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Erin Burnett Outfront
Growing Number Of Republicans Call For Release Of Gaetz Report; Trump Picks Second Fox News Host; Putin's Threat. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired November 18, 2024 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:33]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news, the attorney for two women who testified against Matt Gaetz is OUTFRONT tonight. One of the women says she saw Gaetz having sex with her 17-year-old friend. As we are learning tonight, Trump is personally calling senators to approve Gaetz as attorney general.
Plus, more breaking news another day, another Fox News personality named to Trump's cabinet. We're going to tell you who it is today.
And Russia threatening to wipe the U.S. off the map after Biden gave Ukraine a green light to use U.S. missiles to strike deep inside Russia. This as a ballet dancer, a Ukraine war critic mysteriously falls out of a building to his death.
Let's go OUTFRONT
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news. More Republicans demanding the house ethics committee report on Trump's pick for attorney general Matt Gaetz be released to the public to see this. This despite House Speaker Mike Johnsons objections to letting the report see the light of day.
Well, the committee -- the committee investigated allegations that Gaetz, among many other things, had sex with a minor. And tonight, for the first time on CNN, were going to hear from the attorney of two women who testified to the house committee. One of them specifically said she saw Gaetz having sex on an air hockey table with a 17-year- old who she says was her friend. That alleged encounter, taking place at a party in 2017 at a Florida house owned by a friend of Matt Gaetz.
Now, the House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, and we are just learning that as of tonight, all ten members of that committee now have access to the reports. That's ten people, and obviously staffers, et cetera. The committee chair telling politico it will be his panel and his panel, only that decides whether to release it.
Trump tonight, meantime, is said to be all in on Gaetz. And CNN is now reporting that Trump is calling senators personally to push them to confirm Gaetz. As for Gaetz himself, he continues to deny the allegations the person
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): The person doesn't exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: But there's the 17 year old issue, which is very deep and very serious. But in addition to that, there is a long list of concerns about Gaetz. Remember that the ethics committee is investigating allegations that Gaetz, quote -- let me just look at the full parameter here. Engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.
And many Republicans have been very clear about their issues with Gaetz and how he conducts himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): He was accused of sleeping with an underage girl and there's a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him, because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with. He bragged about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That's just part and parcel of what this is all about.
Manu Raju is OUTFRONT live on Capitol Hill.
And, Manu, you did just speak to the House Speaker Johnson. What did he tell you?
MANU RAJU, CNN CJUEFCONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, he defended his decision to oppose the release of the House ethics report to the Senate judiciary committee or to the public?
To the public even as support is growing among the Senate GOP for this to be released. Now he contended that Donald Trump has not pressured him, the speaker of the House to stand in front of this report. He also told me that Trump's advisers have not urged him to do so.
He claimed that it would open up a Pandora's box if this was released. But I mentioned to him that there is precedent to release reports of members who have resigned. He contends that if there is a former member, this should not come out to the public, but this has happened in other cases in the past. He said that we are now, in a quote, different era.
Now, I caught up with a number of Senate Republicans today who believe completely different. They believe this is essential to their decision making process, including one key senator, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, an ally of Donald Trump, who says it is time for the committee to release that report to the Senate Judiciary Committee before those critical hearings next year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: You want to see it?
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): Oh, I do, but I'm -- more importantly, I want the Judiciary Committee to be able to see it prior to the hearings. And then after that depending on what happens, then, of course, it could other members that are going to at some point have a vote.
[19:05:02]
So that's been my -- my main point is that you have to, you know determine whether or not the cost of getting them across the finish line is worth it, much less the possibility that he won't get across the finish line.
RAJU: But if he were, if this nomination were to go down and he tried to install him via a recess appointment, would that be okay with you?
CRAMER: Well, I think it would be very difficult to -- I just think it would be unwise to do that if he can't get the votes of the majority party, which is his party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: And the key point there that Kevin Cramer opposes the idea of installing him via a recess appointment. If Gaetz were to come down, it would be rejected by the United States Senate. That's going to be a key point of contention if that's ultimately what happens here.
But this all comes as Donald Trump himself is trying to pressure Republican senators to fall in line, believing that ultimately he can get them to fall their way.
And here's another key point here, Erin. There are five members on the house ethics committee Republican members. The question is, will any one of them break ranks and side with Democrats to vote to release that report? We don't know that yet, but we do know that some of those House Republicans are weighing, blocking its release -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Manu, thank you very much.
