Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Idalia Gaining Strength; Russia Confirms Prigozhin's Death; Ramaswamy Defends Remarks; Martin Luther King III is Interviewed about Race in America. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired August 28, 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]
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: And, by the way, this is not just a Florida storm. We have to keep an eye on this in Georgia and into the Carolinas for Wednesday and Thursday.
Here's the latest. Sixty-five mile per hour winds. It's still a tropical storm. It will bring hurricane conditions to western Cuba today.
This is important. It started to move in a northerly direction. That is completely different than what it did over the past 36 hours.
Now, this storm is going to run basically parallel with the Florida Gulf Coast. And this is important because any deviation to the left or any deviation to the right can have major implications on places like Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Cedar Key, Tampa Bay as well.
And it is not lost on me that putting a category 3 major hurricane upon arrival and what that means for the Florida coastline here. So, we remember what happened with Ian. Look at this, seven to 11 feet. Right along that big bend there. That's the storm surge forecast. And I want you to see this as well. Look at the wind and the direction of that wind. That is going to push all of the water, very shallow water, across the eastern sections of the Gulf of Mexico. That is why storm surge, the wind threat here potential for 110-mile-per-hour or higher across the big bend. And then, check that out, rainfall will lead to flash flooding as well. Lots to cover here.
Phil.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, no question. Please keep us updated. Listen to authorities if you're down there.
Derek Van Dam, thanks so much.
VAN DAM: All right.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, now to Russia. After days of speculation, Russian officials have confirmed that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is one of ten people killed after the private jet they were on fell out of the sky, landing in a fiery crash near Moscow. Investigators said DNA tests established all of the victims' identities.
It all happened exactly two months to the day that the longtime Putin ally attempted an armed rebellion against Russia's military command but called it off just short of reaching Moscow.
CNN's Matthew Chance is joining us live now from Moscow.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but we now have the answer to one, it was Yevgeny Prigozhin, among others, killed in that crash.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. I mean, it was a very quick, short statement from the Russian investigative committee saying that basically they'd done genetic tests on all the human remains that they'd recovered from the crash scene. The crash taking place last Wednesday, of course. And they found that everybody who was on the passenger list, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been confirmed as dead. And so that's the - that's what we got from the Russian officials in terms of confirming Yevgeny Prigozhin's death.
It brings to an end the -- or answers at least one of those very important questions about what happened, what took place during that plane crash and, of course, brings to the end, in dramatic fashion, a very controversial Russian figure.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE (voice over): He carved out a pivotal role in Russia's Ukrainian war, often visiting his Wagner mercenaries near the front lines in Bakhmut where he'd sent them to fight what became a very personal battle, not just against Ukrainian forces, but with Russia's own military leadership whom he regularly condemned as incompetent as thousands of his hired fighters were killed.
Here, Prigozhin points at a pile of dead bodies next to him and launched into a tirade.
Those who didn't give us ammunition will go to hell and eat their intestines, he shouts.
Then he named Russia's defense minister and army chief. You animals are sitting there, he says, and think you have the right to decide their lives, he bawls. It was extraordinary criticism of Russia's high command.
And he followed it up with unprecedented action, leading what he called a march for justice towards Moscow, effectively a Wagner military uprising that challenged Kremlin authority. A deal was done to call off the rebellion as Prigozhin's forces advanced on the Russian capital. But a furious President Putin called it a stab in the back from a man he regarded as loyal.
He was in the service to the Kremlin, first as its catering contractor in the 1990s that earned Prigozhin the nickname Putin's chef. And Prigozhin emerged as one of Russia's most powerful figures. His Wagner mercenaries, at the behest of the Kremlin, were active in Ukraine, the Middle East and several African states, where human rights group accuse them of horrific abuses.
But Prigozhin was much more than just Putin's chef turned Putin's warlord. He was Putin's troll as well. Setting up this notorious troll factory in St. Petersburg, the internet research agency where internet provocateurs were paid by Prigozhin to distort the U.S. political debate around 2016 presidential elections.
[06:35:12]
Prigozhin was sanctioned by the U.S. but denied any involvement in election meddling. He denied links with Wagner too.
But with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that mask was discarded. After his abortive uprising in June, Prigozhin and his Wagner forces were officially exiled to neighboring Belarus. But the Wagner leader continued to travel freely, even visiting the Kremlin to discuss the group's future role.
Prigozhin's most recent video showed him speaking in an unidentified African state where he said he and Wagner would continue to promote Russian interests. But it wasn't to be.
Back in Russia, his private jet was recorded plunging from the skies on a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Russian investigators confirm all ten people on board, including Prigozhin, were killed. A dramatic end to a controversial figure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE: All right, Sara, well, you're right, we've got the death of Prigozhin confirmed by the authorities, but there's still no answers on what caused that crash, that plane to plunge out of the sky.
Sara.
SIDNER: Yes, that's the big remaining question as to whether or not it was purposeful.
Matthew Chance, thank you so much, live for us from Moscow.
