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Russian Forces Launch Missile Attack At Ukrainian Targets Near Kyiv; Some Americans In Sudan Criticize U.S. Government For Having No Plans For Evacuations As Civil War There Intensifies; House Republicans Pass Bill To Raise U.S. Debt Ceiling; Southeast U.S. Facing Continued Severe Weather; New York City Mayor Eric Adams Pressuring White House To Provide Aid To Help With City's Immigration Crisis; Regulators Release Findings Of Their Investigation Into Failure Of Silicon Valley Bank; Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley Says President Biden Will Likely Not Finish Second Term If Reelected; New Photos Released Of Situation Room During Raid To Kill Usama Bin Laden In 2011; Los Angeles Lakers Beat Memphis Grizzlies In First Round Of NBA Playoffs; Artist Describes His Work With Artificial Intelligence. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired April 29, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:33]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good Saturday morning. It is April 29th. Good to have you along. I'm Victor Blackwell.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Amara Walker. You are in the CNN Newsroom.

We begin with Ukraine and a deadly Russian missile strike on an apartment complex. The attack killed almost two dozen people, including six children. And it's believed to be the deadliest strike on civilians since January.

BLACKWELL: It happened around 4:00 a.m. local time when most people were asleep. Ukraine's air force says Russia fired a barrage of long- range cruise missiles from the aircraft in the Caspian Sea area. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his forces shot down 21 of the 23 missiles fired.

WALKER: CNN's Nic Robertson has been on the scene since shortly after the strike. He's joining us now from Uman, Ukraine. Hi, Nic. What's the latest there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's bad news from here. The death toll is now 25. You can see the recovery efforts still going on. But this is really just pulling out the debris, getting that off the site here. And we've been talking with firefighters, talking with the police here. The firefighters now say they have been through the whole building.

They've searched for everything that they can search for. So the death toll that was at 23 has gone up to 25. But sadly for some of those families who are waiting for information about loved ones, it has gone up not because they found two bodies, but because they just acknowledged the fact that two people who were believed missing in there, they may just never be able to recover them. So this is a difficult day, afternoon, for a lot of people here.

The effort to tidy this place up and get the community back to normal, I suppose, is under way, there's a lot of repairs to buildings going on around here. But that more than 30-hour effort to get all of the answers, to recover everyone possible, that is now over and wrapping up.

BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson for us there. Nic, thank you so much.

Now to Sudan where the situation is growing more desperate. Fighting between Sudan's armed forces and the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces, that continues, and food and water there are in short supply across the country.

WALKER: More than 50,000 people have escaped to Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. And as you would imagine, there is also growing anger among Americans who feel abandoned by the U.S. government as the crisis in Sudan is raging.

Despite a number of nations evacuating their citizens, the White House says there are no plans to conduct a civilian evacuation. State Department officials say as many as 5,000 citizens and their families in Sudan have asked for information, and a fraction of those are looking for assistance to leave the country.

Earlier this morning, I spoke with an American teacher who had worked in Sudan there for three years at an international school. She left the country as violence ripped through Khartoum. You can see the video there, this is video she took on her own cell phone. On April 15th she woke up on a Saturday morning, to hear fighting there in the streets of Khartoum. And she said that the U.S. should treat civilians in Sudan the same as embassy staff and personnel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEANA WELKER, ESCAPED SUDAN: People are not there on holiday. They're not on vacation. It's not like you're saying oh, OK, I want to take a holiday, let's go to Sudan. No, people are there working. They're working for humanitarian purposes, for educational purposes, trying to help the people there, just like embassy people. They were there doing their job, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Joining me now is former ambassador Mary Carlin Yates. She's also a former charge d'affaires for Sudan. Ambassador Yates, I really appreciate you joining us this morning. And too, what our guests who escaped Sudan had to say, many governments including the U.K., Germany, India, they have flown their citizens out of Sudan in the last few days. Why can't the U.S. do the same? Why isn't it standard practice? AMB. MARY CARLIN YATES, FORMER CHARGE D'AFFAIRES IN KHARTOUM, SUDAN:

Amara, good morning, and thank you for having me. Of course, I'm not in any official capacity, so I can't really speak directly to answer that question.

[10:05:00]

But I think what I can say is that every embassy makes very serious preparations for such eventualities, and I am sure that this embassy must have been hosting what they call emergency action committee meetings, probably since the coup in October of 2021. And every embassy has an emergency action plan, and that includes evacuation plans, having set places to have both the embassy staff and American citizens gather or safe haven.

