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CNN International: Trump Supporters React to Him Facing 34 Felony Counts; Bodycam Video Shows Teen's Death During Attempted Arrest; Putin: Relations Between Russia and the U.S. Are in Deep Crisis; LSU's Reese Says Championship Team Won't Go to White House. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired April 06, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Still ahead, CNN travels deep into Trump country to gauge the reaction of his supporters now that Trump is facing multiple felony charges. Some of their responses may surprise you.
Plus, disturbing newly released body camera footage shows the moments before the fatal death of a teenager. Why the family is demanding the arrest of the officers involved.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring it up to date with the top stories this hour.
More than 35 million people are at risk of severe weather in the U.S. The storm system stretching from Texas to the mid-Atlantic region could bring severe storms, hail and strong winds.
And former Vice President Mike Pence says he will not appeal a subpoena from a grand jury set by the special counsel investigating the January 6th riots. This paves the way for Pence to testify for the first time under oath.
NOBILO: Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in Manhattan related to hush money paid just before the 2016 election. Trump claims it's a fake case intended to derail his presidential campaign. CNN's Gary Tuchman traveled to Arkansas to see what some of Trump's supporters think about all this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is it fair? Or is it unfair?
TUCHMAN: So, do you believe the prosecutors? Or do you believe Trump when he says it's not true?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe Trump.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Most of the people we talked to at the Four States Fair in Texarkana, Arkansas think the Manhattan District Attorney is being unfair to Former President Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The man is the best president that this country has ever had in my lifetime.
[04:35:00]
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Texarkana, Arkansas, which is adjacent to Texarkana, Texas is a short drive from Louisiana and Oklahoma. That's why this is called the Four States Fair. It's certainly Trump country. Shannon and Byron Watkins have both voted for him twice.
SHANNON WATKINS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I don't think it's right. I think it's all a setup.
BYRON WATKINS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, I don't think it's a set up.
TUCHMAN: You think it's a set up?
B. WATKINS: No, I don't think it's a setup, but I think it's kind of a witch hunt.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But as we continue our conversations with some of the people who initially told us they feel Trump is being treated unfairly, some of the black and white declarations turn a bit gray.
TUCHMAN: He still says that the election was stolen. There's no evidence of that.
B. WATKINS: Right.
TUCHMAN: You both voted for Donald Trump.
B. WATKINS: Yeah.
TUCHMAN: Does it trouble you that he is not exactly a truth teller?
B. WATKINS: Yeah, that bothers me. I mean, it bothers me that anyone that would be in the (INAUDIBLE) office wouldn't be forthright.
TUCHMAN: Trump is exactly truth teller. Do you believe him when he says he's innocent about these charges?
B. WATKINS: I don't -- well, I don't know whether he's innocent or not. I mean, that's for a jury.
TUCHMAN: Is your mind open about --
B. WATKINS: My mind is open. Do I think it is possible that that could have happened? Very -- most definitely, I most definitely feel like he could be in that position.
TUCHMAN: He could have committed a crime? B. WATKINS: Yeah, he could have committed a crime.
TUCHMAN: Do you feel the same way?
S. WATKINS: Yes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Anne Granado says she voted for Trump in 2020.
TUCHMAN: How does it make you feel what's going on with Trump?
ANNE GRANADO, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I never really expected that he would just be the best person. I just thought the policies lined up more with my personal beliefs. So, I'm not shocked.
TUCHMAN: But he's now accused of a crime. That's a serious crime, it's a felony. He's a accused felon and he could get prison time. What do you think?
GRANADO: Well, he deserves -- if he did the crime, then he should get prison time for sure.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Johnny Mooneyham is a Trump supporter. But --
JOHNNY MOONEYHAM, TRUMP SUPPORTER: All politics or politicians are crooked and shady. I don't care you are Republican or Democrats, they are -- have got stuff here.
TUCHMAN: So, do you think Trump is shady, that Trump is crooked?
