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CNN International: Bannon to Former FBI Director: You Should be Worried; Judge Faces Questions About Bias, Experience in Trump Case; Nigeria's World's Largest Oil Refinery; Extreme Heat Kills Hundreds of Hajj Pilgrims in Mecca; Harnessing the Power If Iceland's Volcanoes. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 21, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Eleni Giokos. If you're just joining us, here are some of today's top stories.

Millions are under heat alerts today as high temperatures threaten cities across the United States. New York City's heat index is expected to reach 100 degrees today, and people in Washington, D.C. could see their first 100-degree day since 2016.

President Joe Biden is gearing up for another debate showdown with his political rival, former President Donald Trump. The two presidential frontrunners are set to face off in a televised debate on CNN next Thursday, June 27th, the first time the two will meet on the debate stage since 2020.

And a federal appeals court has rejected Steve Bannon's bid to delay the start of his prison sentence. Donald Trump's former advisor is now expected to head to prison on July 1st after he was found guilty of contempt for not complying with a House January 6th committee subpoena for his testimony.

Bannon is vowing investigations and prosecutions for those who have probed the former president and his political allies, saying inauguration day in 2025 will be, quote, accountability day. He recently targeted Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who earned Trump's anger for his role in the FBI's Russia investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: And McCabe, you should be worried. You should be very worried. But also understand this, brother, we have extradition treaties with virtually every country in the world, and you go ahead and run and run as far as you want. We're going to come and get you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: Now, CNN senior law enforcement analyst spoke to our Anderson Cooper about these threats of revenge fueled by Donald Trump. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: These are people who are obsessed with personal grievance and settling scores. Their entire way of thinking about leading and administering this country is in the context of having been wronged and trying to engender support among their supporters by, you know, throwing this kind of red meat out to people who are -- who respond to this sort of language. So we shouldn't be surprised by it at all.

They're both paranoid old men, one of whom is on his way to jail, and the other one we'll see that might happen for him as well. So that part doesn't surprise me.\\

What's really, to me, shocking and, and disgusting about the rhetoric is what it says about who we are becoming as a nation and the fact that a person who is, you know, quite possibly the next president of the United States is engaging in this level of absolutely fundamentally anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior and ideation.

Everything he says is stands in direct contrast to the nation that we think we are, the nation that we have always been. But I think people have got to start asking themselves, is this the direction that we want to go? Is this the country that we're becoming, a place where an incoming president takes the levers of power and uses them for his own gratification to pursue enemies?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS: The New York Times reports two federal judges in South Florida urged the judge in Donald Trump's classified documents case to hand it off to another judge. Aileen Cannon refused, and she's faced repeated scrutiny ever since. CNN's Jessica Schneider has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AILEEN CANNON, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE FOR SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA: My sincere thanks go to the president for the honor of this nomination.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Judge Aileen Cannon owes her nomination to the federal bench to Donald Trump. And in the two years she's overseen the classified documents case against Trump in Florida, her handling of the criminal case has raised eyebrows, especially her slow-walking crucial decisions that make a trial before the November election extremely unlikely.

DAVE ARONBERG, STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: It's taking forever because Judge Cannon continues to indulge the defendant in just about every request, granting hearings where other judges would have either rejected them or ruled based on the paperwork.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): And now the New York Times reporting two senior federal judges in Florida privately urged Judge Cannon to pass off the case to another judge when it was randomly assigned to her in June 2023. [04:35:00]

She had been on the bench just three years at that point after being confirmed by the Senate in 2020 when she was asked if she had any loyalty to President Trump. She unequivocally responded no.

Then one of her first decisions related to the classified docs case favored Trump by granting his request to have a special master oversee the review of classified documents first seized by the FBI at Mar-a- Lago. It was a decision that halted the ability of DOJ's prosecutors to review the documents.

And a conservative appeals court, including two Trump appointees, rebuked her by reversing her ruling that they described as untenable and allowing the DOJ to resume its investigation that led to Trump's indictment.

Attorneys who have practiced before Judge Cannon tell CNN her drawn- out decision-making process isn't unique to Trump's case.

Attorneys saying she is not efficient, calling her indecisive, and noting she just seems overwhelmed by the process.

Some of the defense attorneys who asked CNN not to use their names also say she is typically tough on criminal defendants and she is a very harsh sentencer. But they question her decisions on Trump.

One of them saying: She's certainly playing a different game with the current defendant before her.

Trump's former attorney, though, argues her decisions so far are about what he would expect in a criminal case at the beginning stages.

JIM TRUSTY, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: There's a lot of people that are already kind of preemptively throwing stones at her, saying she's overmatched, she doesn't know what she's doing. The reality is she's doing stuff that's actually pretty typical to federal practice for a non-incarcerated defendant.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Judge Cannon also has been tough on the special counsel's team. She has reprimanded them for failing to follow local court rules. Another attorney describing Cannon's style this way.

