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Yulia Navalnaya Vows to Find Out How Navalny was Killed; Navalny's Family Still Haven't Seen Body; Minnesota Grieving After Two Police Officers and a Firefighter are Killed; Avdivka Falls to Russia; Iranian-Backed Houthi Rebels Deploying New Weapon in the Red Sea; Nikki Haley Amazed on How Trump is Weak in the Knees When it Comes to Putin; Haley Slams Trump; Two Fatally Shot in Colorado Dorm Room; Nearly All California Under Flood Alerts. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 19, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the wife of Russian critic Alexei Navalny vowing to find out how he was killed. His family says they still have not seen his body. What did Russia do to Alexei Navalny?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And an entire town in Minnesota is grieving after two police officers and a firefighter are killed while responding to a domestic incident. How did the situation escalate? What police are saying about the investigation this morning.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Nikki Haley says she's amazed how weak in the knees Donald Trump is when it comes to Vladimir Putin. She's hitting the trail in South Carolina live during our show today. I'm Kate Bolduan with Sarah Sidner and Fredricka Whitfield. Today, this is "CNN News Central."

SIDNER: This morning, Alexei Navalny's widow is vowing to continue his fight to bring change to Russia as she and supporters of the late opposition leader call on the Russian government to immediately release his body. Yulia Navalnaya met with E.U. foreign ministers this morning. She also posted a new video online promising to find out who carried out the alleged crime.

A spokesperson says Navalny's mother and lawyer were denied access to this morgue where his body is allegedly being held. Officials say Navalny died Friday after losing consciousness after a walk. But his cause of death and exact location of his body remain a mystery at this hour. CNN's Matthew Chance is joining us now from Moscow.

Matthew, the Kremlin has said that an investigation is underway. What are you seeing as a response and what do we know about where Alexei Navalny's body is?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, that's a good question. I'll come to it in a minute. But first, let me show you these scenes that have been unfolding throughout the course of the past several days here in Moscow and in other towns and cities across the country. It's not massive crowds, but we're seeing a steady stream of Russians come to one of these makeshift memorials for Alexei Navalny to lay flowers to pay their respects.

You see some people putting the flowers down now. There's a photograph there of Alexei Navalny. This lady has just lit that candle. And all of these people that have laid one or two roses here, that's a sign. That's a sign of just how much grief and anger there is in this country about the death of the country's most prominent opposition leader.

Remember, even making a protest like this, or showing sympathy like this in this country, is basically against the regulations and people run a risk. And hundreds of people, according to rights monitoring groups in this country, about 400 people in fact, have been detained for doing just this. There are pictures of people being dragged through these snowy parks from monuments up and down the country trying to lay flowers but they've been taken away by the authorities.

Now, you mentioned about the whereabouts of the body. It's still a big question mark hanging over this latest scandal to befall Russia. And we just don't know where it is. Look, the mother of Alexei Navalny, Lyudmila, she's traveled to thousands of miles to the far north inside the Arctic Circle to the area of his penal colony where he died, to the local town to go to the morgue there to try and recover the remains of her son.

But first of all, she was told that the body wasn't there. Now, she's been told that the authorities are going to keep the body for an indefinite period to carry out more tests, to do more postmortems, to try and establish what was the cause of death on Friday at that penal colony of Alexei Navalny.

Now, Alexei Navalny's supporters, these anti-corruption teams, saying that's just a ruse. That's an attempt by the Kremlin to hide the body of Alexei Navalny and to hide the cause of, you know, what caused him to suddenly die in that way. And so, there's a great deal of suspicion amongst everybody here, as well as grief and anger across the whole country as people mourn the death of Alexei Navalny. Sara.

SIDNER: And as you mentioned, Matthew, you are in a place where you're seeing those flowers pile up in memorial. But people going there could be on the radar of the Russian authorities. They put themselves in a bit of danger there. Thank you for you and your crew being out there in the cold there in Moscow for us.

