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U.S. Military Shoots Down High-Altitude Object; Kansas City Chiefs Wins Super Bowl LVII; Death Toll At 34,000 In Turkey-Syria Earthquake; New Zealand Braces For Cyclone Gabrielle; U.S. Tells Its Citizens In Russia To Leave "Immediately"; Deepfake Technology Being Used To Make Propaganda Videos; Ukraine: Russia Maintains High Rate Of Rocket Attacks In East. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired February 13, 2023 - 02:00   ET

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

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead.

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Kansas City fans are in for a long night of celebration as the Chiefs defeat the Eagles for the Super Bowl LVII title. We are live at the stadium with the highlights.

The U.S. military shoots down yet another high-altitude object. What officials are saying about the most recent incident, and growing frustration in Turkey as rescuers dig through the rubble many are wondering why the government response has been so slow and why there weren't more preparations to begin with.

Thanks for being with us. We begin with yet another shootdown of an unidentified object flying in U.S. airspace. This time, recovery teams are directing their attention to something shot down over the Great Lakes region. The Pentagon says whatever it was, it was not believed to be a military threat but that the order to send up an F-16 was given out of, quote, "an abundance of caution." CNN's Arlette Saenz has more on what we know and what we are still waiting to hear.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: For the third time in as many days, President Biden ordered the takedown of an unidentified object in North American airspace. The latest shoot down happened on Sunday afternoon. There was an object seen flying at about 20,000 feet over Michigan's upper peninsula and nearing Lake Huron. It was then that officials say an F-16 fighter jet shut it down.

Now, officials have described this object as being octagonal in shape with strings attached to it but no discernible payload. And officials have also said that it is connected to some radar contact that was found in Montana on Saturday evening. Initially, fighter jet were sent up into the skies in Montana on Saturday to try to track down a possible object. They did not find anything, and that lead NORAD and NorthCom to believe that it was a radar anomaly.

But then on Sunday, they re-acquired that radar contact and did find this unidentified object flying over Wisconsin and then Michigan. Ultimately, there was concern because of the height that this object was flying at, 20,000 feet which could pose some threat to civilian aircraft. There is also concern about the path that it was taking.

So, the military leaders recommended to President Biden that he shoot it down and he ultimately, he issued the order. Now, this is just the latest in a string of puzzling events of aerial crafts being seen in the skies above the United States starting with that suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot off the coast of South Carolina just nine days ago.

And still so many questions about these other objects that were shut down, one off the Alaskan coast on Friday and then another shot in the Yukon in Canada on Saturday. Now, officials have been very careful and cautious about how they are trying to describe some of these objects.

They say that they are still waiting for more information. And some of the big questions facing this administration is exactly the size of these items, also the origin and what their purposes are. All of these questions that they are hoping to get some answers to as these recovery operations are all underway. Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.

CHURCH: And earlier, I spoke with CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, about the criticism President Biden has been getting about the slow response to these unidentified flying objects and for offering few details about them. My question to Ron, what is the political ramifications for all this.

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RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first, I mean, I think, clearly the posture on the subsequent intrusions into U.S. airspace has been very different than on the original Chinese balloon where they waited until it had crossed the U.S. and was out and over the open -- open ocean before they hit. Now, they are shooting them down much quicker which may be implicit acknowledgment of some of the criticism.

Look, any foreign-policy challenge, any national security challenge is both an opportunity and a risk for our president because I think political strategists will tell you that the baseline requirement that voters expect in a president is that they seem to be in control of events and that events are not in control of them.

[02:05:08]

Nothing gives them the opportunity to kind of demonstrate that kind of command as a national security challenge. The risk, of course, is if it seems that if events are overrunning you, then people get to be very concerned. And I think right now, Biden with his more decisive action, it still seems to be on the right side of the equation, but we're going to have to see how this unfolds and what exactly is behind it.

General Wesley Clark was on CNN earlier today, you know, and he said we don't know whether this is an uptick in activity where we are simply seeing and discovering activity that was always there and we did not know it before.

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CHURCH: And you can watch my full interview with Ron Brownstein in the next hour.

This all started with that suspected Chinese spy balloon last weekend. So, the big question, are these four incidents connected? Let's get some perspective from CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Steven Jiang. Good to see you, Steven. So, what's been the reaction so far from Chinese officials and media outlets to the U.S. shooting down this fourth unidentified flying object and what are they saying about a UFO apparently spotted over China's eastern coast?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, Rosemary. The Chinese government so far has not officially responded to the latest development but their foreign ministry's daily press briefing is about to start so let's see what they will have to say. But state media here has definitely been reporting the story and perhaps not surprisingly portraying the U.S. military actions as absurd and exaggerated.

