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CNN International: Biden Travels to Finland Following Key NATO Summit; Zelenskyy: Removed Any Doubts Ukraine Will Join NATO; Filing: Trump Team Failed to Vet Election Fraud Claims; More Sweltering Heat Expected in Southwester U.S.; Hollywood Actors Union Votes to Recommend Strike; FBI Director Faces Rough Treatment in House Committee; Top U.S. Diplomat Blinken to Meet with China's Wang Yi; Russian General Says He Was Fired After Criticizing Moscow. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired July 13, 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 to our reviews joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo, live from London. Max Foster has the day off, but I've got you covered. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ukraine's future is in NATO. Ukraine will become a NATO ally.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When Putin and his craven lust for land and power unleashes his brutal war on Ukraine, was betting NATO would break apart. He was betting NATO would break.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The hottest temperatures of summer are coming up this weekend and, in some places, the hottest temperatures ever recorded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People's cars got flipped over, windows knocked out. People were screaming, there's floods all over. This storm is really bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

NOBILO: It is Thursday, June 13th, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 11:00 a.m. in Helsinki. Where U.S. President Joe Biden will be spending the final day of his high stakes visit of his trip. And in the hours ahead, he'll be meeting with Nordic leaders and the Finnish president. His visit comes just months after Finland became NATO's newest member and just one day after NATO leaders wrapped the Summit in Lithuania. There they offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy security guarantees and assurances but still no time line on joining the alliance. CNN's Nic Robertson is following developments and joins me now here in

London with the latest. Nic, starting with what Biden is doing today. He's in Helsinki, the accession of Finland to NATO effectively doubles its border with Russia. And this whole trip actually feels like a bit of a geopolitical gear shift.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It really is. I mean, look at where it's been and where it is today. Vartius (ph) on the border with Russia. Finland in Helsinki, an hour and a half drive from the border from Russia -- an 800 odd mile border -- NATO's border now runs from the Arctic all the way down to the Mediterranean with Russia -- well, the Black Sea technically with Russia.

What Biden is able to do here -- today obviously he has this meeting with the Finnish president. He'll be meeting with leaders of Norway and Finland and Sweden -- who's joining -- and Denmark and Iceland as well, all there in this Nordic group. I think the message -- sub text is hugely clear. He steps out of this NATO summit whereas he says he's got this unity and it's on the border with Russia and it's presenting this unity in very close proximity repeatedly now to Putin and Moscow. Saying, you thought you'd break us. We have this unity. And look at you. You're cracking. You had this rebellion from Prigozhin. You've just tired another general or disappeared another General Popov who complained about how the war would be fought in Ukraine -- a very senior general fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

The cracks are appearing. President Macron yesterday at the NATO summit talked about the fragility of Moscow. So I think that there's a lot of sub text, but then that NATO unity is a sort of a bit of a bitter pill for Ukraine because it didn't get quite what it wanted. It got a lot but not quite what it wanted.

NOBILO: Fortifying NATO and being at the helm of America while it expands, feels like it is going to be an important part of President Biden's legacy. You can't help but draw comparisons to his predecessor who of course had a very different approach to NATO. Do you think that this is likely to feature in the American election as a key issue?

ROBERTSON: I do and there are a couple of reasons why. And I think when we look at the way that President Biden is handling the military support for Ukraine, he's still sort of holding out on the final signoff on actually getting actual F-16s to Ukraine. They are getting the training or they will start getting the training. He reluctantly agreed to send tanks. British sent their Challengers and the Germans agreed to send their Leopards on the condition that the United States sends its Abrams. And you get this impression that the United States is slow and it was -- these frustrations by Zelenskyy yesterday and Biden was saying don't worry and I understand your frustration.

But what Biden is also trying to balance is not just the unity of NATO, look at the diplomacy that's going on now with China.

[04:05:00]

His Secretary of State is meeting with a top Chinese foreign policy official today on the margins of ASEAN. He had his economic -- Janet Yellen was in Beijing recently. Blinken, the Secretary of State, was in -- also in Beijing just a few weeks ago.

