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Russian Strikes in Odessa Hit Grain Warehouses; Vice President Harris to Travel to Florida to Condemn State's Education Standards; Deadline Passes for Trump Response to Target Letter; Mother of U.S. Soldier in North Korea Speaks; RFK Jr. Grilled on Previous Comments Comparing Unvaccinated Americans to the Holocaust. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 21, 2023 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's Morgan Wallen's "Last Night." This has been up there for weeks, still going strong after 25 weeks and more than 10 million streams.

[06:00:13]

Thanks for joining me this Friday, I'm Christine Romans. Have a great weekend, everybody. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good Friday morning, everyone. Let's go ahead and get started with "Five Things to Know" for July 21st.

New this morning, Russia targets the world's food again. It hit grain warehouses overnight in Ukraine, destroying tons of barley and peas.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR/SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And the deadline is over for Donald Trump to testify about efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but the federal investigation is pushing toward. More witnesses are scheduled to be interviewed in the coming weeks as anticipation builds over another possible indictment for the former president.

Chilling new details in the Gilgo Beach murders, investigators now operating on the theory that Rex Heuermann murdered the women inside of his home, suggesting that he lured the victims to his house when his family was out of town.

MATTINGLY: Vice President Kamala Harris making a last-minute trip to Florida today to speak out about the state's new black history standards for schools. She says the new mandate is an attempt to gaslight students.

And if you've got a double feature lined up this weekend, you're far from alone. Barbie and -- versus Oppenheimer -- is it really a "versus" situation -- is shaping up to be the biggest box-office battle we've seen in years.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

MATTINGLY: Abby, I -- PHILLIP: All right.

MATTINGLY: I have a confession. I woke up this morning terrified that you were going to come, like, dressed for either Barbie or Oppenheimer, and I wasn't prepared.

PHILLIP: I'm dressed for neither, but I did make it to Friday with you, Phil. I'm happy about that.

MATTINGLY: I thought that was, like, a concern of years.

PHILLIP: I might have a double feature in my future tonight. Yes.

Well, happy Friday to you all. We have a lot of news today. Breaking overnight, we'll start in Ukraine.

Russia has attacked the port city of Odessa for a fourth night in a row. The intense bombardment has been devastating. Grain warehouses that are critical to keeping people fed in developing nations.

Officials say that 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley have now been destroyed. Russia had already destroyed 60,000 tons of grain earlier this week, and the U.N. says it could have fed more than 270,000 people with that grain.

Ukraine has been struggling to repel this wave of Russian strikes as its air defenses simply can't cope with the types of missiles that Moscow is using now.

MATTINGLY: And that all happening as CIA director Bill Burns is now warning that Russia could be preparing for a false flag operation in the Black Sea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BURNS, CIA DIRECTOR: We see some very concerning signs of the Russians considering the kind of false flag operations that, you know, we highlighted in the run-up to the war, as well. In other words, looking at ways in which, you know, they might make attacks against shipping in the Black Sea and then blaming it -- or trying to blame it on the Ukrainians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Let's get straight to CNN's Scott McLean, live in London. Scott, there's a lot of movie parts of this right now. But based on what we're hearing about what's happening on the ground, what is the latest in Ukraine?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Phil, yes. So yesterday the Ukrainians managed to shoot down barely a quarter of the incoming missiles on Odessa. Today there's no indication that they've managed to shoot down anything, frankly, on this strike on what looks to be a grain elevator or some grain silos there.

Two people were injured. But this really illustrates the difficulty that the Ukrainians have been having in actually dealing with the Russian incoming missiles, some of which are designed to sink ships.

Case in point, the local governor there says that, in this case, the two missiles came in at such a low altitude that air defenses didn't even initially pick them up at all, meaning the air-raid sirens for the local population didn't even go off until about the same time that that first missile was actually striking its target.

The Ukrainians say that, look, air defenses in that area are obviously not good enough. They say that the Patriot system would do a lot better of a job. The Ukrainians have at least two of those systems, more on the way. But they say that a lot more will be needed to adequately protect the country.

