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Ukrainian Forces Sink Russian Warship; House Intel Warns Of National Security Threat; Trump Holds First Campaign Event Since Remarks; Senator Allegedly Received Bribery Scheme Ring; Parents Of Brian Laundrie Speak Out. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 14, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Today, though, Speaker Johnson and other Republicans downplayed the consequences of this Democratic pickup, making it clear they still will not play ball on that latest bipartisan Senate bill that they have the option to look at. CNN's Lauren Fox is tracking all of this from Capitol Hill. Lauren, what are you hearing today from Republicans?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, essentially they're casting blame on a series of different factors related to this New York special election, saying this does not foretell the future for Republicans in November. Specifically, they point out a couple of factors. One of them, a snowstorm yesterday in New York when Republicans were really counting on their voters to turn out the day of the election. They argue that they were unable to make up ground for that reason.

You also are hearing from some Republicans who are casting blame, pointing fingers at their Republican colleagues who worked to oust George Santos, saying that was a mistake because Santos was a reliable Republican vote. I think one of the key questions moving forward is how does this narrow majority affect legislation? If you look down the pipe, what you have coming up is a spending deadline. That's a bill that Republicans and Democrats are going to have to work together on.

But you also have looming questions like what does this mean for Republicans' effort to try and impeach President Biden? This is a very, very narrow majority and you already are seeing a lot of Republicans uncomfortable with the idea of moving forward with something like that. I think that is the question moving ahead. And it certainly is going to be difficult for Republicans to put up controversial issues and then rely on all of their members to be unified. Because as we've seen over the course of the last several months, Republican unity sometimes is really hard to find. It's especially hard. When you have such a thin majority, which Speaker Johnson is working with. Boris.

SANCHEZ: And Lauren, as for the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas, from the beginning it seemed largely symbolic because the Senate isn't really going to take this up, are they?

FOX: Well, the Senate is going to have to do something with it. Precisely what that looks like still remains to be seen. We expect that when they get back from the break, they will receive those articles of impeachment from the House of Representatives. Then it's really an open question. Precisely how they proceed. One of their options is they could move to quickly dismiss this. That would obviously save them from a drawn-out trial. Certainly Senate Democrats are not looking at an elongated trial that takes up precious floor time in the Senate.

But I think there's still a question of how much they want to go down that road. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have argued that this is largely a waste of time. They know that the secretary is not going to be convicted in their chamber. So, it's just a matter of how quickly they move forward. Boris.

SANCHEZ: Lauren Fox live from Capitol Hill for us. Thanks so much.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And looming over the dysfunction on Capitol Hill is former President Donald Trump who pushed House Republicans to tank the border security deal and is now threatening to torpedo the Senate's foreign aid package.

SANCHEZ: And this weekend he doubled down on some of his isolationist rhetoric, encouraging Russia to invade NATO countries that fall short of NATO guidelines for defense spending. Today, Trump's holding his first campaign event since making those incendiary remarks. Let's discuss with CNN's Alayna Treene, former Democratic State Representative from South Carolina Bakari Sellers, and former Republican Congressman from Illinois Adam Kinzinger. Alayna, first to you. It seems the Trump campaign is now trying to downplay what seemed like an invitation from the former president.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: They are. I'd say downplay, but they're also not shying away from some of these comments. You heard Donald Trump himself double down on what he said on Truth Social, arguing that he's made NATO stronger. He's been pushing them to pay. He's been pushing them to pay up and meet their spending obligations. But you do see his campaign and other allies trying to downplay this as well. They're saying, look, you have to take Donald Trump seriously, but not literally.

And I think it's really interesting to see how the party has been rallying around him in light of these comments, arguing, you know, you heard the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Marco Rubio, saying that this is zero concern. You heard Lindsey Graham, another top Republican on that committee, arguing that this is Donald Trump being Trump and that he's never invaded another country before. This is his way of just trying to get these NATO member countries to pay enough. But I do think there's a lot of concern within the party.