[09:05:00]

And we want to play for some of the messages that were shared by Navalny's widow this morning. In the video, Yulia Navalnaya called on her husband's supporters in Russia and around the world to keep resisting Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) YULIA NAVALNAYA, ALEXEI NAVALNY'S WIDOW (through translator): I ask you to share your rage, rage, anger, and hatred with me towards those who are daring enough to kill our future. And I address you with Alexei's words, which I believe it is not a shame to do, it's not a shame to do little, but it's a shame not to do anything. It's a shame to make yourself intimidated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: In the video, she also accuses Russian authorities of hiding her husband's body to cover up evidence of poisoning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAVALNAYA (through translator): In a cowardly way, they're hiding his body, not showing to his mother, not giving to his mother. They're lying and they're waiting for the traces of another of Putin's Novichok to disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Now, she was unable to provide any evidence to substantiate that. Remember, they don't have the body yet that Novichok was used in her husband's death. But here's what we do know. The powerful nerve agent was used on Navalny in August of 2020. Kate.

BOLDUAN: And Navalny's life work, as you know, Sara, opposing the authoritarian rule of the man who launched the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. That's part of his life's work. Where Russia just made its most significant advance in nearly a year.

Russian soldiers raising their flag over a key town in the eastern front. You see video of it right here. Ukrainian troops forced to retreat from the town of Avdiivka this weekend. A place that they've been fighting to hold from Russia's grip for a decade now. President Biden blaming congressional inaction on this major setback for Ukraine and also warning that this may not be the last.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in Ukraine right now for us. Nick, talk to us about Avdiivka and tell folks, remind them, why is it key? Why does it represent such a blow right now?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, ultimately, I think it is potentially a symbol of a wider problem Ukraine may face across its front lines because of the fact that they're still waiting for that $60 billion and Congress has taken two weeks off, is unlikely to get to them anytime soon. And we've already seen an impact in terms of ammunition, stocks and morale.

And it may be that Avdiivka, strategically quite important as it is, it is part of a railway hub, and that's always something the Russians want to get their hands on. And it's also been something that Ukraine's held on to for a decade, as you said, since the first invasion back in 2014.

Really, though, I think the pain being felt by Ukrainians over having to withdraw or announce their withdrawal on Saturday is that it may herald a starker change in their fortunes on the battlefield. Avdiivka itself heavily fought over, over the past months. Russia quite clear was willing to throw almost anything at it. And indeed, President Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend suggested that for every dead Ukrainian, there were seven dead Russians. We can't substantiate that ourselves, but it's a sign, potentially, of the tactics Russia have been using and may continue to use as well.

Because the news is frankly bad at multiple points across the frontline, not just Avdiivka, which is already lost. There may be villages around that, which potentially Russia pushes towards. There's bad news from Zaporizhzhia region, Robotyne, which was one of the key villages taken in part of the counteroffensive in the summer. That's under Russian assault, it seems

Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself traveled to Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. That's also under Russian pressure. There are concerns around Bakhmut, which was another key place the Russians fought tooth and nail for back in last year. The last major significant gain they had was taking that town back in May. And other concerns to the south of Avdiivka as well that the Russians may push forward there too because Ukraine is running out of ammunition.

They're struggling to replenish their ranks too, and I think there is a feeling as well that while Western support was so solid for the first two years of this war, as we enter into the third year, coming up at the end of this week, we may be seeing the billions simply drying up and Ukraine losing people and ground because of it. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Nick Payton Walsh, it's great that you're there. Thank you so much, Nick.

And joining us now for more on this is CNN Military Analyst, Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's a former commander of the U.S. Army Europe, and the Seventh Army.

General, let's pick up right where -- what Nick Payton Walsh was getting at. The way it's being described is with the forced retreat from Avdiivka, the frontline shifts, substantially. I'm going to put up for everyone, if we can, a map of -- once again, of where this town is strategically located and what this could mean. What does this mean for the front line now?

[09:10:00]

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), FORMER COMMANDING GENERAL, U.S. ARMY EUROPE AND SEVENTH ARMY AND CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I'm glad you put the map up, Kate, because there's some interesting points in this.

Everyone has been focused on Avdiivka, and Nick's report is exactly right. When you look around that area, you also see the towns of Mariinka, Kreminna, Bakhmut, and a few others. There's also the town of Robotyne, which is further to the south.

