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Pence Subpoenaed by Special Counsel Investigating Trump; 22,000-Plus Dead as Workers Race Against Time to Find Survivors; Russia Launches New Wave of Attacks on Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 10, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour in the CNN Newsroom. Good to have you with us. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Soon, former Vice President Mike Pence could be forced to be answering some questions under oath after the special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump and his role in the insurrection subpoenaed Pence. What exactly the special counsel is looking to learn from him and what it could mean particularly for Trump's claims of executive privilege.

Plus, there is another major review underway in Memphis, Tennessee, after the death of Tyre Nichols. The Shelby County district attorney is expected to review all prior cases involving those five officers charged for their role in Nichols' death, what that could mean.

HILL: And as the death toll continues to rise in Turkey and Syria, we are also hearing of some truly remarkable stories of survival, one teenage girl rescued after spending more than 107 hours under the rubble, hope, though, understandably, dimming in terms of finding more survivors. Crews working, though, around the clock as they continue their searches, we'll take you there.

We do begin this hour, though, with the latest on former Vice President Mike Pence, who has now been issued a subpoena by the special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump. CNN Senior, Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz joining us now with more.

So, in terms of this subpoena, what exactly does the special counsel want to hear from Mike Pence, what do they want to know?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Jim and Erica, this comes in the January 6th investigation that Special Counsel Jack Smith is doing. He is also doing that Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, and, obviously, Pence had some document issues of his own. This is January 6th where Pence was a witness, he was a victim and he was the person that was in the Oval Office speaking directly to President Donald Trump at the time as Trump and his supporters were trying to pressure Pence to stop the certification of the election. So, there is a lot that he would have been witness to.

And the big question right now is -- we are very likely to see Pence go into the grand jury, we're very likely to see him answer lots of questions. He has already publicly written about them in a book, talked about them, what had happened there. His deputies have testified about what happened there. But the big question now is how much does this special counsel investigation, how much does the grand jury and the criminal case that they are building need to know about the direct conversations between Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the sort of answers that no one has really gotten to at this point and heard from Pence in this context under oath.

And so, there has been a very long windup to this point in time where Mike Pence is getting subpoenaed to come into the grand jury and to turn over documents. It is really a very monumental move from the special counsel right now. We know that Jack Smith, the special counsel, has been pushing for answers from a lot of different people, including those top deputies to Pence, including from the former White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, on the January 6th investigation.

Smith has also been pushing for answers related to the Mar-a-Lago documents, going very close to Donald Trump and his White House, now just reporting -- we were just reporting yesterday that Robert O'Brien, the national security adviser, has also been asked to provide information.

But with Pence, this comes after a very long road of the special counsel's office wanting to get to the bottom and working around Pence now going directly to him, bringing him in as part of this criminal investigation. And it is totally possible, Jim and Erica, that there is a court fight that materializes out of this, but we are going to have to see exactly what happens next, it could play out in a lot of different ways.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's been the strategy, drag it out as long as possible. Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much.

With us now to discuss the significance, Heather Caygle, Managing Editor for Punchbowl News, also Ambassador Norm Eisen, he served as the House Judiciary special counsel in former President Trump's first impeachment trial. Good to have you both on this morning.

Norm, I want to ask you about the legal significance of Pence's testimony specifically, given his proximity to the president, his conversations with the president on that day. What does the subpoena you about the special counsel's interest in the former president?

[10:05:02]

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jim, I don't think the special counsel would be going to these lengths, this extraordinary and extremely unusual moment in American history of a criminal subpoena to a former vice president, unless Special Counsel Jack Smith were very serious about prosecuting Donald Trump.

By no means, can we guarantee that is what is happening, but, clearly, there is peril here principally, I think, under 18-USC 1512C that Donald Trump was intentionally attempting to interfere with a congressional function, the January 6th meeting of Congress. There is no better trial witness for that than Mike Pence.

And that is what I think is happening here. The special counsel is making a decision, is he going to prosecute the president?