So there's a messaging here -- not just internal to NATO, but to those countries that disapprove of the support that's being given to Ukraine and are still sort of supporting Russia like China. And the global south, that sort of disapprove of the war as well. And there is a messaging that says we United States are not trying to start another war. We're trying to, you know, we're not trying to be the starters of World War III. So he's projecting many messages. And if all of these come to fruit by next year, then there's the international stage. Biden, I think will have set himself up very well. United NATO, restored relations after President Trump's deteriorated relations with China and perhaps better by in from some of the global South.

NOBILO: Which was of course his pledge when he did assume the presidency. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

U.S. Secret Service is expected to brief the House oversight committee today about its investigation into a small quantity of cocaine recently found in the White House. The briefing was requested by Republican lawmakers who alleged the discovery raises serious questions about White House security. The drugs were found on July 2 in a busy part of the West Wing that's used by both staffers and visitors. So far no one's been identified as the person who may have left that behind.

Michigan Secretary of State confirms CNN's exclusive reporting that federal prosecutors interviewed her in March. It was part of the special counsel's ongoing criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Jocelyn Benson says over several hours prosecutors looked into, quote, everything. Her interview marks yet another recent meeting between investigators and officials from key battleground states that were targeted by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies. She tells CNN's Kaitlin Collins that she and her team have been in near constant communication with officials.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLIN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You sat down with them for several hours? What do you believe is the most important testimony that you gave them?

JOCELYN BENSON, (D) MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: That's a great question. I think it's a connection between, you know, what we witnessed, which I've talked openly about for several years now. A real coordinated, strategic effort, to try to block the counting of votes in our State, the certification of an election in our State, and then spread lies that then transformed into threats, against the lives of election officials, who were simply doing our job.

And there's a lot of evidence that has already been revealed that it was presented to the January 6 committees, and it's already out there in the public square about all of this. And I think it's important that that evidence be taken seriously. And I have confidence that it is being taken seriously.

And, you know, we are willing to go over and over again with the relevant authorities, everything we endured and experienced and witnessed, to ensure, again, where there's evidence of a pernicious and strategic effort to overturn the will of voters that there is justice that is served, so it can't happen again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani is also under investigation for his role in efforts to overturn the election. And now new court filings in a defamation case against him show those promoting the election fraud narrative failed to do their due diligence. CNN's Katelyn Polantz explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: We're now seeing new evidence from the 2020 election that shows that Rudy Giuliani and others around Donald Trump just were not doing vetting of the basic allegations that they were making that the election was stolen.

So the new information we're getting is in a court filing today that revealed some evidence that was collected in a December 2020 text chain. Where top Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn was texting saying, urgent POTUS request, need best examples of election fraud that we've alleged that's super easy to explain. And then he says, doesn't necessarily have to be proven but does need to be easy to understand. Is there any sort of "greatest hits" clearinghouse that anyone has for best examples.

So the Trump team, the lawyers around him, were seeking just anything. Even if it wasn't based on fact that could help smear or cause people to not believe in the result of the 2020 election. One of the things that Rudy Giuliani and others were offering up in response to that was a video of two election workers in Georgia that they said showed fraudulent vote counting.

But those two women are seeing Giuliani for defamation now. Election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, and it is their lawsuit where this evidence is coming out. So in that lawsuit now, not only are they sharing this evidence, they are already saying that they should be winning their case even though the case is not at its end.

[04:10:04]

And that's because they believe Giuliani wasn't responding to their multiple requests for information for the evidence that he had so that they could work on proving their case in court. And they're saying that he lost electronic information that he should have had on his cellphones and in communications apps. So they went to this judge with this evidence of these text messages that they collected from others and said, we're not getting enough from Rudy Giuliani, not only should the former mayor of New York, former top prosecutor of Manhattan, face severe sanctions. He should also be forced to pay for our legal fees.

So a really difficult situation for Rudy Giuliani to be navigating in this lawsuit related to the 2020 election that's also offering us some new details about what happened in Trump circles after Donald Trump was losing.

Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: A suspected tornado has damaged at least 19 homes in Elgin, Illinois -- a city just outside Chicago. What you're looking at now certainly looks like a tornado. Fierce storms ripped through the state Wednesday evening. Weather officials say there were five reports of possible tornadoes and one confirmed tornado about 10 miles from Chicago. The city's airports halted flights because of the severe weather. Thousands of passengers at O'Hare airport were told to shelter in place. No one was reported injured, thankfully, but a warehouse west of that airport was damaged.

