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Texas Wildfires; President Biden Undergoing Annual Physical; Congress Questions Hunter Biden. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 28, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YULIA NAVALNAYA, WIDOW OF ALEXEI NAVALNY: Denied visits, phone calls, and then even letters. And then they killed him.

Even after that, they abused his body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: And of course, we will continue to follow all of the developments surrounding his funeral, which will take place at a cemetery in Moscow on Friday.

In the meantime, thank you very much for joining us this morning. I'm Jim Acosta.

Our next hour of NEWSROOM with Wolf Blitzer starts right now. Have a great day, everybody.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now: President Biden is over at the Walter Reed Medical Center just outside Washington, D.C., getting his annual physical.

Meantime, up on Capitol Hill, his son Hunter Biden is sitting for what could be a very long deposition with congressional lawmakers.

And scorched earth in Texas. Very dangerous wildfires have now exploded, one of them burning three acres every second.

Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington, and you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin this hour with President Biden over at the Walter Reed Medical Center outside Washington, D.C., in Bethesda, Maryland. That's where he's currently getting his annual physical exam. This likely will be the last public update on his health before the November presidential election.

President Biden is 81 years old, the oldest sitting president in U.S. history. His age and the age of his likely opponent, Donald Trump, who is 77, are becoming campaign issues.

CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz and Dr. Jonathan Reiner are standing by to join me. Dr. Reiner is a CNN medical analyst and a professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University here in Washington.

Arlette, let me start with you.

What do we know specifically about today's visit? '

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, President Biden has been at Walter Reed Medical Center for about an hour-and-a- half this morning, as he is undergoing his routine annual physical.

It's expected it's being conducted by his physician here at the White House, Dr. Kevin O'Connor. And the White House has said that they will release a summary of the physical results a little bit later in the day.

Now, this is the third time President Biden has undergone a physical since being in the White House as president. He did one back in 2021 and again around this time last year in 2023. Following that physical, Dr. Kevin O'Connor wrote in a summary that the president was healthy, vigorous and fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.

But this physical is being conducted at a time when the president's age, his physical fitness and his mental fitness have been in the spotlight in the 2024 campaign. His Republican opponents have tried to argue that the president's age should be something voters should consider heading into the 2024 election.

And polling has shown that there is some concern about the president's ability to serve a second term. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that only a third of registered voters believe that President Biden had the physical and the mental stamina to endure a second term.

So, many will be watching this physical quite closely. Of course, we all often hear from the president pushback on these concerns about his age, saying that with age comes experience. Sometimes, he tries to make light of the fact that he is 81 years old, the oldest president to serve.

He would be 86 at the end of a second term. But there will be many people watching this physical, the results of it very closely to see what else they can glean about the president's physical health at this time.

BLITZER: Yes, we will await that White House statement that comes after these physicals every year.

Dr. Reiner, we know from previous visits and White House subsequent statements that President Biden takes a statin and specific medication for what's called atrial fibrillation. What are you watching for when we get an update later today?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Watching for whether there's been any change from last year.

When you evaluate a patient, particularly as they get into their 80s, you're really looking to see what has changed. Has their exercise capacity changed? Has their laboratory results changed in a substantive way? Do they have new symptoms that weren't evident last year?

The difference, though, between evaluating a patient like the president and a patient that I see in clinic, as in like half-hour ago, is that the president has a physician that's with him all the time. So, Dr. O'Connor literally sees the president every single day.

So he has the ability to understand very subtle changes that may not be apparent when you only evaluate a patient every six months or one year. So, I'm not really expecting to see much today. We know the president doesn't have hypertension, and I don't believe he's going to develop hypertension.

We know he has high cholesterol. So we will get a sense for what that is when Kevin gives us the laboratory results later. We know he has atrial fibrillation, which he's had for a very long time, for which he takes a blood thinner.

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So I'm not expecting a lot from this, other than basically to say that the president appears to be in his usual state of health.

BLITZER: As you know, Dr. Reiner, in that report over document mishandling, the special counsel, Robert Hur, called President Biden's memory significantly limited.

Could the Biden team release more details from today in an effort to push back on that assessment?

REINER: Well, I think there are two potential reasons to do a -- more of an in-depth neurologic or memory or cognitive test.

One is a medical reason and the other would potentially be a political reason. The medical reason to do it would be if Dr. O'Connor thought that there had been a substantive change in the president's either memory or his cognitive capacity. And that's really the standard reason to do a test.

And that's why we would do this during an office visit, if there was either a concern from the patient or a concern from the physician. The other reason to do a test like the MoCA, or Montreal Cognitive Assessment, test that President Trump apparently has had twice, would be a political reason.

And whereas there may not be a truly medically based reason to test the president, in this environment, there could conceivably be a political reason. I'm not sure, by itself, that's a reason to actually do the exam, but that question remains out there in the public's mind.