I was encouraged, and I can't verify, but I was reading in "The New York Times," that the first embassy, or I should say U.S. government organized evacuation was occurring yesterday, in buses out of Khartoum. And I read that the gathering point, as we always designate, was a golf course, quite close to the embassy.

I actually played that golf course when I was there. And it talked about buses were going to go and head to Port Sudan and there would be aerial drone coverage to assist in the security.

WALKER: I'm glad you talked about, this because I do want to play quickly some sound from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday regarding the government's efforts to get Americans out. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: As we've looked at this, we believe that the best way to have an enduring capability to help people leave Sudan if that's what they so choose is over land. And we are working to establish a process that would enable people to move over land to a place where they can more easily exit the country, in all likelihood, Port Sudan. So that's under very active development.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: So Ambassador Yates, if you look at the map, and I want to show our viewers the map of where Khartoum is located in relation to Port Sudan, it's about a 500-mile journey. I understand you have taken this journey before. Just how difficult and how far is it to get to port Sudan from Khartoum, especially, I mean, when you're under fire potentially?

YATES: Exactly. No, it is an excellent question. It's about 525 miles, and I was in an armored air-conditioned car, and I still thought it was a long arduous journey. I can only imagine when I saw the buses going, and how difficult the journey would be. And as we understand from news reporting, there were any number of checkpoints along the way.

When I heard Secretary Blinken say that on Thursday, in my mind, I thought, yes, something is being prepared, and it's sort of the number one thing, whether it is the memorandum of understanding between state and DOD, or our own personal emergency action plans, protecting American citizens is the number one goal always. When you train to be an ambassador, it is drilled in your head, you must be there to, number one, protect American citizens.

So I am sure that this plan, if this is what is being executed, and we should be seeing people arrive in Port Sudan before too long, if this reporting is accurate, but it seems to be the mechanism the U.S. government has come up with to be safe.

And I must say, I was surprised yesterday that the Turkish Airlines came in to rescue some of the Turkey citizens, did take light gunfire, and they showed the bullet holes in the plane. So I think there's some justification for waiting and finding a mechanism that could be repeated and is the safest.

WALKER: And tell me again what this mechanism might look like, because we heard there from Secretary of State Blinken that there would be a process that they're trying to put together that would enable people to move over land. You talked about air cover. That's what you're hearing.

How, what kind of, I guess, assurances could the U.S. government get? Would it be theoretically from both sides to ensure there is some kind of a safe zone so people can get into a bus and head over to Port Sudan?

YATES: Well, again, my knowledge is coming out of the open press. I have no other source at this point. But what I understood was that there was a gathering point, and there were buses, in the plural, and they talked about approximately 300 citizens, who are going to be moved, and it referred to aerial drones that were being flown by the U.S. military.

That has been reported for, I would say, four or five days, that they were flying drones to check out security routes. So that's what, that's what I have read, and it sounds to me like that is the mechanism that the secretary was referring to.

[10:10:03]

WALKER: Ambassador Yates, we're going to have to leave it there. Really appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you for your time.

BLACKWELL: As we mentioned, more than 50,000 people have fled Sudan since the fighting starting. CNN's Larry Madowo was aboard one of the ships setting from Saudi Arabia to Sudan to pick up more evacuees.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the HMS Al-Diriyah. It is a Saudi warship that's about to depart from here in Jeddah at the King Faisal Naval Base to Port Sudan. It's a 10 to 12-hour journey across the Red Sea to evacuate more people out of Sudan. This is one of the Saudi military, but there's commercial ships that do the same. One is about to come into port here in Jeddah.

And so far the Saudi say just out of the operation about 3,000 people have been evacuated out of Port Sudan. Only about 100 of them were Saudi nationals. They came from 80 different countries including the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, Kenya, and from all over the globe. Saudi Arabia is a key diplomatic player in Sudan. It is part of what is called the Quad, that includes the U.S., the U.K., and the United Arab Emirates.

So when these people come here, they receive across from there, they are given food, and tend to what is necessary until they can arrange the final travel arrangements for wherever else they're going. This has quickly become one of the largest international evacuation efforts. Since the last time the world saw something like this was when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and with the conflict still dragging none Sudan, it is becoming critical to get so many people out of a conflict in Sudan.

