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Key Vote on Debt Limit Deal; Moscow Drone Attacks; 9 People, Including a 1-Year Old, Shot in South Florida; DeSantis to Make First Campaign Trip in Presidential Bid; Trial Starts Today for Accused Synagogue Shooter; One of Two Escaped Mississippi Inmates Recaptured; China Launches Shenzhou-16; Kosovo Tensions; Eighth Person Rescued From Partial Building Collapse in Iowa; Impeachment Articles Against Texas AG Now at State Senate. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired May 30, 2023 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers, joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: I'm Max Foster. Joining you live from London just ahead on CNN Newsroom.
VOICEOVER: Justice Speaker, Kevin McCarthy is working to whip his caucus for this vote. The White House is doing the same with Democrats.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A huge question mark right now is if any one senator could delay this process.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Several buildings sustained what the Moscow Mayor called insignificant damage explosions in a number of areas of the city, and said several drones in his words were shot down.
JIMMY BUTLER, MIAMI HEAT FORWARD: We got to believe that we can do something incredibly special. So we gonna hit the ground running when we get to Denver and I like our chances
VOICEOVER: Live from London. This is CNN Newsroom with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: It's Tuesday, May the 30th, 9:00 AM here in London, 4:00 AM in Washington, where a key vote today. And a U.S. House committee could stall the debt limit deal, and that's before most of Congress even gets a chance to vote on it.
NOBILO: Members of the rules committee must adopt a rule to allow the bill to be approved by majority of the house and it's possible House speaker Kevin McCarthy's Decision to install conservative hard-liners on the panel in order to win the speakership could backfire. FOSTER: Two Republicans on the committee have already blasted the debt deal, but McCarthy says he's not worried. President Joe Biden also remains optimistic.
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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, I never say I'm confident what the Congress gonna do, but I feel very good about it. There is no reason why it shouldn't get done by the fifth. I'm confident that we'll get a vote in both houses and we'll see.
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NOBILO: Hope and the dream is that the debt deal will sail through Congress well before June 5th, so the U.S. can avoid a catastrophic first ever default. CNN's Lauren Fox has a closer look at what comes next.
FOX: While the furious effort from both Republican and Democratic leaders to lock up the votes they need for this legislation, it's fully underway with the White House making a series of calls directly to members trying to explain to them exactly what's in this bill, holding multiple briefings to detail the contents of the legislation.
Meanwhile, Republicans feeling very optimistic that they are going to be able to get at least a majority of their Republican majority on the floor. If it makes it there, the first critical test happening in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday, that's because Chip Roy, a conservative from Texas, has threatened to use every tool at his disposal along with conservative Ralph Norman to block this legislation from moving forward.
All eyes are on Thomas Massie, another conservative on that committee and what he is going to do, but once it passes out of the house, if it indeed gets out of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, this fight will then move to the U.S. Senate. You are already hearing backlash from some conservatives like Lindsey Graham, who are arguing that the defense number agreed to in this legislation is just not high enough.
The Senate can move this bill very quickly, but that requires them to have agreement among all their members. If one member objects that could really drag this whole process out, potentially putting you right up against that June through the deadline coming just about a week from now. On Capitol Hill for CNN, Lauren Fox.
NOBILO: A national holiday in the U.S. has ended in gun violence and bloodshed. At least nine people were wounded, including three children in Hollywood Beach on Monday as the country marked Memorial Day.
FOSTER: Now this is the moment gunfire broke out near a busy pedestrian area. You can see people running for safety. I seen an affiliate reporter, spoke to witnesses who described a chaotic scene.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NICOLE LINSLATA, WSVN REPORTER: I spoke off camera to a woman who works in a restaurant down a little bit further from Margaritaville near where these shots were fired. She said that when she start started to hear them, she and other employees and even some of their customers tried to run toward the bathrooms.
That's where they locked themselves in and called 911 and just waited, hoping to get an all clear. Having no idea exactly what was going on outside.
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NOBILO: Police believe the shots were fired during an altercation between two groups of people. Officials gave this update earlier on.
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DEANNA BETTINESCHI, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, HOLLYWOOD POLICE DEPT.: Right now we do have one person of interest detained, and right now we're also searching for an additional suspect.
CHRIS O'BRIEN, HOLLYWOOD BEACH POLICE CHIEF: We will leave no stone unturned. We have numerous agencies out here assisting us today to include state and federal agencies. These that were involved in the incident today will be held accountable for their action.
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FOSTER: Police say the victims rage in age from 65 to just one year old, and the city's mayor is condemning another night in America scarred by violence.
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JOSH LEY, HOLLYWOOD BEACH MAYOR: People come to a holiday, enjoy a holiday weekend on the beach with their families.
And to have people in complete reckless disregard of the safety of the public. And to have an altercation with guns in a public setting with thousands of people around them is beyond reckless.
