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Williams Has Apologized for Telling False Story; Bruce Jenner Involved in Fatal Crash; Kayla Mueller's Parents to ISIS: Contact Us; Realistic Options for Stopping ISIS; Biden's Message to Russia's Putin; Russian's Putin More Popular Than Ever; Putin's Real Plan in Ukraine

Aired February 07, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking news here on CNN. I'm Poppy Harlow. Joining me live from New York, 5:00 Eastern, top of the hour.

And we have this to bring you. NBC anchor Brian Williams taking a short break from his evening newscast amid a growing controversy over his trustworthiness. If he said things that were factual or not. Williams has apologized for telling a false war story about his time in Iraq in which he claimed to be in a military helicopter that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. He later backtracked saying on his Wednesday night broadcast that he was on a different helicopter trailing behind the chopper that got hit. Let me read you Williams' note that he sent to staff today. It says, "In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much of a part of the news, due to my actions. As managing editor of "NBC Nightly News," I have decided to take myself off my daily broadcast for the next several days and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those people who place their trust in us."

Joining me now Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent for us here on CNN, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." Brian, what are you hearing?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the conversation that is happening among people at NBC, you know, the rank and file as well as executives, and then the rivals, you know, the other broadcast networks like that is okay, he's stepping aside for a bit. Will he ever come back?

HARLOW: He says he will.

STELTER: He says he will. He says, when he comes back, he'll regain the trust of his audience. But you can imagine situations like this sometimes do end with the person not coming back to work. And I don't just mean in television and journalism but in other fields as well. So, I feel like what happened yesterday, the conversation and the whole TV news business was, can he survive this? Now, the conversation is, will he ever come back now that he's stepping aside for a short time.

HARLOW: So, do we know if this was at all urged or nudged -- if he was nudged by NBC to do this? To take some off for few days?

STELTER: This is the hard part, Poppy, because you've got to imagine he was. Right? You've got to imagine that he was advised or urged or told to step aside and yet NBC on the record is officially saying that this was his decision, this was his doing, this is a decision that he reached earlier today and that it was not a result of any pushing or prodding by the network. Being realistic here, you know, maybe he hears the call before he knows it's about to happen or something. I've got to imagine that there were deliberations involving his bosses about this. Because they were in a day-long meeting yesterday, his bosses, trying to do damage control. One person said to me, this is the first smart thing NBC's done in three days by having him step aside whether he's --

HARLOW: Proactive.

STELTER: That's right. It may be gives NBC a little bit of a breathing room to deal with this.

HARLOW: Right. So already some other media pundits, other journalists writing about this. I know you have one excerpt that you'd like to read.

STELTER: Yes. Let me read what Maureen Dowd in our column that's coming out tomorrow morning's "New York Times" because it was startling to me when I wrote them online this afternoon. She says, this was a bomb that had been ticking for a while. NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography, they were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt he needed Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division. She goes on to say, but the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone, and "there was no one around to pull his chain when he got too over-the-top," as one NBC News reporter put it.

The headline on her column is anchor's away. And that's the kind of commentary that is taking a bad situation and making it worse for Brian Williams.

HARLOW: Well, it's damning but is it too soon for things like this to be coming out when NBC is just a day and a half into its investigation?

STELTER: I think you know, you have the NBC's internal investigation going but then you've got lots of other people digging through archives as well at the same time.

HARLOW: Right.

STELTER: Other journalists and, frankly, in some cases, some rivals of Brian Williams or some detractors of Brian Williams. You know? If you're in the television business or as long as Brian Williams has been, some people that might not like you and maybe they want to see you fall.

HARLOW: Right.

STELTER: But at the same time, there are a lot of people love him, who admire him and want to see him get through this.

HARLOW: Ten million viewers each night on NBC.

STELTER: That's right.

HARLOW: Brian Stelter, thank you for the reporting as you continued to do it for us here. We'll stand top of the story for you.