In terms of what was hit, you mentioned it already. More than 100 tons of peas and barley. This is a relative drop in the bucket when we're talking about the global markets.

But what is likely to have a much bigger impact is Ukraine's ability to actually use the port of Odessa, which right now isn't all that easy, considering that the Russians say that civilian ships going in there could be carrying weapons, and they are fair game.

And let's also remember, Phil and Abby, that Ukraine makes up 10 percent or more of the global market for wheat, corn, and barley.

PHILLIP: Yes. A critical source of supply of food for the rest of the world.

Scott McLean, thank you.

[06:05:03]

MATTINGLY: Also this morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, he's expanding his war on woke and taking on Bud Light directly. He's threatening legal action against Anheuser Busch over its social media promotion with the transgender influencer.

The Instagram video sparked enormous conservative outrage and backlash and sent Bud Light sales plummeting.

PHILLIP: In a letter to Florida's pension fund manager obtained by CNN, DeSantis suggests that the beer company breached its legal duties to its shareholders by collaborating with what he calls "radical social ideologies." Here's what the governor told FOX News last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Since we do have the shares, we believe that when you take your eye off the ball like that, you're not following your fiduciary duty to do the best you can for your shareholders. So we're going to be launching an inquiry about Bud Light and InBev. And it could be something that leads to a derivative lawsuit filed on behalf of the shareholders of the Florida pension fund.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: DeSantis has become pretty well-known for injecting himself and Florida into the middle of America's culture wars. He's been fighting to gain momentum, though, in the presidential race and to close that gap with Donald Trump.

So far it's been pretty challenging for DeSantis, but despite all of the talk of a pivot, we don't really see that in terms of the message yet.

MATTINGLY: Certainly not on the messaging. And even though he's changed some of his interview venues or platforms, obviously, having that exclusive with Jake Tapper earlier, it is very clear this is an issue where this is a broader kind of target that he believes works.

And he has, I think, results, no question about it, in Florida. The most interesting thing about DeSantis is that he's, unlike a lot of people who just used rhetoric on culture war stuff or kind of verbal ticks, he's actually put policy behind it or lawsuits.

Or you look at what has happened in Florida in terms of the legislature, and we've been seeing more results of that over the course of this week when it comes to what the school board has been doing, putting into place one of the laws that DeSantis helped shepherd through.

And new this morning, Vice President Kamala Harris will be responding to those efforts by the school board, adding a last-minute trip to Jacksonville to her itinerary today.

It is in direct response to the state's newly-accrued standards teaching black history. One of the requirements for middle-school students is to include, quote, "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."

Harris forcefully condemned that new curriculum on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle-school students will be taught that enslaved people benefitted from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us; and we will not stand for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us now, live from the White House.

Priscilla, I thought this was fascinating last night, because this clearly wasn't a prescheduled trip, at least from the time that we usually expect a vice president or presidential trip. This happened fairly quickly.

The decision was made to send the vice president down, for the vice president to go down herself. Tell us about the backdrop here of why this happened. PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And it's also not

the first time that this has happened, Phil. Vice President Harris also went to Tennessee following controversy that happened in the legislature there.

So this is part of the ongoing trips over the course of the summer that the vice president has made to highlight areas where the White House and Democrats see Republican attacks against what they call the freedoms like abortion and now also education.

Now, again, this is the first Biden administration official to go to Florida since those controversial standards were approved. And it is an opportunity for the vice president to talk about what you heard there in condemning these standards, fiercely criticizing them, and also what she said earlier this week at that same event, calling it, quote, "revisionist history."

Now, again, to remind viewers, these are standards that would teach students how slaves developed skills that could be applied for personal benefits, and it also touches on massacres and, quote, "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans."

This, again, has received fierce criticism, and it is an opportunity, again, for Vice President Harris to go and highlight the disagreements that the White House has with this and talk with civil rights leaders, parents, and teachers.

PHILLIP: Yes. It's another example of them, you know, moving quickly to try to capitalize on something like this.

Priscilla, on another topic, this morning the White House is also announcing a new commitment from artificial intelligence companies about the future of this technology. What have they agreed to?