But again, you're seeing his Republican allies, particularly those on the Hill, continue to rally around him. It's similar to those comments he made about Nikki Haley's husband. A lot of people obviously very frustrated, concerned about those comments, him going after a man who was deployed currently in Africa. But Donald Trump continued to double down on that social media. He's argued that Nikki Haley is an embarrassment to her husband, that he should come back and help her campaign. Again, just really, you know, not shying away from that very incendiary rhetoric.

[14:05:09]

And when it comes to Nikki Haley, I do just want to point out, Boris and Brianna, that Donald Trump and his team are very confident about how he's going to perform in South Carolina. He's going to be here tonight. There's a big crowd expected. They do think they're going to win that primary by big margins. But it's very clear that Nikki Haley is continuing to get under his skin. He's been very frustrated by her refusing to drop out. He does see her as standing in the way of him becoming the Republican nominee, something that he wants to do as soon as possible. And you're seeing that play out in his rhetoric on the campaign trail.

KEILAR: And Congressman, Trump's advisers are characterizing the NATO comments of Trump as off-the-cuff remarks. And yet, I don't think that that's how many NATO countries are seeing it. I don't think that's how many people inside of the U.S. who have been following Trump are seeing it. How do you see it?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I mean, yeah, it's off-the-cuff. Everything he says is off-the-cuff. It's not thought through. It's all about him. And so, at a moment, he was feeling somehow offended. It's like, you know, when you put Nikki Haley's husband up against him, he feels like much less of a man. So, he has to lash out at him. And this is just what he actually -- look, all you have to do is say, what is the reaction in our NATO allies? Where it matters.

And it's important to remind people, the only time Article 5, which is the mutual defense treaty, was ever invoked by NATO, was for us after 9-11. And it led to a 20-year commitment by NATO to Afghanistan on behalf of the United States to fight terror. So, if you look at what our European allies are saying, this is freaking them out. Not because now they're going to be called to account for their 2%.

Europe has actually been drastically increasing defense spending, even at a rate either equal to or greater than the United States. But you look at how this is being celebrated in the Russian media ecosystem, the state-controlled media ecosystem. It's being celebrated. And the only thing that prevents NATO and Russia from going to war is Russia's belief that the Article 5 treaty will be obeyed.

And that's the reason he doesn't attack NATO countries. So, this creates a -- you know, people try to pretend that Donald Trump is some anti-war guy. The truth is he is a warmonger. And how he's speaking, because he makes war far more likely just by his comments.

SANCHEZ: Bakari, I'm curious to get your perspective on something related to what the former congressman is laying out here. Nikki Haley is now slamming Trump for mocking her husband, who's deployed overseas. Her super PAC came out with an ad laying out some of Trump's comments historically about veterans. Let's listen to a portion of that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Donald Trump did it again. This time attacking Nikki Haley's husband.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What happened to her husband? Where is he? He's gone.

UNKNOWN: It's a sick pattern. Visiting military graves and saying, I don't get it. What was in it for them? Calling dead soldiers suckers and losers. Donald Trump, sick or clueless. It's time to turn the page.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Yet it doesn't seem to move the needle within the party, Bakari.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it doesn't move the needle because the person who said it still will vote for Donald Trump. I mean, look. You have to have some level of fortitude. Nikki Haley asked the question, who's going to vote for someone if they get convicted of any of these felonies and indictments that Donald Trump's accused of? In fact, she's already said out of her own mouth that she would vote for him.

And so, you had these people, particularly on the right side of the aisle, who play these political games, who try to mislead or in this case not lead the American public. And it just doesn't work. We know that Donald Trump doesn't have respect for our military. We know he does not have respect. We know he doesn't have respect for POWs. We've seen him insult John McCain. We've seen him insult individuals in military gravesites and burials. We've seen him insult Michael Haley, who's actually deployed overseas.