And Joel Leppard is now OUTFRONT, as I said, he represents two women who testified in the House Ethics Committee probe into then Congressman Matt Gaetz. Joel says both women claim Gaetz paid them to have sex. One of the women also testified that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with an underage girl.
So, Joel, I appreciate your time.
JOEL LEPPARD, LAWYER FOR WOMAN WHO TESTIFIED AGAINST GAETZ ABOUT SEX ALLEGATIONS: Thanks so much for having me.
BURNETT: Sordid, sordid, you know, set of topics here that we're all now discussing, but important. We're talking about what could be the future attorney general of the United States. So, can you at least just start off with what happened here in this alleged account or, you know, when where what happened?
LEPPARD: So if you're referring to the encounter where my client testified to the House that she witnessed representative Gaetz having sex with her friend, a minor, she was invited to a party in July of 2017. She testified to the House that as she was walking out to the pool area she turned to her right and she witnessed her client -- I'm sorry, her -- her friend, having sex with Representative Gaetz and her friend at that time was 17.
BURNETT: And so, and just to be clear, she knew this, that this young, this girl that then representative, Congressman Matt Gaetz was having sex with on the table was underage because it was a friend.
LEPPARD: That's right. They'd been friends for several years from high school.
BURNETT: From high school and that she was a high schooler at the time? I mean, the --
LEPPARD: Her friend was still in high school, correct.
BURNETT: Okay. So did -- does your client have any idea as to whether Matt Gaetz knew about the age --
LEPPARD: She testified -- yes, so she testified to the House that Representative Gaetz did not know her friends age at the time they had sexual intercourse. And when he found out about her age, that Representative Gaetz stopped having sexual intercourse with her, and he only started the sexual intercourse interactions later on when she turned 18.
BURNETT: So then it continued again.
LEPPARD: That's correct.
BURNETT: Right, and how does your client know what Matt Gaetz knew about her friend's age?
LEPPARD: You know, that's an interesting story. But essentially, she found out -- when they found out, they contacted her and at which point they seized communication with -- with the minor.
BURNETT: Uh-huh, and but we don't know -- you don't know whether he knew that he's having sex with a high school girl, whatever her age might be, whether she was technically 18 or 17. He could have known she was in high school.
There were a lot of girls. It sounds like, at this party who were in that age range, your clients among them. LEPPARD: Right. But the testimony that my client gave was that she
believed Representative Gaetz did not know her age at the time, that the minor was 17.
BURNETT: Okay. So, but it's a party where this sort of thing is happening and just to be clear, your clients knew he had paid also your clients for sex. He was paying for sex?
LEPPARD: The testimony before the House was, yes, that Representative Gaetz paid my client, both of my clients for sexual favors throughout the summer of 2017, all the way to the beginning of 2019.
BURNETT: And how did he how did he pay them?
LEPPARD: Those were primarily through Venmo and PayPal payments. There was one payment through Representative Gaetz's adopted son through his PayPal.
BURNETT: Nestor.
LEPPARD: That's right.
BURNETT: The adopted -- the adopted son payments would come there, too.
LEPPARD: There was only one payment that was testified to.
BURNETT: May I just ask? And your clients age, obviously was technically over 18, right?
LEPPARD: That's right.
BURNETT: But within that same -- they were friends from high school, friends with -- friends from high school, with the underage girl.
LEPPARD: That's right, they -- their boyfriends, had dated each other in high school and that's how they became friends.
BURNETT: And Matt Gaetz at the time is obviously in his --
LEPPARD: He was he was 35, I believe.
BURNETT: Okay, but he knew these -- the age of your clients, young.
LEPPARD: I don't know if they knew their exact age, but most of the women at these events were in their, you know, 19 to mid 20s.
BURNETT: So there was a separate DOJ probe into Gaetz, which included many allegations, right?
[19:10:05]
But the DOJ probe looked specifically into allegations that Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl, violating, they say -- allegedly violating sex trafficking laws in terms of transporting this girl to travel with him. Do you happen to know if that girl that the DOJ was probing is the
same girl as the 17 year old girl that your client saw Gaetz having sex with?
LEPPARD: Yes, that's the same person in question. She testified. I mean, she's intimate with all the facts that took place, but that is the same individual that the -- and she did testify as to the DOJ investigation to the House.
BURNETT: Do you -- have -- has Gaetz or anyone affiliated with Gaetz reached out to you or your clients since the nomination to ask for anything?
LEPPARD: No, not at all.
BURNETT: Not at all. So he's denied wrongdoing, as you know, and was not charged by the DOJ. Although, of course, the House Ethics Committee, we'll wait and see whether we see the results of what that paper was, that report. He was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, who asked him about the 17-year-old.