In one Chicago suburb witnesses say they were shocked to see a tornado as it ripped through their town.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK WRIGHT, WITNESSED TORNADO: People were screaming. There's floods all over. This storm is really bad. Never seen nothing like this. This was really scary. Tornado come right out of the sky. It was over our car. It was spinning. I seen two guys taking a film and I'm looking up and here it comes down towards our car. I moved my car over and it just rolled right over us and just started destroying everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: We're seeing sweltering heat in much of the Southwestern United States these days. Parts of Arizona have hit 110 Fahrenheit every single day this month. And this weekend is supposed to bring even more record-breaking heat. But the Southwest isn't the only part of the U.S. that's trapped under a heat dome. Meteorologist Chad Myers tells us what to expect.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I understand the calendar and I know that it is summertime and I know it is supposed to be hot. But it is not supposed to be hot like this, at least not just yet. Heat dome over the Southwestern part of the United States, heat indices up to 115 degrees in parts of Texas and Oklahoma. And heat temperatures, temperatures without the humidity -- because there won't be very much -- into parts of California, even parts of Arizona could approach 120 degrees over the weekend, that is where the biggest heat will be.

It all kind of comes in from the east, goes back towards the west and then just sits there. This could be a one week long unfortunate heatwave out there and 60 possible records almost daily records here across the Southwest, every place is going to see a record. Now I know we've been over 110 for a long time in Phoenix and I don't see that changing especially when you are looking at Saturday at 119 in the shade. So Phoenix, Vegas, Twentynine Palms, all the in-land empire, all those areas out there going to be again, blisteringly hot.

Something else that is going on being a cross parts of Miami, is that we have this heat index -- yes, that is the heat and the humidity combined in a long formula as long as this wall here. But that is heat index at 33 days in Miami above 100 degrees. And we're not breaking that anytime soon. That will continue to go.

And so will the heat into parts of the ocean. We are still going to see temperatures, yes, that is Key West at 92, Vaca Key about the 93 or 94, even up toward Key Largo with the lighthouse there, the buoy out there that is 93 degrees in the afternoon.

So, yes, a lot more rainfall coming up toward the Northeast as well. Some of this could be heavy and even though it is only 2 to 4 inches in any one spot, none of that 3 to 4 has anyplace to soak in. We're just going to see another possibility of these rivers and creeks rising again due to the fact that there's just nothing, there's not a piece of dry land out there to absorb any of it. So where you see that from a Albany, Saratoga, all the way back down into parts of even Massachusetts this time, very heavy rainfall coming up through the end of the weekend. One kind of a storm after another after another. And that could be the real problem later on this week.

NOBILO: New developments now from Hollywood where the Screen Actors Guild has just put out a statement voting to recommend a strike after no deal was reached overnight on a new collective bargaining agreement with the major studios and streaming services. This means Hollywood would now have a double strike on its hands for the first time in more than 60 years with screen writers and actors participating.

[04:15:00]

We haven't heard from the studios on this yet. The unions are fighting for better pay, residuals, benefits and addressing concerns over artificial intelligence and job security. Entertainment journalist XiXi Yang joins me now with more from Los Angeles and she is the founder of XYZ Media. XiXi, thank you so much for being with us today.

XIXI YANG, ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALIST: Good morning, beyond the. Just an hour ago, SAG AFTRA current television and film contracts have officially expired. Which means unless SAG AFTRA votes in the board meeting this morning that it will not go on strike, Hollywood is officially shutting down. The actors will go on strike. And we will see Hollywood's first double strike in almost six decades.

Now I just want to take a second to think about the 160,000 SAG AFTRA union members who are going on strike joining the 11,500 writers who have been striking for the past three months. This is going to be so impactful and it is going to take years for the industry and for our world to recuperate. We're not just talking about weakening the ecosystem of Hollywood. The impact will be felt in industries all across. We're talking restaurants, hotels, transportation, hospitality, just to give you an idea. So far, the writer's strike for the past through months in California has cost the state approximately $30 million. So this is really unfortunate, but I do think a strike is imminent.

