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Failed GOP Candidate Pleads "Not Guilty" To All Charges; Alex Murdaugh's Finances Under Fresh Scrutiny; "American Pain" Premieres Sunday at 9P ET/PT; Blinken Speaks After Postponing China Trip Due to Spy Balloon. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 03, 2023 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Failed New Mexico political candidate Solomon Pena pleaded not guilty to all charges against him today. The Republican is accused of orchestrating multiple shootings at local Democratic officials' homes after he lost his midterm election.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov has been following this CNN's one for us. What did we learn today?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not a ton guys. It was a very brief hearing just barely over a minute long. Solomon Pena via video teleconference from Albuquerque central detention center. He didn't speak. He did entered that not guilty plea through his attorney. He has been linked to at least four attacks against the homes of two slate legislators and two county commissioners following his 2022 House election loss in New Mexico. All four of those officials were Democrats.

Now last month a grand jury in Bernalillo County indicted him on 14 criminal charges which include three counts of criminal solicitation to commit shooting at a dwelling or occupied building, two counts of conspiracy to do the same thing, two other counts of transportation or possession of a firearm and numerous other charges.

And while he pleaded not guilty, Albuquerque police say Pena was fueled by essentially election lies. He was a staunch supporter of former president Trump. He believed that his own election in November had been stolen despite being defeated by nearly 50 points. And prosecutors allege he then concocted this plot targeting these four lawmakers. Now we are expecting him back in court in about 30 days according to the Albuquerque DA and he is awaiting trial behind bars -- guys.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Lucy Kafanov, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, jurors in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial may soon learn more about the disbarred attorney's personal finances.

BLACKWELL: Prosecutors say his money troubles were the reason he allegedly killed his wife and son. But a judge must decide if jurors can hear the explicit details about the suspected financial crimes, which include alleged fraud. CNN's Randi Kaye is following the testimony for us. So, whose been on the stand today?

Well, Victor and Alisyn, before we get to finances, right now there is a firearms expert on the stand testifying for the state. And he basically walked around the murder scene and also all around Murdaugh's property and collected shell casings. And he says that all of those shell casings found at the scene came from the same weapon. The way they cycle through or the way they're ejected through the weapon, he can tell they're all from the same weapon.

Now the defense has argued that that can't be the case. There are no study that support this. They haven't recovered the murder weapons, keep that in mind, but they did recovered weapons from Murdaugh's property. So he saying all of these came from the same weapon. The defense again is saying these studies don't support that. They actually fought this expert coming on. He still testifying.

[15:35:00]

But earlier today there was a lot of talk about Murdaugh's finances and alleged financial schemes. The prosecution of course wants to prove that he had his back up against the wall. He was running out of time. Loans were coming due, et cetera and that he did this to create a diversion. That's why he killed his family. On the stand was the son of the Gloria Satterfield earlier today. She's the longtime housekeeper who allegedly fell down the stairs at the Murdaugh home and later died. Alex Murdaugh set it up so that he could be sued and then he never gave her children the money that he got. Listen to her son on the stand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he tell you anything about whether or not you and your brother would get any money? You any bills to pay?

TONY SATTERFIELD, SON OF MURDAUGH HOUSEKEEPER WHO DIED IN 2018. He said he was hoping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he give you any idea of the amount?

SATTERFIELD: If I remember correctly, one time he said he'd try to get each of you I believe $100,000 apiece.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Each of you, you and your brother?

SATTERFIELD: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he tell that you they had already gotten a settlement for $505,000?

SATTERFIELD: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he tell you they got a settlement for $3.8 million?

SATTERFIELD: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had he ever told you there was an umbrella policy for $5 million?

SATTERFIELD: No.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Now Alex Murdaugh did admit to wrongdoing in that scheme. He actually ended up paying the Satterfield boys $4.3 million and apologized to them. But there are dozens of other schemes that he is apparently accused of. And that's what the prosecution would like to see included at trial. Back to you.

CAMEROTA: Yes, understood. OK, Randi Kaye, thank you for the reporting.

BLACKWELL: Well, there's so many families in America that have been affected by addiction. When we come back, we'll of course tell the story of two Florida brothers who capitalized on that crisis and created a $500 million trafficking operation within just a few years.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: More than 1 million people have died from drug overdoses over the past 20 years. Of those lives lost, nearly 100,000 a year were from opioids alone.

CAMEROTA: The new CNN film "AMERICAN PAIN" takes us inside the opioid crisis and the rise and fall of identical twin brothers who ran one of the largest opioid empires in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The George brothers didn't start the opioid crisis, but they sure as hell poured gasoline on the fire. They became the largest street level distribution group operating in the entire United States. Nobody put more pills on the streets than they did, nobody. They created a blueprint for how this was to be done and they were operating in broad daylight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scale of this enterprise, it was enormous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had addicts streaming in from all over the country, thousands of miles just to come to Florida to get drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you see what's going on inside that clinic, your jaw just falls to the floor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd been on the job as a special agent for over 20 years. I've seen a lot of crazy. This was just (BLEEP) crazy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now the retired FBI supervisory Special Agent Kurt McKenzie. He led the investigation into the George brothers operation. Mr. McKenzie, thanks for being here. So as we just heard the George brothers, they were running this pill mill, as it's called, this operation in the U.S. Do we know their impact on the wider opioid crisis in the country?