The nationalistic "Global Times" newspaper, for example, in their editorial comparing the U.S. actions as a clumsy performance art. And I quote them here, "The grand takeoff of U.S. warplanes apparently satisfied some people's appetite for the China threat." It goes on to say, "It is not a good sign for the world if the country with the strongest military is constantly surrounded by this kind of extreme emotion and sees everything as a threat and thus wants to destroy it."

So, this kind of colorful language really echoing the official government stance after the U.S. shot down that first confirmed Chinese balloon that the U.S. has overreacted. The Chinese, of course, insist the device was civilian and drifted off course because of a weather even though U.S. officials and many experts very much disputed that.

And the U.S. is now, of course, has announced sanctions against six Chinese entities related to the balloon, which by the way, according to CNN's own reporting, is part of a sweeping global intelligence gathering effort by the Chinese state.

Now, the Chinese for their part, have been pushing back very hard on all these allegations and we are expecting them to condemn the latest sanctions and announce their own (inaudible) threat of countermeasures. But as you mentioned, the one intriguing development is on Sunday, state media here, quoting local maritime authorities as saying they have spotted their own UFO off the coast of east China.

And the preparation was underway to shoot it down warning local fishermen to avoid the dangerous area, but also telling them to take photographs for evidence and potentially collecting debris if conditions allowed. That story obviously went viral given the timing and also given the Chinese military's previous promise to take similar actions after the U.S. shot down their balloon.

But so far, we have not heard much updates after the initial reports came out, Rosemary, but all the silence obviously fueling even more curiosity and speculation. Rosemary?

CHURCH: Absolutely. Steven Jiang joining us with the latest from Beijing. Many thanks.

The Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL champions after a thrilling high- scoring Super Bowl LVII. They beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38 to 35 on a late field goal with just seconds left in the game.

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This was the scene in Kansas City after the Chiefs won their second title in the past four seasons. The Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named the game's Most Valuable Player just days after winning the league's MVP award for the season.

Meanwhile in the Big Apple, the Empire State building was lit up in the Chiefs' colors to celebrate their victory. And for more on the game, CNN Sports Andy Scholes is at the stadium in Glendale, Arizona. He joins us live. Good to see you, Andy. So, the Chiefs did it winning the Super Bowl in a late field goal, and what a battle it was between Hurts and Mahomes.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: It was, Rosemary. It certainly did not disappoint. You just can't say enough about Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Just an incredible performance from them. A gutsy performance on a bad ankle. And he now has two Super Bowls and two MVPs in his first six seasons in the league. He's the only player ever to accomplish that.

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But as we mentioned, he did have to battle Jalen Hurts in this game in Super Bowl LVII. It was Hurts and pressing early on. He set a Super Bowl record with two rushing and one passing touchdown in the first half alone. But in the second half, it's when Mahomes would shine even on a bad ankle.

He led the Chiefs on three straight touchdown drives. And with the game on the line in the fourth quarter is really when Mahomes came through in the clutch. He would have a long run here as he scampered to get the Chiefs into field-goal range in the closing seconds. The Chiefs would end up winning in what of the most exciting Super Bowls we've ever seen, 38 to 35, and Mahomes was named you Super Bowl MVP.

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UNKNOWN: MVP. You can't say enough about what this guy means to Kansas City and this team.

UNKNOWN: What does it mean to you? PATRICK MAHOMES, QUARTERBACK, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: And I mean, it's just -- I told you all before the season. We got Coach Andy Reid. We had goal side Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, Frank Clark. We're going to be Kansas City Chiefs. At the end of the day, we're going to be the Kansas City Chiefs, and we're going to celebrate this right here baby. We're going to celebrate this the right way.

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SCHOLES: Yeah, and what a performance this was from Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. I mean, he was dialing up great play after great play. I mean, Chiefs wide receivers were just running wide open on a few of those touchdowns. This is Reid's second Super Bowl title, really cementing him as one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. And just listen to how happy he was after the game.

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UNKNOWN: What does the moment mean to you, Andy?

ANDY REID, HEAD COACH, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: It means a lot. I could kiss you right now, but I'm not going to do that.