Let me just play that for you, Joel.
LEPARD: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: They're saying there is a 17- year-old girl who you had a relationship with. Is that true? And who are they? Who is this girl? What are they talking about, "The New York Times"?
GAETZ: The person doesn't exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So you're 100 percent sure that that -- that he's lying there?
LEPPARD: I'm not here to express that -- to call him a liar. But I can tell you that my client testified and she's friends with that individual, and they've been friends for several years. She testified to the house that that they both moved to Colorado, subsequently and in fact, they texted me and they're saying that they're watching it tonight.
BURNETT: They're watching it tonight. So, Gaetz would -- did not face charges technically from the Justice Department in that case and he's resting upon that. And as I said, there's a -- there's a deep layer here of a lot of things okay. It's not just about this one case, but this one case is in the focus right now.
On Friday, a spokesman for Gaetz said the DOJ cleared him. Is that really what happened? LEPPARD: So to be cleared of charges is, you know, any first year law
student can tell you that just because a career prosecutor who might have never lost a case decided not to bring charges for perhaps reasons that we don't know about, doesn't mean that someone is innocent. It doesn't mean that they didn't do it.
As a criminal defense lawyer, we get tons of clients cases dismissed all the time who absolutely, in fact, were guilty. So it might make for a good sound bite. And in fact if I were counseling Representative Gaetz, I would probably tell him to say the same thing. But that's absolutely not the case.
BURNETT: And I just want to go back to the -- again, as we say, the deep layers of this onion, your client is at a party. And throughout that summer is being paid.
You're saying being paid her and your more than one client by Matt Gaetz for sexual favors while he's a representative in Congress in his mid 30s. And these are young women, 18 to early 20s. This one was 17.
And going to a party like this, drugs people having sex on pool tables, that would be normal.
LEPPARD: Well --
BURNETT: At that time?
LEPPARD: I don't know. Okay. So there were numerous events such as those -- they're not all happening at a pool table.
But there were events at Airbnbs. There were events at individuals' houses. There were events that took place at political events. There was a trip to New York. There was a trip to the Bahamas.
So events like this did happen from time to time, perhaps over ten times over the course of July 2017 to early January 2019.
BURNETT: And you're saying over ten times these are again, are parties where he would be paying clients such as yours for sex?
LEPPARD: The testimony was from the House that, yes, they were paid by Representative Gaetz to have sex at these events.
BURNETT: How damaging do you think it will be if the House Ethics Committee report is released, Joel?
LEPPARD: Well, my clients want it to be released because they want the truth to be known, and they don't want everything that they have done to be in vain. They have been through a lot, I can tell you. And this has been an extremely trying time for them.
So I think once the American people see what's in the report, they can decide for themselves if they think that Representative Gaetz is the best person for the job.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Joel, I appreciate your time. And I know it had to have taken a lot for them to go through that and to go through that testimony. Thank you very much for taking the time to be with me.
LEPPARD: Thanks for having me.
BURNETT: And next, we have breaking news. A top Republican telling CNN they need to take a closer look at Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for secretary of defense after allegations of sexual assault. Tonight, our Kyung Lah spoke to Hegseth's accuser.
Plus, trouble at Mar-a-Lago. Trump, reportedly frustrated with his transition chief. Elon Musk is now butting heads with Trump insiders.
And a crucial day in court. Prosecutors are now revealing new details about the smart watch belonging to Laken Riley was allegedly murdered by an undocumented migrant, and that this provided investigators with vital clues about her horrific death.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:19:14]
BURNETT: Breaking news, Donald Trump has named Fox Business host Sean Duffy to be his transportation secretary. Duffy is a former congressman and until today was employed by Fox. It comes as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services committee says sexual assault allegations against the other Fox News host Trump named to his cabinet quote, need to be looked at.
Pete Hegseth is Trump's pick to run the pentagon. CNN has learned Hegseth paid the woman who made the sexual assault allegations in a settlement.
Kyung Lah is OUTFRONT now.
And, Kyung, I know you have new reporting about the alleged assault, and the woman who accused Hegseth of attacking her. Tell me what you've just learned.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, we did meet with the alleged victim, and we did speak with her, but it was very briefly.
We do want to stress that CNN is not identifying this woman because she is the alleged victim of a sexual assault.
[19:20:04]
But in that brief conversation, she was visibly distraught at the mention of Hegseth's name. She said that she didn't know what she could say, and before saying anything, she had to consult with her attorney. And we have not heard back from her since that first meeting that I had with her.
