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Russia Claims Ukraine May Use Dirty Bomb; NYPD Searching for Subway Suspect; Historic Decline in Math and Reading Scores in the U.S. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 24, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: In the process of moving in here to number 10 Downing Street, but we don't know. There are reports that the king might be moving, but we can't confirm that just yet. It is entirely possible, though, that we will have a new prime minister by tonight.

Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, that would be moving fast, even given what we've seen over the last couple of days. We know you'll keep us posted. Bianca, appreciate it. Thank you.

Ukraine is denying Russia's unsupported allegation that Ukraine is preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory. That kind of device contains radioactive material, but it's far less powerful than a nuclear bomb. Russia's defense minister made the claim during calls with his western counterparts, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Ukraine, however, says this is an attempt by Moscow to simply escalate the war with Russian missiles and drones targeting the country's electricity and heating networks, the Ukrainian president is warning once again of a dark, cold winter ahead. More than a million and a half energy customers didn't have power over the weekend.

CNN's Clarissa Ward was at the site of another strike early today in Mykolaiv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Two S-300 missiles, one landing right behind me, you can see here the size of that crater, and then the second literally slamming right into that apartment building.

No one here can seem to work out what the target was. This is a residential area. There's apartment buildings all around.

I want to show you over there, this is a children's playground, OK? And you can see what's left of it. Now, the strike happened in the early hours of the morning, as I mentioned, so no children were out playing. But I think it gives you a feel for just how challenging it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Yes, and certainly raises a lot of questions because we've seen playgrounds targeted in the past.

Joining me now, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a CNN military analyst, former commanding general for U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army.

Good to see you, as always.

Let's pick up -- so we saw, right, there's Clarissa in Mykolaiv. This sort of -- I don't even know if it's technically a back and forth. We're hearing from Russia about, oh, Ukraine's going to use a dirty bomb. Ukraine pushes back. Now you have as well the commander of the ground forces in Ukraine who's saying, look, the real issue here is that we are and we should be worried about Putin using nuclear weapons. Officials on both sides are going to put things out because they want to craft a narrative. What to you, though, when you hear all of those statements, what, to you, is the real story there?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, when you combine this, Erica, to what is happening on the battlefield, you kind of put together the narrative that Russia is scrambling right now. They have opened up communications again. They have not done that with Secretary Austin. He's the only one that Russia has been talking to over the last several months. The last time that General Milley talked to General Garasamov (ph), the leader of the Russian military, was months ago.

So, you're -- they're trying to establish, as you just said, that narrative. But then you combine that with what is happening on the battlefield and, you know, truthfully, I -- there's only one doctrinal term to use for this, Erica, and it's scrambling. The Russians are being beaten in multiple areas and they are trying to patchwork their responses together to continue to try and drive a narrative that they are succeeding. They are not. They are being beaten on the battlefield in Bakhmut (ph), which is something they poured the Wagoner Group (ph) into. They're seeing defeats in Kherson. Last night the Ukrainian military actually liberated dozens more towns in that oblast.

So, you're seeing the potential for additional battlefield failures while Russia continues to just strike civilian targets, just like Clarissa just showed. And it's just -- it's troubling. It's war crimes. And it just gives me the indication that the political masters in Moscow are just scrambling to try and craft some type of narrative that they continue to win, which they're not doing.

HILL: When you talk about the scrambling, I was struck by some accounts that were given to CNN by people in Kherson who understandably didn't want their names used. They were worried about retribution. But just talking about the movement that they're seeing there on the ground That Russian administrative officials are moving out. That new troops who seem to, in the words of one person, not really know where they are or what they're doing, seemed to be moving in.

The moves that we're seeing in that area, yes, could be further evidence of scrambling and issues, but on a broader level, this is also a really important area right now.

HERTLING: It is critically important. And what you're seeing on the Russian side is what's called a tactical withdrawal. That's the official name for it. Again, a very tough military operation to execute because you're leaving some people in contact while you're trying to withdraw your troops in other places.

The Russians have been in trouble in Kherson for about five weeks now.

[09:35:04]

They have forces on the western side of the Dnipro River which are about to be surrounded and captured by Ukrainian forces. They have been attempting to encircle those forces for several weeks now. And they know that they've got to pull the administrative government that they then placed -- and when I say "they" I'm talking about the Russians -- that they have been placed out of that area during a withdrawal and it's going to be chaotic.

So, yes, they have put more forces in there, but the forces that they're putting in there, Erica, are the same ones we've been talking about for months that have been mobilized that, number one, aren't very good and, number two, they're joining units that have been mauled over the last several months so more morale is very low. It's - it's just - it's a disastrous operation that's being conducted in the south, while at the same time the Wagoner Group is starting to lose in the northeast.

