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Biden To Deliver First State Of The Union Address Tonight; UN: 600,000+ Flee War-Torn Ukraine Amid Russian Invasion; CNN Interviews Ukrainian President Amid New Russian Attacks. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 01, 2022 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: CNN's State of the Union, Dana Bash. Dana, we know this we just changed in the past week, we'll say, how much do you think it's changed? So how much has the focus shifted?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm told it's changing as we speak, that the President is having a meeting around now probably -- other several meetings to retouch the speech. And, obviously, there was no plan even just I would say, 10 days ago to begin the State of the Union speech, with not just foreign policy, but an urgent foreign policy crisis that the world has not seen in almost a century. But that is the plan now that the President is going to begin the State of the Union speech talking about Russia, talking about the stakes.

You know, we heard so many times during the then-candidate Joe Biden's campaign, talking about autocracy versus democracy. He's talked about it pretty consistently during his presidency but I'm told by several sources familiar with this speech, he's going to try to tie it. I mean, it sort of, unfortunately, the events have allowed this to make the case for him that this is the ultimate display of what happens when you have an autocratic leader in Vladimir Putin.

Having said that, Kate, I am told that although the beginning will be very robust, very forward-leaning into this issue, into this crisis, that the bulk of the State of the Union speech is not a foreign policy speech, it is much more about the bread and butter issues that he and everybody in this administration and his colleagues on Capitol Hill, he was -- he'll be speaking to know that American people, American voters are still very much hurting.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And I mean, in polling, is suggesting that Biden comes into this big moment tonight with work to do and what you're talking about. I mean, more Americans disapprove of his job performance so far than improved. You see that on the screen from CNN's poll of polls. On the economy, no matter what real progress he points to, people

still don't feel good about the way it's going. You know, by and large. And on the pandemic, things are getting better. People are moving on but they're not -- it doesn't seem, giving Biden much credit for leadership on that. I -- you know, how does -- it's the kind of the question of balance, I guess, how does he address this reality that he's facing in the speech?

BASH: It's not going to be easy, particularly on the economic front. And of course, the economics and the pandemic, they're all very much tied together with regard to how they're affecting and have affected people's daily lives. But also on the politics of it, how they are affecting his standing with the American people right now. I am told that he is going to do I think what we've heard from President Biden, then-Vice President Biden, then-Senator Biden, talk about the fact that he comes from a place where he understands what it's like to feel economic pain in a very personal way. We've heard him talk about that so many times. I'm told he's going to lean into that.

But you know, I think it's important to note, and we've understandable been talking so much about what's happening in the world, but he's also facing that and will be in a chamber facing members of Congress, particularly in his own party, particularly in the House, where he will be standing -- will be standing in the House chamber, where they are hearing from constituents every single day.

Particularly the so-called frontliners, those who are most vulnerable in November -- this November, when they face voters at the ballot that they want to hear that things are going to get better when it comes to inflation when it comes to everything that it affects from gas prices to getting food in the supermarkets where a lot of people still don't see the basics that they -- that they need.

And the fact that that is happening now is something that is very difficult politically, but also it is difficult politically because it is different -- difficult in real life for so many Americans. And also, Kate as I tell you, the question is that people are asking is how -- what's happening in Russia affects all of that?

BOLDUAN: Yes. And I was -- you're talking in the break, but I mean, you've been outside the chamber in the chamber for many of these addresses. Tonight's going to be a unique night given well, the state of the country and the Congress, what are you going to be watching for?

BASH: The unity. The unity that he promised that he would bring that we have not seen up for lots of reasons, not all of it certainly is his fault of by a longshot. But this is a moment that -- it is Mitt Romney put it this way to me on Sunday, it's a question of good versus evil. It's hard to imagine that that won't be a unifying theme when he comes out of the box in his --

BOLDUAN: You would hope.

BASH: -- Speech tonight talking about these issues, Kate.

[11:35:00]

BOLDUAN: You would hope. It's great to see you, Dana. Thank you so much.

