Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Indicted, To Appear In Federal Court In Miami; Philadelphia Fire Causes Collapse, Closure Of I-95; Republicans See Trump Charges As Political; Mass Shooting Survivors Hold Sit-In Protest At The Capitol; Rebuild Of I-95 To Take Months; Nearly 200 POWs Released From Each Side; Anita Dunn Emerges As Biden's Brawler- In-Chief. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired June 11, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:01:03]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

This week it's back to the courthouse for former president Donald Trump. For the first time he'll appear in a federal courtroom and be arraigned on federal charges in Miami on Tuesday. Trump faces 37 separate counts related to classified documents he allegedly kept and conspired to hide from the government. Some boxes openly stored in a Mar-a-Lago ballroom. Others kept in a bathroom at the resort. Some behind the shower curtain there.

Trump's own former attorney general, Bill Barr, saying of the charges if even half of it is true then he is toast. That is a quote.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us from Miami.

Katelyn, less than 48 hours to go. How are we going to see the former president spending his time between now and then?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, we're going to see the former president traveling but not much else whenever he actually gets to the federal court for these proceedings on Tuesday afternoon.

So let's walk through his schedule over the next couple of days. He's going to be traveling to Miami tomorrow, taking the flight down from up north, and then he's going to be staying at his resort in Miami- Dade County. Overnight he's going to be meeting with his lawyers, preparing for what's to come on Tuesday for that initial appearance, arraignment.

We do believe he has spent the weekend or at least was with yesterday his body man, Walt Nauta, the man who's charged alongside him in this case. Walt Nauta also has to come to Florida and appear before that judge. He has a summons as well to be here at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday. But then Tuesday we might not see Donald Trump at all physically walk inside this federal courthouse behind me.

That's because there are lots of preparations by the Secret Service and other arms of the federal government that offer protection of the building, of judges, of Trump. And I believe the idea is that he'll be ferried into this building and we won't be seeing him because he was driven underground. And then inside a federal courthouse building there are no cameras, no video cameras, no still photography.

And so we won't be able to get to see him in a courtroom like we were able to see him walk into in New York state when he was arraigned there in a separate case, separate charges. But whenever he goes before the judge, he and Walt Nauta, they will be very expected to plead not guilty. That is quite typical at this stage. And Donald Trump says he definitely will do that and then he'll be making a political speech later that night -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. No surprise there. Katelyn Polantz in Miami, thanks very much for that.

Joining us now, CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen. He's a former White House ethics czar and the House special judiciary counsel in the first Trump impeachment trial.

Norm, obviously you've gone through this 37-count federal indictment. What stands out to you? What should we be thinking about? What's top of mind for you heading into this Tuesday arraignment?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Jim, it's really the Espionage Act charges, the charges that Trump unlawfully, criminally removed and retained national defense information. It was itemized in the indictment and it's really striking. Plans for U.S. attacks on other countries. Attacks on the United States, how we would counter that. Nuclear secrets. Some of our most sensitive national security information.

And we saw the pictures on ballroom stages, in bathrooms. There's another photograph of top secret information spilled on the floor. So any other defendant who faced this, as Trump's own Attorney General Bill Barr said, any other defendant who faced this would be in the most grave trouble. And I think Donald Trump is. Nothing political about it to my mind.

ACOSTA: And what do you make of this Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, getting this case? What thoughts run through your mind? She made some news last summer when she oversaw proceedings related to the Mar-a-Lago search, and there was some controversy around that.

[19:05:04]

EISEN: Judge Cannon's decisions in the initial stages following the search warrant, she froze the government investigation or use of the documents. She appointed a special master. Both of those were slapped down strongly by an extremely conservative 11th Circuit appellate panel. Three judges, two Trump appointees, one Bush appointee. Judge Pryor, he may have been the most conservative of them all.