Now, Pete Hegseth's attorney is telling CNN that this was not an assault at all, that this was a consensual act. He described that Hegseth had paid this woman and that there was a confidentiality clause in addition to the settlement payment. So what are we talking about? This was an event that happened on
October in the early morning hours of October 8, 2017. I want you to take a look at these photos. These are Facebook photos that were posted by the California Federation of Republican women.
There's also a three page memo that describes what happened on this evening it was given to the Trump team and it was written by the friend of an alleged victim. This is a memo that CNN has obtained.
We could not independently verify the allegations as laid out in this memo -- again, written by a friend of the alleged victim. The memo describes the evening this way that Hegseth was at the hotel bar. He became pushy with two women at the bar who then reached out to the woman who had become this alleged victim. She tried to mediate the situation and at that point her memory becomes hazy in the evening.
The next morning, she had a hazy memory of being raped. She told her husband they went to the hospital and she took a rape kit. They called the police. It was four days after this event on the in the early morning hours of October 8th, 2017, police ultimately did not file charges against Hegseth and we did request a report. The full police report, Erin, the police would not make that public -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Kyung, thank you very much.
Well, it sounds like that could be crucial to all of this in understanding what happened here especially if he does. You know, this confirmation goes ahead.
Everyone's here with me.
So, Margaret, let me just start with you because, you know, Pete Hegseth, you worked with him and have known him over a period of many years.
So just in the context of this, I mean, you know, what -- what was he like? What do you make when you hear an allegation like this?
MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Now, I want to be clear I worked alongside he ran called Veterans for Freedom, Vets For freedom --
BURNETT: Yeah.
HOOVER: -- in 2008, '09 and '10. And these are political cycles in which the small, nonprofit organization that he was running was trying to advocate for continuing the surge strategy in Iraq and for continuing along that. This is at the time when Pete Hegseth was really a neocon, right?
BURNETT: Right.
HOOVER: He was supportive of the of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I watched him run an organization very poorly lose the confidence of donors. The organization ultimately folded and was forced to merge with another organization who individuals felt could run and manage funds on behalf of donors more responsibly than Pete could.
That was my experience with him. And we have not stayed in close touch.
BURNETT: No, no, but I mean, that that's important. That's at the management level.
HOOVER: These are management. Yeah. This was a small nonprofit full of maybe less than ten individuals with a budget less than $5 million, $5 million to $10 million. And he couldn't do that properly. I don't know how he's going to run an organization with an $857 billion budget, and 3 million individuals, based on what I saw in those years.
BURNETT: Right. And that is -- I mean, that's on the substance of managing something and policy.
Matt, may I ask you the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee talking about these allegations of sexual assault, said this latest revelation that Hegseth ended up paying this woman in a settlement needs to be looked into, right? And we know, as Kyung said, we don't yet have the police report that has not been released.
So do you think there's a path for Hegseth to get confirmed? And what does it look like?
MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I do. And part of it is because, you know, he had spent honorably in the military. Four bronze stars, certainly is seen as an intelligent guy. You know, he's written extensively about Pentagon reform and military readiness, things you would want in a secretary of defense.
Now, obviously, Senate is going to ask a lot of questions about this. However, unlike some other nominees, this is the first time this has ever come up. So I think a lot of senators are going to give Pete Hegseth the benefit of the doubt to actually tell his side of the story, the fact that it has not been discussed or has not come out to this point, and it's not like he's a low profile individual.
I mean, certainly, he is out there on TV every single day. I think senators are going to want to hear his side of the story while they make their final decision. So I do think there's still a pathway for Pete Hegseth to be confirmed. May not be the case for some other nominees though.
BURNETT: And I want to get to those other nominees obviously, we're talking about Matt Gaetz here.
Can I, Margaret, just to give you a chance to respond to that?
[19:25:01]
I mean, when you're saying and I don't, we don't know. We don't know. But as of now, this is a one -- this is one allegation, one person. It is very different than, say, a Matt Gaetz situation or others. Does that enable GOP senators to say, okay, were going to just take his word on this one? HOOVER: No. I mean I think there's going to be a very serious and
rigorous deliberation about whether this individual has the character to be the head of the Defense Department. I would just also mention that the woman with whom he had this incident right, who claims that she was raped also signed an NDA and NDAs mean that she can't. She doesn't own her story.
BURNETT: Right.
HOOVER: And so she will never be able to -- that's why she said to Kyung she had to talk to her lawyer first. Women who are violated in these ways don't have the ability to tell their story, to defend themselves and so, you know, presumably Pete signed an NDA as well.