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SCHOLES: I mean, you just got to be happy for Andy Reid, Rosemary. I mean, he went through so many years of being so close. You know, he was the Eagles' head coach for 14 seasons. He got them to the Super Bowl, just really couldn't get over the hump, but now he's won two titles there in Kansas City. And like he's done so many times, he said he's going to enjoy this win by eating a big old cheeseburger.

CHURCH: Fantastic. And you're clearly having a wonderful time, to, Andy Scholes joining us from Glendale, Arizona. Many thanks.

Well, singer Rihanna had fans saying please don't stop the music with her stunning halftime show. The highflying performance was the biggest set for the singer in years since stepping back to focus on family, acting and her cosmetic line.

Fans commented on what they thought to be a baby bump, and the Hollywood reporter says she is indeed pregnant for the second time. The superstar ran through multiple hit songs amid a sea of dancers dressed in white. She closed the show with her song "Diamonds" amid a sky full of fireworks, proving Rihanna still knows how to work it.

Well, an act of vandalism caused a temporary Comcast outage in parts of Philadelphia on Super Bowl Sunday, but fortunately many of the affected customers have their service restored before the Super Bowl. A cut fiber-optic cable had resulted in the interruption of service to a few thousand customers in the Philadelphia area.

Well, still to come, earthquake relief trickles into Turkey and Syria, but many say it's not nearly enough. So, what will it take to make a difference. A UNICEF representative weigh in.

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CHURCH: More than 34,000 people are now known to have died from the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria a week ago. Incredibly, after more than 160 hours, emergency crews are still finding people live under the rubble of collapsed buildings. But now, after surviving earthquake, victims are trying to survive the bleak conditions they face.

In Turkey, hundreds of thousands are being displaced in are living in makeshift shelters, some are struggling to stay warm, others are reeling from the trauma of losing their loved ones. In the midst of all these uncertainties, a few glimmers of hope have appeared in Turkey and Syria. CNN's Nada Bashir reports on the miraculous rescue center defied the odds.

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NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reciting a prayer, hoping for a miracle. This time, their prayers have been answered. A weekend of remarkable rescues. Several survivors pulled to freedom after almost a week buried beneath the rubble.

In Hatay, smiles of relief. This son telling his mother, we are here, we are with you. And this little girl, still in a state of shock, but free at last. Time, however, is quickly running out.

(On camera): This French rescue team working overnight to retrieve the body of a 6-year-old boy. Retrieving the dead, this colonel tells his team, is also a crucial part of their job. In northwest Syria, the grief is almost too much to bear. Rescue workers here say they are no longer holding out hope for more survivors. This is a region already decimated by president brutal war now crushed under the weight of one of the worst natural disasters this region has seen in a century.

UNKNOWN: No matter how horrific this disaster was, no matter how big this crisis was we have seen and lived through such terror before.

BASHIR (voice-over): Aid has finally arrived in serious rebel-held territories. Video say is simply too little too late. Across the border, like has been transformed. This elderly woman says she lost everything but these are tears of joy. A phone call from her son to tell her that he is alive.

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For others, hope is dwindling fast. This young woman sits waiting for news. Her mother and sister are still beneath the rubble beside her. They are dying under there she says and I am dying here.

And now as the death toll continues to soar, grief for some is turning to anger and calls for accountability are only growing. Nada Bashir, CNN, Istanbul. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: So, let's discuss this now with Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF's representative to Turkey. Thank you so much for talking with us.

REGINA DOMINICIS, UNICEF'S REPRESENTATIVE TO TURKEY: Thank you, Rosemarie, for having me.

CHURCH: So, not enough relief is getting into Turkey and Syria. Why has it been so difficult to get that aid to those most in need particularly children who survive this earthquake?

DOMINICIS: Well, the earthquake as everybody knows now, has really heated terribly during the night. A lot of infrastructure is being damaged even in Turkiye. So, it was quite difficult and challenging (inaudible) the aid to move very fast. Airport to where (inaudible) the surrounding (inaudible) provinces and it was difficult to create the corridor to be able to deliver. However, many people have tried their best and the rescue team have come as you know from all over the world to support.

Now the golden window of the rescue phase has been over and the number of casualties is really high. Children are 4.6 million that were living in that area of the (inaudible), you know, provinces that have been affected, and 811,000 of them were refugees.

CHURCH: And of course, as you know, to the lives lost, the numbers are just shocking out there. What is your biggest concern as that window starts to close on rescue efforts to get survivors out from under the rubble and as Turkey's government faces this mounting criticism for its slow response and for allowing poor building construction in many cases?

