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Putin's Power in Question After Armed Revolt from Wagner Group; Ukraine Military Claims Gains Amid Chaos in Russia; Putin's Power in Question After Armed Revolt; What Biden's Silence Means for the Next Steps in Ukraine War; Maritime Probe Launched After Sub Implosion; Canada Opens Probe into Titanic Sub's Implosion; Landmark Rulings Expected at Supreme Court This Week. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 25, 2023 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH CORRESPONDENT: And risks, some people who have not already been diagnosed with a mental health disorder or are not already showing signs or symptoms. But in the meantime there are resources available for anyone experiencing a mental health crisis. You can call or text 988 to get connected to a mental health counselor for help.
ACOSTA: And make sure you get help if you need it.
All right. Thanks for joining me this evening. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. CNN's coverage continues now with Jim Sciutto. Stay with us. Have a good night.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A good Sunday evening to you. I'm Jim Sciutto, and this is CNN's special live coverage of the extraordinary yet short-lived uprising in Russia that has left much of the world asking exactly how this happened and what could happen next. Is Putin's leadership under threat? Is this an opportunity for Ukraine to repel Russia's ongoing invasion?
We do have new developments tonight, including reaction from the Biden administration. But first video has emerged on social media which shows the crash site of a Russian military transport plane reportedly shot down in southern Russia Saturday by the Wagner mercenary group which carried out this rebellion. The Russian Defense Ministry still has not commented on the loss of any aircraft.
Also, there is still no sign this evening of Wagner's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, after he apparently cut a deal with Moscow and called off the insurrection. And there is no sign as well of Putin after the most serious challenge to his rule since he came to power more than two decades ago.
Here is what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said about the threat to his regime earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: It's too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go. And I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven't seen the last act yet, but we can say this. First of all, what we've seen is extraordinary and I think you've seen cracks emerge that weren't there before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: The White House says that President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today about the Russian rebellion, also reaffirmed U.S. support for Ukraine.
We're going to have much more now from CNN's Sam Kiley live in London.
Sam, so much to follow in such a short period of time. First question is, what do we know about the situation in Russia?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, apparently things are very calm. Many people staying off the streets, though, particularly of Moscow with Red Square, Jim, being largely sealed off by Russian Security Services, not least because the Wagner convoy got 125 miles, 200 kilometers away from Moscow before Prigozhin agreed to turn it around, as you say, in this deal apparently cut by Lukashenko, the leader of neighboring Belarus.
We don't know where the leader of the Wagner Group is. We do know that he has said that his troops are returning to their camps in return for some kind of an amnesty. Now, the Ministry of Defense in Russia is saying that those that want to will be required to sign up to Ministry of Defense contracts. That was one of the early complaints that Prigozhin had against the Ministry of Defense.
But it's really very unclear indeed as to whether or not the Wagner leader has indeed gone to Belarus or perhaps is headed to some of the areas, for example, in the Central African Republic or elsewhere, perhaps Libya, where Wagner also has a footprint -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Do we know what the status is of the Wagner Group itself in Russia? Because this was really sort of an army of its own there with enormous military power. Russia depended on it for some of its most essential military operations inside Ukraine. But it was also billing itself as a power center, potentially a political power center. Do we know if that has been split up, dissolved, weakened?
KILEY: We don't know exactly, and I think we'll have to wait and see how those soldiers with the Wagner Group behave, and that will depend in large part about whether at all they and we hear from Prigozhin. Now he's been an avid user of their Telegram channels, criticizing the Russian Ministry of Defense in particular, naming General Shoigu, minister of Defense, Gerasimov, the head of the Armed Forces, singling them out for political and military criticism.
He's also caused a great deal of damage to the Russian military command and control structures inside Ukraine. You'll recall just about three weeks ago, he actually captured, arrested, beat, and tortured, broke the nose of a brigade commander there in a neighboring brigade. So a lot of people in the Russian military would be glad to see the back of him if, indeed, that is what has occurred. But we don't know exactly what those Wagner troops are going to do -- Jim.
[20:05:02]
SCIUTTO: Yes. So many folks have gone AWOL, Prigozhin, members of senior Russian military leadership. So many questions unanswered.
Sam Kiley in London, we know you're going to stay on top of it. Thanks so much.
Also unclear is what this all means for Ukraine. The war in Ukraine moving forward. President Zelenskyy called his conversation with President Biden earlier, quote, "positive and inspiring." At the same time, Ukraine's military is claiming some gains specifically around Bakhmut and eastern Ukraine today.
