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Funeral for Navalny Today; CNN's Signal from Navalny Funeral Apparently Blocked; Trump on National Abortion Ban; Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) is Interviewed about Navalny and Trump. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 01, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: 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 of God in Moscow. 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 as they mourn him today, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN, quote, "no, we have nothing to say."

CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is with us now.

Clarissa, what does it say to you that we're unable to see this funeral? We were expecting to be able to watch a live stream provided by Navalny's team.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it says to me that the Kremlin is not taking any chances. They know that there is a huge scope for today to turn into something big because there are so many hundreds of people, so many brave mourners who have taken the risk to show their grief and their support for Alexei Navalny.

There are a huge amount of riot police outside that church. There is also signal jamming reportedly going on. Our own colleague, Matthew Chance, has not been able to get up live. Navalny's team, who had been putting out a live signal on YouTube, have not been able to continue that.

And you can hear the chants of the crowd, Kasie. The crowd saying "Navalny, Navalny." They're saying, were are not afraid and you were not afraid. Thats a play on a slogan that Navalny himself used to say a lot. (Speaking in foreign language). I'm not afraid and you shouldn't be afraid.

And so this is a day, I think, where the Kremlin is potentially afraid because its not only supporters of Alexei Navalny who were there. We know there are some dignitaries there. We saw kind of an extraordinary still photograph of the U.S. ambassador to Russia and the U.K. ambassador to Russia standing outside of the church in the face of this kind of wall of riot police. And we have heard from the Kremlin spokesperson, from Putin's

spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, warning people about any, quote, "unauthorized memorials." So, definitely there is a sense of heightened tension. The Kremlin does not want this to turn into some kind of a larger protest or protest movement. And Navalny's supporters understand that. We heard from his spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, saying, listen, this is just the beginning of harder times and harder struggles ahead.

HUNT: Harder indeed.

I'm going to broaden our conversation out here to the panel who's still with us. Josh Rogin, Seung Min Kim, Sarah Longwell, Karen Finney.

Josh, in terms of kind of how Clarissa was characterizing this about not being afraid and what's ahead, what do you see?

JOSH ROGIN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Right. Well, I think, you know, there's two different audiences for this type of Russian crackdown. One is us. You know, eventually, despite the livestream being cut off, we're going to get the videos. They're going to get - we're going to find out. People in the west, people in open societies are going to get this information.

The other crackdown is aim at the Russian people. And that's the one that's actually a lot more serious. That's the one where Putin has a lot more control. And if he's able to minimize the impact of this demonstration of these brave people coming out to risk their lives to show support for not just Navalny but for what he represented, a different Russia. A Russia that is part of the world. A Russia that treats its citizens like human beings. If he can stop 90, 95 percent of Russians from saying that, that's his main priority. And that's what we have to be honest about, is that the situation inside Russia is getting worse. And that bodes poorly for us because, as the Russian people become more isolated, they're more willing to believe that Zelenskyy is a Nazi and we have to attack Ukraine and Donald Trump's great and all these -- this other nonsense that Putin is putting out. That doesn't mean we - that they're going to stop. It doesn't mean that we should stop supporting them. But we have to acknowledge the fact that this kind of crackdown bodes poorly for Vladimir Kara-Muza, another Russian opposition leader who writes for "The Washington Post," who got a 25-year sentence for protesting the war, and countless other people who are in a new Russia, a Russia that's even worse than it was before. And, unfortunately, that's going to get worse before it gets any better.

HUNT: Well, and, Karen Finney, I mean you worked on, again, helped -- helping to get Brittney Griner home.

KAREN KINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

HUNT: We've seen, you know, Evan Gershkovich, 300 plus days being held. There's the - the ballerina, the American -- Russian American ballerina -

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: Who was seized. How does that play into this.

FINNEY: And Paul Whelan.

HUNT: And Paul Whelan, yes.

FINNEY: It's - it - here's the thing, particularly in this modern era. You know, I visited Russia in the '80s and then -- as a tourist, and then in the '90s as part of the Clinton administration. And the vast difference. And now that we live in an era of social media, it's hard -- yes, the crackdown inside is what's more deadly and dangerous.

[06:35:02]

At the same time, the truth will get out. And that with - you know, again, with the situation with Brittney, just as all the people we mentioned, we've seen images of them. We know what's going on. And, thankfully, we've been able to communicate with them. So, we have a sense of what they are going through. We have a sense -- and we're able to tell that story and put -- apply that sort of outside pressure.

Putin, not unlike Donald Trump, doesn't seem to have much shame about the way he treats people. But at the same time, again, the fact that we are able to see for ourselves makes a huge difference in at least our ability to apply pressure from the outside.

