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Manhunt for ex-UVA Football Player; Elections Still Undetermined; McCarthy's Bid for Speaker; Zelenskyy Visits Kherson. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 14, 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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[09:31:17]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, frightening manhunt is underway for a University of Virginia honor student and former football player now suspected of shooting and killing three people, wounding two others. All this on campus on Sunday night. The alleged gunman still on the run. The entire campus on lockdown. Classes have been canceled today.

Our Joe Johns, he's on the scene in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Joe, I wonder what more we know about the suspect and the progress of the manhunt.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, the suspect, obviously, is said to be a student here at UVA, also a football player on the 2018 team. Not clear, of course, that he actually played in games. But that's what we know about him. His name is Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. And the search continues for him.

Authorities just -- the last communication we got from them texted out to people in the UVA community said this, the law enforcement search on and around UVA grounds continues. Remain sheltered in place. Expect increased law enforcement presence.

And that is certainly what we have seen here on the campus as the search continues.

It all happened around 10:30 last night right very close to where I am standing. The university president putting out a statement saying essentially that he is heartbroken to report these three fatalities and the two people who were injured.

Now, what we have at the moment in that search is people being told to shelter in place. They are told not to leave their homes. And we're also told that classes are canceled for the day while that search continues.

The names of the victims have not been released by authorities and we continue to wait for the university police department to release more information. Jim, back to you.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. Yes, to see armed police around another American campus. Tense times there.

Joe Johns, please be safe. Thanks so much.

Coming up next, we will break down the remaining uncalled House races that will decide the balance of power.

Plus, a blame game inside the Republican Party. Why some GOP lawmakers are now pointing the finger at the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, for their midterm losses. Those folks, instead of pointing the finger at former President Trump.

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[09:38:34]

SCIUTTO: Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for two more years after winning critical races in Nevada and Arizona over the weekend. The fate of the House of Representatives, however, still remains undecided. Last night, Republicans did pick up another House seat in Oregon. They now need just six more seats to capture the majority. Currently Republicans lead in ten of those remaining races.

CNN anchor John Berman at the magic wall with the latest vote count.

And, John, those results that came in last night pretty much put to bed Democratic hopes of retaining the chamber, but what are you hearing, what are you seeing in the numbers, these latest numbers?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Look, you just heard President Biden say that he doesn't think that Democrats will do this at this point, keep the House. Why? Well, he may be watching our magic wall hits. The other reason may be the math at this point. You can see, we've called 212 races for the Republicans right now, 204 for the Democrats. You need 218 to maintain control, Jim, as you just said. That means the Republicans need six to take control and that means Democrats need 14 to maintain control. There are only 19 uncalled races at this point. Where do things stand there? Republicans are leading in ten of the 19 races. They only need six, Democrats are leading in nine. They would need 14.

So, when you look at this map, what do Democrats need to do? They would need to flip five of these red congressional districts and hold all the blue ones if they wanted to maintain control of the House.

[09:40:03]

That could be an uphill battle.

Let me show you some of the races here. OK, this is California's 13th Congressional District. This is one of the Democrats better chances to maybe flip one of these red seats blue. Only 84 votes separate them. Only 46 percent in. This could be an opportunity, one out of the five for the Democrats. Here David Valadao, the incumbent Republican, leading by only about 3,000 votes right now, just 39 percent in. Still possible for the Democrats. This could be two of five for them.

But then it gets hard. Really hard, Jim. Down here in California's 41st congressional district, you can see Ken Calvert ahead by 4,000. He has expanded -- that lead has expanded over the last 24 hours as more votes are counted there. Not looking good for the Democrats there right now. But it's Arizona where they've had some of the biggest difficulties in the counting over the last day. Down here in California's 6th congressional district you can see Juan Ciscomani, the lead is 1,773 votes right now. Again, but that has grown over the last 24 hours. Actually picking up votes as Arizona has reported more.

The district, though, that might break Democrats' hearts is this one, Arizona's 1st Congressional District. You can see the Republican, 894 votes ahead. That's a change. Saturday -- Saturday at noon the Democrat was actually ahead by 4,000 votes. But as more Maricopa County votes have been counted, now you can see that has flipped. The Republican, David Schweikert, is ahead. We'll have to see what happens tonight when more votes from Maricopa County are released, Jim.

