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Death Toll Surpasses 41,000 Across Turkey And Syria; Report: Russians Holding Thousands Of Ukrainian Children In Camps; U.S. Intel Assessing Possibility That Chinese Balloon Wasn't Deliberately Flown Over The U.S.; Retail Sales Soar 3% In January, Crushing Expectations; Special Counsel Alleges Crime To Compel Trump Lawyer Testimony; Source: DOJ Officially Decides Not To Charge Matt Gaetz; Residents Question Air, Water Quality After Toxic Train Disaster. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 15, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:44]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: In earthquake-ravaged Turkey, miraculous rescues are still happening. Just hours ago, this woman and her two children were pulled out of the rubble. This, after nine and a half days. The woman asking what day is it? And asking for water when she was freed.

A man who survived 187 hours being trapped is now describing the desperate lengths that he took to stay alive, saying, at one point, he drank his own urine.

And on a naval ship, another quake survivor has just brought new life into the world. The father saying his healthy baby girl brings happiness in difficult days.

Across the region, the staggering death toll is now over 41,000.

Here's CNN's Jomana Karadsheh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The city of Antakya is one of the hardest hit by the massive earthquake. Here it's almost impossible to find a building that hasn't been impacted by the quake. Entire neighborhoods flattened. Buildings, businesses, homes, reduced to piles and piles of rubble.

The Turkish president says the earthquake was as big as atomic bombs. People here say it is like a war zone. But no bombs went off here and, in seconds, a historic city was wiped.

Wherever you turn, there is something happening. It's the constant sound of diggers, heavy machinery on every street removing the rubble.

Police and emergency services are everywhere. You have ambulances screaming past. Heavy military presence and families searching for and retrieving the bodies of their loved ones. You see people sleeping on the streets. Tent cities for the displaced

that are popping up everywhere. And with fires burning for people to keep warm, the smoke, dust and all kinds of fumes here make it so hard to breathe.

One man telling us this is what the apocalypse would look like.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Antakya, Turkey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Our thanks to Jomana for that report.

Turkish officials today say there are more than 50,000 buildings that urgently need to be demolished.

Now to a disturbing report concerning Russia's war on Ukraine. The report finding that the Russian government has been operating a large network of camps that have been holding thousands of Ukrainian kids since the war began.

CNN's Clare Sebastian has more.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Kasie, this report paints a picture of an effort coordinated at the top level of the Russian government to use the very youngest Ukrainians to further the aims of the war.

Ukraine has been alleging for months that thousands of children have been illegally deported to Russia.

Even the alleged leader of these efforts, the Russian commissioner for children's rights, has already been sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and E.U.

But this report from the State Department-backed Conflict Observatory from the Humanitarian Research Lab provides a lot more detail using open-source data and satellite images to track the movement of children inside Russia.

The findings reveal at least 6,000 children, ranging from a few months to 17 years, have at some point since the start of the invasion been in Russian custody. That number, though, could be much higher.

And the report uncovered the presence of 43 facilities, mostly existing summer camps in Russia, that are being used for the political re-education of these children, ranging from cultural and patriotic to even military, including firearms training.

The Observatory says two of the facilities were used to house orphans deported from Ukraine. And the report found evidence of some children being transferred from the camps into Russian foster families.

The U.S. State Department condemning the findings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NED PRICE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: The report indicates how these abusive practices involve officials and other individuals at all levels of Russia's government. Putin seeks to rob Ukraine of its future by taking its children.

Russia's system of forced relocation, re-education and adoption of Ukraine's children is a key element of the Kremlin's systematic efforts to deny and suppress Ukraine's identity, its history and its culture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:35:07]

SEBASTIAN: Russia's embassy in Washington called Ned Price's comments absurd, saying it "has accepted children and their families fleeing atrocities committed by Ukraine. It does its best to keep families together and to ensure," quote, "the protection of their lives and well-being."

Both the report and the State Department warning that the evidence points to war crimes -- Kasie?

HUNT: Claire Sebastian, thanks for that.

Two sources tell CNN that President Biden could deliver remarks this week about the Chinese spy balloon and three other unidentified objects shot down by U.S. fighter jets over the last couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, just about 90 minutes from now, Senators are expected to get a classified briefing on China.