BLITZER: Well, we will await to get the results of the exam today. We should get it in the next few hours and we will see what it says. And we will continue this conversation.

Dr. Reiner, thank you very much. Arlette Saenz over at the White House, thanks to you as well. Other news that's happening right now, a pivotal moment up on Capitol

Hill, as Hunter Biden faces off with Republicans behind closed doors. They're questioning the president's son as part of their impeachment inquiry into his father after months and months of tense negotiations and some key concessions.

Let's go to CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. She's up on Capitol Hill for us.

Paula, so what's the latest? What are you hearing?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Hunter has been in the room for a little over an hour now.

And he did not answer questions as he headed into this closed-door deposition. But we do have a copy of the opening statement that he was going to give to lawmakers to lay out what he hopes to achieve today.

He said in part: "I am here today to provide the committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry. I did not involve my father in my business, not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions, domestic or international, not even as a board member and not as an artist. Never."

He goes on to say: "For more than a year, your committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion and sensationalism, all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father, because there isn't any."

Now, we know that Hunter, along with his lawyers, Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris, they have taken a much more aggressive approach to Republicans, to his detractors. So I think some of that is going to come through today.

But this is make-or-break for GOP lawmakers, who so far have not provided clear evidence to support the allegation that President Biden benefited from his son's foreign business dealings. And, of course, he's only appearing for this closed-door deposition after a few concessions from Republicans, including that this will not be videotaped, and the transcript will be released promptly.

Those are things we haven't necessarily seen for other witnesses in this investigation. But, Wolf, let's just -- let's just give you a sense of just how much interest there is in today's deposition. They had to move to a larger room.

And we expect a record number of members to participate. But more members means more questions, which means it could be a pretty late night up here on Capitol Hill.

BLITZER: We will watch it together with you, Paula Reid, up on Capitol Hill. Thank you very much. Let's bring in CNN's senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn

Polantz. She's been covering the story for us for quite a while, along with former federal prosecutor and Department of Justice official Elliot Williams, who's with us, and CNN political commentator Maria Cardona.

Maria, let me start with you, because those were pretty strong words from Hunter Biden.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BLITZER: What do you think actually will come out of this hearing today?

CARDONA: I agree.

I got a copy of this statement as well. It was a blistering rebuke of the insane accusations that Republicans have done from the start, and it's based on nothing, like Hunter Biden's opening statement says. It's all based on innuendo, based on conspiracy theories, based on lies.

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And now, from what we have recently, it's also based on tradecraft from spies. And so I think this is a moment for Republicans to kind of reflect and say, what are we here to do? What did the American people send us here to do? Not to waste their time with all of these lies and conspiracy theories, not to waste their resources.

They were elected to lead. They were elected to deal with the economy, to deal with the border, to deal with crime, all of the key issues that they ran on. They have completely turned their back on the American people on those issues. That's going to be a big message for Democrats going into this election cycle, that Republicans, using this as a huge example, have been a waste of money, a waste of resource, and they do not deserve to be given the lead in Congress at all.

BLITZER: Elliot, what's the significance of Hunter Biden's deposition today? It's going to go on for hours and hours.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, legally, nothing, Wolf.

They're -- now, if he lies or makes a false statement in some way, he can be prosecuted for perjury or something like that. But, beyond that, there's not much that they can -- Congress can really do with this testimony. Clearly, as we have been talking about, they're intending to use this for an impeachment push of his father, President Biden.

That doesn't look like it's going anywhere either. And so, at the end of the day, there isn't a lot of sort of legal use of the testimony. Now, Congress, despite being a legal body, it's also a political one. And, certainly, when they release this transcript, no video, they can use that to make political hay out of it.

But no one's going to jail. No one's being impeached on the basis of what's being said today in this deposition.

BLITZER: Katelyn, as you well know, because you have been reporting extensively on this, the impeachment inquiry is on thin ice right now, especially because this FBI informant has now been charged, accused of lying, getting false information from the Russians.

And now he's got a trial actually scheduled for April.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: He does.

And he's accused of putting out there into the political bloodstream the idea that there were bribes being accepted by Joe Biden. The House Republicans, now that they know that from the Justice Department from this indictment that went through a grand jury, will be tested in court, they say, don't look over there. We're going to continue moving forward with our impeachment inquiry to see if we can still find some sort of evidence.

They haven't. But, Wolf, I know you know one of the most riveting things about Washington is that nothing happens in a vacuum. So Congress may be continuing to search for evidence, but there is evidence, and the Justice Department has it, and they are going to be putting it before the court, turning it over to the defense of Alexander Smirnov, this FBI informant who's now charged with lying.