MATTINGLY: Well, coming up, you're going to want to stay with us. We've got brand-new CNN reporting that digs in to how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:40:20]
MATTINGLY: Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is defending comments he made last week comparing a black lawmaker to the Ku Klux Klan. At a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, the GOP hopeful said this about Democrat and Black Congressman Ayanna Pressley.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ayanna Pressley, she's in the Congress today, she's a member of the squad, her words, not mine, we don't want any more black faces that don't want to be a black voice. We don't want any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice. Literally word for word, I'm not putting any words in anybody's mouth.
Ibram Kendi wrote the book "How to be an Anti-Racist." I wrote "Woke, Inc." It was a pretty successful book. His sold more copies than mine. Here's what it says, opening lines, the remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination. So, the other side will gaslight you when you say this stuff. It's like, oh, you're just making that critical race theory stuff up. No, no, I'm -- these aren't my words. These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Now when challenged by CNN's Dana Bash yesterday, Ramaswamy doubled down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is the same spirit to say that I can look at you, and based on just your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints you're allowed to express. For Ayanna Pressley to tell me -
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: OK, that's -
RAMASWAMY: that because of my skin color I can't express my views, that is wrong. It is divisive.
BASH: That is a - that is a debate -
RAMASWAMY: It is driving hate in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: She fact-checked him, by the way, there and deserves credit for that.
John Avlon and Maura Gillespie are back with us.
Thank you so much for sticking around.
This is hard to listen to because the Klan, flogging, mutilating, killing, hanging and saying that the first black congresswoman of Massachusetts is the same as the KKK? What -- who is he trying to get -- just get attention or is he trying to get voters using this kind of trash? JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND ANCHOR: Both. Primarily
attention. But the idea that reverse racism is the real racism is something that presumably plays to the base.
And, look, you've got to separate this out, right? The - your point you're making about any comparison to the KKK, let alone to a black female congresswoman.
KKK is a terrorist organization. It was a terrorist organization. At its inception, when former confederal veterans got together in December of 1865 and used violence and voter intimidation to try to push back the gains that were on paper in the Constitution. That comparison is somewhere between idiotic and just historically awful.
Now, you can have a good conversation about, look, identity politics.
SIDNER: Right.
AVLON: About the idea that a person's political beliefs should follow their group identity. And that's a good debate to have. Not just in Republican primaries but everywhere. You want to talk about Ibram Kendi and really dig into whether anti-racism actually helps the country heal and move forward, let's have that debate. But once you start throwing the hand grenades and comparison to the KKK, particularly to a black female congresswoman, it's beyond insulting and the debate shuts down.
MATTINGLY: So, Maura, John kind of hits at a key point here. The debate on the issues itself or the debate just generally is a totally fine debate to have and certainly a debate that I think has moved to the forefront over the course of the last five, six, seven year, no question about it. But then listen to Ramaswamy, also in Iowa, say this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've never once encountered that yet. I'm sure the -- I'm sure the boogeyman white supremacist exists somewhere in America. I've just never met him. Never seen one. Never met one in my life, right? Maybe I'll meet a - maybe I'll meet a unicorn sooner. And maybe those exist too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Maura, I think my question is less, look, this is performative and it's intentional and he's doing it for a reason.
MAURA GILLESPIE, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, FORMER REP. ADAM KINZINGER: Right.
MATTINGLY: The same way he was talking about his book and how well it had done in the midst of doing all this. But you've been a Republican staffer. You've been inside a Republican conference as that Republican conference evolved quite a bit over the course of the last several years on issues like this in particular and I think strategies, hyperbolic strategies like this. Why? What's the play here when you hear something like this?
GILLESPIE: He's following the Trump playbook to a tee. He's watched how far Trump pushed his boundaries saying that he could stand on, you know, the streets of New York and shoot someone and still he would have his loyal fan base.
Ramaswamy has seen that and is testing his own boundaries, seeing how far he can take it because, let's be honest, he's put $15 million of his own money, maybe even more, into his campaign and so now he's looking for that free earned media.
[06:45:04]
And he's getting it by saying inflammatory things and really trying to appeal to Trump voters.
But what they should really be asking is, if you, Vivek, think that Trump is the greatest president of our time, or on earth, or whatever he said at the debate, then why are you running? Why are you running against him?
What he's really doing here is just trying to get attention, as John pointed out. And he can push the boundaries because Trump can.
MATTINGLY: All right, Maura, John, there's a lot more to dig into on all of this, including Ramaswamy running against the guy who's the greatest president, in his words, in history and the attention getting mechanisms he utilizes.
Maura, John, thanks so much, guys.
SIDNER: All right.
GILLISPIE: Thanks.
SIDNER: And it just so happens all of that conversation happens -- today marks 60 years since the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I have a dream" speech. We'll be joined by Martin Luther King Jr. III about his father's legacy and our country's efforts to fulfill that dream.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, SON OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Dad would probably say, now is the time. We must preserve, protect and expand democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOLANDA RENEE KING, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: If I could speak to my grandfather today, I would say, I am sorry we still have to be here to rededicate ourselves to finishing your work and ultimately realizing your hidden dream.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: That was Martin Luther King Jr.'s 15-year-old granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King, speaking at the March on Washington event in D.C. over the weekend.
