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CNN This Morning

Extreme Heat, Flash Floods and Smokey Skies Sweep U.S.; Today: First Hearing in Classified Docs Case; Manchin Refuses to Rule Out Third-Party Run. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 18, 2023 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:09]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everyone, from Washington, D.C. Poppy is off this week. I convinced Abby Phillip to come back again.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Good to be here.

MATTINGLY: You'll join me, whether you like it again. I personally like it.

Let's get started with "Five Things to Know" for this Tuesday, July 18, 2023.

Overnight, for every action, there's a reaction. Russia unleashing air strikes on the Ukrainian port city of Odessa 24 hours after Ukraine attacked a critical bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia. The Russian defense ministry calling those strikes retaliation.

PHILLIP: And more than 65 million Americans are under heat alerts today. Triple-digit temperature records being shattered across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. One top climate group says that, quote, "heat hell" is being felt worldwide.

A key hearing in Donald Trump's classified documents case is set for today in Florida. The judge telling prosecutors and defense attorneys to be ready to discuss trial dates.

MATTINGLY: And CNN's Jake Tapper will interview Governor Ron DeSantis this afternoon. It comes as the governor is facing new pressure to shift his 2024 campaign strategy.

PHILLIP: And your lottery dreams are live for yet another day. There was no winner last night in the Power Ball drawings. The jackpot has now reached $1 billion.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

MATTINGLY: I've got to admit, I've been struggling with "heat hell," but I think it's actually quite apt.

PHILLIP: It's pretty close to heat hell, especially here in D.C.

MATTINGLY: Yes. No question about it. That's exactly where -- PHILLIP: When it comes to that.

MATTINGLY: -- we're going to start. It's not just D.C. It's across the country. It's across the world at this point.

We begin this morning with a deadly and unrelenting heat wave, beating down on Americans across the U.S. Right now, around 65 million people are under heat alerts from Florida to California, as Phoenix is expected to reach a record-breaking 19th consecutive day above 110 degrees.

Dangerously high triple-digit records have also been scorching Miami and El Paso for weeks, and this streak shows no signs of ending any time soon. And true, this heat hell is worldwide. That's according to a top U.K.-based climate advisory group, noting the dangerous heat waves are spreading around the globe, from Southern Europe to China.

PHILLIP: Meantime, more than 3 million people across the Northeast and New England are now under flood watches. Excessive rainfall is being forecast from New Jersey to Maine, where streams are already running high after disastrous flooding events last weekend.

And then there is Canada and those wild fires blanketing dozens of U.S. cities with smoke and prompting unhealthy air-quality alerts for 50 million Americans.

Let's get straight to CNN's Derek van Dam with the forecast on all fronts. I mean, I think are the locusts next here, Derek? What -- what stands out to you with all of these extreme weather events that we're seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. You know, we really are living this heat hell in real time. You in D.C., me in Atlanta. We've got both the heat and the smoke.

And it seems like no one across the continental United States is immune to these climate extremes. I mean, our weather map is so busy, so active.

There's the heat alerts. You've got one in Dallas. Atlanta, you've got an air quality alert. And Burlington, Vermont, for instance, you've got a flood watch. So a wide chasm of weather topics to talk about today.

This is a live look, downtown Atlanta. You can barely make out the buildings. But I want to show you this. This is actually Georgia Tech's football stadium. And I noticed it as I was driving into the headquarters here at CNN Center, just how smoke-filled and hazy the skies are. The street lamps and the lights of the stadium there actually helping illuminate just how bad the smoke actually is.

So, the smoke actually traveled over 2,000 miles to reach us here in Atlanta. And you know, you know that you've been prone along the Eastern Seaboard, but for it to reach us all the way into the Southeast is really saying something. The good news is a front will help clear things out by later today.

But it kind of just redistributes it across the Eastern Seaboard. Along with this front comes a band of showers and thunderstorms. That's the last thing we want to hear about across the Northeast, because that is where we have the potential for more flooding, National Weather Service picking up on that. Flood watches hoisted across Northern New England, including some of the hardest-hit areas.

And then the heat dome, we continue to talk about records being shattered over the Western U.S. Look at this triple-digit heat.

And in Phoenix, well, if you're looking for any kind of relief, Phil and Abby, you've got to head to Monday of next week. A hundred and fourteen -- well, you can cut the sarcasm with a knife here, just like the smoke in the skies.