HILL: Some of CNN's reporting is that they had hit a wall here in terms of negotiations, and that as Dana Bash said earlier, he didn't invite the subpoena with eagerness, were Dana words. When we look at this, Heather, this could, though, in some ways, be advantageous politically for the former vice president to be issued a subpoena as opposed to going in voluntarily. And I say potentially politically advantageous, because, of course, if he is considering 2024 run, that sort of covers the bases with a couple of different groups within the Republican Party.

HEATHER CAYGLE, MANAGING EDITOR, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Yes, absolutely. I think among some Republicans on the Hill, especially those who did support the January 6th committee, there has been some frustration that former Vice President Pence did not speak out more about what happened and about his conversations with Trump at the time around January 6th.

And if you'll remember, the January 6th on the Hill tried for several months to get Pence to come sit and testify, and, ultimately, they could not reach an agreement with him. I mean, they were talking right up until the end. And then Pence's book has came out and he does talked about it a little bit but doesn't really go into detail.

So, I think if he actually does want to run for president, which he is certainly alluding to, he could say, look, I was issued a criminal subpoena, I obey the law, I went and sat and talk because that is what I was legally asked to do, that was my obligation. And that could be told a lot different than, yes, I voluntary wanted to voluntarily do this and went in and did this, and it could work with various groups within the party.

SCIUTTO: So, Norm, I mean, it is hard to imagine circumstances like this in any other time, but you have a special counsel investigating a former president who is now run president again, who has now subpoenaed that former president's former vice president, who may very well soon announce that he is running as well for that same office. How does the special counsel, how does the Justice Department navigate that incredibly sensitive territory?

EISEN: Jim, I think as a matter of prosecutorial ethics, they have to ignore it. The fundamental principle, and Merrick Garland has said this again and again, and Special Counsel Jack Smith is known, his reputation is, for this principle, that no person is above the law in the United States of America. So, they need to take the political considerations of the primary calendar out of it. They need to look at the facts. They need to look at the evidence. That is why Pence is being brought before the grand jury. And then at the law, and I believe that the facts and the law strongly make a case for the liability of Donald Trump. I don't think executive privilege will bar Mike Pence's testimony here, including because he has written about these events in his book, and I think the former president is at great peril of federal charges as a result of this indication.

HILL: As we wait to see how this does play out, though, there is also the question of whether he actually complies, right, and whether he complies with that subpoena. Heather, is there -- I mean, just what's the sense? Give us the sense of what the talk is this morning in Washington on the heels of this news coming out last night, that in terms of whether the former vice president is going to fight this or whether he will comply.

CAYGLE: You know, that is a great question. I think there are a lot of people who are wondering that themselves. I checked in with some folks on the Hill this morning, especially those who were involved very closely with the January 6th committee just to kind of see where those negotiations ended. And I do think that there is a sense that while they were not involved to get an agreement with him to sit down, and they were not willing to issue their own subpoena to do that as the committee was wrapping up, this feels much more serious, and like he will take it seriously.

There could be some kind of legal fight. Norm alluded to this. He could try to claim executive privilege, but there are a lot of issues with that. But I do think that, ultimately, a lot of people up on the Hill feel that he will try to comply in some way.

HILL: We will be watching.

SCIUTTO: We will indeed, so much.

[10:10:00]

I mean, these are remarkable times at each point, although they may sound somewhat the same as you go along this one, particularly big. We will stay on top of it. Heather Caygle, Ambassador Norm Eisen, thanks so much.

CAYGLE: Thanks, guys.

HILL: Well, you would likely remember this next image that we're about to show you from the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Take a look, tough to forget this, a man carrying a large confederate flag inside the U.S Capitol. Well, his name is Kevin Seefried. And a judge, a federal judge, has now sentenced him to three years in prison. He was found guilty in June on five charges, including obstructing an official proceeding and disorderly misconduct in the Capitol building.