HILL: Really quickly, before I let you go, at the beginning of the war when there was targeting specifically of infrastructure and sending people out of Ukraine, there was talk that part of this plan, right, with as to flood Europe and the west with refugees, to break down some of the support for Ukraine.

Could some of that infrastructure targeting be an effort by Putin to do the same thing now heading into winter?

HERTLING: Oh, it's certainly doing that. That's exactly what he's doing. He is - he is creating -- or attempt to create a humanitarian disaster without heat, without water, without electricity. All those things that a civilian population depends on. But what we are finding interesting in Kherson is, as Russia is telling the citizens of Kherson to go east and get out of the area because they're afraid that they might be injured, at least that's what they're saying, many of the residents are staying there.

It's almost like the decision, do you stay or leave during a hurricane? You know, are you going to be there when the battlefield happens to be increasingly intense over your house? That's what's happening. And what we're seeing is many Ukrainian citizens are countering that threat by staying in their homes in the Kherson region, which is just phenomenal. But, the winter is getting tougher. It's starting to get much colder

now.

HILL: Yes.

HERTLING: And without electricity and heat, it's going to be difficult.

HILL: Yes, it certainly will.

Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, always appreciate your insight. Thank you.

HERTLING: Thanks, Erica.

HILL: Still ahead here, we're hearing for the first time from the Uvalde, Texas, staffer who was wrongfully accused of leaving open the door which was used by the gunman to enter that school. You're going to hear exactly what she saw on that day, next.

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[09:42:16]

HILL: The Uvalde, Texas, educator wrongfully accused of leaving open the door to Robb Elementary School, the door the gunman used to enter, is speaking out now for the first time. A few days after making that initial claim, Texas DPS then retracted the statement. Emilia Marin had, in fact, closed the door. The issue, the locks didn't function properly.

Well, ABC News obtained new video of Marin during the moment when she saw the gunman's truck crash near the school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILIA "AMY" MARIN, EDUCATOR AT ROBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: I'm rolling the cart out because I'm going to go meet my co-worker outside.

I'm running in to get my phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because?

MARIN: Because the crash happened already.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you're calling 911 to get help.

MARIN: Yes.

My first thought was somebody had a heart attack because he was coming like 80 miles an hour and then he hit the rail and then crashed into the ditch.

I'm running to him to help him.

As I'm running back I tell her, he's got a gun. He's shooting. The kids were playing outside in the playground over here and I see

them running and screaming.

And they're coming in and I'm yelling at them, get in your rooms. Get in your rooms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Marin says she is suffering, obviously, from the trauma of that deadly attack that killed 19 children and two teachers, as well as everything that happened to her afterward.

Police now say a man who was at a Texas hospital for the birth of his child killed two hospital workers. They say 30-year-old Nester Hernandez was on parole wearing an ankle monitor when he opened fire in a Dallas hospital on Saturday. Hernandez was allowed to be in the hospital for the birth. Well, he was shot by police, taken to a different hospital for treatment. Hernandez was arrested on capital murder charges.

Here in New York, police are looking for a man who pushed a commuter from a subway platform on to the train tracks. We do have surveillance video of that. You see the suspect look around, people watch here, before running up to the victim and then pushing him over. The man was injured. Thankfully, not hit by a train. This is the latest incident, though, as New York officials work to crack down on transit crime.

Joining me now, CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

So, there's a lot of discussion here in New York City -- I ride the subway almost every day. You probably ride the subway -- as to whether there is actually more crime or if we're talking about it more and it's more about perception. What's the real story?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, there is more crime in that if you compare it to last year, it's up 40 percent. There's been 1,800 incidences involving felonies. So, you know, where you see the rises in murder, rape, robbery, assault, grand larceny is actually a big driver of the numbers.

[09:45:02]

But, if you compare it to pre-pandemic, 2019 --

HILL: Which is really the only comparison you can make because it -- we need to go with as close to apples to apples as we have.

MILLER: Right. So what -- what used to be normal - what used to be normal is six index crimes a day. That's about where we're at, which is about six index crimes a day. We're actually down 4 percent from pre-pandemic. But when people see a video like you just saw, when you have -- when you have, you know, nine murders year to date versus a smaller number, these are the things that people find irksome. It's also the things they see that aren't crimes.

HILL: Right.

MILLER: It's the disorder. It's the mentally ill person who's acting out over here. It's the homeless person who's sprawled over there. It's the person urinating at the end of the platform or on the train.

HILL: So, there's more of that. There's also -- in looking at those numbers from 2019, one of the things that struck me, there are other numbers that are up, too, and sort of how they get lumped together, right? Whether it's people jumping the turnstile and not paying their fare, people sleeping on the bench, to your point, that then some of the transit cops are looking to move. When we talk about even the rise in crime between -- or what the numbers are 2019 to 2022, where we're at now, is it that there's more violent crime? Is there more violence itself on the subway?