DOMINICIS: The scale of this natural disaster is unprecedented. And so, I think it would have been really complicated for any government to act and to react very fast. What is happening right now is that there is already a lifesaving humanitarian support that has been requested. As U.N., we are working with the government on a flash appeal together with our international partner.

In terms of construction part with what we have mentioned, we know that prosecutors are opening investigation and more than hundreds of constructors (inaudible), construction companies are already being detained. But what counts now is still rescue life, to take care of the people that are under temporary shelter both in education facility, ministry (inaudible) facilities and of course municipalities.

So, the needs are huge and the needs are for water supplies, for (inaudible) facilities to be able to cope with the pressure of protection issues, increased number of accompanied minors, all those are needs that we need to face.

And there is no one organization or government can do alone. So, collective efforts need to be put at the table. There are plans. Already the (inaudible) will be covering the three months, but we already planned for early recovery up to six.

CHURCH: And what is your plea to the rest of the world right now in terms of the greatest need for the survivors of this tragic earthquake?

DOMINICIS: Lifesaving humanitarian goods are absolutely needed. And the (inaudible) to come to international organization and NGO to support. As needs are moving and changing very quickly, we need to be able to pre-position supply in a different way, in different provinces, and at different scales.

So, to give you an example, we are very grateful to the U.S. government and (inaudible) who were immediately from day one able to redirect flexi funding from (inaudible) to deliver winter clothes for children, medicines, heaters. So, it's very important not to (inaudible) to some problematic response, but to allow the people in situ to decide what to allocate, why the rapid needs assessment are continuing.

[02:24:58]

CHURCH: Regina, thank you so much for talking with us. We appreciate it.

DOMINICIS: Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: Post-tropical Cyclone Gabrielle is approaching northern New Zealand bringing strong winds, heavy rain and large swells. At least 58,000 people are without power across northern island due to the storm. And dozens of schools and university across Auckland are close Monday. Radio New Zealand reports domestic flights in and out of the city have been canceled, stranding Prime Minister Chris Hipkins in the city. The storm is expected to weaken slightly on Monday and Tuesday.

Still to come, a warning for Americans in Russia as the war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark. We will have the latest details straight ahead.

Plus, more on the airborne object shot down over North America. Why officials say they are tracking more objects in U.S. air space than before. That's when we come back.

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CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. More now on our top story. For the third day in a row, U.S. President Joe Biden has directed the military to shoot down an unidentified flying object. This one was spotted Sunday over northern Michigan. It's now the fourth airborne object the U.S. military has taken down in North American air space in just over a week starting with the suspected Chinese spy balloon last weekend.

[02:29:51]

U.S. Officials say they took action after the initial incident to enhance radar capabilities which could explain the uptick in objects detected these past few days. Military leaders say it's still unclear what the three most recent objects were or where they came from.

The United States is again urging its citizens in Russia to leave immediately in an updated travel advisory. The State Department is calling for U.S. citizens to leave Russia and exercise caution, warning of the risk of wrongful detentions and being singled out for harassment. This as Russia continues its attacks on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military says nearly two dozen rocket attacks were carried out in a 24-hour period primarily focused on the Donetsk region.

And CNN's Scott McLean is following developments for us. He joins us now live from London. So, Scott, is Ukraine any closer to getting those fighter jets they say they need?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rosemary. Look, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy just recently came back from Europe where he was lobbying for these long-range missiles and also for fighter jets. And where the Ukrainians have had some successes in getting one Western ally to commit to sending a weapon before the others followed suit. The best example of that recently was with tanks where there's now a dozen countries committed to sending tanks to Ukraine.

And the very first was Poland. When it comes to fighter jets. Well, you have some countries, France, Netherlands, Portugal, saying that they're in theory open to this idea, but no one's actually committed. What the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said is that look, if it were Poland deciding Ukraine would get these jets. But over the weekend in an interview with BBC the, Polish president Andrzej Duda sort of added to the complexity around this question by pointing out a very simple fact.

And that's that Poland isn't in a position to send these fighter jets, F-16s, because his country has less than 50 of them. So even sending a very small number of these jets would really have big ramifications for the actual fleet of Polish jets. He also said that there's plenty of complexities involved in sending them around maintenance and technical servicing, which would mean that any decision for Poland to actually send these jets would really have to be made by NATO collectively.

