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CNN This Morning
Storms In New York City Area Force Flights To Be Canceled; As Storms Hit The East Coast, More Flight Are Delayed; GA Secretary Of State Will Speak With Federal Investigators Today; Giuliani Questioned By DOJ During Its Investigation Into The 2020 Election; Trump Responds To Tape: "I Did Nothing Wrong"; Interview With Former New York Congressman Max Rose (D); Revolt In Russia; NYT: Russian General Knew About Rebellion Plans; Trump And DeSantis Trade Shots In New Hampshire Showdown; Missile Strike In Ukrainian City Results In 10 Deaths And 61 Injuries. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired June 28, 2023 - 06:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF CORRESPONDENT AND CNN ANCHOR, EARLY START: All right. A New practice is coming to Children at New York public schools. This falls students from pre-K through 12th grade will be required two to five minutes of mindful breathing practices. Mayor Eric Adams says the new program's intended to improve student's physical and mental health.
Thanks for joining me. I'm Christine Romans. "CNN This Morning" starts right now.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN THIS MORNING CO-ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're with us. Another busy morning on a lot of fronts.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
HARLOW: And a lot of people stuck in airports.
MATTINGLY: Which I think would be a huge problem because it's a big travel weekend --
HARLOW: It's a huge travel week.
MATTINGLY: -- and week coming up. So, we're going to get into all of that and a lot more. Also, breaking news -- some exclusive breaking news from CNN, Trump investigations --
HARLOW: That's exactly right.
MATTINGLY: -- seems like a daily thing at this point.
HARLOW: That's exactly right. We'll get to that.
So, let's get started today with five things to know for this Wednesday, June 28th. Hours from now, investigators are going to interview Georgia's secretary of state as part of this federal probe into 2020 election interference. CNN has learned that fierce Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani, was also recently interviewed by the feds in the same case. Donald Trump, this morning, with a new defense about the audio of him talking about those secret documents.
MATTINGLY: And a senior Russian general reportedly knew about the plans to march on Moscow and rebel against Russia's leadership. Now, new questions over how much support Yevgeny Prigozhin may have garnered within the top ranks.
HARLOW: Gridlock plaguing the East Coast as powerful storms rip through the country. The FAA implementing multiple ground stops leaving thousands of travelers stranded.
MATTINGLY: And Canada on fire. This morning, America blanketed in smoke. We've seen it before, we're seeing it again, from the Great Lakes to the northeast, tens of millions are under air quality alerts.
HARLOW: Also this, Ryan Seacrest takes the wheel. Literally. He will step in to Pat Sajak's shoes as the host of "Wheel of Fortune" starting next year.
"CNN This Morning" starts right now.
MATTINGLY: Ryan Seacrest has literally a million jobs.
HARLOW: I know. And he's so good at all of them. I love this.
MATTINGLY: Super annoying. I'm glad that you're like --
HARLOW: What? Are you jealous?
MATTINGLY: Kind of, yes. It's -- I'd like to do "Wheel of Fortune." It seems like a good job.
HARLOW: Thanks so much.
MATTINGLY: We'll hang out here, though.
HARLOW: You don't want to sit here with me --
MATTINGLY: No, I'm --
HARLOW: -- at 6:00 in the morning?
MATTINGLY: Stop. My favorite part of the day.
HARLOW: I can understand -- I'm glad my husband is traveling. I'm glad he flew out on Monday and he's back Friday because what a nightmare.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And it just -- it feels like it developed very, very quickly --
HARLOW: Totally.
MATTINGLY: -- and a huge problem that we're going to get into right away. This morning, that travel chaos continues at airports across the nation with a crushing wave of flight delays and cancellations right before that busy July 4th weekend. Severe storms and staffing shortages have created a nightmare since Saturday. This morning, more than 1,000 flights are already delayed or canceled. Across the country, we're seeing scenes like this, at the Newark, New Jersey airport where people have been stranded for days, sleeping on cots, sleeping on the floor. The misery became even worse last night when thunderstorms forced ground stops at Newark and two other major airports in the New York City area.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were a lot of kids. They didn't have no pampers. Like I said, long lines. Kids that were crying, sleeping on the floor. Old people too, sleeping on the floor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's elderly couples behind me and like, these people can barely walk and now they're standing in line for 10 hours. So, now we're going to drive to Minneapolis because they can't get us out until Friday at the earliest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are people sleeping in cots. There are openly, like, weeping at, like, cafe tables. You know, it's like -- it's a human tragedy, really.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: In total, this week, roughly 34,000 flights, that's a huge number of flights that have been delayed. More than 7,000 canceled.
