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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Russian Military Caught Off Guard By Ukrainian Resistance; Ukrainians Fleeing The War; Zelenskyy Accuses Putin Of War Crimes; Nearly 6,000 Protesters Detained Across Russia; Russian Invasion Faces Fierce Resistance In Ukraine; First Trial For Jan. 6 Rioters Begins, Possible Implications For Others; MLB Facing Deadline For Labor Deal Or Risk Canceling Opening Day; Jeter Stuns Baseball World, Resigns As CEO Of Miami Marlins; U.N. Official: "Delay Means Death" If Climate Action Isn't Taken Soon. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 28, 2022 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOIST: I want to warn you, some of the images we're about to show you are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Right within the past few hours, there has been a ferocious battle here on the outskirts of Kyiv. This is the front line in the battle for the Ukrainian capital. The Russian column that has come down here has been absolutely hammered. Trucks and armored vehicles, reduced to twisted metal as Ukrainian forces dig in, catching the Kremlin and its invasion force off guard.

(On camera): Look at this. I mean, what kind of munitions does it take to do that to a car, to a vehicle? You know, I know that speaking to the local Ukrainian commanders here, they've been saying that they were using western anti-tank missiles to attack these columns.

Look. So recent, the battle. This vehicle is still smoking. There's still smoke coming out.

(Voice-over): Commanders like Alexander of the Ukrainian Army who wouldn't give me his rank or full name. If the Russians thought they could just march into Ukrainian lands in a triumphant parade, he tells me, they were mistaken. It will never happen, he says.

(On camera): I mean, look. I mean, this is a bit of, almost a cliche, but obviously, somebody has brought a memento from home. You know? And now it's scorched and lying with the debris of the, in this case, failed attack.

(Voice-over): An attack that's left Ukrainian forces who repelled it confident, perhaps overconfident that victory can be repeated across the country as Russian troops advance. Absolutely, Ukraine will win this war, Alexander tells me. Of course we'll win and the Russians will rot here, he says. (On camera): This vehicle here is obviously from the Russian

military. It's got the letter "V" door (inaudible) sides looking tape or in paint. I think that stands for vostok, which is the Russian word for east, which implies that these military equipments they came from the eastern divisions of the Russian military.

(Inaudible) saying that, look. There's evidence. I don't want to show you this too much, but there's a body there. That's a Russian soldier. And he's lying there dead on this bridge. You can tell, they're Russian because they've got this black and orange St. George ribbon (inaudible) across them which is a sign, a symbol of the Russian army.

UNKNOWN: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE). Ammunition.

CHANCE: Yes, ammunition. (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Alexander.

UNKNOWN: No, no. (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

CHANCE: Oh, my god. There's another one there. It's terrible to see the grim inhumanity of a war. For the Ukrainians, and of course, for the Russians as well, the sacrifice that is being paid by all sides in this complete waste of life is here for us all to see.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, Jake, there are concerns now that there may be more battles for Kyiv because there has been an armored column from Russia spotted, making its way toward the Ukrainian capital to Kyiv. That column, you know, full of tanks and artillery pieces, armored vehicles stretching some three miles.

And so, you know, we are back to see, I think, and this is backed up by U.S. intelligence as well, a much more concerted campaign to make progress to attack and possibly to take the Ukrainian capital, Jake.

TAPPER: Matthew, I'm struck by the confidence of that commander you spoke to and other Ukrainians who have been sharing their stories with CNN, given that convoy coming, the Russian convoy and the fact that so many U.S. officials fear the worst is yet to come.

CHANCE: Yes. It's absolutely right. It's a big concern because, you know, at the moment, as you pointed out there, the Ukrainians are sort of flushed with success. They've had some significant victories. They have had, obviously, defending their country and their cities very, very bravely indeed. And that's been coupled by, you know, perhaps some tactical errors on the part of the Russians as well.

But the idea that that is sustainable, the idea that that's always going to be the case against the concerted Russian military advance from multiple directions, I mean, it's unrealistic. And so what we could be seeing soon, what the Kremlin might decide to do is really re-double or triple or quadruple its military power that it throws at achieving its objectives in this country, and that would be very bad news for everybody in this city and elsewhere.

[17:05:04]

TAPPER: All right. Matthew Chance reporting live from Kyiv. Stay safe. Thank you so much.

The United Nations Refugee Agency says more than 500,000 Ukrainians have fled their home country during Russia's invasion so far. Many other civilians are traveling within Ukraine just trying to get somewhere safe in the country.

My next guest is Volodymyr Kondratiev. He's a journalist with Ukrainian state T.V. He evacuated Kyiv with his pregnant wife and his 4-year-old son on Thursday. That's the day that Putin officially announced his invasion on Ukraine. And he and his family are now in southwest Ukraine trying to decide what to do next. Volodymyr, thank you so much for being with us. Can you start by telling us where you were when you first heard Russia had invaded?

