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At This Hour

Biden Vows to Stop Major Pipeline if Russia Invades Ukraine; French President Sees Path Forward with Russia and Ukraine; States Announce End of Mask Mandates against CDC Recommendations; U.S. Report Finds Mexico Dominant Source of Fentanyl into U.S. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 08, 2022 - 11:00   ET

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


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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Here's what we're watching at this hour.

Pipeline diplomacy: as Russia continues to build up troops on the Ukraine border, President Biden tries to make clear, an invasion would come at a real cost.

No more masks: several states aren't waiting for the CDC to take the lead; as COVID cases drop, they're ending mask mandates.

And one of the deadliest substances on the planet. The DEA launching a massive new operation to take on drugs like fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. Our exclusive interview with the DEA administrator.

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BOLDUAN: Thank you for being here, everyone. We begin with urgent diplomacy to prevent Russia from starting a war over Ukraine.

French president Emmanuel Macron is in Kyiv this morning to meet with Ukraine's president, one day after Macron met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. And the Russian leader continues to keep the world guessing about his true intentions.

The Kremlin announcing that Russian troops would leave Belarus after completing military drills, a possible sign of progress, though no timeline was given. And now President Biden is urging Americans in Ukraine to leave immediately because of the Russian threat.

Biden vowing to cut off a critical gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany if Putin really does invade Ukraine.

But is Germany on board?

That's still a question. Let's begin this coverage with CNN's Nic Robertson. He's live in Moscow at this hour.

What should people make of this statement from the Kremlin today?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: I think, taken into context that initially the Kremlin was replying to something that came from President Macron's office, saying they believe that Russia had committed itself to withdrawing its forces from Belarus.

Talking about Belarus, not that 100,000 that are in around other parts of Ukraine, withdrawing those after the military exercises. But the Kremlin essentially saying what they've said all along, that, sure, they're for military exercise. We're not setting a date for when they're going to leave.

Macron also thought he got a commitment from the Russians not to escalate the situation further. But asking the Kremlin about that, they said, mmm, not so sure we understand what the French are talking about.

So it doesn't seem on that account that much has changed. What has become somewhat clearer is President Biden has been absolutely clear, the support he believes he has from Germany to cut off gas supplies, to cut off the Russian gas supplies to Europe through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that comes directly from Russia into Germany, in a press conference yesterday, standing next to the German chancellor, this is how he framed it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: The German chancellor not using precisely the same language, leaving open the question how much agreement is there. And meanwhile, in Russia, President Putin used insulting language toward the Ukrainian president, saying he should just roll over and take it, for what Putin wants to come out of Ukraine at the moment.

Ukrainian president turning it into something of slightly humorous diplomacy. But that gave a clear insight into the way that President Putin thinks about all of this.

BOLDUAN: Nic, thank you so much.

Let's go to Ukraine now, where French president Emmanuel Macron is projecting some optimism actually after meeting with Ukraine's president.

But does President Zelensky feel the same?

I think is a good question right now. CNN's Melissa Bell live in Kyiv for us.

Melissa, what else did Macron and Zelensky say this morning? MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they were talking about the need for deescalation and grasping for any hope or sign that conversation or dialogue might be possible at this stage after the heat we've seen the last couple of months between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia on the other.

Emmanuel Macron believes he has made some progress by insisting on the fact it is now time for Russia and Europeans to talk about new security guarantees regarding the European continent and changing the treaty so that they're fit for the 21st century.

That's been Macron's strategy in dealing with the Russian president.

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BELL: Here's what President Zelensky and President Macron had to say at that press conference that happened a short time ago here in the Ukrainian capital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Generally, I don't quite trust words. That's why I think that every politician can show his or her openness by concrete deeds. In our case, those are steps toward deescalation.

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): We had an exchange with the president, who told me that he would not be the cause of an escalation.

France, since the beginning of this crisis, has never made excessive statements on the subject. But in the same way, I do not believe that this crisis can be resolved by a few hours of discussion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: Now the French president and Russian president decided they will continue their conversations, will speak again in the next few days. The French president on his way to Berlin for meetings with Olaf Scholz himself, fresh back from D.C. to talk about how they can continue to cooperate on that.

But I think the message from Kyiv tonight is that diplomatic channels, diplomatic efforts continue and, in the context, that has to be a good thing, Kate.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. Good to see you, Melissa. Thank you very much.

For more on this is national security analyst David Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for "The New York Times," and Steve Hall, former chief of Russia operations for the CIA.

Steve, let's start with these marathon talks between Macron and Putin yesterday. Putin agreeing to withdraw thousands of troops from Belarus after these military exercises conclude. People say they think it might look like progress.

But do you think it looks like that sounds like progress?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, Kate, right now, it's extremely difficult to tell because I think there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that we're not privy to.

But with boots on the ground and whose they are, Russians, Belarusians, where they're at, that's important.

So the real question is when those maneuvers or military training practice activities end in Belarus, where will the Russians go to?

Will they go back to Russia or will they go toward Ukraine or will they perhaps stay in Belarus?