For more, we go to chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. He is live in Kyiv.
There had been some disappointment in recent weeks with the progress of Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive, at least from the perspective of Western intelligence. There's some who see this as a potential opportunity for Ukrainian forces there to push forward. Do we know substantively if they've made any progress in the last 24, 48 hours?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, the dust is still settling in Moscow, but there are certainly signs that Ukrainian officials want to suggest continued progress around Bakhmut, suggesting one to two kilometers' worth of advances around that city, not into it. And also today suggesting that in the Tavriya direction, that's how they refer to Zaporizhzhia, the long southern front through which Ukraine clearly wants to break through Russian lines and cut the Crimean Peninsula occupied by Russia off from the Donbas.
They claim that progress had been made in that area as well. Not much detail here at all. Jim, we don't know exactly what this has done, the Wagner movements towards Moscow, to the Russian presence along the frontlines. Wagner was not only present along those frontlines and certainly the units you'd think that made that move toward Moscow would have been long withdrawn from there. So that probably won't have changed Russia's dispositions.
We may possibly learn that they had to re-allocate forces because of the Wagner threat, and of course, too, that's going to have been a critical issue about Russian military morale at this point. Imagine wondering if you're going to fight potentially to your own death in the next 24 hours when you don't really even know where your commander-in-chief indeed is. So there is going to be a window to perhaps where Ukraine might want to seize upon higher-level Russian chaos and disarray.
Obviously the top brass distracted at the moment by their own internal struggles. Whether that even filters down perhaps to those on the frontlines, we still don't know. But it is a key potential window here of Russian disarray. Unclear, though, exactly whether that's already resulting in Ukrainian progress. But you can bet your life that the American intelligence agencies are doing their best to feed real-time information to Ukraine about what this genuinely is doing.
And also remember, too, Jim, that fundamentally for both Prigozhin and Putin, the loss of this war would have been an existential issue frankly for them both. And if indeed this squabble is making that more likely, that's very hazardous for Moscow's elite as well.
SCIUTTO: In the midst of this, Ukrainian officials, members of parliament and others were not shy about advertising the relish they were taking in watching this internal division in Russia. You had a lot of memes up even on social media of them eating popcorn as they were watching for updates from Russia. Of course the rebellion, to the best of our knowledge, is over now. But do Ukrainian officials you speak with see this as a military opportunity?
WALSH: Yes, I mean I think certainly if you have such disarray at high levels within Russia, there is the opportunity to try and maybe increase the pressure to hope that that may translate into some change in the atmosphere on the battlefield. We simply don't know, and it is still exceptionally early. But of course Ukrainian officials have been saying, indeed, the heads of the national security apparatus, Oleksiy Danilov, saying that this is the first part of the dismantling of the Russian regime.
Now, it may be that there are short-term gains certainly for Ukraine. It may even indeed mean that this division in Moscow potentially leads to a sea change in how the war is being fought. But it's important to point out that had indeed Prigozhin been more successful, that wouldn't necessarily have resulted in a rosy picture here in Ukraine and an immediate peace deal. Prigozhin was pro a much more violent and aggressive way of prosecuting this particular war.
So things could potentially get worse on the frontlines as a result of this instability, although the more likely result of it is we may see some Russian confusion and weakness and the possibility that Ukraine chooses to seize upon it. But so much of this is unknown at this stage. The most important part of it being exactly what Russian forces, Wagner and those regular Russian military would have been asked to oppose them have been re-allocated over the past 36, 48 hours.
Are they're going back to their positions? Are they still being required to be sure that Wagner forces are genuinely following this apparent peace deal? And ultimately, too, the wild cards of Prigozhin and Putin. Where are they?
[20:10:01]
What are they going to say when they finally emerge? And will that impact Russia's strategy on the battlefield here -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: And why there's silence now?
Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv, thanks so much.
WALSH: Extraordinary, yes.
SCIUTTO: Please do keep yourself and your team safe.
There's an enormous amount of interesting and impactful news happening in the region right now. CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton joins me now to help lay this out for all of us.
So first, let's begin about -- and by the way, we don't know what the status is of so many things here. But we do know this could have an impact on the battlefield in Ukraine given the division and given, as Nick Paton Walsh was referencing there, just the will to fight of Russian forces here, which has been an issue for some time.
Let's go down to the Rostov region because I want to draw attention to what Prigozhin was able to take over in his brief rebellion. This is a key point for the war in Ukraine. Why is that?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Absolutely. Because, Jim, this is the headquarters of the Southern Military District for the Russians, for the Russian army. And they use this as the main logistics hub, the main command and control hub. Everything that is done in Ukraine by the Russian forces is controlled -- almost everything is controlled out of Rostov. And that is a key element here, and that made it really important from a tactical standpoint for Prigozhin to go in and take that headquarters.
SCIUTTO: So he's now withdrawn there, but when we take together events of the last several weeks, you have seen vulnerabilities in Russia. So you had Prigozhin was able to come here, take this. He was able to drive, well, about halfway to Moscow. We've seen drone attacks on Moscow in recent weeks. And we've seen a number of attacks across the border by Ukrainian or Ukrainian-backed forces.
So we know the borders, the air defenses, and frankly it seemed that the Russian military units down here not able to repel Wagner's advance, all vulnerabilities there. What does that mean for the state of stability in Russia and the strength of the current government there?
LEIGHTON: So what you're dealing with, Jim, is really a very weakened military force. Now there are several reasons perhaps why the Russians didn't -- the Russian army did not respond to Prigozhin and to the Wagner Group moving up the M-4 Highway here. But this is a major highway. This is kind of like an interstate.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
LEIGHTON: And --
SCIUTTO: I-95 in Russia. Yes.
LEIGHTON: Exactly. It's I-95 in Russia. And what you're looking at here is the very fact that they weren't able to cut the Russians off, let's say -- you know, or I'm sorry the Wagner Group here or even earlier when they came out of Ukraine in these areas. That really tells you that either they weren't prepared, or they just thought, you know what? Let's let this happen at the tactical level. Let's let them move in. And maybe they were just waiting to see how fast Prigozhin would move and how quickly he would move up this highway possibly toward Moscow.
SCIUTTO: OK. So what changed is there was a major threat to Putin's leadership, perhaps the most serious threat in 20 years, looks to be over. What has not changed is that the battle is still raging here along this border. And by the way, Russian defenses there, which are multi-layered, full of minefields here, a whole host of measures designed to repel Ukrainian attacks, that hasn't changed. But does it still provide an opportunity given questions about leadership, unit cohesion, will to fight?
LEIGHTON: Absolutely, because what will happen with the Russians, you know, if they're looking at this in a weakened state, they're not manning the trenches. They're not manning the tank traps. They're not manning, you know, some of the other areas that they would need to man in order to prevent the Ukrainians from moving forward. There have been about 20 engagements in this area over the last 48 hours.
SCIUTTO: Twenty engagements?
LEIGHTON: At least 20 engagements. There have also been on the Russian side air attacks throughout all of this region right here. So you have 20 engagements on the ground, a similar number of aerial engagements, and you see that there's a lot going on here, particularly around Bakhmut and some of the other areas right in this area.
SCIUTTO: But does that show you then that Russian forces are still able to do their jobs in effect even with all the uncertainty of the last couple of days?
LEIGHTON: To an extent, they are. Now, at the very high levels, you know, they're more looking at the political ramifications of all of this and all the uncertainty. So there is a chance that that uncertainty will trickle down. But there are a lot of elements here, a lot of forces that are looking at this and saying, why am I here? Why am I fighting? This does not make sense. And they're susceptible to the Prigozhin message.
SCIUTTO: If I was a field commander there, you know, 24 hours ago when folks were checking their phones for updates from Moscow, I might have chosen that as my opportunity to strike.
Cedric Leighton, thanks so much as always.
Well, Vladimir Putin has held power in Russia for almost a quarter century at this point, and no point since he was named acting president on New Year's Eve in 1999 has he faced a challenge as direct and as open as we've seen this weekend. His demand among those who wanted power or money in Russia has always been the same -- loyalty. As recently as May, Yevgeny Prigozhin described his credo as, quote, "I love the motherland. I listen to Putin."
[20:15:01] SCIUTTO: I'm joined now by Fareed Zakaria to discuss where this shift leaves the Russian president, what weaknesses may have been exposed in his leadership and his power in these last 24, 48 hours.
And I wonder, Fareed, as you look at this, does Putin emerge from this a weakened leader?
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, CNN'S "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Of course, he does, Jim. It's not entirely clear how weakened. But, look, one of the things that kept Putin going was what he, himself, described as the power vertical, the vertical of power. What he meant by that was that all authority in Russia flowed through him and that he had created this very tight, absolutist state where power was centralized, consolidated through him.
Remember this is very important in Russia. This is the largest country in the world, 5,500 miles. It would take eight hours to fly from one part of Russia to the other. And so the way you maintain authority is by this aura of invincibility. And what has happened here is that the aura of invincibility has been cracked.
Here's a guy, Prigozhin, who was sort of his chef, his caterer, who has become powerful enough that he had this band of soldiers, only 25,000, but it clearly scared the daylights out of Putin enough that he compromised. That's cracking the aura of power. That's cracking the vertical of power.
SCIUTTO: Yes, the parallels to 1991, a failed coup and then a few months later, the Soviet Union was finished and Gorbachev was out of power.
I do wonder what your read is of the future of the Wagner Group because this had developed into a power center in Russia with military power, political power, it appeared, financial power as well. Has Putin, at least on that front, successfully here weakened the Wagner Group, weakened Prigozhin?
ZAKARIA: My guess is he has, but it tells you of a larger weakness here, which is Putin had decided in order to -- partly to run the kind of kleptocratic regime he's run, partly to do some of the nefarious things he wanted to do, he's been using extra-governmental forces, right? So he gets the Wagner Group involved in Africa, in the Middle East, in some part because he wants deniability that the Russians are there, in part because there's money to be made here, favors to friendly dictators.
Then he gets them involved in Ukraine because he wants plausible deniability to say that the Russian army is not involved. He's also gotten the Chechens involved, and he finds that these groups actually fight harder than the regular Russian army, which has had low morale, particularly in Ukraine. So all of a sudden, he's created a hornet's nest of these competing militias, and now he's trying to rein it back.
And now he's realized this is something of a Frankenstein's monster. But it does suggest that there's a fundamental problem here, right, which is he can't use the Russian army solely because they don't have the morale. They don't have the effectiveness. They were losing against the Ukrainians. That's why he got Wagner involved. That's why he got the Chechens involved. So yes, he might have been able to deal with Wagner in the short run, but what about that fundamental problem, which is the reason he was using Wagner is that they were losing to the Ukrainians?
SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, when even Gazprom, the national gas company, has its own militia, you know, you have a broader problem.
One thing that struck me of the many powerful images and events over the past 24, 48 hours was the public reception in Rostov-on-Don to the Wagner military group, taking pictures, taking selfies, bringing food and coffee to the soldiers, cheering them as they left. Folks have tried to ask this question throughout the Ukraine war and the challenges, whether the Russian public was still behind Putin.
You know, the limited polling there is seemed to show that there was. There was a lot of analysis that, well, people would never, you know, seem to challenge the leader. That did not look like people who were intimidated by the Russian president. And I wonder if you looked at that and thought that was telling.
ZAKARIA: I did, but I'm also careful not to read, you know, anecdotal evidence and turn it into something larger. What we saw were a few dozen people. These were not thousands, let alone tens of thousands. Russia is a vast country. So it's difficult to tell. But it did seem symbolic because, you know, it took a lot of courage to do that. You were defying the authority of the Russian state in a country where doing that can get you imprisoned or worse.
To me, Jim, the more important sign here was Prigozhin's own remarks, when he basically decided to frontally attack the rationale for invading Ukraine.
[20:20:03]
This was the most interesting thing that's happening in some ways in the last 48 hours. Prigozhin, who has been fighting the Ukrainians and has been losing his troops to them, says the whole war was started on false pretenses. The Ukrainians did not provoke us. We decided to do it because we wanted to control them because, you know, a whole bunch of oligarchs who had been making money in the Donbas.
He provides a kind of alternative narrative that is not one that looks good for Putin. It completely contradicts Putin's own narrative about the whole thing, about Ukraine being taken over by Neo-Nazis. And I wonder whether that will turn out to be -- you know, if things go down badly for Putin, I wonder if this becomes a central issue, which is that his own guy says the whole rationale for this war is a lie.
SCIUTTO: Yes. In an environment where we've often asked the question as well, is the truth about the war getting through to the public? And Prigozhin has quite a large megaphone.
Fareed Zakaria, thanks so much for the analysis. Please do stand by because we have new reporting tonight on President Biden's actions throughout the rebellion and what's next for U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war.
Plus, new comments in another story we're following closely from the Coast Guard on the investigation of the Titanic submersible implosion, including what they are looking for now on the sea floor.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: With Putin's power under threat to a degree that Russia and the world have never seen during his time in power, President Biden has spoken with staff and with Ukraine's president, but has remained silent publicly. The White House says he also spoke with the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau today to discuss recent events in Russia following that short-lived rebellion.
For more on the administration's reaction, let's go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny. He is live at the White House.