PHILLIP: I don't even know what 114 degrees means. That's like an unfathomable temperature.

[06:05:02]

VAN DAM: Yes.

PHILLIP: But here we are.

VAN DAM: A hundred percent.

PHILLIP: Derek van Dam, thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: All right.

PHILLIP: And the first hearing in former President Trump's classified documents case is set for today. CNN has learned that the judge in the Florida case told prosecutors and the defense to come ready to talk about the trial's timeline.

Prosecutors say that they want it to start in mid-December, but the former president's lawyers are asking to delay even setting a date.

CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz is here with us. So Katelyn, the saga continues. What can we expect from this hearing today?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this hearing, it's the big debut for Judge Aileen Cannon.

We have seen her before in this case. She was the judge that gave Donald Trump what he wanted when he wanted to slow down the Justice Department investigation before he was charged and appoint a special master to get access to some of the classified material.

She ended up being in a situation where she really had egg on her face as a judge. She was overturned at the appeal.

And so, now, now that she has this case, it's going to be progressing to trial. We're going to see her for the first time in court respond to everything that's been going on since the indictment.

So the Justice Department is saying they want the trial to start in December. And then Trump's team say they don't want to even put a calendar date yet for a trial.

That -- both of those things might not be possible. It might be a situation where Aileen Cannon has to come in and pick a reasonable date for this to go to trial.

Even December is a little early, according to a lot of defense lawyers that I've talked to. But she is going to have to reveal where she feels this case should be, how quickly it should go.

And, of course, there's that political calendar of next year, with Trump running for president. Where will she land?

And of course, she's a new judge. And whenever you have a new judge, you're always watching what is it like for their courtroom management? What's their style? We don't know that much about her. And so to see her manage this case for the first time is really going to be illuminating.

PHILIP: And Trump's dance card is pretty full with other cases, as well.

POLANTZ: That's true.

MATTINGLY: It's fascinating, because there's been so much talk about Aileen Cannon. And we haven't actually heard from her or seen her.

There's another issue that I want to ask you about. I'm always fascinated with the area of your expertise, because one thing always leads to another, whether it's precedent. The elements here that can almost spill over into other cases.

We're seeing that in the case of Jack Teixeira. He was the former -- the National Guardsman who is accused of posting a trove of classified documents on Discord. His legal team actually brought up the former president in a new court filing. What did they say?

POLANTZ: Yes. So Jack Teixeira, he's already being held in jail, pending trial. That was a decision the judge previously made.

But now his lawyers are going to court and say, Well, wait a minute. The Justice Department is undermining the position they took here, because they're not doing the same thing in other national security cases with very similar charges, like the case against Donald Trump and Walt Nauta, where the Justice Department came in with them and said, you know, we don't even need to take their passports. We have no belief that they're going to be fleeing. We don't think they need to be held pending trial.

Teixeira's lawyers are saying that's not fair. But defense attorneys do make those sorts of arguments pretty often.

And Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old with a net worth of less than $20,000 and clearly, potentially, could have additional national security secrets that other foreign adversaries might be interested in. Justice Department's argument with him was he could be recruited. He could be pulled out of the United States, given safe housing somewhere else.

That's a lot different than Donald Trump running for president of the United States.

MATTINGLY: It would be hard for him to slip out.

PHILLIP: Yes. He's got an interest in sticking around here --

(CROSSTALK)

POLANTZ: Definitely recognizable.

PHILLIP: -- a little longer. Well, Katelyn, thank you very much for bringing all that to us.

MATTINGLY: Well, developing this morning, Russia retaliates. Ukraine says it shot down a barrage of cruise missiles and drones that Russian forces unleashed on the Southern port city of Odessa.

A CNN team on the ground witnessed Ukrainian air defenses firing up into the sky and a loud explosion that rocked the city.

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(EXPLOSION)

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MATTINGLY: Russia is now confirming the strikes were in retaliation for yesterday's attack on its bridge to the occupied Crimea.

PHILLIP: Another big development this morning. Wagner mercenaries have reappeared nearly a month after staging a rebellion and marching on Moscow.

The group's whereabouts have been a mystery, but videos are now emerging that appear to show a large convoy of Wagner fighters heading to a military base in Belarus. And CNN has analyzed satellite images that show them arriving, as well.

Under a deal with the Kremlin, the mercenaries were given sanctuary in Belarus in exchange for ending their mutiny.