And they took the strongest exception to her rulings using words like radical. So I think that presents a challenge under the federal judicial recusal law. I believe if an objective observer, Jim, would say, well, this judge can't really be impartial here, the judge is supposed to step aside from the case. I think there are serious questions about that. And I suspect sooner or later either in her court or in that appellate body, the 11th Circuit, because there are going to be a lot of things that go there immediately appealable, we're going to see those recusal issues emerge.

ACOSTA: And during campaign stops yesterday in Georgia and North Carolina Trump blasted the indictment as, quote, "ridiculous and baseless," a sentiment many of his voters agree with. We saw some evidence of that earlier on in this program. We're playing some of those sound bites. But let's listen to what Bill Barr, his former attorney general, said. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER TRUMP: And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous. Yes, he's been a victim in the past, yes, his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims, and I've been at his side defending against them when he is a victim, but this is much different. He's not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes, what did you make of those remarks from Bill Barr?

EISEN: Well, when we were doing the first impeachment of Trump, I personally tangled with Bill Barr. We were about to hold him in contempt. At the last minute he blinked and gave us some large trove of Special Counsel Robert Mueller documents we needed. He's a fierce partisan, has been, of President Trump. And he proved it in the Trump administration. So for him to say that Trump is not a victim here and that this case is --

ACOSTA: I believe he said he's toast.

EISEN: He is predicting the demise of the president. For him to do that, Jim, is extraordinary. And the reason that he says the president's toast is because the proof is so overwhelming. That doesn't mean we're not going to hear defenses from Donald Trump. But I worked on the classified document rules that the government cited in its indictment. And there virtually is no defense for this.

Anyone else who did this once or twice, one or two documents would be looking at jail time. This volume, 31 counts under the Espionage Act Alone, and then the long pattern of alleged obstruction of justice, wow. The biggest legal jeopardy Donald Trump has ever faced by far.

ACOSTA: Yes, most people, if they're hiding top secret classified documents behind a shower curtain, that would not be a good thing for just about anybody else.

EISEN: Not a good thing for anyone. And the volume of it, it's just -- it's staggering and very perilous for the former president.

ACOSTA: All right, Norm Eisen, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

In other news, a major interstate in Philadelphia is no longer an option for thousands of drivers who depend on that highway every day for their daily commute. This nightmare scenario comes after a tanker truck burst into flames, caused a portion of I-95 to collapse earlier this morning. The governor of the state, Josh Shapiro, spoke just a short time ago saying it will take months to rebuild but plans to issue a disaster declaration to speed up the process.

President Biden has been briefed on the situation, and the Department of Transportation is already sending help.

CNN's Danny Freeman is live on the scene with the latest. What can you tell us?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, I can tell you that first of all, this is going to be a nightmare for drivers in the near future and likely weeks and months to come after that. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, they said that this stretch of I-95 behind me is maybe the busiest in the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So -- and this repair, as you said, may take months.

But let me get back into what we do and don't know because at this point we still don't know why and how this truck caught fire but we do know a little bit more about what the situation is at this point. It all started just before 6:30 a.m. this morning when a tanker truck was basically sitting underneath this stretch of I-95. It caught fire. We still don't know how.

But that fire led to the entire northbound section of that highway in this particular spot behind me collapsing onto the ground and the southbound lane the governor told us in a press conference a couple of hours ago, the southbound lane also is not safe to drive on on this time.

[19:10:12]

Currently the truck actually in question is still trapped inside of that wreckage and all throughout the afternoon we've been hearing this intense jackhammering. You may be able to hear it behind us. This intense heavy machinery working to clear some of the rubble, to clear some of the debris. Now the good news is that there have been no reported injuries yet at this time. But the governor did say that they don't know if someone was inside of that truck when this highway collapsed down on it.

