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CNN International: Blinken to Meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping; Multiple Shooting Reported Across the U.S.; Navalny Facing New Extremism Charges; Ukraine, Russia Report Intense Fighting; Supreme Court to Issue Several Major Rulings. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired June 19, 2023 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome. It's Monday, fresh start to the new week. I was supposed to be on holiday, but I'm not. Very, very happy to be with all of you. So, welcome to you in the United States and around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster joining you live from London. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the final day of Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing. As both sides seek to improve and to stabilize the relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: China is definitely feeling the heat. I think you're going to see a much more tempered response from China at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The weekend of deadly gun violence in the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the Chicago suburb of Willow Brook, a Juneteenth celebration ended with one person been and at least 22 others injured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Violent shoot-out between Pennsylvania state troopers and a suspect who was armed with a hunting rifle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's been called the Shakahola massacre has shocked this nation. We've come to try and understand how over many months so many could die.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's painful. It's so painful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is this is CNN NEWSROOM. With Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.

FOSTER: It is Monday, June the 19th. 9:00 a.m. here in London and 3:00 a.m. in Louis, Mississippi. Where injuries have been reported after a large and extremely dangerous tornados hit the small town. There are also reports of structural damage in the area after the twister barreled through and tornado and flood watch remain in effect. This as the National Weather Service has issued a new tornado watch from northeastern Louisiana to western Alabama. Two million people are currently under the tornado watch. Large hail and damaging winds are also expected in those areas.

NOBILO: At the same time, over 50 million people across the southeast are under a severe storm threat. And triple-digit temperatures have around 35 million from southeastern New Mexico to southern Mississippi under heat alerts too.

FOSTER: Now to Beijing, where America's top diplomat is in his second and final day of high stakes talks aimed at easing tensions between the world's two largest economies.

NOBILO: That efforts may get a boost when U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken sits down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the hours ahead. Earlier Blinken held closed door discussions with China's top diplomat Wang Yi. The State Department called those talks candid and productive.

FOSTER: This coming a day after Blinken met with China's foreign minister who accepted an invitation to Washington. Both sides have come into these meetings with the goal of improving the deeply strained relationship but are playing down expectations of a major breakthrough. U.S. lawmakers are also weighing in on this key visit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Secretary Blinken is traveling to China in a position of strength. Secretary Blinken has a strong hand to play here. I think it's the right time for him to go, sit down and make very clear that United States is not going anywhere in the Indo Pacific.

REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): I think you're going to see a much more tempered response from China at this point. Because they're feeling the heat. They understand that American public, see China now as a threat and the administration, I think, is turning up the heat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Bert Hofman, the director of the Eastern Asian Institute at the National University in Singapore spoke to CNN earlier about the meetings in Beijing, and the tensions the two countries are looking to address.

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BERT HOFMAN, DIRECTOR, EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE: I think there's issues from both sides. On the one hand, China feels that the United States and its partners are increasingly forming a containment strategy to China. And specific interests, there are technology, the trade war unleashed by Donald Trump and more. The United States having declared that it wants to compete with China is increasingly fearful that accidents may happen. And the lack of communication, the lack of interaction, could lead to inadvertent conflict that everyone wants to avoid. So, there's tensions and then there's tensions around Taiwan, the status of Taiwan. Of course, the visit of Pelosi last year was adding to the tensions, the military exercises that China unleashed afterwards, it was a source of tension. So there's lots of issues that such meetings need to discuss.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN's Kristie Lu Stout joins us live from Hong Kong with the latest. There are undoubted tensions, Kristie, where the whole world has something to benefit from them keeping a dialogue going.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a dialogue happening at the very highest level to kickoff very soon, with Antony Blinken set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. This has just been confirmed.

[04:05:00]

The meeting that will take place in less than 30 minutes from now, 4:30 p.m. local time was confirmed by the U.S. State Department the last hour.

And when that meeting takes place, it will be a critical sign of China's interests in taking steps towards rebooting and rebuilding this critical relationship which is at its lowest point in decades. The U.S. and China, these two superpowers have been at odds over an array of issues, from Taiwan, to technology, to trade, to territorial disputes, et cetera.

But high-level engagement is taking place. And the meeting that will take place in less than half an hour from now between Xi and Blinken comes just days after Xi Jinping met with Bill Gates, the Microsoft cofounder, the philanthropist. And at that meeting on Friday, Xi called Gates, the first American friend he's seen this year. And said that the foundation of China-U.S. relations, in Xi Jinping's words, the foundation is in the people.