I do want to bring you though the breaking news that Bruce Jenner was involved in a fatal car crash. Someone involved in this accident did die. We're told not Bruce Jenner.

Let me bring in Sergeant Matthew Dunn at the Los Angeles County sheriff's office. Sergeant, thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about this accident?

SGT. MATTHEW DUNN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE (on the phone): I can tell you there's been a three-vehicle traffic accident that occurred today shortly after noon in the city of Malibu on Pacific Coast Highway. It involves one fatality. And I don't -- I do not have the exact particulars of that accident but I can't tell you that Pacific Coast Highway has been closed down for the investigation and will remained closed for approximately four to five hours.

HARLOW: So, that is a huge thoroughfare for people there in the LA area. The close down in that section for the next four to five hours. Do we know at all whether, I know that one person involved in this accident, we don't know who has died, we're told by our Nischelle Turner that it is not Bruce Jenner. Can you confirm that? And also, do we know of any other potential injuries?

DUNN: I do not know of any other injuries. But my understanding is Mr. Jenner was at the scene and was possibly an occupant of one of the vehicles.

HARLOW: So, we're not sure at this point in time whether anyone else was injured. I don't know. We don't have any photos of the accident, I don't know Sergeant if you have seen any, can you give us the sense of how severe it is, obviously there's one fatality.

DUNN: It is an ongoing investigation. The sheriff's department will conduct a very thorough investigation because it was a fatality and I do not have any information as to how the traffic accident occurred.

HARLOW: All right. Sergeant Matthew Dunn, we'll let you get back to your work but again the headline though, Pacific Coast Highway is going to be closed down four to five hours in that section, one fatality in this tragic car accident. Much more on that as we continue and much more on NBC News anchor Brian Williams taking himself off his broadcast for a couple of days. Much more on that when we return. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We're continuing to follow the breaking news here on CNN. NBC anchor Brian Williams taking a short leave from his evening newscast amid a growing controversy over his trustworthiness. Williams has apologized for telling a false war story about his time in Iraq in which he claimed to be in a military helicopter that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Later, he backtracked on his Wednesday night saying, he was actually in a different helicopter trailing behind the chopper that got hit. He said he mis-remembered, basically.

Let's bring in Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources." So, he takes a move here ahead of NBC being able to pull in or anything like that, he said, look, I'm too much in the news, to be delivering the news to you, I need to step back for a while. But he says, I will be back.

STELTER: That's right. And to now the chatter is, will he be back and if so, when? He says, he'll be away for several days and that Lester Holt who is the weekend, the "Nightly News" anchor will be filling in. Now, Lester Holt on tonight, which means he's going to have a long number of days to be working and the question is, how many? How many days will Brian Williams step away? How long will NBC's internal investigation take? Will it turn up more troubling allegations and will outside journalists? Will the journalists who are now pouring over Brian Williams' reports about other big news like Hurricane Katrina, turn off any more damaging information that just makes it impossible for him to comeback opportunity up any more damaging information that just make it is impossible for him to come back to work?

Let's bring into the conversation here. Frank Sesno from GW School of Media and Public Affairs, joining us on the phone. Also, Robert Thompson, director of the Center for Media Studies at Syracuse University. Thank you gentlemen for being with me. Frank, let me begin with you. You are speaking about this earlier saying some are questioning whether Brian Williams was too big to fail, basically, and whether or not an internal investigation is the right move. What is your take given this latest news that he himself is stepping aside temporarily.

