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NATO Secretary-General Warns New Russian Offensive Has Begun; Judge To Release Details From Georgia Special Grand Jury Report; Court Releases Police Body Cam Video From Night Of Killings; Rihanna Wows Fans With Halftime Comeback Performance. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 13, 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]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Yes, the delivery time to deliver that ammunition is actually increasing, we heard from Stoltenberg to 28 months from 12 months. Just quickly, David, there are quick conflicting reports as to whether Russia is gaining traction in parts of the Eastern front.

From what you're hearing and from what seeing, is this a formidable, reconstituted Russian force that you're seeing now?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, it's too early to tell. But certainly what you are seeing in the areas of Bakhmut and the villages around there, which is strategically very important.

And if you look at this video that was sent out by the Wagner mercenary group, it shows at least Wagner in place in what we had Geo located to be significant parts of that village -- satellite village, of that area.

Now the Russians say they've largely taken control of this zone. The Ukrainians dispute that. But our teams on the ground are seeing that, you know, the entrances and exits of these towns are under Russia fire, which means for all intents and purposes, they do not have full control anymore of that zone.

But I remember being here several months ago and speaking about the same towns and villages that were under constant bombardment then. So whether this attritional warfare brings any closer the aims of the Kremlin to take over those areas in the east, it certainly doesn't seem like it. But this is very, very intense fighting, and neither side can potentially hold up forever with this kind of warfare -- Bianna, Victor.

GOLODRYGA: David McKenzie, thank you.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons joins us now. Let's pick up with the claim from this Wagner Group that they taken control of his village in in Eastern Bakhmut.

As we watched over the last year, it's not just the ability to take control of the village, but to hold it. Do you think this group, that the Russian forces are any better equipped this time around to hold this territory throughout the rest of the winter into the spring offensive that's expected?

MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY, RETIRED: Victor, it's going to depend on how many reinforcements that Russians can get into the town and whether or not they decide to go on a full offensive. Because if they do, they would bypass that and that they would be fighting a true combined armed war they would look to do that, they would not just look to stay there and hold it.

What I see happening right now from a military perspective is a covering force battle. And that happens right before the primary larger offensive scale operations. And reports that I've seen show them fighting along a front of about 500 or 600 kilometers, very wide there in the east.

And again, it's not giving the Russians enough time to, you know, reenforce with certain soldiers as they planned on doing. Ukraine is doing a very incredible job using artillery to fight back, as you saw, attacking some of the Russian soldiers in the open.

GOLODRYGA: The casualty rate, as you know, on both sides is extremely high. We don't know specific numbers, quite frankly. They've been pretty opaque especially from Ukraine and perhaps that's understandable. But how big of a concerned is this as we approach the early days of this new offensive?

LYONS: No, I think we've got to be very concerned that the equipment can't get there on time. In the fact that we still don't see tanks showing up there. There's certain videos you see on the internet. But they're tanks, they're artillery howitzers and the like for indirect fire weapons.

And also, the ammunition -- that in and of itself is a tremendous problem. As the secretary-general said, if NATO countries don't start mobilizing more artillery rounds, it looks like Ukraine runs out of ammunition in the next few months given the amount of artillery that the Russians are firing at them.

BLACKWELL: Yes, we heard from Secretary-General Stoltenberg that, for example, the caliber -- large-caliber ammunition has increased from a 12 to 28-month order placed to delivery time. So, something ordered today would be delivered in 28 months -- two and a half years out almost. Will there come a point at which the allies will say no, we simply cannot give you more because we don't have it to give?

LYONS: I think that's going to depend on how well the Ukraine military does over the next 90 days. If the Ukraine military can actually threaten Russian troops, maybe more in the south, maybe threaten Crimea. If they can do that and show that they're making advances and at least get to a stalemate -- a hard stalemate on the ground, then maybe they negotiate.

The position they have though is still not what they want because they've still given up some land to Russia. But I think it's going to determine how well they fight over the next few months if they can threaten Crimea. If they get Russia to the negotiating table, it's going to be a potentially long haul, though.

And we'll have to mobilize -- I'm sorry -- industrialize some of our industries in order to make sure we can meet that ammunition requirement. Because it's definitely excessive.

[15:35:02]

GOLODRYGA: Yes, and there's no indication that Vladimir Putin is serious about getting back to the negotiating table any time soon. We know, obviously, that Ukrainians continue to ask for longer-range weapons. Thus far the United States says no.

There's a "Washington Post" report though that says that Ukrainian officials have only launched these long-range, more advanced weapons, the HIMARS in particular with coordination from the United States.

Do you think hearing that is a sign from Ukrainians that perhaps they can be trusted with these longer-range weapon and they won't be directed into the Russian Federation itself?

LYONS: Well, the HIMARS are giving the Ukraine military an advantage in what was in the past mass fire weapon and artillery, firing and destroying wide swaths of land in areas. Now they can be much more precise. But the ATACMS, the longer-range artillery fire and missiles and rockets is what Ukraine wants.