I want to bring you up to speed quickly on what Blinken has done so far during this trip to Beijing. Earlier today he met with China's top diplomat, Wang Yi. It was a meeting that spanned three hours. It was described by the U.S. State Department is candid and productive. We have a ministry of foreign affairs readout about that meeting. And this is what Wang Yi said.

He pointed out, quote, we need to reverse the downward spiral of Sino- U.S. relations, promote a return to a healthy and stable track, and jointly find the right way for China and the U.S. to coexist in the new era. Unquote.

Wang Yi also asked the U.S. earlier today to lift unilateral sanctions against China. To end the high-tech crackdown and also reiterated that Taiwan is one of China's core interests. Which we also heard the previous day during those meetings between Qin Gang and Blinken.

Now senior U.S. officials, they say that Blinken's main goal here is to just to reestablish the channels of communications between the U.S. and China, especially direct military-to-military communications. On Saturday, over the weekend, we heard from U.S. President Joe Biden. He said that he believes Blinken's trip could help ease tensions and he added that he hopes to meet with President Xi, quote, in the next few months. So, with Blinken's meeting with Xi Jinping underway in less than half an hour, that will indeed help pave the way for that very meeting. Back to you, guys.

FOSTER: OK Kristie, thank you, we'll be watching.

NOBILO: The U.S. is the minutes of a series of deadly gun violence. The most recent reports coming out of state of Idaho where four people were killed on Sunday night. At least five other shootings were also reported across the country.

One person was killed and 22 others injured near Chicago after multiple shots were fired into a crowd celebrating the Juneteenth holiday. Police are still looking for the people responsible for that incident. The CNN's Camilla Bernal reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No one is in custody at the moment and authorities have not identified a motive. But they are giving a better time line of what happened. They say this Juneteenth celebration started at around 6:00 p.m. and they say that law enforcement officers were there at the event.

But it was about at 12:25 in the morning when they received a 911 call that reported an alleged fight nearby. So these law enforcement officers responded to this 911 call. And as they were doing that, they heard the gunfire. They immediately went back to the Juneteenth celebration. And what authorities are saying now is that an unknown number of suspects fired multiple rounds on multiple weapons. And it was chaotic, according to many of these witnesses. Unfortunately, one person is dead, 22 are injured. And authorities saying that more were also injured as they were trying to escape and run away from this chaos. Take a listen to what some of the witnesses say happened.

CRAIG LOTTIE, WITNESS: We are all just out and next thing you know shots just got there going off and everybody ran. And yeah, it was chaos.

MARKESHIA AVERY, WITNESS: I've never been in anything like this, honestly. I just have a headache from the whole commotion. All I can do is check on my friends and whether, see if everything was OK.

BERNAL: And authorities say that right now, they're talking to victims and witnesses. They're also going over surveillance video and cell phone video belonging to some of these victims and witnesses. Unfortunately though, this is now one of 310 mass shootings in the United States according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Camila Bernal, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FOSTER: Meanwhile, in the state of Missouri, the mayor of St. Louis is

calling a Sunday shooting involving teenagers unacceptable. One teenager was killed in the incident and nine others injured.

NOBILO: Police say a 17-year-old suspect is in custody, adding that they recovered multiple guns from the scene of a party inside an office building. The city's mayor told our Jim Acosta if St. Louis had stricter gun law this would never have happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TISHAURA JONES, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI MAYOR: It's tragic, especially with the proliferation of guns in our country. How our children now have access to guns and are using them on each other. This is unacceptable.

[04:10:00]

In Missouri, we don't have any laws when it comes to guns, not even common-sense gun safety laws. And the Missouri legislature has preempted cities from enacting common-sense gun safety laws on a local level, which we all know poll very well about red flag laws and universal background checks, all of those, and especially the bill that they didn't take any action on this year would have kept guns out of the hands of minors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: And tragedy struck in the state of Washington after a man fired shots in a campground near an electronic darts music festival. On Saturday, two people killed and several others injured.

NOBILO: Police caught the suspect after he tried to get away, shooting into the crowd as he fled. As a result, the music festival cancelled Sunday's events as you might imagine.

In Pennsylvania, a state trooper has died from injuries sustained in a shootout. A second trooper is in the hospital. The suspect initially shot at police vehicles outside a police barracks on Saturday before fleeing in a pickup truck. Officers then chased the man and exchanged gunfire at multiple locations.