You had the U.K. recently being the first to commit to actually training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets. But even the defense minister sort of downplayed the significance of that recently by saying that these may, in fact, come in handy after the war, rather than during it. But the Ukrainians continued to insist the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.K. said that, look, the reality is that we've heard this before.

We heard it with tanks, we heard it with long-range artillery, and eventually these countries have come around. Rosemary?

CHURCH: And Scott, Ukraine is warning that fighting is heating up in the east. So, is the frontline moving?

MCLEAN: Yes. So, any gains are sort of incremental at this point. But what we do know according to the Ukrainian military is that the attacks have been quite relentless over the weekend, with artillery, with airstrikes, and also there have been stepped up attacks around Bakhmut with heavy fighting in and around that Ukrainian stronghold, which has been really a brick wall for the Russians in their attempt to move the front lines to the west.

The Ukrainian military says that, look, this isn't a matter of the Russians wearing down Ukrainian troops. This is actually a matter of Ukrainians wearing down Russian troops to prevent them from actually launching any kind of a large-scale attacks. But they also acknowledged that their routes in and out of the town as of late have been restricted because of heavy fighting there.

And so, it seems that this sort of spring offensive that they've been warning about they say that the tempo of the fighting has really started to increase. Rosemary?

CHURCH: Thanks to Scott McLean joining us live from London. Appreciate it.

Well, just ahead, there's been a disturbing new development in the use of artificial intelligence. We will have a report from Beijing.

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[02:37:19]

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Well, there's been a disturbing development in the spread of misinformation. Deep fake video technology is being used to create pro-China propaganda videos that are being distributed on social media. CNN's Selina Wang has details.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, everyone. This is Wolf News. I'm Alex.

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On first glance, these look like news anchors. And the top leaders of China on a second glance might notice something uncanny.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two heads of state --

WANG: And how their voices don't align with their mouth movements. That's because they aren't real people. They're deep fake avatars made with artificial intelligence. It's unclear who's behind this. But last year pro-China bot accounts sent them out over Twitter and Facebook.

JACK STUBBS, VICE PRESIDENT, INTELLIGENCE AT GRAPHIKA: But this is the first time we've seen footage of an entirely fictitious fake person used in a politically motivated influence operation. This particular set of videos was promoted by an operation that we call Spamouflage, which means we've been tracking since at least 2019 and routinely amplifies narratives that align with Beijing's strategic interest.

WANG (voice over): Research firm Graphika issued a report on this broader campaign that says in part, more videos portrayed the U.S. in a negative light than focused on any other theme, presenting it as a law breaking, hegemonistic, racked by civil strife, and failing in the fight against COVID-19.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This meeting is of great significance. WANG: They push China's geopolitical agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gun violence has killed nearly 40,000 people.

WANG: And expose America's shortcomings.

The U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence says, A.I. is deepening the threat posed by cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns that Russia, China and others are using to infiltrate our society, steal our data and interfere in our democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey there, I'm Anna.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey there, I'm Jason.

WANG: And these fake news anchors, they were made with technology from British artificial intelligence company, Synthesia.

WANG (on camera): Let me show you how easy it is to create your own Deepfake video. So, I'm on the Synthesia company Web site. I'm clicking on Create a free A.I. video. And for the script, how about let's have the avatar say, hi, I'm a correspondent for CNN. They say I'll get the video in my email in just a few minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I'm a correspondent for CNN. Thanks, Anderson for having me on your show.

WANG (voice-over): Synthesia's Web site shows its technology is mainly used for corporate training and marketing videos. The company said in a statement to CNN, the recent videos that emerged are in breach of our terms of service, and we have identified and banned the user in question.

Graphika says these news anchor Deepfake videos are low quality and did not get a lot of traction on social media.

[02:40:09]

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To build a better world with --

WANG: But this technology is spreading rapidly around the world. A few years ago, a Chinese tech firm made this Deepfake video of then President Donald Trump speaking Mandarin as a demonstration to promote their company's technology at a Beijing conference.

Chinese state media has even created a whole team of A.I. news anchors, they're showing it off as a novel new technology that can mass produce shows with these anchors that can work 24/7. The proliferation of Deepfake videos makes it dramatically harder to combat disinformation. Experts say it's used by foreign and criminal actors will only grow bending our reality.

Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: And thanks so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. For our international viewers, World Sport is up next and for our viewers in North America, I'll be right back with more CNN NEWSROOM after a short break. Do stay with us.

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