FRANK SESNO, SCHOOL OF MEDIA AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (on the phone): Well, I think this is a very smart thing for him to do and whether he's done it or has been pushed to do it, he does it in his name. And so, he gets some credit to that. There's a degree of grace to it. I think that Brian is quite right. What is going to happen over the next several days is, this will continue to take on a dynamic all of its own and whether it's something in the internal investigation or something unforeseen blocker comes up, whether something that another journalist comes up with, that's really what's going to matter for Brian and determine whether he's able to come back at all or not. They have these things take on a dynamic on all their own. He's not too big to fail. As I pointed out earlier, Dan Rather was not too big to fail. These crises, these scandals, whatever you want to call them, tend to have a dynamic and there's a very careful balance that NBC has to make. They have to balance their loyalty to Brian, he's got a long track record, they have to balance out his ability to pull off a big audience and even, most importantly in my view, anyway, they have to figure in how their own institutional credibility is on the line here.

HARLOW: Robert Thompson to you, do you believe that the internal investigation launched by NBC yesterday is the right way to go?

ROBERT THOMPSON, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR MEDIA STUDIES, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: I think it makes sense to have an internal investigation and it will be interesting to see how that turns up. But I think NBC had all the data they needed Wednesday night when Brian Williams made that apology on Wednesday night that he had misremembered this story, I think they should have done these several days leave of absence as opposed to waiting for this uncomfortable Thursday and Friday when Williams came back and delivered the news as though nothing is happened and now he's apparently taken himself out for several days. I think this demonstrates once again that in this era where decisions need to be made on a second by second basis, this decision would have been an easy one to make 48 hours ago in spite of the fact that I know Brian Williams is the golden goose at NBC News but, in the end, I think Wednesday night anybody rationally could have said this is a decision that has to be made and it ought to be made then as opposed to today.

HARLOW: Right. Frank, I want to get your take on what Maureen Dowd, "The New York Times" opinion columnist, has just written, it will be in her full column tomorrow morning in "The Times." Quote, "This was a bomb that had been ticking for a while. NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian William was constantly inflating his biography." It goes on to say, "They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed to Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division. But the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone and there was no one around to pull his chain when he got too over-the-top, as one NBC News reporter put it." That is just part of the column. It is damning Frank says, and I wonder if you think it's too soon to come out with something like that.

SESNO: No, I don't. I think Maureen puts her finger on a very important thing. A part of it is Brian in particular and what he did and whether he -- embellish stories, part of it is our culture and Brian, in many ways, is the personification of it. You know, he's out there and you could ask why, why is the nightly news anchor, you know, on 30 Rock and why is he sitting with Jay Leno and David Letterman and for all intents and purposes leading the double life as a stand-up comic. We have gone to a place in our news environment and Maureen knows something of this, too, because she's something of a celebrity in her own right, where the lines are blurred in a daily basis, when they get so blurred as Brian has done. And by the way, let me say, I think he's a very -- has been a very strong journalist. He has a strong track record. There are egos in this business. I think we all know that. But it would appear that his has been outsized and it's been fed by all these other appearances and personalities that he's taking on. That becomes dangerous because then your story can become bigger than the story you're supposed to cover.

HARLOW: Right. Correct. And we are not the story, as journalists. Our subjects are the story.

Let me bring in Brian Stelter though. Brian, increasingly, though, through social media, through the changing forms of media and communication, journalists have increasingly, for good or for bad, become much more of who they are to the public and that is what Brian Williams said. I mean, many people like him a lot because he's so funny, because he's jovial, they feel they see who he is, not just the news anchor.

STELTER: NBC saw his appearances on shows like Jimmy Fallon. As a way to attract younger viewers then too his nightly news cast. You know, of the 10 million people who watch the "Nightly News," only about two million are in that key demographic of 25 to 54 year olds. Nightly newscast all of them, skew much older. And so, shows like Fallon, Letterman, we're way to bring in younger viewers to Brian Williams newscast. But it's worth noting that it was Letterman's show in 2013 where Brian Williams told the most exaggerated verse in the ad of the story about the RPG attack that actually did not affect his helicopter. It wasn't on NBC News, it was on a late-night talk show and maybe that's a kind of forum, where casual forum where you might exaggerate stories a little bit. Now, he did tell that story on his own newscast. And that is eventually what caused the apology to happen. But it's nowhere that had happened and there's already been predictions online that maybe he won't be going on those shows anymore. Maybe, he won't be able to do those late-night shows, those other more casual forums. We should mention Poppy, he renewed his contract two months ago.