This is not new. In fact, the flippant comments he made about our NATO allies, this is not new. There's nothing that Donald Trump says that will be new or some type of newly inflammatory rhetoric. All of these things, he has beaten that horse to death. But the question is whether or not the American public wants to double back. Whether or not they want to be browbeat by this rhetoric again and again, and this chaos again and again, or if they're exhausted from it, I bet they're exhausted from it and want some of the normalcy that was or is Joe Biden. And so that's kind of what we're looking at. And when you have a great ad like this, the Nikki Haley super PAC put out, all you have to do is look at the candidate and the candidate is still going to vote for Donald Trump. So, the ad, the ad don't mean a whole lot of nothing.

KEILAR: Congressman, you're a veteran. I wonder what you think about this episode.

[14:10:19]

KINZINGER: I mean, look, it's sick. It's just, again, the only thing I can figure in trying to get in Donald Trump's mind is he obviously has no self-esteem. Let's be clear about that. And his brash loudness in attacking people is actually an outflow of the fact that he has no self-esteem. And I don't celebrate saying that. I wish he did have self-esteem. But when you put people that would be willing to get, think about this, give your life.

We call giving your life the ultimate sacrifice. But I think sometimes we glaze over that. You literally, everything you have become, you now are willing to put it into to defend a future for people that you don't even know. That is an amazing, incredible sacrifice. And Donald Trump thinks that only losers do that because he's never sacrificed anything a day in his life.

We as Americans appreciate, obviously, those that make or are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Donald Trump abhors them. I mean, and we even heard about it when he would see people disabled at Walter Reed. He'd be almost disgusted by it or didn't understand it. This is an incredibly low and petulant man. And look, it's not going to turn the GOP base, but the middle and the rest of America, I think, is having enough of it. And they're really sick of this.

SANCHEZ: Alayna, at the top, we mentioned Democrats, Democrats flipping the third district in New York. Trump, obviously, not happy about that. He slammed the Republican congressional candidate, Mazie Philip, essentially saying that she wasn't MAGA enough and that's why she lost. What do you make of him making that statement?

TREENE: Look, we've heard that type of rhetoric from Donald Trump before. I think New York was obviously a different type of race, a different district. Of course, you had Tom Suozzi, who had run in, before he had great name ID, but, and a lot of Republicans, I should say, in Congress, as Lauren Fox pointed out earlier, downplaying that and playing up just the dynamics of that race. But look, Donald Trump very much does believe that his endorsement carries a lot of weight, that those who back him are more successful.

And then on the other side of that, you have a lot of Republicans who note that in 2022, a lot of Republicans did not win their races, including Trump-backed Republican candidates. And so, I think that is definitely a concern for a lot of people looking forward to this election. If Donald Trump is on the ballot against Joe Biden, of course, his name is going to carry a lot of weight. But as Trump continues to figure out who he's endorsing, and I should note as well here, Boris and Brianna, that he's endorsing a lot fewer candidates this time around. And I'm told that is a strategic decision by his campaign to try and not alienate a lot of voters who he is really focused on. And of course, he's very focused on his campaign as well. But he does believe that those who are more MAGA, those who support him, do better. But that's not necessarily what you've seen, like I mentioned, in the 2022 midterm elections, but also in other local elections across the country.

SANCHEZ: In 2022, 2020, 2018. Elena, Adam, Bakari, thanks so much for the conversation. Still to come, Ukraine says its drones have taken down another Russian warship, this time off the coast of Crimea. Plus, why more and more singles are looking for a love connection the old- fashioned way. A special story on this Valentine's Day, headed your way.

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[14:15:19]

KEILAR: In the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces, have made limited advances on land. But at sea, it's a different story. This video appearing to show major damage that Ukraine has done to Russia's navy. Ukrainians say that their footage here captures today's sinking of a Russian warship, the Caesar Kunikov, just off of Crimea.

