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CNN This Morning
Travel Misery Mounts Across U.S After Storms Force Ground Stops at Major Airports in Boston, New York City Area; Trump Responds to Tape, I Did Nothing Wrong; 80 Million-Plus Under Air Quality Alerts from Midwest to East Coast. Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired June 28, 2023 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Canceled across the country.
[07:00:01]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was bad. We were frustrated because we've been awake for 24 hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will never fly with United again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The United CEO says the FAA, frankly, failed us this weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have airplanes and crews all over the place and not at the airports they're supposed to be.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: My voice was fine. What did I say wrong in those recordings? All I know is I did nothing wrong.
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: This is another example of Trump's success with flat out lying.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: I think that is part of the mentality in how Republicans stand up for him. They see how he's doing in the polls and they see that he's weathered other scandals.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don't know that answer.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A CNN exclusive, Rudy Giuliani talking to federal prosecutors about attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators have been looking recently into the fake elector scheme, and Giuliani played a role in overseeing these electors around seven battleground states.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Special Counsel Jack Smith's team will talk Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Clearly, there has been an uptick in investigative activity over the past few weeks. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The New York Times is reporting that a senior Russian general had advanced knowledge of Prigozhin's planned rebellion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Times reports that U.S. intelligence is working to determine if General Sergei Surovikin may have had helped in the planning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no doubt that Prigozhin was not alone.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Pop star Jason Derulo joins CNN This Morning with his new book.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the book I say, I believe in you, so you should believe in you as well. I wanted to write this book for those dreamers out there that were very much like myself, that was looking for a way forward.
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HARLOW: I cannot wait for that.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Were you just doing like a shoulder shimmy during that?
HARLOW: Yes. I dance to Jason Derulo. He is like the soundtrack of my 30s, something like that.
MATTINGLY: Well, we're going to talk to him later. He's got a new great book out. But we do want to focus on big news this morning on several fronts, but most importantly, travel. This is a big travel weekend coming up and there is travel chaos mounting at airports across the nation with a crushing wave of flight delays and cancelations before that busy July 4th weekend.
Severe storms and staffing shortages have been creating a nightmare since Saturday. A ground stop just announced at Boston Logan Airport because of thunderstorms. That comes after all flights were halted at all three major airports in the New York City area last night.
Now, this morning, more than 1,500 flights are already delayed or canceled across the country. We're seeing scenes like this one at the airport in Newark where people have been stranded for days, sleeping on cots, sleeping on the floor.
Travelers tell CNN the situation has been desperate.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are people sleeping on cots. There are people like openly weeping at like cafe tables.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do have a lot of kids. They did 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 lines for ten hours?
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HARLOW: In total, this week, about 34,000 flights have been delayed, more than 7,000 canceled.
Let's go to Jason Carroll. He joins us again live this morning at LaGuardia Airport, one of the three big New York area airports that had a ground stop last night. How about this morning?
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, we've seen a couple of planes taking off and landing here at LaGuardia, but there's, Poppy, going to be a lot more of that to make up for what happened out here yesterday and the day before, this as thousands of passengers all over the country are still dealing with severely delayed or canceled flights.
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CARROLL (voice over): 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: Like pulled us back to the gate and said, everybody off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No sleep. It's certainly been a test of patience.
CARROLL: 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.
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 there has been delayed. I don't have my luggage. It's been over two days and I still haven't even seen Maine.
CARROLL: 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.
The frustration is palpable at Newark and LaGuardia airports.
[07:05:00]
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: 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: Our flight also got canceled.
I was talking to some other passengers. They're saying when they tried to book it, all filled.
CARROLL: The whole process leaving this passenger defeated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have planned these vacations for like a long time. Sorry, it's been a long couple days.
CARROLL: 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: United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby blamed the FAA for the delays, saying in a memo to staff, the FAA failed us this weekend.
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CARROLL (on camera): So, what is clear is that it's going to take a little while for this system to right itself. Already this morning, the FAA is reporting that you can expect possible delays in some of the following places, New York City Metro area, Orlando, Boston, Minneapolis and south Florida. Phil?
MATTINGLY: All right. Jason Carroll, long day and week ahead. Thanks so much.
Also this morning, we're tracking very big developments in two federal investigations into former President Donald Trump. There are new signs that prosecutors are nearing charging decisions on the 2020 election interference investigation. That, of course, separate from the documents investigation where indictments are already brought.
Hours from now, Special Counsel Jack Smith's team will speak to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for the first time. Raffensperger is a Republican who pushed back when Trump famously demanded this.
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TRUMP: 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.