HARLOW: Yes. In December for five years.

STELTER: For five years. NBC made a bet on him for the rest of the decade. That must make this even harder for them now to have to deal with.

HARLOW: All right. Brian Stelter, thank you very much. Frank Sesno, thank you. Robert Thompson, thank you gentlemen for your perspective on all of this. We're going to take a quick break. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The mother and father of an American woman Kayla Mueller have a message, a very clear message for ISIS militants overseas, get in touch with us and do it privately. Kayla Mueller's parents are not letting go of hope that their daughter is still alive despite the extremist group's claimed that she died in an airstrike. Here's part of the statement the family sent to ISIS. "You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest. As your guest, her safety and well-being remains your responsibility." Now, ISIS insists that Kayla Mueller was in a building hit by a Jordanian airstrike this week but they haven't proved that with any evidence. A Jordanian government spokesperson says they don't believe anything that ISIS says, and this is clearly just a pr stunt. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMAN AL-MOMANI, JORDANIAN MINISTER OF STATE FOR MEDIA AFFAIRS: To my knowledge, we have targeted storage of ammunition and training camps for terrorists. So that will tell you that it will be difficult for us to believe or accept the fact that an American lady hostage was there. What we know about this terrorist organization is that they are liars when it comes to these things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Joining me now, correspondent Kyung Lah, she joins us from Kayla Mueller's hometown of Prescott, Arizona. I know the families obviously not speaking to the media understandably at this point in time. We do see their statement. I'm wondering what people in the community there are saying about this woman?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they feel that the war has essentially landed on their front doorstep because this is a woman who many people knew. We went and got coffee down the street and the person who took our order went to high school with her. This is a woman who grew up here. She fought for social justice at the grassroots level. She worked at a local clinic for HIV patients, she worked at a woman's shelter. This is someone who is known by the Christian community here as someone who wants to improve life for the underserved. And that's something that she took with her around the world. Whether she went to India, Israel or the Palestinian territories but it was in Syria where she really found her calling. That's where she wanted to say. And we spoke with a college professor, someone who thought that she might follow her to Africa to do some good work but instead she chose Syria. We spoke by telephone with this professor and here's what she told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: No, it doesn't break my heart. I celebrate her choices because she did what she was doing with her eyes wide open. She was not naive and they were Kayla's choices, you know, not her professors or not someone else's. And it came from her experience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And those choices that she's talking about is too choose that her own safety might be compromised because she needed to be there to fight for the people who could not fight for themselves -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. There's no question about that. Kyung Lah, thank you very much for the reporting on this. Everyone hoping that she is, indeed, still alive.

Well, the U.S. was the first to join Iraq in taking on ISIS but is this really our war? Jordan's minister spoke to CNN. What he said might surprise you. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARLOW: The death of a Jordanian pilot at the hands of ISIS has given a new urgency to the war, the fight against ISIS. Listen to Jordan's interior minister described it to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR, "CONNECT THE WORLD": When you talk about eradicating this group, surely you will need the will of the people and people tell me, this is America's war, not Jordan's war.

HUSSEIN AL-MAJALI, JORDANIAN INTERIOR MINISTER: Well, I repeat again. This is definitely not the U.S.' war. This is definitely our war. And I would tell you, we have joined and we've given a carte blanche to His Majesty the King and to our armed forces. Not only united in mourning, we're united in action. This -- I don't want to equate ourselves with this evil force. But we will revenge for our pilot. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Fascinating interview there with our Becky Anderson. Let's talk about it with our panel Michael Weiss, he is here with me in New York, he's the columnist for Foreign Policy. Also co-author of the book "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror." Also joining us, former CIA operative Bob Baer and Shane Harris is with us, senior intelligence and national security correspondent for "The Daily Beast."

