Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

IRS Whistleblower in Biden Probe; Russia Hits Odessa Grain Warehouses Overnight; Police Raid Home in Tupac Murder Case; Messi Takes Field Tonight. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 21, 2023 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

ELLIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Look, I believe very broadly in the First Amendment. And I think the solution is somewhat what we saw yesterday. We saw men and women in Congress pushing back and fact checking him. And if I can, you know, Eva's package just there I think exposed some of the mistruths.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

HONIG: That's - you know, they say the remedy for bad speech is more speech. And I think that's how this is playing out.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Elie, can I - there was a -- we talked a little bit about this, this week. There was another hearing this week where some of the IRS whistleblowers in the Hunter Biden investigation came forward. One of those whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler, sat down with Jake Tapper yesterday and he talked about the reason why he decided to blow the whistle, decided to go public, and made clear, this isn't about the president, this isn't about anything else, this is about the investigation itself. And this is what he said about the investigation.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH ZIEGLER, IRS WHISTLEBLOWER: It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. attorney in Delaware, in our investigation, was constantly ham-strung, limited and marginalized by DOJ official, as well as other U.S. attorneys. I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation.

I'm not here about - about Hunter Biden. I'm here about the bigger - bigger picture of all of this. I blew the whistle because I saw inappropriate things being done throughout this investigation. I brought facts. I brought things that had happened as I recalled them to Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, the U.S. attorney, David Weiss, has made clear that he believed he had the ultimate authority, has pushed back on what the whistleblowers have said. But those are very specific and very damaging claims that have been made under oath.

HONIG: Yes, I think both of the whistleblowers, who we've seen here, I don't question their motive, and I think they're to be taken seriously. I think some of the things they're saying are a concern to me. Some are not.

This question over was -- what was the scope of David Weiss, the U.A. attorney's, authority. Both David Weiss and Merrick Garland have said he was given complete -- a blank check. He could have gone wherever he wanted. And, to me, those are two very credible people. David Weiss was a Trump appointee. He had Democratic support. Merrick Garland, for all the criticisms I've lodged against him, has been an absolute truth teller and absolute straight shooter.

But I think the most interesting allegation that does need to be looked into further is this claim that certain avenues of investigation were cut off because, as a prosecutor, you're supposed to take your leads wherever they go. You're supposed to follow them wherever they may go. And if it's the case that somebody said, no, no, no, let's not look there. Let's not pull - let's not push too strongly on that, then we need to know that. And I think the whistleblowers need to be heard on that.

PHILLIP: Do you think that this ends with Garland or the U.S. attorney here coming forward publicly and explaining what happens?

MICHELLE PRICE, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE ASSOCIATED PRESS": It sounds like the - you know, after Hunter Biden is - is supposed to be in court next week to appear on these misdemeanor tax charges that he's facing, then the U.S. attorney is actually free to appear in Congress. And it sounds like it's very likely he will be there to be answering some of these questions.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it seems inevitable at this point, to some degree.

PHILLIP: Yes, and perhaps -

MATTINGLY: And necessary. And -

PHILLIP: Yes, perhaps worthwhile. I mean I do think, you know, this is different from like an investigation into a former or current president, but there's a lot of public interest in it. So I suspect that we'll hear something in the future.

Michelle and Elie, thank you both very much.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, guys.

Well, more on the news breaking overnight. Russia continuing its attacks on Ukraine's southern ports, destroying tons of grain. We're going to take you live to Ukraine.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:55]

MATTINGLY: Welcome back.

These are some words that you should probably listen to. At least raised some alarm bells when I heard them yesterday. CIA Director Bill Burns warning that Russia could be preparing for a false flag operation in the Black Sea.

Take a listen.

(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 and the Black Sea and then blaming it or trying to blame it on the Ukrainians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Overnight, Russia targeted a grain warehouse in Ukraine's Odessa region. A military official says two people were hurt and more than 100 tons of peas and barley were destroyed. This is the fourth night of strikes on Ukraine's main port city, and it coincides with Russia's decision to pull out of a critical deal that allowed for the safe export of Ukrainian grain to nations that desperately need it. According to the National Security Council, agricultural infrastructure and 60,000 tons of grain have been destroyed in these attacks.