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HARLOW: We also have exclusive new CNN reporting that federal investigators interviewed Rudy Giuliani recently as part of the same investigation. Multiple sources tell CNN that the meeting took place sometime in the last few weeks, but they declined to say what specifically investigators focused on in the interview.
This comes as there are new developments in the classified documents case as well. Former President Trump is now trying out a new defense after CNN obtained the 2021 audio of him seeming to show off those documents that he called secret.
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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.
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HARLOW: You heard him talk about plans there. The former president later told Semafor that he was talking about where golf course and building plans that he had were, and he also defended saying this on the audiotape like this, quote, I would say it was bravado, that's how he described it. 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, close quote.
With us, Alyssa Farah Griffin, CNN Political Commentator and former Trump White House Director, Astead Herndon, CNN Political Analyst and National Politics Reporter for The New York Times, and Elie Honig, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Jessica Dean, our Congressional Correspondent. Guys, it's very good to have all of you.
Let's just start under the law. Where would you like to begin?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: My head is spinning from Trump's newest defenses.
HARLOW: Let's begin where we ended on Trump's newest defenses.
HONIG: Yes. They are contradicted by and in serious tension with the tape that we heard. I mean, first of all, golf course plans. He's not talking about --
HARLOW: And building plans.
HONIG: He's not talking about anything to do with golf course or building. You can look at the context of these recordings and see they're very clearly talking about an issue with General Mark Milley, with the plans to attack Iran, nothing to do with golf courses. It's simple it almost sounds silly to rebut it.
The second argument is one that we sort of contemplated, think, yesterday. He may say, I was bluffing. Look, this is what I do. I was shuffling papers around. Again, though, there's a certain tension with what he actually says. He says at one point, look, look here, look at this. So, even if he is bluffing, though, I want to make this point, even if there is document or DOJ cannot recover the document, what he says on the tape is still very important, very relevant to his intent to the fact that he's giving out information that's classified and sensitive.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's a key point right there. Because even if the document wasn't there, if he is talking about and acknowledging the existence of classified plans to strike Iran, that, in and of itself, is a violation of handling classified information. And, I mean, you do hear the papers rustling, so it kind of is hard to believe, and then the aide comes --
[07:10:00]
MATTINGLY: In the Meadows book cites a four-page document that they appear to be discussing in this meeting with the biographers, the ghostwriters.
GRIFFIN: Right. By the way, I was just having advised Trump struck by the fact he's leaning into this, it was just bravado sort of defense now.
HARLOW: That would surprised me too.
GRIFFIN: I would never have been able to convince him to say something like that. It's almost --
MATTINGLY: So, why?
GRIFFIN: He's not somebody who tends to admit fault within his own character or his need especially for -- to look macho and to look powerful and that he's somebody who might feign those things for the way that he's perceived. I was struck by it. It signals to me that his defense team was like, you stepped in it. We have to walk this back so far. This is the only thing he could come up with. He didn't give them a lot of angles to work with.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, listen to them, clearly, which is, according to you, surprising, right?
GRIFFIN: Quite surprising.
DEAN: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Astead, I wanted to ask you, our political director, David Chalian, flagged this for us a couple days ago and I've been fascinated by it, I would never listens to your podcast, personally. But, apparently --
HONIG: I was just (INAUDIBLE) ten minutes. It's really good.
HARLOW: It is good.
MATTINGLY: It's very, very good. But this sound in particular that I want to play and then talk about on the back end. Take a listen.
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PASTOR JESSE NEWMAN, THE RUN-UP PODCAST: You know what, is anyone above the law? No. But there are is some ideals that are above the law. And I think the ideal that we look at our politicians and we go, all right, we're not going to start this back and forth, but we start jailing our political opponents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
NEWMAN: And I think that's where we're headed and that scares me more than whether or not Trump should have given back a piece of paper.
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MATTINGLY: I think that's so critical. First off, ignore the accent, to some degree. That is an evangelical pastor in Iowa.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: In Des Moines, Iowa.
MATTINGLY: In Des Moines, Iowa. But capture something I think is very easy to not understand if you aren't talking to supporters, if you aren't talking to Republican primary voters on the ground, why?
HERNDON: I mean, I think it's the sentiment that really brings people back to Donald Trump, if you're one of those Republican voters. This is a pastor is in suburbs of Des Moines, big evangelical church, and he actually hosted Ron DeSantis a couple of weeks before. He described himself as 51-49 DeSantis over Trump.