Hunter Biden's team, they want access to that evidence as well. We will see if that happens. Smirnov, I should note, is going to trial in April. That's before Hunter Biden is set to go to trial on tax charges in the very same court in federal court out of California. So we're going to watch that court very closely to see what happens in all of that and how it plays into the Republicans' impeachment proceedings.

BLITZER: We will read all those testimonies, all those documents once they're released and the deposition, the transcript of the deposition, once it's released, presumably tomorrow, they're suggesting.

So where do the Republicans go from here?

CARDONA: Well, and that's the question, Wolf, because everything that they have done from the moment they got control in Congress is based on one thing and the goal of one person. And that is Donald Trump's retribution.

It was his goal to get his Republican MAGA leaders in Congress to get back at Democrats for having impeached him twice, regardless of whether this is based on absolutely nothing.

And it is based on nothing. And we will see the evidence. But, up until now, Hunter Biden's deposition and everything based on Hunter Biden and the people that they have had up there in all of these hearings were supposed to be the pinnacle of Comer's focus on why they're impeaching President Biden. And, instead, it's become a whimper.

It's been embarrassing for this Congress. I really don't know how they look at themselves in the mirror and, frankly, how they face their constituents based on all of this. It's not even that there's no "there" there, there's no "there" anywhere, and it never has been.

BLITZER: Maria, thank you very much. Elliot and Katelyn, guys, thank you to you as well.

Still ahead here in the CNN NEWSROOM: the state of Texas seeing the second largest wildfire in its history, with no relief in sight and evacuations under way. We will take you there.

Plus, a wakeup call for President Biden in a pivotal swing state. We're going to tell you what his campaign is now saying about a protest vote in the Michigan primary.

And happening right now, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a major gun case all stemming from the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

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Stay with us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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BLITZER: Another major story we're following very closely today, wildfires raging through Northern Texas. One blaze has burned an astonishing 500,000 acres.

Here, you can see strong winds pushing a wall of flames across a roadway. This is the Smokehouse Fire, as it's being called. It's the largest one now burning in the Texas Panhandle. In just two days, it has become the second largest wildfire in Texas history, burning an average of three acres a second.

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As of now, it is out of control with zero containment. Overnight, the flames actually crossed into Oklahoma. This is new video to CNN of some of the damage. It's not clear how many homes and businesses have been impacted, but communities, both large and small, are racing to evacuate right now.

Hospitals and other facilities have moved their patients to safety. In all, there are at least five fires actively burning in Northern Texas right now. Today, evacuated workers are returning to the Pantex nuclear weapons facility. You can see how close the fires are to the site. It's the nerve center of assembling and disassembling the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Let's take you down to Amarillo, Texas. CNN's Lucy Kafanov is on the scene for us.

Lucy, how dangerous is the situation where you are?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, so dangerous, so unpredictable, and the speed with which all of this unfolded was really, truly stunning. We, our team and I, actually managed to make our way to Fritch, Texas.

We left Amarillo. We are here. This is as far as we could get. Now, this is an area population roughly 2,000 people. It is in Hutchinson County, which has been very devastated by that large Smokehouse Creek wildfire.

This entire area has been evacuated, and there are still homes on fire as we speak, Wolf. We are not actually able to access that area. You can see the roadblock behind me. Police have been turning cars around. To my right is a church that was used as a shelter for most of yesterday for families to have to flee the flames to seek refuge, to find safety.

They have been evacuated from here to a different area where it is a bit safer, where there are more services available to them. And I have to say, on our way here, driving from Amarillo, we saw miles and miles of scorched earth. There were still little fires along the sides of the road, a lot of smoke.

The visibility was incredibly low. We also encountered crews dropping power lines to try to keep things safer, to try to stop more fires from being sparked by falling power lines, nearby areas also devastated. The town of Canadian had been evacuated.

CNN spoke to a local motel owner there who described the scene as Armageddon. There was white ash everywhere, flames everywhere. The nursing homes there, the hospital there had to get evacuated as well. You mentioned that this is now the second largest wildfire in Texas history, and crews are really battling the elements here.

This isn't California. They don't have a lot of those planes that could drop fire retardant and water. And so a lot of the firefighting here has to happen on the ground. And this is a time of drought. There's not a lot of water access. And so it's a really, really challenging condition for fire services.

BLITZER: All right, Lucy, stay safe over there. We will stay in touch with you.

Lucy Kafanov on the scene for us in Texas.

Joining us now on the phone is Adam Turner. He's with the Texas A&M Forest Service.

Adam, thank you very much for joining us.

Give us the very latest on the situation, as you see it.

ADAM TURNER, TEXAS A&M FOREST SERVICE: So, we have some significant fires that have occurred over the past two days and have really grown and shown this really large fire growth.

