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CNN This Morning
Uncertainty Looms Over Russia; Pill to Help Weight Loss. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired June 26, 2023 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:33:55]
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CHRISTINE DAWOOD, HUSBAND AND SON DIED ON TITAN SUBMERSIBLE: When we passed the 96 hour mark, that's when I lost hope. And that's when - when I even then sent a message to my family on shore. I said, I am preparing for the worst.
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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: That is a woman, a wife, a mother, she lost both her son and her husband in the Titan submersible tragedy last week, reflecting on the agony of waiting for the news of their death. Suleman and Shahzada Dawood died in that sub when it catastrophically imploded.
Christine Dawood told the BBC news that she was supposed to go on that expedition to see the sunken Titanic but her son was so excited she let him take her place.
Meantime, the Coast Guard announced it's leaving the investigation into what caused the implosion that killed all five people on board.
Our national correspondent, Miguel Marquez, joins us live from St. John's in Newfoundland.
Miguel, what else do we know about this investigation?
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's going to be a lot of investigating of this incident. I do want to point out, Poppy, that the ship that Christine Dawood and the Titan was on is now ported and docked at its home port outside of horizon maritime offices here.
[06:35:07]
It was across the harbor at a coast guard port for the weekend where they collected evidence. The Canadian coast guard collected evidence and took some statements.
There are as many as six different inquiries and investigations into this incident. The U.S. Coast Guard has announced its own investigation, a marine board investigation, the highest level investigation it can do. The TSB, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board, has an investigation it has started. The National Transportation Safety Board of the U.S. has started an investigation. The French and British marine accident agencies have started investigations into this. And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the sort of national police of Canada, says it will look to see if there were any laws broken or anything criminal with regard to this incident.
So, this is going to be discussed and coordinated with -- against -- with all of these agencies on an international basis going forward.
The first part of that started this weekend with the Canadian Transportation Safety Board taking statements from people who were on that ship behind me, getting the data recorders, getting any video, any audio, and any data that they can from that sub to the ship so that they can begin that investigation, and quite likely share it with other agencies worldwide to look into not only how this happened, why it happened, but also going forward is, are there ways to prevent this? Especially the U.S. Coast Guard interested in that. They spent the money, they said, to pay for it all and will pay for it all, as they do with every one of these situations, but now they have to figure out whether there's ways to avoid these sort of situations.
Back to you.
HARLOW: Yes, ever happening again.
Miguel, really appreciate the continued reporting from you up there. Thank you.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Wagner group's weekend rebellion in Russia showing clear cracks in Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power. How Ukrainian forces might be adjusting their war strategy in response. That's coming up next.
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[06:41:22]
MATTINGLY: This is a video of a Russian military plane that was reportedly shot down by the Wagner group in southern Russia. Russian state media reports that several helicopters and military communications planes were brought down during that brief 36-hour rebellion. Yevgeny Prigozhin, who apparently struck a deal to leave Russia for Belarus, well, he has not been seen yet.
Want to go back to Major Mike Lyons. I think one of the things we're trying to figure out right now is, what actually happens to Prigozhin's forces, to the Wagner group that has been so critical for Russia's efforts up to this point?
MAJOR MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED): Yes, all we know that they -- they were here, Rostov-on-Don. Where they started their insurgency, where their mutiny got to a certain spot up - up along the road and threatened Moscow. But now we really don't know what's going to make of them, that they have great equipment, they've got great tanks, they have planes, they have - they have to be fed, they have to be watered. So, we're not really sure what happens. I don't see them joining the regular Russian forces in Ukraine, or in -- on those front lines there. These are not those kind of troops. They're not interested in getting anymore into the fight. They've been out of Bakhmut, this area here, they've been out of there for about six to eight weeks right now. So, they haven't been in the fight for that long.
MATTINGLY: Which is an important point. People associate them with Bakhmut because of their very outsized role in that long-running battle, yet they have been pulled back.
What does this mean for Ukrainian forces on the ground right now?
LYONS: So, I think Ukrainian forces have to do two things. Number one, get as much intelligence from the west as they possibly can to find out where these cracks are in these - in these places, where - where specifically along this line here, where they could find areas that they can exploit. There's significant bands of defensive operations there with mines, with trenches, all the things. We - they're going to need likely more equipment, things to help them clear there. But they've got to find out where those weak spots are and make sure that they can exploit them because they don't have air superiority.