But, I mean, this is a subject for sort of national discourse and discussion, because women who are violated in these ways, you know, I don't know how much Pete is going to be able to say, frankly, to, to senators, even behind closed doors, if he also signed an NDA.
MONDAIRE JONES (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: So to that point, as a lawyer, that settlement agreements, NDAs oftentimes contain clauses that say, if you are subpoenaed by a government agency, for example, that that would qualify as an exception to the nondisclosure provisions. So I'm curious to know --
BURNETT: What that says. We're going to find out.
JONES: What's asserted by his attorney.
BURNETT: All right. So, Matt, can I just say, because you said, you know, in terms of others and maybe, perhaps and look, we don't know what we don't know about how all this will go down, right, but maybe this would have been subjected to even additional scrutiny in the Senate that it may or may not have at this point if it were for, say, Matt Gaetz.
So you just heard, Matt, Joel Leppard, the women, the attorney for two of the women who say Gaetz paid them for sex. Their high school friend -- high school friend was having sex on an air hockey table when she was 17 years old with Matt Gaetz. And these sorts of parties and events and groups of people in these ages, he's 35, was commonplace and happening all the time. He had at least ten instances over the period of a few months that that, he says, his clients say this happened. They testified to the ethics committee.
So can I just ask you, because you were on the Ethics Committee, are they going to or sorry you were on the Ethics Committee, Mondaire. Do you think, Matt, that this is going to become public? Are we going to see this report?
MOWERS: Yeah, I'd be surprised if you don't see at least aspects of it leak and whether it's from the committee itself, whether it's when the Senate requests the information and then you'll have individual -- Senate offices potentially leak it.
I think more of this is going to come out. It's hard to imagine that --
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: Too many people have their hands on it, right?
MOWERS: Right, and look, Matt Gaetz has a lot of enemies in Washington, D.C., right? And a lot of them are in the U.S. Senate. A lot of them are on that Ethics Committee. And so, there's going to be a lot of folks who are interested in making sure any information that could be damaging to him is out there.
And what I'd say though, at the end of the day, is what Matt Gaetz is going to have to do is try to, you know, go out and also tell his side of the story. However, he doesn't walk in with the same goodwill that maybe Pete Hegseth would into a Senate meeting given that many Republican senators are already kind of fed up with the antics they saw in the last few years in the House, from Congressman Gaetz.
And I think that's going to be the challenge. And so ultimately, you know, for all of them, I think the magic number is four. You know, they're probably not going to get a single Democratic senator. They can't lose more than three, or at least they certainly cannot lose four Republican senators.
I don't know how Matt Gaetz doesn't lose at least four. Pete Hegseth may have a chance.
BURNETT: I mean, and look, you could the whole recess appointment. It's a separate conversation in a sense, Margaret. But we do know Trump has been calling senators directly to lobby for Gaetz.
Now, I mean half the conference could be against Gaetz right now. Does he -- does he get this over the finish line?
HOOVER: I mean, if he -- if he really wants to, I -- this one's very difficult. It's very difficult to see how the nations top law enforcement officer may have committed multiple crimes. I mean, this makes the president look bad. It makes the administration look bad. It's like -- it's just it's hard. It's hard to see how the senators allow this to go through. I mean, what I'm hearing from -- from Republicans is that is that this one is the least likely to go through.
BURNETT: Right. And maybe there were others there that might not have.
JONES: Yeah.
BURNETT: But when you've got Matt Gaetz is the one, you know, how many are Republicans that that 3 or 4 number Matt's talking about?
JONES: I think this is part of a strategy. The fact that there have been so many toxic nominations made over the past through presumably, some may not. And so maybe Matt Gaetz is the sacrificial lamb because he is so extraordinarily toxic. But let's not forget about the fact that Tulsi Gabbard, literally a
Russian asset, has been nominated to be director of national intelligence. That is a real problem. And the fact that we're not even talking about that because everybody else has these credible allegations against them, whether it be sexual assault or sex trafficking is --
[19:30:01]
BURNETT: I had many other people on my list and now our times up.
HOOVER: Or a vaccine denier.
JONES: Over HHS.
BURNETT: All right. And see -- and then I have to leave it here. So the --
HOOVER: Flood the zone strategy. Steve Bannon is with us forever.
BURNETT: Matt, Mondaire, Margaret, thank you all very much.
And next, a well-known Russian ballet dancer critical of Putin now dead after mysteriously falling from a fifth floor of a building.
