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EPA Chief in East Palestine, Ohio; Chemicals in Ohio Could Post Long-Term Risks; Bakhmut Fighting Becoming Extremely Difficult; Putin Admits Losses; American Swimmer Found Dead in U.S. Virgin Islands Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 28, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The EPA administrator, Michael Regan, is back in East Palestine, Ohio, today for the third time since the toxic train derailment more than three weeks ago. Crews still trying to clean up the chemical spill, now taking that waste to two additional sites as it is hauled away from East Palestine.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: While Regan and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have made trips to the area, critics say President Biden should visit as well. This morning, Buttigieg defended the White House response.

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PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: He's been very concerned throughout this process about what the people of East Palestine are going through. I think also a visit at that level can sometimes have a lot of disruptive effects. So, people of this community are going through a lot. They need to see that their administration is working for them, as we have been, with personnel from -- from the EPA, from my department and others on the ground, from the very first hours of this situation unfolding.

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HILL: CNN's Miguel Marquez is live in East Palestine, where Regan is set to speak later today.

So, Miguel, what are residents hoping to hear this morning and what are they hoping for that may be different this time around?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think they are hoping to hear that there is a roadmap to when the major part of the cleanup will be done and when they can start to resume their normal lives. They are still moving thousands of cubic yards of waste from the -- solid waste from that site to four different locations, three in Ohio, one now in Indiana, and then there's a lot of liquid waste as well. There are also the rivers or the streams that run through East Palestine itself that are still showing signs of contamination that they have been on since day one trying to clean those up and trying to purify those streams again.

The EPA is here in big force. Now, this is the third time the administrator has been here. They've now moved into a local business in the middle of town, literally the middle of town, and they're preparing for a press conference here. He is going to the scene, the site of the train crash to see what the process is and see what the progress is there. He's going to meet with business owners here in East Palestine. They've been very concerned because this has just been a massive black eye to the entire community and people concerned about the business prospects here. And he's going to meet with teachers and students as well. You know, the high schools and others have canceled sporting events here in the East Palestine area out of an abundance of caution, even though all the air monitors everywhere in town and around have showed no contamination.

So, people here really looking for that sense of normalcy again.

Back to you guys.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure they are. And some sense of hope.

Miguel Marquez, thanks so much.

HILL: So, what are these chemicals specifically that are being monitored in East Palestine? A group of scientists now says the current high levels of some of those toxins in the air could actually lead to some long-term health issues. One of the reasons, understandably, people are concerned.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Elizabeth Cohen joins us now.

So, Elizabeth, walk us through what we know.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. What we know is that this study was done by Carnegie Melon and also Texas A&M. And they say that they're concerned that nine chemicals that are being monitored by the EPA, that exposure could spell possible long term health problems, or in the long term could pose health problems for residents. They seem to focus really in on a chemical called Acrolein, which is used to control plants and rodents and other things. And the -- it is known that it can be toxic. It can cause problems to the respiratory tract, to mucus membranes.

The question is -- this is the big question and this is where people disagree -- are people breathing in enough of it that they are really concerned? And so the scientist say -- who wrote this said, one of them said, look, it's not an evacuate the building kind of thing where oh, my gosh, you know, acutely you're in trouble, they're worried about the long term. Let's read a statement from the environmental protection agency, they have a different take. They say the long-term risk referenced by this analysis, meaning the ones by the folks at the universities, assume a lifetime of exposure which is constant exposure over approximately 70 years.

[09:35:04]

The EPA does not anticipate levels of these chemicals will stay high for anywhere near that.

In other words they're saying, yes, they -- you know, there may be levels of it now, but that's not going to continue.

So, where does that leave residents? They leaves them with a lot of question marks. It's so hard for them to know what's going to happen, as Miguel just told us. You know, they're just -- they just want things to return to normal. They're not going to have firm answers about what these chemicals might or might not mean for their long-term health.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: And that's tough, right? The great unknown is often the hardest thing to deal with.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: Elizabeth, though, really appreciate you breaking that down for us. Thank you.

Still to come here, a critical admission by Russian President Vladimir Putin as he concedes he is losing soldiers in Ukraine. We are live in Moscow, next.

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[09:40:09]

HILL: Russian President Vladimir Putin is admitting this morning to losses in their ranks while addressing his top security officials about the war in Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Well, Ukraine's military says that Russia is now sending its best fighters to Bakhmut in the east, and the situation is getting, quote, extremely difficult there for Ukrainian forces. Aerial videos show, goodness, just the extent of the damage there.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, he's in Moscow this morning.

And, Fred, I wonder what else we've learned from the president's speech and if you have any sense of reaction there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, first of all, I think it was a really important speech for Vladimir Putin, obviously to the FSB, to the federal security service, the intelligence agency, which is essentially where Vladimir Putin comes from. He was obviously an FSB agent way back in the day. So, these are people that he knows and people that he trusts as well.

And some of the lines that he said were definitely very interesting where he thanked the federal security services for their big involvement so far in what Russia calls the special military operation. Obviously, the war in Ukraine.

I want to listen in to some of what Vladimir Putin said just a little bit ago.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): 2022 was a special year for the whole country and for your service. The FSB units were directly involved in the special military operation. They were solving complex, nonstandard operational tasks here, covering the state border, actively fighting terrorism, organized crime, corruption and extremism. I would like to thank the management and all employees of the department, especially those who acted at the forefront in the liberated territories, in the front line zone, and, I would add, behind enemy lines. I want to thank you for this work, dear comrades.

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PLEITGEN: So, there he's saying that they were also operating behind enemy lines, as he put it. Obviously, that is a very important admission.

I think one of the things that you guys said was also, obviously, very important, that he did say that there were operatives from the FSB who have been killed so far in the war in Ukraine. Obviously when he's talking about so-called liberated territories there, he means the territories that are occupied by Russian forces in Ukraine right now. The Russians, of course, say that they consider those territories to already be part of Russia.

So certainly a very important speech for Vladimir Putin. But I think one of the other things that he also pointed out, which also really stood out to us, is that he called on the FSB and other intelligence services in Russia to step up their game because he says he believes that western intelligence services and Ukrainian sabotage units, as he put it, were active in those areas that are occupied by the Russians and, of course, active in Russia as well. So certainly Vladimir Putin saying that those special services, as he puts it, very important.

And I think also important for us to point out that this really has been part of Vladimir Putin's game in the last couple of days, really in the last weeks, as he's been trying to drum up support and morale among those special services, just yesterday was the day of the special operations forces, Vladimir Putin speaking to them as well, guys.

HILL: Fred Pleitgen, really appreciate it. Thank you.

I'm joined now by "New York Times" White House and national security correspondent David Sanger.

David, good to see you this morning.

You know, interesting those comments, as Fred was just pointing out, and what we heard from Vladimir Putin this morning.

When we look at the fact that he is admitting these losses, we also have been talking almost since the very start of this -- of this war, when Russia invaded Ukraine, about the low morale, about the poor training among Russian troops. They are still carrying out orders. Is there a point that you see any of that changing?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's a great question, Erica. And, you know, the estimates that we're hearing from the British, from the United States, some outside groups, is that Russia has suffered 200,000 casualties and maybe upwards of 60,000 of those dead. Now, put that in perspective, that's more dead than we lost in the entire Vietnam War. It's more dead than -- or more casualties, I should say, than the Russians have had in all of the conflicts they've been in since the end of World War II that we know of, or that we can - we can count. So, this has been enormously expensive for him.

I think what you have seen him do now is both play to his base, the intelligence services, the FSB here which, quote, guards the border and also manages to do a lot of the operations as he said behind enemy lines.

I think the other thing that's really notable is that in the past few days he has talked about a program within the west to dismantle the entire Russian Federation. Now, that's completely fanciful. It's total disinformation. There's no such plan that I've been able to find and I think that you're - CNN -- our CNN colleagues have found. But it tells you that he's got to get a very nationalist operation going here to make the case that this is about more than Ukraine.

[09:45:03]

HILL: Yes, it speaks to a certain level of desperation really when you put it in that perspective.

I'm also struck by Putin recently announcing, of course, that he's suspending the only remaining nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the U.S., the New START Treaty, which would expire in 2026. How do you think the U.S. should be preparing at this point?

SANGER: Well, I think we've got to prepare with the thought that there will be no follow-on treaty. And the treaty, as you said, expires in February 2026. We have three years. It's hard for me to imagine, Erica, a negotiation with Russia on a replacement treaty. And the way the old treaty was written, there's no more extension. It was a one five-year extension that President Biden did in his first few days in office.

Getting to the new treaty would be difficult enough if it was just with Russia, but it's pretty clear that China is building up its nuclear forces to a point that the treaty to make sense would probably have to include them as well, although there are some who dispute that case.