MOONEYHAM: I think all of them are shady. I think every last one of them is shady.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Certainly, some Trump voters we talked to at the Fair are not re-examining their thoughts. Ryan Langley (ph) is enjoying his corn dog and enjoying defending Donald Trump.
RYAN LANGLEY (ph), TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think they need to just leave him alone.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But Gunnar and Brittany Hamilton (ph), who didn't vote in the last presidential election, but say they like Trump have a different philosophy.
GUNNAR HAMILTON, TRUMP SUPPORTER: If he did do it, he should be held accountable. If he didn't do it, then it's just the Democrats trying to start stuff.
TUCHMAN: So, if goes to a jury and a jury finds him guilty, would you accept that?
G. HAMILTON: Yes.
Tuchman: Would you accept that?
BRITTANY HAMILTON, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Yes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Nuanced opinions at the Four States Fair.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Texarkana, Arkansas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Police in San Francisco are hunting for the killer of a well- known tech executive. Investigators say Bob Lee, the founder of mobile payment service, Cash, App, was found fatally stabbed early on Tuesday morning.
NOBILO: Police have made no arrest yet in his killing, and there's been no word on motive. The city's mayor is calling his killing a horrible tragedy.
A family is calling for justice after a teenager was killed during an attempted arrest in Washington. You'll hear the reaction after they saw a video of their son being shot.
FOSTER: Plus, Vladimir Putin says relations with the U.S. are at a low point as he throws blame at Washington over the war in Ukraine. More on his comments just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TERRA MARTIN, SON KILLED IN OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING: It's the worst type of trauma that anybody can endure. I got to walk around, fear and for my life, fear for my other sons, like in my other kids' life. My grandkid's life from the police. That's not how it's supposed to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: That woman in Washington, speaking after she saw a video of her teenage son being killed by police. 17 year old Dalaneo Martin was shot after a suspected car theft last month.
FOSTER: His mom is now calling for the arrest of all officers involved in her son's death. The incident is under a federal civil rights investigation. It was launched a day after police released a bodycam video of the entire incident. CNN's Brian Todd has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Shortly before 9:00 a.m., March 18th, police bodycam video shows officers responding to what police say was believed to have been a stolen car near a federal park in Washington, D.C. Inside the vehicle, 17-year-old Dalaneo Martin asleep in the driver's seat. The car is running.
In the video just released by the U.S. Park Police and the D.C. Metropolitan Police, officers from both agencies are heard strategizing on how to approach the vehicle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's the plan. He's knocked out. The back window is just plastic. I'm going to try to cut that out quietly. I'll unlock the door. If he doesn't get started, doesn't wake up, then we're going to try to get in there, grab him before he puts the car in gear.
TODD (voice-over): One officer heard telling the others, if the suspect tries to drive away, let him go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he takes off, he takes off, but just don't get caught inside of that car, you know what I mean?
TODD (voice-over): At one point, an officer enters through a backdoor. Another officer opens the door on the driver's side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police! Don't move! Don't move!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't move! Don't move! Don't move!
Show hands...Got him?
TODD (voice-over): The car suddenly drives off. One officer falls off the car, while another is still in the backseat. Police say the driver did not comply with their commands.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop, man, just let me out. Let me out! Stop! Stop or I'll shoot!
TODD (voice-over): The bodycam video then shows several shots being fired at Martin. The car crashes into a nearby house. The video shows officers pulling Martin out and trying to save him. Police say Martin died at the scene. They say a gun was found inside the car.
A lawyer for Martin's family says one officer in one bodycam video seemed to indicate that when they initially approached the car, he hadn't seen a gun.
ANDREW O. CLARKE, ATTORNEY FOR DALANEO MARTIN'S FAMILY: It was very clear to him that there was no gun. He said, oh, you know, he has his hand on his waist, but I don't see anything there. So, there was never any threat for the use of guns.
TODD (voice-over): The FBI and federal prosecutors have launched a civil rights investigation into the shooting. None of the officers involved have yet been identified by either police agency. Martin's mother says she wants their names made public and wants them to face justice.