HUNT: Yes.

Sarah, you know, we have -- we can put this poll up about the U.S. and how they feel about helping Ukraine in the war against Russia because, again, I don't -- as Josh noted kind of earlier in the show, we can't pull these things apart. Thirty-five percent of Americans say that the U.S. is helping Ukraine too much. That's a big part of why we're seeing what we're seeing in terms of not being able to get it through Congress. What's going on there?

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND PUBLISHER, "THE BULWARK": Yes, so this really comes from both Donald Trump and the right-wing media telling Republican voters that Ukraine is corrupt, Ukraine is bad. You know, Donald Trump hasn't liked Volodymyr Zelenskyy sends Volodymyr Zelenskyy -- since he tried to leverage him with that perfect phone call and Zelenskyy declined to go dig up dirt on Joe Biden. And so Donald Trump likes that Vladimir Putin doesn't like Zelenskyy, wants to help Putin, sees Putin as somebody who helps him. And so, Donald Trump and right-wing media infotainment ecosystem, along with people like Tucker Carlson, have been actively working on Republican voters now for a long time.

You know, I do these focus groups all the time with voters. And when the -- when Russia invaded Ukraine in the beginning, the voters were on Ukraine's side. These Republicans voters, they - they -

HUNT: Yes. LONGWELL: They talked about the grandmothers who were putting the sunflower seeds, you know, giving them to the soldiers so that when they die, when they were shot by the Ukrainians, you know, sunflowers would grow. Like they - they admired that. They admired -- their gut instinct was to admire the bravery of the Ukrainian people who are fighting for their land. But after two years almost of the Republican media and Donald Trump working on them, the voters are now out on Ukraine. When I listen to them they say, no, we shouldn't be sending money. We should be focusing on the border. Like, they've really been able to do this thing where it's now - no - it's America first. There - this what - how they see America first working. It is, no, we have to protect our border. We don't care about these people abroad.

HUNT: Clarissa Ward, can I bring you back into this conversation?

WARD: Uh-huh.

HUNT: What Sarah was just outlining there about why this is happening in the U.S., how does that, you know, materialize in terms of how you see the world and what's unfolding for Zelenskyy and Ukraine and the potential outcomes here and the ramifications that has for decades to come?

WARD: Well, this definitely feels like a watershed moment, right? I mean, you have Ukraine fighting for its life, Russia feeling certainly emboldened, if not smug. President Putin had said all along that Ukraine's allies in the west would not be able to play the long game, would not be able to basically suffer for a protracted period of time in terms of economically and financially, the support that they've been giving Ukraine. And now, as we've seen with this sort of embattled bill in the House, it's become clear that there is some truth to that.

And, you know, Europe has stood steadfastly with Ukraine, but there are question marks again as to how long that that could continue for, particularly if you don't see a sort of renewed commitment from the U.S. to stand with Ukraine. And we hear reports every day from our colleagues and soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine who say they literally do not have enough munitions to fight effectively against Russian forces at this stage.

And then against that backdrop, you have the death of Russia's most well-known and well-respected opposition figure, one of the very few people who really had an ability to kind of cut through the noise, who had an ability to galvanize support, particularly around younger Russians. If you look at those crowds, so many young Russians. And the boldness to kill Alexei Navalny. Now, we don't know exactly how he died, and - and we may not know. We know that there are people trying to investigate that and getting to the bottom of that, but there will likely be a lot of noise and misinformation and disinformation around it. But it clearly would not have happened if Alexei Navalny was not being held in an arctic penal colony.

And so it does feel like this kind of a dramatic moment where everyone in the world is watching to see what happens next. Does Putin get away with this? Does Ukraine fall to Russia or parts of Ukraine fall to Russia?

[06:40:04]

Does Russia's opposition just get quashed? Is there any room any longer for Democracies like the United States to provide a bulwark, to provide support, to try to erode those types of authoritarian forces? And at the moment, it doesn't feel that way.

HUNT: Josh.

ROGIN: Yes, well, I think it's sad that 35 percent of Americans don't feel that we should help Ukraine. But the other side of that is that 65 percent of Americans feel that we should, or even should help them more. So, you could look at it that way and see that actually the MAGA Republicans are -

HUNT: The minority.

ROGIN: They're -

WARD: Yes.

ROGIN: They're -- they're weaponizing a minority of Americans to change American foreign policy against what has traditionally been. If you put that Ukraine bill to the floor of the House right now, it would pass overwhelmingly. So, we just have to remember that this is actually a minority opinion in America, but the tail is wagging the dog.