But when were asking specifically about the federal indictment, it was the weekend after that, saying, how come that is not itself disqualifying for you, it's because they really see Donald Trump as a figure that has helped pushed them culturally, like a culture warrior, he has done too much for them to really give up is frankly what the pastor was saying. And that he found the kind of what he thought the indictments were doing was kind of a liberal attack on that figure.
And so what he is laying out there is a way to excuse any of the kind of factual claims that come out of these indictments. It did not matter that Donald Trump -- he was kind of acknowledging there the possibility of guilt, the likelihood of guilt. That was irrelevant, frankly, because he felt that what would come after that, that what would bring the next year, with the way it changes the tone of the race, that that inherently should be a higher priority than the facts of the case.
That is one that flies in the face of the rule of law, flies in the face of tradition that we have seen over the years, but for the people who are dyed in the wool kind of Trump culture warriors or even backing someone like DeSantis, who has embraced that type of message, that's where they've landed on this.
HONIG: It's fascinating insight. And I think there's quite a bit of truth in there. I think regardless of what a person did, there will be a natural reluctance, and I'm thinking about this from a jury perspective. There will be a natural reluctance to lock up a former president. And I think that's going to be an issue prosecutors are going to have to deal with, because I think your guest on the podcast really reflects something that a lot of people feel. Again, putting aside the merits of the case which I think are strong, you have to be worried about that if you're the prosecutor on this case.
HARLOW: Someone who seemed worried at least for a few minutes yesterday was Kevin McCarthy. Here's what he said.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could he win an election?
MCCARTHY: Can he win that election? Yes, he can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think he can?
MCCARTHY: The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don't know that answer. But can anybody beat Biden? Yes, anybody can beat Biden. Can Biden beat other people? Yes, Biden can beat them. It's on any given day.
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HARLOW: What's so striking aside from the fact that he said that, Joe Kernen didn't ask him if he's strongest. Kevin McCarthy offered that up as part of the answer.
DEAN: It is so striking. And it's the first time we've heard him kind of open up in that way. And, look, Trump and his allies sincerely believe that they helped hand Kevin McCarthy the gavel, the speaker's gavel. Remember, let us go back to January when it was vote after vote and they were twisting arms. They really believe like he owes them. And he's been pretty in lockstep with them for all of it.
So, to hear this yesterday, I think it caught a lot of people's attention. It certainly caught the Trump campaign's attention, the former president's attention, but I think it also caught the attention of the rest of the 2024 field.
As I was a little bit saying earlier, they are waiting for cover. They are waiting for the rest of let's call it the establishment, but we're not using it in the traditional sense, but the House speaker, people on the Hill, you know, Trump still has such a lock, especially on the House side, with the House GOP. And they are waiting for a break there, all of those candidates, where they can get a little light, a little light between the house GOP and Trump and even some people in the Senate.
[07:15:07]
The Senate -- you know, you hear more from GOP senators. They're clearly ready. A lot of them like Tim Scott. They know him very well. They're ready for somebody else, more so on that side than they would be in the House. It was interesting to hear that, and then to see how quickly he started to kind of walk back. MATTINGLY: What do we have, like three and a half hours? And it wasn't like a step by step. It was a straight up hammer, like whatever light I showed, closed the window immediately.
DEAN: It never happened, yes.
HARLOW: It didn't happen. Guys, thank you. Stick around. We have a lot more with you ahead.
Also, smoke from those Canadian wildfires, well, it is back this time causing Chicago to experience the worst air quality, some say the worst air quality in the world. How long until conditions are expected to improve, next.
MATTINGLY: Plus, U.S. officials learning that a Russian general may have known about the Wagner boss Yevgreny Prigozhin's plans ahead of his revolt against Russia's leadership. What that could mean about Vladimir Putin's support within his own ranks, that's next.
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[07:20:00]
HARLOW: Tens of millions of Americans from the Midwest to the East Coast are under air quality alerts this morning, as Canada experiences its worst wildfire season on record. Smoke from the raging fires is drifting south. This is what Chicago skyline looked like yesterday. The city had the worst air quality in the world. At one point, smoke covered most of this major bridge that connects s upper and lower Peninsulas in Northern Michigan. And NASA released, look at this, satellite image yesterday showing the smoke has now reached Europe. Here it is off the coast of Spain and Portugal on Monday.
Our Adrienne Broaddus joins us live from Chicago. We went through it here in New York and it was surreal.
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I remember those images. Some folks were questioning if it was a filter on social media, but, no, that was reality. And here we are in Chicago, at least yesterday, holding a record nobody wanted for the worst air quality in the world.
Right now, the air quality index is hovering around 178. So, that's still considered healthy. It's a little bit better compared to these images we see from yesterday, but we are still not out of the woods. The air quality alert doesn't expire here in the city until midnight.