TERRA MARTIN, DALANEO MARTIN'S MOTHER: My son should still be here. But instead, the officers -- I want all the offices punished for all their roles. This pain hurts so bad.
TODD: The Park Police will not confirm the current status of their officer who shot Dalanoe Martin. The head of the Park Police union has defended that officer telling "the Washington Post" the use of force was justified and the union stands behind the actions the officers took.
[04:45:00]
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Russian President Vladimir Putin says relations between his country and the U.S. are now in, quote, deep crisis.
NOBILO: He made that comment to the new U.S. ambassador to Moscow as he went on to say that Washington's support for a 2014 revolution in Ukraine was to blame for the current conflict. We also heard from President Putin during a meeting of Russia's security council, where he alleged without any evidence that Western intelligence services may be involved in terrorist attacks carried out within Russia.
FOSTER: And in the hours ahead, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to sit down with his Belarusian counterpart for a second day of talks in Moscow. Putin said last month that Russia plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. CNN's Clare Sebastian is following this for us. A frightening situation that these weapons could be in Belarus, for many, living close to there.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is something that caused quite a lot of international alarm when it was announced towards the end of March. President Putin saying that he was going to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. There's a difference of obviously between tactical and strategic. Strategic designed to knock out a whole city. Tactical limited battlefield use.
But still very much undermines the claims by Lukashenko that he's not going to get involved in this conflict. He then came out and welcomed it. And then he suggested that Russia could even place strategic weapons on Belarus if they wanted to. So this meeting today, going to be very closely scrutinized for any clues as to how that situation is going to develop.
And especially because there is I think some element perhaps, of counterprogramming here. Belarus has served that purpose for Moscow before. Where, of course , you see, you know, Zelenskyy and Poland. Lukashenko has suggested that the West might be planning to invade Belarus through Poland.
You see the European leaders in China, Russia's other important ally. And, of course, President Putin has stated in the last 24 hours that he is not attempting to isolate his country as a result of this. So I think these optics today served that purpose for him.
FOSTER: In terms of his comments about the relationship with America being in a deep crisis. I mean, no surprise there, but is that a new turn of language for him?
SEBASTIAN: No, I think no surprise. Lynne Tracy, the new U.S. ambassador, probably would have been expecting something like that. This is the kind of event where they present credentials. Doesn't really afford them the opportunity to respond. So, it's a good opportunity.
For Putin, I was looking at why he would have brought up 2014 rather than just accusing the West -- FOSTER: The revolution.
SEBASTIAN: Right, rather than just accusing the U.S. of providing weapons to Ukrainian and fermenting the conflict that way. Which, of course, Lavrov also did on Wednesday. I think it might have been a dig specifically at Tracy. She was the deputy chief of mission in Moscow in 2014 to 2017, so perhaps something slightly personal there. But either way, I think, you know it is part of this narrative that we see in Russia really stepping up in the last few weeks and months that they are sort of at war with the U.S. and the West. And it comes in the same week that we saw NATO, which Russia really sees this de facto controlled by the U.S., double the size of its land border with Russia.
FOSTER: OK, Clare, thank you so much.
NOBILO: Britain says it's leased a barge to house some asylum seekers.
FOSTER: This vessel will be docked in southern England and house about 500 asylum seekers whilst their claims of protest -- are processed. The government describes it as a cost saving measure as the U.K. faces a massive influx of migrants crossing the channel in small books.
NOBILO: Human rights groups are condemning the decision as cruel. But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said his government didn't have much of a choice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We can't have a situation. We are collectively spending 6 million pounds a day on hotels for illegal asylum seekers. We're bringing forward alternative sites like indeed the barge that we've announced today that will save us money and indeed reduce pressure on hotels. All part of our plan is to stop the boats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: The barge called Bibi Stockholm, will house asylum seekers for at least 18 months. The British government says it is exploring the use of additional barges as well. We never expected them to look like that somehow, wouldn't we, when we heard that announcement.
NOBILO: No.