HUNT: Seung Min, quick last thought.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Right. Right. And if you kind of drill down in public polling, you see the really fascinating divide between political parties because you do have Republicans, a majority of Republican voters who have consistently said for the last several months that - that - that they're doing -- that the U.S. is doing too much to support Ukraine. But the AP had a poll out this week that has Democrats who are right now saying, we're not doing enough to help Ukraine. So, see that almost kind of reverse with the two parties. When you're hearing Democrats say, we're not -- we need to do more to help military operations abroad has been a really fascinating switch. I'm sure a lot of that is coming from President Biden. He has made foreign policy such a big part of his presidency. He's meeting with the Italian prime minister again today where he will again, I'm sure, press Congress to pass that Ukraine aid bill.

HUNT: All right, very, very important conversation to have this morning as, again, Alexei Navalny's funeral currently underway in Moscow. We're unable to see that live. We had expected there to be a feed from Navalny's team, but that signal has been blocked, as has the signal for our Matthew Chance, who is on the ground covering this for us in Moscow.

We are going to take a quick break here. Coming up next, a key hearing in Georgia to determine whether or not DA Fani Willis will be disqualified from Donald Trump's election subversion case.

Plus, remember this? An update on the man who leapt over the bench to attack a judge. Wow, I had actually forgotten about this. That is crazy. OK, we'll have that coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:51]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, more and more I'm hearing about 15 weeks. And I haven't decided yet. Now it's in the states. A lot of states are taking a vote of their citizens. And votes are coming out both ways, but largely they're coming in with a certain number of weeks. And the number 15 is mentioned. I haven't agreed to any number. I'm going to see.

We did a very good thing, a very big thing, a very important thing. Probably hurt the Republicans because a lot of Republicans really didn't know how to talk about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was former President Donald Trump on the border yesterday talking about the possibility of a national abortion ban at 15 weeks, that he keeps saying 15, the number 15, that is in the context of whether there should be a 15 week abortion ban. This came after "The New York Times" had previously reported that he had privately expressed support for a 16 week abortion ban.

Our panel is back with us.

Karen Finney, you are watching this. What's - I mean -

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: He acknowledged this is a huge problem for Republicans.

FINNEY: Yes.

HUNT: Why is he going there if that's true?

FINNEY: Because he's trying to run away from his record. On the one hand he wants to get credit with the far-right conservatives for having put people on the court that bravos (p) the Dobbs decision. On the other hand, he recognizes, frankly ahead of most in the Republican Party, something that we in the reproductive rights movement realized about five or six years ago, which is that people in the middle, they're not so -- he's wrong actually about the number of weeks because increasingly where Americans are and where they've shifted over the last ten years, that's why eight in ten Americans support Roe v. Wade, is that women should decide. And all of the horrors that we said would happen when Dobbs fell have been happening. We have seen women criminalize, doctors criminalized. But the last thing I want to say is, in 2024 it's not just about

abortion. It's going to be about reproductive freedom, which again is how we've been talking about this in the last year. They're going to go after contraception. That's the next thing that's coming on The Hill. Mike Johnson's not going to let it get on the floor because of his own history. They're going after IVF, and now we're talking access to abortion.

So, two things. One, that is frightening to the people who say, wait a second, this is a slippery slope. What other of my rights could they take away? And, secondly, that -- those three issues hit such a broad swath of the American people in terms of whether you're -- it is you're taking contraception for various reasons, you want to use IVF to have children.

HUNT: Yes.

FINNEY: Access to abortion. I mean, think about the case in Texas where the woman needed -- wanted to have an abortion, in part to preserve her ability to have more children.

HUNT: So she could still have another child.

FINNEY: Exactly.

HUNT: Yes. No, it was remarkable.

Sarah Longwell, as previously noted, you spend all of your time talking to voters about this, this idea that Trump might get behind a 15 or a 16-week national ban. What is that going to mean when the rubber meets the road with voters?

LONGWELL: Yes. So, first of all, one of the things about Donald Trump on abortion that is distinct from sort of the Republican Party is that voters read Donald Trump as a social moderate. They do not see him as sort of the pro-life type, like Mike Pence, or like (INAUDIBLE) -

HUNT: But he was for like his whole career before he was president.

LONGWELL: Well, I mean, honestly, what voters say is they'll say, like, I think he probably paid for an abortion. Like, that's what voters say. I don't say that. Voters say it.

