would not be like what we saw in August, with FBI agents all over the property. This would be more of a supervised search with Trump's lawyers present. Again, this is just one option that they are weighing. And they have not made any decisions yet.

But it does show you a shift in their strategy when dealing with the Department of Justice. We have also learned that, behind closed doors, Trump has signaled that he is more amenable to cooperating, that he is listening to those lawyers who are asking him to turn down the temperature, rather than some of his more combative advisers, so an interesting shift here.

But, again, all of this is happening as the Department of Justice has made it clear that they believe that there are still documents at Mar- a-Lago. Many close to Trump say they don't think that is the case. And that is why they are possibly weighing this as one of their legal options as they move forward, Ana.

CABRERA: OK, Kristen Holmes, thank you for that update.

Let's discuss this and more with former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

Renato, given the background in this case, as a prosecutor, would you agree to something like a supervised search?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes, I would actually go beyond that. Ana.

What I would do is try to negotiate a deal with the Justice Department, where I receive essentially what's called act of production immunity. In other words, if they do obtain any additional documents, that the mere fact that they received the documents from us would not be used against us.

In other words, we will give you the documents. Any documents we have, we will give you back, no -- complete immunity for just the act of producing them, and let them in everywhere, because I think the Justice Department's reaction to this, Ana, is going to be, OK, fine, we will take a look at Mar-a-Lago. We would have liked to have had this open door months ago, and we want to see these other locations as well.

CABRERA: Right. That's what I was thinking, because couldn't -- if there are documents there, couldn't they be moved between now and this search?

I also have to wonder, given Trump's previous reaction to the search, accusing the DOJ of planting evidence during that earlier search without proof, what do you make of what appears to be a change in tune?

MARIOTTI: Well, I think it's a very smart change. It's just too little, too late.

In other words, if I had been representing the former president when he got that grand jury subpoena, I would have tried to cut the deal I just mentioned to you a moment ago at that time. The problem now is, there's a lot of trust that's lost between him and the government. There's a lot of dragging of heels, a false statement that was made by his attorneys, suspicion, as you mentioned a moment ago, that other documents are still out there.

So I really have trouble believing that that -- that this step alone would satisfy the Justice Department. CABRERA: Just to put a button on this particular issue, if the goal for Trump is to just get this off his plate, maybe put this whole investigation behind him or legal jeopardy behind him, will this agreement do that?

MARIOTTI: It's not enough.

I think it's a good step in the right direction for his team. I think being more cooperative vs. combative is the right step, because he's in a lot of trouble in this documents case, but he needs advisers that are going to push him to cooperate even more than this.

CABRERA: Let's pivot to a new court ruling involving the January 6 probes.

A judge says Trump knew his claims about widespread voter fraud were not true and yet kept suggesting otherwise, even in a court of law back in 2020. Now, the judge is putting this on the record in court documents in a ruling about John Eastman e-mails being turned over to the January 6 Committee.

Eastman keeps trying to keep certain e-mails private, claiming attorney-client privilege. But, here, the judge is saying that doesn't apply when there's a crime involved. And he suggests that is the case here, writing -- quote -- "The court finds that these e-mails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States."

Renato, your reaction to this?

MARIOTTI: It's a remarkable ruling by this federal judge, saying that the president of the United States and an attorney were working together to defraud the United States government, and he finds by preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt, but by 51 percent, that there is enough evidence to show that.

Very shocking, obviously, but, also, it really demonstrates that the former president knew that some of these election lies that he was telling were in fact lies. He knew they were false. I think that's really going to have some legal implications in other contexts, Ana, because -- Ana, those are -- if he lied in other contexts, those lies could actually be a crime.

CABRERA: The judge also wrote about the Trump legal strategy back in 2020 this interesting detail.

He writes -- quote -- "President Trump filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief, but to disrupt and delay the January 6 congressional proceedings through the courts."

That's the -- when they were trying to certify the election, leading ultimately to what happened at the Capitol and the insurrection.

[13:10:02]

But what does that prove, if the goal -- and it's very clear to this judge -- was to just delay and disrupt? Is that a crime?

MARIOTTI: Well, it can be a crime to conspire to defeat the lawful functions of the United States government.