BASH: You too. Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And be sure to watch a special live coverage, Dana will be a big part of it, of President Biden's first State of the Union address. It's all starts tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Coming up for us, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes in Ukraine, just look at these images. The latest on the worst refugee crisis in Europe that Europe has seen in decades, that's next.

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[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: The images you've seen, and they're striking every time you see them once again, a line stretching for miles, people literally waiting in the cold for days, families saying goodbye, not knowing when they'll see each other again, children cling to their mothers, understandably scared of what is coming next. This is the refugee crisis that Putin created. This is the desperate situation he's created and it's unfolding on almost all of Ukraine's borders. The UN's latest update, more than 600,000 people have been forced to flee Ukraine, and here's what the head of USAID told us just yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMANTHA POWER, USAID ADMINISTRATOR: There's a very wide range. But I think, you know, it would not be crazy if the war were to continue to see as many as you know, three to 5 million people flowing into these neighboring countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Millions of people. Let's get to Arwa Damon -- CNN's Arwa Damon, she's live in the Polish-Ukrainian border for us right now. Arwa, what are you seeing there now?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're on the Ukrainian side. And no, you were just mentioning how cold it was there. Let me try to describe it to you. I am wearing multiple thermal layers, thick gloves. I've been standing here for about 20 minutes right now. 20 minutes, and I'm shaking. These men have been out here for two whole days. And they don't understand why they're being made to wait this long. They don't understand why they weren't allowed to get on buses to be able to get here and why they ended up having to walk for 50 kilometers. That is hours.

People who we met last night are still here. People are becoming delirious from the cold, from the hunger, from the sheer frustration they say of being treated like this. And let me show you what's happening on the other side. On the other side, that is where Ukrainian nationals are moving through. And there, it's mostly women and children. And that line is moving fairly quickly.

Now, authorities will say it's in part because it's women and children. But the wait for that side is about an hour or two. And then you compare that to what is being experienced on this side. An ambulance has now shown up. There are great concerns for what the cold is actually doing to these people.

And, of course, yes, they say they understand why women and children have to be evacuated first but they don't understand why they are having to wait for this long, especially under the sorts of conditions. They really feel as if they're being marginalized. They're angry, understandably, but also right now, because of the freezing temperatures, they are very worried about their own health and safety. Like I said, Kate, we've been watching people becoming completely delirious due to the cold.

BOLDUAN: Arwa, thank you so much for being there. Thank you for bringing us their stories. This is just one part of the border with Ukraine that what -- in what Arwa was saying in this one place. Imagine all throughout the country.

Joining me now for more on this on the Polish side of the border with Ukraine is Michael Capponi. He's the founder of Global Empowerment Mission, one of the aid groups on the ground helping some of the thousands of people that are streaming in from Ukraine. Michael, thank you for jumping on with me.

MICHAEL CAPPONI, FOUNDER, GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: I mean, first, what are the stories that you have been hearing from people coming across the border?

CAPPONI: Yes, I got here five days ago. We knew this was coming, so we immediately established teams with Polish-Ukraine speaking people and we set up a booth right at the entrance of Medyka entryway, and we've been giving people you know, tea, refreshments, hygiene, things of that nature.

And we've watched it go from people coming in every seven minutes to people coming in every couple of seconds. And you know it's very heartbreaking as you described, right? There's, you know, women coming through with, you know, literally two children that they're pushing through with another hand pushing a suitcase.

You know, we have a lot of experience in this. We're partners with Bethenny Frankel's BStrong initiative. We're doing all this together. And when we were in Haiti in 2010, in the earthquake, what we did is we watch these tent cities erupt all throughout Haiti, and it became the biggest problem for Haiti. And people actually started moving to the tent cities because there was just so much stuff there.

[11:45:00]

CAPPONI: And our whole strategy here is to try to immediately relocate people. We have already started the process. We announced this morning $2 million from our BStrong fund. That is basically going to a travel agency based out of Poland with multiple offices. We set up through various church groups here, over a hundred volunteers already with sheets, and they're going into the camps where the people that are coming in from are being transferred to, and rather than trying to keep them in camps for the next year.