So we can suss out a little bit from where troops are and how many there are. But there's a lot of diplomacy going on, a lot of things going on in back rooms. And I think we saw a good bit of that yesterday. I think NATO is doing a good job on the diplomatic front at this particular time.

BOLDUAN: Really interesting.

David, with this in mind, what is the view in Washington now?

Beyond the immediate, it's still a guessing game of what will Putin do and when.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This was really the critical question. There are all these short-term questions.

Does he invade in the next couple of weeks?

They think the window for that is a fairly narrow one -- end of February maybe into March.

But then there's a longer term question, which you were really discussing there with Steve, which is what happens to those troops even if they don't invade?

Do they return to Russia?

Does Putin leave his intermediate missile forces in Belarus, where they could easily destroy Ukrainian cities?

Ukraine is worried about the fact that Belarus is in discussion of changing the constitution later this month in a way to allow Russia to base nuclear weapons there.

So that all raises the question, are we in for sort of a long, grinding haul here, in which the Ukraine crisis becomes a longer Putin crisis, that threatens to upend the fundamental order we've seen in Europe? And I think people in Washington are just now beginning to sort of

think about what that might mean for Biden in a moment that he wanted to change the focus to long-term competition with China.

BOLDUAN: Steve, what do you think about that?

The Ukraine crisis already a very big problem for the U.S., NATO and European allies but what David is talking about is this could actually even be a bigger problem.

HALL: I think David hit the nail on the head there because what we're really looking at is a Cold War 2.0. Before it was the USSR, the Communists versus liberal democracies, the West.

But what we look at now is, you can choose whichever term you want to phrase, democracies of the world against the new axis of evil. But essentially it's the authoritarian part of the world, which we used to refer to as rogue nations, like China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, now Venezuela and others, Iran, against liberal democracies.

And I think it is a very much longer range problem than just Ukraine and, in that sense, Macron is not wrong when he said this really isn't so much about Ukraine as it is about Russia, specifically Putin trying to restructure the entire international order and how issues between countries are resolved.

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HALL: And that is a big long-term problem that's going to be around a lot longer than the Ukraine problem is.

BOLDUAN: David, following the Biden meeting with the German chancellor yesterday, there still seems a question today of where Germany really stands on the threat to cancel the pipeline project if Russia invades.

And also a question of what kind of sanctions against Russia Germany would really support. I want to play for everyone how the chancellor kind of answered this question with Jake Tapper last night.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Why won't you explicitly say, Russia, if you invade Ukraine, we're canceling the pipeline?

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: We're doing much more as one step. We are -- and all the steps we will take, we will do together.

As the president said, we are preparing for that and you can understand and you can be absolutely sure that Germany will be together with all its allies and especially the United States, that we take the same steps. There will be no differences in that situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: David, is that clarity? SANGER: Well, it's close to clarity, Kate, but it's not quite clarity. It was notable to all of us that, during the press conference with President Biden, whenever the chancellor was asked about Nord Stream 2, he managed to answer the question without ever uttering the words "Nord Stream 2."

So he did say we will act in lockstep. So you could do the math and say if the President of the United States said Nord Stream 2 will end, if Germany's acting in lockstep, it will end.

But I thought it was significant that he wouldn't quite say that. I also thought it was significant that President Biden described the triggering action that would cause the imposition of sanctions, as tanks or troops moving over the border right after he had sent officials to NATO to go talk about the other options: cyber attacks that crippled Ukraine's power grid or its communication systems; a coup, which the administration is worried that Russia might try to trigger in Ukraine.

And so we don't have clarity on the question of whether or not NATO or the United States would impose full sanctions if something short of tanks or troops moved over that border.

BOLDUAN: A lot of questions, despite the fact that they all continue to talk. It's great to see you, David.

Steve, it's been a minute. Thank you for coming on. It's good to see you.

Coming up, several states are lifting the mask requirements for schools as COVID infections fall.

So why is the CDC still recommending masks in the classroom?

We discuss next.

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BOLDUAN: Big developments on the pandemic: four states announcing plans to end their mask mandates in schools. Over the next six weeks, schools in these states will return to maskless learning as mandates roll back.

California, though, plans to lift its indoor mask mandate in just one week but does not apply to schools quite yet. New cases of COVID continue to plummet across the United States, down more than 40 percent in the last week.

Joining me now is Dr. Carlos Del Rio, executive associate dean at the Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System. Good to see you, Dr. Del Rio.

Rolling back mask mandates, is it time, do you think it's time in these states or is within the next month too soon?

What do you think?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATION DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT GRADY HEALTH SYSTEM: You know, I think that it's time to start thinking about off ramps. I think it's really important to think about how we start peeling off this requirement for masking, for other things, for asymptomatic testing, things we've done to control this virus.

I think the most important things we need continue to do is vaccinate people. In highly vaccinated communities, I think it makes a lot of sense to roll back masking requirements and indoor settings and to go to a mask optional situation in school.

We've learned it's important to track certain metrics and I think the number of new hospitalizations secondary to COVID and the ICU capacity are two good metrics to follow as we make decisions.

BOLDUAN: Honestly, the metric has changed over the course of the pandemic. At first, it was just case rates that would imply when things needed to start shutting down again. And now it seems like it's really changing.

