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Critical NATO Summit Begins as War Rages in Ukraine; Protests Erupt on Day of Disruption as Netanyahu Government Advances Controversial Plan for Judiciary; Trump Team Asks Court to Postpone Trial in Documents Case. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 11, 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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[07:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, President Biden is in Lithuania to kick off a high-stakes NATO summit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Turkey has now agreed to back Sweden's NATO bid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stockholm, in turn, appears to be supporting Turkish membership in the European Union.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It makes us all stronger and safer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: White House officials say Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deadly flooding drenching the northeast.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I knew I was going to lose a lot of stuff. What more could I do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going on for days, and that's my concern.

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): This is the new normal. Be prepared for the worst because the worst continues to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The DOJ accusing Trump's longtime aide of asking for a, quote, unnecessary delay in the Mar-a-lago classified documents case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Former President Donald Trump's lawyers, they are asking that the trial be postponed until after the election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You get within 60 days of the election, DOJ policy is you don't go forward with criminal charges that are going to affect the election, which may be why Jack Smith has been saying it is the opposite of the public interest to have delays.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, the Senate will receive its first ever classified briefing on artificial intelligence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actress and Comedian Sarah Silverman is suing both OpenAI and Meta, alleging copyright infringement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Essentially, what they're saying is, you're taking my copywritten work and you're using it to train chat bots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think in the future, we should expect to see a lot more lawsuits like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did not do it. Guerrero Jr. will hang on and win the 2023 T-Mobile Homerun Derby. Congratulations to Vlad, he and his dad, both Homerun Derby champions.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. A lot of news this morning, but I do want to note, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. winning the Homerun Derby last night, like his father in 2007, I'm sure this was all you were thinking about last night. You were at an A.I. class. I was watching the Homerun Derby. You probably feel like you got the better of that one.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know. You've got some input to add on that so much more than I do.

MATTINGLY: But before we get to baseball in the Homerun Derby and probably a little bit more A.I., we have a lot of news, including what we've been following all morning, that crucial NATO summit in Lithuania is underway. President Biden huddling with allied leaders as the war in Ukraine rages on.

Now, this high-stakes summit comes after the huge announcement that Turkey will allow Sweden to join the alliance.

BROWN: It is a major strategic blow to Vladimir Putin. President Biden just spoke about it alongside NATO's secretary-general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: This historic moment, the adding Finland and Sweden to NATO, is consequential, and your leadership really matters.

I still think that President Putin thinks the way he succeeds is to break NATO, not going to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Melissa Bell is live for us in Vilnius. So, Melissa, the White House says allies will discuss Ukraine possibly joining the alliance in the future, this as President Zelenskyy just sending out a fiery tweet.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was fairly blistering, Pamela, actually, when you look at its wording, warning that uncertainty over Ukraine's membership is actually what's fueling the motivation of Moscow to pursue its war.

And just have a look at some of that wording. He described it as unprecedented and absurd that no timetable had been fixed either for the invitation to be given to Ukraine, nor indeed for Ukrainian membership itself, going on to complain about the conditions being attached.

And yet, Pamela, I think it's important to note, as we've just heard from President Biden speaking alongside Jens Stoltenberg there a few moments ago, even as they gather for that crucial group photograph of 31 plus Sweden, now nearly 32, that the wording that President Zelenskyy described in that tweet is precisely what it's been so difficult for the 31 to agree on, because NATO has been fundamentally divided over how quickly and how easily and how firmly they should tell Ukraine that it can join once hostilities have ended.

So, an interesting launch there from President Zelenskyy even as he prepared to travel. He says he's prepared to talk about this openly when he arrives tomorrow. It was perhaps not the tone that NATO allies had been looking for.

[07:05:01]

And yet this is something that's being closely watched from Moscow. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, a few moments ago in his daily call with journalists, saying that this summit being held here in Vilniuss, beyond its location, its geography, Pamela, and it's important, we're 20 miles here from the Belarusian border. The point was not so much the geography, he said, but the anti-Russian stance.

And, of course, that, the fact that Moscow is watching matters hugely, the fact that unity has been achieved thus far with the 31 plus 2 is important as well, and tomorrow, of course, that group photograph, that should include President Zelenskyy.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Melissa Bell, policy, substance, for sure, optics, you just saw the president, President Biden, at his meet and greet, the family photo of NATO members is coming shortly after. We'll get back to Melissa Bell in a little bit. Thank you so much.