She doesn't like the government to come in and play bully, steamroller. Some don't see Judge Cannon as playing favorites, though, and contend it just comes down to a lack of time on the federal bench.

ARONBERG: I think it's a matter of inexperience. She is sitting in a satellite courthouse by herself in Fort Pierce. There is no senior judge to help her along.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE) GIOKOS: Well, over the past eight years, Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, has been building one of the world's largest oil refineries in Nigeria. It spans nearly 4,000 football fields and can produce some 650,000 barrels per day. I recently returned to the refinery and asked Aliko Dangote how it feels to be helping end Nigeria's dependence on foreign petroleum. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS (voice-over): It has been one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken on the African continent. The aim, to build one of the world's biggest oil refineries capable of processing 650,000 barrels of oil a day.

It all began back in 2016 with dredging, pumping vast amounts of sand into marshland.

DEVAKUMAR EDWIN, VICE PRESIDENT, OIL AND GAS, DANGOTE INDUSTRIES LIMITED: We decided to do a survey and said that in the next 50 years, how much global warming ocean levels can raise. And we needed the site to be higher than that. So we had to elevate the site between one and a half to 1.75 meters. And that is 33 square kilometers of land. So you can imagine the amount of time we spent on dredging. That's when you came in and saw all the sand coming in.

GIOKOS (voice-over): Nigeria exports more oil than any other African country. It's also in the middle of a fuel crisis.

Nigeria had a problem on its hands. It lacked refining resources, the process of turning oil into petrol, diesel and jet fuel. It was forced to export its oil to Europe, get it refined and re-imported back to the African continent.

Eight years later and today, a vast network of towering structures and miles and miles of steel pipes transports oil through various stages of production.

EDWIN: This is the world's largest single crane petroleum refinery, along with an integrated petrochemical complex. Now with this refinery, the whole scenario will change. Instead of being an importer of petroleum products, 50 percent of the production will be exported because 50 percent will meet the local demand.

GIOKOS (voice-over): This vast industrial complex was the vision of one man, Aliko Dangote.

ALIKO DANGOTE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DANGOTE INDUSTRIES LIMITED: Welcome to the eighth wonderland of the world. You know, we are and where we have delivered something that has never, ever been done on the continent. We're now sitting on a land which is almost more than 4,000 football fields.

GIOKOS: How do you feel standing here?

[04:40:00]

DANGOTE: I feel very proud as an African that we've been able to prove and demonstrate that it can be done and we've done it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIOKOS (on camera): Welcome back. Now, extreme heat in Saudi Arabia has led to the deaths of hundreds of Muslims performing the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca this week. And thousands more were treated for heat stroke after temperatures reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit at times.

Dozens of Indonesians, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Tunisians are among the dead. CNN's Scott McLean is live for us in Istanbul, Turkey, for an update. Scott, good to see you.

Some of the images, absolutely scary to think so many people went for this pilgrimage and only to succumb to the very hot temperatures. The Saudi government has not received or not revealed any final numbers. But what more do we know at this stage?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Eleni. We are talking about an estimated 1.5 million people who took part in this year's Hajj. This is obviously an obligation for all Muslims to do at least once in their life if they're physically and financially able.

Some people save their entire lives to go to this. It is a big deal. But this year's Hajj was particularly challenging, not just to get there, but also to be there because of the stifling heat.

You know it's hot when the overnight lows, the lows are above 30 degrees Celsius. On Monday, the mercury hit 49 degrees Celsius. It's 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Saudi Arabia says that there were some 2,700 people who were treated for heatstroke. And now that the Hajj has ended on Wednesday, we're also getting a look at how many people have died taking part because of the heat. Well over 350 thus far.

The largest number is from pilgrims from Indonesia, 165 of them. And the foreign ministry of that country says that just three of them died directly from heatstroke.

[04:45:00]

The rest had some kind of other comorbidities that contributed.

It is also important to note that the death toll is very likely to be much higher and to continue to rise because some people are still in hospital. Some people are unaccounted for and some because they're not officially registered, may not have been counted thus far.

Remember that in past years, you have had tragedies due to overcrowding. In 2015, there was a stampede incident. More than 2,000 people were killed.

And to try to get a hold of the numbers, Saudi officials have put caps, annual caps, on the number of pilgrims who can come from each country. But you don't need a special Hajj visa to get to Saudi Arabia and take part. You can get there with a tourist visa or work visa or some other way.

And so it seems that many of the people who died were in this category. And so it means that some of these people may have been in substandard accommodation, whereas official Hajj pilgrims are staying in air-conditioned tents in the desert. It means that they may have run into trouble or gotten lost walking between sites in the stifling heat, whereas official pilgrims have better access to transportation options.

Some countries are opening investigations, like Egypt and Jordan, into some of these unofficial companies to help facilitate these trips. And while most countries are not releasing the unofficial number of pilgrims who have died, one country is, Eleni, and that's Tunisia. And of the 35 people killed, or I should say who died from Tunisia, just five of them had official Hajj visas. The others did not.