MILLER: So those are adjustable numbers because you have to adjust them to riders. So, when you ask more -- like in New York City, the population doesn't change. It sits somewhere around 8.6 million.

HILL: Right.

MILLER: But in the subway, the population has gone up and down dramatically because of the pandemic. You know, there was a low at one point of 360,000 people a day. There was the norm, which was 5.5 million before the pandemic. Now we're sitting at about 72 percent, which is 3.8 million riders a day. And that should be climbing. But fear of these things is a driver.

So, you know, crime is relatively flat unless you do the per capita numbers.

HILL: It's also interesting to me, because it's so massive, anybody who's ever come to New York City knows how big the city is, how many people there are, but the transit system is massive and it's not as if we're seeing these incidents happen at one subway stop or on one subway line. How does that add?

MILLER: So that is the great challenge of transit policing in New York City. It's not community policing where you can just flood an area with cops. You have 472 stations. You have 600 and something miles of track. It's a vast, sprawling system and it's constantly moving.

So, what you're seeing now is they're going to inject an additional 1,200 cops into the system. That's for omni presence. That can reduce crime just because they're there, but it will make people feel safer if they see more cops.

Now, these cops don't exist, OK? In defund the police they took 1,200 cops out of the NYPD. The department isn't getting bigger, it's getting smaller. The retirement numbers are high. So that's going to have to be accomplished through overtime. That's that officer where he or she is working the sixth day or that seventh day and four hours overtime in this end of the rush hour or four hours on that end of the rush hour.

HILL: We'll see how it works and if it does help too with, as we discussed a little bit, that perception, right, because, at the end of the day, a lot of this is about how people feel.

Always appreciate it. Thank you, my friend. Nice to see you.

MILLER: Thanks, Erica.

HILL: Appalling and unacceptable. That is how education -- the education secretary describes the nation's latest report card highlighting the devastating impact of Covid-19 on America's children and their learning. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:06]

HILL: This morning, alarming new details about the devastating impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on America's children. A newly released national education assessment reveals that fourth and eighth graders fell behind in reading and had the largest decline ever in math scores.

Here's CNN's Gabe Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): An alarming snapshot of learning loss from the pandemic. New test results from the nation's report card show in most states fourth and eighth graders are falling behind in reading and math.

The math scores are historic, the worst decline ever recorded, with roughly 25 percent of fourth graders and 38 percent of eighth graders performing below the basic level. The lowest of the three achievement levels for the test.

Students who were already struggling in school showed the most dramatic drop off. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona calling the results appalling and unacceptable.

MICHELLE BURKE, EIGHTH GRADE TEACHER AND MOTHER: They were isolated for a year and a half to two years. That's a huge, huge problem.

COHEN: Michelle Burke is an eighth grade teacher on Long Island and has a daughter in eighth grade.

BURKE: My daughter is struggling in math exponentially. A lot of the things that we're seeing emotionally, behaviorally are putting a huge strain on what you're seeing in the classroom. A huge strain.

COHEN: The findings come more than a month after similar results showing math and reading scores for nine-year-old fell by a level not seen in decades.

The federal government is pumping billions in relief funds into districts, requiring them to spend at least 20 percent on learning loss. Schools nationwide have been trying to hire more staff, but with teacher burnout and fewer new teachers, many schools face a teacher shortage, especially in rural areas and those with more low-income families and students of color.

[09:55:06]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good afternoon. IDs, please.

COHEN: At Casa Grande Union High School in Arizona, some classes have more than 70 students. And in other rooms, pra-educators (ph) are teaching lessons prepared by a certified teacher.

STACY BRADY, BIOLOGY TEACHER, CASA GRANDE UNION HIGH SCHOOL: I think of myself. I struggled with math. And if I was sitting in that classroom, I needed help, I had questions, I need somebody to break it down a different way. If there's nobody who has the content knowledge to do that, I'm going to shut down. And I'm thinking many of our students might be shutting down as well.

BRADY: OK, last couple seconds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Now salary is a major factor in this teacher shortage. And this morning on "NEW DAY," Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said they're proposing a 21 percent increase in the education budget. But in the short-term, Erica, a ton of districts, like the one you just saw in Arizona, have told me they have positions open, they just can't find teachers. And the most vulnerable students are the ones who are suffering the most.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Interesting in those findings too the dip in math versus reading. Math is so much harder, right, to help your kids with as they get older.

COHEN: Yes.

HILL: Gabe, great reporting. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Still to come here, nearly two weeks to go until Election Day. You may have noticed that it's getting closer because you can't go anywhere without seeing a political ad. So, just how accurate are these final pitches from the candidates? We've got a "Reality Check," next.

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