But if you look at those four -- or the first four that I named, they're all in the Donetsk region. And that is the place that Ukraine has been fighting, as you said earlier, for over a decade. They need that area because it's critically important strategically.

The withdrawal from Avdiivka was a tactical withdrawal. But when you talk about what the Russians are attempting to do, they now have understood, after two years of fighting, that mass is important. They are forcing the Ukrainians to defend in multiple areas. And without a logistics train that keeps moving, without supplies coming in, without the kind of ammunition they need, they just can't fight there. That's why this $60 billion package is so critically important for artillery shells, air defense, and even small arms ammunition.

Kate, the truth is, with every day that delays, in terms of getting this aid to Ukraine, more people will die. Ukrainian soldiers who have been fighting so bravely will die. So, this is a decision that those in Congress are making to say, we're not going to provide this aid, and 73 percent of the American people say they support Ukraine, but there are a few in Congress who are saying, we're not going to provide the aid. In my view, it is criminal to do these kinds of things to people who are fighting for freedom on the battlefield.

BOLDUAN: And what you're getting at is kind of -- is what I was going to ask you, which is, how do you make sure that this is not the first of many setbacks? And what you're getting at is that is why U.S. aid is so critical, not just a political talking point, not just more money to be discussed or fought over, or maybe it's just a rounding error in the U.S. Defense budget some may believe. This is real money that results in real advancement, real resupply, or a real setbacks.

HERTLING: You're exactly right. It is. There is no debating that, Kate. If the money if -- well, if the supplies aren't delivered and if they aren't delivered quickly, there is no debating the fact that there will be continued withdrawals from the front line. There will be continued losses, there will be continued Ukrainian deaths. That is a given. You can't debate that because that's what happens on the battlefield when you don't get supplied with ammunition.

And Russia is smelling this. They have learned much over the last two years and they are now starting to attack these locations to spread Ukraine thin, to continue to conduct these air attacks against Ukrainian cities to not just kill Ukrainian soldiers, but to attack the Ukrainian population.

And remember, you know, we're talking about hostages in Israel right now. Russia has thousands of hostages of Ukraine -- Ukrainian hostages inside of Russia that they've kidnapped, too. So, these kinds of war crimes that Russia continues to produce are all based on the fact that Ukraine has not been able to counter their punches recently, for the last four months or so, while we've delayed on this additional funding for Ukrainian aid.

And truthfully, it's not just Ukraine. As everyone has been saying, it will affect more and more within NATO, within the European alliance, and it will affect the security of the United States if this continues to be delayed.

BOLDUAN: Add in the shocking death of Alexei Navalny now. If Putin is behind his death, if -- is -- and what we see happen -- and the fact that it happened when it did, now, this weekend, do you read that as meaning Vladimir Putin thinks he has the wind at his back or something else?

HERTLING: Yes. No, he has been emboldened. He has watched the United States and the Western allies dither a little bit over the last several months to provide support for Ukraine. So, he realized that we are starting to get -- I hate to use this phrase, but I'll use it, war fatigue.

We are not the ones fighting. It's the Ukrainians that are fighting. But I think Mr. Putin sees that he has an advantage here. So, he has been emboldened. I think certainly that contributed to Alexei Navalny's death. And it's also contributing to how he is conducting operations on the battlefield.

BOLDUAN: General Mark Hertling, thank you so much. It's good to see you. Fred.

WHITFIELD: Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are deploying a new weapon in the Red Sea. Over the weekend, the U.S. military conducted a number of strikes against the militia. And one of the strikes targeted an unmanned underwater vessel. For months now, the Houthis have been ramping up their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, but this is the first known time the group has used an underwater vessel.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is following this for us from D.C. Katie Bo, I mean, this is a new strategy. What's behind it?

[09:15:00]

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes. So, for the U.S. military confirming that it did conduct five strikes against targets in Houthi held territory inside Yemen, three anti-ship cruise missiles, one surface drone boat and one underwater drone, something that the U.S. military says this is the first time they have seen the Houthis use this kind of essentially submarine drone since the group started ramping up its attacks on commercial shipping and U.S. naval vessels in the fall.