Imagine what that's going to cost from every side. We're interviewing people that have potential families in a different country. We already met eight families that we've already relocated that they're already in their other country, a mother with her child --

BOLDUAN: But Michael --

CAPPONI: -- and her husband -- yes.

BOLDUAN: That's what -- that part of the process is so key. Getting them somewhere safe from them after -- from after that moment that they need to at the border. What are the supplies? Is there something that has surprised you and your teams of what people need? As they're fleeing the country, as they're entering Poland, what do they need? What are you finding that people need most?

CAPPONI: Well, because it's so cold, we've sent over you know containers already and airfreight of sleeping bags, of hygiene kits, of you know, everything you can imagine. We have a box that is a gem -- a BStrong box. And in that box, you have about $150 worth of retail supplies in there, a little bit of everything, a little bit of food, a little bit of snacks, phone chargers, things like that. So we're shipping all those boxes out.

And then a lot of the containers that we have coming in, we're partnering with a lot of other Orgs to kind of streamline all this so there's not a big mess here. And a lot of these containers are going to be going directly into Ukraine now that there's a possibility -- for the possible way to do that. So I think it's also extremely important to understand what's happening. You know, in Ukraine, there's no food on the shelves. There's an extreme lack of medical equipment.

So with BStrong, we're again purchasing about $350,000 for the medical equipment this week that we're sending directly into Ukraine. We have partners like Goya Europe, giving us 100,000 pounds of food that we're bringing into Ukraine. And we amass supplies from all different kinds of companies to be able to, you know, be effective in the situation.

BOLDUAN: Well, I mean, it's -- what you're laying out is just not only a massive operation that is required to do this quickly and efficiency as -- efficiently as you are but also just how the need is only growing going just the hundreds of thousands of people that are trying to get across the border now on an hourly second daily basis is really remarkable, a true humanitarian crisis of Putin's own making. Michael Capponi, thank you so much for your work, and thank you for coming in.

CAPPONI: Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much. So for more information about how you can help the people of Ukraine, go to cnn.com/impact. There is a lot of helpful information there on how you can do your part. We have much more on this war on Ukraine next.

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[11:50:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BOLDUAN: And we do important breaking news coming in just now, a new interview that you will only see here. CNN has just sat down with Ukraine's president as his country is under siege. CNN's Matthew Chance joins me now with this very important conversation at a critical moment. Matthew, what did President Zelenskyy say?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, the really, really critical moment because we are now on the brink of what many people believe will be a huge Russian effort to bombard the capital city of Ukraine here in Kyiv and a real concerted attempt to seize control of it. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president has emerged, as you know, the real wartime leader of this country, and it was very difficult to get access to him because, you know, obviously is in a secret location, he's in the center of Kyiv. I'm allowed to say that.

But we had to meet that heavily armed Ukrainian troops at a certain location then took us by their vehicle into the basement of a building somewhere in the city center. We had to walk through these very dark corridors, all of them lined with sandbags, with security forces everywhere into like deep in the bowels of this huge building in the center of Kyiv. Where one of the places we're told were Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, you know, kind of camps out -- hides out as Russian forces bombed the country and of course, bombed the capital, as well.

In terms of the interview was conducted mainly in Ukrainian were some questions that we -- that he answered in English. We spoke about a range of issues. Here's one of the issues that we spoke about. We talked about the negotiations that started some days back between Russia and Ukraine about how to possibly bring an end to this conflict, bring an end to this violence. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: You send your delegation to meet the Russians for talks.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: Yes.

CHANCE: Did anything substantial come out of that? Is there any hope as the world watches for diplomacy?

