Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ukraine: Russia's "Dirty Bomb" Claim A Psychological Push For Talks; Judge Orders Mark Meadows To Testify Before Georgia Grand Jury; UN: World Nowhere Near Hitting Emissions Targets; Top Senate Democrat Warns Fed Against More Steep Rate Hikes. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 26, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: And this is coming as Russia conducts its first nuclear exercise since invading Ukraine. Obviously, NATO is doing the same. It's something we see annually. But there is nothing normal about what's transpiring right now. Are you watching this closely, and are you worried about any miscalculations at all here?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, that's the problem is miscalculation. The beauty or -- not the beauty. I apologize. The advantage of a nuclear weapon is in its deterrence. That's why the Soviet Union created so many back in the '60s and '70s. Why the United States had so many. China was off to the side, they were to have very few at all. So, you needed to de-escalate all of that. The deterrent factor is what makes nuclear weapons systems effective. You use the nuke, you lose the deterrence and now the lid is off the jar and there are almost limitless possibilities. Most of those are horrible, horrendous. They should be avoided.

Of course, this is incredibly troubling. Calm heads need to prevail. Open dialogue is essential. So, that's why it's essential the president talked, that the Secretary of Defense talk with his counterpart Shoigu, et cetera. Everybody at multiple levels needs to be communicating to put a personal face on this.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, on the one hand it's reassuring that they've been speaking, on the other hand it's also alarming that they're issuing these false flags about a possible, you know, detonation of a dirty bomb on the part of Ukraine. Maj. Gen. Spider Marks, great to have you on as always. Thank you.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Today a judge ruled that former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows will have to testify in that Georgia special grand jury election probe. What information investigators hope he can offer. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GOLODRYGA: This just in, sources telling CNN that lawyers for former president Trump have been served the subpoena from the January 6th committee.

BLACKWELL: Trump and his lawyers have until November 4th to turn over documents that are sought in the subpoena. They've got until the 14th to testify at a deposition. CNN has reached out to Trump's lawyers for comments. Nothing yet.

GOLODRYGA: A judge in South Carolina determined today that former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury in Georgia. This is for the investigation into possible criminal interference after the 2020 election.

BLACKWELL: CNN's senior justice correspondent Evan Perez joins us now. So, remind us what the grand jury could possibly glean from Meadows' testimony.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: He's an important witness for this grand jury in the Fulton County inquiry. They are -- they're particularly interested in learning what Meadows heard and saw during some of those meetings that happened in December, 2020 as the former president was trying to figure out way to stay in power despite losing the election. In particular they were trying to come up with ways to prove that there was vote fraud in Georgia to be able to turn that election there. That is of keen interest to this grand jury.

We know that Meadows was on that one phone call where Trump was talking to Brad Raffensperger in Georgia trying to find the exact number of votes that he needed to be able to win Georgia. And he also went down to Georgia to sit in on an audit that was happening in one of the counties there. So, there's plenty of witness that Meadows certainly had, and that the grand jury would want to know as part of their investigation before the end of the year. Of course, Meadows has said and his lawyers have said that they're going to appeal this ruling from this judge in South Carolina -- Victor and Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: And Evan, I know you also have new exclusive reporting about how the DOJ is breaking through Trump's wall of presidential privilege claims and delays. It's something that's been working and the tactic they've used for years now. Explain that further.

PEREZ: Right, exactly. Look, this is a fight that's been going on behind closed doors. It's a secret proceedings, before a federal court judge here in Washington. And it's really consequential because the two witnesses that we're talking about, Pat Cipollone who was the former White House counsel, his deputy Patrick Philbin, again, they were major witnesses. They were pushing back against these vote fraud claims by the former president. And they appeared before the criminal grand jury, the federal criminal grand jury here in Washington, but they declined to answer certain questions because of the former president's claim of privilege, executive privilege and attorney/client privilege.

Now what the Justice Department is doing is asking the judge to compel them to come back and answer certain questions about their interactions with Trump. How this goes, guys, I think it, you know, portends very, very, very largely for the criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Because if they can get some of this testimony from these two men, these two top lawyers in the White House, you can bet the prosecutors want to get questions to Mark Meadows and some of the other witnesses -- Victor and Bianna. GOLODRYGA: That is for sure. Evan Perez, thank you.

BLACKWELL: More evidence, the consequences of climate change are already happening.

[04:40:00]

The U.S. government just gave the emperor penguin endangered species protections. We've got details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The U.N. says that countries are nowhere near hitting emissions targets they pledged to meet in the 2015 Paris Accord.

GOLODRYGA: The climate office reports that efforts to cut greenhouse gases and ease global warming are falling short by at least one degree. CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir is here with more on the report.

[04:45:00]

Sadly, Bill, this is not surprising, but what more do countries need to do to meet these agreements in these targets?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, transition away from fuels that burn which obviously is easier said than done. Again, yet another red flag blinking clocks call from the U.N. that things have to change because the markers are just surpassing any goals. To remind you, 1.5 degrees Celsius was the goals of Paris. Try to limit to that. We're at about 1.1 now. 2.0 is when things get really dicey in terms of tipping points, like ice sheets collapsing, maybe methane bombs in the Arctic.