Lawmakers from both parties are voicing quite a bit of frustration their questions have not been adequately answered.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins us now with more.

Natasha, good to see you.

You have new reporting just into CNN on the path of the Chinese spy balloon and how weather may have played into that. Can you walk us through what we know now?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Kasie. We're learning that U.S. intelligence officials are now scrutinizing the possibility that this was just an accident, that the weather had essentially diverted this balloon off its original path towards the continental United States.

So just to take a step back here, the U.S. was monitoring this balloon from the time that it actually took off from China.

What had happened was it settled into a path that the U.S. believed would take the balloon potentially over Guam, where it would monitor sensitive military installations. However, the balloon then took an unexpected path north towards Alaska

and then into Canada and, of course, as we know, down south into the lower 48 into the continental United States.

Now, originally. the U.S. had said that this was intentional, that they believed that the Chinese wanted to surveil sensitive military sites inside the United States.

Now it appears that they might be more seriously considering the possibility that strong winds diverted this balloon and it's entering the U.S. was, in fact, an accident as China has asserted.

Now, it's important to note here that China did have some ability to maneuver this balloon.

And it did, in fact, when it entered the United States, loiter over the sensitive sites in Montana before actually exiting the United States, going eastward and then being shot down, of course, off the coast of South Carolina.

So the U.S. still very adamant here that the balloon was being used to surveil potentially sensitive military sites.

But now we are learning that this may, in fact, have been unintentional by the Chinese. And that is exactly what the U.S. intel community is trying to determine for sure.

Of course, this could go a long way in easing tensions between Washington and Beijing. Beijing has insisted from the beginning this was accidental. The U.S. still trying to determine that for sure -- Kasie?

HUNT: Natasha Bertrand, thanks for that reporting. We really appreciate it.

Coming up next, Donald Trump's handling of classified documents. Prosecutors now say there's evidence of a crime and they want a Trump attorney to testify. We'll have details, ahead.

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[13:42:42]

HUNT: Good news for retailers is bad news for investors today. The Dow is down -- look at that, about 72 points right now -- after news today that retail sales numbers rose 3 percent in January.

This comes on the heels of rising consumer prices and a strong jobs report. It means the economy is not cooling off.

Vanessa Yurkevich is live in New York to break down the numbers for us and explain what it all means.

Hey, Vanessa.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kasie. So this is another economic report that is defying expectations. This

is retail sales for the month of January, up 3 percent. And that is significant because retail sales fell by 0.1 percent in December.

And the big numbers to keep in mind, that 3 percent in January and then up 6.4 percent year over year.

And there's certain places that Americans are still continuing to spend. One, restaurants up 7.2 percent. People still liking going out to eat, spending money there.

Auto sales up 6.4 percent. That's because there may be a lag in inventory and folks may be just getting the opportunity to spend and buy their car. But of course, this is despite rising interest rates, which affects car sales.

Also people are going out shopping at department stores, up 17.5 percent.

There's a couple of reasons why. Good weather. Believe it or not, good weather makes people want to go out and spend at restaurants, go shopping.

Also a strong labor market. People have jobs and wages are up. So they are comfortable at least spending what they feel like they can right now post-holiday discounts.

As I mentioned in December, retail sales dropped. People were maybe holding back on spending. Now, when you have all of these retailers offering deals, people are now spending in January.

And this is a big one, new this year, Social Security payments to seniors up 8.7 percent starting in January. That's the largest increase on record and that affects 70 million seniors who feel like they may have a little extra cash in their wallet -- Kasie?

HUNT: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks very much for running us through that. We really appreciate it.

And federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump's handling of classified documents have taken an aggressive new step.

[13:45:03]

Sources tell CNN that they're asking a court to force more testimony from his attorney, Evan Corcoran.

Prosecutors say Trump used Corcoran in planning a crime or a fraud, which could undermine the normal attorney/client privilege.

Let's bring in retired Ambassador Norm Eisen. He's a CNN legal analyst, former White House ethics czar, and was the White House Judiciary special counsel during Trump's first impeachment trial.