ALVAREZ: Well, this is really a technology that they are paying very close attention to. And it's just the latest measure that they have taken.

So they are going to be meeting, and importantly, President Biden will be meeting with executives of companies you'll recognize. Amazon, google, Microsoft, Meta, all of them to talk about A.I., its emergence as a technology, and the voluntary commitments that they will make to make it safer and more trustworthy.

[06:10:05]

Now, this is among those measures, an opportunity for them to allow outside experts to test systems before releasing to the public and to pave the way for the government to get more involved in the future.

Now, of course, these are voluntary commitments, but the government has been moving toward executive actions. We could see some of those come later this summer.

And again, President Biden will be meeting with these top executives later this afternoon. So we'll expect to hear more from him on this, but clearly, a priority for this White House, which has spent a lot of this year focusing on artificial intelligence.

MATTINGLY: Yes, much of it behind the scenes, now becoming very public. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you.

PHILLIP: And happening overnight, the deadline came and went for the former president's team to respond to the target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith.

CNN has learned that Jack Smith's investigation continues. He's lining up witnesses to speak with investigators in the election interference probe, and at least one former Trump attorney is among them.

Here's what Trump said about a potential indictment last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via phone): All of a sudden I hear they want to indict me on this one. And why didn't they do it two years ago? Why didn't they do it, like, when it would have been, you know, timely? But there is no timely. They did it because it's election interference. They did it right in the middle of my campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: With us now is CNN's Katelyn Polantz.

So Katelyn, what are we to make of the fact that Jack Smith is still talking to witnesses, he's still scheduling interviews? Where does the investigation stand?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby and Phil, it's a great question. I mean, where we are right now is that the investigators are moving fast on a lot of different fronts. That is what appears to be happening here.

They're telling Donald Trump that he's very likely to be indicted, sending him that target letter, and then also scheduling these witness interviews.

The ones that we know of so far is that there is a former Trump lawyer who's scheduled to come in next month to sit for an interview. And then also Bernie Kerik, a man who was very close to Rudy Giuliani, who was working on that effort to gather election fraud and to come up with plans after the election for Donald Trump.

Kerik is trying to schedule an upcoming interview. And the special counsel's office also want documents from him. And he's been very -- he's pushed back on a lot of inquiries for records that he has in his possession when Congress asked for them, when people in a civil lawsuit asked for them, and so that is a track of the investigation that still exists.

Now, the thing that, when you look at this, it doesn't all mean that the special counsel's office has one case and one case alone related to January 6th that they're working on. They could potentially be bringing an indictment against Donald Trump

and then have other pieces fall into place after that or have other inquiries that they continue to pursue, just like they're doing in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, where they indicted Donald Trump and his co- defendant and then continued to cut subpoenas and also sent a target letter to another person.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn, it was kind of a wild day at the court yesterday, which for somebody who doesn't think that the court is all that exciting, me. You on the other hand disagree with that every single day and make clear to me that's not the case.

But it included the special counsel sitting down with Will Russell, the former Trump aide. What do we know about what he was asked and what happened yesterday at court?

POLANTZ: Yes, well, Phil, it was a busy day yesterday at court. The grand jury was in, and they had work to do. They were not hearing from Donald Trump as he had the opportunity to go in and talk, but they did hear from Will Russell, this personal aide to him. A man who never testified to the congressional committee, as far as we know. We have no transcript of his interview there.

But the special counsel's office had questions for him at this late stage in this investigation and questions about interactions he had with Donald Trump while Donald Trump was still in office. He was a person who worked for the White House at the end of the administration.

Those questions were so aggressive that it essentially derailed him answering. His lawyer came in, and there was a standoff that made his lawyer late to go to another hearing for another client in the same building.

A judge took notice of this and was quite flustered. Didn't know what to do. Brought the prosecutors in and talked to them. You'll never see that in court, where the special counsel's office is called out of the grand jury to talk to a judge.

But still, a lot of questions around what's going on there exactly and how valuable Will Russell is as a witness.