And Jeff, I know that there was great nervousness among administration officials in the run-up to this. They believed something was brewing. They were concerned about the consequences. Do they believe now that the threat has passed?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, that is very much an open question, and likely no. You know, the events there have been unfolding very quickly over the weekend. President Biden making his way back to the White House here from spending the weekend in Camp David. And they frankly do not know what the current position is of the stability in the region.
But they do not, as we talked to officials, believe that this was a one-off, believe that things have passed. There are deep questions tonight about the power that Vladimir Putin holds. But the president, as you said, did spend the weekend talking with allies, speaking with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier today, and just tonight speaking with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after speaking with several Western allies, leaders throughout the weekend.
[20:25:14]
He was at Camp David with National Security adviser Jake Sullivan. They were monitoring events. But as you said, they were not talking about events publicly, and that was by design. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on "STATE OF THE UNION" earlier today with Dana Bash explained why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: These are decisions for the Russian people, and this entire chapter is an internal matter. It obviously has profound repercussions outside of Russia, including potentially in Ukraine. But fundamentally, this is a Russian matter. It's not our business. It's not our purpose to choose Russia's leaders. That's up to the Russian people. And we have no beef with the Russian people. On the contrary, what is one of the many, many tragedies of what Putin
has done in Ukraine is what it's done to the Russian people. And you really have to ask, how is this in any way improved the lives of Russians? Of course it hasn't. It's made them worse. But these are questions that Russians have to resolve for themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: The words of caution there from Secretary of State Antony Blinken so important here, saying that this is a matter for Russians to deal with on their own. This is a vast departure from what President Biden said a little over a year ago, Jim, when he said that Vladimir Putin essentially had to go. There is no such language like that coming out of the White House. In fact, the president flying back to Washington from Camp David and just arriving here at the White House just a few moments ago, did not answer questions that were shouted to him earlier at Fort McNair as he landed.
Jim, but there's no doubt as the president begins a new week here at the White House, deep questions about the hold that Vladimir Putin has on Russia and significant new foreign policy questions for the U.S. as well as all Western allies -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Jeff Zeleny at the White House, thanks so much.
As mentioned, we know President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy today. We are told he reaffirmed, quote, "unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine." At the same time, the message from the Biden administration to American embassies around the world is to convey that, quote, "The U.S. has no intention of involving itself in this matter in Russia."
Fareed Zakaria is back with us.
And Fareed, I certainly don't want to overestimate the U.S. ability to move events in Russia by any means. But should this be seen as a potential opportunity at all, or is the deliberate reticence of the Biden administration the smart move here?
ZAKARIA: I think they're doing exactly the right thing. I think Tony Blinken was pitch perfect. The most important thing here is for people not to believe that this is some kind of an American operation, that this is a CIA operation, that somehow the United States is behind it, because what you have potentially here is the power of Russia, Russian nationalism, and the Russian people perhaps being turned against the war and maybe against Putin itself.
All that gets screwed up if people start to believe that the United States is somehow in the middle of this, the United States is somehow manipulating, funding, you know. And there are enough people out there who think the United States is much more powerful than it is, that it's behind every move that is taking place around the world, that anything that the United States did that suggested it would get magnified 10 and 20-fold.
So I think the Biden administration is playing it exactly right. This is very similar to the elder Bush administration during the period around the fall of the Berlin wall.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
ZAKARIA: When George Bush Sr. said I am not going to go to Berlin and dance on the wall because that would not be the right thing to do. It's restraint that is entirely appropriate.
SCIUTTO: Yes, around the world, I'm always amazed at the exaggerated sense of U.S. power often in situations like this. We know that U.S. officials knew in advance that Prigozhin was planning something as we reported over the weekend. They were concerned about open military confrontation in Russia and what that would mean in terms of the stability of everything from just the Russian state as a whole but also Russia's nuclear weapons.
Is that threat, that fear gone? Has it abated, or is this a continuing threat from the perspective of the Biden administration?
ZAKARIA: I think you have to say the odds are that Putin will consolidate power around him, that he will be able to establish complete control. Remember, Prigozhin had 25,000 people. Putin's personal presidential guard has 200,000. The Russian army has hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. All the regional governors, all major figures in Russia backed Putin.
[20:30:04]
You know, there isn't a sense here of a downward spiral out of control. What we saw was a chink in the armor, and it's important. It's -- you know, this is a chink in an armor that had seemed completely bulletproof. But let's not exaggerate. It wasn't -- at this point it doesn't seem more than a chink. You never know, though.