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NOBILO: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is hitting the road in just a few hours time on his first campaign sto since announcing his presidential bid.
FOSTER: The Republican candidate will spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Iowa. He'll head to New Hampshire Thursday, then travel to South Carolina on Friday, and he's bringing his usual fiery rhetoric with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everyone knows if I'm the nominee, I will beat Biden and I will serve two terms and I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dust bin of history.
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NOBILO: And he's already busy attacking his one-time political ally, former President Donald Trump. DeSantis is using his ongoing feud with Disney to argue why he's more likely to win the Iowa corset.
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DESANTIS: He's taken the side of Disney in our fight down here in Florida. I'm standing for parents. I'm standing for children. And I think a multi-billion dollar company that sexualizes children is not consistent with the values of Florida or the values of a place like Iowa.
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FOSTER: Well, DeSantis was referring to Disney's opposition to Florida's so-called, "Don't Say Gay" Law which prohibits educators from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity to students from kindergarten to third grade.
We are following a developing story outta Moscow where the mayor reports two buildings of sustained minor damage from drone attacks.
NOBILO: He says, on Telegram, no one has been seriously injured, but the city's emergency services are on the scene and investigating. Russia's defense ministry blames Ukraine for what it calls a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, Ukraine reports at least one person is dead and 13 wounded in the latest Russian attack on Kyiv.
Ukraine's Air Force says 29 out of the 30 incoming drones were destroyed. Falling debris started a fire on the top floors of a high- rise building.
FOSTER: It comes as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has decided a date for the long awaited counter offensive by Ukrainian forces. He didn't provide specifics, obviously on the timings.
NOBILO: CNN Clare Sebastian joins us now with more. Clare, the comment from Russia's defense ministry that is the terrorist attack of Ukraine on Moscow. When we're seeing these severe, violent airstrikes on Kyiv.
SEBASTIAN: Yeah.
NOBILO: Night after night, they must know that's such a fallacious comment to make, but it does seem like we're witnessing an escalation in this war.
SEBASTIAN: Yeah. I think this is a sort of moment that we haven't seen before. Debris being mopped up from overnight strikes on Kyiv. At the same time as we see similar images in Moscow, now the Moscow drone attacks as the mayor is calling them, don't seem to have been particularly serious. No one was injured.
They say two people sought medical attention, but no one had to be hospitalized. The damage described by the mayor is insignificant, but I think the optics of this, this is the first time we've seen residential buildings hit in Moscow. It comes just a few weeks after we saw that drone attack on the Kremlin, just a week or so after we saw that pretty violent incursion in Belgorod apparently carried out by Russian citizens who had been fighting.
With Ukraine, it shows just how much this war is now hitting Russian soil. A Russian MP with Putin's party coming out and saying, this is a reality that we now have to recognize. We need to really step up our defenses. And I think part of this will play to a Russian audience. They rally around a common enemy, and I think it would be naive to assume that this would weaken support for Putin going forward.
FOSTER: In terms of the counter offensive, I mean, we've been talking about a much anticipated counter offensive for a very long time, but we. There is a date. We just don't know when it is.
SEBASTIAN: That's right. He said that the decision has been made Zelenskyy and his nightly addressed. So this sort of moves things forward a little bit.
You'll remember when he was in the UK in the middle of May, he said, we're not ready yet. We need a bit more time. Not much. So it seems that there's been some advancement there. We also saw over the weekend that the head of the armed forces came out with this sort of movie style, almost trailer, showing Ukrainian troops training, showcasing Western weapons.
You can see it there. Sort of epic style video. And the caption was, you know, the time has come to take back what is ours. So they are letting the momentum build, the suspense build. They are not giving anything away operationally for obvious reasons, but the pressure is building around this, and it would seem that we're getting closer.
NOBILO: Clare Sebastian, thank you.
The trial is set to start today for the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, 50-year old Robert Bowers has pleaded not guilty to 63 charges. He could face the death penalty if he's convicted.
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FOSTER: The attack is the deadliest ever on American Jewish communities in the U.S.
Bauers had posted attacks on immigrants and Jewish people on social media in the weeks before the shooting. Prosecutors have rejected a plea deal to remove the death penalty in exchange for life in prison.
Police and Mississippi have captured one of two escaped inmates who went missing during a prison headcount. Early on Monday, the man faces escape charges whilst police are still searching for the other fugitive.
NOBILO: It's just the second time in just over a month that prisoners have escaped from this same detention center. Last month, four men were able to break out with two being recaptured and the other two found dead. The local sheriff has apologized.
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SHERIFF TYREE JONES, HINDS COUNTRY, MISSISSIPPI: We believe that they were able to get access to an air duct within the facility, which led to the exterior of the facility where they were able to go over a fence and escape the facility as well.