And this is all because of those Canadian wildfires. The higher up you go here in the city and across the Great Lakes, quite frankly, you see the smokes. Some people were captivated by these images, but they are staying inside because that's the guidance right now from health experts and they know this is temporary.
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TONY PAPRECK, CHICAGO RESIDENT: It's shocking, but it's caused by nature right now. So, it's not a long-term impact. And I was out here yesterday, it wasn't nearly the same. So, I'm imagining that this is a short-term impact.
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BROADDUS: City officials are encouraging folks to bring this back, I keep it handy, my mask. We remember all of these from the pandemic. And if you can avoid being outside, stay inside on days like today. Poppy?
HARLOW: Adrienne, thanks very much. I appreciate it.
MATTINGLY: All right. Well, NFL Running Back Leonard Fournette says he's okay this morning after -- that's wild -- after his SUV caught on fire while he was driving on a Tampa free way. The now free agent running back says it was, quote, just one of those days. It's not one of those days. It's not clear what sparked the fire. Luckily, he's okay.
Rescuers say the former Buccs player was able to pull over and exit the vehicle safely. The 28-year-old was released by the Buccaneers earlier this year per his request, says the Go Tom Brady's retirement was a factor in that decision.
HARLOW: Glad he's okay. Television and radio host Ryan Seacrest adding a new title to his resume, host of Wheel of Fortune. Sony Pictures says Seacrest assigned a multiyear agreement to be the new host of the Emmy Award-winning game show. He will also serve as a consulting producer.
He released a statement saying, I'm truly humbled to be stepping into the footsteps of the legendary Pat Sajak. Sajak announced earlier this month he'll be retiring in 2024 after hosting the show for 41 seasons. He and his co host, Vanna White, stand as two of the longest serving hosts of any television program in the game show category.
Are you okay?
MATTINGLY: I mean, look, so, to some degree, it's immense jealousy that Ryan Seacrest's resume -- can you imagine his resume, like it's probably the bullets on the resume. It's like 700 pages long, and they're all massively successful shows that he works on.
But I think my question to Astead, as our noted dedicated wheel, as a wheel savant to some degree, your view of the transition between Sajak to Seacrest, what is necessary to make that work as a diehard.
HERNDON: You know pollings -- I'm just kidding. No, I mean, it's super exciting. I feel like as someone who watches those shows and has -- I remember coming back from school and those has the back-to-back programs or whatever. So, I feel like the fact that Wheel of Fortune was like a stable part of the American culture identity, I'm glad it's got some new life.
MATTINGLY: And I think to some of you, that's the point of like I don't want that to go away. It's been a very unsettled last several years.
HERNDON: If I lose Wheel of Fortune, I might lose it all.
DEAN: It's holding us together.
MATTINGLY: Yes, this is it. This is the last thread that we have got to some degree. All right, thank you, noted wheel savant Astead Herndon.
HERNDON: No problem.
MATTINGLY: All right from the new reporting from The New York Times that a senior Russian general had advanced knowledge of the Wagner Group's plans to rebel against the Kremlin. That's according to U.S. intelligence. What it could mean about Putin's next steps, coming up next.
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[07:25:00]
HARLOW: Welcome back. The New York Times this morning reporting that a top Russian general knew had knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin's plans to launch an insurrection against Russia's military leadership before it was put into action. That is really significant. The Times cites U. S. officials briefed on American intelligence on this. That general is Sergey Surovikin. He has commanded Russian troops in Ukraine for a period of time. And the day of Prigozhin's march toward Moscow, he's the one who posted this video to Telegram urging the Wagner leader to stand down and turn back.
But according to The New York Times, U.S. officials are now trying to learn if Surovikin may have helped Prigozhin's rebellion. This all raises so many questions over how much support Prigozhin may have and had within Russia's military leadership. The Kremlin calls this speculation and rumors, that's a quote from them this morning.
Joining us now, the former secretary of defense under Donald Trump, Mark Esper. Secretary Esper, it's good to have you.
This is a new name to many people waking up this morning. Tell us about him and the significance of this reporting.
MARK ESPER, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Sure. Well, let's go back to this past weekend, right? So, Prigozhin launches his tirade against Putin on Friday. By Saturday, he has troops moving toward Moscow.
I don't believe he started that on his own. I think he thought there was support within the Russian military to include Surovikin as one of those supporters. But by time Saturday plays itself out, he realizes that that support does not materialize, and thus he has to cut that deal where he leaves for Belarus.
[07:30:05]
Now, the important thing to understand is all these men have known each other for many years.