I want you to listen to some sound from Governor Josh Shapiro when he first laid eyes on the tragedy around us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO, PENNSYLVANIA: Remarkable devastation. And I found myself, you know, thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died. It's just a remarkably devastating sight. One that our first responders, law enforcement and others contained very, very quickly. They got people out of harm's way. And now under leadership of Secretary Carroll and others, the hard work of clearing the site and rebuilding it will be underway and we're going to move as quickly as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Now, specifically Governor Shapiro said that this cleanup will take, quote, "some number of months." He said he issued a disaster declaration, as you noted, and hopefully the idea is that that will clear up some funds to fix this as soon as possible -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. CNN's Danny Freeman for us in Philadelphia. Thanks very much.

And just minutes from now Philadelphia's fire commissioner will join us live for an update. So stay with us for that.

Coming up, the political impact of the federal indictment of Donald Trump as his Republican allies try to defend his handling of classified documents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, if he wants to store it in a box on a stage, he can do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Plus families of mass shooting victims are holding a sit-in outside the Capitol calling out lawmakers for their inaction. We'll ask two participants what their demands are.

And later, new reporting on President Biden's re-election strategy and the so-called brawler we're learning is at the center of some of the strategy there at the White House. We'll talk about that as well.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:16:33]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Witch hunt, witch hunt. Scam, hoax. It's called election interference. And they're doing the best they can with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Less than 24 hours after the release of that indictment Donald Trump was back on the campaign trail using some of his favorite lines to defend himself against the charges. And there are some early indications it may be working at least among some Republicans. A new CBS poll finding 80 percent of GOP voters say the charges are politically motivated. A view apparently shared by many of Trump's top Republican rivals. Excuse me, ABC poll. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I see in that document is deeply politicized.

MIKE PENCE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today what we see is a justice system where the scales are weighted.

DOUG BURGUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is the kind of stuff that you'd never thought would happen in America. And so I think it's a dangerous precedent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Joining me now is the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Larry Sabato.

Larry, great to see you. What do you make of Trump talking about election interference? I guess that's his latest defense here, that this is election interference.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: Same old song. I think he captured some of that smoke we had in the air. Smoke and mirrors. He's doing the same thing he always does, hurling insults and vitriol. And really it's terrible. I think we all feel sorry for him because if there is one group that is heavily discriminated against by our justice system, it's rich, privileged powerful white males. I feel for him. I know you do, too.

ACOSTA: Oh, certainly. And in this video that we're showing right now I guess he traveled to a Waffle House in Columbus, Georgia, and you actually see video -- what we believe you see video of him and that aide. It may not be in the shot right there. But you do see video of him and that aide, there it is right there, who was also indicted. I mean, how remarkable is that? You don't see that every day. Indicted one day, out on the campaign trail in a Waffle House the next or the next after that.

SABATO: Well, to say it's unusual is an understatement. Look, it's just classic Trump. He's going to do what he wants to do because, you know, he's special. He's told us many, many times. And there's a reason for his believing that. His partisans, a large majority of the Republican Party in many cases and at least here a marginal majority of the Republican Party supports him and believes that even though he may be guilty and the charges may be just, it's all political, it's all political.

As Bill Barr said, and Bill Barr has covered for Donald Trump many times while he was Trump's attorney general, he's made it very clear that the case against Trump here is very strong. Very strong. But that doesn't matter. It's all political, you know.

ACOSTA: Well, and let me ask you this. A new CBS poll from after the indictment shows nearly 40 percent of Republicans agree that Trump jeopardized U.S. national security if he kept nuclear or military documents. I mean, the rest of the country is 80 percent. So you can I guess have some discussion about that data point. But why are so few of his GOP rivals willing to agree that this is a national security risk that he kept these documents?

[19:20:02]

If 38 percent of Republican voters feel that way, but only two of some 10 or so candidates feel that way, what does that say about what's going on inside the party?

SABATO: Well, there are some wonderful human qualities called integrity and courage, and they're absent in all but two of the candidates. That is not as important to them as getting on the right side of Donald Trump and his tens of millions of Republican voters for the nominating process. Not because they think they can get those votes away from Trump. They're counting on Trump not being there.