FOSTER: Authorities say the suspect shot through the windshield in a police vehicle striking and killing a 29-year-old state trooper. The gunman was eventually shot and killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GEORGE BIVENS, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE: What I witnessed, and I will tell you in my many years with the Pennsylvania State Police and many serious situations, was one of the most intense, unbelievable gun fights I have ever witnessed.

As he, Stine, drove through a field, approached Hershberger's store, a small restaurant there, he drove to the parking lot. There were people in the lot that were patronizing that business. Our troopers put themselves between those people and by force with their vehicles and by engaging him, forced him away from the business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: All these incidents are once again prompting new calls for stricter gun control legislation. That is a polarizing issue and a CNN senior law enforcement analyst says cities and states can't stop the violence on their own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Certainly, more can be done locally at the state level. But something has to be done nationally. Because, you know, part of the problem, people just simply leave the jurisdiction that has tougher gun laws and go somewhere where it's more lax and purchase the guns. And so, it's complicated. It's going to really take effort on all levels in order to really put together any kind of meaningful legislation that can begin to even try to curb some of the gun violence that we see out on the streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, the Kremlin's most prominent opposition figure is facing new political charges that could extend his prison sentence by decades.

FOSTER: Plus, Ukraine is pushing back on Russia's claims that it has destroyed valuable weapons systems donated by the West.

NOBILO: And newly surfaced footage shows aides of Boris Johnson partying during COVID lockdown. How a senior British official is responding to the scandal.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: This hour, Russia's most famous opposition figure is due to appear via video link in a Moscow court. Alexey Navalny is facing charges of extremism which could land him a 30-year prison sentence.

NOBILO: The Kremlin critic is already serving two sentences for alleged fraud and parole violation. Human rights organizations in Western countries say all of the charges against Navalny are politically motivated.

Salma Abdelaziz joins us now. So, Alexey Navalny potentially facing more decades in prison. What evidence is there for these charges?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, the charges first of all, and this is set to begin in a court very shortly, we are expecting to see Alexey Navalny by video link. That's important for several reasons, of course, his presence there is important. But also his families, his supporters say that his health has been deteriorating in prison. That he's been unable to access proper nutrition and he's lost many, many kilos. So being able to visually see his well-being will be important as well. But to your question, the charges are first of all against him, are

creating an extremist network and financing extremist activity. Now, we don't have the details of what Russia judiciary has been preparing here. But his supporters believe that these charges are absolutely absurd. That's exact words he used on his Twitter feed. They essentially believe that Russian authorities are trying to make his group, his opposition group and his opposition work, to link that to extremism in some way.

They're trying to accuse him of assassination attempts. They call these, of course, absolutely trumped-up charges that are politically motivated. And again, he's already serving more than nine years in prison for parole violations, fraud, and contempt of court. Although again, those charges are seen as politically motivated.

Decades more in prison and I have to note, there's another case against him, one for terrorism as well that holds 35 years. And what doesn't bode well for Alexey Navalny today is that just a few days ago, one of his aides was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison on extremism charges.

NOBILO: To state the obvious, these politically motivated charges -- if that's what they are -- Alexey Navalny still behind the bars implies that the government views him as a threat. So what kind of popular support does he enjoy in Russia?

ABDELAZIZ: It's very difficult to know that. But we know the history of Alexey Navalny, right? So remember that in 2020, he was poisoned with the Novichok agent by Russian intelligence -- that's according to him and his supporters, Western countries and the German authorities that treated him after the fact. He was arrested when he returned to Russia in 2021. A pawn landing, he's been held in prison ever since. He is the most prominent face. So abroad for many, he is the one you see when you think of opposition.

[04:20:00]

And what we do know is that there has been increasing anger, increasing opposition to President Putin, especially in the context of the Ukraine war. In the context of partial mobilization.

And the response to that from the Kremlin, according to human rights groups, is an intensified crackdown. So in some ways, Alexey Navalny is still prominent, because it's very difficult to come up as an opposition voice when you have such a oppressive response coming from the Kremlin.

NOBILO: Without doubt. Salma, thank you so much for joining us.

FOSTER: Both Ukraine and Russia are reporting fierce fighting along the front lines, Ukraine's president says the toughest battles are happening in the south but they're also raging in the east.