That said, we haven't been given a lot of details about this system yet, so we don't, at this point, have a great sense of how the U.S. military identified this target, how many of these systems the Houthi militants might have, how they acquired them, who might have provided them, whether this was something that Iran provided or whether this is an indigenous technology, and what the specific threat could be to both commercial shipping and American naval vessels.

Certainly, one would presume that an underwater vessel would be more difficult to detect and destroy. So, this could be a shift in strategy by the Houthis because they haven't yet been successful in actually striking a U.S. naval vessel, although they have had some near misses.

But overall, the strikes that the U.S. military has carried out over on Saturday and also on Friday, part of a broader series of retaliatory strikes that the U.S. military has been conducting in response to these Houthi attacks. The question is, does it have the impact that they are looking for in deterring further strikes on shipping? So far, it doesn't look like it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much. Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Fred. Still to come, Nikki Haley's strategy in the final week before South Carolina's vote. Scorched earth on Donald Trump, her latest attacks. And what Donald Trump is focused on.

Also, two people fatally shot in the University of Colorado dorm room. What investigators are saying about that case this morning.

And ahead, nearly the entire State of California is under flood alerts this morning. A look at the latest round of storms as officials urge people to stay off the roads. That's all coming up.

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[09:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And it's amazing to me how weak in the needs he is when it comes to Putin, because you look at the fact, he has yet to say anything about Navalny's death, which Putin murdered him. It's what he does to his political opponents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That was Nikki Haley this morning, not letting up on her demand for Donald Trump to say the words out loud and condemn the death of Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who was in a Russian prison when he died. So far, Trump has not said those words out loud, but he is posting overnight -- he posted this. Sharing it online.

He shared an opinion piece that compares President Biden with Putin, and likens Navalny with Donald Trump. The piece essentially arguing that Trump is America's version of Navalny. And this morning, Trump again mentioned Navalny by name in a post, but only to say his death has made him more aware of what is happening in the United States.

With us now, CNN Senior Political Commentator Ana Navarro and Democratic Strategist Keith Boykin. All right. Keith, you're also the author of a book, "Why Does Everything Have to Be About Race?" We'll get to that next time.

But first, Ana Navarro, Donald Trump in his social media post, you just heard there, he reposted an opinion piece that compares himself to Navalny and Biden to Putin. What's going on here?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I guess it's a little better than what he's been doing, which is comparing himself to Christ. But listen, I -- you know, I really am embarrassed and mortified by how the Republican Party is reacting or lack thereof reaction to Navalny's death. It is embarrassing when you think about a party that was Ronald Reagan's party, that there is such massive silence and inaction upon the assassination, political assassination of a dissident of a man of Navalny, Alexei Navalny, who made it his life's work to reveal and uncover Putin and his inner circles corruption. It's embarrassing to me that the singer, the lead singer of U2, Bono, has had more to say about the death of Alexei Navalny than the leading presumptive Republican nominee and many of the Republican elected officials.

It's embarrassing that one of the leading journalists of -- you know, for the right, Tucker Carlson, has been in Russia in recent weeks, kowtowing to Vladimir Putin, sucking up to him. And when asked last week, before the death of Alexei Navalny, why he hadn't asked Vladimir Putin about assassinations, why he hadn't asked about Alexei Navalny, what was Tucker Carlson's response? Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.

No. Leadership requires condemning the death of Alexei Navalny. Courage requires condemning the death of Alexei Navalny. It requires saying his name. It requires bringing up Ukraine aid for a vote. Instead, we've got Republicans hanging out here in Miami for their winter meetings. It is an embarrassment.

SIDNER: Keith, I do want to talk to you about something that Ana just brought up. And it's not just about Donald Trump, it's about some in the Republican Party. And I'd like to share with you, there are two people that are certainly Republicans who are going after Donald Trump. One, of course, is Nikki Haley, who is running against him and trying to get votes. The other is Liz Cheney, a longtime conservative, no matter what people say about her and a Republican.