But you can see, the magic number of five for Democrats, it seems like it's not much, but it's a steep climb for them to get there.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I know, you look at all these tight races. If you ever doubt that your vote matters, I mean, every two years we get reminders there are a lot of tight races out there.

John Berman, good to have you at the wall. Thanks so much.

BERMAN: Eighty-four votes in that seat right there. Yes, every vote counts.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. That's just a bus full

John Berman, thank you.

Joining us now, Rachael Bade, CNN political analyst, co-author of "Politico Playbook."

All right, so let's, you know, most likely scenario here is that Republicans get a slim majority, then you go right - and, by the way, this House leadership race already well underway. Does McCarthy have the votes? And to get those votes, will he have to cave to the House Freedom Caucus on a lot of these demands they're making?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, just a couple of days ago Republican sources were telling me that it wasn't a question about whether he can do it, it was a question about what he has to give to these conservatives and these Trump allies to actually win the gavel.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BADE: But now with a two, three seat majority, if we see something like this, there's a real question about whether he can do it. There are Republicans in the House, people like Matt Gaetz, who are probably never going to vote for McCarthy. The question is, how many of them are there?

He -- his members -- or his camp, his aides will tell you that he has about 35 days to go to change people's minds. And so if he's going to give it - if he's going to get the gravel, he's going to have to give away the farm. And that means really weakening his own speakership. And if he does get it, there is a real question about how long he can maintain the speakership because of how ugly this is going to be.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

OK, let's talk about what this means then for GOP plans controlling the House, if indeed that's the end result, because they had big plans, right? They were talking about impeaching not just Biden, Harris, you name it --

BADE: Cabinet members, yes.

SCIUTTO: Investigating Hunter Biden. A whole host of things.

Is that agenda now paired down?

BADE: So, this is a perfect example of the problem McCarthy faces. There are conservatives who will only vote for him for speaker if he sort of reinforces this notion that he will back an impeachment of Biden some day.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BADE: And McCarthy doesn't want to do that. He knows there's a lot of political blowback. But if he were to do that, and with a slim majority, there are moderate Republicans who do not want to do impeachment. And so we could conceivably see a situation where McCarthy is forced into beginning an impeach inquiry against Biden, cabinet officials, et cetera, but then cannot finish it. And that would only perhaps help Biden in 2024.

SCIUTTO: Right. Interesting.

OK, let's talk about the Senate side because you have a lot of finger pointing going on there, certainly some at the former president, but some now at Mitch McConnell saying it's all -- it's all his fault.

Is = I mean after January 6th we already had a moment with Trump, right, when it was like, oh, the party's finally abandoning him. Of course they did not. I mean is this one different. Are you already seeing signs that while some of that early fire against Trump is being directed elsewhere?

BADE: I mean we're already seeing people sort of retract that. We saw -- a lot of the same voices I guess you're hearing from right now that are criticizing Trump and saying that he was the reason that they lost this cycle, which of course there is a lot of merit to that argument, they are the same people that have been saying it for a long time. People like Larry Hogan. I mean Chris Christie was pretty forceful on this. But you're not hearing that from Kevin McCarthy, for instance, or from a lot of senior leadership in Congress. And, in fact, on The Hill, Republican officials are mostly pointing

the finger who are -- Republican officials who are out there blaming someone are blaming McConnell. These are Trump allies. And, of course, you could say they have a political reason for doing that. A lot of these guys are looking at 2024 themselves and saying they might run because clearly Trump is weaker.

SCIUTTO: Right.

[09:45:05]

BADE: And it benefits them to try to win Trump's base. And so they're sort of turning a blind eye to what Trump did and pointing the finger at McConnell, who was not exactly popular with Republicans.

SCIUTTO: Ignoring what they saw, trying to still please Trump. Yes, I mean, it sounds very familiar to me.

BADE: It is familiar, yes.

SCIUTTO: From like 72 hours ago.

BADE: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Rachael Bade, thanks very much.