Plus, Trump vowing to use the military for his mass deportations. One top Arizona official tonight saying not so fast. The attorney general of Arizona will be OUTFRONT. She'll talk about how she plans to stop that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, Russia threatening a, quote, adequate and tangible response to the U.S. decision to allow Ukraine to use American made missiles inside Russia for the first time.
[19:35:07]
The foreign ministry saying today an attack would constitute direct U.S. participation in the war. The warning comes as Russia has launched its biggest aerial attack on Ukraine in months, a ballistic missile strike on Odesa, killing at least 10 people.
And tonight, Fred Pleitgen is OUTFRONT in Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): After Russia launched massive missile strikes against Ukraine, this weekend, killing and wounding dozens and what the Russians call targeted strikes against infrastructure supporting Ukraine's war effort, Moscow is now up in arms over the Biden administration's decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles capable of striking deep into Russia.
State TV and breaking news mode, blasting the White House. The Biden administration has decided to continue the war which Trump promised to end, the host says.
The Kremlin spokesman accusing Washington of, quote, pouring oil on the fire of the Ukraine war and Russian President Vladimir Putin for weeks warning that allowing Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia with Western weapons would be a massive escalation.
This will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are at war with Russia, Putin said in September.
Sources within the Biden administration tells CNN the decision was made to help Ukraine hold on to territory in Russia's Kursk region, where Kyiv says it's up against nearly 50,000 Russians but also troops from North Korea.
Ukraine's president bullish.
Hits are not made with words, he said. Such things don't need announcements. Missiles will speak for themselves.
But Kyiv's forces are rapidly losing ground on most front lines, especially in the eastern Pokrovsk region.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, visiting the key battleground on Monday to try and shore up morale amongst his forces.
This weekend, even Zelenskyy saying the war must end soon and he believes the incoming Trump administration will try and get it done quickly.
The war will end faster with the policies of this team that will now lead the White House, he said. This is their approach, their promise to their society.
Music to the ears of the Kremlin, while Russia has even changed its nuclear doctrine nukes, if a country like Ukraine attacks with long distance weapons with the help of a nuclear power like the U.S.
Moscow's hope for better relations with the incoming Trump administration could cause the Kremlin to refrain from a strong response, Russian political analyst Alexey Naumov tells me.
ALEXEY NAUMOV, POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the Kremlin will give Donald Trump some time to maybe reevaluate this policy, readjust it. We've seen some good signs about this. Elon Musk, who plays an outsized role in the incoming administration, criticized the decision. Donald Trump Jr. has criticized the decision.
PLEITGEN: The Kremlin has not yet said what its response might look like, only that it would be, quote, appropriate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Quote, appropriate as you there, Fred. I mean, can I ask you in the context of all of this just to, you know, remind everybody what -- what happens in Russia someone has been critical about the war in Ukraine in recent times, has been a very famous Russian ballet star Vladimir Shklyarov. We see him dancing here he fell to his death from the fifth floor of a building. We've just found out. He had, of course, spoken out against the war.
Do you know anything more about the circumstances of his death?
PLEITGEN: Yeah, Erin, they're being investigated. You're absolutely right. Vladimir Shklyarov, was the main dancer, the lead dancer at the Mariinsky Theater, which, of course, is a storied a ballet theater in the city of Saint Petersburg who also internationally, was really a big star in the ballet world.
I just want to read you real Ukraine war, where he was quoted as saying at the beginning when it all started, he said, quote, I am against the war in Ukraine. I am for the people, for a peaceful sky above our heads.
And you're absolutely right. He fell to his death on Saturday from the fifth story of a building and the Russians are saying they're investigating all of this. But according to RIA Novosti, one of the main news agencies here, the initial findings of the Russians are that this was an accident he is said to have been on very strong painkillers because he was two days away from a massive back operation. So right now the investigation is ongoing.
But for now, the Russians are saying that they believe that natural causes caused his death, that there was nothing else going on. The Mariinsky Theater, of course, coming out and saying this is a tragic loss for that theater company.
BURNETT: Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much, in Moscow, where Fred has been doing such tireless reporting in these past days since Trump won the elections, which is a crucial time to be there.
[19:40:01]
Fred, thank you.
And next, Mar-a-Lago meltdowns involving some of those always by Trump's side, including Elon Musk. There is new reporting this hour from Marc Caputo. He'll share.
Plus, Arizona's attorney general taking on Trump insisting his plans for mass deportations will have to go through her first. And she's our guest, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, trouble at Mar-a-Lago. Trump's transition co-chair ruffling feathers inside the president-elect's inner circle because of what he's doing. His antics apparently.