Thousands of people gathered in the nation's capital where Dr. King gave his iconic "I have a dream" speech and spoke of a more just and equitable America. Today marks 60 years since that march.
Later today, President Biden and Vice President Harris will meet with relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. and organizers of that historic march.
[06:50:03]
MATTINGLY: And in a new op-ed in "The Washington Post," President Biden says, "we must keep marching toward Dr. King's dream." He write, quote, "while we've never fully lived up to that promise as a nation, we've never fully walked away from it either. Each day of the Biden/Harris administration we continue the march forward."
Joining us now, global human rights leader and son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King III.
Sir, thanks so much for taking the time on this incredibly important day, on this anniversary, but also in the wake of what we saw just this weekend in Jacksonville, Florida. And I think these types of moments underscore the fact that the job isn't finished, the dream hasn't been fulfilled. And I wonder how you think of moments like today, where you look back at such history and yet still see so many problems.
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, SON OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Well, maybe it says -- and thank you for the opportunity to share on this day as we observe this anniversary.
Maybe it says that we, in a sense, continue history, and yet somehow we have to move forward.
I must first say to the victims, the family members who have lost loved ones, that my condolences I send to them.
But there's something wrong with the nation where this continues to happen over and over again. If you remember in 1963, about three weeks after the March on Washington, four little girls lost their lives in the 16th Street Baptist church because of bombing. Every time there seems to be a sense of a forward movement, there's always the inevitable setback. The fact of the matter is, hate is being promoted in this country and we've got to change that and we got to do something about it now. Not tomorrow, not next week, but now.
SIDNER: Mr. King, I'm curious what you think your father would have thought about the way we are with politics today. We just heard one of the presidential candidates saying that he's never met a racist and it's like finding a unicorn in this country. Where do you think he would think about what's happening in our political world today?
KING: Well, I think, number one, had he lived we would be on a totally different trajectory and perhaps we would be dealing with some other kind of issues, but not these issues, because he constantly talked about providing positive imagery and not elevating the negative.
We - we -- I mean this is not to criticize you as a network or any one network, but when you montry (ph) is, if it leads - if it bleeds, it leads. That's something wrong with that. We need to have - we've got to create more positivity in this nation. And we've got to figure out, how do we, again, communicate without -- disagree without being disagreeable. That's what dad did throughout his life. That's with (ph) my mom. That climate has to be created. It doesn't just happen on its own.
MATTINGLY: Sir, I was struck reading -- you had an opinion piece in "The Washington Post" on the 50th anniversary, so ten years ago, and the key elements of that piece, including one line, "although significant progress has been made in some areas, too many Americans have inadequate opportunities to escape poverty, joblessness, discrimination, social neglect and violence." You talk about gun violence throughout the piece.
So many of the core issues in that piece are still core issues we are talking about debating and not really agreeing on solutions today. Why?
KING: Well, I think, number one, we have gone down a spiral of going backward instead of moving forward. Again, we created what we call a huge coalition for this 60th anniversary where we had blacks and Jews and we had Latino and Native Americans. We had the LGBTQIA community. We had labor. This was the large - one of the largest coalitions that has ever existed. We had the Chinese American community. So, Asian Americans.
The point is, the trajectory has got to change. And we keep going down this negative hole. We have to figure out, how do we create a positive energy, a positive, as my father used to talk about. That's what I'm dedicated toward, building coalitions to say, America is better than it is acting at this time.
We have an opportunity and we must -- we got to learn non-violence also. We've accepted a culture of violence. We must create a culture of non-violence. That makes us a better nation. Darkness will never put out darkness. Only light can do that. Violence will never stomp out violence, dad said, only love and non-violence can do that.
SIDNER: I think that's why people really -- he was such a revered figure because he was able to be kind but also be very clear about what was happening to black people in this country in particular.
[06:55:02]
I do want to ask you about your meeting today. I know you're meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris. What is the message you would like to send to them? What would you like them to take away from the meeting?
KING: So, I think there are probably a couple to three areas. Number one, we have to figure out how to bolster the opportunity for people to vote. We still have a system of voting that does not allow everyone the same kind of access. There are draconian laws put in place in some states. Dad used to say, a voteless people is a powerless people. And the one most important step we can take is that short step to the ballot box.
The second thing is, we got to do some more about hate crimes and hatred that is being spewed. Whether it is figuring out how do we address what the internet does, there's got to be a constructive way to do that. And the final piece is, again, we, as a nation, we got to work together and not work at (ph). We - we -- we're turning on each other. How do you create the climate to turn to each other because when we as a nation turn to each other, we're interested in, how do we bolster people, not how do we suppress and divide people.
SIDNER: It's a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for coming on, on this really important anniversary, 60 years since that march. Appreciate your time.
KING: Thank you.
MATTINGLY: Well, she's done it again. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles has broken yet another record. We're going to have more on that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTINGLY: Olympic gymnast Simone Biles breaking yet another record last night. She became the first person to win eight national all around titles at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.
[07:00:04]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sam (ph), you just don't want it to end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Wow is a good response there.