They're counting on the legal system taking him out or something else taking him out and then they can say to the Trump voters, you see, I backed him 100 percent, I'm deserving of your votes, the Trump voters. You come to me now. That's their real goal. It's to get nominated. And they're willing to do anything to get that position once Trump leaves, if he does.

ACOSTA: All right. And that's a big if. All right, Larry Sabato, great to see you as always. Thanks so much.

SABATO: Thanks a lot, Jim.

ACOSTA: Appreciate it.

And tomorrow night on CNN join Anderson Cooper for a CNN Republican presidential town hall with former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. It starts tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Coming up a critical structure of highway totally gone after a fire collapsed a section of I-95. The Philadelphia fire commissioner joins us next for an update.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:25:59]

ACOSTA: The fight to ban assault weapons is taking place right now at the steps of the nation's Capitol. Today marks day six of a sit-in protest where survivors and families of victims from mass shootings at Parkland, Uvalde and Sandy Hook and other massacres are demanding action. Joining me now to talk about this is Sam Schwartz, the organizer of

that sit-in protest. He is the cousin of a Parkland victim, Alex Schachter, and Manuel Oliver, an activist and the father of Parkland victim Joaquin Guac Oliver.

Manny, great to you again. Sam, nice meeting you for the first time. It's been six days now since you've started this sit-in. What's the response been like?

SAM SCHWARTZ, CAPITOL SIT-IN ORGANIZER: Well, we've had about 30 or so lawmakers come up and talk to us. And that's great. We know that they -- a lot of the ones most in support will. We've heard from no Republicans. The ones who we really wanted to hear from and haven't heard from quite surprisingly is Schumer, Durbin and Jeffries. Now, it's not enough --

ACOSTA: The Democratic leaders in the Senate and Jeffries over in the House. Yes.

SCHWARTZ: Now Senator Durbin actually chairs the Judiciary Committee. And the reason why we started this is because it's not enough to co- sponsor a bill. It's not enough to say you support an assault weapons ban and that you stand with people like Manny, you stand with people like myself. They need to take legitimate action, come out to the sit- in, and tell us that they will champion a vote through.

So I need everyone watching to call this number that's on our shirts. It's 202-224-7703. That's the Judiciary Committee number. Durbin chairs that. And you need to tell him to mark up the assault weapons ban immediately for the Judiciary Committee.

ACOSTA: Manny, you and I have talked about this issue so many times, talking about your son Joaquin over the years. Do you get the sense that you're close at all to any kind of a vote on an assault weapons ban, which we should remind our viewers, similar legislation, a similar law existed back during the '90s and into the early 2000s? So it's not like we haven't had a vote on something like this before. It has made an impact in the past. Studies have shown that.

MANUEL OLIVER, FATHER OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM JOAQUIN "GUAC" OLIVER: And it's showed that it brings results. But you know what? We're out there. We're fighting every single day. What Sam did in six days is amazing. It's something that our politicians haven't been able to do in decades. And he did this without Hollywood stars showing, without a huge stage in the middle of D.C. He did it five years after we lost our loved ones. So hope is back.

I have a lot of hope on the youth. And if anyone should be worried about someone, it's them. They will have control of the situation.

ACOSTA: And Sam, what made you decide to do this?

SCHWARTZ: Well, it's pretty simple. It's like Manny said, it's been five years since Parkland and no change, no legitimate change, no necessary change has been taken. An assault weapons ban would have saved my cousin. Would have saved his son's life. And we need change. We go into these meetings, we lobby, we make phone calls, we hold marches and vigils and rallies and nothing is enough.

They think we're a joke. So I wanted that sit-in, I wanted to do that sit-in to show them that we will not leave until you listen to us and we want to make our voices heard. And what I've seen the most is that a lot of these politicians are fighting for their seats and they're fighting for their jobs and their chairs, and we're out here fighting for our children's lives, and our parents and our community members' lives.