Howard Lutnick is on Trump's short list to lead the Treasury Department, but "The Bulwark's" Marc Caputo reports tonight that he's, quote, shooting himself in the foot, as insiders see him as, quote, too competitive, too aggressive and too thirsty for the spotlight.
[19:45:04]
So Marc joins me now.
All right. Marc, so Lutnick, you know, he backed Trump. He was a transition leader, backed him before he won, right? So he's been on that inner circle. But then here we are. Your reporting he's causing friction inside the Trump team. Not just now but actually for weeks.
So what's going on?
MARC CAPUTO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE BULWARK: Right. I guess the next installment of the show, knives out, is taking place in Mar- a-Lago, and the transition, because Lutnick is not only just sort don't really like his style. But early on he ran afoul of RFK. By Robert Kennedy Jr., by saying he would never be HHS secretary and then Trump went ahead and appointed it to him anyway.
And now, his style of sort of knifing other people and trying to keep them from the treasury post has started to really rub a lot of people the wrong way. And he's enlisted the help of others, including now RFK, as well as Elon Musk, who even though he's spending all of this time around Donald Trump, along with Howard Lutnick. Musk tweeted on Saturday that Lutnick should get the job and this other rival Scott Bessent, shouldn't.
And there are folks who have been around Trump for a while who said, you know, he probably isn't going to like this sort of pressure and a social media campaign being mounted outside because he doesn't want to look like he's in the service of Elon Musk. Donald Trump doesn't really want to look like his puppet.
BURNETT: No, no, okay. So can we talk about that? Because they're together constantly. I mean, in every single picture of Trump is Elon Musk. One would forget that there was a J.D. Vance. They are together everywhere.
So, you know, now, you're talking about him taking sides on this treasury situation and now also were hearing about a massive blowup between Musk and Boris Epshteyn that you're reporting on. Boris Epshteyn is a longtime Trump top Trump adviser. All of this over cabinet picks and "Axios" is reporting about that dustup.
So what's really going on here about the dynamics between Trump and Musk, who, like I said, are literally joined at the hip? You can't get a photo of Trump without Musk in it right now.
CAPUTO: Right now, it looks pretty good. Those who know Donald Trump say the one thing that Donald Trump really prizes and really respects are people who make a lot of money and Elon Musk being the richest or one of the richest men in the world, gets a lot of respect from Donald Trump.
But people wonder at what point the two are going to have a falling out? Typical of Trump's court so to speak, is that proximity to power is power itself. And there inevitably are these squabbles that erupt around Trump. And now, you're seeing it from what we understand with Elon Musk and Boris Epshteyn.
Now, what Elon Musk is going to discover is that Boris Epshteyn has sort of a master-canine relationship or canine-master relationship with Donald Trump and Donald Trump is never going to really part with his sort of beloved loyal dog, and that has just been their long time relationship. People have tried to unseat and undo Boris, but it's unlikely to happen.
BURNETT: Master-canine, okay, I -- you know what? You came up with a new, new turn of phrase there, Marc. I enjoy --
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: -- conversations with you so much.
All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
CAPUTO: Thanks.
BURNETT: All right. Also tonight, Trump is confirming that he will declare a national emergency and he will use the military for mass deportations of immigrants in the United States illegally. Trump says he will begin this process in his first 100 days. He has repeated that.
Now, my next guest is vowing to fight him and saying that if he engages in unconstitutional behavior, he'll have to go through her first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRIS MAYES (D), ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: I do not believe that in electing Donald Trump. Arizona voters voted to shred the U.S. and Arizona constitutions. And if Donald Trump tries to do that, he will have to go through me first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And Arizona's attorney general, Kris Mayes, is OUTFRONT now.
She's a Democrat. And you heard what she said about what -- you know, what has to go through her first. If he's going to do anything unconstitutional.
So, Attorney General, thank you so much for being with me. Trump today did confirm again his plan for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He says he will use the military, a very clear he said true with three exclamation points when Tom Fitton posted that.
So undocumented immigrants mass deportations using the military. What is your response to that?
MAYES: You know, Erin, what I would say with three exclamation points is that I have not had a single conversation with a single Arizona border sheriff or sheriff who said that they wanted the military and that they wanted the military to come do mass deportations in Arizona.
What our law enforcement and what our sheriffs have told me that they need is more border patrol agents.
[19:50:03]
They need to triple the number of DEA agents so that we can prosecute more drug cartels and drug and fentanyl as its crossing our border. They need more resources.