Larry Madowo, CNN, Jeddah.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BLACKWELL: Larry, thank you for that report.

Still ahead, more than 20 million people are facing the threat of severe storms today. We'll show you the areas most at risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: The president can no longer ignore by not negotiating.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, (D-NY) HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS CHAIR: We are still waiting for House Republicans to produce a budget. They produced a ransom note.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Democrats and Republicans spar over the debt limit. Will this week's passage of the Republican plan force the White House to negotiate spending cuts?

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[10:16:15]

BLACKWELL: Police are looking for a suspect after five people, including an eight-year-old, were shot and killed in Cleveland, Texas, at a home there. There are others, three people who were injured. They're now in a hospital.

WALKER: The San Jacinto County sheriff says they found the victims last night after receiving a harassment report. And although their identities are not known, he believes they are from Honduras. A judge has issued an arrest warrant for the suspect described as a Mexican man, according to a consulate card found at his home. Right now, 20 million people are in the path of another round of

severe weather in the southeast. Parts of Georgia and Florida are expected to take the brunt of today's storms. People there are facing two rounds of thunderstorms, one this afternoon and a second tonight.

BLACKWELL: This comes after a week of bad weather in Florida. Tornadoes ripped through several homes near Tallahassee, left a splintered mess in its wake. Look.

And this is Texas. Strong winds and golf ball-sized hail pelted the central part of the state. For the Midwest, the threat today is continued flooding. After all that snow melted, several rivers crested. CNN's Adrienne Broaddus shows us just how much water is inundating some of these towns.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Amara, good morning. I'm in downtown Davenport. And as the river continues to rise, anxiety levels for local business owners are also going up. I'm standing in the middle of Main Street. Normally around this time of the day, cars are traveling through here. But no car can get through because the area is flooded.

Just over beyond the railroad crossing is where the embankment of the Mississippi River is. And as you can see, the water has overflowed, the park benches submerged. And around town, people are taking steps to mitigate the damage. One local business owner is worried.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAUDIA ANDER, BUSINESS OWNER: We've got 22 employees, very hard- working. A lot of them have been here since we opened. So it's hard. And hopefully we don't lose anybody, but you never know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: That was Claudia Anderson (ph) who manages the Phoenix. As you could see her sump pump is working overtime removing water from the backed up sewage system. Meanwhile, the river isn't expected to crest here Sunday night or early Monday. Victor and Amara?

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Adrienne Broaddus.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is with us now. So let's start with the flooding in the Midwest and what the river levels look like now.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, so they probably look very similar to what we saw yesterday, because that is the thing about river flooding. It's different from flash flooding which happens very quickly, but the water also goes back down very quickly.

With river flooding, it is a prolonged flood event. You can see all of the dots here, where you can see the red and the purple ones. You've got dozens that are either at the moderate or even major flood stage. Several of them not expected to crest until tomorrow, Monday, or even Tuesday of this upcoming week. And we do actually have the chance for rain across much of the Midwest

for today, albeit not a ton of rain, but at this point, really any additional rainfall is hurting a lot of those rivers, creeks, and streams, from being able to have those levels come back down very quickly.

We also have rain and thunderstorms across the northeast and the southeast today. The best chance for strong to severe thunderstorms is going to be along the Gulf Coast here. Basically, all of these areas have the potential for damaging winds, large hail, and yes, the potential for some tornadoes, even waterspouts right there along the coastal regions.

[10:20:01]

It's not one, but two separate waves that we're dealing with. That first one is that chunk of storms, it's right over the Gulf of Mexico right now. That's going to arrive this afternoon, across Florida. And then the secondary wave sets in late this evening and into the overnight hours. We also have very heavy rain that is going to be sliding into the northeast, especially across portions of New York as well as Pennsylvania.

BLACKWELL: Allison Chinchar watching it for us. Allison, thank you.

New York's mayor is asking FEMA to stop giving money to cities that use the funds to ship migrants to his city. Now, for context, consider this. The Biden administration is preparing for an influx of migrants as Title 42 is scheduled to expire in just two weeks.

WALKER: CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us live now. Polo, so Mayor Eric Adams pitched this idea in a meeting with the FEMA director. What was the response?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No response yet according to several sources that understand what actually took place there. But here is the thing. There is a potential for a very thorny political relationship between New York City's mayor and President Biden.