They need to put the ban and gun safety legislation over their seats because why would they uphold -- why would they take the oath? Why would they run for office if not to fight for us? Why? Why else?

ACOSTA: And Manny, you know, what some of these Democratic lawmakers have said is that, well, they did have bipartisan action on gun legislation just in the last couple of years. But as we've seen, in all of these tragedies that have occurred since the passage of that legislation it obviously wasn't enough.

OLIVER: And you remember that I said it's not enough?

ACOSTA: Yes.

OLIVER: You remember that I stood there and said this is not enough, we've got to do more? That was 45,000 victims ago. So now we're sitting in front of the Capitol showing that we do care and it's not enough and if we need to sit there another five days, another 10 days, another 30 days, every single day counts.

ACOSTA: That's what I was going to ask.

[19:30:00]

So you're planning -- you guys are planning on staying out there. This has been day six, I guess six days now of this, but you're willing to do this through the summer.

OLIVER: There was a press conference tomorrow.

SCHWARTZ: Yes, there'll be a press conference tomorrow right at the sit-in at 5:00 PM. Kind of just say what we've been doing, what we've experienced. But if we need to go longer, we certainly will, and we all have the will to do it.

Because I'll tell you right now, nothing can be harder than losing our family members. A sit-in is easy compared to that. They just need to come out and talk to us, tell the families, tell the family members of victims, tell the survivors of these mass shootings, why they won't do it, why they value the AR-15s over our lives, over their children's lives.

COOPER: And what do some of these lawmakers tell you? You said, you've spoken with a bunch of them about why we haven't seen more done.

OLIVER: Well, they support what we do, of course. My concern is that a couple of years ago, we were promoting their campaigns. We actually voted for these people, you know. Some of these legislators, some of these representatives received our vote and our support. So they promised results, but they are not delivering those results.

So yes, we call all Republicans that are against our intentions here, but guess what? It's not any more a party thing only. We need those Democrats that decided to give us their word, we supported them to deliver what they decided to deliver.

SCHWARTZ: Yes These lawmakers like Durbin and Schumer need to show my generation that they're fighting for us. We saved them in the 2022 midterms and if they want to see us come out in record numbers like they're expecting us to in 2024, they need to vote on an assault weapons ban and show us that they don't care about it passing, they value our lives more than just a passing of a bill, which of course we all want, but we want to see movement.

ACOSTA: You want to see a vote.

SCHWARTZ: We want to see a vote. We deserve movement of some kind, because right now, it's nothing. It's just tweets. It's just platitudes. It's enough.

It's just like thoughts and prayers, we don't want that, we need direct action. That's what we want. We need a vote.

ACOSTA: All right, Manny Oliver, Sam Schwartz, good luck with the sit- in. Thanks very much for coming.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.

ACOSTA: We appreciate it.

OLIVER: Thank you.

ACOSTA: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:36:08]

ACOSTA: Several months, that's how long the governor of Pennsylvania says it will take to repair the destroyed interstate in Philadelphia that collapsed earlier this morning.

Officials say the tanker truck that burst into flames was carrying a petroleum-based product. The Department of Environmental Protection, the state's Coast Guard and the Philadelphia water department are now assessing any environmental impacts and Philadelphia's Fire commissioner, Adam Thiel joins us now.

Commissioner, what is the latest you're hearing about this fire that caused the collapse there? Do we have any sense of what the cause might be?

ADAM THIEL, PHILADELPHIA'S FIRE COMMISSIONER: Jim, it's going to be a little while until we know the cause. Our fire marshals, all of our investigators assisted by our police department and ATF colleagues are there on the scene now. They will be processing that scene for a while, and of course, it's also been a busy day elsewhere in Philadelphia. We've had a couple of other working fires that they're investigating, too.