First to you Michael, whose war is this?

MICHAEL WEISS, COLUMNIST, FOREIGN POLICY & AUTHOR: Everyone in the Middle East is involved in this war, like they it or not. Jordan is hosting some 600,000 Syrian refuges. They have a problem with radicalization within their own borders and are absolutely terrified about blow back or retaliation by ISIS, including spectacular terrorist attacks which could strike inside Jordanian. I think the interior minister is quite right. But in the short term, there's a very robust sort of response. Jordan has blood lust for revenge. Is that going to carry in the long term?

HARLOW: And that's the question.

WEISS: Yes. And the society is not necessarily united behind the idea.

HARLOW: They are reinvigorated now seeing that horrific death of one of their own, but will this last?

To you, Bob Baer, when you look at Jordan as a strategic ally of the United States, I wonder if you could tell me how strong Jordan is militarily. And also I have read that they are pretty strong in terms of their intelligence gathering capability in Syria where the U.S. is not as strong.

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Poppy, yes, Jordan has the best intelligence in the Middle East, bar none. They understand Iraq and Syria. The United States depends upon them to get a real view inside the Islamic State as well as the tribes in that part of the world. Their military is very capable. And I am delighted that the Jordanians are rallying behind the king. And as the interior minister said, this is not an American war. The Islamic State is a threat to Jordan. It's for the soul of Islam. If they lose in Syria and in Iraq, there's a good chance that Jordan could go down as well. I think the tide has turned after this horrific burning of the pilot, and we've seen the Islamic State for what it really is. And that's -- as much as any good news in the story, this is it.

HARLOW: Shane, one other important development is the fact that after stepping back and saying we're not going to do any more airstrikes in December, the UAE is now stepping up again and sending F-16's to Jordan. How significant is that fight?

SHANE HARRIS, SENIOR INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST: I think it's significant and the United States is going to see that as a good development. When it was reported that the UAE was backing out, it was essentially kind of handing a victory to ISIS. It was demonstrating that it might be able to fracture this coalition, which I think is one of their goals. For the UAE to step back and say, no, we will be there, we'll support the Jordanians, means that coalition is holding again. It's very important that that happened.

HARLOW: Shane, you recently penned an article for "The Daily Beast" in which you said ISIS will never return a hostage alive again. What tells you that?

HARRIS: Well, certainly with American hostages, we are not, first of all, paying ransom. So that's off the table. It's clear, if you look at the pattern of the people they've beheaded, up until now, they are not interested in negotiating. They are interested in using these individuals for propaganda purposes, for drawing their ordeals into painful public spectacles for the public and particularly for their families. There has been no real sign that they are interested in a credible negotiation that would actually result in the returning of these people home.

HARLOW: Right.

But to you, Bob Baer, we have seen some hostages released, such as French hostages and we know that France is willing to pay ransom. Would it be a win for ISIS if they were able to get a successful prisoner swap done?

BAER: Oh, absolutely, Poppy. They did it with the Turks, the ones they captured in Mosul. I don't know whether it involved money or not. The Turks aren't saying. But the point is that they are capable of negotiating. It's just in the West that once we draw these lines, we don't negotiate with terrorists. And the French for paying money for their hostages were roundly condemned in back channels between Paris and Washington, I'm quite sure of that. And I don't think we want to get into the market of taking hostages. We don't know where the Islamic State will go next. There's nothing to be regained from it.

HARLOW: Michael, to you. Congress has talked about a proposal to use authorized force against ISIS. He has this window where he can do it without authority and then he has to go to Congress. What should that look like? You just wrote a book on ISIS.

WEISS: Right.

HARLOW: What does the U.S. need to do to effectively beat it?

WEISS: I have a very dire prognosis for this current strategy I don't think ISIS is going to be defeated.

