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Funeral to be Held Today for Alexei Navalny; Today: Hearing to Set Classified Docs Trial Date. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 01, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, March 1. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:51]

Actually, unfolding right now is the funeral for Alexei Navalny. It is getting underway in Moscow. There is a heavy police presence standing by as mourners mass outside.

More civilians killed in Gaza as ceasefire talks reach a critical stage. President Biden facing a real dilemma here: how much longer does he stand by Israel the way that he has so far?

And a Florida judge preparing to set a trial date for the Mar-a-Lago documents case. What the Trump campaign is suggesting. That's ahead.

All right. It is 6 a.m. here in Washington. Here is a live look at Capitol Hill on this Friday morning.

Good morning to you. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's great to be with you.

Funeral services for the late opposition leader are set to begin now. The hearse carrying Navalny's body just arrived at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow. We've got a live look at the cemetery there right now.

Hundreds of mourners are gathered outside, along with a large police presence. When asked if the Kremlin had anything to say to Navalny's family today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN, quote, "No, we have nothing to say."

We were supposed to have CNN's Matthew Chance at the site of Navalny's funeral service. However, his signal appears to be blocked.

CNN's Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward, is joining us now from London.

Clarissa, we were able to have Matthew talk with us a little bit earlier on in the show, show us some of those crowds outside the funeral. I mean, the world is watching. What are you watching today?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, at the moment, we're not able to watch very much, because as you say, it appears that that live signal has been jammed. That's the same situation facing Navalny's team, who had also been putting out a live signal from the church.

We have seen scenes, though, as you've mentioned, of hundreds and hundreds of mourners lining up for many city blocks for an opportunity to attend this funeral and to pay their respects to the slayed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

I think many people are bracing themselves for the possibility -- you talked about that heavy police presence -- of some kind of crackdown, if those protests -- I'm sorry, if those mourners attempt to protest in some way, shape, or form.

It's worth underscoring what an act of bravery it is just to attend this funeral, which is, frankly, a very tense and potentially dangerous place to be right now.

And the other thing I think is worth mentioning, Kasie, is that today is as much about who is not there as who is there. Who is not there is Alexei Navalny's daughter, Dasha; his son, Zakhar; and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who has been speaking publicly and boldly against President Putin since her husband was killed.

She just addressed the European Parliament a few days ago. She met with President Biden in San Francisco while she was visiting her daughter last week, who was a student at Stanford University.

And she has indicated that she is really going to take the mantle, as it were as, you know, a leading force in Russia's opposition. But very telling that she is not there today. And of course, one can only presume just how dangerous it would be for her to even attempt to go back to Russia at this stage -- Kasie.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, very, very abundantly clear there.

Clarissa, this is going to be a day for personal remembrances of Navalny. I'd be interested to know yours, if you're willing to share them.

WARD: So I think when you -- I had the fortune to interview and spent a bit of time with Alexei Navalny a couple of months after he was poisoned with Novichok. He was in Germany. He was in recovery. And he was preparing to ultimately go back to Russia.

[06:05:06]

To be in his presence was definitely something where you understood implicitly that this was not an ordinary person, that this was someone who had an extraordinary force around him. He was determined. He was willful. He was courageous. He was also very charismatic. He had an excellent sense of humor.

He was very humble, at least on the surface, and it was very easy just to spend time with him. He didn't have any airs or any formality about him.

And I think that's really what set him apart in so many ways from President Putin, is that he seemed like an ordinary guy, in many ways, with a loving, happy family.

But underlying that was a courage and a tenacity and an optimism in the face of some pretty dark and deeply cynical forces that I certainly have not come across many times in my career.

HUNT: Yes. All right. I'm going to I'm going to bring in our panel now to broaden out this conversation.

With us, we have Josh Rogin, "Washington Post" columnist, covering U.S. foreign policy, national security, also the author of "Chaos Under Heaven"; CNN political analyst, White House reporter for the Associated Press, Seung Min Kim; Sarah Longwell, Republican strategist, publisher of "The Bulwark" and host of "The Focus Group" podcast; and Karen Finney, Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator. Welcome all.