So it's going to be quite some time until we know the exact cause.

ACOSTA: And forgive me for being a pest in asking a follow up, but was the truck, was the tanker parked under that section of I-95? Or was it rolling through and it just happened to catch fire at that particular moment?

THIEL: Well, Jim, our initial dispatch was at 6:22 this morning for a vehicle accident. The first arriving engine got there very quickly, quickly recognize the situation involved hazardous materials, called our hazardous materials team and additional firefighting units to manage this incident.

So I'm not sure yet about and, of course, the State Police will also be, as well as police department will be investigating the accident part of this, but we still don't have the answers to all of those things.

ACOSTA: So there might have been an accident, which caused the vehicle, the tanker to stop and be parked under the interstate, is that -- am I getting that right?

THIEL: Well, it's an intersection where actually vehicles constantly crossed under that section of the interstate to get to the ramps, to get on and off 95. It is actually a relatively new area. So a lot of traffic goes under there.

It is very possible this vehicle was moving through and something happened. Again, the initial response for us was for a vehicle accident before it turned into something that was quite a bit larger than that.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. And we were talking to a motorist who was going through the area earlier today, and he has some dashcam video where you can see where the interstate buckled as he was going across that area where the fire was going on. And I mean, it just seems like this could have been a much, much worse situation than it ended up being.

What did it take to put out this fire, especially given the location under the highway? I have to imagine it required a lot of assets on your part.

THIEL: Yes. You know, our firefighters, our EMS providers, dispatchers, our entire team, more than 3,000 women and men of the Philadelphia Fire Department, very well trained, very experienced, 800 to a thousand emergency incidents of all types every day.

So actually, for us, this wasn't a huge response, believe it or not. We had about a hundred of our members, a lot of our response partners on seeing. Obviously, it did take a lot of firefighting water, a lot of firefighting activity, our hazardous materials team working with some of those other agencies that you mentioned. Still they're working on that aspect because the product leaked and we had kind of running fuel fires. Just an incredible job though.

Our members actually had this fire under control in about an hour, so one hour really. Now under control doesn't mean it's over or out, it simply means that it's not going anywhere. We don't think the incident is going to break containment.

But as you heard or as you said at the outset, still going to be a long time for the recovery in traffic on I-95. It is going to be rougher than usual for the next couple of months, I expect.

ACOSTA: Oh, yes. Yes, those famous Philadelphia tempers may be flaring just a little bit.

All right, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel, I say that with just the greatest affection for the people of Philadelphia, don't get me wrong, but Commissioner, thanks very much for your time. Best of luck getting that back up and running as soon as possible. We appreciate it.

New tonight, Ukraine's president says the International Criminal Court is investigating a dam collapse that caused major flooding. We'll discuss with someone who is helping to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

That's next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:44:54]

ACOSTA: Today, both Ukraine and Russia announced a large prisoner swap of nearly 200 POWs. Here you're seeing Ukrainian prisoners returning home after months in captivity. Officials say they were originally taken hostage in multiple locations both by the Russian military and the Wagner mercenary group.

[19:45:14]

This comes as Ukraine and Russia point fingers at each other over the Ukrainian dam collapse that officials are calling a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says the International Criminal Court has begun its investigation into the incident, and retired US Army Colonel Yevgeny Vindman joins us now. He's also the military analysis director for the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group.

Colonel Vindman, great to see as always. What did you think of this prisoner exchange?

COL. YEVGENY VINDMAN(RET), U.S. ARMY: Well, these have occurred quite frequently over the course of the conflict. And it is frankly, a good development the militaries are talking to each other, they are exchanging prisoners. Unfortunately, most of the videos that I've seen, the prisoners, at least that the Ukrainians are getting back are quite emaciated. I suspect the treatment was potentially in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but we'll see as the investigation continues, but the prisoner swap is definitely a good news story.