HARLOW: With the airstrikes alone?

WEISS: And also the geopolitical realities right now. The U.S. is not saying that it's partnering with Iran. The terms they use are conflicting. But the bottom line is ISIS's core constituency is in Iraq and Syria, the Sunnis, and particularly the tribal areas that connect Anbar and Fallujah Provinces. If you are a Sunni right now, you have no incentive, impetus to rise up against them, because on whose behalf would you do that? You won't do it on behalf of Bashar al Assad's regime.

HARLOW: Have we seen more of that after the burning of the Jordanian pilot?

WEISS: In Jordan, yes. There's this, almost universal now, idea that ISIS does not represent Islam. If you're on the ground, being lorded over by them, it's not just about their obscuring religious and fundamentalism. It's not just about the totalitarian mode of their governance. You have to cut deals, right? It's pragmatism. Imagine yourself living under a gruesome war --

HARLOW: We can talk about this from here, there, living it.

WEISS: Exactly. So what's in our interests today? We interviewed a lot of people who live under ISIS rule who are part of ISIS who are also enemies of ISIS. The enemies of ISIS on the ground, the Free Syrian Army guys told us, look, we have to acknowledge the power of persuasion that they bring to bear. Sometimes groups, rebel groups that liberate a village or a hamlet in Syria resort to corruption. ISIS comes in and proposes itself as a sort of hygiene enterprise. We'll take the garbage from the streets, we'll make the bakeries are running, the trains run on time for you.

HARLOW: Make nice for you.

WEISS: Exactly, like every totalitarian in history.

HARLOW: Right.

Michael Weiss, thank you.

Bob Baer, thank you.

Shane Harris, good to have you on the program.

We appreciate it.

Vice President Joe Biden had some very tough talk for Russia today. If you're serious about peace in the Ukraine, he said, don't just say it, show us you mean it. More on what the vice president said, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: A message today from Vice President Joe Biden to the leader of Russia: Do not tell us, show us. He's talking about this week's escalation of the deadly conflict in Ukraine. Biden's at a security conference in Germany. He says that any future agreement with Moscow has to be judged by Russia's deeds, not by any paper they signed. Biden would not discuss the possibility of deploying U.S. troops to the conflict in Ukraine.

Look at this map. This shows where new fighting has erupted just this weekend on the Ukraine/Russia border.

Our correspondent on the ground there heard the gunfire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If you could potentially hear on the other microphone we have set up, the sound of shells slamming into Donetsk. I was awoken by it this morning and now as dusk falls, we're hearing it again.

(EXPLOSIONS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: In most countries, deadly international sanctions and a collapsing economy would spell disaster for the elected leadership. Not so in Russia, it appears. President Vladimir Putin is more popular than he has ever been.

Here is CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For his supporters, Putin has restored Russia to its rightful place in the world as a major power. He's brought back Crimea into the central fold. He's given Russians, many at least, back their pride.

Well, this was really a perfect economic storm to hit Russia. International sanctions over its role in Ukraine are already having an impact. And then on top of that, the collapse of Russia's main export really take this country over a cliff.

More and more Russians are simply unable to pay their bills and buy food and the real fear is that that's going to get worse as this economic crisis evolves and deepens.

It's striking, really, that so far the popularity of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is holding up. Soaring, even. He ended the year with opinion polls giving him an incredible 85 percent approval rating. All of that, of course, might change as the economic pain increases. Already, we're seeing limited social protests on the streets against rising prices, against spending cuts.

I don't think this economic crisis necessarily spells the end of Vladimir Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Matthew Chance, thank you for that.

So the real question, what is the end game for Vladimir Putin? What does he hope to achieve after all is said and done in Ukraine? That is coming up.