BROWN: All right. Joining us now is former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. He also served as Donald Trump's national security adviser. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.

So, I first just want to get your reaction to that tweet from Zelenskyy. I mean, that was, as I said earlier, fiery.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, Zelenskyy is completely right. The administration is about to make a mess of the whole Ukrainian relationship with NATO. And Zelenskyy has a historical memory. George W. Bush proposed bringing Ukraine and NATO into NATO, along with Georgia in April of 2008, rejected by Germany and France, but with a NATO promise that ultimately Ukraine would be part of NATO.

The Russians followed that up by invading Georgia four months later and Ukraine in 2014. And NATO did nothing. The United States did nothing. Now, they're saying, again, well, Ukraine will become member of NATO at some point. It's simply inviting the same lesson for the Russians to learn, that if a country isn't in NATO, it's vulnerable.

Ukraine is fully qualified to be in NATO. It was in 2008 when Bush first proposed it. It was just as qualified as the Central and Eastern European countries that came in, in the 1990s and early 2000s. There's only one reason why NATO has a problem with Ukraine coming in, and that is NATO has a longstanding policy. It never invites into membership a country that's at war. Because to do that would trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty and potentially put all of NATO at war. Nobody has given an answer to that objection. But that's what they should be trying to figure out how to overcome.

MATTINGLY: How do you overcome that? This is the thing I don't understand is what is the alternative to they're changing it from a two-step process. They no longer need a membership action plan, to a one-step process.

BOLTON: Yes, this is just bureaucratically meaningless.

MATTINGLY: Understood. But in terms of what would be meaningful given the fact there are active hostilities and a member would trigger Article 5 in the midst of active hostilities, what is the alternative here?

BOLTON: Well, the problem is Biden is putting other objections in the way he says they're not ready for NATO membership. That's a mistake. That's a signal to Russia. This could be a long time off. I think there are security guarantees they could provide. Frankly, I would have told Zelenskyy long ago, stop pushing this, because you're not going to get this objective. But it's part of the mishandling of Ukraine policy that's been going on in the administration for some time.

BROWN: But to be clear, you think that Ukraine should be accepted into NATO while it is engaged in war with Russia if --

BOLTON: No, that's my point. There is one objection, and that's the ongoing war. It's not that it's not democratic enough. It's not that there's corruption. It's not that they need a membership action plan. It's not anything else. There's one reason.

So, if you get rid of the niff-naff that the White House has been focused on and concentrate on that issue, then maybe you could find an answer or at least something that would be satisfactory to Ukraine. Instead, we're having a debate about irrelevancies in the middle of this war.

BROWN: So, you think it is we should wait until after the war?

BOLTON: I think that --

BROWN: The White House has said that is the main priority.

BOLTON: Yes, they should have stopped right there. BROWN: Okay. We just are seeing the so-called family photo, not our term, to be clear, right here as the world leaders gather at the NATO summit there in Lithuania, including President Biden. A lot of important meetings happening today in Lithuania and a lot of developments as well. I mean, the biggest one being, of course, Turkey opening the door for Sweden to join NATO. Russia unsurprisingly not too happy about this, saying that Turkey has gone from a neutral country to an unfriendly country.

And it's so fascinating when you look at Turkey's role in all of this and the relationship it has had with Russia and being a power broker. How does this change the dynamic, in your view?

BOLTON: Well, I think Turkey is still a problem for NATO. I think it was outrageous that it objected to Sweden and Finland's application. I think it was outrageous that Erdogan put the rest of NATO through a process of extortion.

We still don't know the full price that the United States has paid to get Turkey's acquiescence here. I'm sure it has to do with F-16 sales. Personally, if I were in the Senate, I would still vote against selling F-16s to Turkey. They have not behaved like a good NATO member. They started down the wrong road by buying Russian S-400 air defense systems and it hasn't gotten any better over time.

I'm glad Sweden is finally getting in, but we need to address Turkey as a separate problem. It's not that it's gone from being neutral. It was always a NATO member, and it hasn't gone to being more anti- Russian. It's still playing a very negative role inside the alliance.

MATTINGLY: Should the U.S. send Turkey F-16s?