Jason Carroll live at LaGuardia Airport, New York. Jason, good morning to you. One of three airports, you've got Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, huge airports, they all had ground stops last night. What a mess.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a total mess. And here's how I would sum things up, just about half hour ago, I spoke to a family right here at this terminal. They were supposed to take a flight to Florida on Spirit Air. They came here this morning, all excited, and were told that their flight was canceled. They would not be able to get another flight until July 3rd, their holiday ruined. And that is the scenario being played out over and over all across the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL (voiceover): Air travel to the three major New York metro airports grinding to a halt Tuesday night, putting a huge strain on domestic air travel right on the brink of the 4th of July holiday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They pulled us back to the gate and said everybody off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No sleep. It's certainly been a test of patience.
CARROLL (voiceover): The FAA says a ground stop for all flights going to all three airports is due to the thunderstorms in the New York area blocking arrival and departure routes.
[06:05:00]
This video shot by one passenger arriving in New York, Monday night, shows the severity of those storms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm traveling to Maine for a work trip, and unfortunately every flight just has been delayed. I don't even have my luggage. It's been over two days and I still haven't even seen Maine.
CARROLL (voiceover): The problem started days ago when storms hit near major airline hubs in the mid-Atlantic and east coast. That coupled with air traffic control staffing shortages, created a ripple effect nationwide. On Tuesday, more than 7,000 flights were delayed and more than 2,000 canceled. On Monday, nearly 9,000 flights were delayed nationwide.
CROWD: Where is the manager?
CARROLL (voiceover): The frustration is palpable at Newark and LaGuardia Airports.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, five hours on the plane, took us off. Pilots timed out. Two more crew members timed out. Started pushing back each flight 45 minutes, 45 minutes, 45 minutes. Lost another pilot to time out. Finally, canceled the flight around 7:30.
CARROLL (voiceover): Passengers were subjected to impossibly long lines and were left desperately trying to rebook flights with few options.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our rebooking that they gave us by default is for, like, July 2nd.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and our flight also got canceled. We're talking to some other passengers, they're saying that even when they tried to book it, all filled.
CARROLL (voiceover): The whole process leaving this passenger defeated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have planned these vacations for like a long time. It's been a long couple of days.
CARROLL (voiceover): Many passengers angry with the airlines for not offering more support, particularly United Airlines, which saw the most delays.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never fly with United again.
CARROLL (voiceover): United Airlines' CEO Scott Kirby blamed the FAA for the delays. Saying in a memo to staff, the FAA failed us this weekend.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CARROLL: And so, the question now is when will the FAA and these airlines get back on track? The weather is supposed to be better tomorrow and Friday, that will certainly help. But airline industry experts are recommending that anyone who is scheduled to travel over the next few days, call your carrier first. Guys, back to you.
HARLOW: Sure. Jason Carroll, thank you very much.
Well, this morning, we're tracking really significant developments in two federal investigations into Former President Donald Trump. There are new signs that prosecutors are nearing charging decisions in the 2020 election interference probe. Hours from now, Special Counsel Jack Smith's team will speak with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for the first time. Of course, Raffensperger is a huge part of this. He's a Republican who pushed back vociferously against Trump and famously when Trump demanded this.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: That sound will never not be surreal. We also have exclusive new CNN reporting that federal investigators interviewed Rudy Giuliani as part of the same investigation. Multiple sources telling CNN that the meeting took place in recent weeks, but declined to say what specifically investigators focused on in the interview. This comes as there are new developments in the classified documents case. Former President Trump now trying out new defenses after CNN obtained the actual 2021 audio of him seeming to show off documents' he called secret.
I want to bring in CNN's Sara Murray. And, Sara, you broke the Giuliani news. You have been all over all the different elements --
HARLOW: This is what Sara Murray does.
MATTINGLY: This is what she does, she just breaks news. It's actually, kind of, annoying to compete against to some degree even as a guy.
HARLOW: He's jealous of Ryan Seacrest this morning --
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: -- and Sara Murray's reporting.