Josh Rogin, let me start with you. You know, Clarissa noted just the bravery of the people that are there today. What do you see when you look at them, when you understand how many of them are willing to risk their own freedom to come out for that? And what message that sends to us in the West.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right? Well, I think, first of all, the fact that Putin is blocking the public, or at least trying to block the public from watching this funeral exposes his lie that he doesn't care about this, right? The Kremlin says no comment. Putin famously won't mention Navalny's name. He says no, he doesn't have any support.

Well, if he's not so concerned, then why is he deploying thousands of police to arrest hundreds of people and blocking the world from watching it. So just from that, we can see that Putin is lying.

Now, what I think it shows is that, despite the technology, can we see this again in China and Saudi Arabia? Lots of places. That's used to suppress these voices.

These voices are persistent that, despite the fact that we in the West may have forgotten, in a sense, in our own politics, why people value sort of, you know, democracy and human rights and freedom. Maybe we don't -- Americans don't think it's our role in the world anymore to promote these things.

The people in these countries are not going to stop. They're going to keep fighting for their own dignity, whether we help them or not in Russia, in Ukraine, in China, you name it.

And to me that says that we should probably help them, because eventually, they will struggle to get their dignity one way or the other. Eventually, all dictators die. One way or the other. And eventually, the -- the struggle for human dignity will succeed.

And I feel like in the West, we have an opportunity to be on the right side of that history, whether we realize it or whether it's popular in our politics at this moment or not. HUNT: Well, I mean Sarah Longwell, we've been on that side of history since World War II, the end of World War II. But it's fraying, and it's -- that's in no small part due to Donald Trump.

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. Look, the Republican Party has changed a lot over the last ten years or so, is Donald Trump has become ascendant, but there is nothing that is a more shameful distillation of who the Republican Party has become than its total capitulation to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

The fact is, right now, their bravery -- the bravery we're seeing from Navalny and his supporters is in direct contrast to the cowardice that we are seeing from this Republican Party, who refuses to stand up to Donald Trump.

And Donald Trump, who refuses to stand up to Putin and, you know, as a Republican who kind of grew up as a Cold War baby and a Ronald Reagan --

HUNT: Tear down this wall.

LONGWELL: Yes, it is -- Ronald Reagan would be spinning in his grave watching this right now. And it is shameful.

HUNT: I want to show a little bit this -- Christiane Amanpour's wonderful team had, had found this former Australian prime minister talking a little bit about what he observed in terms of the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. I want to just play a little bit of that.

And again, let's underscore, you know, these -- these pictures outside the church for Navalny. You can see how people have -- have mass there as again, our -- our CNN signal is blocked.

But watch how this again, someone -- a world leader who had a chance to observe Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin together, watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALCOLM TURNBULL, FORMER AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: I mean, I've been with Trump and Putin. Trump is in awe of Putin. He's -- when you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he's like the 12-year- old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. My hero.

[06:10:09]

It is really creepy. It's really creepy. Now I don't --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it struck you at the time?

TURNBULL: Absolutely. It struck everybody. It was -- it was like it -- when you can touch it. It was creep -- the creepiness was powerful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Karen Finney.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Here's what's so powerful about that, is it's obviously -- yes, the capitulation of the Republican Party is horrible.

But in the context of this campaign, I hope that these images serve as a reminder to the American people. That is what Donald Trump thinks is power. That's what he believed. That's what he wants to emulate. And I think we should not forget that.

I think it's important that -- you know, here in America, I think it's easy for us to sort of dismiss that for most people going about their day-to-day lives; don't think about it, necessarily.

However, those images -- those people who we're seeing standing outside, they are literally risking their lives to be there. That is how dire this is.