In fact, that conspiracy to defraud the United States, that is actually a part of what is -- what is tied up in that particular statute.

And when I was a federal prosecutor, in times, I charged that statute, that conspiracy to defraud the United States in the context of tax cases, where people were working very hard to prevent the IRS, for example, to -- from collecting its taxes from them.

So I think it's possible. I think that a lot more would happen on the January 6 front. If I was on the Trump legal team and looking at all these different problems, I would be more concerned about the documents case. But that would -- this would give me even more reason to try to get that behind me, because they're facing war on multiple fronts.

CABRERA: And could you just talk more about how this ruling related to the January 6 Committee, which doesn't have prosecutorial power, ultimately could impact perhaps other ongoing criminal probes into the 2020 election?

MARIOTTI: Sure.

I mean, there is a parallel criminal investigation going on right now in the Justice Department of some of these same issues, Ana. There -- we had these cell phones that were seized, remember, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, some of these attorneys. Mr. Eastman himself has had a cell phone seized as part of a DOJ investigation.

I think the Trump team has to be very, very concerned that a criminal investigation on some of the same facts that the January 6 Committee looked into is afoot. And, really, that means that, unless they want war on multiple fronts, they need to resolve some of these problems, rather than trying to fight everywhere at once.

CABRERA: Renato, good to have you here. Thank you, as always.

MARIOTTI: Thank you.

CABRERA: Well, that didn't last very long.

The U.K. prime minister, Liz Truss, called it quits after just six weeks, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. And it comes just a day after telling Parliament that she's not a quitter. So, what changed?

Plus, Vladimir Putin's brutality intensifying as his back gets closer to the wall, launching new deadly strikes across Ukraine, even hitting a children's school.

And a disheartening development in the search for a missing Princeton student, police now searching a nearby lake after bloodhounds traced her scent.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:16:45]

CABRERA: Turmoil at 10 Downing Street again.

Just 44 days into the job and British Prime Minister Liz Truss says she's out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ TRUSS, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Given this situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party. I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the king to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Truss becomes the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

Here's how President Biden reacted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Look, she was a good partner on Russia and Ukraine. And the British are going to solve their problems. And -- but she was a good partner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN's Bianca Nobilo is in London, and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser joins us from Washington.

Bianca, just 44 days. What happened?

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm sure that is the question that the prime minister will be asking herself tonight. How did it all unravel so quickly?

One of the issues that she faced from the outset, Ana, is the fact that she barely had a mandate. This was not a prime minister who entered Downing Street victorious after a general election. She was ushered in by a tiny fraction of the electorate, just the Conservative Party members, who are not representative.

Then she went further and faster than she promised she would on economic policies in the leadership campaign, which led to public fury. They felt the prime minister was being unfair and unjust when she suggested she would cut the top rate of tax for the richest in this country, and also remove the cap for bankers' bonuses, while Britain is grappling with a cost of living crisis, people are struggling to pay their heating bills and their grocery bills. So this all combined to make it a very difficult situation for a prime

minister who hasn't shown that she's got an ability to communicate clearly, to garner the loyalty and support of those around her, and to set out a clear path.

So then, when her own lawmakers started speaking out against her in increasing rapidity, adding to that, she had the resignation of the home secretary, who took the opportunity to criticize the prime minister as she left, it made her fragile platform and position ever weaker.

Then, today, important figures within the party went to the prime minister at 10 Downing Street and we understand made the case to her that simply her position is no longer tenable.

But this is an abject humiliation for Truss and also doesn't keep Britain in a particularly good light. And a good example of that and something which has come to symbolize it is this meme that's doing the rounds on the Internet of a lettuce.

It's a livestream of a lettuce from Tesco, one of the supermarkets in this country, which was inspired by a remark in "The Economist" that Liz Truss' premiership probably has the shelf life of a lettuce, or thereabouts.

Now, this lettuce was decaying on a webcam, people asking whether or not it would survive longer than Liz Truss' premiership. And today, as we know, Ana, the lettuce won out...

CABRERA: Wow.

NOBILO: ... which has led to widespread ridicule, even Dmitry Medvedev congratulating the lettuce on Twitter.