MATTINGLY: Well, I kind of frame them in the same way in terms of talent level. But -- so, the election interference, I want to start there. The meetings that we've seen, and I think the developments that lead, I think, a lot of people to think something is coming in terms of a potential indictment. What do we know right now?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think what we've seen is a very steady stream of witnesses going before the grand jury, but also investigators calling these people in for interviews, some new witnesses that they had never talked to before. And it is, as sources familiar with the investigation say, we do appear to be getting closer to some kind of charging decisions. Again, we don't know what that will look like.
I mean, in the case of Rudy Giuliani, this is really interesting because he's, obviously, a prominent figure who is around Donald Trump around the 2020 election. He was subpoenaed months and months ago for information about the payments that he received around 2020, and it's only recently that he went in and he talked to federal investigators. We don't know exactly what investigators asked him about, but we do know that other witnesses have been asked about what Former Trump attorneys were up to who were spreading election lies.
We also know that prosecutors have been very focused recently on this fake elector scheme, and that Rudy Giuliani was at -- played a key role in overseeing these fake electors across seven battleground states.
[06:10:00]
So, again, it's sort of hard to know exactly what is happening here in the, sort of, late stages, but it does feel like we are in the late stages of this investigation for Jack Smith around January 6th, guys.
HARLOW: What's also really interesting in the other Jack Smith probe on Mar-a-Lago documents, is it -- Trump is now responding to this audio that CNN obtained, right, we played it for everyone this week. And his surprise -- his response, I should say, has been unsurprising.
MURRAY: Yes, I think we've seen Donald Trump offer a lot of different explanations for why he just happened to have all of these classified documents around. Take a listen to his latest explanation for what may have been going on in that audiotape where he seems to be pretty vividly describing a classified document to a bunch of people who don't have security clearances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I had a whole desk full of lots of papers and mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories having to do with many, many subjects. And what was said was absolutely fine and very perfectly. We did nothing wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Trump also said Semafor, it was just bravado and there was no document. But of course, the indictment makes clear. It doesn't say, maybe he showed this document to people. It describes Trump as showing a classified document to people. So, we'll see what other explanations he provides between now and the trial. Guys.
MATTINGLY: Yes, certainly a lot more to come. Sara Murray, thanks so much. HARLOW: Former President Trump did not only speak to Fox, he also spoke to Semafor and ABC News on his plane yesterday. This is how he defended the tape, "I would say it was bravado if you want to know the truth, it was bravado. I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn't have any documents."
Semafor politics reporter Shelby Talcott was on that plane. She joins us along with Max Rose, Former Congressman from New York, and Joey Jackson, our legal analyst and criminal defense attorney.
All right. Shelby, you were on the plane. I was surprised to read Donald Trump describing himself as acting with bravado. But other than that, the response is unsurprising.
SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Yes, and I think the other thing, you played that Fox News clip where he's offering up an explanation of, I just have all of these documents on my desk strewn across. And what was interesting was when we were interviewing him, he had a stack of papers next to him, and it was newspapers, and copies of his speech, and printouts of articles that his aides wanted to make sure they got on his desk. And he took a stack of those, a chunk of those papers, and put them on his desk as he was talking to us. And, kind of, physically demonstrated how he was, look, I was just taking these papers, it was not documents.
One of the notable things is we specifically asked what he meant when he told Fox News that he had plans. And he told us that what he means by plans is, he had golf plans, and he had building plans, and he meant physical plans for the construction of golf courses and buildings.
MATTINGLY: Congressman, you're laughing. I don't understand why that doesn't pass muster.
HARLOW: It doesn't square with you?
MAX ROSE (D), FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN: So -- first of all, this does bring us back in the -- at this point, this guy is collecting indictments like they're Beanie Babies in the '90s. So, it's difficult to sort through everything. But it does also bring us back to what he said after the call regarding Ukraine. It was a perfectly fine phone call. And now he's rolling out that same line here again. But I think we're actually focusing on the wrong line.