They're doing a counteroffensive very much hamstrung. They need -- and then the second - the second thing is, bring in more of those western tanks and that equipment that's going to help their troops survive. Survivability of their forces right now is number one. They don't want to do it, make the mistake Russia did by putting their troops in harm's way unnecessarily.
MATTINGLY: OK, we're going to keep this conversation going. You and I are going to walk back to the desk. Don't trip. But Poppy and our experts are still with us right now because we're still -
HARLOW: Don't trip. That's usually my job. You guys are going to be fine.
MATTINGLY: Um -
MATTINGLY: Can I (ph)?
HARLOW: Yes, it says Phil.
MATTINGLY: Oh, it does. All right. Sweet.
So, we're bringing back in Kim and David, Major Lyons is still with us right now.
David, we -- we flicked at it towards the end a couple minutes ago. The two Russian defense leaders that have become the arch nemesis of Yevgeny Prigozhin over the course of the last several months. It has been a shocking several months of him repeatedly going onto social media and just eviscerating the two most powerful military leaders in Vladimir Putin's military. What happens to them now?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Really great question because we don't know what was in that deal that got Prigozhin to turn around. And maybe it was that they get ousted.
So, the first question was, why did Putin put up with this?
MATTINGLY: Right.
SANGER: I mean people who go on and put a blog on or a telegram message out critical of Vladimir Putin get, you know, thrown in the gulag and we don't hear about them for a long time.
Prigozhin was on every single day beating up on these guys.
HARLOW: Yes.
SANGER: Saying they were incompetent. Saying they're corrupt. Basically suggesting he should have their job. Ad Putin put up with it until this weekend when suddenly he calls him a traitor.
The second interesting question is, if he - if Putin does replace Shoigu, the defense minister, or Gerasimov, the somewhat famed commander of the military, who does he put in his place and do they have a strategy that's any better than the one that they've been executing on so far?
[06:45:13]
And it's not clear to me that either of those, you know, applies at this point.
Gerasimov, particularly important. He's the one who laid out the nuclear strategy for employment of nuclear weapons by Russia back in 2020 and earlier than that. And, of course, one of the potential uses of a preemptive nuclear weapon is if the regime appears threatened. We've never seen that until this weekend.
KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Shoigu was more likely to be a fall guy because he doesn't have the military pedigree that Gerasimov has.
In terms of answering your question of why did Putin let Prigozhin mouth off like this day after day after day, I think Putin is self- aware enough to understand he's only getting the - the best news from his hierarchy. And Prigozhin was a useful tool for all this time to nag his commanders. Prigozhin, he might have thought, was giving him the real truth of what was happening on the battlefield.
HARLOW: He praised Prigozhin a month ago, right, for Bakhmut?
DOZIER: But - but finally the bosses of the military won Putin over and said, he's too much of a wildcard, which is why they said, OK, Wagner has to be brought under our control. Yes, everyone in Wagner has to sign a contract by July 1st. You're going under the military's command now. And that's what Wagner -- that's what Prigozhin rebelled against because it also meant surely they get a cut of what has been billions going to him.
SANGER: Let's remember their relationship is really deep, Prigozhin and Putin.
HARLOW: Oh, yes.
SANGER: Prigozhin began as a caterer, right?
HARLOW: Thus the name Putin's chef.
SANGER: Putin's chef. The only time I ever saw him live was at a summit meeting that George W. Bush went to in St. Petersburg. And he was there making the dinner as they were all floating down the river. Happier times.
HARLOW: You actually saw him making the dinner?
SANGER: Actually -- we saw him serving.
HARLOW: Oh, wow.
SANGER: And you've seen photographs of that.
But the -- the fascinating thing is, he then went on to run the internet research agency -- we all forget this -- and was critical to the effort to manipulate the 2016 election.
HARLOW: That's right.
SANGER: So, he's been there to solve a lot of problems.
LYONS: And to Kim's point before, he's the every man soldier. A soldier looks at him, he endures the hardship, he dresses up, he's got -- he's on social media. He's out there.
HARLOW: Yes.