SCIUTTO: Seefried was part of the mob that chased U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman. You may remember that moment. He testified that Seefried jabbed the base of the flagpole at him multiple times to try and push him a way, in fact, using it as a weapon. According to Officer Goodman, Seefried was saying things like F.U., I'm not leaving, where are the members at, where are they counting the votes, notable.

Goodman eventually led the group of rioters away from the Senate chamber. You probably remember this moment here, such a moment of bravery and calm, up a flight of stairs to a line of additional officers. That's some pretty incredible policing there.

Still to come, more stories of miraculous rescues in Turkey, little signs of hope following that devastating quake, but getting aid at the hardest hit areas remains a struggle. We're going to be live at one of those aid distribution centers.

HILL: Plus, a barrage of new Russian missile strikes across Ukraine, including one that Ukraine says crossed over Moldova's airspace. What to expect as we approach the one-year mark of Russia's invasion which started this war.

And just into CNN, the White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, expected to leave her post soon. So, what does it mean for the president's communications team?

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, this news is just staggering. The death toll following the earthquakes that struck both Turkey and Syria has now climbed above 22,000 people this morning. And we're seeing heartbreaking scenes, like this playing out across so many towns and villages and cities in both countries. In this Syrian village, a man has used his hands to dig through the debris as he searches for several family members. So far, he's found the bodies of ten relatives. He's still searching for 20 more. Imagine that.

HILL: Amid that destruction, the death, there are still some signs of hope. In Turkey, two sisters, teenagers, were rescued nearly 100 hours after the intense shaking first began. Rescue teams found them after a seismic sensors detected signs of life. The rescue operation itself took ten hours.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins us now from an aid distribution center in Istanbul. Aid is critical here, as we know, Salma, getting it to folks. So, what are we hearing from the people that you have met?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm at this huge hangar that's been turned into an aid distribution center here in the heart of Istanbul. and I want you guys just to follow me along, because I want to show you the mammoth effort that's taking place here to try to get help to that affected area as quickly as possible. I know it looking like chaos, but this is organized chaos.

Look at the sense of urgency, when you are looking at these hundreds of volunteer. They are packing these boxes as quickly as they can with the basics. Think about clothes, you are looking at the clothes there, they are trying to keep the people warm tonight, they have food supplies, they have blankets for children, heaters, mattresses, every single thing that they can. They say they've gotten 2 million individual donations. And, Jim and Erica, everything you are looking at here is donated by the people of Istanbul to those people right there in the affected area. They know how much this matters.

If you speak to any of these volunteers, they are going to tell you the same thing. They're going to tell you, we could not sit home and do nothing, we had to do something. Look at how quickly they are just wrapping these boxes up and getting them to go. And we are in this hangar because -- and I'm sorry, I'm just going to turn you around -- they are loading these up into wheelbarrows. I just want to give you an idea, a sense of how quickly everything has to move, they load them into these wheelbarrows and then they take them to the other side of the hangar where there are trucks literally waiting to get it to that affected area.

You might hear those loud speakers. That's how they are shouting instructions down. I can see the smiles on the faces of these volunteers. There is a true sense of solidarity, of community here. They have been able to send 185 trucks, more than that probably so far. That was the last count they had. And each and every one of those trucks is packed with the essentials that these people who have been made homeless need, and everyone here feels like they are able to do something.

You mentioned the Turkish government there, Jim. There has been deep criticism among these volunteers with the help. They know there's a gap on the ground and they are here to try to fill it. They are here to try to do their part. Jim and Erica?

SCIUTTO: Yes, a lot of hard questions for the Turkish government in the wake of this, Salma Abdelaziz, nice to see folks doing their part there.

HILL: Just ahead here on CNN, a CNN KFile review of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2012 congressional campaign in which he expressed support for privatizing social security and medical care. We will discuss, next.

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[10:20:00]

SCIUTTO: Overnight, Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine. Air raid sirens sounding all over the country today as Russia hit Ukraine's already heavily-damaged infrastructure.

HILL: Officials in Zaporizhzhia say the city was struck by missiles at least 17 times in the span of just one hour. That is a car that you are looking at on top of a roof there, thrown on top of the roof of that home.