KURT MCKENZIE, RETIRED FBI TO PROVIDE THREE SPECIAL AGENT: As I said -- thank you for having me first of all. As I said in the documentary, they were the single largest drug distribution group of their type operating in the United States. They were a drug diversion group. So, they diverted legitimately produced pharmaceuticals to the streets and in doing so they put over 20 million doses of opioids on the streets of the United States. Their drugs went as far west as Texas and as far north as Boston. And the scale of the addiction that they contributed to was enormous.

BLACKWELL: What they were doing though, was that technically illegal? And how did that play into your investigation?

MCKENZIE: So the hardest part for us as investigators was that the George brothers had what I like to call window dressing. In other words, their doctors had DEA control numbers. Their clinics were properly licensed by the state of Florida. But as an investigators, your instincts tell you by looking at the clinics that something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

So, we had to focus very closely on the activity of the doctors. And the investigation focused around -- surrounded the activities of the doctors. So, what we had to prove was that the doctors were not only operating outside the scope of their expertise, but that they were acting on behalf of Chris George and that there was no medical necessity for these prescriptions that they --

Mr. McKenzie, we have to interrupt. Let's go to the State Department and Secretary Blinken.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: ... CCP central foreign affairs office Wang Yi, to convey that in light of China's unacceptable action I am postponing my planned travel this weekend to China.

[15:45:00]

As you know, President Biden and President Xi agreed during their meetings in Bali in November that I would travel to Beijing to follow up on their discussions. We had been working across the U.S. government to prepare for a substant of discussions on issues that matter to the American people and the people around the world. And we've been engaging for some time with our counterparts in Beijing to prepare for these meetings.

Yesterday the Department of Defense announced that we had detected and were tracking a high altitude surveillance balloon that remains over the continental United States. We continue to track and monitor the balloon closely. We're confident this is a Chinese surveillance balloon.

Once we detected balloon, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information. We communicated with the PRC government directly through multiple channels about this issue.

Members of my team consulted with our partners and other agencies and in Congress. We also engaged our close allies and partners to inform them of the presence of the surveillance balloon in our air space.

We concluded that conditions were not conducive for a constructive visit at this time. In my call today with director Wang Yi, I made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in U.S. air space is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law. That's an irresponsible act and the PRC's decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substant discussion that we were prepared to have. I told Director Wang that the United States remains committed to diplomatic engagement with China and that I plan to visit Beijing when conditions allow it.

In the meantime the United States will continue to maintain open lines of communication with China, including to address this ongoing incident. Indeed that's why we need direct and regular communications in the first place and that's why it's critical that such lines remain open at all times to help avoid miscalculation and conflict.

One final, but important note. The world expect the United States and China to manage our relationship responsibly and indeed addressing many of today's global challenges. Challenges that affect the lives of our people and people around the world demands that we find a way to work together as well.

The United States will continue to act in a way that reflects that responsibility. We look to our PRC counterparts to do the same.

Now the foreign minister and I just signed an important agreement that will guide our country's cooperation on science and technology in the years ahead. The agreement builds on the one that we signed in 1992. Which help foster three decades of consequential collaboration. Our universities conducted joint research on cancer and climate change. Your governments have worked together to reduce air pollution, promote research and development on semiconductors which power modern technologies from cars to smartphones. Our businesses have partnered on life-saving vaccines and treatments like the collaboration between the U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna and South Korean biotechnology company Samsung Biologics, to manufacture a safe and effective COVID vaccine for the region.

CAMEROTA: We have been listening here -- we've been listening to Secretary of State Tony Blinken explain why he has postponed his scheduled trip. He was supposed to depart today, I believe, to China because he says that the conditions are not conducive right now to conversations because they are confident that this is a Chinese surveillance balloon. They've been in contact repeatedly with PRC about this today.

BLACKWELL: Yes, our State Department correspondent Kylie Atwood who was with us earlier this hour, said there were of course a long list of topics to discuss -- Taiwan, China's engagement with Russia and Ukraine, a long list of issues to deal with. But once this balloon was discovered, it just was not possible to get to those other topics with this surveillance balloon floating over the United States.

He said a bit of what we heard from the press secretary at the Pentagon, which was the U.S. acting immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information. Just a few moments ago we spoke with a Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi who is on a committee in the House that deals specifically with the U.S. and Chinese competition. And he says that he expected -- he hopes at some point this balloon will be in U.S. custody. There have been these questions about why the U.S. military has not shot it down. His expectation is that it's to preserve the technology and then at some point they will be able to retrieve it by keeping that balloon intact.