But I think, hey, look, Donald Trump should talk about abortion because this is bad for the Republican Party anytime they are talking about abortion and they're not talking about the economy or the border. Those are the good issues for them. Abortion, bad issue for them. And also because it splits the party. It splits the party between the Mike Johnson types, who doesn't want a 15 or 16-week ban, he wants nothing. He wants to go on offense against IVF and on birth control. Donald Trump is actually -- he has a better understanding politically of where Americans are than the far right flank of the Republican Party. And so Trump, I think sometimes smartly triangulates against them to lean into this socially moderate view that a lot of voters have of him. But if he starts doing this, getting into kind of an argument over how many weeks, that splits the party, has them talking about it, puts them in a tougher position.

FINNEY: Yes, and a ban is a ban. Remember, they tried it in Virginia to do 15 weeks, and the voters said no.

HUNT: Yes. Yes, no.

Seung Min, I mean, just quickly, we can put up this IVF ruling that -- a snap poll from "Axios" and IPSOS.

[06:50:01]

Forty-five percent of Americans strongly oppose it, 21 percent somewhat oppose the Alabama embryo ruling that, of course, caused, you know, IVF clinics to shut down across Alabama. You know, you cover -- you've covered the president like kind of day in and day out in the administration. I mean, what do they see in this?

KIM: I mean they see, first of all, a way to continue to make the point that it's not just abortion, it's about broader reproductive care, broader health care for women that is really at stake, that has been at stake since the Dobbs decision -- since the Dobbs decision in 2022, but is also at stake in this November election. And that's the contrast they want to create. They look at those comments from Donald Trump and they see that clearly as political gold.

And they also -- and I've just been fascinated with Republicans, you know, a year-and-a-half later, not be able to grapple, not just with the political consequences of the Dobbs decision, but the substantive consequences.

HUNT: Yes.

KIM: It's not just abortion. It's not just, you know, 12, 16, 20 week bans or whatnot. And you really saw that with the IVF ruling. You know, Republicans who signed on to that legislation saying life begins at conception, they didn't think about how this would affect -

HUNT: Right.

KIM: Really popular procedures, like IVF, and they're really trying to scramble to reconcile that a record now. But there is a record there that voters and Democrats can point to.

HUNT: That's very, very true (ph). No, it's a good point.

All right, this has been a wonderful discussion. Thank you all for joining us today.

It is about ten minutes before 7:00 here -- here on the East Coast. Here is your morning roundup.

Summary arguments in Fulton County today to determine whether DA Fani Willis and her special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, will be disqualified from their case against Donald Trump and his allies in the Georgia election subversion case.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is facing tough questions from Republican lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a matter of national security. And someone needs to be held accountable.

Beyond the immediate need to inform the president, Congress also has a right to know of secretarial absence or transfer of authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Lloyd Austin apologized for not immediately notifying Congress and President Biden about his hospitalization in December following treatment for prostate cancer.

And the Weightwatchers stock price plunged 25 percent after Oprah Winfrey announced Thursday that she is stepping down from the company's board of directors. She didn't say why she's leaving, but she did admit months earlier that she was taking a medication to lose weight.

(VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Yikes. That Nevada man caught on court video leaping at a judge in early January. He says he doesn't remember the incident and he's pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Deobra Redden is facing a slew of charges, including attempted murder. His lawyer says he was not on his medication.

All right, this just in, the funeral of Alexei Navalny has taken place and we have just gotten the first image of his body lying in an open casket. His body now being carried out of the church. Thousands have gathered, chanting. Navalny, the name Navalny -- wait, hold on. Let's just pause and look at that.

So, this is our - our - it's an image of Alexei Navalny at his funeral in Moscow. The first chance we've gotten to look at that -- that open casket. Just a remarkable image here this morning.

All right, let's bring in North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. He joins me now from Bismarck, North Dakota. He previously ran against Trump for the Republican nomination, but has now endorsed him.

Governor, very grateful to have you here this morning.

GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Good morning, Kasie. Great to be with you.

HUNT: Governor, I want to start with this picture that we just saw of Alexei Navalny at his funeral, which has concluded in Moscow. What do you have to say about the death of Alexei Navalny? Donald Trump has -- the man you've endorsed for president, has not spoken about Alexei Navalny in a laudatory way since his passing in a Siberian prison. What do you have to say about the death of Alexei Navalny and what it means for the west?

BURGUM: Well, I think, clearly this is a pattern of Putin. Putin's a murderer. He - it's basically a country that's not the way we would think about a country where you've got a president who's elected. I mean it's basically a large criminal organization, and Putin's at the top of it.

He's been stealing from the Russian people to make himself one of the richest people in the world and he's eliminating enemies like a mob boss.

HUNT: Do you think that Donald Trump should speak more forcefully about the positive role that you say Navalny is playing?