Those are the kinds of things that we need. What we don't need is, is the military. What I also worry about is, you know, the likelihood that if you involve the military, you don't involve due process. And we still have laws in this country, we still have due process in this country. And I don't know that our military wants to be involved in mass deportations.
BURNETT: So on this issue though, support for deportations has grown by 20 points from 2016 to 2024. I mean, it's a massive increase. 66 percent were opposed in 2016. Its now less than half, so only 46 percent actually oppose that. And in your state of Arizona, voters knowing Trump stood for that, came out in favor of him, right? Loud, clear message. They're unhappy with security at the border, which you just mentioned.
I'm curious, attorney general though, because your margin of victory was as narrow as it gets, 280 votes more than your opponent. And yet you are taking this stand and standing up for this. Are you worried about alienating those voters on this issue?
MAYES: You know, I'm really not because I'm taking the position that they have taken really, which is that we need border security.
We need more DEA agents. We need more border patrol agents. We do need to take control of the border.
Look, you know, Donald Trump is responsible for some of the chaos at the border because he is the one who tanked the bipartisan border bill. You know that was that was introduced, Erin, more than a year ago.
If we had had the bipartisan border bill in place for the last year, we could have solved a lot of the chaos that was having happening on the border. We could have put fentanyl sensors at our border crossings. We could have had those border patrol agents in place and that didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? It didn't happen because Donald Trump tanked it for his own reelection purposes.
So I think, yes. Do we need to deport criminal illegal immigrants or criminals who have engaged in crimes in the United States? You bet we do. But that's not 15 million people. And when you're talking about 15 million people, you're probably, Erin, also talking about dreamers and members of DACA, and those -- those are folks that that are a part of our economy part of our state.
They are firefighters. They are police officers. And we're just not going to go there in the state of Arizona.
BURNETT: All right. Well, attorney general, I appreciate your time. And thank you very much.
MAYES: Thank you.
BURNETT: All right. And next new horrible details of how police knew that Laken Riley, the woman allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, put up a fight until the end.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:48]
BURNETT: Tonight, quote I know you know something. The wife of the migrant accused of killing Georgia college student Laken Riley confronting him in a jailhouse phone call, which was played in court during the second day of his murder trial. Rafael Romo is OUTFRONT with the latest in this case that is so horrific and also at the heart of the political immigration crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On day two of the trial for the man accused of murdering Laken Riley, an FBI special agent testified Jose Ibarra cell phone was at the same location as Laken Riley's GPS for about 20 minutes and that the time of the killing on February 22nd.
FBI SPECIAL AGENT: I would say that they are very close.
ROMO: Riley's smart watch data presented in court in this stark graph capture her final moments as it shows her heart rate spiking and slowing down. Then dramatically stopping, according to court testimony from a UGA police officer and a digital forensics expert.
SHEILA ROSS, PROSECUTOR: Her heart rate is still going until 9:28 a.m. Her encounter with him was long. Her fight with him was fierce, and that is what the Garmin data shows.
ROMO: The state played a jailhouse call in Spanish between the suspect Jose Ibarra and his estranged wife, Layling Franco, in which she asked him what happened with the girl.
ABEISIS RAMIREZ, TRANSLATOR: She tells him that he has to know something and he just continues to tell her, like Layling enough! Layling, enough!
POLICE OFFICER: Hold on.
ROMO: Body camera video played in the Athens, Georgia courtroom showed the moment officers found Ibarra.
It was late February, the morning after Riley was killed, as she jogged on the University of Georgia campus. A UGA police officer on scene testified Ibarra and his brothers seemed to be in a good mood. CPL. RAFAEL SAYAN, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA POLICE: They seemed very
relaxed. There was a lot of laughing, giggling.
ROMO: But another officer noticed something wrong.
POLICE OFFICER: What happened to that?
ROMO: He told the court that Ibarra's injuries looked like defensive wounds, including fingernail scratches and a puncture.
SGT. JOSHUA EPPS, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA POLICE: I could see like wet flesh, like almost like it was fresh.
SAYAN: I could see there was still a little bit of pus in it.
ROMO: Ibarra has pleaded not guilty. He waived his right to a jury, so the judge will decide his fate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMO: Erin, the prosecution said today in open court, they expect to wrap up their case tomorrow. Meanwhile, the defense says it should take them less than half a day to present their testimony. The trial resumes tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning here in at the Athens Clark County courthouse.
Back to you.
BURNETT: All right. Rafael, thank you very much. Absolutely horrific.
Thanks so much to all of you for being with us.
Anderson starts now.