He does reconfirm, yet again, that these documents were classified and that he did not have the authority to declassify them. So, let's even assume that he's telling the truth, which he obviously is not. He still says that he has classified documents that we do know the federal government is demanding that he return. And these are not just your run-of-the-mill classified documents. These are the highest level of classification regarding the highest level of military secrets that we have. And if I were his lawyers, and I'd defer it to our legal expert, of course, I'd be cringing that he's still talking about this case in this regard. JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, when you're in a hole you stop digging, right? And the reality is, and what makes lawyers uncomfortable, is that you advise your client not to speak and this is the very reason. You have shifting narratives. You're saying things that ultimately are going to be used against you to bury you. So, you don't do it. I don't mind so much when I -- from a legal perspective when you talk about, you know what, it's a witch hunt and this is outrageous. If it's out of context. But when you start getting into the nitty details it becomes a problem.
The other thing is that, obviously, trials are about narratives, right? And his narrative, which one is it going to be? Is it A, is it B, is it C? We always tell jurors, and this is going to trial, I think we could confidently say, he's not a guy to deal, he's not a guy who wants to take a plea, he's going to assess his innocence. There's a lot of explaining to do.
And when you tell jurors to use your common sense and good judgment, does it comport with reality that you're referring to things that are secret and classified, but they just happened to be newspapers.
[06:15:00]
And then you get on a plane -- excuse me, and you have props next to you, and you explain to media and the press, this is just like it was. It has to pass credibility. The issue is, whether it will do that.
HARLOW: Here is what his Former -- Trump Former Attorney Tim Parlatore in the docs case, by the way, he said to Kaitlan last night, sort of, explaining where he thinks -- I think, Trump defense could go in this. Here he is.
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TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Well, certainly you can hear the rustling of papers there, but as to what he's specifically holding, the tape is, in my opinion, is unclear. And you can -- when you hear the sound of his voice, he does seem to be acting with a bit of bravado and playing to the crowd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Trying to make it, sort of, a gray thing there, not black and white. What I think is interesting, Congressman, is that, you know, your career has been interesting to follow because of your party versus who you represented in your district in New York. A lot of Trump supporters. How do you think this and these varied explanations play with them?
ROSE: That actually depends upon how his opponents in the Republican primary act. And that -- that's why this has been so insane. I mean, they are defying every law of political reality. Imagine in 1999 if George Bush gets caught with classified documents that harm our national security, could we ever imagine John McCain coming to his defense? That would be political malpractice. The more that these opponents in the Republican primary fail to actually say anything, the more actually that the base rallies around Donald Trump because it doesn't seem like he did anything wrong.
You know, the other thing here is that as his base feels as if he is being ganged up on, they do gravitate towards him. That's actually a natural human emotion. And that's why it's so important here, both from the Democratic perspective as well as in this Republican primary, that it'd be established just how serious this is. This isn't a matter of politics, this isn't a matter of morality, this is a matter of national security.
MATTINGLY: Shelby, can you take us inside the plane. I think for a lot of people, the idea of being on a plane with the former president, as he is a -- the leading political candidate in a primary who has just been indicted twice over the course of the last several months, what was the atmosphere on the plane? What was it like talking to him?
TALCOTT: It was -- he was in a very good mood throughout most of the day. He was traveling to New Hampshire, he had two events there. He was received very well. He opened up his volunteer office headquarters in New Hampshire. I was told on the way back if he was in a good mood, he might some play music, and he started doing that.
And then when we sat down for the interview and we started talking about these legal issues, he, at first seemed very interested in playing ball. And wanted to get his message out, and wanted to get his explanation out so much so that at one point he looked at us and he said, are you understanding this? And when he eventually cut the interview short because he didn't like a question and, I think just decided he was done answering the legal questions, he looked at his aides and he said, make sure they get this right.
And so, I think that's notable because even while he is saying he did nothing wrong and this is all a witch hunt, he's also, in some sense, he really wants reporters to get his side of the story out. And he really wants to talk about whatever the latest explanation is.
MATTINGLY: I'm just going to guess that the playlist is the same playlist --
HARLOW: I was just going ask --
TALCOTT: Yes, it was "YMCA" --
MATTINGLY: Were you surprised that we're --
TALCOTT: -- that was one of them.
MATTINGLY: -- like the whole -- yes. We've --
HARLOW: Really?
TALCOTT: Yes.
MATTINGLY: That's tried and true. Rallies. Mar-a-Lago.
TALCOTT: Why break a good thing?
MATTINGLY: Airplane trips. Good thing is one way to describe it.
All right. Guys, stick with us. We're going to come back to all of you. There's many more stories on that front to get to.
But also, this, a senior Russian general reportedly knew about the Wagner group's rebellion plan against Russia's military leadership. So, how much support did Yevgeny Prigozhin actually have inside the top ranks?