PHILLIP: That's super interesting. Those questions about executive privilege or speak to executive privilege that tell us a little bit something about where this is heading. Katelyn, thank you very much, as always.

MATTINGLY: Overnight, a new warning from the head of the CIA. He says Russia could be plotting to attack civilian ships and blame Ukraine.

PHILLIP: And a U.S. soldier is now considered AWOL after bolting in North Korea. We'll take you live to the Pentagon for the latest developments and what we're hearing now from his mother.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:41]

PHILLIP: The mother of a U.S. soldier who bolted into North Korea on Tuesday is talking about her son's disappearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAUDINE GATES, ARMY PRIVATE TRAVIS KING'S MOTHER: I just want my son back. I just want my son back. Get my son home. Get my son home. And pray. Pray that he comes back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, Pentagon officials say that her son, Army Private Travis King, was supposed to be on a flight from South Korea to the United States, but instead, he went on a DMZ tour and sprinted into the North Korean side.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is live over at the Pentagon this morning for us. Natasha, so what are officials saying right now about King's status?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby right now his status officially is listed as absent without leave, or AWOL, essentially meaning that he is away without permission from his service in the military.

And that's really about all they can say at this point about his status. Because they don't even know, really, his condition at all or whether he's dead.

So what we have learned from the administration is that they have not been able, of course, to speak to the North Koreans about Travis King's status. The U.S. has reached out to the North Koreans multiple times to try to get a sense for where exactly he is, where he's being held, and of course, the kind of condition that he is in.

But as has been the routine throughout the entirety of the Biden administration, the North Koreans have simply not responded to U.S. outreach.

We are learning a little more about what unfolded here, which is that Travis King, he was supposed to board that flight from Seoul back to -- back to the U.S. to Fort Bliss in Texas, where he was actually going to be administratively separated from the U.S. Army, essentially removed from the military altogether because of assault charges that he had faced in South Korea.

But instead of getting on that plane, he went on this tour of the DMZ, and at that point, he bolted across the demarcation line into North Korea. He was detained by North Korean guards, who then hurried him into a van.

So now U.S. officials, obviously, trying to figure out what his motivation would be. The Army secretary said that he was likely concerned about the kind of punishment he may have been facing back in the United States. But U.S. officials still really scratching their heads here about what

would have made a U.S. citizen cross into one of the most hostile countries on Earth, Abby.

PHILLIP: Yes. It continues to be quite the perplexing story. Natasha, thank you.

[06:20:02]

MATTINGLY: Well, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seemed to rewrite history while he was on Capitol Hill yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In my entire life and why I'm under oath, in my entire life, I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti-Semitic.

COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and -- and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and -- and Chinese.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: We're going to have a lot more on this heated hearing and RFK's claims, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Congressional Democrats grilling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Capitol Hill yesterday. Keep in mind, long-shot Democratic candidate for president.

He testified at a hearing on censorship and was questioned about his past comments implying Jews had more freedom during the Holocaust than unvaccinated Americans did during the pandemic.

CNN's Eva McKend is in Washington, and Eva, it was a contentious hearing, to say the least. What'd you see?

EVA MCKEND, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed, Phil, fireworks indeed. And Democrats tried to shut this down altogether. They wrote a letter to Republican leadership in the wake of Kennedy's controversial comments, asking them to rescind his invitation.

They tried to bring the hearing into executive session so it wouldn't play out in this public way, all to no avail. Let's look at how it all went down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKEND (voice-over): Democratic presidential candidate and spreader of vaccine misinformation, Robert Kennedy Jr. invited to testify on Capitol Hill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the witness's time. Do not censor the witness.

REP. STACEY PLASKETT (D-VIRGIN ISLANDS): I'm not censoring the witness. He's still talking.

MCKEND (voice-over): In a testy hearing on censorship, with Kennedy telling the committee his views are protected speech.

KENNEDY: The First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for. I was censored, not just by the Democratic administration. I was censored by the Trump administration.