Clare Sebastian is tracking all of these big developments for us. So, Clare, let's start first with the air strikes on Odessa. What do we know about what happened there?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby. Key development in the last hour or so. The Russian Ministry of Defense has come out and explicitly called this retaliation. They are saying that the target was a facility near Odessa that manufactured, apparently, what they're called uncrewed boats. And don't forget, they accused Ukraine of using these very uncrewed

boats -- actually, maritime drones -- to attack the Kerch bridge on Monday.

Russia is also saying that they hit several fuel facilities near Odessa and Mykolaiv, which was supplying the Ukrainian army.

Russia is saying that it hit all the targets it intended to hit. Obviously, it's very unclear if that's the case, because Ukraine on the flip side, its air force is saying that it actually shot down all six cruise missiles that were launched towards Odessa from the Black Sea.

It also says it shot down most of the three dozen attack drones that were launched at that region.

So, you know, two different versions of events. And we are seeing some damage on the ground in Odessa. That, according to the Ukrainian side, is from falling debris, which continues to be a major threat.

As for going forward, I think, look, it's hard to distinguish Russian retaliation from the general course of their aggression. But certainly, when there was an attack on the Kerch Bridge back in October, we did see a significant uptick in air strikes targeting Ukraine's electricity grid.

The Kremlin this morning is saying that proposals for retaliation are being worked out. They may not be done here.

MATTINGLY: Clare, to the separate issue that Abby was talking about, this game of where is Waldo's military forces, seems to kind of be over at this point. Obviously, we saw videos and geolocated Wagner mercenaries that appeared after last month's resolve.

But Waldo himself in this construct, Yevgeny Prigozhin, still has not been seen, at least recently. Do we have any sense of where he may be at this point?

SEBASTIAN: We don't. There's obviously been a lot of talk about where he is. First, he was said by Lukashenko to be in Belarus, by the president of Belarus himself. Then he was said to be in Russia.

Then we had the news that he met up with President Putin at the Kremlin.

In terms of actual, physical evidence, images or videos, we have not seen head or tail of Prigozhin since those images surfaced of him leaving Rostov in Russia after that aborted mutiny.

But it is significant that we are seeing these images, these satellite images that've managed to analyze showing these very large convoys of Wagner fighters arriving at that base in Belarus. It raises questions about whether or not that could signal a future role for that group in Ukraine.

MATTINGLY: Still a lot of questions. Clare Sebastian, thank you. PHILLIP: And moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin fueling

speculation about a third-party run and catching the attention of both the Biden and the Trump campaigns.

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SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Here, I'm not here running for president tonight. I'm not. I'm here trying to basically save the nation.

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MATTINGLY: Plus, new reporting from inside the Ron DeSantis campaign. What his donors are saying about today's big interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. Stay with us.

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[06:16:29]

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MANCHIN: I haven't made any decision, nor will I make a decision until the end of the year. And my reason for that, I've never seen a place in the world that basically, the next election starts the day after the last election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That was Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat refusing to rule out a third-party presidential run. After speaking to a bipartisan group in New Hampshire last night, the West Virginia senator told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that Americans deserve another option in 2024.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator Joe Manchin openly flirting with a third-party presidential bid in New Hampshire.

MANCHIN: We're here to make sure that the American people have an option. And the option is can you move the political parties off their respective sides? They've gone too far right and too far left.

ZELENY (voice-over): What he calls a unity ticket, many Democrats fear could be a spoiler by siphoning just enough votes from President Biden to help Donald Trump win back the White House.

MANCHIN: I've never been in any race I've ever spoiled. I've been in races to win. And if I get in the race, I'm going to win.

ZELENY (voice-over): At a town hall meeting in St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, and John Huntsman, a former Utah Republican governor, made their pitch for No Labels, a bipartisan group trying to move the nation beyond its partisan gridlock. Afterward, they sat down with CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

MANCHIN: Right now people are sick and tired of what they're seeing and upset about all they see is turmoil and havoc. And we can do better than this. And the people expect us to do better. And this is a good movement.

ZELENY (voice-over): They said Americans deserve a third choice if a rematch emerges next year between Biden and Trump.

JOHN HUNTSMAN (R), FORMER UTAH GOVERNOR: Should the political -- the mainstream political system produce the same results in '24 as it did in '20, in which case three-fourths of the American voters have said, no, not again, we want an option.

