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CNN This Morning

Russia President Vladimir Putin Blamed for Death of Alexey Navalny by Navalny's Family and Supporters; Alexey Navalny's Mother Unable to Retrieve His Body from Russian Morgue; Ukrainian Military Losing Ground to Invading Russian Forces as Ukraine Aid Stalled in U.S. Congress. Trump Rails Against $355 Million Ruling in Civil Fraud Case. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 19, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

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CHARLOTTE COWLES, COLUMNIST, THE CUT: They would never fall for something like this. I thought that I would never fall for something like this. So the best way that you can prepare is to think of a couple of people who you can trust who you would reach out to in a situation like this.

And then think of the ways that you would get off the phone if you really had to. Lie, make up a reason. Say you have to go to the bathroom, say that you're losing cell phone service, and just slow down, take a beat, call someone, reach out to someone else. It's the best way to do a gut check and really get yourself out of a situation when you're in over your head.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for doing this. I know it couldn't have been easy.

COWLES: Thank you.

BERMAN: I think it's really important what you've done here, and I hope people are paying attention.

COWLES: Thank you.

All right, CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, (D-NY) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The death of Navalny rings an urgent alarm bell that demands that House Speaker Johnson pass the bipartisan national security supplemental with the dire help that Ukraine needs.

NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA, RUSSIAN POLITICAL ACTIVIST: I feel like we're all in the stage of denial. He did not just die. He was murdered, and it is very important for us to stress it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, good morning, everyone. The death of Alexey Navalny shakes the status quo in Russia and beyond. The family of Navalny is demanding to know how he died as hundreds of people are detained mourning him. What Russia allegedly did when Navalny's mother visited the morgue where his body is allegedly being held.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: And Navalny's death comes as a key city on the eastern front in Ukraine falls to Russia. We're live on the ground as Ukraine looks were a path forward as more U.S. aid looks uncertain.

BERMAN: And Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen joins us live. Why he thinks Trump is, quote, compromised after that $355 million civil fine. And of course, the sneakers that his former boss is selling.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

The death of Alexey Navalny has triggered protests and arrests across Russia this morning and widespread condemnation around the world of Vladimir Putin. In a new video statement this morning, Navalny's wife vowed to continue his work and promised to find out who carried out the alleged crime on, quote, "My closest and most beloved person." She also accused Russia of hiding his body. This morning Navalny's mother and his legal team claim they have been thwarted in their attempts to see his body, even to see it. The Kremlin insists the return of Navalny's remains, it's not their responsibility, they say.

Hundreds of mourners have shown up at makeshift memorials across Russia. Many of them have been taken into custody for protesting the dissident's death.

CORNISH: And new this morning, the Ukraine military struggling to hold its position on the front lines against Russia. Ammunition and supplies are now running critically low. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is divided over a new aid package. Ukrainian troops have been forced to surrender the town of Avdiivka after a bloody year-long struggle.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine. But first, we're going to go to CNN's Matthew Chance live in Moscow this morning. And Matthew, we're showing images of those mourners being dragged away. Can you talk more about what the reaction has been to Navalny's death?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, it's been one of absolute shock across this country. You can see there are people here now, actually this is, I think this is one of the journalists, but there's people here who have been laying these flowers throughout the course of the day, despite the restrictions, despite the laws against public displays of resistance and dissent in Russia, people are still coming out to pay their respects. Somebody right here. Look, just laying a couple of roses out of sympathy for Alexey Navalny, the late Russian opposition figure who was announced dead at his penal colony in the far north of Russia late last week on Friday.

There are concerns also now about what's become of his body. You mentioned earlier that his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, has traveled the thousands of miles to that penal colony, which is beyond the Arctic Circle, to try and recover the remains of her son. But she has not been successful. The authorities there first denied the body was in the morgue in the arctic town. Now they're saying that more postmortem work has to be done for an indefinite period to try and establish what the cause of death was suddenly on Friday.

Now, Navalny's supporters, his anti-corruption team, say that's just an excuse to prevent them getting their hands on the remains of Alexey Navalny so they can not just hide his body, but hide the real reason that he dropped dead, that he suddenly died last week.