The thing, Jim, that you and I know having watched these kind of regimes, dictatorships like Putin's have this quality, which is when they're in place and in power, they seem eternal. And when they collapse, it looked inevitable.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
ZAKARIA: You know, and so we're just going to have to watch.
SCIUTTO: U.S. intelligence officials have told me for some time that the most likely replacement for a Putin in Russia would come from the right rather than from any sort of progressive or pro-democratic left, that his threat, in effect, was from folks like Prigozhin and others.
For folks watching from the outside, is a Russia without Putin potentially worse, more aggressive, more authoritarian?
ZAKARIA: It's more unstable for sure.
SCIUTTO: Mm-hmm.
ZAKARIA: There isn't a long liberal tradition in Russia. There was an attempt in 1905 when they lost the Russo-Japanese war to create a liberal regime. It didn't work. Gorbachev is really the only example of a few years of a kind of liberal government. Mostly it's been power that matters, and it's authoritarians who can wield power over this vast land.
But I'm not sure it would necessarily be worse because the most likely alternative is probably somebody from the army or the security services who might be, in an odd way, a more conservative figure, who would, you know -- Putin has been fairly rash in the last few years in terms of his assaults on Ukraine, on Georgia, the intervention in Syria. So you could imagine somebody who was more -- you know, maybe as tough and as authoritarian, but more of an institutionalist and more somebody who says, look, I want to get out of all these fairly ambitious foreign adventures.
But, you know, Churchill said about Russia it's an enigma wrapped -- a mystery wrapped with riddle inside an enigma. It is a bit of a black box, but I wouldn't be so sure that it would be somebody much worse.
SCIUTTO: Yes, that description would certainly fit the last 24, 48 hours.
Fareed Zakaria, as always, thanks so much.
ZAKARIA: Pleasure.
SCIUTTO: Coming up next, we are live in Newfoundland, where the investigation still unfolding into what exactly caused the catastrophic implosion of the Titanic submersible. Plus, hear James Cameron's comments about OceanGate Group that are raising questions about the company's liability going forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:37:46]
SCIUTTO: Tonight an international investigation is under way to find out exactly what happened to the Titan submersible, how it imploded, killing all five people on board. A catastrophic end for what was supposed to be a tourist excursion to the Titanic. Should there even be tourist trips to the Titanic?
The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the effort and offered new details today about what we could learn in the days and weeks ahead.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino has been following the latest there.
Gloria, first of all, I wonder what the priority is now for the search on the ocean floor. Is the intention to bring up some pieces of this submersible so they can figure out what the failure was?
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Jim. This is a Marine Board Investigation, and that is actually the highest level of investigation that the U.S. Coast Guard can conduct. And what it will do is allow the Coast Guard to use all of its resources, including working with international partners. Now, you're asking about what the priority is right now, and that is
to collect the evidence. That's what they've been doing over the past several days. There's a remote operating vehicle that's out 400 miles out to sea from where we are right now, and what it's doing is looking for more pieces of the Titan. We know that some have been recovered, including the nose of the vessel, the front and back of the pressure hull as well as identifying some other debris fields that are at the bottom of the ocean.
It will continue to look for more evidence. Now once that's done, the board is going to have a public hearing where they will gather more testimony and more evidence, and then they will continue this investigation.
I want you to hear directly from officials talking about the next steps.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. JASON NEUBAUER, CHIEF INVESTIGATOR, U.S. COAST GUARD: During the course of the MBI, the board will first and primarily work to determine the cause of this marine casualty and the five associated deaths. The MBI however is also responsible for accountability aspects of the incident and it can make recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:40:02]
PAZMINO: Now that part is going to be determined by a separate investigation, whether or not any criminal or civil liability may happen here.
Another interesting detail, Jim, is that the agencies are working with the U.K., the U.S., and France. That of course reflects the nationalities of the people who were aboard the vessel, and so you could see this multinational effort to try and bring some closure to these families who have lost their loved ones -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Closure and accountability as well. Gloria Pazmino in Newfoundland, thanks so much.
Well, this week the "Titanic" director James Cameron, a deep sea explorer himself, offered some blistering criticism of OceanGate for not following safety regulations and testing. Here's some of the headline-making interview he did on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES CAMERON, FILMMAKER: A multi-seat vehicle where I intended to be the pilot, we'd go through all of the rigorous test protocols and review protocols that you have with, let's say, ABS, which is the American Bureau of Shipping, or DNV, or German Lloyd's, who are the major, you know, bureaus that class a sub. They call it classing, but it's basically certification. And I think it was unconscionable that this group did not go through that rigorous process.