CNN's Alex Marquardt is in Kyiv with us now, and we're also joined by retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson.

Alex, I want to start with you. You'd been in Odessa for initial three nights of attacks. There's now a fourth. What actually happened last night? What did -- when did they come?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil, we just got back to Kyiv. We were in Odessa for the last few nights during this incredible barrage of Russian strikes. In fact, we were up all night waiting to see whether Russia would indeed carry out a fourth night of these attacks. And now it seems they have.

This came in the dawn hours. We did hear some warnings while we were in Odessa that Russia was indeed attacking again. But we were in the city. We could not hear those strikes.

Now we have learned that there were at least seven missiles that attacked an area southwest of Odessa, still in the Odessa region, targeting different types of infrastructure, including food infrastructure. So, this speaks to the argument that we've heard from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials that Russia is weaponizing hunger.

Now, according to Ukraine, Russia used seven different types of cruise missiles to attack grain warehouses southwest of the city. They destroyed 100 tons of peas, 20 tons of barley. This comes after those three nights of very intense strikes using both drones and missiles to go after the grain infrastructure, to go after the ports in Odessa and elsewhere.

This is - this just speaks to the incredible rising tension in the Black Sea region. Russia has justified its attacks saying that they are responding to that attack on the Kerch Bridge that took place on Monday by Ukraine. But it is clear that they are going after the food infrastructure. And, of course, Phil, this comes after Russia did pull out of that grain deal on Monday.

Now, it's not just on land that we are seeing this tension and seeing these strikes but also in the Black Sea. Out at sea you have both Russia and Ukraine warning each other that they could go after each other's ships.

[06:40:03]

And now this ominous warning from the CIA director, from the White House, saying that Russia could carry out an attack on civilian ships using this pretext, using this excuse that they believe that any ship going towards Ukraine could be carrying military cargo. That is the excuse that Bill Burns and the White House are now saying Russia could use.

At the same time, Ukraine is also saying that they will assume that Russian ships heading to Russian ports in the Black Sea could also be carrying military cargo and therefore could also be targets. They said that those Russian ships could be treated like the Moskva, that is the - of course the Black Sea flagship that was sunk by Ukraine very famously last April.

Phil. Abby.

PHILLIP: Alex, and we actually have that sound from Bill Buns that you were just talking about. I'm going to play it, but, Colonel Anderson, I want you to respond to it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BURNS, CIA DIRECTOR: What it resurrected was some deeper questions, which, again, you know, have -- you've seen circulate within the Russian elites since the war in Ukraine began, since Putin's war in Ukraine began, asking questions about Putin's judgment, about his relative detachment from events, and from -- about his indecisiveness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, Colonel Anderson, look, Putin is in a weakened position obviously and is feeling incredibly threatened by what Ukraine has done when it comes to the Kerch Bridge. How do you see this playing out?

BRIG. GEN. STEVE ANDERSON, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, thank you, Abby. Clearly he's desperate. I think the walls are closing in. He's greatly embarrassed by the Prigozhin mutiny three weeks ago. He was again had his nose bloodied by this Kerch Bridge attack. And so he's trying to distract the Russian people and let them focus on attacking Ukraine. And specifically their infrastructure that supports movement and shipment of grain. And so he's trying to do that, trying to distract world attention.

If you think about it, he really only has a couple levers in which he can pull to motivate the international community. He's got his nuclear weapons arsenal. He's got oil. And now he's attacking food. He's trying to make it painful for the Ukrainians. Just another page out of his play book. We've seen this before.

What we need to do is get more air defense artillery assets down there in Odessa and Mykolaiv. Right now the only Patriots are in the Kyiv area. Rightfully, they prioritize their capital. But we've got - we, the United States, has a lot of Patriots that are available and I'd also recommend that we send SeaRAM, the counter rocket artillery and mortar systems that were used with great effect in Iraq and Afghanistan because they not only can attack incoming missiles, but they can also attack the low flying drones that are such a problem and the Ukrainians have been struggling to try to defend.

HARLOW: General Anderson, I apologize for mistitling you there, but my apologies.

MATTINGLY: I do want to ask, General Anderson, Alex and the team have done a great job, not just reporting on the ground, but also reporting on the cluster munitions, the decision to send them, that they had arrived. Alex had been talking to commanders that confirmed that first.