I think there's a real risk for the United States government to do that as those become truly offensive weapons. They could be launched into the sea. They could be launched over the border into Russia.

And I think that's where the slope becomes slippery where, if Ukraine decides that they want to do that for their own survivability, once we give those weapons to them, there's really nothing we can do, we can't get it back. And it's really -- I don't know that it's a matter of trust, but if it's a matter of the kind of warfare that those weapons could fight, they're purely offensive.

BLACKWELL: Could you talk a little more -- you said that we would have to and I wonder if we means the West, the allies of Ukraine, would have to industrialize some of our industry to provide ammunition to Ukraine. Are you talking about invoking defense production to pass that ammunition on to a third nation? Is that what you're saying, or am I getting that wrong?

LYONS: Well, I'm talking about actually manufacturing. Talking to people in that industry, artillery rounds for example, 155 artillery rounds consists of dynamite shells that are easy to manufacture. But the long fall but tend to those are the fuses that go with it. Those are mechanical timed fuses.

The different components in order for those to be manufactured takes time. We'd have to secure the raw materials to do that. The United States manufactures anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 rounds for itself on a monthly basis. And in order to help Ukraine, for example, other NATO countries would have to supply about that or more on a monthly basis. And we would then cut into our own stocks, and that's just something

we're not going to do. So, we would have to increase our production of artillery rounds in particular in order to meet that objective.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, we're already tapping into reserves in Israel and South Korea as well to get them over to Ukraine. Major Mike Lyons, thank you so much for your time.

BLACKWELL: It all started with that infamous phone call then President Trump made to Georgia's Secretary of State asking him to find the votes he needed to win the state. Now some details of the investigation into the former president's actions will be revealed.

And Rihanna is back with floating platforms, all-red outfit, stunning vocals and a pregnancy reveal. A breakdown of the Super Bowl half-time performance ahead.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: This week we will get our first look at parts of the report from that special grand jury in Georgia that's been investigating Donald Trump's actions in that state after he lost the 2020 election.

GOLODRYGA: CNN's Sara Murray is following the story and joins us. So, Sara, what can we expect from this report?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, one of the things we do know is included in this report is the special grand jury's recommendation about whether anyone should face criminal charges, whether that's Donald Trump or any of his associates for their actions around the 2020 election in Georgia. That part we are not going to see publicly this week.

The judge made clear in this ruling that he thinks because of the district attorney's on going investigation and because essentially when you go before the grand jury, you don't take an attorney in with you, because people are being talked about in this granted jury report potentially, like Donald Trump, the former president, who did not appear before the special grant jury, that this full report shouldn't be made public.

But he is saying that there are going to be sections of that. And that's important because it could give us an indication of where the grand jury is leaning. It's also just interesting because we don't usually see this kind of evidence before anyone faces charges -- and no one in Georgia has at this point.

So, the judge says he's going to release the introduction and the conclusion of the special grand jury's report as well as a section that specifically has to do with witnesses the grand jury believes may have lied. Now that's important. It's possible the grand jury recommended people for charges based on perjury. We don't know that. We won't know that on Thursday. But again, it could give you an indication of sort of where the grand

jury is headed with this investigation. The reason the judge is going to let that section come out is because he says that section does not name names. So again, we're going to be looking in this release later this week for more of the tenor of this special grand jury's investigation. But we are not going to see specific names.

We heard from District Attorney Fani Willis who's been overseeing this investigation, last month in court she said decisions on whether to bring charges are imminent. We still don't know exactly what imminent means.

But of course, we're waiting to see if she does decide to move ahead with charges against anyone as part of this Georgia investigation that has really been going on ever since Donald Trump made that call in 2021 in January to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressed him to find the votes needed for Trump to win a state that he lost.

GOLODRYGA: All right, in the meantime we'll be waiting for some of those details to be released in that report come Thursday. Sara Murray, thank you.

[15:45:03]

BLACKWELL: Well, it's not been seen publicly until now. The court in South Carolina has just released the police body cam video from the crime scene where Alex Murdaugh's wife and son were killed. We'll get into it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GOLODRYGA: Today shocking new video in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh. The disgraced lawyer is accused of killing his wife and son in June of 2021. And now the court has released the police body cam video from the night of the killings. It has never been seen publicly.

[15:50:00]

BLACKWELL: CNN's Randi Kaye joins us now from Walterboro, South Carolina. Extraordinary video, take us through it.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is body cam video, as you said. And it has been a while since we've been waiting for this because it was shown in court to the jury. We've only heard audio from it but it had to be redacted. So, it's been redacted by authorities. They've blurred some of the more disturbing images, like the bodies of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh -- you don't see them but you know and you can tell where they are.