You mentioned vaccination rates are key. I want to play for you what Dr. Jonathan Reiner said, because he really thinks vaccination rates are key in this question of when to roll back mask mandates in these schools.

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DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Case rates still pretty high. We're moving in the right direction but we're not there yet.

The other thing to remember is that most of our kids are not vaccinated. Only 55 percent of kids between 12 and 17 are fully vaccinated; only 22 percent of kids between 5 and 11 are fully vaccinated.

So the combination of still a lot of virus in the community and not a lot of kids vaccinated, to me, says we need to wait a little bit longer until there's less virus in the community.

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BOLDUAN: How does the mere fact, when you look at the stats, that most school-age kids are still not vaccinated, how does that complicate this, looking for off ramps?

DEL RIO: I totally agree. I mean, at the end of the day, I think vaccination is the key to success. And as I said before, in highly vaccinated communities, if you have a school with 80 percent-plus of the faculty staff, students are vaccinated, I think it's a lot more comfortable to roll out mask requirements than if you're in a school with only 20 percent of kids being vaccinated.

So I really think a lot of it depends on what the parents do and what the kids do.

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DEL RIO: If we get our kids vaccinated and there's plenty of vaccine availability, if we get our kids vaccinated, it will be easier. We'll get closer to roll out a lot of restrictions.

BOLDUAN: Just out this hour, in the journal "JAMA Network Open," the largest U.S. study looking at risk factors and outcomes in COVID-19 and kids. The top line is that 6.1 percent of kids who tested positive were hospitalized. That didn't seem to change, they found, through the Delta wave.

What does this study tell you?

DEL RIO: What the study tells us is, of about a million kids tested, about 10 percent or so tested positive; of those, about 6 percent ended up in the hospital; about 1 percent died.

At the end of the day, the great majority of kids who get infected with COVID are going to be fine, are not going to end up in the hospital, are not going to end up sick.

But we also learned about risk factors -- kids who had obesity, African American kids and certain kids who are at high risk of hospitalizations, so I think it reinforces the need of getting kids vaccinated.

If we have vaccinated kids, those 6.1 percent of kids hospitalized would have probably been a lot lower, maybe 80 percent or 90 percent lower. At the end of the day, really goes back to the importance of vaccination.

I would warn, as the authors do, this study was in the pre-Omicron time. Omicron is a lot more transmissible. And we still need to see the data from Omicron in kids.

BOLDUAN: Great point. Good to see you, thank you, Dr. Del Rio.

Vaccine mandates are actually leading to crippling protests in Canada. Truckers blocking the Ambassador Bridge that connects Detroit with Ontario, a huge thoroughfare, halting commercial traffic at the border. Hundreds of truckers have paralyzed the city of Ottawa.

Canada's prime minister is now demanding these protests end. CNN's Paula Newton is there right now.

Paula, what's going to end this?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not. And at the highest levels of government, they're not clear how this is going to end.

They're clear that they want to avoid any confrontation or violence. But, Kate, I have to tell you, the bridge closing there, the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, is quite an escalation.

Look at the guys behind me. I've been up and down these streets, I've spoken to them. They say they're not going anywhere. This started as a protest against the vaccine mandate. It has turned into so much more.

People that are here are saying, look, we want it all to end. We want all the restrictions gone.

Now yesterday evening was quite dramatic. Justin Trudeau, the prime minister had been in isolation. He had COVID-19, along with some of his family members. That ended, he was clear. He came to an emergency debate in parliament and took quite a firm stand. I want you to listen to him now.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Everyone's tired of COVID. But these protests, these protests are not the way to get through it.

Individuals are trying to blockade our economy, our democracy and our fellow citizens' daily lives. It has to stop.

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NEWTON: Yes, and Kate, the question is, how is it going to stop?

Justin Trudeau does not seem like he's going to negotiate or mediate anything at this point. They are saying that, look, this is a fringe minority. And people here say that is not the case, that there is a significant minority.

Kate, I will tell you, this isn't something the Biden administration can ignore, especially given those bridge crossings. There could be impacts of the supply chain between the United States and Canada.

BOLDUAN: Great point, Paula, thank you so much for your reporting. Appreciate it.

Coming up for us, a new report detailing the terrifying spike in overdoses linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl in America.

What's being done to stop it?

My exclusive interview with the head of the DEA -- next.

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(MUSIC PLAYING) BOLDUAN: Turning now to America's opioid epidemic. A new government

report calls synthetic drug trafficking a national security emergency.

The special interagency report finds Mexico is now the dominant source of America's fentanyl supply. The drug is incredibly dangerous, 50 times more potent than heroin. Fentanyl and synthetic opioids like it accounted for two-thirds of the 100,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. last year.

Facing this, the DEA is launching a massive new operation to take this problem head on, targeting the intersection of drugs, like fentanyl, and violent crime. The first wave pinpoints 34 cities and 23 states from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between.

In a CNN exclusive, I sat down with the new DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, and asked her how this strategy is different than anything tried before.

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ANNE MILGRAM, DEA ADMINISTRATOR: DEA operates all over the United States and the world. And so we have an ability to use resources across the country and across the world.

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