The military says the warship and these other vessels are among 26 that Ukraine has taken down, claiming their forces have disabled one- third of Russia's black sea fleet. Today's attack, according to officials, was carried out by sea drone, which have been critical since Ukraine has no navy. No navy, and yet taking out, it says, one- third of the black sea fleet.

The Kremlin not commenting on today's incident, and CNN cannot verify Ukraine's account. Let's turn now to retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a former commander of the U.S. Army Europe in the 7th Army. He is a CNN military analyst as well. Put this into perspective for us, if you would, General. Ukraine saying it's destroyed one-third of the black sea fleet. How significant is that overall when we know that things have really stalled out on the battleground?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Brianna, I'll do my best as an Army guy commenting on navy operations, but when we're talking about the black sea fleet, that is the pride of the Russian navy. And as the Ukrainians have said, they've destroyed, I heard 25, you just said 26, but they also said they have put out of action with a need for repair, an additional 15. The black sea fleet has about 80 ships.

And since the start of this conflict, the ones that Ukraine has sunk, obviously early on, the Muska, the one today, the Kunikov, the Gormak (ph), the Minsk (ph), all troop-carrying large, very large troop- carrying ships, which are important on the black sea because there are other countries that Russia tries to influence with potential attacks. But they've also sunk the Rostov-on-Don, a submarine, tugboats, missile carriers and cruisers, a corvette. So, these are not small vessels that the Ukrainian, let's call them the Ukrainian navy. They're actually unmanned vehicles, unmanned ships have been sinking. But this is a significant effect. All of these boats and ships are going to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So, they've taken out quite a bit of Russia capability on the black sea.

KEILAR: Yeah. And let's put up, we have a map of the black sea. So, we can look at this. I mean, you called it the navy, but you sort of hesitate because to borrow a term from my colleague, Alex Marquardt, these are kind of like souped up jet skis.

[14:20:09]

I mean, this is like a fleet of commercially available, right? These are not military souped up jet skis. These are commercially repurposed vehicles that are being used in groups to take on these ships. But what is the objective? What does this achieve when they do this?

HERTLING: Well, it does a couple of things. First of all, it affects the Russians' ability to resupply in the area. Again, the ship, the Kunikov that was hit this morning, it has a crew of 87, but it also carries things like troop formations, hundreds of troops, vehicles, supplies, equipment. So, if Ukraine can affect the logistics capability of the Russian Navy to resupply by sea, it's a significant advantage.

But secondly, it's just screwing with, truthfully, the Russian capability to have effects on land because these ships dock somewhere and they support things. But it's also confounding the Russian Navy in this body of water, what they call their Russian lake. What's interesting, though, is it will affect other countries in the area. When you take a look at the boundaries of the Black Sea, you have Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey. And Russia has said that there's a limited number of ships that can come into these waters, not so fast.

The other thing is Ukraine is doing this with, as you said, a ship that's a little bit bigger than a jet ski. It's about the size of a sea-dew filled with 500 kilograms of ammunition that can blow a large hole in a ship. Ukrainians are not the first ones to do this, but they have perfected it, adapted it by putting these ships under the control of remotely piloted, capabilities from the shore, traveling a couple of hundred miles to hit these ships. And what's most interesting to me is in many of the cases, the Russian Navy has not attempted to defend themselves against these ships. We see U.S. ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden defending themselves against Iranian remotely piloted vehicles. It doesn't seem like Russia has been capable of shooting these ships out of the water, which is pretty significant.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's pretty strange. And I wonder, you know, because the benefit here is they don't have the Russian threat to their commerce as close as it was before. So that's something that the Ukrainians can continue to do. They can continue to ship grain and the like out into the Black Sea. I wonder, though, if this also, -- does this send a message? Maybe it doesn't, but I wonder if this sends a message to allies here in the U.S. as aid for Ukraine. Ukraine is hung up. This is Ukraine saying, look, we're doing what we can with what we have, but we need more. Does it send any message that is heard here?