BOLTON: I would not. I would not at this point. I don't think that Erdogan is trustworthy. And I think, frankly, if he had continued to block Sweden, NATO should have looked at at least suspending Turkey from membership. This entire course of behavior does not befit a trusted ally.

BROWN: I want to get to what we just heard last night from Senator Tommy Tuberville about white nationalists being in the military. Our Kaitlan Collins, whose new show The Source just launched last night, interviewed him. Let's take a listen to that exchange.

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SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): When you're in the majority, a minority in the Senate, it's the only power that you have to get people's attention to get them to do it the right way, to go by the Constitution, the only power we have is to put a hold on something. And so we thought that this would get the attention of the secretary of defense.

And we're trying to teach them that you cannot legislate from the Pentagon. And so it's a tough situation. There's nobody more military than me, Kaitlan. My dad was military, career military. I'm all for the military. We need a strong military, but we also need to go by the rules and the Constitution and represent the people and taxpayers. Taxpayers are not supposed to pay for anything that has to do with abortion.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Just to be clear, you agree that white nationalists should not be serving in the U.S. military? Is that what you're saying?

TUBERVILLE: If people think that a white nationalist is racist, I agree with that. I agree they shouldn't.

COLLINS: But white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races.

TUBERVILLE: Well, that's some people's opinion, and I don't think --

COLLINS: What's your opinion?

TUBERVILLE: Pardon?

COLLINS: What's your opinion?

TUBERVILLE: My opinion of a white nationalist, if somebody wants to call them white nationalist, to me, is an American. It's an American. Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I'm totally against anything that they want to do, because I am 110 percent against racism.

COLLINS: But that is -- a white nationalist is racist, Senator.

TUBERVILLE: Well, that's your opinion. That's your opinion. But if it's racism, if it's racism, I'm totally against it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Your thoughts?

BOLTON: Look, I'm against hyphenated Americans. I think you should be pro-American and patriotic. And I think part of the problem in society today is we've forgotten our national motto of e pluribus unum, out of many, one. That's what we should be aspiring to from many different countries. Many different faiths, many different race, they are all Americans. That's what we should focus on. And these kinds of distinctions that people are trying to draw are inevitably negative.

MATTINGLY: Do you think white nationalism is an opinion?

BOLTON: Well, obviously, some people hold it. That doesn't justify it.

BROWN: But do you believe white nationalists are racist?

BOLTON: I think that's -- I don't know what other way to describe it.

BROWN: So, you do?

BOLTON: Right. I'm not debating anybody here. BROWN: I want to be clear, because, clearly, Tuberville didn't want to come out and say that. And should they be in the military?

BOLTON: Well, I think there are all kinds of people in the military. If they keep their opinions to themselves, they can serve the country. That's historically been the case.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask you on the policy side of things with the substance of Tommy Tuberville's blockade right now, the Marine commandant just stepped down? There will not be a confirmed replacement because of the flag promotions that have been held up by Tuberville because of his issues over Defense Department policy related to abortion. Do you believe that blockade is justified or do you believe it hurts national security at this point?

BOLTON: No, I don't believe it's justified for constitutional reasons. I think in the past 30, 40 years, the Senate has way overstepped what the framers intended their role was in confirming presidential nominations in the executive branch or the judiciary, certainly in the executive branch.

I think it's much more limited than the Senate thinks it is. And I think this is an example where it's gone too far. But there are thousands of others, that's for sure.

BROWN: All right. Ambassador John Bolton, thank you for coming on, offering your perspective, and we appreciate it.

BOLTON: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Now to Israel, where thousands of protesters have once again taken to the streets, some clashing with police earlier this morning, some pictures there, and getting arrested. This comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government moves forward with its controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary.

Now, opponents of the judicial overhaul are calling today, quote, a day of disruption and resistance.

CNN's Hadas Gold joins us live from Tel Aviv. Hadas, do you get the sense that these protests will move the scale in any way on what has been an ongoing, very significant issue inside Israel?

[07:15:01]

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, I'm at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport. As you can hear, it's already very loud here. This is one of the main elements, all of this massive day of disruption that's been going already since the morning across the country, protesters hoping and believing that by coming out here, by disrupting the daily life of Israelis, they will be able to somehow push this legislation off.