We currently have -- the fire that Lucy was talking about is the Windy Deuce Fire (AUDIO GAP) 40,000 acres and 20 percent contained. And then you talked about the Smokehouse Fire, which is, again, 500,000 acres and zero percent contained as well. BLITZER: That Smokehouse Fire that we have been reporting on is only

two days' old, we're told, and has burned half-a-million acres. It has scorched an average of 200 acres a minute.

What are the biggest challenges, Adam, in trying to contain this fire?

TURNER: So, for the past two days, we have had just these really, really high winds.

I mean, it's part of a weather event called the Southern Plains wildfire outbreak. And so it drove these fires, particularly the Smokehouse Creek Fire, this massive eastward growth. And then we had a 90-degree wind shift last night. So it came out of the north, and so it had a 45-plus-or-minus-mile-long fire head that shifted and began burning south.

For the past two days, the winds have just not stopped. So there hasn't been a place for firefighters to really effectively get in and begin suppression. Today, we have lower wind conditions. So, we -- today, we're going to take advantage of that and work to put as much containment line in place as we can.

BLITZER: As you know, the weather in Northern Texas is expected to moderate, at least a bit, and, as you note, cooler temperatures expected, diminishing winds.

Will that help firefighters?

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TURNER: Absolutely.

So, with these lower winds, these cooler temperatures, for the next day or two, we are going to work as hard as we can to get resources in place and constructing line around these fires, so that we don't have any further spread.

We are expecting winds to pick back up by this weekend. So, the highest priority today and tomorrow is for all of our fire crews to continue protecting structures and work to build as much containment line as we can around these fires, so that it doesn't -- it does not begin spreading again when the wind picks back up.

BLITZER: As you know, Adam, these fires are not in densely populated areas, at least not yet. But do you have a sense of the scale of property lost and the impact on these communities?

TURNER: So, these areas are -- when you have a large open grass field like this, much of this area depends on livestock or farming.

When you have a massive amount of fire move across the landscape and burn up your grass or whatever crops might be planted out there, that is a significant impact to the economy of an area. So, it will be an economic impact for the near future.

Grasses and crops will grow back over time, but it will take moisture, and we just don't have any in the forecast.

BLITZER: Adam Turner, thank you very, very much. Good luck to you. Good luck to all the folks over there in Texas, and now parts of it spilling over into Oklahoma as well. Appreciate it very, very much.

We will stay on top of this story.

Meanwhile, there's more breaking news we're following. The Hunter Biden deposition, which we have reported on extensively, it's now on a break, and lawmakers are beginning to speak out.

Let's listen to Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman from Maryland. Listen to this.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): All right, good morning, everyone.

When we went into today's transcribed interview with Hunter Biden, we have had a dozen witnesses who had told us that Joe Biden was not involved in any way in Hunter's business, that he did not profit from Hunter's business, and that he rendered no official favors or benefits to Hunter's business.

And nothing that we have heard from Hunter Biden has changed that in any way. In fact, he has emphatically and repeatedly underscored to the Republicans that his father was not involved in any way in his businesses, did not profit from his businesses, and Hunter neither asked him for any official favors, nor received any official favors from Joe Biden.

So what we saw, I think, was a rather embarrassing spectacle, where the Republicans continued to belabor completely trivial points. They seemed to be obsessively focused on speakerphones and use of speakerphone. I did not know that was the devil's technology, but, apparently, it is.

And I believe, based on this first hour, that this whole thing really has been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the people's resources. But I would love to have each of my colleagues come up and share their sense of what we just witnessed.

And we will start with the vice ranking member of the Oversight Committee. Then we will go to...

(CROSSTALK)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Sure. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ranking Member Raskin.

I think the ranking member stated it completely. What we just witnessed over the last hour was, I think, a deep sea fishing expedition, because the Republican case has completely fallen apart over the last several weeks, after it's been exposed that the critical -- one of the -- their most key pieces of information was based on a source that was in communication with Russian intelligence.

They are now trying to scramble to find anything to substantiate their fairy tale, is what we should call this. But I think, more disturbingly, what we are seeing is just a complete and inappropriate expedition into the president's son, and for matters and subjects that are completely unrelated to an impeachment investigation.

And I think it is extremely disturbing to see the lack of professionalism, the lack of grounding and the abuse of public resources and abuse of public power in order to pursue something that truly whose point at this juncture is very unclear.

And with that, I hand it back.

RASKIN: Great.

Mr. Swalwell of the Judiciary Committee.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Thank you.

They have got nothing. That's what we just witnessed for the last hour. One of their witnesses has been indicted for working with Russian intelligence. Another witness has been indicted for working with Chinese intelligence. Another witness is serving a 14-year felony sentence.

This is fourth and 20 on their own 10 and they don't have Patrick Mahomes. You're going to see the greatest sack ever when you get the transcript from this.

But what's really embarrassing -- and I use the word secondhand embarrassment, because that's what we witnessed in there -- is, they're so desperate to humiliate the president.

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