ZELENSKYY: They decided -- they decided to begin to speak about this situation. And I wanted -- I really wanted of them so you have to speak, first of all, you -- everybody has to stop fighting and to go to that point from where it was begin. Yes, it began five, six -- today, six days ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. ZELENSKYY: I think there are principal things, you can do it. And that is a very important moment. If you'll do these and if those site is ready, it means that they are ready for the best. If they don't ready, it means that you're just you know, just wasting some time.

CHANCE: Do you think you're wasting your time or do you think they're ready?

ZELENSKYY: We'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: All right, Kate, we can see President Zelenskyy there. He looks very pale. He looks very you know, tired. His eyes are red. He's unshaven, he's obviously under a great deal of stress. He's decided to stay in the center of the Ukrainian capital, even though he said himself that he believes he is the number one target for Russian forces and that his family are the number two target. He said that several days ago.

But look, when he was asked about, whether how he was coping and whether he'd seen his family, for instance, as well. And he said, look, I haven't seen them, you know, for several days -- for three days he hasn't seen them. And so, you know, this is a man who obviously originally was a comic actor, he became the president, a huge role in itself, and that he's emerged as this kind of really kind of important central figure in the Defense of Ukraine. You know -- but you know, here he is leading the country from this bunker, as Russian forces are poised on the outskirts of the city to strike the Ukrainian capital.

BOLDUAN: He also just made this emotional appeal. We played it at the top of the hour, Matthew to the European leaders and he -- where he received a standing ovation. I'm just curious if he -- I mean he had a message to them, did he have a message -- I don't know to President Biden? Did he have a message to the West?

[11:55:00]

CHANCE: You know he did. We're going to read that message later on. It's the first question I asked him. Look, I mean, I asked him to speak in English, first of all, because I wanted him to speak directly to the American people and to people around the world and he said, look, you know, you are free to ask me whatever questions you like but please allow me to be free to answer in whatever language I like.

And so he answered some of his questions in English, some of them in Ukrainian, he felt that you know, as the Ukrainian president you wanted to answer in the country's national language. And so yes, he did have a message for President Biden, he said he had many messages for President Biden but he said there had to be messages that would have an actual impact on the ground. We'll get you the full kind of quotes and the full comments of his message to President Biden just as soon as we can, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also, Matthew, I mean, he has said previously here, he's target number one and he -- and his family, I think he said was target number two. I mean, is he afraid to die? I mean, it is he -- did you talk about that?

CHANCE: Yes. I mean, look -- I mean, clearly, he has made the decision to, you know, risk his life, basically, and to stay in the country. It's well known that he was offered by the United States and by several European countries as well to be given safe passage out of the country but he said to them, look -- it's quite a catchy phrase, actually, he said, look, I'm looking for more weapons, I'm not looking for a lift.

And so you know, that's his position that he is going to stay, it seems at this stage in Ukraine until you know, the bitter end, whatever that -- whatever that is. And he took the opportunity today, though, to reiterate his calls for the United States and other NATO countries to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It's something that President Biden has refused to do because basically, that would involve American or U.S. or NATO aircraft, potentially coming into direct contact with the Russian Air Force, which obviously, kind of NATO wants to avoid getting into a direct confrontation with NATO.

Obviously, President Biden has also made it quite clear, there won't be American boots on the ground when it comes to defending Ukraine, very different when it comes to NATO allies. And, you know, I asked him whether, you know, it was time for countries like the U.S. and other Western states to review that sort of position, and perhaps to consider offering more than just military equipment and perhaps to offer man port power as well. He said that we want a no-fly zone, not in order to drag NATO into a war, but to provide security and to be a deterrent in the skies over the country.

So, it's a big sort of difference in opinion on what the best strategy is at the moment between Ukraine obviously wants the most it can possibly get from the NATO alliance and the U.S. and those that the U.S. and NATO who want to -- what I think stopped short of being drawn into a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So much more to come from your conversation for sure, a truly critical moment with Kyiv on the brink of this next phase of this Russian assault. Matthew, thank you so much for jumping on and bringing us that, much more to come. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you for being here everyone. INSIDE POLITICS with John King starts after this break.

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