BURGUM: Well, I think that's up to President Trump, but I think what -- clearly we're in this situation where Biden, with his policy of appeasement, has put us in a position where the entire world is less safe. And whether it's lifting oil sanctions on Iran, whether it's, you know, green lighting a bunch of dictators around the world with our abysmal withdrawal from Afghanistan, or whether it's the time when we had an opportunity to support Ukraine immediately and help them win.

[06:55:15]

Instead of Biden ever saying we're going to help win, he's been saying we're going to stay as long as it takes. And Americans, you know, have a timeline where they say, maybe we should be focusing on something else. So, we -- and you have to tie it all back to energy policy because Putin would have never invaded Ukraine in the first place if we hadn't allowed all of western Europe to become dependent on his natural gas because of a Biden policy to try to kill the U.S. liquid energy business.

HUNT: Governor, just to pause our conversation briefly, this is our - our signal is back on the ground in Moscow. It's a shaky signal. This is Matt -- our crew there. You can see Matthew Chance's face. So, we're going to keep an eye on this and we may need to jump to it in a second.

But let's continue our conversation about what is unfolding here.

You mentioned Ukraine, the energy issues around it. Funding for Ukraine currently stalled in the United States Congress. Do you believe that funding should go to Ukraine?

BURGUM: Well, I think its stalled for a couple reasons and it's back to what you were talking about earlier on the - in the hour, which is the border. Is there's a group of Americans that are saying, you know, quite simply, they're not foreign policy experts, but there might say, hey, like, why are we helping with somebody else's border when we can't take care of ours?

And Joe Biden has been abysmal. Ten million plus people coming into our country illegally, which is unfair for the people that are trying to enter legally. And in 2016 this was about immigration. But in 2024, the border is about national security and it's about public safety and - and every -- every American is feeling it. Every state's a border state. Everybody understands it. The 330,000 overdose deaths under Joe Biden. I mean, when we were campaigning, you couldn't -- we couldn't go a day without meeting someone who'd lost a family member to a fentanyl poisoning.

HUNT: Governor, there -- the Ukraine funding was tied into a bill that also did address border security. It was a bipartisan bill that passed the U.S. Senate. It died in the House, in no small part because Donald Trump has been pretty open about the fact that he didn't want it to go forward in no small part because it might address some of the problems at the border in an election year when, obviously, Republicans are much more trusted on the immigration issue among voters than Democrats are.

Do you think the Senate passed bill that would address border security and Ukraine funding, should that be passed by the House of Representatives?

BURGUM: Well, I think it's - we're going to - we'll run out of time on cable TV channels to talk about how -- bills that have died in the House. I mean this is the -- one of the narrowest margins we've had between the two parties, and neither party wants the other party -

HUNT: Well, it's - it's because he won't - it's because the House speaker won't put it on the floor. Should Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, put this bill on the floor?

BURGUM: Well, I think that's up to Speaker Johnson on how he wants to manage it because, as you know, there's always gives and take here. But there are -- this is a - it's an election year. It's going to be politics. And so that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

But what we need to say is, over the next four years, are we going to have a leader that's going to make the world more safe and more prosperous, like we had under President Trump, or are we going to have a world going to chaos because starting with U.S. policies around energy, which are, you know, allowing places like Iran to fund terrorism around the world, allowing Putin to - he's made more money on energy during the last two years of the war. This is profitable for him to be the war. He's not fighting over how does he fund it, he's making money because he's selling all of his oil and gas to China. He's become China's discount gas station.

So, at the end of the day, the entire world is becoming less stable because of Biden's policies on the border, on energy, and on our economy.

HUNT: Briefly, Governor, before I let you go, we just were discussing what Donald Trump had to say in an interview with Sean Hannity yesterday about the possibility of him backing a 15-week national abortion ban.

Do you believe that the Republican Party should push for a national ban? I know you've said in the past that this is an issue that the states should decide. Where do you stand today?

BURGUM: Same place. I mean, absolutely. I mean this is a - it's very clear in our Constitution there's certain responsibilities that are delegated to the federal government that are narrow, and the rest go to the states. And this is one that needs to be decided by the states that I'm opposed to a federal ban at any level. It ought to be decided by the states.

HUNT: Do you have any concerns that the bill in your -- the abortion legislation in your state that you signed that sets six weeks as the threshold might be one that could create unforeseen problems, like potentially what we've seen in Alabama, with IVF?

BURGUM: I don't think it's going to cause any problems. I support IVF. But in our state, I mean, again, the thing that was passed by our legislature that I signed last year replaced a much more regressive 2007 trigger bill.

[07:00:00]

So, even North Dakota, which is very conservative on this, was moving towards a position more towards the middle with that legislation.

HUNT: All right. Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota..