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Putin Calls For Russian Unity After Presidential Election; Yulia Navalnaya Calls Putin A Murderer After Voting In Russian Election; Biden Speaks About Gaza Ceasefire During White House St. Patrick's Day Event; Trump Warns Of Bloodbath If He Loses Election; FOX News Sued By Family Of Slain Ukrainian Journalist; Ginsburg Family Rips Plant To Give RBG Award To Rupert Murdoch And Elon Musk. Aired 6- 7p ET

Aired March 17, 2024 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:37]

PAULA REID, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington.

Tonight in Russia, President Vladimir Putin is proclaiming Russian unity after polls closed in a three-day presidential election. With no genuine opponent running against him, Putin is expected to win, keeping him in office until 2030, and continuing as Russia's longest- serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Moscow.

Matthew, what else did Putin have to say tonight?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was an extraordinary post-election sort of makeshift press conference, ad hoc press conference that he gave to members of the press, the local press, the foreign press as well. There were members there asking various questions.

He just finished giving his thank you speech to volunteers and to supporters in the auditorium, saying that the election victory, that the final results haven't come in yet, but the election victory are represented essentially, and I'm paraphrasing him here, a mandate for his continued work in the country, which we take to mean the continued special military operation, the war in Ukraine, which he made several references to as well.

Then there was this Q&A session in which he spoke about a range of topics including Alexei Navalny. He mentioned the late Russian opposition leader by name, saying, you know, confirming a story that has already been put out there by members of the opposition that in the days before Alexei Navalny died last month, that Vladimir Putin was come to by somebody he knew, not a member of his administration, and it was suggested to him that Alexei Navalny be swapped as part of a prisoner exchange deal, which he said he agreed to immediately before that person had even stopped speaking, on the condition he said that he never came back. And so he made a sort of off-color joke about the fact that he wanted

to get rid of Alexei Navalny as soon as possible. But then he went on to say it was very sad that Alexei Navalny died in prison. He said that other people have died in prison as well. And it was -- he said it happens in the United States also. And so there was a bit of back and forth about that. He also, Putin, took a moment to sort of side swipe and sidestepped the criticism of this election in Russia, which many sort of outside observers have said is not democratic because the opposition were not allowed to stand and it was essentially choreographed and orchestrated.

And so there was an absolute certainty that Vladimir Putin would win. And he took a swipe at the U.S. presidential campaign as well. And U.S. presidential politics as well, saying that it was, it was shameful and laughable that a candidate in the presidential debates, in the presidential campaign in the United States should be targeted by the judicial system. He said, at least in terms of the electoral process, electoral procedure in America there was no democracy in the United States.

And so a very kind of, you know, slap of American democracy there given by Vladimir Putin. And so, yes, it was a surprise, you know, kind of speech and Q&A session from the newly re-elected Russian president to members of the local press.

REID: Well, despite the lack of any real opposition on the ballot, there were some acts of defiance at the polls. What can you tell us?

CHANCE: Yes, there were. And that's something that I think has been very surprising to people who've been watching this. Not least because Russia is a country where expressions of dissent can have very serious consequences. And so when you see people coming out and disrupting the election or attempting to or supporting, you know, the kind of opposition in some way is extremely risky and extremely unusual.

But for the course of the past three days, and that's how long the voting has been going on for here, people have been sort of pouring ink and green dye into ballot boxes to try and ruin the papers. The voting papers already inside.

[18:05:02]

According to election officials, there have been a number of arson attacks against polling stations across the country. Earlier today there was an extraordinary development where members of Alexei Navalny's team, who now of course based overseas, had called on voters in Russia to all --and supporters of the opposition, all to gather at once at 12:00 midday, "Midday Against Putin," they called it, to come and show their support for the opposition by turning up at polling stations all at the same time in a kind of rolling process protest across the country.

Obviously, at polling stations in Moscow, there was nobody there at ten to midday. By 10 past, there were about 150 people there. And so it just gives you an indication of the degree of frustration in Russia at the political, what the diversity of political opinions that people could vote for in this presidential election. As I say, it was a dead cert that Vladimir Putin would win and the results that have come out showed that he's won with a landslide, some 88 percent or thereabouts of the number of votes cast were cast for Vladimir Putin.

REID: Matthew Chance in Moscow, thank you.

Now protests were also seen outside of Russia. Here in the nation's capital, protesters gathered outside of the Russian embassy today. And in Berlin protesters there were joined by prominent opposition figures, including the wife of the late Alexei Navalny, as she arrived to vote today at the Russian embassy there.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live in Berlin for us.

What is the latest?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Paula. And we actually followed Alexei Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, as she was making her way to try and get into the polling station inside the Russian embassy here in Berlin. And it took her six hours until she actually got inside because there were so many people who came there, many of them, of course, taking part in what Matthew was just talking about that call from the Russian opposition made today against Putin to turn up at polling stations, and then go inside and vote for anybody but Vladimir Putin.

That was sort of the name of the game. There were actually a lot of people who apparently were pro-Putin, who were also standing in line there, but there were also a lot of people who openly showed there dissent to the Russian leader. And of course, Yulia Navalnaya was one of them. She, after she waited in line for six hours, she finally got in and then when she came out, she said that when she was inside, she wrote the name Navalny on the ballot that she had then filled out and she said she did that because she said that's the most prominent, the most important, the strongest opponents towards -- well, for Vladimir Putin had died in prison, obviously her late husband Alexei Navalny.

She was then asked about Vladimir Putin and if she had a message for Vladimir Putin and she got pretty aggravated when that happened. I want to listen in to what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YULIA NAVALNAYA, ALEXEI NAVALNY'S WIDOW: Please stop asking for message from me or from somebody for Mr. Putin. There is -- there could be no any negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin because he is a killer. He's a gangster. He's the person who brought my country to the war, into everything. Just stop asking about messages to Mr. Putin. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So as you can hear, there are a lot of anger toward Vladimir Putin calling him a killer and a gangster, and one of the other things that we also saw here in Berlin, which you were just also showing there from Washington, D.C. is there was a protest outside the Russian embassy as well, calling for further support, military support for Ukraine, calling also to not view this election that took place in Russia as a legitimate one.

Certainly, big number of people turned up here in a Berlin. And again, it took folks six hours to actually get into the embassy because so many people showed up -- Paula.

REID: Fred Pleitgen, thank you.

And for more on Russia's elections, I'm joined now by CNN national security analyst and former CIA chief of Russia operations, Steve Hall.

Steve, with Putin winning another term, what does the future look like for Russia?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, with Putin in for essentially as long as he wants to be, Paula, it's not going to look good. I think, especially for oppositions, oppositionists, or people who want to try to be an opposition to Putin inside of Russia, and that's because Putin has managed and indeed before Putin as well, to condition the Russian population to accept all manner of things, to accept horrific numbers of dead young Russians on the battlefields in Ukraine, to accept, you know, a very low standard of living in comparison to many other nations in neighboring Europe.

They've been conditioned not to be able to actually significantly and meaningfully protest and that's why you have the whole sort of staged drama that we saw today, which is, you know, referred to as the Russian election.

[18:10:02]

So if you are somebody who wants to be an opposition or lead an opposition to Putin right now, it's not going to go -- it's not going to go very easily. It's not going to go well in the next couple of years, I would say.

REID: And we heard Putin call Navalny by name in a speech last hour, breaking with tradition. So what do you think the future looks like for Russia's opposition?

HALL: Yes, like I said, not good. And it's very fascinating to me that Putin actually, you know, used Navalny's name because that's something that he has avoided doing. I think it shows how high Putin is riding right now. Not only vis-a-vis, you know, the lack of any meaningful opposition inside of the Russian political system. But in terms of how he sees his future. You remember at the beginning of the Ukraine war, there was a lot of question as to, you know, how badly it was going for Russia and how long they were going to be able to hold out.

And Putin's position was, look, we're going to be in this for the long haul. We're going to be in this until the West loses its political will to fight and help the Ukrainians fight back. We're going to be in this over the long haul until the West sort of forgets or loses focus, and goes on to other things. That is a strategy that now looks much more successful than it did during the early days of the war. So I think Putin is riding high today, not just because of his so-called, you know, air quotes, victory, but also because he has really consolidated his position.

REID: The U.S., as you know, and many other countries have placed tough sanctions on Russia, Vladimir Putin, and many of his closest allies since they invaded Ukraine over the -- over two years ago. But his grip on power remains. Why is that?

HALL: It's because that's his emphasis. You know, every day, Putin wakes up and thinks, OK, what are the threats to me personally? What are the threats to Putinism in Russia? And how can I demolish those threats? So in the case of the Navalny, it's well that he's a guy who's got to be killed. He's a guy who's got to go. He's a guy who's got to be off the scene. You know, any of the any of the protest groups, you know, he expends enormous amounts of resources with his security services inside of Russia to make sure that they are repressed, to make sure that anybody who is going to threaten him and his system inside of Russia is, you know, eliminated.

And so that is why right now because he's been so successful in doing that, that again, you know, the future for him looks very positive.

REID: Steve Hall, thank you.

HALL: Sure.

REID: And in the last hour, President Biden spoke from the White House, once again strongly calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the dire need for Palestinian statehood.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:19]

REID: Just moments ago, the president speaking at a St. Patrick's Day event at the White House. He laid down an important marker on the war raging inside Gaza.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is live at the White House.

Priscilla, what did the president say?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Paula looming over this annual visit here at the White House by the Irish prime minister was the conflict in Gaza. And that was top of mind in the president's remarks today, where he recognized the concerns held among the Irish people about what is unfolding in Gaza, and also called for an immediate ceasefire. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the taoiseach and I agree about the urgent need to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza and get the ceasefire deal. To get a ceasefire deal that brings the hostages home and move toward a two-state solution, which is the only path, the only path for lasting peace and security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now the Biden administration has been working on a deal that would include a temporary ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can get into Gaza and so that hostages held by Hamas can be released. But Ireland in particular has had a support for the Palestinian cause for some time now and the Irish prime minister in his remarks following President Biden talked about that at length, saying that the Irish people see parallels in history of oppression with the Palestinians, and saying that the Irish people were, quote, "deeply troubled."

So this really loom large over both of their remarks and what is otherwise usually a celebratory occasion. Now the two also talks about Ukraine and standing by Ukraine in its war against Russia. But again, at the end of the day, this was a celebratory time here at the White House marking St. Patrick's Day. And the two also talked about their economic cooperation and their friendship over the years, especially years, decades long, diplomatic relation and doing all of that as the people in the crowd sits on none other than Guinness -- Paula.

REID: Priscilla, thank you.

Let's talk more about this with CNN political and global affairs analyst and Axios politics and foreign policy reporter, Barak Ravid. He joins me now from Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Barak, first, what do you make of Netanyahu's comments today that Schumer's speech calling for elections in Israel is, quote, "totally inappropriate"?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hey, Paula. I think, you know, I heard what Netanyahu said and I saw Dana Bash's great interview with him, and you know, it was kind of funny and I think former Speaker Pelosi mentioned it afterwards, that Netanyahu is complaining about interference by the U.S. in the Israeli political scene, political system, when, you know, I'm old enough to remember him coming to Congress here in 2015, giving a speech against the wishes of President Obama.

[18:20:22]

And I think it just shows you how much the Israeli-U.S. relationship, how much it's intertwined, how much it's close, and how much it is impossible for each side not to really interfere in the other's political system.

REID: Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the Israeli people are behind him, but thousands of Israelis protested around the country last night calling for the return of the hostages and for the resignation of the Israeli government. So should Netanyahu be worried?

RAVID: Well, I think he is worried very much. This is why he's doing every effort including in the interview today to, you know, push back on any suggestion that the Israelis want election even though you see it in all the polls, and just, you know, the polls that we were published in three different Israeli TV channels just a few days ago show that if elections were held today, he would have been defeated.

He would have lose. He would have been defeated. And he knows that very well. And this is why he's trying to, as best as he can, push back on any assertion that early elections should take place.

REID: Netanyahu told CNN today that Israel will keep trying to secure a deal to get the 100 hostages back in exchange for a six-week pause in fighting. Do you think Israel is really trying to reach a deal with Hamas?

RAVID: Well, I think we'll know very, very soon. The security, Israeli Security cabinet is actually convening as we speak. I think it's the third hour that it's been convened to discuss exactly that. What kind of mandate to give the Israeli negotiation team that's going tomorrow to Doha, Qatar, and how much rope the cabinet is willing to give them. If the cabinet gives them enough rope, I think it's a signal that Netanyahu wants to do.

If the cabinet did not -- does not give them rope, I think it's a signal that Netanyahu wants to drag this on, continue the talks, but not really pay the price that is part and parcel of every hostage negotiation.

REID: The leader of the WHO says he is, quote, "gravely concerned" after Netanyahu approved plans for a major offensive in Rafah that includes evacuating 1.4 million Gaza citizens. The White House, though, says it has not seen a credible plan to protect those civilians if it moves into Rafah. Do you think Netanyahu will really go through with this?

RAVID: Well, it could happen sometime in the future. I don't see that happening in the next I don't know three to four weeks. Any operation in Rafah will have in it a preliminary stage of evacuating people from Rafah. This -- just this process will take three weeks. And right now, Israel does not have enough forces in Gaza. It will have to call in the reserves again, the same reserves that the early discharge, you want to call them again.

This is also a process that takes time. Right now they have in Gaza something like between three to four brigades. This is not close to enough the number of soldiers you need for such an operation, so I think, you know, Netanyahu talks a lot about an operation in Rafah. It could happen down the line, but I think that right now what you see when he speaks about it is mainly a way to both pressure Hamas, to agree to better terms in a hostage deal, and also to pressure Biden and the Qatari and the Egyptian mediators to put more pressure on Hamas to compromise.

REID: But do you think that Rafah operations could be a breaking point for Netanyahu's popularity, both in his own country and around the world?

RAVID: Well, you know, in Israel, the majority of Israelis have no problem with an operation in Rafah. Around the world it's a totally different or maybe totally opposite picture. I, you know, at least from what I hear from U.S. officials, if Israel goes into Rafah in a way that is not at least without showing the Biden administration a credible plan to protect civilians there, and honestly I haven't met one U.S. official that thinks that such a plan is even possible. OK?

So I think this will get us to a real showdown between Netanyahu and Biden, between the U.S. and Israel, and will just I think exacerbate the current crisis Netanyahu is already in with the Biden administration.

[18:25:08]

REID: Let's talk about the Biden-Netanyahu relationship. Where do you see that going forward?

RAVID: Nowhere good. I mean, I think it's obvious that, you know, those two have known each other for 40 years. Sometimes when you know each other for 40 years it doesn't mean a good thing, OK, because you know exactly when he's trying to manipulate you, when he's trying to fool you. It works both ways, by the way. So I think right now those two leaders who know each other very well know that, you know, they're not in good terms. And the differences between them are wide and the gaps are huge.

And if there is a hostage deal, I think maybe there is some sort of a way they can, you know, I don't know, mend the relations, but if there's no hostage deal and Netanyahu goes in operation Rafah this will be a total break between those two.

REID: Barak Ravid, thank you.

RAVID: Thank you very much.

REID: And former president Trump is once again putting Republicans on the defensive as they're being asked over and over to say whether they agree with Trump who said some migrants aren't people, and that the country's auto industry would face a, quote, "bloodbath" if he loses in November.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:58]

REID: Tonight, Republicans find themselves answering questions about one man and one man only, Donald Trump. The Sunday shows were filled with questions about two eye-catching comments Trump made last night. In one, Trump said migrants are not people and in the other he painted a dark future for the country if he does not win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line and you're not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole -- that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Here to talk about that and much more Democratic strategist Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Alice Stewart. Both CNN political commentators and co-host of the podcast "Hot Mikes from Left to Right."

Thank you for being with us. All right. Alice, I want to start with you. The Trump campaign says the bloodbath comment was just about the auto industry. Your reaction?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I believe it. Look, you have to look at -- there are several definitions of bloodbath, but one of the definitions of the word bloodbath is a period of disastrous loss or reversal. That phrase is used all the time. We're talking about the economy or the stock market. That's the context I truly believe he was using in this case. He's talking in Detroit, he's talking about the auto industry, and he was making the case, and of course, I'm not surprised Democrats took it out of context.

He's making the case of what -- about China and if they're going to build huge manufacturing facilities in Mexico and think they're going to send these -- sell these cars up in America. If he's president, there will be a 100 percent tariff and they are not going to have the economic result that they are currently getting with the Biden administration. And also the campaign made the point quite accurately that Joe Biden's electric vehicle mandates are killing the American manufacturing industry and they're making the case that under the Biden administration, that's not great news for the auto manufacturing industry, and that's an accurate statement.

REID: Maria.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Bless your heart, Alice.

(LAUGHTER)

CARDONA: Look. Of course I don't buy it. And what Alice is saying reflects every single kind of pretzel that Republicans are bending themselves into, trying to dismiss it, spin it, or try to embrace it. But the fact of the matter is, Paula, Donald Trump has a history of this dark, violent dangerous rhetoric, and we already saw the result of what happens when he uses that rhetoric, because even though every single Republican that is asked is going to try to spin it and pretend that it really had nothing to do with a real bloodbath his cult MAGA supporters and followers totally know exactly what he was telling them.

They demonstrated that on January 6th and the only thing that Trump said is come to the capital. It's going to be wild. We have to take back our country. Imagine what will happen when he loses after Trump says things like it's going to be a bloodbath if I lose. That is dangerous. It's irresponsible, and he should not get away with it. And certainly Republicans should not be trying to dismiss it.

REID: But even answering questions like this cannot be helpful for Republicans in terms of their own election prospects.

STEWART: No, and this is -- many in the liberal media would rather focus on this than talk about the -- how poorly the economy is and how bad things are at the border, and how public safety is not good in many cities across the country. And, you know, my dear friend Maria, I do have to push back on the fact that what is dangerous is when Democrats take things out of context.

He was talking about the auto industry. He wasn't talking about January 6th. And believe me I have been --

CARDONA: He said our country.

STEWART: You and I --

CARDONA: We heard it.

STEWART: We have had many conversations. I disagree with everything he had to do with January 6th and questioning the integrity of our election. But in this context, that's not what he was talking about.

CARDONA: But, Alice, do you really think that his followers, even -- let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say, OK, what you are saying is what he meant.

[18:35:01]

You know his followers are not going to take it that way. He, as a prospective president, should understand that. This is where the massive failure is for him and for Republican followers and elected officials who understand just how dangerous that is.

REID: All right, let's go to the other comment that he made that has a lot of people talking. He was quoted a lot about talking about migrants. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If I had prisons that were teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they've got to take care of for the next 50 years, right? Young people, they're in jail for years. If you call them people, I don't know if you call them people. In some cases they're not people in my opinion. These are animals. OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Maria, I want to start with you this time. Your reaction.

CARDONA: That is again, par for the course, for Donald Trump, who was the most anti-Latino, anti-immigrant, xenophobic president that we have had in history. He's doubling down on that kind of anti-immigrant xenophobia. This isn't the only thing he says about immigrants. He thinks my blood, the blood of my family and my community poison this country. That is something that Democrats are absolutely going to use to continue to make the contrast between what Joe Biden has done as he gets up every day fighting for the Latino community and what Donald Trump has done and has said he will double down on.

Ripping babies from the arms of their mothers, mass deportation camps, similar to Operation Wetback, those are not things that are good for the Latino community and disastrous for the country. And we will continue to make that contrast.

REID: Alice?

STEWART: I will agree with Maria on a part of what she's saying in terms of the language and the rhetoric that he's using in this example. It's just not necessary, and he can make the case which he has been doing based on the facts alone. He can make the case that we need to do something about the border based on the fact that Joe Biden has not done anything.

Right out of the gate Biden comes in and reverses Trump policies, the Remain in Mexico, as well as building the wall, and what has happened three years later, people across the country are saying, we have a massive migrant surge at the border and something must be done. Democrats in large cities, New York, Chicago, Denver are saying, Mr. President, you need to do something about the crisis the border.

So I do think that President Trump, former President Trump can make the argument for his policies with immigration and securing the border are much better for this country than Biden's. And it doesn't necessarily need to have such toxic language.

CARDONA: See, this is why we have our podcast.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: And I love the unifying factor here, is a love of St. Patrick's Day.

CARDONA: Happy St. Patrick's Day.

REID: Ladies, thank you so much for joining us.

CARDONA: Thanks, Paula.

STEWART: Thanks, Paula.

REID: And FOX News now facing yet another potentially explosive lawsuit with a network accused of putting a TV crew in danger shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and getting two people killed in the process.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:42:39] REID: FOX News is being sued by the family of a Ukrainian journalist who was killed in an attack while working for the network. The lawsuit accuses FOX of negligence, claiming the network sent a team of journalists into a Ukrainian combat zone despite numerous warnings to stay away. In a statement, FOX News has called the allegations, quote, "false."

And this is just one of the media story from the past week that I want to discuss with our senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy.

All right, Oliver, this is a significant development for any organization, is sending people into a war zone and being sued. But this story hasn't gotten much coverage. Why do you think that is?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was a real tragedy, Paula, when it happened back in March, 2022. FOX News had sent a crew of three members with Ukrainian forces embedding in Ukraine and they came under fire from Russian artillery and two of the three crew members unfortunately, tragically, they lost their lives. A third correspondent, Benjamin Hall, was seriously wounded before being taken to rescue.

But now the family of one of these perished crew members, a producer, a contractor I should say, Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, they're suing FOX News and they're saying that the network didn't take proper precautions before sending this crew into harm's way. In fact, they're accusing the network of reckless and negligent conduct, saying effectively that they had been warned, do not go into this area, that the security consultants that FOX News had paid had specifically said that they should not go into this area and that they proceeded in doing so.

As you pointed out, FOX News, they put out a statement responding to this lawsuit. They said that while they continue to grieve the loss of those crew members who lost their lives, they will defend against what they referred to as inaccurate claims.

REID: Interestingly, switching gears, the family of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now asking that her name be removed from a leadership award after the award committee announced this year's winners include Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk. But this is raising some eyebrows. What's your reaction to all this?

DARCY: Well, I mean, it's very strange to see an award associated with the late liberal Justice Ginsburg being given to, you know, right-wing media moguls Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch, who obviously controls FOX News.

[18:45:13]

And the family is equally taken aback and they want this award to no longer have Justice Ginsburg's name attached. They're not affiliated with this award and so they want this to be stripped of her name because they obviously do not agree that this represents her legacy or the things that she stood for, which of course includes social progress and things that I think it's fair to say that don't align with the FOX News or Elon Musk vision.

The family said that this award has strayed far from their original mission and what Justice Ginsburg has stood for. So we'll see if this award eventually loses her name. But I think very strange for most people to see it affiliated with Ginsburg and then being given to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch.

REID: Strange indeed. Oliver Darcy, thank you.

The next hour, the son of Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins us to discuss the family's opposition to this year's honorees.

And gangs in Haiti continued to intercept badly needed aid being sent to the country as the recent surge in violence pushes Haiti into crisis with citizens taking their safety into their own hands. Our David Culver join us live from Port-au-Prince ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:15]

REID: Incredible oozing lava is prompting a state of emergency tonight in some communities in Iceland. A coast guard helicopter capturing stunning aerial footage of the smoke and bright orange lava flowing north toward a nearby town, including a local power plant as well as the world-famous Blue Lagoon. Saturday's eruption came with little warning. It's the fourth such eruption in three months. And scientists say it's the most powerful yet.

People in nearby towns have been told they must leave their homes as the lava burns up everything in its path. Local authorities say efforts to stop the lava from entering communities are working so far and that so far the lava flow has been thankfully slow and steady. So far no flights have been reported as disrupted from Iceland's main airport.

And later tonight in a new episode of "THE UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL," Jake Tapper sits down with Jim McGreevey, the former golden boy of New Jersey politics, who became a national icon when in one speech he both came out as gay and resigned the governorship. And there's even more to this complicated story.

Jake Tapper joins us now with a preview.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Paula. Tonight we're examining the story of former Democratic New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, who came out as gay, admitted to having had a gay affair and resigned from office all in one breathtaking press conference back in 2004. Here's what Governor McGreevey told me about the moment in his life that he realized in order to succeed in politics and in life, he was going to have to hide from the world who he really was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Governor, thanks so much for doing this. JIM MCGREEVEY (D), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: It's a pleasure.

TAPPER: So your story is so interesting because you were living a lie, the secret life. How did you justify this to yourself? Was this just, well, this is what gay men have to do? And I just have to pretend to be something else and lots of other gay men are in politics pretending like --

MCGREEVEY: You know, they didn't wake up and say, you know, I'm going to be deceptive for the sake of deceiving. I'm going to create this whole double ledger. No, I didn't make that decision prior to gubernatorial campaign. I made it -- I got seven or eight years old. I can remember this as if it were yesterday. I go to my local public library and I'm pulling out the card catalog, looking for the word homosexuality, and it said underneath see psychiatric illness.

And it was just like, whoa, this thing, at least then in America called gay wasn't a good thing. I realized at that point in time that life is going to be a very painful trajectory if I own this and you just try to make an accommodation albeit an unhealthy accommodation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now after the press conference, the news media was quick to embrace the headline about his declaring himself a gay American. But tonight we're going to dig a little deeper into the scandal and the allegations of corruption and nepotism that consumed in McGreevey's administration and also contributed to his fall from grace -- Paula.

REID: Thanks, Jake.

An all-new episode of "THE UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

And Russian president Vladimir Putin is calling for national unity as he looks to tighten his grip on the country following his very much expected election win of another six-year presidential term, securing his power until 2030. And what he said tonight, about the death of his fiercest critic.

[18:55:02]

We're back in a moment.

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REID: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington.

Tonight, Russian president Vladimir Putin is calling for national Russian unity after polls closed in a three-day presidential election. With no genuine opponent running against him on the ballot, Putin is expected to win.