Your sense from your experience on what effect these will have now that they're being utilized?

ANDERSON: Well, I will tell you that they're very effective.

MARQUARDT: Well, the U.S. -

ANDERSON: And I think that we're trying to do is trying to use them as a bridging strategy until they can get more ammunition over there quite frankly because they know that using cluster munitions has a lot of attendant problems. The dud rate is about 2.3 percent.

Now, Russians are using cluster munitions. Their dud rate is 40 percent. But that speaks to the manufacturing capability of the United States and NATO. But, nevertheless, they're going to have a residual problem, an enduring problem, of cleaning up a battlefield because they know that there's going to be cluster munitions out there that could potentially harm the civilian population.

Now, my understanding is that the Ukrainians are targeting unpopulated areas and they're using them. But I think that this is a bridging strategy just to get them until they can get more ammunition. I'd also commend the Biden administration for living up to the deal.

They said that they'd get cluster munitions within a week to the Ukrainians, and they did that.

MATTINGLY: Alex, you were saying?

MARQUARDT: Yes, I think there really is a debate, Phil, over how effective these munitions can be. And the U.S. is certainly waiting to see.

I did speak with a general last week who was in charge of much of the southern front who says that they will have a radical impact. And you can -- you'll also speak to some analysts who say, you really have to find the right target for cluster munitions to be effective. So, you know, larger groupings of soldiers, of weaponry and machinery and that kind of thing.

[06:45:00]

But I think the general's absolutely right, this is, for the U.S., certainly a bridging strategy. It's filling a gap where there is a real shortage of the more standard artillery rounds. And, Phil and Abby, right now this is very much an artillery fight.

MATTINGLY: No question.

Alex Marquardt, retired Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson, thanks, guys.

ANDERSON: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And we have new reporting on the Gilgo Beach murders. Why investigators believe that the victims may have been killed inside the suspect's home while his family was out of town.

MATTINGLY: And 27 years later, are investigators finally closing in on Tupac's killer. What officials just took from a witness's home coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: Police took computers, tablets and hard drives from a home that they searched near Las Vegas as part of their investigation into Tupac Shakur's long unsolved murder. CNN has obtained a search warrant naming Duane Davis, also know as Keffe D, as a target of Monday's search. Property records show that the home belongs to his wife, and the rap icon was gunned down back in 1996 near the Las Vegas Strip. Keffe D says that he saw it all happen, but police never charged or arrested anyone for that murder.

[06:50:00]

CNN's Chloe Melas is here with us.

Chloe, this is so interesting that this has come up again after all these years. What do we know about what they were trying to look for potentially in this search?

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: So, good morning to both of you.

And I think that the question on everyone's minds right now are -- and on the minds of the family of Tupac Shakur, the brother of Tupac speaking to Sara Sidner last night on CNN, is, what took so long? Twenty-seven years later and Duane Keith Davis' wife's home, a search warrant taking place this week. They took five computers, laptops, iPads, tablets, USB hard drives, journals, even a magazine, a "Vibe" magazine that had Tupac on the cover.

Now, what is so interesting about this is that Duane Keith Davis has been open in the press, in the media -

MATTINGLY: Repeatedly (ph).

MELAS: Even writing a book repeatedly saying -

MATTINGLY: Right (ph).

MELAS: That he witnessed the shooting that night in 1996.

We have a little bit of an interview that he did with BET many years ago.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said the shots came from the back? Big Dre, Orlando. Who shot Tupac?

DUANE KEITH DAVIS: It came from the (INAUDIBLE) streets. It just came from the backseat, bro.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELAS: So, remember, Tupac Shakur was driving in a car with record label executive Suge Knight in Las Vegas after they had just seen a boxing match. And that's when that white Cadillac infamously pulled up in front of them and shots were fired out of the back. So Duane Keith Davis has always said that he saw it, he knows who did it, but he was never going to say who did it. So there's been a lot of speculation over the years. But why now search the home of his wife and take items that belonged to him? So it will be interesting to see how this develops and could it lead to a potential arrest.

PHILLIP: Wow. Yes, big story there.

Chloe Melas, thank you so much.

