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Alex Murdaugh Faces Day Two of Cross-Examination; President Zelenskyy Speaks as Ukraine Marks One Year of War; Secretary Antony Blinken Addresses U.N. Security Council One Year After Russia's Invasion. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired February 24, 2023 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

ALEX MURDAUGH, MURDER DEFENDANT: That I lied to people that trusted me.

CREIGHTON WATERS, PROSECUTOR: So, we can agree that the prosecution and law enforcement, and so many of your friends and family heard for the first time your story about the kennels yesterday after all these weeks of testimony. Can we agree on that?

MURDAUGH: The law enforcement, my partners and my friends heard me say that for the first time. Yes, I agree with that.

WATERS: Would you agree with me that your own lawyer was repeating your story that you were at home napping as late as November of 2022 on national television?

MURDAUGH: I don't -- I don't know.

WATERS: You don't know that?

MURDAUGH: No. In jail, we don't get newspapers and the TV we have is limited. So.

WATERS: So your own lawyers as late as November 2022 didn't know this story that you've told to this jury after five weeks of your family and friends coming in and saying, yes, that's him on that video.

MURDAUGH: I don't know --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection, your honor. Violation of attorney-client privilege, communication. Totally improper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. Your response.

WATERS: He has brought up his communications with counsel and now that is fair game, your honor. His communications through counsel or alleged communication with the prosecution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no attorney-client privilege to national television interviews. The objection is overruled. MURDAUGH: Are you waiting for me to answer, Mr. Waters, or did I

answer?

WATERS: I think the point is made.

MURDAUGH: All right, sir.

WATERS: You said you were unaware of that national television interview, is that what you said?

MURDAUGH: Unaware of what national television interview?

WATERS: The one where your lawyer repeated that story as late as November of 2022, your story that you were actually at home asleep at the house?

MURDAUGH: The only national TV ad that I am aware of is -- not ad, program is one that Mr. Griffin was involved in was a -- are you referring to like a "Dateline" something?

WATERS: I'm talking about HBO.

MURDAUGH: OK. HBO, like, so, yes, I am aware of that, and what I believe the case to be is that I believe that when that was in its works that Mr. Griffin made those statements some time substantially before November of '22, as early as around the very beginning of 2021.

WATERS: Let's talk --

MURDAUGH: At least what I understand to be the case.

WATERS: Let's talk some more about your testimony yesterday. And you're telling this jury even on something as clear as this kennel video, that your story doesn't change when you have to make them to fit the facts that no longer can be denied. Is that what you're telling this jury?

MURDAUGH: I don't understand that question. Say that again?

WATERS: I said, you're telling this jury that you don't change your story to make the facts fit evidence you can no longer deny like what has been going on in this courtroom.

MURDAUGH: I'm not telling the jury anything about that.

WATERS: All right. Good. All right, let's move on, let's talk some more about that issue. Let's talk about the confrontation on June 7th --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to break away now from Murdaugh's trial for just a moment, going to the Ukrainian president speaking today on the one-year anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion of his country, speaking to the reporters there. Let's listen in.

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): Today, there have been many introductions, many thanks. The main thing is to thank you, members of the media, journalists.

[10:35:02]

ZELENSKYY (through translator): You know, I think it is very important what you have been doing for a year. Our invincible Ukrainian journalists, I want to thank them all. It is a great power what you have done for strengthening our states. Everybody has fought. The defenders have fought, the whole Ukrainian people, and you, you are all an army and also our friends, our partners in the West.

I am sure you know what you have done for us. I think on victory day this feeling will come, and I bow deeply to you for what you have been saying about Ukraine and that the world is not forgetting Ukraine and is helping us. Helping us be invincible.

February is a month of invincibility and a year of invincibility. I thank you all, and I want to thank your colleagues who unfortunately are not with us anymore. They died in Ukraine. They have been such people, your colleagues, members of your very important profession, it would be fair to honor the journalists with a minute of silence. Those who will be in our memory.

It is important to us, and it is important for them. Thank you. I think we can start without further ado. We can talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): OK. Let's talk starting. Please remember to raise your flags and introduce yourselves. Christiane, please, CNN.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (through translator): Mr. President, thank you for taking my question. Mr. President, in terms of the time frame, it's been a year, and you ask, you told -- you told your armed forces, do you think --

ZELENSKYY (through translator): Thank you for the question. Indeed, I want to very much if each of us, each partner, and we in our country, if we stay as one fist, one strong fist and work for a victory, if this is a victory of values, if they stick to their words, to their terms and it's not just blah, blah, blah, I believe in it. We have been partners, strong partners, and there is evidence to that.

If we all do our important homework -- our guard's back is very wide. If we all do our homework, victory will be inevitable. I am certain there will be victory. I don't think, I want it this year. We have everything for it. We have the motivation, certainty, the friends, you, the diplomacy. You have all come together for this, and I think not a single country in the world can stand up independently against a war like this.

Maybe the United States could, but unfortunately they don't share a border with the Russian federation. Nevertheless, it is several countries, Ukraine is not alone. We are helped by our friends for our shared values so that this war doesn't spread, so this aggression doesn't spread.

We know exactly what Putin wants, what the Kremlin wants. The military and the political leadership of the Russian federation. So it is important for all of us to be focused and work each in our own place.

[10:40:07]

And then we shall have victory because truth is on our side. And the children whom we love, and it is the great shame when we lose them on the frontline. They are not counting their dead. That is their choice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Thank you. ICTV.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (through translator): Good evening, Mr. President. I would like to thank you for your example of invincibility and your faith. We all believe in victory. Many international experts say that it is a war of attrition. And that's neither side has enough resources to gain an obvious victory on the battlefield and that negotiations are inevitable.

How do you imagine these negotiations and what will be the final victory for you?

ZELENSKYY (through translator): I don't think in theoretical terms how these negotiations will take place and what they are. We take specific steps. Ukraine has initiated a peace formula at G20 even though we would, the whole world would like to see it as G19, presented with peace formula, a step-by-step plan, and you can see the result of what Russia has done here and how it affects not only our security, because there have been many crisis that have been caused by the aggression of the Russian federation.

You know, the nuclear station in Enerhodar, in Zaporizhzhia is occupied. The food security, all of the chains in the Black Sea, and you know, all the points on the plan, and we have proposed steps. Today, we can see interest in the implementation of this peace formula and --

SCIUTTO: Moving now to New York from Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State speaking. Let's listen in.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: In 2022, I warned this council that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine. I said that Russia would manufacture a pretext and then use missiles, tanks, soldiers, cyberattacks to strike pre-identified targets including Kyiv with the aim of toppling Ukraine's democratically elected government.

Russia's representative, the same representative who will speak today, called these, and I quote, "groundless accusations." Seven days later, on February 24th, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Due to fierce resistance by Ukraine's defenders, President Putin failed in his primary objective to conquer Ukraine and its existence as an independent country, and absorb it into Russia. Then he dusted off his Crimea playbook from 2014. He called snap referenda in four occupied parts of Ukraine, deported Ukrainians, bussed in Russians, held sham votes at gunpoint, and then manipulated the results to claim unanimous support for joining the Russian federation.

When President Putin couldn't break the Ukrainian military, he intensified efforts to break Ukrainian spirit. Over the last year, Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women and children, uprooted more than 13 million people from their homes, destroyed more than half of the country's energy grid, bombed more than 700 hospitals, 2600 schools, and abducted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children, some as young as 4 months old, and relocated them to Russia.

And yet, the spirit of the Ukrainians remains unbroken. If anything, it is stronger than ever. When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive that retook large swathes of its territory, President Putin conscripted an additional 300,000 men throwing more and more of Russia's young people into a meat grinder of his own making, and he unleashed the Wagner Group, mercenaries who have committed atrocities from Africa to the Middle East and now in Ukraine.

Of course, that's not the whole story of the last year. There's also this story of Ukraine's people. Vastly outnumbered, they have fought bravely to defend their nation, their freedom, the right to determine their own future, and they have demonstrated inspiring unity in helping one another endure Moscow's relentless assault.

[10:45:08]

Teachers and community members give classes in bunkers to children. City workers improvised patches to restore heat and power and water to residents. Neighbors set up soup kitchens to feed the hungry.

There is also the story of how the international community has come together. The vast majority of the member states have voted multiple times to condemn Russia's violations of the U.N. charter and reject its illegal attempt to seize Ukrainian territory. Yesterday, 141 countries voted in the general assembly for a resolution that reaffirms the core principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity and denounces Russia's atrocities, expressed its support for a just and consequential peace in accordance with the United Nations charter.

When President Putin tried to weaponize hunger, exploiting the worst global food crisis since the creation of the U.N., the international community responded swiftly. Since the United States chaired a food security meeting last night, more than 100 countries had signed on to a set of concrete commitments to alleviate hunger. Thanks in large part of the Secretary-General Guterres, and Turkey, the Black Sea grain initiative, loosened Russia's stranglehold on the Ukraine's ports and brought down the cost of grain for the world.

Now, as Moscow again tries to throttle its output, we have to ensure that that initiative is extended and expanded. When President Putin tried to weaponize energy, we re-redirected national gas supplies from across the globe. So the countries Russia targeted to keep their people warm in the winter. And Europe took extraordinary steps to end this dependence on Russian energy.

Now country has endured greater hardship from Russia's war than Ukraine. But almost every country has felt the pain. An yet nations around the world continue to stand with Ukraine, because we all recognize that if we abandon Ukraine, we abandon the U.N. charter itself, and the principles and rules that make all countries safer and more secure. No seizing land by force. No erasing another country's borders. No targeting civilians in war. No wars of aggression.

If we do not defend these basic principles, we invite a world in which might makes right, the strong dominate the weak. That's the world this body was created to end. And members of this council have a unique responsibility to make sure that we do not return to it.

We can do that in three ways. First, we must push for a just and durable peace. Now, I expect that many countries will call for peace today. No one wants peace more than the Ukrainian people. And the United States has long made clear, even before this war, that we're prepared to engage in any meaningful diplomatic effort to stop Russia's aggression against Ukraine, but history teaches us that it's the nature of peace that matters.

For peace to be just, it must uphold the principles at the heart of the U.N. charter -- sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence. For peace to be durable, it must ensure that Russia can't simply rest, rearm and relaunch the war in a few months or a few years. Any peace that legitimizes Russia's seizure of land by force will weaken the charter and send a message to would-be aggressors everywhere that they can invade countries and get away with it.

President Zelenskyy has put forward a 10-point plan for a just and durable peace. President Putin, by contrast, has made clear that there's nothing to talk about until Ukraine accepts, and I quote, "the new territorial realties," while doubling down on his brutal tactics. Members of this council have a fundamental responsibility to ensure that any peace is just and durable. Councilmembers should not be fooled by calls for a temporary or unconditional ceasefire.

Russia will use any pause in fighting to consolidate control over the territory it's illegally seized and replenish its forces for further attacks. That's what happened when Russia's first assault on Ukraine froze in 2015. Look at what followed. And members of this council should not fall into the false equivalency of calling on both sides to stop fighting or call on other nations to stop supporting Ukraine in the name of peace.

No member of this council should call for peace while supporting Russia's war in Ukraine and on the U.N. charter.

[10:50:04]

In this war, there is an aggressor and there is a victim. Russia fights for conquest. Ukraine fights for its freedom. If Russia stops fighting and leaves Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. The fact remains, one man, Vladimir Putin, started this war. One man can end it.

Second, even as we were to end Russia's war against Ukraine, members of this council must continue to address other challenges to international peace and security. We hear the concerns of countries who worry that standing with Ukraine and holding Russia accountable is diverting focus and resources from others in need. To those countries I would say simply look at our actions. And when

you hear Russia and its defenders accuse the countries who support Ukraine of ignoring the rest of the world, I say look at Moscow's actions. Compare the numbers. In addition to the $13.5 billion in food aid that the United States contributed to fight hunger over the last year, we also fund more than 40 percent of the World Food Program's budget.

Russia contributes less than 1 percent of that budget. That is not an outlier. Based on the latest U.N. figures the United States donates over nine times as Russia to the U.N. peacekeeping, we donate 390 times as Russia to UNICEF. We give nearly a thousand times as much as Russia to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Third, we must reaffirm our commitment to upholding what the U.N. charter calls, and I quote, "The dignity and worth of the human person. We must continue to compile evidence of Russia's ongoing and widespread atrocities including executions, torture, rape and sexual violence, the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia. We must continue to document Russia's war crimes and crime crimes against humanity and share this evidence with investigators and prosecutors so that one day, the perpetrators can be held accountable.

Day after day of Russia's atrocities, it's easy to become numb to the heart, to lose our ability to feel shock and outrage, but we can never let the crimes Russia is committing become our new normal. Bucha is not normal. Mariupol is not normal. Irpin is not normal. Bombing schools and hospitals and apartment building to rubble is not normal.

Stealing Ukrainian children from their parents and giving them to people in Russia is not normal. We must not let President Putin's callous indifference to human life become our own. We must force ourselves to remember that behind every atrocity in this Russian war, in conflicts around the world, he is a human being.

I recently visited an exhibit of artwork made by Ukrainian children affected by the war. One painting I saw was made by a 10-year-old girl named Veronica. Last year April, Russian forces shelled her home in Vuhledar, killing her whole family. When first responders dug her from the rubble, a piece of shrapnel was lodged in her skull. Her left thumb had been ripped off. Doctors saved her life but the attack left her right hand mostly paralyzed and she cannot see out of her left eye.

In her painting, Veronica drew herself in a bright pink and orange dress, holding a bouquet of flowers. The building stands next to her. When asked who lived there, she said it was a place where all the people she knew who had been killed in the war could be safe.

We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. That's how the U.N. charter begins.

Fellow members of this council, now is the time to meet that promise. There are so many people in Ukraine who want the same thing as that little girl Veronica, a world where they can live in peace, in their own country, and keep the people they love safe.

We have the power. We have the responsibility to create that world today and for generations to come. We cannot, we will not let one country destroy it. Thank you.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN ANCHOR: You've been listening to Secretary of State Antony Blinken speak at the United Nations on this one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[10:55:05]

Let's get straight to CNN's national security team first, Kylie Atwood, at the United Nations.

And Kylie, so interesting that the secretary of State would start his remarks by reminding the Security Council that he warned them one year and one week ago today that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine, and then he said Russia's representative the same representative who will speak today called those groundless accusations, now look where the world is -- Kylie.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the secretary of State very clearly stating that Russia failed its primary objective in Ukraine, and what he did was took stock in terms of what has happened over the last year, reminding all of these countries that he stood before the United Nations about a year ago this time warning that Russia was going to create some sort of false flag operation, that it was going to invade Ukraine, even though Russia denied that it was going to do so.

And then what he did was reflect on how Ukraine has responded, saying that Ukraine's spirit today is unbroken, that Ukraine is stronger than ever, thank the international community for standing by Ukraine and also supporting efforts to make sure that global food insecurity and all of the fallout from this Ukraine war is supported by the rest of the world.

And I think that it's important to note that the secretary of State also made sure that there needs to be a just and durable peace going forward.

SCIUTTO: And indeed Russia did try those false flag operations. U.S. exposed them. They didn't hit their mark.

Alex Marquardt, standing by in Kyiv. Alex, I wonder if the Ukrainians you're speaking with are bracing themselves for this war to drag on for months and perhaps years.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. Jim, I absolutely think they are. Today is certainly a day of reflection for everybody who's endured this war. The millions of Ukrainians who've endured this war over the past year. It's a day of sadness because they recognize that the war indeed will continue for quite some time.

There are so many parts of this country that have returned to, you know, some kind of normalcy. There are cities where people have gone back to life, that people who had left the country have returned to, whether it's Lviv or Kyiv or Odessa or here where I am in Dnipro. But this is not a normal life. This is a time when air-raid sirens are going off all the time. Attacks, missile attacks, drone attacks taking place all across the country. And of course in the eastern part of the country, towns and the cities have been decimated.

This war is essentially at a standstill, that frontline is quite stagnant, it is grinding, and it is active. And so there is a recognition that it is going to be quite some time before the Russian forces can be pushed out. That's why President Zelenskyy is saying time is of the essence to get that foreign aid into Ukraine as fast as possible -- Jim, Kristin.

SCIUTTO: Also in the meantime. Alex Marquardt there, Kylie Atwood in New York, thanks so much.

FISHER: And thank you, Jim, for letting me spend the week with you here on set here.

SCIUTTO: It's been great to have you.

FISHER: It's been great to be here. I'm Kristin Fisher.

SCIUTTO: I'm Jim Sciutto. Kate Bolduan, she's going to continue our live coverage of the Alex Murdaugh trial, next.

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