Brazil's former president is in potential trouble over pieces of jewelry. Jair Bolsonaro arrived at a federal police station in the Brazilian capital Wednesday to answer questions about this.
FOSTER: The investigation involves millions of dollars worth of jewels he received from Saudi Arabia whilst he was in office, and while he still has it. He also is under a separate investigation into whether the -- whether he instigated the riot in Brasilia in January that followed his election loss.
NOBILO: Still ahead, controversy in college basketball. Why the reigning women's champions are upset with U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and say they will not be visiting the White House.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBILO: A new study says there are at least 45 good reasons to cut back on added sugar, and that includes how it causes a risk of diabetes, obesity, heart attack, stroke, cancer and early death.
FOSTER: Quite strong reasons. Researchers recommend limiting consumption of free sugars to less than 10 percent of our daily calorie -- calorific intake. Free sugars are the kind added during the processing of foods packaged just table sugar, other sweeteners and naturally occurring in syrups, honey, fruit juice, vegetable juice, purees and pastes. Does that mean pastes? They aren't pasties, I'm sure.
NOBILO: Are you hankering for Cornish --
FOSTER: I would love one right now. Does that mean that the naturally occurring ones are fine? Is that what they're saying? I wasn't on the study, but even if even though, so I just had someone remark --
FOSTER: Tell me Professor Bianca.
NOBILO: But any kind of sugar ending in Os whether it's naturally occurring fructose or otherwise can still have the same negative effects on the body. If you have too much of it.
FOSTER: Meanwhile, planet warming gas levels rose by large amounts last year, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency looked at levels of methane and nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, which is considered the most critical contributor to global warming and the current climate crisis.
NOBILO: NOAA says the growth in methane levels is the fourth largest increase since they started taking measurements in the 1980s. Experts are still trying to pinpoint what exactly has been called the surge.
[04:55:00]
And an interesting point in New Zealand, my homeland, they were discussing -- the government was discussing taxing cow births because agriculture is responsible and farming responsible for half of the methane emissions in that country, which is a big problem.
FOSTER: Shouldn't they do the other end as well?
NOBILO: And lethal of digestive process.
FOSTER: Is involved -- to be rolled in.
NOBILO: I assume so.
And finally, stories trending this hour. The first round of golf's Masters Tournament is set to tee off in less than three hours time. And Tiger Woods will make his 25th appearance at the Major.
FOSTER: He's 47 years old, and he's cherishing the opportunity to return to the Augusta National course as he's unsure whether this will be his last time playing in the tournament. A victory would tie Woods with Jack Nicklaus as the most successful Masters Champion in history was six wins. It was great to see you, wouldn't it?
Louisiana State University star player Angel Reese says that neither she nor her team will be visiting the White House, as is tradition after winning the basketball championship the college won. The LSU Tigers defeated the University of Iowa Hawkeyes to win their first NCAA women's basketball title.
NOBILO: But Reese says that her team will skip the trip to Washington after U.S. First Lady Jill Biden suggested inviting the runners up as well. The White House appeared later walked that back. And the LSU athletic department said that they would certainly accept an invitation, but Reese says the damage is done.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGEL REESE, LSU TIGERS: I don't accept their apology. You can't go back on certain things that you say? I mean, you felt like they should have came because of sportsmanship, right. They can have that spot like we'll go to the Obamas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: MTV has announced the nominees for its 2023 movie and TV awards. They've rounded up some of the best entertainment featuring fan favorites like "Top Gun: Maverick."
FOSTER: Brilliant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: With all due respect, sir, I'm not a teacher. I just want to manage the expectations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Also, in the running for best movie, "Avatar: The Way of Water," "Black Panther: Wauconda Forever," and "Nope."
FOSTER: What's your back with?
NOBILO: Don't know. I haven't seen them all.
FOSTER: On tv side. Netflix's "Stranger Things" was amongst the buzz worthy top shows.
Thank you for watching "EARLY START" is up next.
NOBILO: We'll see you tomorrow.
[05:00:00]