BADE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: All right, a reminder, former Vice President Mike Pence will join our colleague, Jake Tapper, for a live CNN town hall this Wednesday night at 9:00 Eastern Time only here on CNN.

Still ahead, we are live in Kherson as the Ukrainian president visits that city just after it was liberated from Russian forces. Now investigators say they are uncovering evidence of just horrible war crimes there. We're going to have a live report next.

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[09:50:35]

SCIUTTO: This is quite a moment for Ukraine. Emotions running high as the Ukrainian president joined Ukrainians in the newly liberated city of Kherson. They joined to sing the national anthem, which you hear there. Zelenskyy's visit there comes just days after Russian forces retreating from the city. Since then, Zelenskyy says that investigators have now uncovered more than 400 cases of alleged war crimes by Russian occupying forces there.

CNN's Nic Robertson witnessed Kherson's liberation over the weekend.

Nic, I've been speaking to Ukrainians about this. They describe this in historic terms. You've been there. You saw it firsthand. I wonder if you could convey to folks watching right now just what it's like?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The emotions that people greet you with and the amount of things that they want to say is almost overwhelming because they've got overwhelming emotions. They've got overwhelming experiences that they now want to share because they're free to share them. But it's mixed emotions because of all the difficulties that they face in the city and the terrible nature of the way that they lived in fear during the Russian times.

The only place in my history that I can compare this with was with - is with was Christmas 1989 in Romania, Bucharest, when the - when the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, was finally taken from his position of power. And it was the same. Everyone there had a story of the horrible life that they had had and how freedom had come to them. It's a little bit like that.

However, there is still so much for people to -- people here to get their lives back in order. That's what President Zelenskyy said that he had come to bring. But here you just see so much emotion around you.

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ROBERTSON (voice over): The joys of Kherson's liberation keep on giving. How are you, she says? I survived, her friend replies. But the Russians kicked my door in and stole everything.

This city, once home to more than a quarter million people, is still celebrating its freedom, but beginning to count the cost of the eight- month brutal occupation they endured. The city's phone and internet connection cut. Residents crowding around soldiers communications in desperate hope of contacting loved ones.

On their way out, the Russians crippled almost every vital service. Electricity off and water too. This pump close to the riverbank giving water too polluted to drink.

The water stopped when the power went off, he says. This is the fourth day without water. But what can we do? We need to survive somehow.

The Russians even felled the city's main TV transmitter.

ROBERTSON (on camera): They blew it up just before leaving. A final act of punishment for a population that until days earlier they said was part of Russia and would be forever.

ROBERTSON (voice over): That same message, Kherson and Russia together forever, plastered on hundreds of billboards around the city. It's already being torn down.

Why, Platton said? Because eight months of occupation is not very nice. I didn't feel very good living in fear that any moment a car could pull over near you and bring you to a very unpleasant place.

Alexander was unlucky enough to be taken to one of those unpleasant places. And showed us around the jail he was in. Said the Russians beat him daily. They abused everyone, kept us hungry, used us as free labor to repair their military vehicles he says. They were beating us whenever they wanted. ROBERTSON (on camera): This is where we say Russians kill people for

simply shouting out slava (ph) Ukraine, glory to Ukraine, or having tattoos saying the same thing. And over here, in this room, this is where they used to torture people.

ROBERTSON (voice over): The fire, Alexander says, started by the Russians as they left to cover up their crimes.

[09:55:03]

But it is across the road in Katarina's (ph) church Russian's oddest brutality was perpetrated. The grave of Gregory Petemkin (ph) fabled in history for building fake villages, was looted days before the Russians left. Farther Vitale (ph) takes us into the gloomy crypt, shows us where Petemkin's coffin was stolen from. He lay here for 240 years, through many wars, he says. We honored him as a founder of Kherson, and they took him without permission. Repairs of souls in the city have only just begun.

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SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) of theft. Nic Robertson, thanks so much to you and your team. Remarkable to see and please do stay safe there.

Still ahead, a CNN exclusive sit down with the billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Why he just gave $100 million to Dolly Parton and who he might send to space next year.

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