That is because of this pressure that Eric Adams has been trying to put on the White House to step in and help the city of New York shoulder the mounting costs of caring for tens of thousands of asylum seekers that arrived here in the past year.

Remember, this so-called migrant crisis started last April, and since then we have received at least 58,000 migrants here in New York City. Out of those, you see the numbers there, about 36,000 are still in the city's care.

And when you add it all up, the concern here is that the cost to care for these asylum seekers, and a majority of them still cannot actually work legally, this is what really concerns officials, that by next summer we could see a $4.3 billion price tag attached to the city's efforts to care for these asylum seekers.

So that's why we have heard from Mayor Eric Adams, like we said, really trying to increase the pressure on the White House to step in in the form of executive action. And this is something that we have actually seen and heard from Eric Adams since last year. But it really has intensified, including what we just heard not too long ago, from the mayor himself a few months -- or rather, I should say a few days ago. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS, (D) NEW YORK CITY: The greatest challenge is the migrant and asylum seekers. The Republican Party's failure to come up with real immigration reform is going to devastate this country, and the White House not having a real plan, I think, is irresponsible. The lack of funding is going to undermine this entire city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So that is key to understanding the political dynamics at play here. Eric Adams, the mayor of America's largest city, a Democrat, really pressuring his fellow Democrat in the White House to act in the form of executive action, saying that one of the potential solutions here would be to expand TPS protections to include Central Americans, Venezuelans, even people from Sudan, allowing them the ability to potentially work in the U.S. and pay their way into some housing on their own versus having to rely on the city's very strained system of homeless shelters.

BLACKWELL: Polo Sandoval, thank you very much.

Still ahead, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he has not heard from the White House since the chamber passed the debt ceiling proposal on Republican votes. The president maintains there will be no negotiations. The latest from Washington, next.

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[10:27:40]

WALKER: Regulators have released the findings of their investigation into the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The Federal Reserve says poor management is part of the reason why SVB collapsed.

BLACKWELL: The report also pointed to management shortcomings and issues with Fed evaluations. Here's CNN's Rahel Solomon.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Victor, Amara, good morning to you. The report was thorough, more than 100 pages. Its findings, damning. A textbook case of bank mismanagement, it reads. The Federal Reserve releasing its highly-anticipated self-assessment, a postmortem, if you will, on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10th. Michael Barr, the Fed's vice chair of supervision writing in a letter that accompanied the report bank senior leadership failed to manage basic interest rate and liquidity risk.

Its board of directors failed to oversee senior leadership and hold them accountable. And Federal Reserve supervisors failed to take forceful enough action. In other words, this was a failure at every level.

But we already knew that the Fed was aware of some of SVB's problems. According to recent testimony from Barr, more than a year before the bank fall, Fed supervisors began raising reds flags. So why couldn't they prevent SVB's demise? The report says that supervisors delayed action to gather more evidence even as weaknesses were clear and growing, and this meant that supervisors did not force SVB to fix its problems even as those problems worsened.

The report also acknowledging that it's time for the Fed to reconsider how it evaluates some banks, saying, quote, "We need to evaluate how to ensure that supervision intensifies at the right pace as the firm grows in size or complexity."

So what now? Well, Derek Tang, the CEO and co-founder of Monetary Policy Analytics tells me, I think they're going to be a little bit more holistic as to looking at broadening the scope of what they look at, from financial metrics such as cash levels and a composition of their deposits, to more qualitative metrics about character of the banks. As for the larger banking system, Barr wrote that SVB was an outlier and, quote, "Our banking system is sound and resilient." Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: Rahel, thank you very much.

Let's turn to Washington, and the clock is running on the debt ceiling standoff. Republicans hope President Biden will be now pressured to negotiate, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he has not heard from the White House.

[10:30:05]

WALKER: Yes, House Republicans passed the debt ceiling proposal this week. Yes, it was a narrow win but still a win for McCarthy. And it looks unlikely, though, it will make it through the Senate. CNN's Alayna Treene is live in Washington with more. Hi, Alayna. So right now, Democrats and Republicans, yes, they are locked in a stalemate. President Biden said show me a plan. McCarthy did. But it doesn't exactly make things easy anymore, does it?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: No, it doesn't. And good morning to you. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced his toughest test yet, and he passed it. He was able to force through Republicans debt limit bill this week. And the key question now is what's next?