ACOSTA: Let me follow that thread. You're working with Ukrainian group that's in Washington on a mission to hold Russia accountable for alleged war crimes they've committed. Ukraine's president says the International Criminal Court is investigating this dam collapse that caused major flooding. Is that a war crime to add to the list?

VINDMAN: I think so. Frankly, under the law of war, dams, like nuclear power stations, are considered sort of inherently dangerous objects. And so even if there is a military necessity, and we're not sure in the attack that an attack on a dam requires additional measures to safeguard civilians, provide reasonable precautions, and I think these were completely absent.

And frankly, this attack on the dam is one of several, there have been some in the past, and there was a report again today of an attack on a dam up north.

So if you think about these attacks on dams, the wide swath of disruption, economic, infrastructure, damage to the ecology and to human lives, is of the scale of a weapon of mass destruction. So this will take years to remediate, and along with the other attacks on dams up north and previously in the Kyiv region, I think we're going to see a major effort to hold Russians accountable.

In fact, our team is deploying in the coming days an expert -- environmental expert to that part of the country.

ACOSTA: And I wanted to ask you about Trump's criminal indictment. You were a lawyer at the White House, some of us recall that was responsible for overseeing compliance with the Presidential Records Act during that administration.

What did you think when you saw these charges that were levied against the former president?

VINDMAN: Well, frankly, when I first saw the news of this break about a year ago, I thought that this was going to be a critical legal issue for the president.

The Presidential Records Act is really quite clear that the records belong to the American people. They are federal records, they are collected by the National Archives. The president does get some say about who sees what for a certain period of time, but they are the records of the American people.

And it's quite a simple case, frankly, if you think about it. Did the President have records that he was not supposed to? Yes. Did he know he was not supposed to have them? Apparently, yes from what we've heard, released so far, and therefore he's liable. So I think the president is in some real trouble. And really, there's no excuse for this. My job at the White House was to brief all personnel on the Presidential Records Act. We took it very seriously. Everybody knew that they had to safeguard these records. I wasn't around, of course, at the end of the administration, I was fired two days after he was acquitted, but I think the president is in real trouble.

ACOSTA: Right. I mean, and there were other aides who had to have been aware of the ground rules as well.

VINDMAN: Undoubtedly, so one of my jobs was to brief all members of National Security Council staff and the same briefings occurred for White House staff -- West Wing staff.

[19:50:11]

And everybody knew that these records were supposed to be maintained that they were supposed to be turned over. Certainly, classified records, nobody has any business taking classified records with them once they leave the government. And there is zero excuse here. I think that the president -- the former president, is in some serious trouble.

ACOSTA: All right, Colonel Vindman, thanks very much for your time and your service. We appreciate it.

VINDMAN: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: She's well known in Washington, but not as much as inside the beltway, but new CNN reporting is putting the spotlight on a key figure emerging at the heart of President Biden's political strategy.

Anita Dunn, officially she is the president's top messaging and communications adviser, but as the 2024 campaign picks up, some insiders paint her as the president's "brawler-in-chief."

[19:55:16]

One example of her influence, the White House's embrace of the Dark Brandon persona, it is a favorite meme of progressives trying to counter conservatives' depiction of President Biden on social media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to be fine with your jokes, but I'm not sure about Dark Brandon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And CNN White House producer, Betsy Klein is here to share her reporting.

Betsy, you talked to over a dozen current and former colleagues at the White House, lawmakers, Democratic strategists for the story. What did you learn?

I mean, as I was saying at the top of this, there are people around DC know who Anita Dunn is, but not so much outside of Washington.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Yes. Absolutely.

And we know that President Biden has a very tight inner circle of key advisers. Anita Dunn is at the center of that. We know she is a key architect of the president's messaging, but she has also taken a more expanded role as we look to 2024, and she has a massive task ahead, because we know the president has low approval ratings.