HERTLING: It's in my belief, it certainly does. It is sending that message that, hey, we're still fighting. We're trying to survive. We are using adaptability and these kind of inexpensive pieces of equipment to continue to inflict damage on the Russia. You should support us. But the other thing, I'd say, Brianna, I'd go one step further and to say this is helping Ukraine pause the gap.

And what I mean by that is they are trying to bridge when the West is giving them their equipment versus the future and when they might start receiving it again. If there's a delay in continuing to equip the land force, the things that are required for maneuver and to retake ground versus just blow things up at sea, this will be a good strategy to just delay and beg for more space for the time until they get new manufacturing plants up within Ukraine, new ammunition and pieces of equipment from the West. This is a bridging strategy, in my view, from the Ukrainian government.

KEILAR: How is Ukraine's military getting by overall? We've heard, of course, word that they're running out of artillery. They're running out of bullets. They're on the front lines. What does this mean for their objectives?

HERTLING: Yeah. It's fascinating, Brianna. As you know, I've been watching this from the very beginning, and there were some very good victories early on. It has slowed a little bit. I still think and still know that the Ukrainian forces are fighting very vehemently and with a lot of energy against the Russians. But they have been depleted in terms of their ammunition and their personnel. And they were throwing a lot of things together, new equipment, new forces on the battlefield against the Russian force that seemingly should have been prepared.

[14:25:29]

But truthfully, because Russia's forces were so bad early on, Ukraine was able to take an advantage. Now it's paused, because Ukraine is trying to get new mobilization of forces, improved maneuver capabilities with new aspects, more ammunition. They're asking for everything. They literally have to get everything on the ground, because the key purpose, remember, is not necessarily to blow up ships on the Black Sea. That certainly helps from a logistics standpoint. But their main objective is to regain their sovereign territory. That is their strategy. And whereas you can do that by, you can help that by blowing up ships, that doesn't help you take another foot of ground or another yard of dirt. And that's their main objective as they continue with this fight.

KEILAR: General Hertling, great to have you here to discuss these new developments. We appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

HERTLING: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: We have a breaking development of the, quote, serious national security threat that we mentioned earlier that House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner just warned of in a cryptic statement. Sources say it relates to Russia. Moments ago, the leader of his conference, Speaker Mike Johnson, responded. Let's go to CNN's Katie Bo Lillis on Capitol Hill for the details. Katie Bo, Johnson is trying to tamp down the alarm here, essentially saying that there's no reason for the American people to panic.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: That's exactly right. Boris. This all started last night when the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Johnson invited members of the House to come down and into the committee's secure classified spaces and be briefed on what he terms a destabilizing foreign military capability that should be known by all congressional policy makers. And of course, then releasing this public cryptic public statement about a national security threat earlier today.

Now, we have seen not only the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, but also the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees come out and try to take the temperature down a little bit. We heard from the Democratic leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, who said in a statement that the classified intelligence product that the House Intelligence Committee called to the attention of members last night is a significant one, but it's not a cause for panic.

Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, saying that this is information that he's been aware of since at least last month. Take a listen to what he had to say just a few minutes ago here on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R -LA): I saw Chairman Turner's statement on the issue, and I want to assure the American people there is no need for public alarm. We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We're working on it and there's no need for alarm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LILLIS: Now, GOP members on Capitol Hill are pushing the Biden administration to declassify and make public as much information about this threat as they can. We are expected to see the. The National Security Adviser, as well as members of the intelligence community, come to Capitol Hill tomorrow to brief senior House members. And this is something that I think you will continue to see members of the House push the Biden administration on in the coming days. But at this point, still more questions than answers for us.

SANCHEZ: Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much for that important update. We still have new details ahead from the parents of Brian Laundrie. What they say they thought the day their son told them his fiance, Gabby Petito, was, quote, gone. Plus, prosecutors say a U.S. senator and his wife received an engagement ring in connection with an alleged bribery scam. We have the latest on this very expensive new piece of evidence when we come back.

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