The White House and the Democrats, even before the Republicans had passed the bill, had said that this was dead on arrival and that they were going to reject it outright. But that does leave Congress in a dangerous stalemate over how are they going to get a deal that both sides can support.

I will argue, though, that McCarthy did secure a very useful talking point in getting this through, even though a lot of people, Democrats mostly think this, is that even though it's an unserious bill, they are the ones, House Republicans, to have really successfully passed a bill to raise the debt limit. BLACKWELL: So what happens next?

TREENE: Yes, so what's next? So the next step that Republicans are arguing is that they need to sit down and have negotiations. President Biden and the White House say that they are not ready to do that. Their argument is that any discussion over spending cuts needs to be tied to the budget, not to the debt limit. And here's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on that this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, (D-NY) HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS CHAIR: The president has continued to make clear that he is willing to talk to anyone on Capitol Hill about the type of spending decisions, investment decisions, and revenue decisions that should be made to protect the health, the safety, and the economic well-being of the American people.

There is a process for that to occur. It's called the budget. We are still waiting for House Republicans to produce a budget. They produced a ransom note and said pass our irresponsible default on America act, or else we're going to default. That's not serious. That's not responsible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So there's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on this, and he's backing up President Biden and the White House in saying no negotiations right now on this. But that position will become untenable soon. The debt limit deadline is approaching fast. Current estimates put that at some point in July.

And meanwhile, there are some Democrats who are beginning to put pressure on Joe Biden to start negotiations, people like Senator Joe Manchin. And so we're going to see that play out in the coming weeks.

BLACKWELL: Alayna Treene, thank you.

CNN political analyst and "PBS Newshour" correspondent Laura Barron- Lopez is here with us now. Hey Laura. So a week ago, we were discussing whether Speaker McCarthy could get the votes to pass this. He's now done it. I'm trying to understand what has changed dramatically. It is not going anywhere in the Senate. How do you frame the progress of the last week, if you can call it that?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I would say, like Alayna, that this is an incremental narrow progress, if that. One could also argue that this has created an environment where both sides are much more dug in, in their positions, because of the fact that what the bill that Speaker McCarthy passed is a conservative wish list.

That's how he was able to get the votes that he needed, and narrowly was able to get the votes that he needed, because he ultimately changed the original bill that he was pursuing so that way he could get conservatives on board and as many of the Republicans as he needed. That's why the White House feels as though it is not a realistic proposal, and that they are still calling on the speaker to pass a clean debt limit with them, and then they're willing to talk about spending cuts.

BLACKWELL: But we are hearing from some Democrats, and they're the usual suspects. You've got Senator Manchin, other purple state and purple district Democrats, who are saying that the White House should sit down and talk. Maybe they're not using the word "negotiate" specifically, but that there is a time to sit and talk. Is there any consideration, are you seeing any cracks within the White House to say, at some point, we may have to sit down with Republicans and come to something more than just no negotiations at all?

BARRON-LOPEZ: So far, no. And what the White House says is that they're willing to talk and have negotiations around spending cuts, but they're not willing to tether that to the debt limit.

[10:35:02]

They argue that the debt limit was raised three times under former President Trump with Republicans when it was a clean debt ceiling increase, and that Republicans should be willing to do that again now rather than risk a recession, or risk going over the cliff, which can lead to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It can lead to military paychecks not going out.

And so the White House still feels very firm in this, and they're backed by Democratic leaders and a majority of Democrats in both the Senate and the House. So even though there are some moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin who are trying to pressure the White House to just talk about everything right now, no one in the White House appears to be budging.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's turn to 2024 and Ambassador Nikki Haley. She made news when she announced in her announcement that she was running for president calling for this competency test for politicians over 75. But this week, she also went a step further and said this about President Biden and Vice President Harris. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: He's announced that he's running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So putting the president likely not making it to 86 portion aside, we've talked a lot about that since she said that, but Republicans now increasingly focusing on the vice president, Vice President Kamala Harris. What should we make of that shift to focus on the VP?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I'd argue that Republicans have used Harris as a foil for quite a long time, the vice president for a while, particularly because she has struggled a bit in her role as vice president. There is high expectations for her, considering that many expect her to eventually run for the presidency again. And Republicans often zone in on when they think that she's had a misstep, or they think she has misspoken on these events.