There are serious questions in polling about the president's age, and so her job as we look to the next two years is to help the president communicate to an unconvinced American public why he deserves a second term. And she does that with an experience of a combination of experience and trust, both with her staff and with the president.

ACOSTA: And of course, the president has addressed the age question before. A lot of Democrats will point out, he is just a few years older than the man who might run against, Donald Trump in 2024.

But how does she plan on tackling, Anita Dunn, how does she plan on tackling that age question? Is she going to be the brawler when it comes to that issue as well?

KLEIN: Absolutely. We know it's on voters' minds. The president is 80 years old. If he's elected to a second term, he'd be 86 at the end, the oldest president in history. And I think we've seen a recent shift from the president in how he frames this, being more proactive about it.

At a recent fundraiser in New York, he framed it as a combination of experience and wisdom, and really used it as an opportunity to tout some of his legislative accomplishments. That had her fingerprints all over it, it is absolutely something that we're going to see in the weeks and months ahead.

ACOSTA: And what do we know about her 2024 role at this point?

KLEIN: Well, you know, for any president that's an incumbent running for re-election, there is a small group of people in the West Wing that coordinate with the campaign, things like, you know, scheduling, messaging, making sure everyone is swimming in the same direction. She is absolutely one of those people.

But in the course of my reporting, what I really learned is that she has emerged as a key decision maker, things like where the campaign headquarters are going to be, selection of key campaign leadership, and devising an overall campaign strategy.

And, you know, I think when we think about Anita Dunn, she is a person who is under the radar. You're right. She's not a household name, and she is a person who really appreciates a digital strategy, but she's not really on social media herself. And she actively eschews Washington social scene, despite having lots of connections with lawmakers, members of the Cabinet, other Washington operators, that is by design.

The other thing that we have to keep in mind is that for an incumbent president running for re-election, the most valuable commodity is your time, what you say, how you say it, where you say it, that is all things that she is deeply involved in decision making for.

ACOSTA: And where does this brawler thing come from? Because I remember when Ron -- a couple of things -- I remember when Anita Dunn was sort of in Obama's orbit during the late 2000s, early 2010s, I mean, I think she was known as a tough operator on DC, but not the brawler.

What is it that's making her the brawler? Why has she decided to become the brawler now? Where is that coming from?

KLEIN: I mean, I think it's because she has to be. I think that in this White House, they have a lot of perceptions to combat and to be more aggressive. She fosters that more aggressive posture. You know, I think the Dark Brandon was a subversive, liberal meme that started cropping up across the internet and she saw it as an opportunity to go on the offensive. It's a little bit fun and funny.

But really, the President mentioned it in that speech, aides are sharing it on social media. It's a t-shirt that you can buy on the campaign's website right now.

ACOSTA: Yes. They love the Dark Brandon thing, which started off as not something that you would think they would embrace.

KLEIN: No.

ACOSTA: And how has she risen to this role in Biden world? Because as you were saying earlier, the Biden team is pretty insular. It can be kind of contained to just a small number of people, but she has really penetrated that bubble a little bit.

KLEIN: Yes. I think that a consistent theme, everyone I talked to, in the course of reporting this story is loyalty and that is both with the president and with her staff.

I think in 2015, a really important time in her relationship with the president, she was one of the very small group of aides that was encouraging him to think about running in 2016, right after his son died, making plans toward that.

And then in 2020, when she was a senior campaign aide, she is the person that is credited by a lot of people by really coming and righting the ship after a series of high-profile losses and that really cemented our relationship with the president.

ACOSTA: And I remember when Ron Klain was leaving as the White House chief-of-staff, he was also saying, we need to be tougher, we need to be more forward leaning in responding to the attacks out there. All right, Betsy Klein, a great profile. Thank you very much.

That's the news.

Reporting from Washington, I am Jim Acosta. Thanks very much for joining me this evening.

"The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper is up next with an all-new episode "Indicted: The Case Against Trump."

I'll see you next weekend.

[20:00:28]