LYONS: If you're in the fox hole, you look at your leadership and you go, are they doing the same thing I'm doing? He does. And I think that's what gives him legitimacy, which is why they've got to be concerned about these 25,000 Wagner forces out there.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Well, and you're looking at the video right now, is when they were leaving Rostov-on-Don.
LYONS: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And people were clapping and celebrating and cheering.
HARLOW: Yes.
LYONS: Right. MATTINGLY: And that's -- I mean -
HARLOW: And he's smiling a bit there as well.
MATTINGLY: There's a populous element of this that Putin has to be cognizant of, right?
LYONS: Right.
HARLOW: That is such a good point.
Stay with us, guys, we're going to continue to follow all of these stunning developments in Russia, but also this news. A new daily diet pill showing weight loss results that rival the injectable drugs, like Ozempic. How does it work, next.
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[06:52:24]
HARLOW: This is a story that has everyone buzzing this morning. I've already gotten many text messages about it when we teased it at the top of the show. An experimental pill could help people lose weight about as effectively as popular shots, like Wegovy and Ozempic. A new study found that this pill, it's from the drug maker Eli Lilly, helped users lose an average of 15 percent of their body weight in just three months.
CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is here.
You know I worry, of course, when I hear quick fix. So, this is good, same side effects as the shot, what do we know?
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so right now the available drugs are all self-injectables given once a week. So, Wegovy is the only one actually approved for weight loss. Ozempic is the same drug but approved for type two diabetes. And these -- you have to give them as shots.
And so there is a new class of drugs that's coming along in development where you take a daily pill and it essentially does the same thing. And in this new data that we're seeing from a diabetes conference over the weekend, they're actually yielding the same amount of weight loss as Wegovy, about 15 percent. And this was a study over 36 weeks. And people started out an average of 240 pounds on the study. And so, on the highest dose, that was an average weight loss of 36 pounds over 36 weeks.
HARLOW: That's great.
TIRRELL: Yes. But as you mentioned, the side effects. You know, we know that the side effects for Ozempic and Wegovy can be pretty bad, nausea, constipation, vomiting, things like that. And these pills are similar. What they find is that when you're dosing up to start the drug, you start at a low dose and you go to a higher one, that's when you really experience the side effects. And so the hope is that you can kind of figure out a way to do that where you don't feel quite as bad when you're taking them.
MATTINGLY: Can I ask the question that I've always had, which is, I feel like these drugs were created for people with health risks, for people with diabetes. This has become a very popular fad type of deal, name your TV show or reality show and everybody seems to be on it.
HARLOW: Name your celeb.
MATTINGLY: Is - name your celeb. It is -- is this moving towards that? Is that the kind of end-game goal here from a market perspective, or is it still supposed to be focused on those who have health issues and need it?
TIRRELL: Well, the companies are very specific that they are only targeting the drug toward the FDA approved indications, type two diabetes or for people with obesity. And there's actually a trial that is expected to have results this summer showing that -- the hope is that this can actually reduce heart attacks and strokes in people who don't have diabetes as well.
HARLOW: Yes.
TIRRELL: But there is a fear that this will start to be used, especially in pill form, for people who may not need it.
MATTINGLY: Are the companies afraid of that?
TIRRELL: Well, afraid is one question. You know, it's probably not that it's used too widely.
MATTINGLY: Got it.
HARLOW: Profit. Profit.
TIRRELL: Yes.
HARLOW: But also some potentially other good side effects, like helping people stop drinking, the things we were talking about with you a few weeks ago.
TIRRELL: Yes.
HARLOW: Stop addictive behaviors. So, may be a huge game changer on a lot of fronts.
[06:55:03]
TIRRELL: For sure.
HARLOW: Meg, thank you very much.
TIRRELL: Thanks.
MATTINGLY: All right, we're following - continuing to follow the news out of Russia. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin may be banished to Belarus, but how did his march to Moscow affect Putin's grip on power? Our experts are standing by in studio to break it down for us, coming up next.
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MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, more than 90 million people, mostly on the East Coast, are under severe storm alerts. In southern Indiana, or tornado, you can see right here, ripped through neighborhoods and damaged at least 75 homes according to officials there.
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At least one person has been killed in the area.
The storm's also leaving hundreds of thousands without power in the Midwest and the south.