GIOKOS: All right, Scott McLean, thank you so much for that update.

Well monsoon floods have forced more than 45,000 people in Bangladesh from their homes, mostly in low-lying areas. Around 1.8 million people have been adversely impacted in one district alone, with high water levels reported in more than 1,600 villages.

And in southern China, heavy rain and floods, leaving at least 18 people dead, according to state media. Four people were also killed in landslides in Fujian province. According to China's National Weather Center, the heavy rain is expected to move north and continue through the weekend.

Iceland's volcanoes can be deadly, destructive, and strangely beautiful. But they can also be green. Icelandic scientists are working to harness the intense energy stored beneath the Earth's surface, energy which is completely clean.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The awesome power of nature on full display in southwest Iceland. The Reykjanes Peninsula, close to the capital, suffering a string of violent volcanic eruptions in the past years. Iceland's massive activity both a burden and a blessing for those who live here.

The town Grindavik, close to the eruption site, evacuated. A fissure running right through the streets and the houses. Klara Halldorsdottir, one of the more than 3,000 residents evacuated last November, says she's had enough and will never move back.

KLARA HALLDORSDOTTIR, FORMER GRINDAVIK RESIDENT: I get goosebumps when I talk about it because it was really, really strange. Just long lines of cars exiting town. It was like in a terrible movie or something. PLEITGEN (voice-over): When things appear to get more calm, a few months later another violent eruption occurs. As the Reykjanes Peninsula seems to have entered into a period of high volcanic activity that could last months, years or even centuries experts say. Keeping the specialists at Iceland's meteorological office tasked with predicting eruptions busy round the clock.

SARA BARSOTTI, ICELANDIC METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE: The GPS station that's telling us if the ground is changing, it is deforming. We are maintaining the geochemical monitoring that is telling us which are the kind of gases that are leaving the volcanoes.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): While volcanoes often have an impact on life here in Iceland, the Icelanders have found ways to harness the power of our violent earth. Geothermal power plants feeding off the heat, providing emission-free energy in abundance, and leading companies from around the world to move energy-intensive manufacturing like aluminum production to Iceland.

Our team traveled all the way to the northeast of Iceland to the Krafla geothermal plant. When drilling a new borehole here at Krafla, they accidentally hit a shallow magma chamber and now are working on harnessing the earth's energy almost directly from the extremely hot magma. The project's director says this technology could provide clean energy for hundreds of millions of people.

HJALTI PALL INGOLFSSON, KRAFLA MAGMA TESTBED: We have a very big part of humanity living close to a volcano. And if we are able to harness the volcano directly, reducing the risk by lowering the pressure and lowering the tension in the volcano, then of course we have a win-win situation.

[04:50:04]

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Using the earth's natural energy without burning fossil fuels. The scientists acknowledge there is still a long way to go and a lot to be learned, but they also believe the potential energy supply could be virtually limitless and totally clean.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS: A fascinating story there.

We're going to a short break. Stay with CNN. I'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIOKOS: The Los Angeles Lakers are hoping to get back to championship status with the new head coach. ESPN reports the basketball team has hired JJ Redick for the job. And he played 15 seasons with six different teams in the NBA. He's been an analyst for ESPN since 2021. Redick replaces Darwin Ham, who was fired in May after two seasons with the Lakers. University of Connecticut coach Dan Hurley turned down the job two weeks ago. Redick currently hosts a podcast with Lakers star LeBron James.

[04:55:00]

For only the second time in its 108-year history, the Copa America is being played outside of South America with the United States hosting this year's tournament. It kicked off Thursday in Atlanta with holders Argentina taking on Canada. World Sports, Don Ruddell has the details for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: A winning start for Argentina on the opening night of the Copa America here in Atlanta. The Albiceleste beating Canada by two goals to nil. It was tied in the first half. Canada can be pretty proud of the way they played against the world's top team. But it was a different story in the second half as the Albiceleste scored early and then late in that second half. And in between, they had an absolute hatful of chances.

19 shots, 64 percent of the possession. It could have been a much bigger scoreline. Canada need to figure out where they will go from here.

But Argentina, who are the reigning world and defending Copa America champions, have made a good start and there is much to build on.

The subplot to all of this is that this is the final tournament for an Argentine legend, Angel Di Maria. And it might prove to be the final tournament for the captain, arguably the greatest of all time, Lionel Messi.

He has already indicated, he's given clues that the last World Cup that he played in, which ended with him hoisting the trophy in Qatar, would be his last, meaning he's not going to play in the 2026 tournament here in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. And if that's true, then this is his last international tournament. That makes every single appearance much more valuable, even more special.

But the sheer notion that this could be his final international tournament, frankly, it's a thought that no Argentine fan wants to conceive of.

At the Mercedes-Benz Stadium here in Atlanta for the opening game of the Copa America, I'm Don Riddell for CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS: Well, thanks so much for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Eleni Giokos in Dubai. CNN "THIS MORNING" is next after this quick break.

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