ZELENY (voice-over): For more than a decade, the No Labels movement has promoted bipartisanship over extremes. The group, which registers as a nonprofit and declines to disclose its donors, plans to raise $70 million for a candidate in waiting.

On Monday night, the group unveiled what it called a common-sense policy book, aiming to find middle ground on controversial issues, from abortion rights, to guns, to immigration. It's a centrist agenda that sounds downright utopian in today's deeply divided Washington.

MANCHIN: We're trying to make sure that parties understand you can't stay in extreme left or extreme right.

ZELENY (voice-over): No Labels has only secured ballot access in Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Utah and Colorado, aides say, with the goal of reaching 20 states by the end of the year.

Another threat to Biden's re-election bid comes from Cornell West, the former Harvard scholar who is mounting a Green Party presidential bid. He, too, rejects the label of spoiler.

CORNELL WEST, GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I wish they would spend as much time focusing on the plight of poor and working people as they do focusing on the spoiler. I don't even like that category, since so many of folk who vote third party don't vote at all.

ZELENY (voice-over): While third-party efforts have shown little promise in modern American history, deep displeasure with Trump and Biden have shined a brighter light on the prospects this year. Mindful of an enthusiasm shortfall facing Biden --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four more years!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four more years!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four more years!

ZELENY (voice-over): Democrats are increasingly sounding the alarm.

ROSS PEROT, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.

ZELENY (voice-over): Haunted by Ross Perot's independent bid in 1992. And Green Party runs from Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016.

Manchin, who has yet to say if he intends to seek re-election to the Senate next year or run for higher office, dismissed such concerns.

MANCHIN: I'm not here running for president tonight. I'm not. I'm here trying to basically save the nation.

[06:20:06]

ZELENY: There was significant interest in this idea, of course, here in New Hampshire, where the presidential primary process begins. Many voters say they are taking a look at this organization. Manchin, for his part, said he will make a decision by the end of the year.

No Labels will make a decision next year when they see if there is a Trump/Biden rematch in the offing.

There is no doubt, though, hanging over all of this, even though Manchin says he's not a spoiler, some Democrats at the White House and supporters of Joe Biden are not so sure -- Phil and Abby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (voice-over): All right. Thank you, Jeff Zeleny.

Joining us now, a politics reporter for Semafor, Shelby Talcott. And national political reporter for Axios, Alex Thompson.

All right, Alex. I loved Dick Durbin, who's the No. 2 senator in the Democratic caucus, refer to Joe Manchin as America's biggest political tease. Which I think is a fair and accurate assessment to some degree. I am so highly skeptical of this and so highly skeptical of paying attention to it. Am I wrong?

ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: You know, I was talking to somebody in Joe Manchin's camp last night. And that person would say that you are wrong, that this is serious and, in fact, Joe Manchin sort of sees this opposition, all this -- you know, what he would see as hand-wringing from Democrats as actual more encouragement for him to continue doing what he's doing.

Because they say this is evidence that No Labels is actually tapping into something real. That they are tapping into what the polls show, is that America does not want a Biden/Trump rematch.

And so I think, you know, he is the biggest political tease, but I also think that, with more attention, the more serious he becomes. And you know, I couldn't help but notice -- it was a small thing -- but you notice he was styling his hair a little bit differently. He was using a little bit more product. He was, like, parting the hair a little bit.

MATTINGLY: This is -- so full disclosure, this is like my favorite thing from last night and this morning, because I have been chuckling about this fact for the better part. And I saw it in your notes this morning. I was like, thank you. I'm not the only crazy person here. Because it's true. The hair style is different. And we, as reporters,

are naturally reading all the tea leaves. What does it mean, Alex Thompson, that there's product in Joe Manchin's hair?

THOMPSON: Well, I asked his person. And I was just like, what? And they were like, yes. It was a little bit different.

Manchin's hair has actually been, weirdly, a bit part of his, like, political personality. He ran ads about how his wife cut his hair in his re-election bid. So I don't know what's going on.

MATTINGLY: Split screen. These are the important things that we're going to dig into. I loved it. It's a weird -- yes.

PHILLIP: I had noticed that, but it is different.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

PHILLIP: Yes. That's true. And now I'll be reading the tea leaves. I mean, maybe he's trying to, I don't know -- is it parted to the left or to the right? I don't know.