But first, architecture in art, and in today's ones to watch, see how architecture can shape the world and how we look at it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

NARRATOR (voice-over): Look around. We are surrounded by architecture, from the extreme to the every day, from the old to the new, from ancient Rome to modern Manhattan. Each landscape speaks of those it shelters. We have built and built and built on this earth. And architecture, the shaping of volume, light and ideas has come to be known as the mother of all art.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are many buildings in the world that are great and they are great and have their limits. There is no such thing as a perfect building. It's constantly evolving and I think that is what is exciting.

NARRATOR: Every structure in our habitat was conceived by a creative mind. A person with a plan, an architect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Architects are obsessed. Everything they see and do is related to construction and everything around our world is constructed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Just beautiful. You can watch the full show at CNN.com/onestowatch.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The crisis in Ukraine, and we're talking about the escalating violence in Ukraine and the role that Russia is playing on the ground there.

Michael Weiss is joining me again. He's a fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia.

Thanks for being here to talk about this. It's incredible, the images that we've seen just this week out of

Donetsk, the airport, dead bodies there. Nick Paton Walsh has shelling going on behind him. A senior U.S. official this week describing what he calls a grave acceleration of the fighting in Ukraine.

WEISS: That's the million dollar question. So various analysts will disagree about this. Some analysts say that the only goal that Putin has is to mire Ukraine in a political crisis, essentially prevent the country from becoming --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Russia is in an economic crisis.

WEISS: It is. The other theory which I tend to put more credence into, especially these days, Putin is playing for a land bridge of the so-called southern corridor to connect mainland Russia to Crimea, which was annexed almost a year ago, today. So whatever way the cookie crumbles here, Ukraine is losing the war on three separate fronts. Russia has escalated. We see everyday, at the interpretive magazine I run, which covers this conflict, more evidence of hard -- of sophisticated Russian material, stuff that the Ukrainians haven't got, crossing the border --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And that's why so many in Congress have been calling on the U.S. to step up support, if not boots on a ground, then the kind of retaliatory weapons that Ukraine needs that they don't have.

Leon Aaron, of the American Enterprise Institute, writing a column this week for CNN.com arguing that Putin wants to make southeast Ukraine a de facto Russian protectorate.

WEISS: Right.

HARLOW: Given that we have no idea what he wants, and he's not clear at all in his messaging, do you agree with that assessment?

WEISS: Yeah. I think what you're seeing play out here is a frozen conflict that is essentially Russia maintains hegemony over territory in Europe that doesn't belong to it, but they'll do things like start handing out Russian passports and granting citizenship to those in those areas.

HARLOW: I think the last thing the American public generally wants is another war the U.S. is involved in. At the same time, they understand the importance strategically here, right, and why it matters to the United States.

WEISS: Right.

HARLOW: Do you think that it is critical that even if it requires U.S. boots on the ground that Vladimir Putin is not allowed to do this? WEISS: I haven't heard anyone suggest U.S. boots on the ground. Not

even the most hawkish Republican Senator is saying that. There's a suite of options available. Ukraine is not just asking for lethal weaponry, such as anti-tank missiles. They're also asking for non- lethal equipment, especially radio communications gear. These guys in the Ukrainian armed services, especially the volunteer battalions, these are kids who signed up a year ago.

HARLOW: Can that be successful? Is that really all they need to be able to push Russia back?

WEISS: In most cases. They don't even have surveillance drones so they can't fly overhead above the separatists in Russian positions to know where these guys are shooting artillery at them. These are the things that can be supplied. Some would argue it's an escalation. I would argue, no, it just allows the Ukrainians to do better what they're doing.

HARLOW: Should we be calling this a war?

WEISS: Yes. Well, this is actually something that's sort of royal Ukrainian society. The Poroshenko government is calling this an anti- terrorist operation and not a war. Many Ukrainians are saying, look, you say that Russia has invaded Ukraine, Poroshenko gets up with Russian passports as hard evidence of Russian soldiers on the ground, what is that if not a war with Russia? But the concern is the political ramifications of this. If we're at war with Russia, does that mean Putin gets to roll tanks into Kiev?