But the White House is really leaning in to Vice President Harris being out there on the campaign trail, especially once they ramp that up. And she is someone who we've seen more and more take on the mantle of protecting abortion rights and going out there across the country trying to continue to talk about what the White House would do as Republican states are trying to restrict abortion rights more and more, because Democrats, including those in the White House, feel as though that that's one of the biggest issues that can mobilize their base coming next November.

BLACKWELL: And now let's talk about this Democratic primary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy. He was on with Michael Smerconish last hour. The FOX News poll that just came out, shows him at 19 percent against President Biden.

No suggestion here that he's going to win the nomination or even a primary contest, but if you are inside the president's camp, and just on name recognition, or a decision to want someone else, RFK Jr., who is lately known as just an anti-vaccine activist, at 19 percent, showed just as strong in other polls, does that worry them at all that -- he's not going to win likely, but that he's getting double digits, 20 percent in the first poll out?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, right, right. Victor, what concerns the White House as well as the Democratic pollsters that I've talked to is just that enthusiasm gap. They look at poll as, yes, there are Democrats who are not necessarily super enthusiastic for a second term for Biden, but they do think that a lot of these issues, particularly around freedom, particularly around abortion, gun rights, LGBTQ rights, that they can really mobilize the base, particularly young voters.

BLACKWELL: All right, Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you so much.

WALKER: Still ahead, it was an extraordinary day in U.S. history. Now, never-before-seen photos are showing what went on behind the scenes on the White House on the day Usama bin Laden was killed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:43:26]

BLACKWELL: Newly released photos from May 1st, 2011, almost 12 years ago now, offer a look at the planning and attention at the White House the day that Usama bin Laden was killed.

The photos were obtained by "The Washington Post" via a Freedom of Information Act request, and CNN's Brian Todd takes a look at that extraordinary moment in American history.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A never-before-seen image depicting the intensity and drama that during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden. Then President Obama and Vice President Biden in the White House Situation Room, tension visible on their faces, pressing Defense Secretary Bob Gates, one of several newly published pictures from inside the White House on that momentous day, May 1st, 2011.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: If this thing goes wrong, Al Qaeda fights back, special operations people are captured or killed, bin Laden isn't there, the Pakistani military gets involve, there are a lot that could go wrong.

TODD: These pictures just obtained by "The Washington Post" from the Obama Presidential Library from a Freedom of Information Act request. Previously, this was the image the public knew best from that day, Obama along with Biden, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top aides watching the bin Laden raid in real time, Clinton's hand over her mouth.

CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen said this was around the time the Navy seals helicopter clipped a wall and was damaged in a hard landing. Bergen interviewed President Obama and all the key players in the room for the CNN documentary, "We Got Him."

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It's here where we observed, for example, that one of the helicopters got damaged in the landing.

[10:45:03]

BERGEN: And what were you thinking?

OBAMA: I was thinking that this is not an ideal start.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And your heart was in your throat the whole time you were in there. I've never spent a more stressful 30-plus minutes in my life.

TODD: The newly released pictures show Obama watching intently, asking questions. When word came that the raid was successful, Obama is photographed shaking hands with Gates. Other photos depict the president making calls to give the news to former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and calls to other world leaders.

Other images show the president and his team working on the speech he would give to the nation late that night as they could hear a crowd gathering outside the White House. In one of the newly released photos, Biden and then Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, show White House photographer Pete Souza the rosary beads they'd had wrapped around their fingering during the bin Laden raid.

What sense do they give you of just the relief afterwards?

BERGEN: I'll tell you what a lot of people said. They said that they only really realized what a big deal this was when they left the White House. Suddenly they hear these cheers, and that's when people said, some people said, I started crying.

CROWD: USA! USA! USA!

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO TAPE)

TODD (on camera): On those phone calls that President Obama made to tell other world leaders about the bin Laden raid, according to Obama's memoir, when he told then Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari about it, Zardari's reply was quote, whatever the fallout, it's very good news, end quote. And that despite the public backlash from the Pakistani government at the time expressing serious displeasure with the raid. Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: I remember that night and waiting for the president to speak and the crowd started to gather outside the White House. Brian, thanks for that reporting.

The Memphis Grizzlies, they shouldn't have done that. They poked the bear, one of the players called LeBron Jones old, and last night LeBron showed what a 38-year-old can do out there. Carolyn Manno shows us with all the NBA playoff highlights. That's next.