This is obviously an important illustration of the chaos that now resides inside the building behind me, in Parliament, and the broken nature of elements of the British political system.

[13:20:03]

But it's also, I'm sure, a deeply personal, difficult humiliation for the prime minister to bear tonight, Ana.

CABRERA: And so, Susan, I think a lot of the American audience is wondering, how could this revolving door of leadership affect the vital U.S.-U.K. partnership?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that's right.

President Biden emphasized there what a partner the U.K. has been, not only historically, but specifically in this ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And you saw Medvedev taunting Liz Truss. She had been, as her predecessor, Boris Johnson, had been, a very staunch partner and advocate for aid to Ukraine.

And Britain had been working very closely with the United States on that. I don't think there's any sense that that policy is going to change right now. But, of course, the internal economic crisis generated by, in part, Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the spike in global energy prices, that's one big reason for the economic and political chaos inside the U.K. right now.

It's certainly a warning sign for President Biden and other Western leaders who are facing similar, if not quite as high levels of inflation and skyrocketing energy prices.

CABRERA: And, Susan, Truss' most recent predecessors didn't last very long either.

So, as an outsider looking in, what's behind all this instability recently? I can't help but wonder, does Brexit have anything to do with it?

GLASSER: Well, instability is certainly a word.

I mean, one metric that leapt out at me today is that the leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson, that Liz Truss won lasted longer than her entire prime ministership. So that really speaks to an almost unprecedented level of instability.

But now there's talk of possibly Boris Johnson even coming back. Some of the kind of very pro-Johnson faction within the Tory Party are already going public with that. You see this happening in other countries around the world, where you have, in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu trying to make a comeback.

We may have Donald Trump trying to make a comeback here in the United States within weeks after the midterm elections. And so I think it's a moment really of gridlock and instability across the West, broadly speaking, and certainly Britain put itself on this very difficult trajectory. Its economy has performed even more poorly than that of the E.U., which Britain chose to leave a few years ago.

CABRERA: Susan Glasser and Bianca Nobilo, thank you both are helping to make sense of this and covering this latest twist in what has become quite the drama in the U.K. Appreciate it.

Turning now to the increasingly brutal war in Ukraine. The latest targets and Russia's string of brazen attacks include a children's school and more key pieces of Ukraine's power grid, the latter leading to rolling blackouts across the country now. And, today, residents in the four regions Vladimir Putin illegally annexed woke up to martial law.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen in is on the ground in Eastern Ukraine.

Fred, this feels like a crucial moment of escalation before the weather turns for winter. What are you seeing?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're absolutely right.

And winter is always a huge factor on the battlefield here in this part of Ukraine and generally in this part of the country. And one of the things that we are observing on the ground here, Ana, is that the fighting is getting increasingly brutal on the ground.

The Russians certainly have a lot of their most brutal units on the front line, and they're really trying to push into the area that I am right now, the area of Kramatorsk, and there's another town of Bakhmut.

Right now, the Russians are really pushing for that one. And I was able to get into that town with a Ukrainian combat medic yesterday, and we immediately came under massive artillery fire. Here's what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Our car hasn't even come to a full stop when the first shell hits nearby. The medic stops. We need to take cover as best we can.

(on camera): We're waiting for the shooting to stop.

So, we're taking cover because we had some incoming artillery fire. We're going to wait and hope that there's not any hits anywhere close to us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And we were pinned down there for, I would say, probably another 25, maybe 30 minutes after that, as more shelves hit very close to us.

And we obviously just had to wait out. There's nothing really else you can do, because moving around simply becomes too dangerous. But the medic we were with, Ana, didn't even flinch, because she says it's something they see on the ground there several times a day every day, as do the people, the few who still remain in that town.

So it just goes to show how difficult the situation is and how brutal this war is being fought.

[13:25:00]

CABRERA: Such a brutal reality.

Thank you so much, Fred Pleitgen, for your reporting. Do stay safe.

Now, the search for a missing Princeton University student focusing now on a nearby lake, after police use bloodhounds to track her scent.

Plus, hospitals across the country say they are struggling to keep up with a flood of young patients suffering from an illness that makes it very difficult to breathe.

What you need to know for your kids -- next.

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