There is a great, almost surreal irony here, which is "Titanic" sank because the captain took it full steam into an ice field at night, on a moonless night with very poor visibility after he had been repeatedly warned by telegram, by Marconigram, by radio, during the day that that's what was ahead of him. And so I think we're also seeing a parallel here with make sure if you're going to go into a vehicle, whether it's an aircraft or a surface craft or a submersible, that it's been through certifying agencies, you know, that it's been signed off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Very real questions about safety, accountability, safety standards, what was followed and what was not, and now whether it's possible someone could be held criminally liable.
CNN's Paula Newton, she's live in Ottawa.
And Paula, we know the Canadian police say they're trying to determine whether a full criminal investigation is justified. I wonder how will they determine that? What will they have to establish prior to starting a criminal investigation?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So right now, they admit, Jim, that this is incredibly complicated, and why, they say it's a unique investigation that they've never done before. To your point, they would have to prove that willfully somebody did commit, let's say, for instance, criminal negligence causing death.
This does not mean that this investigation is anywhere near determining that whatsoever, but they want to make sure that they have all the evidence they need, and that crucially involves interviews.
I want you to listen now to the RCMP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENT OSMOND, SUPERINTENDENT, ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE: There's no suspicion of criminal activity per se, but the RCMP is taking initial steps to assess whether or not we will go down that road.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: You know, part of determining whether or not you go down that road are interviews, right, Jim? And that becomes very difficult. For instance, the Transportation Safety Board, which launched its own investigation here in Canada, has already done some interviews with those on the mothership, the Polar Prince. That usually would not be able to be used in a criminal investigation.
What RCMP do say is that they are collecting evidence at the scene now. And again, as you said, this is preliminary. And then they will determine whether or not they need to launch a full-scale investigation. And then they would have all the investigative powers, perhaps even pronounced by a judge, to be able to seize any one of those interviews perhaps or actual evidence that was seized by others.
SCIUTTO: So the search and rescue operation already had costs associated with it as will certainly this post-disaster investigation, including the cost of bringing debris up from 2 1/2 miles down. Do we have an estimate of those costs and who's on the hook for them?
NEWTON: I mean, look, who's on the hook, Canadian taxpayers principally, again, because this is a Transportation Safety Board, because the Polar Prince launched from a Canadian port, and they have no idea right now how much this will cost. Likely in the tens of millions of dollars. But the one thing that's happened now is that all the salvaged equipment is already out there, right, the recovery equipment. So that has helped.
Having said that, this is a multinational investigation as we were just learning. And for that reason, some of the costs will be borne by many. I think the issue here, though, is how detailed of an investigation they believe is necessary and given the public interest in knowing exactly what happened to Titan.
SCIUTTO: Tens of millions of dollars. CNN's Paula Newton, thanks so much from Ottawa.
Well, just ahead, we're going to speak about the new fears about adventure or even space tourism in the wake of this disaster.
[20:45:04]
How would rescues be pulled off above the earth? Does it raise questions about whether you should do this at all?
Plus, a massive week for two major Supreme Court cases on the future of affirmative action. Also student loan forgiveness. We have our Laura Coates here to answer questions. And Donald Trump telling his rally crowd that he is being indicted for them. Stay with us.
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[20:50:09]
SCIUTTO: This week, the Supreme Court is closing out its term by ruling on a series of highly consequential cases, with the potential to impact the lives of many millions of Americans. Two of the most high-profile cases include the fate of President Biden's student loan forgiveness program, and two cases on affirmative action, which could bring an end to affirmative action in college admissions.
Joining me now to discuss is Laura Coates, CNN's chief legal analyst, a former federal prosecutor herself.
Laura, always good to have you.
LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Glad to be here.
SCIUTTO: Let's start on affirmative action, if we can, because the conservative majority of this court has had their crosshairs on affirmative action for some time. And now the major case in front of them, you know, it's always unpredictable, but based on your read of this and the oral arguments, are they going to outlaw affirmative action?
COATES: Well, the expectation for really decades now has been the climb back will continue over a long period of time. Remember Sandra Day O'Connor famously said 20 years ago, 25 years from now we will no longer have a need for race-based considerations. We're actually not there yet societally perhaps, but the court seems to be very dug in on the concept of shouldn't race be a suspect classification, meaning we never want it to be considered?
You want to stop discrimination on the basis of race, as Robertson said, by not doing so? On the other hand, it actually is quite effective according to the statistics and university settings about trying to diversify a student population, otherwise would not be there. And so they're grappling with the notion of race being additive, but we already don't have quote systems. You cannot have a set number of people. The idea that being a plus factor is part of it as well.