Always good to see you, Mr. Eisen.

How big of an escalation is this? How significant is this request?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Kasie, it's a big escalation and a signal that Trump's legal peril on holding those classified documents, even after the government asked for them back again and again, is deepening.

You know, the attorney/client privilege, myself, as an attorney, is sacred. It's very rarely challenged in court or by prosecutors.

But when an attorney -- and this is the allegation the government is making about Mr. Corcoran.

When an attorney is used by a client to facilitate or further a crime or a fraud, the privilege is blanked out. And that's what we are facing here.

I think the government has a pretty good case that the privilege should be waived.

HUNT: So what are -- what will the stakes be for Trump? What could they learn from Corcoran that they don't know right now?

EISEN: Well, we've already had a finding on these Mar-a-Lago documents of probable cause of multiple federal crimes, including obstruction of justice.

That's because you have to have that in order to get a search warrant, which was executed, and how over 100 additional classified documents were recovered from Mar-a-Lago.

So what the prosecutors will try to learn from Mr. Corcoran, and the court, I think, will order him to answer these kinds of questions, are, what conversations did you have with Donald Trump? What knowledge did he have about the documents?

What did you know still existed on the premises when you helped prepare, as Mr. Corcoran did, a document talking about the classified documents having been already turned over. And what did Donald Trump know?

So it allows prosecutors a very free hand to build this obstruction of justice case that Donald Trump was intentionally misleading the government about his continued possession of classified documents.

HUNT: Got it. OK.

Let me ask you, while I have you, about something unrelated.

Because this just into CNN. A source tells us the Justice Department leadership has decided not to charge Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz in that sex trafficking probe.

This comes after, last year, the investigators in the case had recommended against charges.

Your reaction? EISEN: Well, Kasie, people often ask me how is it that Donald Trump

has been accused of so many things and yet hasn't been prosecuted.

Prosecutions are hard. And that is what the Gaetz declination, as we call it, the declining to prosecute, shows.

CNN has reported that the reason for this is problems with the witness testimony.

Now, one of Mr. Gaetz' associates, his friend, Joel Greenberg, has pleaded guilty. But Greenberg is not a very good witness because of some of the issues he's had with the law.

So prosecutors thought they couldn't make the case. That sometimes happens.

Talking about a case, writing about a case and actually charging a case, those are different things and that's what's happened here.

HUNT: Important point.

Norm Eisen, thank you very much, as always, sir. We really appreciate your time.

EISEN: Thanks.

[13:48:55]

HUNT: A protest today against Florida's governor and state school officials. New developments in the class controversy that's drawn national attention to the Sunshine State, up next.

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[13:53:46]

HUNT: Protesters have converged on Florida's capital.

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(CHANTING)

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HUNT: They are marching in Tallahassee because Florida rejected the high school advanced placement course on African-American history studies.

Governor DeSantis' administration said the course lacks educational value. The A.P. curriculum is put together by the college board, the same group that organizes the SAT. They board says Florida's decision was politically motivated.

Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, could learn more about the safety of their air and water later today. This train derailment unleashed toxic chemicals there nearly two weeks ago. The state says tests show the air quality's OK, but the water could be

another matter.

Here's why. This is what people are seeing in the water there. More than 3,000 fish have died, according to state officials.

And residents tell CNN they're afraid to drink from the water supply.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Air-wise, I feel OK. Water-wise, no. I -- no. There's just too many chemicals and stuff that were spilled. Still don't want to identify completely.

TANGIE MOHRBACHER, EAST PALISTINE RESIDENT: We pass all the creeks and there's crew after crew with white hoses and black hoses all through the creeks. They're not telling us why. And this is daily.

[13:55:08]

I'm driving my children to school past all of this and they're asking me questions that I don't have answers to.

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HUNT: Ohio's governor spoke with CNN this morning. He is urging people to take precautions until the water test results are in.

The governor says he's going to make sure the rail company, Norfolk Southern, cleans up the toxic mess.

Officials plan to hold a town hall later tonight.

That's going to do it for me today. Thank you so much for joining us.

But, please, don't go anywhere just yet. We still have much more news coming up next.

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