HARLOW: Right.

Michael Weiss, thank you. We appreciate it.

WEISS: Thank you.

HARLOW: We'll continue to cover this throughout the evening.

Also, switching gears, Silicon Valley, the center of innovation for so much of the technology that's transformed all of our lives. Now some of the people in the valley transforming their lives in wild ways, swinging, threesomes? Yep, we're going there, talking about it with Laurie Segall straight ahead.

But first, take a look at what's coming up to those of you in New England. Take a look at that weather. Why is it every Sunday/Monday this has been coming our way? A brand-new storm getting ready to dump a whole lot of snow. City of Boston under an official winter storm warning, starting at 10:00 p.m. tonight in Boston. Forecasters say between a foot and two feet of snow will fall on the greater Boston area before the storm passes. The heaviest snowfall tomorrow night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. A lot of people in Silicon Valley got rich thinking outside of the box, right? And some of them are taking that approach to their love lives. We're talking about adult-themed activities, swinging, open relationships, all of this making a bit of a comeback in the valley amongst the tech-savvy valley set.

Laurie Segall dove into this world and emerged unscathed.

(LAUGHTER)

This has been fascinating to watch you report this. It's got a lot of attention from media all over the place.

It sort of happened by consistent, right, that you found all of this. You just heard people talking about it.

LARUE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Honestly, I talked to my tech sources and said, what's the next big thing? Someone said, some of my friends at Twitter are going to swinger parties. I just started thinking about it and looking at it and just asking. What I kept hearing was the word "polyamorous," which means many loves. And it's this idea you can be in multiple relationships. And a lot of entrepreneurs I spoke to were surprisingly very analytical about their relationship status, which makes them -- sort of in the bay area.

I want to play a little bit of an interview from a couple engineers. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIJU HAN, SOFTWARE ENGINEER: I think this is something that can be for everybody. It's more OK to be out about it in tech. Opening up your relationship is really risky.

CHRIS MESSINA, TECH ENTREPRENEUR: If you're trying to build a product, say, to draw an analogy, and it's failing 50 percent of the time, you might want to consider the design and think about ways of improving that. So like it's not saying monogamy or marriage is inherently flawed but it may not be for everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: Poppy, that guy, Chris Messina, he's the guy that coined the use of the "hash tag" on Twitter.

HARLOW: Wow. Big time. What else did you find? I know we have this special airing 8:30 tonight all about this and more, drugs, LSD use in the valley. What else surprised you?

SEGALL: We actually went into a high-tech swinger's party. That was very interesting.

I want to play you a little bit of my interview with the engineers inside of this party.

HARLOW: OK.

SEGALL: Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: Cheating is really about violating the contract of the relationship. You said you wouldn't do that and now you did. That could be forgetting to put the clip on the bag of chips or sleeping with somebody else.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: Sure. It could be like, oh, I'm jealous he's having sex with someone else, or it could be, hey, I like it when he's having fun. I enjoy seeing that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: These guys are engineers. They make a lot of money. They said they can afford to do this and if it's not popular with everybody at work they have the job security to go someplace else to get another job. That's how they frame it.

HARLOW: The reaction from folks in the valley seeing this all week.

SEGALL: Some people have messaged me and said why didn't you interview me for this story?

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: Any pushback?

SEGALL: Not really. I think people are interested. It's something that's interesting. It's counterculture, and we are just lifting the curtain on it. That's what technology does.

HARLOW: We will watch it all tonight, 8:30 p.m., only on CNN.

Fascinating report from Laurie Segall, reporting on Silicon Valley. A complicated and interesting developing a relationship with sex and drugs. 8:30 p.m. tonight.

I'm Poppy Harlow, in New York. Thanks for joining me this evening.

"Smerconish" comes up next.

We'll be back at 7:00 Eastern, right here.