Once again, I know, I apologize before. Here we are once again and I'm apologizing to the people of Hines County regarding what I would consider another public safety breach in our facility.
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NOBILO: Peru's National Penitentiary Institute is denying a report from ABC News that the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American Natalee Holloway was beaten in prison.
An attorney for Joran van der Sloot claims that his client was quote, "severely beaten and has petitioned for him to be moved to another facility."
FOSTER: Van der Sloot is set for extradition to the U.S. to face extortion and fraud charges and crimes allegedly committed against Holloway's mother. Separately, he was convicted in 2012 of murdering a woman in Peru sentenced to 28 years in prison.
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FOSTER: That was a scene in Miami on Monday night after the heat punched their tickets to the NBA finals, beating the Boston Celtics 103 to 84 in a must win game seven of the game seven of the Eastern Conference finals.
NOBILO: Heat and out, the first eight seed to reach the NBA finals since 1999. After the game, Miami Star, Jimmy Butler said they're focused on the challenge ahead.
BUTLER: I'm just confident I know the work that we all put into it, so I know what we're capable of, but nobody's satisfied. We haven't done anything. We don't play just to win the Eastern Conference. We played to win the whole thing.
NOBILO: Butler finished the game with 28 points and was named the series MVP. CNN's Omar Jimenez has our report from Boston.
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OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, coming into this Eastern Conference, finals games, there had been 150 unsuccessful attempts at overcoming a 3-0 deficit. Now there had been 151. The Boston Celtics couldn't get it done, overcome what was initially an improbable deficit to begin with. But of course they fought incredibly hard just to get to this point becoming just a number of a select few of teams to even be in this position in the first place.
But it was a battle of improbables here to try and advance to the finals because the Miami Heat on their side, they came in as a playing team. They had already been setting records in history along the way, becoming the first play in temp team to win a series.
Then they're taking out top seeds across the east and then even though they gave up three in a row and potentially would have become the first team to give up a 3-0 lead in a series, they came into Boston in a Game Seven environment where everybody was against them in this arena from the very beginning, and they were able to turn the tide over the course of the game in the later stages.
As that lead grew, there were even Celtics fans, they were booing their own team as the Celtics called time out as they tried to get a hold of the momentum that was seemingly swaying in the Heat favor, and the Heat Now head on to the NBA finals where they're gonna take on the Denver Nuggets. Obviously that is a team that is very well rested, but the stakes have been against the Miami Heat before, and so while many people are already saying the Nuggets are gonna sweep through and take care of business, it's been said about the Heat before, and they came into a very hostile Boston environment and took care of business on a Monday night in this Eastern Conference finals.
And again, battle of two improbables, but it's the Miami Heat improbable that took the victory this time. Omar Jimenez, CNN, Boston.
NOBILO: Still ahead, China launches its first civilian astronaut interspace with an eye on expanding its space program. We'll head to Beijing for an update on the mission.
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FOSTER: So (ph) protestors clash with NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo will explain what's behind the recent unrest of the live report.
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NOBILO: And later, a virus with similar symptoms to COVID-19 sees a spike in the U.S.
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NOBILO: Why it's flown under the radar until now?
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NOBILO: Emergency workers in Iowa have rescued an eighth person from an apartment building on Monday, the day after it partially collapsed. Now officials are going from search and rescue to recovery mode.
FOSTER: On Sunday, the back section of the building caved in and detached from the rest of the building. According to fire officials, it's unclear how many people might still be unaccounted for.
NOBILO: A driver navigates through heavy flames and smoke in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia as hundreds of firefighters battle with multiple ferocious wildfires. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls the fires they're (ph) incredibly serious.
FOSTER: Officials say they burned more than 25,000 acres, destroyed at least 200 homes or other structures, and have forced 16,000 people from their homes.
NOBILO: On the other side of the country, wildfires in Alberta have been burning for weeks. Some 2,700 firefighters are on the lines there battling more than 60 active fires.
FOSTER: The defense ministry says nearly three dozen NATO peacekeepers were injured on Monday in clashes with Serb protestors in Northern Kosovo.
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NOBILO: The defense ministry alleges that protestors through Molotov cocktails and other objects at the peacekeeping force known as KFOR shortfall, Kosovo Force, Serbia's Defense Minister says many protestors were also injured.
FOSTER: A (ph) for on this, we are joined by Barbie Nadeau in Rome. So what caused this latest flare up?
BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it is a very disturbing flareup.
Now, the tensions in this region go back a very long time. 2008, Kosovo declared its independence. That independence was not recognized by two major players, Serbia and Russia. And so these ethnic Serbian people who live in this northern zone boycotted an election in April, which is what led to the recent tensions.
But we've got the president of Serbia actually warning these protestors not to engage in battles with NATO. That is KFOR Force is a NATO peacekeeping force. 14 of those of soldiers, I'll mention were Italians. So it's a very important story here, but let's listen to what the Serbian president had to say to the Serbian ethnic people who live in that region.