And this is a man not only there, but in -- as we're seeing in the Ukraine, what he is doing. And those images need to remind us that that is what Donald Trump wants to emulate. That is what he thinks power looks like.

And as Josh said, it's cowardice. You know, having dealt with Putin on the periphery when Brittney Griner was taken, I was honored to be part of her team.

HUNT: Really?

FINNEY: It was -- and this was leading up to I will say -- I mean, she was taken in February of 2022. But we knew as the midterm elections we're approaching part of his strategy was to make President Biden look bad with black voters, because one of the things that the Russians are very good at is figuring out where the cracks are and how do you exploit that to create divisiveness and division.

So one of the things we were able to do was to pull together a coalition of African American leaders, civil rights leaders, and God bless them because, you know, folks like Reverend Al Sharpton, they know how to do this better than anybody.

But what we all -- they understood that we had to show strength and support for the president, because showing too much distance was actually going to make it harder to get her back.

That's the kind of three-dimensional chess you have to play when you're dealing with a mad dictator who is holding someone, really, for no reason other than to embarrass the United States in that instance.

HUNT: All right. I want to quickly show -- we have a little bit. It's not very long, because again, and we've been dealing with -- the CNN signal is apparently blocked for Matthew Chance's live shot. Our reporter, Matthew Chance, who is on the ground.

But we do have a little bit of video we can show you of the hearse arriving. And just listen to what you hear as you watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So these, Seung Min, are the kinds of images that it seems that Russia probably doesn't want us to see.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, right. And it's just -- you really do see just how the -- the -- the power of Putin and that relationship with Donald Trump really influencing so much domestic politics here.

And as -- as we see these powerful images, I think you would have seen a broad condemnation of what Putin did and how he -- how he runs his country from the leader of the Republican Party on down.

But that's not what you're hearing from Donald Trump. I mean, his comment on Navalny's death was mostly about himself, whereas other leaders in the GOP said, this -- this is a horror; this is -- this is Putin's doing. That was not Donald Trump, and he is certainly, obviously the leader of the Republican Party right now.

And Republicans, other Republican officials are just really try -- really finding it hard and impossible to condemn those actions, even though privately, you and I know, Kasie, they disagree with what the former president is doing here.

HUNT: Yes, they do -- Josh.

ROGIN: And that could make it even worse right now. Trump and his allies are helping Putin win in Ukraine, directly by thwarting the aid.

HUNT: Right.

ROGIN: And that's what's going on, is that Putin is killing Ukrainians because they are out of ammunition, because the MAGA Republicans won't pass the bill. And so that's a direct aid to our enemy and perhaps in return for some favorites to be repaid later in the election season.

HUNT: Yes, I'm really glad you raised that point. All right.

Panel is going to stick with us. We're going to talk more in just a moment.

In just hours, though, a Florida judge could set a trial date in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. We're going to get a live update on that ahead.

Plus, where Donald Trump says he's leaning on a national abortion ban. And President Biden's direct message to Trump, as they both visit the

Southern border.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:20]

HUNT: Welcome back. You are taking a live look at what is unfolding right now in Moscow. We are -- inside that church right now, the funeral for Alexei Navalny is unfolding.

We were expecting Navalny's team to provide us with live pictures, a live feed from the service, but it is currently not available. It is not showing live coverage.

And Matthew Chance, our reporter on scene, his signal also apparently blocked. We were able to hear from Matthew Chance earlier in the 5 a.m. Eastern hour. We're going to continue to work to get as much as we can from this scene and bring it to you as it unfolds.

[06:20:06]

But again, you know, we don't want to speculate as to why, but these signals currently blocked that here at CNN.

So we are going to go to another story today, a crucial hearing in Florida that could determine the trial date for Donald Trump's classified documents case. The special counsel, Jack Smith, now requesting that that trial start on July 8.

Trump's team is arguing that a fair trial cannot be held until after the 2024 election. But then they offered up their own date of August 12. That's obviously before the presidential election.