MELAS: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, tonight, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team will make their 2023 World Cup debut. A preview ahead. PHILLIP: And it is officially Barbenheimer Day. A viral marketing

campaign is driving fans to see both movies this weekend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:28]

PHILLIP: The top ranked U.S. Women's National Soccer Team is set to make its World Cup debut in New Zealand tonight against Vietnam. The team is going for its third straight World Cup title. And while they're ranked number one, analyst say the cup is still very much up for grabs. Superstars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe are returning to the field this year. And it will be Rapinoe's fourth and final World Cup. She announced plans to retire at the end of the Major League Soccer season. The team is also sporting 14 rookies. Team USA takes the field against Vietnam tonight at 9:00 p.m.

MATTINGLY: I'm so excited. It's like bizarre how --

PHILLIP: It's kind of like an end of an era for Megan Rapinoe and - leaving the field.

MATTINGLY: No, it absolutely is.

PHILLIP: But it's going to be an awesome game and an awesome World Cup, I think.

MATTINGLY: This game, I don't think, is going to be awesome just because the U.S. is going to win by like 30, which I guess is awesome to some degree, but this tournament's going to be insane. The talent is very, very high level.

In another major soccer debut tonight, Argentinian legend Lionel Messi is set to play his first match with Major League Soccer's Inter Milan (ph) and he'll do it in front of a sellout crowd.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is live outside the stadium in Fort Lauderdale this morning.

And, Carlos, south Florida is very clearly ready for Messi.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, that's exactly right. Abby and Phil, good morning.

So, Inter Miami has gone from the worst league in Major League Soccer to the center of the eyes of the sporting world. The moment, the hype, the anticipation, it's all finally here and fans from across the world are ready for Messi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUAREZ (voice over): At Inter Miami's stadium and training facility, fans have camped outside for days to try and get a glimpse of Lionel Messi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Been Inter Miami fans for a long time, ever since the club was founded.

SUAREZ: His first practice with the team wasn't open to the public and drew journalists from all over the world. The anticipation of Messi also drawing more police and security at the stadium where Inter Miami plays.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm excited to see him. I always wanted to see him, me and my little brother. So, we wanted to see him for a long time and that's why I'm here.

SUAREZ: Signs of excitement are all over Miami, from murals of Messi, to billboards with his image, welcoming Messi not only to south Florida, but to Major League Soccer.

The average ticket for Inter Miami's first match with Messi against (INAUDIBLE) is $423, up over 1000 percent since June when Messi announced he was coming to the U.S. The average listed price for Inter Miami's entire season increased 700 percent, and fans are traveling nearly 600 miles on average to see Messi make his debut.

An expert on branding and marketing, Florida International University Business Professor Gustavo Mosquera says the global brand that is Messi supercharges the team and the league's growth.

GUSTAVO MOSQUERA, BUSINESS PROFESSOR: In terms of sales, they have been growing. In terms of followers, in terms of engagement, in terms of jerseys worn, in terms of fans, that's great. But in terms of community, have you ever sold entirely, completely the stadium?

SUAREZ: According to Apex marketing group, Messi's trip to Publix, a popular Florida based supermarket chain, netted the company millions in free publicity after photos and videos of him shopping went viral on social media.

ERIC SMALLWOOD, PRESIDENT, APEX MARKETING: They've done about the value to date, as of this morning, about 6.5 million in viral equivalent brand value that we've been able to measure. I mean that's across forms of TV, radio, all social media.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SUAREZ: Of course, Messi stands to make tens of millions of dollars off his contract here with Inter Miami. His deal reportedly includes equity in the team.

Now, part of the attention when we get to tonight's match is whether Messi is going to start tonight or whether he's going to come off the bench as a substitute. The 36-year-old, he's only been in town for about a week. He's only had one practice with the team. And he still has to get to know his new teammates.

Again, right now, the anticipation, the hype, everyone out here is ready to go. And it should be an exciting and an historic night.

Abby and Phil. MATTINGLY: You know, Carlos, the day will come when I will say Inter

Miami instead of Inter Milan when I talk about this team. Today was not that day. I appreciate you picking me up. A big day, big night for you guys down there. Thanks, buddy.

PHILLIP: And the good news is that Messi doesn't have to worry about all the publicity. He's pretty used to that.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

[07:00:00]

PHILLIP: But CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigates think the suspected Gilgo Beach serial