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ALEKSANDAR VUCIC, SERBIAN PRESIDENT: I am urging the Serbs in Kosovo not to get into a conflict with NATO. Not because I'm afraid or because any of us are afraid. None of us personally have anything to lose, but because that's what Kosovo's Prime Minister wants most.
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NADEAU: And you know, you just listen to that rhetoric. It's really a Tinder box there. No one's looking for another conflict in Europe right now, especially one in a region as volatile as that.
NOBILO: And Barbie, what repercussions could there be potentially for Serbian protestors attacking NATO forces?
NADEAU: Well, obviously the NATO forces are going to, you know, hold their ground. They're peacekeeping forces. They're not combat forces, and they've been there since 1999, far longer than before Kosovo actually became an independent nation. But we've got lots of warnings. Even the United States has sent a message with other NATO countries to the government in Kosovo saying, you know, don't try to instigate these, try to go these Serbian protestors into attacking native forces.
So there's a lot of a blame game going on, but the repercussions are definitely that NATO is on high alert in this region right now. Bianca.
NOBILO: Barbie Nadeau live for us in Rome. Thank you.
In Texas House lawmakers have now delivered articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton to the state Senate, where he's set to face an impeachment trial in the months ahead.
FOSTER: This comes just two days after the Republican controlled house voted to impeach Paxton in an unprecedented move. CNN's Ed Lavandera has the details from Dallas.
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ANDREW MURR, TEXAS HOUSE REPUBLICAN: I am directed by the House of Representatives to present to the Senate. The articles of impeachment preferred (ph) against Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., attorney general of the state of Texas.
ED LAVANDERA, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A historic moment in Texas politics. The 12 Texas House representatives who will present the impeachment case against Attorney General Ken Paxton helped formally deliver the articles of impeachment to the Texas Senate. The day after Texas lawmakers impeached Ken Paxton, he shared these photos on social media saying there's nothing better than a weekend spent with loved ones.
There was no love from an overwhelmingly bipartisan collection of Texas House lawmakers who voted 121 to 23 to file 20 articles of impeachment against the Republican Attorney General.
ANN JOHNSON, TEXAS HOUSE DEMOCRAT: Either this is going to be the beginning of the end of his criminal reign. Or God help us with the harms that will come to all Texans if he is allowed to stay the top cop on the take.
LAVANDERA: Paxton called the impeachment vote, a politically motivated sham and an ugly spectacle. Former president, Donald Trump's support didn't help either.
Trump called the impeachment vote unfair, led by the radical left Democrats and rhinos. Republicans in name only Paxton is accused of a litany of criminal acts, including bribery and obstruction of justice, and that he's unfit for public office.
MURR: The evidence is substantial. It is alarming and unnerving.
LAVANDERA: Paxton's impeachment moves to the State Senate. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick will preside over the trial in an interview with CNN affiliate, WFAA. Patrick would not say when the trial will take place.
DAN PATRICK, TEXAS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: We will all be responsible as any juror would be if that turns out to be.
LAVANDERA: One of those jurors and senators is Angela Paxton, the Attorney General's own wife. There are calls for her to recuse herself, but she has not said what she will do.
KEN PAXTON, TEXAS ATTORNET GENERAL: Every politician who supports this deceitful impeachment attempt will inflict lasting damage on the credibility of the Texas House.
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LAVANDERA: As house representatives prepared to cast their impeachment votes. Some lawmakers say Paxton was vowing retribution for anyone voting against him.
CHARLIE GEREN, TEXAS HOUSE REPUBLICAN: Several members of this house while on the floor of this house, during the state business received telephone calls from General Paxton personally threatening them with political consequences in our next election.
LAVANDERA: Paxton has been under indictment on felony securities fraud charges, and remains under FBI investigation. For a scandal involving a campaign donor, Paxton has denied all wrongdoing.
PAXTON: This shameful process was curated from the start as an act of political retribution.
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LAVANDERA: We now have an update on when Ken Paxton's impeachment trial will take place.
State senators approved a plan that says the trial will have to happen before August 28th, and then on June 20th, a committee of Senators will present the rules for the impeachment process. So look for this impeachment trial to take place sometime between June 28th and the end of August. Ed Lavandera, CNN Dallas.
NOBILO: Still to come. You might have had a dangerous virus and not even known about it. We'll have the latest on a spike in respiratory viruses in the U.S. and what you need to look out for.
FOSTER: And Uganda approves one of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, which could lead to the death penalty in some cases. We'll have details on the law and international reaction.
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FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring up to date with our top stories. This our key vote at the U.S. House Rules Committee is set to take place later today, lawmakers on the committee will decide whether to move the Biden-McCarthy debt limit deal forward to the rest of Congress.
