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At Least Nine Tornadoes Reported Across Oklahoma and Kansas; U.S Warns China Against Providing Weapons to Russia; Judge Grants Defense Request to Allow Jury to Visit Site of Murders. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired February 27, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Folks love that show. The actors were on the red carpet. We had a lot of great commentary, and also Abbott Elementary won for the comedy side, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, you get the best assignments. Thanks so much for bringing us all of the stories.

Top of the hour this Monday, I'm Jim Sciutto.

Right now, homeowners just beginning to clean up after the severe storms ripped across parts of the central U.S. overnight tearing up homes and businesses. At least nine tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma and Kansas, while wind gusts equivalent to a category 3 hurricane, about 120 miles an hour, battered Texas. Police in Norman, Oklahoma, say that at least 12 people were injured. We are going to take you there for the latest in a moment.

Plus, the U.S. is warning China that it is going to face stiff consequences if Beijing goes ahead and gives weapons, including drones and ammunition, to Russia for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. This as at least two Ukrainian worker were killed amid a fresh wave of Russian drone attacks. Those weapons, they have consequences there.

We do begin this hour with the latest on the storms overnight, at least seven tornadoes touching down not just in Oklahoma.

CNN Senior National Correspondent Ed Lavandera, he is in Norman, that's just south of Oklahoma City. You've been doing a good job this morning showing people just what it looks like in the wake of one these. Tell us what you are seeing now?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the sun is up, residents here beginning to go through their neighborhood, assess the damage and really begin the cleanup process. But you can see the magnitude of the destruction. Look at this car flipped over on top of other ones, part of this house ripped apart by the storm. We have seen this throughout this particular neighborhood where we are in Norman, Oklahoma.

The good news is that it is very isolated. So, once you kind of get maybe a half mile or so away from this, everything kind of gets back to normal. But it really kind of speaks to the sporadic nature and the unpredictability of where these tornadoes are going to land. And that is obviously very troublesome especially when the systems come in the middle of the night, in the darkness, where you really can't see and kind of get a gauge of what is happening.

So, many people are shaken by what happened here. Just a while ago, Jim, we met a woman named Tabitha Heaton, she is a tenth grade math teacher at a high school in Oklahoma City. She talked to us. We met her while she was cleaning up her driveway. She is trying to get everything cleaned up so she can get her car out of her garage and continue on with the day. But she described what it was like to endure this tornado late last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TABITHA HEATON, HOME DAMAGED BY TORNADO: I had went to Walmart not maybe an hour earlier, groceries for the week and whatnot, got home, got them unpacked, turned on the news because I knew that there was weather, and I was like, oh, there's one kind of headed towards this way.

I heard the sirens going off and I'm like, am I going to get in my safe place? So, I grabbed the cat I guess for like a second, I was like I might not have a house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: She told us she is, Jim, physically fine, but still kind of emotionally shaken. And you can tell there from listening to her, just -- she said that everything happened so quickly. The storm came through. The house shook. She still feels shaken by what she endured last night. But it was over very quickly. And that is at least some of the silver lining, but she knew the way that the house was moving that there was going to be damage. So now she begins that cleanup process, Jim.

SCIUTTO: You just look at it there, and it is such a long cleanup process and we forget that in the wake of these. Ed Lavandera, thanks so much.

Well, the U.S. is warning that China will face, quote, real costs if it moves ahead with giving Russia weapons for its war on Ukraine. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan making that threat here on CNN saying that in close door talks with Beijing, the U.S. is laying out both the stakes and the consequences. Sources have told CNN that Washington has new intelligence China is considering at least providing Russia specifically with drones and ammunition.

CNN National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood, she is at the State Department with more. Kylie, does the U.S. have a sense, and it's interesting because this is a part of a strategy we've seen previously where they make public intelligence, it seems, to influence China before it makes such a decision, do we know, does the U.S. know how close China is to going forward?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Not really. They have not public said when they think China will make this final decision, but what they have said is that, of course, they're considering it and that they haven't made this final decision. And the point of the United States talking about this possibility publicly, revealing that China is mulling over this is to deter China from going ahead with it.

We have heard from the CIA director, Bill Burns, over the weekend, and I think it's important to note the language that he used in this interview saying that the U.S. is confident that China is considering this.

[10:05:08]

Listen to that sound bite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BURNS, CIA DIRECTOR: Well, we are confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment, we also don't see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don't see the evidence of shipments of lethal equipment. And that is why I think Secretary Blinken and the president have thought it would be important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: And we also have heard from the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, saying on CNN over the weekend that China is aware that there would be real costs associated with going ahead and providing this lethal assistance to Russia to be used in the war in Ukraine.

Publicly, U.S officials aren't saying exactly what those costs would be but they have said that in private conversations, the secretary of state, the president and lower level, including the U.S. ambassador the China, have been very clear with China about what those consequences would be.

Of course, Jim, the concern here is that any additional lethal assistance to China -- excuse me -- to Russia that could be used in this war would prolong the war. And that is exactly what the United States wants to prevent from happening.

And, of course, the backdrop is that the U.S./China relationship is in this really tense moment right now. We had that Chinese spy balloon. Now we have them considering providing this lethal assistance. So, it is a very precarious moment. The Biden administration has said they want to work with China on issues, but right now, they're really focused on their differences.

SCIUTTO: Indeed, and getting worse, perhaps. Kylie Atwood, thanks so much.

CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen joins me now to discuss. Peter, good to have you on this morning.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thank you, Jim. SCIUTTO: So, U.S. concerns that if China were to aid Russia in terms of weapons, you could argue they are already aiding them by buying their oil, but in terms of weapons here, that will lengthen the war. I wonder, does China want to lengthen the war? Do they see an opportunity to weaken or at least bog down the U.S. and its lies?

BERGEN: Well, Jim, as you know, China has had sort of a -- I would say, a sort of a mixed view of the war. You know, it did not go as planned certainly for Putin, and yet on the other hand, China does not have a world of allies, and so anything that can help Russia and also they have a common enemy. So, there're clearly some advantages.

But when Jake Sullivan says that the United States is going to impose real costs on China, I wonder what those real costs are. After all, China is not Russia with an economy which is smaller than Italy's. I mean, we do half a trillion of dollars of -- we import half a trillion dollars of imports from China and we export $150 million to them. So, this is a kind of rather different kind of situation. I mean, you could imagine the United States imposing sanctions on the individual Chinese military companies perhaps, but that is not the sort of a slap on the wrist.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It is hard to see broader sanctions that don't, for instance, increase prices here, right, given all that the U.S. imports from China.

You do already have another power involved in this war, and that is Iran coming to Russia's aid, sending them drones, and now the U.S. believes that, as Burns was saying, that Russia offering to aid Iran's missile program in return. Is that an expansion of this war, in effect, beyond Ukraine's borders with an impact in the Middle East?

BERGEN: Well, I think it certainly is. And, again, I mean, Iran has very few allies also. So, both of these countries are looking for help from each other. I mean, what is fascinating, as you indicated you're your discussion with Kylie, is the extent to which we are sort of publicly putting out intelligence that previously and other previous.

And I think that is a very important point to make, which is secrecy is not a policy. Secrecy serves policy. And so if secret information is useful to achieve certain policy, and it should be used, and I think the Biden administration, by and large, has done this very adeptly, however, but there is a trap here, which we are about to memorialize the 20th anniversary of U.S. invasion of Iraq, and there was a lot of intelligence put out there publicly about the case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and, of course, a lot of it was wrong. So, there are some traps here. But, I mean, so far, I think the Biden administration has done this pretty well.

SCIUTTO: Let's talk about another intelligence issue, and that is the question as to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been subject of debate virtually since the beginning here. Was it a lab leak or did it emerge naturally in the wild, as it were? You now have the Department of Energy changing its assessment to a low confidence assessment, but an assessment nonetheless that it's more likely to have been a lab leak. What's happening here and what needs to be done now to get hard answers to this question?

BERGEN: Jim, unfortunately, I don't think we will ever get a real answer. However, that said, we have never had a COVID commission like the 9/11 commission, and I think we desperately need it.

[10:10:00]

Look, more Americans have died of COVID than have died in every American war since the American Revolution, which is an astonishing number. That is a major national security issue.

And the fact -- of course, it's a very politicized problem and there are going to be a House investigations and Senate investigations, but what we really need is a bipartisan commission of real experts with money and staff and subpoena power to really look into this. Because, obviously, again, the pandemic could be worse. I mean, imagine a COVID that was, let's say, twice as lethal as the present version or there's a lot of permutations you could imagine. So, we were clearly massively underprepared and why that was the case is something we need to find out, and also have policy recommendations to kind of make this work better for the next time.

SCIUTTO: No question, because knowing where it came from and the circumstances would presumably help the response. Peter Bergen, thanks very much.

BERGEN: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, just moments ago, the judge in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial ruled that he will allow defense attorneys to take the jury to the crime scene before they rest their case. Details on that and the testimony we are hearing from a pathologist right, we're going to take you live to South Carolina.

Plus, the Republican National Committee chair says she plans to require a loyalty pledge for any 2024 presidential contender who wants to appear in the primary debates.

Also new this morning, the EPA is allowing shipments of contaminated waste from the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Congress has new plans to hold Norfolk Southern accountable.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: The Alex Murdaugh double murder trial has now resumed with a forensic pathologist on the stand right now. You can see him testifying. This is after the judge has moments ago made an interesting decision, granting the defense's request to allow the jury to go see the murder scene themselves soon.

The defendant himself took the stand last week admitting that he lied to police but insisting still he did not kill his wife and youngest son. CNN's Randi Kaye, she's outside the courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina. Randi, that is quite a decision from the judge. Do we know when this visit to the crime scene will take place?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I would imagine, Jim, in the next couple of days, possibly as early as tomorrow or probably more likely Wednesday at this point. The defense did say that they do expect to rest today as well this morning.

So, they are just telling judge that as well. But the jury will go to Moselle. That's the 1,700-acre property just about 30 minutes or so from the courthouse. That's where the murders took place. The defense did make that request. The state was opposed to it because they were telling the judge that the property has changed quite a bit, including the trees that are on the property between the kennels where the murders took place and the main house, which they felt was a big deal.

But the defense also pointing out, Jim, that dozens of tourists and people came by the feed room where Paul Murdaugh was killed to take selfies of themselves over the weekend. People going there and they're having a look for themselves, and Alex Murdaugh's brother, John Marvin Murdaugh, had to actually call the sheriff to have those people removed.

But Murdaugh, as you mentioned, he did finally admit after 20 months of lying to investigators that he was at the kennels around the time of the murders. He is still insisting he did not kill his wife and son. But the prosecutor is certainly not buying that it was somebody random. Listen to this exchange from Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CREIGHTON WATERS, PROSECUTOR: So, what you are telling the jury is that it is a random vigilante.

ALEX MURDAUGH, DEFENDANT: That is your term.

WATERS: The 12-year-old, 5'2" people that just happened to know that both Paul and Maggie were both at Moselle on June 7th, that knew that they would be at the kennels alone on June 7th, that knew that you would not be there, but only between the times of 8:02 and 9:02.

MURDAUGH: You have got a lot of factors in there, Mr. Waters, all of which I do not agree with but some of which I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Now, you heard the prosecutor there mentioned this 12-year-old, that's because the defense had an expert come on who said that he looked at the trajectory of the bullets and said that it had to had been someone much shorter than Alex Murdaugh, who stands about 6'4", 6'5", who killed Maggie and Paul. If it was somebody that tall, he said they would have had to have held the gun at their knee, he predicted it was somebody who was about 5'2 or 5'4. That is why the prosecutor there was saying that it might have been a random 12-year- old. Jim? SCIUTTO: So many developments. Randi Kaye, thanks so much.

Let's speak now with Civil Rights Attorney Areva Martin. Areva, good to have you on this morning. A lot to digest this morning, particularly that decision by the judge to allow the jury -- the defense to take the jury to the crime scene. Significance of that? Well, what does the defense want to accomplish there?

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Yes, Jim, I think a couple of things. One, we know part of the defense's argument is that this crime scene was contaminated, that it was not properly secured by law enforcement agents, that people were allowed to walk through it. The defense has to deal with this timeline issue, how long did it take Alex Murdaugh to get from the kennel back to his house, how long did it take him to leave the property.

So, there are a lot of issues with respect to this timeline and the prosecution's case primarily rests on the fact that Alex was right there at that kennel just minutes before they locked in the time of death for both Maggie and Paul.

So, I think the defense wants to give the jurors some perspective about how large this property is, how it is that Alex could have been at the house and not heard the alleged gunman or gunperson, as it were, fired these shots that killed his wife and his son. So, I think the defense is trying to fight back on this timeline issue of what Alex knew or didn't know.