NOBILO: These Ukrainian forces are firing on Russian positions near the eastern city of Bakhmut. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his troops are repelling Russian attacks around that area in the direction of Avdiivka. He also said that Russia is lying about Ukrainian losses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): No matter who in Russia says that our Patriots have been allegedly destroyed, they are all there. They are all functioning, and they re all shooting down Russian missiles. And they are shooting down missiles with maximum efficiency. Not a single Patriot has been destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: The Russian side is getting conflicting reports about its own losses. A Russian-backed official in the Zaporizhzhia region says Ukraine has taken back one village on that front. But Russia's military of defense denies it saying, they've repelled several of Ukraine's attempted advances around Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.

NOBILO: Meanwhile, fallout from the destroyed Nova Kakhovka dam continues. The United Nations is slamming Russia for deny humanitarian aid access to occupied areas that have been flooded.

FOSTER: Still ahead, the U.S. Supreme Court is gearing up to rule on some high-profile cases this month. We'll take a look at some of these key cases.

NOBILO: Plus, as tens of thousands of people flee Sudan, a look at the conditions that they're facing in refugee camps. That is just ahead.

[04:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOBILO: Welcome back everyone to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.

FOSTER: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with the top stories.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is said to meet soon with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the second and final day of Blinken's high stakes visit to Beijing.

Russian opposition Alexey Navalny will appear by video link in a Moscow court to attend the first hearing in an extremism case against him.

NOBILO: Students planning to enter college in the U.S. and those who graduated with huge debt will want to keep a close eye on U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the days ahead. CNN's Ariane de Vogue looks at what to expect on those and other high-profile cases.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN U.S. SUPREME COURT REPORTER: All eyes are on this conservative Supreme Court to see just how fast and how far the conservatives want to go to move the court to the right. One big case they're considering considers affirmative action and asks the question whether colleges and universities can continue to take race into consideration as a factor with in admissions plans. Has to do with plans out of Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The schools say they want to be able to consider race in order to make sure that their campuses are diverse. They say their campuses are often a pipeline to society. And it's a better academy environment to have a diverse academic experience.

On the other hand, challengers say that it violates equal protection. They say it mounts to racial discrimination and it shouldn't be allowed.

The Supreme Court in this case will consider whether to overturn decades old precedent.

There's another case having to do with President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. The plan was put in place to give relief to millions of borrowers in the wake of COVID. Some of them would get up to $20,000 of relief.

But here, Republican-led states said that the Biden administration didn't have the authority basically to erase billions of dollars of debt. They said in that case, it would have to be Congress that stepped in. And in oral arguments, the conservative justices seemed very skeptical of the Biden administration's position in the case.

And there's a really important case that's important to the LBGTQ community. It involves a website designer. She wants to expand her business to make websites that celebrate weddings. But she does not want to create them for same-sex marriages. In here the LBGTQ community comes in and says that if she wins, then businesses would have a license to discriminate.

But on the other side, she says the website designer, she looks at this through a lens of free speech. She says that the government can't force her to create a custom product with a message that goes against her religious beliefs.

Ariane de Vogue, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now, to the former president facing federal charges over his handling of classified documents.

NOBILO: Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who served during the Trump administration, says he should not be trusted with the nation's secrets again if the allegations are proven.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ESPER, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, based on his actions, again, if proven true, under the indictment by the special counsel, no, I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk. Places our nation's security at risk. You cannot have these documents floating around. They need to be secured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: And to another Republican presidential hopeful, Chris Christie said Sunday, it was a useless idea to force Republican contenders to sign a pledge to back the party's ultimate nominee in order to participate in primary debates.

NOBILO: The former New Jersey governor who kicked off his presidential bid earlier this month said he expressed his views on the pledge directly to Republican Party officials.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I think the pledge is just a useless idea, you know, we're Republicans. And the idea you support the Republican whether you won or whether you lost. You didn't have to ask somebody to sign something. It's only in the era of Donald Trump that you need somebody to sign something on a pledge. So, I think it's a bad idea. But look, I will do whatever I need to do to be up on that stage to try to save my party and save my country from going down the road of being led by three-time looser Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: In the hours ahead, U.S. President Joe Biden will head west for a three-day trip to California.

FOSTER: A White House official says Mr. Biden will highlight his administration's climate commitments and announce new federal funding for climate resilience projects. He's expected to deliver remarks later today before attending two fundraisers.

NOBILO: A senior British official is apologizing after video emerged.