[06:25:04]

MCKEND (voice-over): Democrats accused Republican leadership of giving Kennedy's dangerous rhetoric a platform in Congress --

PLASKETT: That's not just supporting free speech. They have co-signed on idiotic, bigoted messaging. It's a conscious choice.

MCKEND (voice-over): -- regarding Kennedy's blatant lies where he said --

KENNEDY: COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and -- and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese.

MCKEND (voice-over): Now Kennedy brazenly claims --

KENNEDY: I'm under oath. In my entire life, I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti-Semitic. I have spent my life fighting, my professional career fighting for Israel.

MCKEND (voice-over): But the CEO of the American Jewish Committee called his prior remarks "deeply offensive and incredibly dangerous." Kennedy repeatedly claimed he didn't say things that are, in fact, on camera.

KENNEDY: I've never been anti-vaccine. But everybody in this room probably believes that I have been. Because that's the prevailing narrative. I never told the public avoid vaccination.

MCKEND (voice-over): But Kennedy has attacked safe vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, and promoted false claims, like childhood vaccines can lead to autism, and that HIV was caused by vaccine research. Even saying this on a 2021 podcast.

KENNEDY: I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, and I say to him, "Better not get him vaccinated."

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): A tweet from Mr. Kennedy.

MCKEND (voice-over): Another key driver for the GOP-led hearing is to call out what they deem was social media censorship of a damning Hunter Biden story.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): This was illegal government censorship to protect and prop up Joe Biden on the eve of the 2020 election.

MCKEND (voice-over): But Democrats argue misinformation is the larger threat.

PLASKETT: They want to force social media companies to promote conspiracy theories, because they think that's the only way their candidate can win the 2024 election.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKEND (on camera): Now, despite some of Kennedy's outlandish claims, he still does enjoy some support. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, he's at 14 percent among Democrats and likely Democratic voters.

Still, it's going to be quite difficult for him as he takes on President Biden in the Democratic primary -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right. Eva McKend, thanks you.

PHILLIP: And let's bring in CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig; and national political reporter for the Associated Press, Michelle Price.

Michelle, Republicans seem hellbent on elevating RFK Jr. I think that seems the takeaway from this hearing, not just because of the censorship accusations, but just politically.

That 14 percent that Eva was talking about, a lot of that is name recognition. A lot of that is nostalgia among Democrats for the Kennedy name. But this is someone who has this long history of outlandish, dangerous, uninformed statements, and he's being elevated by Republicans, because he might hurt Biden.

MICHELLE PRINCE, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, it's unclear what political benefit there is to giving him this platform.

The entire hearing purpose of this hearing, purportedly, was to examine censorship on these -- on these tech platforms. You know, his message is getting out there. The video that was published by a newspaper.

At the end of the day, this hearing did not examine what these tech policies are. But it was an examination of RFK's comments, which Republicans and Democrats said that they disagreed with and found very objectionable.

MATTINGLY: Do you feel like Democrats -- The interesting thing about the hearing itself, we knew it was going to be a political food fight, right, that that was kind of a given to some degree.

And I think Democrats have been very clear they didn't want RFK up there to begin with, but if he's going to be there, they were going to attack him based on his past statements.

But do you feel like this has a tangible impact on the Democratic primary, to the extent it is a thing that exists at this point?

PRINCE: I mean, it's unclear. It's still early to see are those poll numbers going to change. He has a very famous last name, especially in New Hampshire. There's a lot of proximity to Boston. It's unclear, how is this going to land as this continues.

But this is a longshot campaign. He's going up against an incumbent president. And his comments, you know, they speak for himself. And he has a long history of offensive comments here. It's unclear how this could help Mr. Kennedy to have his own comments shown so publicly.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I don't know how he's become this sort of martyr for censorship.

I mean, here's a guy who's in national media all the time. He has millions and millions of views on various social media sites. He just testified in Congress.

I think he's mischaracterizing what censorship is. The government has not shut him down.

To the contrary, our Congress just gave him a platform, and I think -- look, I believe very broadly in the First Amendment. And I think the solution is some of what we saw yesterday.

We saw men and women in Congress pushing back and fact-checking him, and if I can.