HARLOW: Also, Trump and DeSantis attacking one another on the campaign trail. Deepening their rivalry in New Hampshire, that's ahead.
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MATTINGLY: New overnight, the death toll rising after Russian missiles striking a busy city in Ukraine. At least 10 people are dead, including three children and an infant in Kramatorsk. Also, among the fatalities, twin sisters, they were only 14 years old and had just graduated eighth grade. At this hour, at least 61 have been injured as search and rescue operations continue. And that missile attack comes as U.S. officials monitor the uncertainty in Russia after the Wagner group's insurrection this past weekend.
And this is "The New York Times" reports, American intelligence officials indicate that a senior Russian general had advanced knowledge of the group's plans to rebel. The U.S. Officials are working to determine just how much help the Wagner group had from inside Russia's military ranks, including from Russia's top commander in Ukraine.
Joining us now to unpack these developments, CNN Military Analyst and Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel, I appreciate your time. Look, I want to start with the first thing that I thought when I saw this news alert last night, which is this would seem to be a great story for U.S. intelligence to try and get out there to cause some issues within the ranks at a very uncertain moment. I want to get into the details of what this might mean in a minute. But your read on that, whether or not this was an intentional effort to try and drive, I think, more uncertainty at a very uncertain moment in Moscow?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER MEMBER OF JOIN STAFF AT PENTAGON, AND FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR TRAINING, NSA: Yes. Good morning, Phil. I think that's a distinct possibility. You know, what you're looking at here is a very paranoid group of people in Russia and the Russian leadership right now, and this just feeds into that paranoia. And I think it's entirely possible that the leak was done in a way to fuel that paranoia in a, you know, in a very consistent fashion.
MATTINGLY: Now on the actual details itself, the general that was identified in "The New York Times" story is somebody who is known to have a relationship with Yevgeny Prigozhin.
[06:25:00] But he's also, I think, a respected, and to some degree, considered by U.S. officials more -- to be one of the more competent military leaders in what has been a rather incompetent operation over the course of the last year and a half. What's your sense of what this would mean if it is true inside the Russian military leadership?
LEIGHTON: Well, Phil, it would be a real blow to the Russian military leadership because General Surovikin is known not only for his toughness but also for his competence. As you mentioned, he was the one who withdrew Russian forces from the Kherson region before the Ukrainian forces moved into the City of Kherson. So, he was able to accomplish that in spite of shortages, in spite of the problems -- logistic problems especially that the Russian military had. So, General Surovikin is a pretty unique character, brutal but very competent, and certainly respected by his troops.
MATTINGLY: When you --
LEIGHTON: Very similar to Prigozhin in that regard.
MATTINGLY: Right. When you saw -- I think one of the telling things over the weekend is when the general actually had a video, kind of, urging Prigozhin and the Wagner forces to pull back. Sitting there, kind of, with a submachine gun in his lap. And what appeared to, at least to me, to be a little bit of a forces message to some degree. What was your sense when you saw that?
LEIGHTON: Well, I think General Surovikin is a very interesting guy in the sense that he looks to which way the wind was blowing. He, you know, has very astute political antenna. He's had to have that in order to survive the Russian military service that he's had throughout the years. So, when I saw that video, I -- it was very -- my reaction was similar to yours.
I looked at it and thought, yes, there's something not quite right about this. You know, in Surovikin's favor is the fact that that video came out very early in this whole process, basically, Friday morning our time, when we saw it. And that was quite early before the columns of -- from the Wagner group moved up to near Moscow. So, it was pretty clear that Surovikin figured out that this rebellion, this mutiny, wasn't going to succeed. And he put his foot forward in that regard, and it was pretty clear that he wanted to play both sides in this particular issue, I think.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that video coming out before we saw anything from Sergei Shoigu, before we saw anything from Valery Gerasimov, before we really heard anything from President Vladimir Putin. All right. Colonel Cedric Leighton, fascinating story. Thanks so much.
LEIGHTON: You bet, Phil.
MATTINGLY: All right. Haze from Canadian wildfires again worsening air quality here in the U.S. What officials are now warning residents.
HARLOW: Also new this morning, anger in Paris after a teenager was shot dead by police. President Macron calling it unjustified. The incident sparking violence and unrest. We'll tell you more ahead.
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