Joining us now from Fort Pierce, Florida, CNN senior crime and justice reporter, Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, it's wonderful to have you. Can you just explain to me what's up with these conflicting dates, this August 12, versus actual -- after the election and doesn't interact at all with the timing on the election subversion trial.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there isn't an election subversion trial set right now. And Kasie, here in Florida, this trial was set to go to trial at the end of May. This is the classified documents case against Donald Trump and his two co-defendants. And nobody says that they are ready to go to trial in May.

And so everybody has to propose new dates. That's what's going on here.

Jack Smith's team says July. We should be ready to go just after July 4. And the defense teams, they're saying dates of August and September. They have to propose something, because they already tried once with this judge to say, We don't want to have a trial at all before the election.

And she said, No, that's not how it's going to go. We are going to put some dates on the calendar.

So they proposed some dates, but the way they did this, very cooly, is they have put into their filing, helpfully for the judge, all of the dates of primary elections for Donald Trump and other candidates, potentially, between now and for the rest of the season.

And so the judge is going to be looking at both her calendar, the calendars of the Justice Department and the defense teams, as well as now, she has before her the political calendar.

So they're nudging, in a way, to get her to take into consideration all that he has to do as the likely nominee of the Republican Party.

HUNT: OK. Katelyn, can I ask you, speaking of the likely nominee, the Republican National Convention, where they will actually select the nominee, is currently set for July 15 to 18th.

If Jack Smith gets his way, this trial is going on during the convention. Republicans are going to have to nominate someone, likely, who is on trial. Their August date, he'd already be the nominee. Do we hear anything about that in these filings?

POLANTZ: Well, Kasie, I am really looking to see what the judge is going to say about that, especially.

We have already had one judge, Tanya Chutkan, also a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on the 2020 election case for Trump, call his campaign activities, his day job, and saying that whatever he's doing with the campaign, that would need to yield. Politics would need to yield to the justice system.

We're going to be watching very closely to see if Judge Aileen Cannon here in the Southern District of Florida is going to have a similar view.

Does the criminal justice system come first? Does his responsibilities as a criminal defendant standing trial, is that something that Donald Trump is going to need to do, even if it's in the middle of the Republican National Convention or in the middle of the campaign season, where he would be -- much rather be very likely somewhere else than sitting in the courtroom behind me.

HUNT: Yes. Katelyn, you and I were talking about this yesterday, in terms of, like, the reality that he can only be on trial at one place at one time, because he has a right to attend the trial.

Can you just give me a sense -- you know, as someone, I don't cover this closely the way you do. How long do you expect the actual trial to take, right? Like once they started, how many weeks are we looking at before any other trial could start?

POLANTZ: Well, that is always up in the air because trials can go in a lot of different ways. Sometimes they can get dragged down. Sometimes they can go more quickly, depending on the presentations that both sides want to make.

But in this trial, we're looking at a month or longer. That is how all of these trials are looking like for Donald Trump, at least the two federal cases against him, that the prosecutors are putting together cases that would take a couple of weeks to present.

And then there would be time for a defense case if Trump's team would want to do that, as well.

So this would not be a one- or two-day thing. This would be something that would last longer. And then add onto that in the front-end jury selection and in the back-end jury deliberations.

And you're looking at something that would be longer than a month. Almost certainly.

HUNT: OK. Katelyn Polantz, you're going to have a busy year. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next here, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin squaring off at Congress over his failure to inform the White House about his recent hospital -- hospitalization.

Plus, the incredible power of Oprah. How her latest business decision really slenderized a company's stock.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Navalny! Navalny! Navalny!

HUNT: You can hear that: mourners chanting "Navalny, Navalny."

Here's the live look that we do have at Moscow, in Moscow, where the funeral of Putin critic Alexei Navalny now underway. That's the cemetery where he is going to be buried.

Good morning to you. It's always wonderful to have you with us. We can show you this photo, too, of Navalny's coffin being carried into the Church of the Icon of the Mother.