So Shelby, look, the argument -- I mean, and they get asked this pretty much every time they talk about No Labels. Aren't you just going to take away, especially if you don't want Trump to be the president, take away from the Democrat?

And there is polling to suggest that people who don't like both parties are more likely, if they're given a choice of the two, to vote for the Democrat.

So, how concerned are both parties right now? Do you sense more concern on the left or on the right?

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: I think there's definitely more concern on the left, but I will say that Trump's campaign is keeping an eye on everything. They said that they keep an eye on this, on what Biden is doing, on what Tim Scott is doing, you know, and what every candidate is doing.

But at this point, I do think, based on that polling, that Trump's team is viewing this potentially as an opportunity. Because a lot of people believe that, if Joe Manchin were to run, he would take more votes away from Joe Biden.

Now, I will tell you, Joe Manchin does not think that. He believes that he can take votes away from Donald Trump. And he also believes that there's a very narrow way for him to win through some of these red states.

And I think he -- his point of view is that that is something that people are not picking up on or don't -- or don't see. And that's his angle. And he's definitely keeping the door open.

PHILLIP: And not -- and not just the red states, but these Rust Belt states that he won in 2016, the margin was basically Jill Stein's vote.

TALCOTT: Uh-huh.

PHILLIP: So there's, you know, evidence for that.

MATTINGLY: No. It's why -- what drives concern, but it's also Jeff Zeleny made a great point to me the other day, that Democrats, at least inside kind of Biden's team, are more concerned about Cornell West as somebody who can actually siphon away.

Shelby, I do want to ask. You've got new reporting -- you had tons of great reporting on the DeSantis campaign and where they stand right now, obviously, in the midst of a little bit of an overhaul. We have the interview with Jake Tapper tonight, which is certainly a shift in media strategy.

But there was something that was in one of your stories from a big donor from DeSantis that I wanted to read off to you. Because I think it was an interesting kind of contrary view, which is -- it's from Dan Eberhart, who told you, "The campaign is smart to adapt. Scott Walker's campaign was too heavy and didn't make changes soon enough. DeSantis's campaign is ahead of the curve, and it's making the tough choices that will enable them to win in the early primary states and beyond."

And I feel like that isn't necessarily considered as a possibility at this point, right? You start this spiral as a candidate in campaign and everybody writes you off. You're dead. That becomes kind of the narrative that sticks.

[06:25:07]

But maybe they'll learn from Scott Walker's implosion. He was on with Dana yesterday, and the parallels, I think, certainly on the surface, are there. Do you think that they have figured out a way to quickly shift and adapt and put themselves back into play here?

TALCOTT: I think it's a little bit too soon to tell. But I will say that donors are very split. You have the Dan Eberhart's of the DeSantis campaign, who are kind of diehard DeSantis donors who, I think, will stick with him for a very long time.

And then you have a group who are very skeptical and growing more skeptical. And this shakeup placated some but worried others more.

And I do think that there's an opportunity for him to kind of take, like, the John McCain -- the McCain-type situation where, you know, he fires his campaign manager or he shakes things up a little bit more aggressively, and he ends up doing a lot better.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Comeback story, plausible?

THOMPSON: Definitely possible. And you know, part of this shift in media strategy is part of this. I mean, I don't think you can overstate how much his approach to mainstream media has changed from just two months ago. And this Jake Tapper interview this afternoon is just the latest instance of it.

And Republicans are all going to be tuning in. Some will be popping some popcorn, too.

TALCOTT: And it's really interesting, because he is -- internally, his team has been very split over whether to do mainstream interviews like the Jake Tapper interview. So it's extremely notable that he's doing it this afternoon.

PHILLIP: And also, you know, praising Jake. You love Jake. But you wouldn't have heard that from Ron DeSantis just a couple of months ago, as they were trying to criticize most of the media that's not named FOX News and folks on the right.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Everybody in politics is going to be watching Jake on CNN, 4 p.m. Tune in. That's a tease, is what they call it in the business, I believe.

Alex, Shelby, thanks, guys. Stay with us.

And don't forget, as I just noted, that exclusive with the Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. He joins Jake Tapper one-on-one on the campaign trail. Hear how he plans to take on Trump. The interview, it's at 4 p.m. Eastern today.

PHILLIP: And we have new details on that suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders. The one question he asked when he was booked into jail. And how his wife and his daughter reacted to the charges. That's ahead.

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