Keep in mind that these protesters have been coming out now for 27 weeks in a row, but they have a renewed vigor now. And that's because last night, one of the new elements of this judicial overhaul passed its first reading out. It was just one piece of this massive judicial overhaul has to do with whether the Supreme Court can rule government actions to be unreasonable or not. And it still has to go through several other readings.

But for these protesters, this legislation coming back on the table after months of it being essentially frozen as negotiations tried to go try to take place after it was frozen, remember, from those massive general strike and protests last March. There were attempts and negotiations. Those seem to have failed. Now, the government is pushing forward once again with this legislation.

Now, they say it's watered down. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has walked away from some of the more controversial aspects of this overhaul, namingly allowing parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions.

But these protesters and the opposition essentially do not believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government when they say that it will be a softer reform, they want this overhaul to be completely off the table, and they're planning to increase these protests tonight. They're even called for tense to be pitched in downtown Tel Aviv. Phil?

MATTINGLY: All right. Hadas Gold live for us in Tel Aviv, thank you.

BROWN: Kudos to her for keeping it together with all that noise and activity in the background there.

And new overnight, Trump's legal team asks the judge to delay the trial over his mishandling of classified documents, citing the 2024 election. We're going to break down his arguments up next, so stay close.

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[07:20:00]

BROWN: Donald Trump is hoping to delay his trial in the classified documents case until after the 2024 election. His defense team filed a request late last night asking the judge to postpone a trial date for the time being.

It reads in part, quote, there is simply no question any trial of this action during the pendency of a presidential election will impact both the outcome of that election and, importantly, the ability of the defendants to obtain a fair trial.

MATTINGLY: Well, Judge Aileen Cannon had originally set a trial date of August 14th. The Justice Department said that was too soon, instead pushed for a December 11th start. Trump's team now arguing that's too soon. Trump, of course, has pleaded not guilty to the 37 felony counts against him over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

I want to bring in our panel now, CNN Political Analyst, Washington Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe and a Buckeye, Jackie Kucinich, Political White House Correspondent and co-Author of West Wing Playbook in my regular tormentor at the White House, Eli Stokols, and CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent, cornhusker, big ten, Jeff Zeleny, and Defense Attorney and former Federal Prosecutor Shan Wu.

Shan, I want to start with you, when you look at these filings, how persuasive is the president's request, particularly citing the election, which is going to be ongoing for at least the next 18 months?

SHAN WU, DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I don't find it very persuasive, but, of course, there's no actual legal precedent for this particular situation. So, they're right about that. Think the problem here, though, is that it's very hard to challenge a decision by Judge Cannon to basically, quote, delay, unquote, the trial.

It's not necessarily that much of an unusual delay. I mean, it's a complicated case. I think almost any defense counsel would be seeking to delay the case, and they're likely to succeed in putting it off easily to the point of the election.

BROWN: Yes. And let's talk about you have the legal side of this, Trump's lawyers making the legal case, but also, Jeff Zeleny, you have the political side of this and why it would be in Trump's best interest to have this trial delayed until after the election.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And without a doubt, because we saw the date of the Iowa caucuses, which opens the presidential race on January 15th. So, of course, he does not want this to be coinciding it. But I'm sort of struck by he is campaigning on the indictments, he is campaigning on the investigation.

I was at a rally that he was holding on Friday in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and he talked extensively about the investigations and the indictment. So, he is trying to have the benefit of that for his political purposes, but obviously try and pushing this down the road legally.

But, look, he's always done this with all the legal cases against him. He's done a couple of things, rarely paid his legal bills, and tried to extend the illegal case as long as possible. So, I don't think anyone is surprised by this.

MATTINGLY: Eli, can I ask you, as somebody who would probably use the word, pendency, in West Wing Playbook, Columbia journalism grad, it's an elite institution. I'm just giving him a hard time. He gives me a hard time quite often. I think one of my questions is the top tier GOP candidates just have never used this against him, and obviously they want to keep Trump's base. But to some degree, Ron DeSantis has just waffled around on this issue, and now he's blaming mostly the media. I want you to take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Do you think you would be able to be a challenge to Trump?

GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN (D-VA): Well, as I've --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're down over 30 points to Trump. What's your strategy for catching up?