CAMEROTA: But it's hard to know how they'll do that. It was just spotted this afternoon over Missouri. We also think that it was spotted over Kansas. So, it is still floating around.

[15:50:00]

We have not heard any plans of how the U.S. is going to try to grab it. But we are going to listen in as soon as the Secretary of State starts taking questions there. And we will go back to him as soon as he answers some of these questions. Here are just a few pictures of different stations, different pilots capturing that balloon floating over U.S. airspace.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and we have seen a video from Montana. Of course, the latest we've heard is that it's over the central U.S., over Missouri. Some of the pictures and video you're seeing here at about 60,000 feet this is flying. It has caused temporary ground stops at airports in Billings, Montana. We know that flights have had to have been diverted around this balloon as well. John Miller, who was here, throw some cold water, of course on the --

CAMEROTA: He basically laughed in my face.

BLACKWELL: Yes, laughed -- he did laugh in your face. I was trying to be kind of it.

CAMEROTA: When I suggested maybe it was a mistake then it floated over.

BLACKWELL: Maybe it is a weather balloon. It is not. He says that for a weather balloon to then travel on a path that goes over the intercontinental ballistic missile facilities in Montana is not a consequence. And the Pentagon says that this is a maneuverable balloon. So there is someone in China who is controlling the path of this balloon. At its base, this is a foreign asset of a military, of a let's say, competitive nation, if not adversarial, that is flying over the United States and has been for some time.

The Pentagon believes that it could be over the U.S. for several days, maybe through the weekend or into next week. We've heard from Republicans who are critical of the president saying this should have been shot down when it was over less populated areas of the U.S.

CAMEROTA: OK, we'll continue listening to the Secretary of State and we'll go back as soon as he answers questions. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:55:00]

CAMEROTA: We are still monitoring this event at the State Department involving Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean foreign minister. This is happening after the Secretary of State has decided to postpone his trip to China following the discovery of this Chinese surveillance balloon over the United States. So we're going to keep watching this.

In the meantime, Beyonce. Because happening this weekend, Beyonce is nominated for nine Grammies ahead of this Sunday's awards ceremony. Record of the year, album of the year, song of the year.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Those are just some of the categories.

BLACKWELL: But if her latest album "Renaissance" wins just four of them, Beyonce will go down as the most decorated artist in recording Academy history. CNN's Stephanie Elam is covering this for us. I'm confident she'll do it.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the track record, Alisyn and Victor, is not that good for her in these top categories, despite the fact that she's the most winningest woman in grammy history ever, in case you didn't know that. Also, she has the most grammy nominations for an artist ever along with some other gentleman you may know named Jay-Z. They both have 88 nominations apiece.

So, just to take a look at that. Some of them, of course, they have won some Grammys together. But if you look at these top categories, these are the ones that everyone pays attention to. These are the big ones that come at the end of the show. Record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, all of those are what people are paying attention to. If she wins just four of these nine categories, just four, she will then become the most winning artist ever at this point.

You just saw there, we had it on the screen, but George Solti, the classic musical conductor, he has 31. So, he is number one in that spot. Then you also have got Quincy Jones and Beyonce who are tied right now for 28. Alison Krauss, who has 27, the country music superstar there. And Chick Corea with 27. And then more classical music and then of course Stevie Wonder.

This is some verified error that she is keeping company with. But because of the fact that she has not always won when she's had a song up for these big categories or album of the year. Many are wondering if this will be the year. And guys, I don't know, have you listened to "Renaissance" from beginning to end?

BLACKWELL: Stephanie, you know me. You know I've listened to it from beginning to end. ELAM: I mean, I was fairly confident, Victor, I was fairly confident.

But it is quite the listening experience. And that is why people are saying, this album should get the love that it deserves and hoist Beyonce up into that category where the beehives think she should be some Sunday.

BLACKWELL: It's a fantastic piece of work. I've registered for my verification to be able to buy tickets to the tour. I got my momma verified to try to get tickets to the tour. I'm going to be in there somehow.

CAMEROTA: I know you are. We were listening during the commercial break, it's so catchy. That song is beautiful that we just played a snippet of.

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ELAM: It's an all-around great thing, you can listen, drive to it, dancing, all of it. It's just so good. And those songs and their lyrics in there that remind me think of Victor. So, you know, just so you know whenever I hear it, I do think of you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Email me which one of those lyrics is the one that makes you think of me. Stephanie Elam, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, this just in, NBA star Kyrie Irving has reportedly requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets ahead of next week's NBA trade deadline -- that's according to ESPN. There were talks between the team and Irving but no deal was ever reached.

CAMEROTA: Irving is, of course, facing a slew of controversies. One involving a Twitter link that he posted to this documentary, you remember, containing antisemitic messages, over which he initially refused to issue an apology, but then there was his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Irving is scheduled to become a free agent this off-season.

BLACKWELL: And before we go quick programming note. Watch the all new CNN film "AMERICAN PAIN" this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: Have a great weekend, everybody. And "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.