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And so there's a lot of suspicion circulating amongst them and amongst people in Russia as well as the story continues to unfold.

BERMAN: And Nick Paton Walsh is with us as well. Nick, what is Yulia, the wife of Alexey Navalny, saying this morning?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, she has given a statement essentially saying she will continue the work of her husband and laying again clear blame directly towards the Kremlin for this. I think we might have some of her own words we can play you here.

Thank you. So here you're saying -- she's saying, if I translate roughly for you, that they're pushing the blame directly on Vladimir Putin.

Now, I should point out the death of Navalny has put the conflict here in Ukraine in very stark focus, certainly, the minds of the western leaders who are in the Munich Security Conference over previous weekend. And to compound that, Ukraine has had to accept over that weekend the loss of a key eastern town Avdiivka, which has been fought over by them for months, indeed. And now we've seen that withdrawal on Saturday, and concerns rippling across Ukraine that this might be the first of a number of places potentially to see direct impact of the slow, or not happening of western aid, $60 billion yet to be approved by the dysfunctional Republican-held Congress.

And so today we've also seen President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine visiting a town to the north of Avdiivka near Kupiansk, essentially to bolster morale there. But he does so as a number of reports emerge from how some Ukrainian wounded troops were indeed left behind in the evacuation from Avdiivka. Not uncommon, I should say, in warfare when situations get desperate, but their final messages, their final pleas, their final video indeed being circulated a lot among social media channels here, and I think adding to a sense of Ukraine realizing that its situation is growing, to some degree, desperate.

We know there are ammunition shortages here. It doesn't feel that way here in Kherson where every minute or so we here artillery in and out and continued exchanges. This place has been liberated, but still Russia bombards it relentlessly. And I think there's a wider concern that that dysfunctionality, the political games that Vice President Kamala Harris referred to it when she was in Munich, is already having a direct effect here. It's costing Ukraine lives, certainly. It's costing them land in terms of Avdiivka.

And in fact, slightly further east from where I'm standing, one of the key towns that was gained in the counteroffensive over the summer -- town, I should say. It's a tiny village called Robotyne. There are persistent Russian bids now to push back and try and recapture that. So multiple areas of the Ukrainian front line here, deep concerns there that we may start seeing further Russian gains.

We are now into the month before Putin essentially gets his next presidential term rubberstamped by an election in Russia, and real concerns here that this may be the beginning of Russia picking up again its military campaign here. And it's really those billions of U.S. aid, they're allowing this to happen because they haven't arrived, and that's directly impacting what Ukraine can do.

BERMAN: Our Nick Paton Walsh in Ukraine. Our thanks to Matthew Chance in Moscow as well.

With us now is former Russian minister Andrei Kozyrev. Mr. Minister, thank you so much for being with us. The wife of Alexey Navalny speaking out this morning, calling on people to take to the streets in Russia. Do you think they will?

ANDREI KOZYREV, FORMER RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, it's big question because Putin's power, or Putin's regime is ruthless. And it's insatiable in its desire to kill, invade, intimidate. That is what the hell he wants to do. That is what the hell he wants to do not only in Russia, but in Ukraine and, believe me, farther on.

So it's the question not only for Russian opposition, which is there and will be there, whether on the streets or not, that is not important. But he will be there, I mean, Navalny as a leader for historic time.

[08:10:01]

The tyrant, when the tyrant dies, his rule ends. When the martyr or prophet dies, his rule begins. That's a philosopher Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher said 200 years ago, and its true so. But it's very important for the west and including the especially the United States, to understand that Putin's regime is aggressive not only inside, not only in Ukraine, as I said, but it will go as long as it is not stopped.

So the problem is with the Congress, and of course the GOP reluctance to approve the funding for the military aid, which is its crucial. But something could be done even today, even tomorrow, by the administration, that is to stiffen the sanctions, the enhanced enforcement of the sanctions. President Biden once promised crippling sanctions. So that is good time to make those sanctions work seriously, because so far they are porous.

In you're the previous hour, very important reporting demonstrates that the oil is still going from Russia to India. But the problem also is where the spare parts, especially the high-tech spare parts, which could be made only in the west and probably only even in America for the production of oil and for the military hardware, which Putin reduces now, all those spare parts somehow come not from India, because India cannot do that. And they oil production in Russia was set up by western companies, including American companies. So that's where the sanctions could be much more strongly enforced.

CORNISH: Andrei Kozyrev, thanks so much for your time.

KOZYREV: Thank you.

CORNISH: Now, Donald Trump is vowing to change the legal system if he wins the presidential race after a judge fined him $355 million in the lawsuit against his business. We'll ask Trump's former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, how Trump could pay the fine, and why Cohen says Trump is quote, compromised.

BERMAN: And new CNN reporting on the role that Vice President Kamala Harris could play in President Biden's reelection campaign, why voters may see more of her.

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[08:16:59]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The judges and prosecutors that were dealing with me are essentially all the same -- different wrappings, tone, manner -- but always the same coordinated and overly nasty results. They are nasty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's Donald Trump after a judge in New York ordered him to pay nearly $355 million in a civil fraud ruling that was at a campaign rally in Michigan over the weekend.

Trump claimed without evidence that he is being politically targeted in these court cases and vowed to change the nation's legal system if re-elected.

With us now, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. He is the author of the book "Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice against His Critics," as well as the podcast "Mea Culpa" and "Political Breakdown."

Michael Cohen, great to see you this morning. Thank you so much for being here.

$400 million, Donald Trump has been told he needs to pay more than that total, in these two cases combined. You knew him for a long time pretty well, what do you think that number means to him?

MICHAEL COHEN, DONALD TRUMP'S FORMER PERSONAL LAWYER: That's a total -- it is like the death touch to Donald. They don't have that available cash. I've read in several different articles that he has a substantial sum

of cash, it's not true. I would highly doubt it. He is probably looking at RNC money. He is probably looking at super PAC money again, as part of money that he would use.

But no matter what happens, he does not have enough and there will have to be a liquidation of his assets in order to cover this amount, because you're right, it is not 354, it is into the 550 million, especially with the E. Jean Carroll, $88.6 million civil fine as well.

BERMAN: It's a lot of money anyway you look at it.

COHEN: It is.

BERMAN: And Michael, you say that you have concerns that somehow it compromises him. How?

COHEN: Well think about it, if you're Vladimir Putin, I tell you how Vladimir Putin is probably looking at Donald Trump right now. That Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man.

So as a KGB -- former KGB expert, he is looking at Donald and saying, what can we do in order to help -- to help him to get away from these various different things? Well, one, you can't fix stupid. So that is what it is. You just take advantage of it.

All right, as far as the poor man and a rich man, well figure out how to put some money in his pocket, because that's all Donald Trump cares about. He doesn't care about America, he is out there hawking sneakers, he's out there hawking whatever he can, grifting off the poorest of Americans.

Think about who is -- who's supporting Donald Trump and the use of his 757 plane? Who is supporting Donald with all of his legal fees. It is the poorest people in America and that's what Vladimir Putin will be taking advantage of.

[08:20:10]

BERMAN: So this was the civil fraud ruling against him. There's now a trial date in the New York criminal case against Donald Trump, where we do expect that you will be a witness.

In the civil fraud ruling. Judge Arthur Engoron wrote of your testimony, he said: "Cohen's testimony was significantly compromised by seeming contradictions at what he said at trial." What were those contradictions, do you think?

COHEN: I have -- I have no idea. Show me where it says that, because what I know that Judge Engoron said is that Cohen told the truth. I mean, that's just how he finished this song, not that he was concerned.

BERMAN: He said -- he did say -- he did say -- look, he said two things. He said, one, there were seeming contradictions with what you said at trial. He also said that there was animosity between the witness and the defendant, and he said that was palpable, providing you with an incentive to lie, but he did say he found your testimony credible, because it was corroborated by the evidence.

COHEN: Because John, all of my -- all of my -- John, all of my testimony was corroborated by documentary evidence, as well as corroborating testimony from other witnesses.

BERMAN: Do you think you're the star witness -- do you think you're the star witness of the criminal trial?

COHEN: You know, I don't know if I am. I don't care if I am or I'm not. I had been subpoenaed to testify. And, you know, short of exigent circumstances, I will be there. Other than -- other than that, you know, I have now testified before seven congressional committees. I've testified before the Mueller team. I testified to the grand jury for the district attorney case.

I testified as you know, on trial, at this case, the Manhattan -- the New York attorney general case, and I will be testifying most probably at this upcoming March 25th Manhattan district attorney's case.

BERMAN: When was the last time -- when was the last time you met with --

COHEN: Show me -- show me where --

BERMAN: When was the last time --

COHEN: Show me where my testimony has been in --

BERMAN: When was the last time --

COHEN: Has been inaccurate?

BERMAN: When was the last time you met with the Manhattan prosecutor's office?

COHEN: Last week.

BERMAN: How much have you been meeting with them?

COHEN: I'd rather not get into a discussion with that, but there is a lot of documentation, there is a lot of witness testimony and they are putting their case together as prosecutors do.

BERMAN: One of the things that could come into evidence is a recording of a discussion you had with Donald Trump in 2018 that seems to pertain to the payments that were made that are at issue here. Let's listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

COHEN: Correct? So I'm all over that. And I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be -- TRUMP: Wait a sec. What financing?

COHEN: Well, I'll have to pay him something?

TRUMP: (inaudible) pay with cash...

COHEN: No, no, no, no. I got it.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BERMAN: Two things. Why were you recording your client?

COHEN: Okay, so I'm not going to get into the substance of any testimony or any information that may be used by the Manhattan district attorney, other than to tell you this does not have -- this recording did not have to do with Stormy Daniels (inaudible) Karen McDougal.

BERMAN: Okay, so you don't think necessarily this will come into evidence?

COHEN: I don't know. You're the one saying it, not the Manhattan DA.

BERMAN: I am not -- I was asking and again, and -- but that you won't even discuss why you were recording Donald Trump in this case?

COHEN: No. No.

BERMAN: Do you think Stormy Daniels --

COHEN: And if the question comes out? If the question comes out at trial, I'm certain like every other question asked of me, I will answer it truthfully, accurately and I assure you one thing, it will not inure to the benefit of Donald J. Trump.

BERMAN: Do you think that Stormy Daniels will be a witness in this case?

COHEN: You know, I don't know. They're not discussing with me who other witnesses are. I just want to get through this so that I can start my own life again. And like I said, you've heard the amount of testimony that I've provided over the course of the last four years. I'd like to at this stage of my life, I would like to get on with it and put all of this behind.

It's about time other people started doing what they can do, like Bill Barr, let him come forward and let him talk about all the things he did while he was working for the president of the United States.

BERMAN: The reason I was asking about Stormy Daniels specifically, because I've heard you talk about this case, and you make the point. This isn't about Stormy Daniels exactly. It's about more than that. It's also about how the papers were filed and whatnot.

So I was just wondering if you think what she has to say would be relevant. COHEN: I don't -- I don't know. Again, we'd have to leave that to the

Manhattan DA, but I did say that this is not the Stormy Daniels case. This is business record fraud campaign finance violation. She may have been part of the reason for it, but she is not the case.

[08:25:02]

BERMAN: And there are a lot of people out there and you've heard them because you pay close attention to this and you've got two podcasts who say the civil fraud ruling, you know, this only helps Trump to be fined more than $350 million.

In the criminal case here in New York, they say, this only helps him having this New York criminal case be the first one that comes up. How comfortable or uncomfortable do you think this criminal trial will be for Donald Trump?

COHEN: I think she'd make him very uncomfortable.

First of all, any case that's against you where the result could mean loss of freedom, incarceration should concern any -- anybody. Now one of the other reasons it should be concerning is because this is not a difficult case to prove.

This entire case will be predicated on documentary evidence and corroborating testimony from a handful plus of people. This is a case that will probably start and finish with a decision in 30 days.

So if it starts March 25th, by May 1st, you could already have a ruling that could jeopardize the freedom of a former president.

I mean, the whole thing is absolutely astonishing that there is a former president of the United States that is now indicted on four, you know, criminal matters with 91 charges, 91 counts against him. It's astounding.

BERMAN: Michael Cohen, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Always great talking to you. Appreciate it.

COHEN: Great to see you, John.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: And a domestic call ends with three first responders shot and killed at a home in Minnesota. What police found after the shooting.

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