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Well, first, I think it's pretty clear that the media does not want me to be the candidate. I think that they've tried to create narratives that somehow the race is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The first clip was Glenn Youngkin. We're going to get to him in a second. I didn't mean to fake you guys out on that. But this idea, it's tried and true. Republicans have used it. Democrats have used it to some degree whenever they're down in the polls, attack the media. Do you think it works?

ELI STOKOLS, CO-AUTHOR, POLITICO'S WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Well, it's worked for DeSantis in Florida to attack the media, to run it, to go over the media's head, and to just disparage the media writ large as biased against me, and that really works with conservative voters.

[07:25:00]

They've heard that messaging from Republicans for a long time.

Does it work in a primary? Probably not. When you're losing, as the axiom goes, or when you're explaining, you're losing, right? So, he's having to explain why he's double-digit points behind Donald Trump, closer to Vivek Ramaswamy in polling than he is to Donald Trump ahead of him.

And that's not great for Ron DeSantis. Blaming the media I don't think really is going to change voters' minds on that. And he and all of these candidates who are far behind President Trump, despite of what Trump is dealing with on the legal front, they all have to decide. They all have to figure out how they're going to start going after him more pointedly, because they are just tiptoeing around him.

And we saw how that worked out in 2016. It didn't really work very well. It didn't work very well for 2016 Republicans to go after him more pointedly either. You can ask Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, many of them, about that.

But this is difficult because they need Trump's voters to come their way, don't want to alienate them. And yet, typically, when someone is that far ahead of you, that's your target.

BROWN: All right. So, let's get to Glenn Youngkin, gave you a little preview, a little sneak peek of why he is relevant in the conversation now, especially because some have speculated with DeSantis' campaign struggling, this is opening the door for another candidate to join. And could that be Governor Glenn Youngkin? Does he want to jump into the race? Here's what he told our very own Kaitlan Collins last night.

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COLLINS: Do you think you would be able to be a challenge to Trump?

YOUNGKIN: Well, as I've said to folks, because I've been asked this question frequently, one, I'm humbled by it.

When someone brings common sense to an office like a governor in Virginia, and you get a lot done, and we deliver on promises made, people pay attention. And I'm encouraged by that.

COLLINS: I've heard you say that you're humbled by this when people ask you about this, but you've never ruled it out.

YOUNGKIN: Well, I think what is most encouraging is the frequency that people are asking because of what's going on in Virginia.

And what I constantly said is, and you just said that the Iowa caucus has been pulled forward into January, I'm not in Iowa.

COLLINS: Will you be in January?

YOUNGKIN: I'm going to be in Virginia.

COLLINS: In January, you will not be in Iowa?

YOUNGKIN: Well, this is where you have to be. And I don't think I'll be in Iowa. I think I'm going to be in Virginia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So, Virginia is where he's going to be is what he's saying. But still not a no. He's not ruling it out.

That said, the longer you wait to throw your hat in the ring and you don't have an organization, it makes it a lot harder. Just ask President Michael Bloomberg, even if you have the money.

MATTINGLY: Wait, he's not --

KUCINICH: He ways -- oh, yes, not --

ZELENY: It's the equivalent of jumping onto a moving car, jumping into a speeding car, trying to join a presidential campaign at the very end. I mean, look at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That's how difficult it is, and he has an organization.

But, look, he's plan B. He wants to wait in case everyone else falters, he'll be there. Color me skeptical. It's never been done.

STOKOLS: He can't run for a second term in Virginia, so you'd understand why he might still want to have this flirtation. But, yes, it's pretty difficult the longer you wake. And if you look at the field, none of these other guys, there's more than a dozen of them, they're not catching on, how's he going to do it? If they can't take the air out of Trump, how is he going to be able to do it?

KUCINICH: Virginia.

STOKOLS: All right, Virginia.

BROWN: (INAUDIBLE) speculation promoting Virginia and what he's done. So, he's taking advantage.

MATTINGLY: Taking his aim in it, that's for sure. All right, Shan Wu, Jackie Kucinich, Eli Stokols, read West Wing Playbook, it's excellent, and Jeff Zeleny, always read Jeff Zeleny as well, thanks, guys.

All right, the fairy tale, it continues. American Christopher Eubanks has just reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals after beating out the fifth seed. And get this, it's his tournament debut. We'll talk about this upset with seven-time Grand Slam winner Mats Wilander, coming up next.

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