But this is quite a disturbing scene. It's late at night, it's about 10:30 at night when the first deputy arrives. And the first person he sees on scene is Alex Murdaugh. He is -- appears to be visibly upset, though the deputies testified in court that they did not see any tears. He's pacing around, at one point, he calls one of his brothers on the phone. He is wearing, it's worth noting, a white t-shirt and shorts, which

the prosecution has said that's notable in court, in other testimony, because they believe he changed and showered after killing his wife and son. But the deputy first on the scene asks him how he found his wife and son, and here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MURDAUGH: I went to the house and they weren't home, which was odd. I tried to call --

DEPUTY: OK.

MURDAUGH: And then I knew they had been down here before I left to go to my mom's.

DEPUTY: OK.

MURDAUGH: And so, that is loaded, you might want to unload it.

DEPUTY: Is this the only firearm with you? This is the only one or is there anymore in the truck?

MURDAUGH: I believe that's it.

DEPUTY: Do you think that's the only one?

MURDAUGH: I'm 99 percent sure. I need to check if they are dead.

They are dead, aren't they?

DEPUTY: Yes, sir, that's what it looks like.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: He asks repeatedly of the deputies there on scene, are they dead, did you check them, are they dead, and they all tell him, yes, they are dead. Now, the timeline, though, is key, because he is asked by that Deputy Green, who you saw there, whose body cam that is, when was the last time you saw or spoke to your wife and son? And he said that he had gone to his mom's house for about an hour and a half and he had seen them 45 minutes before that.

But the prosecution says that is not true. They have a video that was extracted from Paul Murdaugh's phone, a video that was recorded at 8:44 p.m., that they say has Alex Murdaugh's voice on it, putting him at the murder scene around the time of the murders, and about a handful of other witnesses have testified to that, as well.

You also saw they were talking about a firearm. He said that was a shotgun, that he was concerned for his own safety, so, he went up to the house after finding his wife and son and got that shotgun, which he told the deputy there that he was leaning it against the car.

And one other note, he says very quickly to the deputies -- and this was discussed in court -- right away, he starts talking about this boat crash case, where his son Paul was being sued for allegedly driving drunk and causing the death of a young woman named Mallory Beach. He seems to suggest that that boat crash had something to do with why his family was killed.

BLACKWELL: Randi Kaye, thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the mysteries in the sky deepen, as the White House can't definitely assess -- definitely assess what the latest unidentified flying objects were. The former commander of U.S. Central Command will react ahead.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is now talking publicly about the challenges of his recovery from cardiac arrest.

GOLODRYGA: Hamlin was recognized alongside his medical team at the Super Bowl. He said he is thankful for a second chance at life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want to get yourself back on the football field?

DAMAR HAMLIN, BUFFALO BILLS SAFETY: Eventually, you know, that's always the goal. Like I said, I was a competitor. And you know, I'm trying to do things, is to keep advancing my situation. I'm doing great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about emotionally?

HAMLIN: I'm still working through things. I'm still trying to -- I'm still trying to process all the emotions and the trauma that comes from, you know, dealing with a situation like that, and not really having people around or, you know, like, no one in my immediate circle who's dealt with something like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: Now, he tweeted this Super Bowl selfie of himself with Los Angeles Laker Lebron James, who is fresh off his achievement as the NBA's all-time top scorer.

BLACKWELL: I imagine that -- and that's something we don't discuss often enough, the emotional recovery that has to happen. Because physically, after, what, six weeks now, he's now as part of a conversation of getting back onto the field. But after something like that happens, and he watches what happened to him back, played back for him, it's got to be tough to think, oh, I'm going back out and playing again.

GOLODRYGA: And it's really an honest moment for him to say, look, I have no one to really share this experience with, to talk to about, how to why come back? And what happens next? He's so grateful to his medical team, but there's the next chapter in his life that he's sort of, you know, waiting to enter, while he processes all of this.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it's going to take some time and take some work, but I know all the Buffalo Bills fans would love to see him back on the field.

GOLODRYGA: It was great to see him. And it was also great to see a halftime show that was pretty amazing, pretty hot. I'm not going to put you on the spot. For the first time in seven years, Rihanna performed live on stage, wowing the crowd and me, with a medley of her greatest hits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIHANNA, SINGER: Shine bright like a diamond, shine bright like a diamond ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:00:00]

BLACKWELL: Suspended high above the field, floating on the stage -- I love this part -- Rihanna started trending during her performance, but more so for her belly bump. Viewers questioned if she was pregnant, and it turns out she is with baby number two. Last May, Rihanna welcomed her first child with rapper ASAP Rocky.

GOLODRYGA: Now listen, this is one of those moments where we know that she just has an newborn. She has a eight month old, and she looks phenomenal. But there were people wondering, is she pregnant again, and to have perform the way she did, to look amazing and to know that she's expecting baby number two, amazing, fantastic.

BLACKWELL: "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.