Well, now we are on track to get 2.1 to 2.9. The upper end of scale would make vast swaths around the middle of this world uninhabitable. And you're seeing the effects here at 1.1. I'm covering the Mississippi River which is at record lows which has jammed up barge traffic, which will affect agriculture or economic stories for next couple of years to come.

At the bottom of the world, we're now hearing they're going to officially list the emperor penguin as an endangered species because the ice, the sea ice there is melting so rapidly there's nowhere to lay eggs or raise chicks. Krill, their food source, is being affected by warming waters down there.

So, the warning signs are really everywhere, no matter where you look. And by these indications it'll only get worse from here.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Bill, you make a point that the climate crisis, we're not on the precipice of it, it is now. We are seeing the effects now. Bill weir for us in Baton Rouge. Thank you so much.

GOLODRYGA: Well, a top Senate Democrat is warning the Federal Reserve to not attack inflation too aggressively ahead of its next meeting on interest rates. We'll explain why up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GOLODRYGA: The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again next week. Now this would be the Fed's fourth major rate hike this year, trying to choke out inflation.

Now that aggressive approach is not sitting well with Senate Banking Committee chair Sherrod Brown. He fired off this letter directly to the Fed chair.

Warning that: For working Americans who already feel the crush of inflation, job losses will make it much worse. We cannot risk the livelihoods of millions of Americans who can't afford it.

Joining us now, is CNN's Matt Egan. So, Senator Brown, is not the only lawmaker who is taking a shot at the Fed. What do you make of it?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Victor, Bianna, we have obviously heard criticism from the left of the Fed. Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken Jay Powell to task over this risk of causing a recession. I think what's different here is that this is coming from Sherrod Brown who actually supported Jay Powell's renomination to lead the Fed. And I think this speaks to this growing concern in Washington over just how much the Fed is doing to try to squash inflation.

I mean, before June, the Fed hadn't raised interest rates by three- quarters of a point since 1994. As you mentioned, now they are on the further verge of doing that four times in a row. It's sort of unthinkable. Let me read you a key line from this letter from Sherrod Brown.

He wrote, quote: I ask that you don't forget your responsibility to promote maximum employment and that the decisions you make at the next FOMC meeting reflect your commitment to the dual mandate.

Now lately, the Fed has been laser focused on the price stability part of that mandate. And that makes sense because prices are anything but stable. Brown is saying, we need you to also remember that you are supposed to have a very strong jobs market. In the concern is that the Fed is going to be so focused on inflation that it forgets about jobs. Victor and Bianna, I do think that if the jobs market starts to slow down in the coming months, which a lot of economists say is going to happen, then we are going to hear more lawmakers come out and share Brown's criticism there.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, there's even an argument some economists are making that this is a bit of an overcorrection on the part of the Fed because they may have waited too long to raise rates at the start. But we're getting some warnings, some economic warnings from earnings this week, particularly in the tech sector. What are we hearing?

EGAN: Not even Silicon Valley is immune to this slowdown that we are seeing across the economy. Both Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet are seeing their share price sharply lower today. They both reported weaker than expected results. They are still making gobs of money, just not as much as they had been. Google, their core ad business barely grew last quarter. YouTube ad revenue actually outright declined.

This is further evidence that companies are starting to hunker down as they prepare for a potential recession. Microsoft also, they reported their weakest quarterly sales growth in five years in large part because PC sales have slowed down. And that is a reflection of some of the concern from consumers there. And I think that investors broadly are worried we might hear more of the same when Facebook owner Meta reports quarterly results in the next few minutes here.

BLACKWELL: Matt, what's going on with the price of Halloween candy? I mean, a bag of Reese's cups is more expensive than it has been. Can we focus on what's really important here.

EGAN: OK, well no surprise, Halloween prices are going up. Candy prices, according to S&P Global, they are projected to increase by 14 percent this Halloween. That is the most since S&P started tracking this back in 1999. As you can see on the screen, some of the price increases really vary.

[04:55:00]

I mean, Butterfinger prices are up 7 percent. That's about in line with inflation. But look at that, Starburst, 35 percent more expensive from a year ago. Skittles, 42 percent. If there's a silver lining here -- and I'm not sure there is -- it maybe it means that we'll save on dental costs.

GOLODRYGA: I don't know. Try telling that to kids, Matt. Right? Here is an apple because we can't afford candy for you.

BLACKWELL: Here's some pretzels.

EGAN: I'll let you guys tell that the kids. I'm not going to.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks, Matt.

BLACKWELL: Now if all this recession and inflation talk is bumming you out, here is something you can do. Just go ahead and win the Powerball. It is a huge jackpot. Look at this. $700 million on the line.

GOLODRYGA: Wow, wow. Some lucky person out there, could be us. There's been no winner for the last 35 drawings. But you know, we'll be following this.

Well, thank you so much for watching today. "THE LEAD" starts right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)