The real consideration, though, is there's a whole host of, quote- unquote, plus factors that are used, whether you're a legacy student, whether you are a musician, whether --
SCIUTTO: Student athlete.
COATES: A student athlete.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
COATES: A veteran as well or member of the military can be a consideration. And so the question is how narrow will the court's holding be? Will it focus on the university alone or be expansive.
SCIUTTO: There is a question here that there might be an exception for military academies because you have military commanders who've said this is particularly necessary, that level of diversity for cohesion in the ranks, you know, a whole host of arguments there. Is there a possibility that the court carves out something for the naval academy, the air force academy, West Point, et cetera?
COATES: It could very well be. Remember Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke about this very notion, right? The notion that military readiness being all the more helpful and expected when you have diversity. People seeing themselves in growing and increasing ranks. And people who join in the Amicus Briefs who are willing to give their own testimony and hearings in oral arguments spoke about diversity as one of the essential factors here.
The court -- look at the very narrow focus here because to say that a university student or a university cannot consider race, well, what would that mean? If you can't check the box, does that mean if I want to, for example, write about the life or experience of myself as an African-American, is that not to be considered as an essay? They ask these very questions, thinking about how will the workaround work? Will this be a symbolic banning if there is one or otherwise?
SCIUTTO: Yes. OK. Student loan forgiveness. This of course has another enormous impact on millions of Americans to the tune of many, many billions of dollars.
COATES: Maybe myself, too. Who knows about student loans, uh-huh.
SCIUTTO: Right. Fair enough. You're not alone. Where does the conservative court stand on this? And what is the deciding factor here? Is it about executive power or the extent of executive power?
COATES: It's about whether the Hero's Act, which was enacted around 2003, in response to what happened in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. That gave the secretary of education the authority to be expansive in how they change the repayment loan aspects. Well, the court's question is going to twofold. Number one, do the parties who were in front of us actually have standing to be here, as in there's a problem that's immediate that it's actually concrete, not just hypothetical? That's what they want to figure out, not just the I might have a problem one day. That's number one.
Number two is the issue of whether Congress, in enacting that, contemplated the Hero's Act to be quite expansive enough for a national emergency to include the pandemic. In other words, could this administration have used this particular law to forgive the debt? That's the big question.
SCIUTTO: No question. Fair enough. Well, another topic, if I can, beyond the Supreme Court, former President Trump, he spoke to religious conservatives in Washington this weekend, the one-year anniversary, of course, of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. He seemed to cast himself in part because of that, the conservative majority that he helped bring about, that helped turned that over, cast himself as a Christian crusader, even a martyr to some degree. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: Together, we're warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists, and the Marxists. Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists, and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of courage. I'm being indicted for you, and I believe the you is more than 200 million people that love our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:55:08]
SCIUTTO: Marxist, communists, and fascists. That's quite a long list there.
COATES: A kitchen sink argument really.
SCIUTTO: Your reaction to him casting himself as the -- well, the champion of Christian conservatives from a legal perspective? COATES: Well, he's done this consistently in the theme of they're
trying to get to you, and I'm standing in the way, therefore, I'm kind of a martyr, and I'm the one who'll protect. That's why I'm saying this as a type of either cancel culture or it's the idea of a political persecution or a witch hunt.
The distinction, though, really in talking about the indictment, the word he used, indictment, if you look at the actual indictments that he has against him, these are not things that the average person or you and I would even be subject to. We don't have classification power, declassification power. No one's asking us about whether we've intentionally withheld documents from the National Archives or otherwise. The notion of campaign finance.
I mean, all the different things that he has been accused of in the indictment which has to be proven, it's not enough to have an allegation, these are things that's really a conflation and really disingenuous to point to the other areas he's raised. The indictments have a particular legal focus. What he's talking about is I think the hope that people will not see through the conflation and will see themselves in him.
SCIUTTO: Well, and the fact is, based on the record, lower ranking people who did similar things with classified documents did actually face legal consequences. Sometimes jail time.
Laura Coates, thanks so much.
COATES: Good to see you.
SCIUTTO: Coming up next, CNN in Moscow, where a civil war merely avoided, just merely. Taking aim at Vladimir Putin's reign and power. We want to see what we found. Plus, I'm going to speak with the first Ukrainian-born congresswoman who believes this unrest could be part of a larger threat to the regime going forward. That's just ahead.
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