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[10:51:35]

WALKER: Lebron James and the Lakers eliminating the grizzlies from the NBA playoffs in dominant fashion last night.

BLACKWELL: Carolyn Manno is here with more. Carolyn, I don't know how to describe it. You can call it a beatdown, but that would be an understatement considering the point spread here.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It kind of feels like a moral victory for those of us that are closer to our 40s than our 20s, am I right? Let's just be honest. We know the trash talk.

(LAUGHTER)

MANNO: The playoffs are just more fun, you guys, when there is a little bit of bad blood. And it really feels that way between these two teams, the Lakers and the Grizzlies. They decimated Memphis. Like you said, Victor, LeBron James didn't even stick around to shake hands. He went straight to the locker room, hit the showers after delivering this massive performance coming off the subpar performance in game five.

But he was in front of his home crowd, he did his thing. He made seven of his first eight shots. He had this monster slam late in the first half to just send a message. He had 16 points in the first half alone, which was one more than his total for all of game five. So he finished the night with 22. Lakers put the pedal down in the second half. They win by 40 points to close out their first playoff series at home in 11 years. So the playoffs continue tonight on our sister channel TNT, the top-

seeded Denver Nuggets hosting the Phoenix Suns and Kevin Durant, that should be a really good series.

In the Stanley Cup playoffs, Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak making his presence felt in game six against Florida with one of the most impressive goals that you will see. Steering the pass between his legs, going top shelf for the score. But it was the Panthers, guys, who really earned their nickname. They called them the cardiac cats, and this is why.

These two teams went shot for shot, finding the back of the net for a combined seven goals in this wildly entertaining third period. Florida scoring the three last unanswered to grab a seven-five win and even the series at three games apiece. So that series shifts back to Boston for a decisive game seven on Sunday.

The two best words in sport, game seven. And three more teams are going to have a chance to close out their respective series tonight as well. That action begins at 7:00 eastern over on TBS.

And finally for you this morning, Kentucky quarterback Will Levis was supposed to have a night that he would never forget on Thursday. He is not going to forget, but for all the wrong reasons. His name never called at the NFL draft. But he didn't have to wait long to find a new team on Friday. The Tennessee Titans traded up to grab him with the number 33 overall pick.

And he could be one of these players, guys, that is a real steal. ESPN says that there is a 92 percent chance that we have been picked in the top 10, so with the way that the quarterbacks were in this year's draft, it could be very interesting to see what he ends up doing in his pro career. The draft wrapping up this afternoon. Very exciting, all the way to the last pick, known as Mr. Irrelevant.

And last year's selection turned out to be anything but irrelevant. It was 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy who led his team all the way to within a game of the Super Bowl. So anything can happen. And certainly no shortage of motivation for Levis as he starts his pro career.

BLACKWELL: All right, Carolyn Manno, thank you very much.

And LeBron went straight to the showers, didn't say much, because there was nothing left to say.

WALKER: Exactly.

BLACKWELL: There was nothing left to say.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Carolyn, thanks so much.

Artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly and becoming part of almost every industry. One artist shows us how A.I. could change the future of art. It's today's "Innovate." (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ALEXANDER REBEN, ARTIST: I've always been interested in how humans and machines work together.

I'm Alexander Reben, and I'm an artist and roboticist.

[10:55:00]

I started my research looking into social robotics. That's robots that like talk to people or interface with them in different ways.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need help.

REBEN: When I work with an A.I., there are many different types of processes, like one could be me curating a dataset, another could be me curating output, and then expanding from there.

So this is an interactive installation that allows visitors to my show to make their own A.I. artwork just by speaking their imagination. Unicorn in space with a cupcake.

My style is a bit eclectic. And I think now sort of my style is driven by the feedback I get from A.I. A lot of people have seen A.I. art just in a digital sense, but I have been likening to bring it into the physical realm, to work with three modelers and castors and sculptors. Involving a lot humans in that chain to me is quite interesting.

I've worked with galleries before, various museums, and different types of events. I think anything can be art depending on how people perceive art. I'd like to see A.I. art enable people to more kind of express themselves and their ideas, and I think A.I. is going to be powerful as a tool to spark imagination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: All right, that's our time. Thank you so much for watching.

BLACKWELL: There's much more ahead in the next hour of CNN Newsroom. Fredricka Whitfield is up next.

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