[09:25:00]

Here's what she said this week to Jake Tepper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): When you think about Donald Trump, for example, pledging retribution, what Vladimir Putin did to Navalny is what retribution looks like in a country where the leader is not subject to the rule of law. We have to take seriously the extent to which, you know, you've now got a Putin-wing of the Republican Party.

I believe the issue this election cycle is making sure the Putin-wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And, and here's what she's talking about. Here's a couple -- here are a couple of tweets. One from Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona. He tweeted in 2023, Joe Biden, visiting Ukraine is a slap in the face to every American, especially the people of East Palestine and Ohio. You remember there was a train wreck there. Ukraine is not our friend. And Russia is not our enemy. And then you, of course, have Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's made no bones about saying all manner of things when it comes to Russia. She said, Democrats have been calling Republican President Trump and his supporters Nazis since 2015. But the Dems have been funding actual Nazis since the Obama-Biden administration, funding the neo-Nazis in Ukraine only stopped under President Trump.

These are just a couple of people who have lots of negative things to say about Ukraine and lots of positive things to say about Putin. What's happened to the Republican Party here, in this particular wing that you hear both Ana Navarro and Liz Cheney talking about?

KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AID, AUTHOR, "WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT RACE?" AND DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, I think that Liz Cheney is exactly right. We now have a Vladimir Putin- wing of the Republican Party. And that's happened because of Donald Trump, because of his complicity with Vladimir Putin, and also because Republicans who are in positions of leadership have failed to exercise any sort of real courage in standing up to Donald Trump.

I'm glad that Nikki Haley is belatedly starting to make her case, but she spent months really tiptoeing around Donald Trump as well. And that's been part of -- you have a group of people who are part of this right-wing, super right-wing MAGA base who never really represented the Republican values of Ronald Reagan even, as Ana Navarro mentioned.

I think what's happening ultimately, Sara, is that the embrace of Trump reflects the collapse of I called -- what used to be called the so-called three-legged stool in the Republican Party. It used to be the national security conservatives who wanted a strong defense, the social conservatives who wanted traditional family values and morality, and the economic conservatives who wanted fiscal responsibility.

But Trump has undermined all three of those three -- all three of those things. He's undermined national security by supporting Vladimir Putin and defending the insurrections in this country, undermining the party's traditional family values as a serial liar and playboy billionaire who's been adjudicated a sexual assaulter, and undermine the idea of fiscal responsibility by coming in with six bankruptcies and adding $8 trillion of debt to the federal government.

So, the idea that Donald Trump represents traditional American values or traditional family values or even traditional Republican values is contradictory to even what the Republican Party had once said that it believed in. If Barack Obama or a Democrat or a black candidate had the same record as Donald Trump, they would never be taken seriously. They'd be laughed out of the -- of any sort of national discourse. And they would never be able to -- never be allowed to say inflammatory comments, condemning the United States and praising a foreign dictator. That's how far the Republican Party is falling.

SIDNER: All right. I'm taking us to a little bit lighter, although I don't really think it's lighter. We heard an announcement from Former President Trump, he was in Pennsylvania, talking about some new shoes that he's putting out there. And you just mentioned all these things that he's facing. He's got almost a half a billion of money that the court say he now owes. That will be up on appeal, of course.

But, Ana, you see these shoes. Do you think this is something -- and of course, they've already said they're sold out. Do you think this is something to try to help him with his bills or what's going on here? Just another sort of art of the deal type of thing from Donald Trump?

NAVARRO: Look, this is Donald Trump being Donald Trump, right? He's always trying to figure out what he can paste his name on and sell to gullible people willing to fork out their money, usually gullible, hardworking people. So, whether it's steaks or vodka or, you know, you name it, most of which have gone bankrupt, most of which have not had financial benefits -- much financial benefits to Donald Trump.

So, listen, what can I tell you? If you want to buy some tacky gold shoes, I think you can get them for $19.99 on Amazon. If you want to fork over $400 and maybe help him pay what's well over half a billion dollars in judgments, that's up to you. I'd rather do something else with my $400. Could buy a lot of margaritas.

SIDNER: Or mojitos.

[09:30:00]