[10:20:03]

SCIUTTO: You heard the prosecutor there saying that, in effect, the jury has to believe a lot to imagine it someone else, right, that that short time window, a couple of people -- realized that just the two were there and so on. You heard the case he made. But that's really not the prosecutor's job, right, because all they've got to do is create some sort of reasonable doubt there. When you look at the case overall, have they created reasonable doubt?

MARTIN: I think they have. The prosecutor's case has always had holes in it. And some of the biggest hole have to do with one, they have never identified or have been able to find the murder weapon. They never have been able produce the bloody clothing that would have resulted had someone or had Alex shot his wife and son at close range, as we know these individuals were shot at. So, you would have had this massive amount of blood splatter on the clothing. You don't have an eyewitness. So, whenever a case is built on the circumstantial evidence, I think, in some ways, the defense does have a slight advantage.

Now, in this case, you have this massive lie, this lie that Alex Murdaugh told law enforcement at the night of the murders and that he continued to tell for 20 months. So, to the extent the jurors, I think, have concerns about at the lack of the murder weapon, the lack of the bloody clothes, they also have to weigh that against the lie that Alex has admitted telling. SCIUTTO: Big question here, too, is how the prosecution gets over a circumstantial case, right? They made the point, even going back to opening arguments knowing this, the prosecutors did, that, listen, as far as law is concerned, the circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence. Is it though in a jury trial in your experience?

MARTIN: Well, I think you have to separate the legal issue, yes. Circumstantial evidence should be enough for the jurors to find that someone is guilty of a particular crime. That is what the law says, but then you have the reality of human experiences. And I think one of the big problems in this case continues to be this thought that someone like Alex Murdaugh, who was so close to his wife and his son, would kill them in such a heinous way, and then you had that witness testimony from Buster, Buster, the older son, the remaining son of Alex, saying his father was distraught on that night. I think that was a very powerful testimony. You would not typically see a son testifying on behalf of his father if he really believed the father had killed his mother and his younger brother.

So, I think the jurors are going to have to grapple with this fact, yes, he told a lie, and, yes, there are holes in his story about what he was doing that night, but with this man, even in the financial problems that he was in, would he do something so horrific to his wife and his son? And I think that is going bother a lot of jurors. They're going to have a hard time believing that a liar and a drug addict then becomes a murderer, particularly murdering his wife and son.

SCIUTTO: And all you need is one to doubt that, one juror. Areva Martin, thanks so much.

Well, still ahead, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis making a lot of public appearances, also releasing a new video this morning touting his record. Does it point a presidential run? Is there any question? We're going to discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: So, if Republican presidential candidates want to participate in the GOP primary debates, they will have to sign a loyalty pledge promising to support the eventual nominee. That is the word from newly re-elected Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. She says candidates must make that promise or they're out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: We haven't put the criteria out but I expect the pledge will be part of it. It was part of 2016. I think it is kind of a no-brainer, right? If you're going to be on the Republican National Committee debate stage asking voters to support you, you should say, I'm going to support the voters and who they chose as the nominee.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: Here with us now, Axios Senior Contributor Margaret Talev and White House Correspondent for PBS Newshour Laura Barron-Lopez. Good to have you both on this morning. So, I suppose the first question is when we speak of a Trump, Laura, are the debates valuable enough to him to make a pledge that he clearly to this point has not been willing to make?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that in the end, they potentially will be valuable to the former president simply because this is an area where in the past, he was able to neutralize a lot of the Republicans when he participated in the debates in 2016. And Trump, we know, could easily make a pledge like this and then ultimately decide to go against it. So, I think that that should be kept within the realm of possibility in this specific instance.

SCIUTTO: Margaret Talev, forgive for suggesting, Trump could make that pledge and then break it. It's happened before, right? I mean, what is the loss here for him, in effect?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. I mean, Jim, I think that's the sort of real conundrum here is that if this is meant to bring Donald Trump into the fold so that he doesn't, you know, leave or try to become a third-party candidate or try to suck support away from a different GOP nominee, the problem is for other GOP contenders, if there's someone like an Asa Hutchinson, it inherently makes it impossible for a different Republican rival to say that Trump is not suited to be president again because he tried to block Joe Biden's election --