CNN's David McKenzie is live in Kyiv for us. So, David, this was one of the largest waves of attacks in weeks from Russia as they really seem to be ramping up this renewed offensive. [10:25:01]

What are you seeing on the ground?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Erica and Jim, this is definitely a significant tick up of the attack in terms of missiles, rocket strikes, drone strikes and attempted strikes. Look at this video here of a Ukrainian team released by the government shooting down a Russian missile overhead. It really shows that there is some success by the Ukrainian air defense systems in protecting large parts of the country, including here in the capital.

We had to go into the basement like many of Ukrainians here in Kyiv who were trying go about their business. There were attacks in the east, in the west, in the south of the country, and as you say, striking at key civilian infrastructures, say the Ukrainians, attempting to knock out the power grid during the winter months. This has happened before, but it is a significant uptick.

And it happens as there is an increase in the shelling in the eastern part of the country, certainly, say Ukrainian officials. They say it might be the start of a wider offensive, too early to tell yet. But it is in this context that President Zelenskyy has been asking throughout Europe, the U.K., and, of course, early in the U.S. for more complex weapon systems, including U.S. F-16 fighter jets, the latest formal request was to the Netherlands, to the Dutch, asking for those systems. They are keeping door open on that. But as of yet, no one has agreed yet to supply those F-16s to Ukraine. Jim, Erica?

HILL: And they wait. They wait to see if, in fact, that might change. David McKenzie, I appreciate it. Thank you.

You know, the political tape library is full of reassures, including some newly unearthed comments from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, comments that could really come into play if he decides to make a pitch for the White House in 2024. CNN's KFile found DeSantis express support for privatizing Medicare and social security when he was running for Congress. Fast forward to today, and DeSantis' rivals are already signaling they plan to use those comments against him.

CNN's KFile Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski joining me now. So, what more did you find in terms of thes comments which were made when he was running for Congress?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Yes, that is right. So, in his first campaign for Congress, Ron DeSantis repeatedly expressed support for privatizing Medicare and social security. This was 2012. He was running as a tea party conservative. He had the backing of the top conservative grassroots groups, even Donald Trump endorsed him. And, basically the Paul Ryan plan many of us remember was a huge political issue in this race.

He very fully embraced this plan. You know, the government would basically subsidize for seniors either to go out and get a private plan or to have a traditional Medicare plan. Democrats, they called this a voucher, Republicans, they called it a premium support system, it is basically the same thing.

Let's take a listen to what DeSantis said in one of those interviews.

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GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I would not change social security and Medicare for people who were on the program or near retirement, at 55 and over, just because I think that there are settled expectations there.

I would embrace proposals like Paul Ryan offered and other people have offered that are going to, you know, provide some market forces in there, more consumer choice, and make so it that it is not just basically a system that is going to be bankrupt when you have new people coming into it. Social security, you know, I would do the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KACZYNSKI: So, ultimately, he did then in Congress vote for these budget resolutions that did just that. It privatized Medicare, it raised retirement age to 70. So, why are we talking about this? We saw Joe Biden in the state of the union address. He has made this a huge issue. Donald Trump, he has already basically signaled he is going to attack him for this.

One of the things that Donald Trump did in 2015-2016 was he moved away from this what had basically been Republican orthodoxy at the time, which is we need to privatize these programs to make them sustainable in the long-term. Both people I have talked to, people in both parties, they think this is going to be a big deal should he run. When you are in Congress, you have a record, you have votes, and this is not something he talks about.

We did reach out to his office, we asked, you know, what is his current position on these program, because we are all talking about it, they declined to comment for the article.

HILL: Declined to comment, which is interesting, because we know this is going to be such -- even if he does not run, this is such an important topic of conversation, right? President Biden obviously wanted to set the stage for that. But we're hearing from Rick Scott in Florida. We know that the population of Florida, especially among states, social security and Medicare, these are really important topics.

[10:30:05]

It's so interesting that there was no comment, whatsoever. We will see if we get further.