NOBILO: And XiXi, do we know which areas in terms of the demands from the writers and the actors that there is most resistance to from the studios? YANG: Absolutely. The actors and writers have a similar demand in the

fact that they simply want higher compensation and some updated terms and conditions, that that can guarantee them job stability. Especially in the age of technology when AI is on the rise. And they definitely want shorter exclusivity terms that prevents them from working on different jobs. And they want wages that they can live off of. That can account for the rise in the cost of living in the past few years.

NOBILO: XiXi Yang, thank you so much for joining us and bringing us the latest from Los Angeles.

YANG: Thank you.

NOBILO: The FBI director faced off Wednesday against hostile Republicans on Capitol Hill from the Donald Trump documents case to Hunter Biden, Christopher Wray had a rough ride. We'll show you what happened.

And the U.S. Secretary of State is set to met with a top Chinese official on the sidelines of the summit in Southeast Asia. The contentious topics that are likely to arise.

Also ahead, we hear from passengers after experiencing what they describe as petrifying turbulence on an airline flight.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOBILO: Welcome back. It was a rough day on Capitol Hill for FBI Director Christopher Wray. He faced a firestorm of criticism as he tried to defend the FBI against its Republican critics on the House Judiciary Committee. And as Sara Murray reports, what was making it so remarkable was that Republicans were blasting a Republican appointed by Republican Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): FBI Director Christopher Wray --

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Jordan, ranking member Nadler, members of the committee.

MURRAY (voice-over): -- pulling no punches in critiquing former President Donald Trump's sloppy retention of classified documents.

WRAY: I don't want to be commenting on the pending case, but I will say there are specific rules about where to store classified information, and that those need to be stored in a SCIF, a secured compartmentalized information facility, and in my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are not SCIFs.

MURRAY (voice-over): And insisting in the wake of Hunter Biden's plea deal on tax charges that the bureau is not protecting the Biden family. REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Are you protecting the Bidens?

WRAY: Absolutely not. The FBI does not --

GAETZ: Hold on. You won't answer the question about whether on that --

MURRAY (voice-over): He also disavowing some of the behavior outlined in the special counsel John Durham's probe, which documented missteps by the FBI in its investigation into 2016 Trump campaign's ties with Russia.

WRAY: I consider the conduct that was described in the Durham report as totally unacceptable and unrepresentative of what I see from the FBI every day and must never be allowed to happen again.

MURRAY (voice-over): Wray, however, stood by the search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

WRAY: I would not call it a raid. I would call the execution of a lawful search warrant.

MURRAY (voice-over): And defended the FBI's rank and file amid a wave of threats in the wake of that search.

WRAY: We did stand up a whole dedicated unit to focus on threats to FBI individuals, FBI employees and FBI facilities because of the uptick that we saw over that time period.

MURRAY (voice-over): Wray facing off against some of his toughest congressional critics on the House Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have threatened to slash the bureau's budget and accused FBI leadership of political bias.

GAETZ: People trusted the FBI more then when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place more than you are.

MURRAY: Respectfully, Congressman, in your home state of Florida the number of people applying to come work for us and devoted their lives working for us, is over -- up over 100 percent.

GAETZ: We're deeply proud of them and they deserve better than you.

MURRAY (voice-over): All as Democrats took shots at their GOP colleagues.

REP. HANK JOHNSON (D-GA): We are here today because MAGA Republicans will do anything to protect Donald Trump, their savior, no matter how unfounded or dangerous it may be to do so.

MURRAY (voice-over): Democrats also needling judiciary chairman Jim Jordan, who once defying a subpoena in the House January 6 investigation.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): It's quite rich to me that you're hearing all these allegations from somebody who won't even respond to a lawful subpoena. [04:25:00]

MURRAY: Now Republicans on this committee and particularly the chair Jim Jordan have made a big deal of their belief that the leadership of the FBI is somehow biased against conservatives. And Chris Wray was asked about this during this hearing. He said it is insane, the notion that he would be biased against conservatives, especially given his personal background. And it he's a registered Republican and he was appointed into this position by Donald Trump, a former Republican president.

Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: The U.S. Secretary of State is scheduled to meet with China's top foreign policy chief in the hours ahead. They are both in Jakarta with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and will be holding talks on the sidelines. China's Wang Yi is also expected to meet with the Russian foreign minister there too.

CNN's Anna Coren is covering this live from Hong Kong. Anna, we've seen more meetings ramp up between officials from the U.S. and from China over recent weeks. Last being of course, Janet Yellen's visit. And they seem to have a marginal net positive impact. They're trying to keep talking to each other. Is the hope that this meeting will keep pushing things in the right direction?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is hope and absolutely, you are right, there is momentum. But there are plenty of issues and grievances as you know between the U.S. and China. But in just over two hours, Antony Blinken will meet with Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit. As you mentioned, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, will also meet with Wang. Now Wang, Bianca, was not supposed to attend this summit. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was scheduled to be there. However he is ill.

Blinken and Wang, they met in Beijing last month. As you say, Blinken was there, the first visit by U.S. Secretary of State in five years with the aim to reset relations and communication. We know that things, you know, things are at an all-time low between the U.S. and China. Janet Yellen was there last week. John Kerry heading there this weekend.

And whilst there has been, you know, a great deal of hope around this diplomatic activity, obviously the plan is to clear the way for talks between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.

There are revelations this week that Chinese hackers have breached email accounts of two dozen U.S. organizations, including some government agencies -- particularly the State Department, and that is causing concern. Microsoft and the White House have both confirmed the hack was a spying campaign aimed at sensitive information.

And then, you know, adding to the tension, NATO this week issued a strongly worded communique saying that China challenged its interests, security and values, with its ambitious and coercive policies. Beijing responded angrily saying it's opposed to any attempts by the military alliance to expand its footprint into the Asia Pacific region.

So when you look at the landscape, yes, there's a great deal of hope that there is this flurry of diplomatic activity between the U.S. and China. There are also all these issues which are yet to be resolved. So no doubt WANG and Blinken will have a lot to discuss this evening.

NOBILO: Anna Coren live in Hong Kong. We know that you'll be watching it all for us. Thank you.

A Senior Russian general in Ukraine says he was suddenly fired after accusing Moscow's defense ministry leadership of betraying his troops by not providing sufficient support. It's the latest example of internal criticism and strife among Russian forces. CNN's Clare Sebastian joins us now. Clare, tell us exactly what happened and what we can extrapolate from this in terms of the health of the Russian defense military complex.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I think coming so soon of a per the Wagner rebellion, which was ostensibly it happened. Because he came after months and months of Prigozhin accusing Russia's military top brass of incompetence and not providing enough equipment, ammunition, all of that. This speaks to these problems persisting essentially. It also speaks potentially to the idea of a sort of cracking down on dissent, a cleansing or perhaps purging. Even of the Russian military that we know from reports has likely been happening in the wake of that rebellion. So this is the commander of the 58th army. He was in command of troops really on one of the most crucial areas of the frontline in Zaporizhzhia. He put out an audio message we believe and it was published by a Russian MP, a member of Putin's party, himself with the military background. And in this, he really lays it on thick. Really complains, lashes out even at Russia's military leadership. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN POPOV, RUSSIAN GENERAL (through translator): I had no right to lie. Therefore, I outlined all the problematic issues that exist today in the army in terms of combat work and support. I called a spade a spade. I drew attention to the most important tragedy of modern warfare, this is the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:30:00]

SEBASTIAN: Pretty jarring to hear mass deaths coming from a Russian commander. Russia has famously hidden in the rubble its losses in this war. He says then an order was presented to the minister of defense who signed it and he was relieved of his post. He essentially then accusing them of this being a sort of treasonous act of essentially sabotaging themselves by removing him at such a critical moment in this war. But it's extraordinary because we have not heard this level of dissent

from such a high ranking official in the Russian army. And it comes in the same week where we saw another top commander in the Russian forces in that region, in Zaporizhzhia, killed -- according to Ukrainian sources in the Berdyansk, where the headquarters of the 58th army is. So this is two generals on that southern front in a week.

NOBILO: Clare Sebastian, thank you.