I think we have to go into it with the assumption that we're going to be living for the first time in five decades with no nuclear arms limitations on Russia and the United States. Does that mean that we need to go off into an immediate arms race? Not necessarily. I think we probably have plenty to do what we need to do. But there will be a lot of pressure and a lot of political debate in the coming presidential election I suspect about whether or not we need to trigger (ph) a new arms race.

HILL: And also, as you point out, that important element of China. If something else were to move forward.

I do want to get your take on this. Ukraine, as we know, has continued to ask for F-16s, I was struck by some comments yesterday. The chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee telling CNN they could be a real game changer in his estimation in this war, saying it's time for the administration to stop dragging its feet and, it's his words, to, quote, arm Ukraine to the fullest.

Is he right?

SANGER: Well, this was a huge source of debate at the Munich Security Conference, where there were about 50 members of Congress out in Munich weekend before last, including a good number of Republicans and some Democrats making this argument. Here is the problem. The issue is an escalation one. If the Ukrainians have F-16s, they can reach Moscow. And that could easily be used as an excuse by Putin to escalate, to make more nuclear threats and so forth. So, the administration's argument is, right now, at this stage of the war, there's no need for the F-16s.

The middle ground, since it takes a long time to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16, they don't have anything like it, would be to start their training now and make the decision later because it would take a while in any case for them to be able to fly them.

HILL: David Sanger, always appreciate your insight. Thank you.

SANGER: Great to be with you, Erica.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, the Murdaugh double murder trial is back in session. Crucially the jury expected to visit the site of the killings later today.

HILL: Plus, the sudden death of a former American swimming champion. The latest on the investigation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Stay with us.

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[09:52:19]

SCIUTTO: Right now, Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial is back underway in South Carolina. You can see live pictures there. Today, the prosecution planning to call several rebuttal witnesses, as they're known. The defense, it rested its case yesterday.

HILL: Once the prosecution rests, then, of course, the jury, as we're learning, will travel to the hunting property where Murdaugh's wife and youngest son were shot to death in 2021. Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty in their deaths.

Yesterday, his defense called a crime scene expert to the stand who suggested that two shooters were responsible for those murders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY PALMBACH, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: The individual who shot first with the shotgun minimally was stunned (ph), probably bloody material in his eyes, and maybe have been injured, and would have taken some degree of time to recover.

Why would you bring - why would one shooter bring two long rifles, two long weapons to the event? You can't handle and shoot two of them. So, you've either got to put one down, use one, or -- and then swap out and grab the other one. Or I suppose you could have one on a sling, but that's quite awkward.

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HILL: We're going to keep monitoring that trial for you. Of course, we'll bring you an update in our next hour.

SCIUTTO: We turn now to another story we're following, the death of a former American swimming star in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

HILL: Police say Jamie Cail's boyfriend found her unresponsive inside her St. John home last week. Her sudden death now under investigation.

CNN's Jean Casarez is following all these developments for us this morning.

So, what are we hearing from officials at this point?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're doing their work and they're not talking too much but there are some press releases that have come out. We've spoken to some of them.

But, you know, this is - this was a 42-year-old woman. But in the late 1990s, she was one of the top 16 athletes in her swimming division in this entire country. She won many medals. So this is someone that had a work ethic and was bound for success.

Here are the facts that we know them today -- as we know them.

It was last Tuesday, and it was 12:08 a.m. Her boyfriend left a bar to go check on her. And this is according to the police. Check on her. When he arrived at their home, she was on the floor, she was unconscious. He got a friend of his to get her into a vehicle. They went to a hospital, a clinic, and there they began CPR on her and then they rendered her dead is what they called it. And that they also said she was dead on arrival. That is what we know at this point.

Now, here's what's interesting. The criminal investigation bureau has taken on this case.

[09:55:00]

Now, that may be protocol for an unexplained death, but also normally you have death investigations versus criminal investigations. And they're not saying it's criminal, but it's being undertaken by the criminal investigation bureau.

I spoke with a really close friend of hers yesterday that had gone to high school with her at the Bowles School, which is in Jacksonville, Florida. It's for athletes that are bound for very huge success in swimming. He said that she had a work ethic unlike anyone he had ever seen. That she would lift weights more than anyone at that school to become a stronger swimmer. And now we have to see exactly what happened to her because if it is nefarious, if there - if this was criminal activity, someone needs to be brought to justice.

HILL: Yes, absolutely.

Jean, appreciate the update. Thank you.

CASAREZ: Yes. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, we are live at the Supreme Court where justices will soon hear challenges to President Biden's plan to forgive billions of dollars in student loans for millions of borrows.

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