VOLODYMYR KONDRATIEV, EVACUATED KYIV WITH WIFE & SON: Yes, actually, I was sleeping and I didn't hear any noise or explosions. You know what woke me, the ups of my computer, you know, because the lights went off. And I thought well, something is going on. And I see my phone were like 10 missed calls from my friends who was already awake and he told me that, yes, actually, Putin started launching missiles on Kyiv.

And I was like -- I thought it was like, you know, kind of test or something. You know, when you're conscious, conscious grabs, you know, the idea that it might not be war yet, like a less attempt. But then it was obvious with the news that it started, but we were ready. We prepared, you know, this, what you call them, like bags where with all the necessities.

And me and my wife, we decided that we should leave Kyiv, obviously, because of her, you know, state because of the fact that she's pregnant, but we don't have a car like at all. So, yes, we found my colleagues who were also like fleeing Kyiv and they had some spare seats in the car. So we went for it. We like spent half a day in Kyiv and in the afternoon on Thursday we left, yes, by car.

TAPPER: And Volodymyr, you're sheltering right now in a house, I'm not going to tell anyone where it is.

KONDRATIEV: Yes.

TAPPER: We're going to show a few photos from inside that you sent us. Do you feel safe where you are? Do you have food? Do you have what you need?

KONDRATIEV: Yes, sure, we do. It's a big country house so it has all kind of, you know, like conserved foods like pickles, tomatoes, even some groceries, so yes. (Inaudible). These were some kind people to take us in because we didn't know them before the invasion. It was like, I immediately found shelter via social media because I didn't have any other way, actually.

TAPPER: Wow. And obviously, you want to stay together as a family but, you know, there's martial law. Ukraine has said that men between a certain age cannot leave the country. You are not allowed to leave the country. If it comes down to it, do your son and your wife have some place outside Ukraine that they can go to? And if so, if it comes down to it, will they go?

KONDRATIEV: Yes, we decided that -- we have some friends in Germany and Switzerland, some relatives, too. So, we decided then when the time comes, if the war continues, right? And the time comes for her to, you know, give birth, we should consider the option of Sweden. But right now we are not in the mood of leaving the country. Not because -- only because of the success of Ukrainian military.

We really praise them for that. We are really glad, but you know, it doesn't feel right, right now because many of our friends got split up and, you know, I think at these times, we are practically safe, I guess. But it just feels right to stay together.

TAPPER: Yes. Yes.

KONDRATIEV: For the time being. You should know Jake that right now in Ukraine, no one has like planning limit like outside of a few hours. It's like, you don't know what's going to be tomorrow.

TAPPER: Right.

KONDRATIEV: So, we -- you tend to think of survival right now, you know. Yes.

TAPPER: And Volodymyr, before you go, I do want to ask you about your upbringing because you grew up in Crimea which was obviously invaded and annexed by Putin's Russia in 2014. And you say that you grew up pro-Russian and pro-Putin but you had a change of heart. Why?

[17:10:00]

KONDRATIEV: Yes. Actually, I was born and raised in Sevastopol, that city with the naval base, you know. So, everyone was pro-Russian and then automatically pro-Putin because he, you know, had this (inaudible) of a strong leader, of a young man, etc., etc. Actually, I think it was like -- come to think of it, a post-Soviet trauma, you know. The irrational feeling that Russia and Russians --

TAPPER: It looks like he froze. All right. Volodymyr Kondratiev, we will have him back on the show. We thank him and we're going to be praying for him and for his pregnant wife and their son.

We have some breaking news now. Ukraine's president just accused Russia of committing war crimes. That's next.

And then, life as we know it on planet Earth. It could be over. The warning about the warming Earth. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

TAPPER: We have some breaking news -- we have some breaking news for you in our "World Lead." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now accusing Russia of war crimes after a series of rockets hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv today. Ukrainian officials say some of the rockets hit a neighborhood near a supermarket killing at least one civilian. Targeting civilian populations is of course a war crime.

This all comes on the heels of the vice chair of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida telling me over the weekend that Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, "has created a system of people not telling him bad news or facts that contradict his preferences. Putin appears to have some neuro physiological health issues," Rubio said.

But most telling, said Rubio, "is this is a man who has long prided himself on emotional control. His recent flashes of anger is very uncharacteristic and show an erosion in impulse control." The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has also reportedly told aides that Putin seems to have changed in the last couple years after putting himself in relative isolation due to COVID. CNN's Melissa Bell filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was only a week ago. A rambling TV address in which Vladimir Putin signaled the start of a war and the abrupt end of weeks of frantic diplomacy. So abrupt, says the French president, the discussions have continued until just a few hours before.

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translation): So yes, there was duplicity. Yes, there was deliberate conscious choice by President Putin to launch the war when we could still negotiate peace.

BELL (voice-over): But if the abruptness of the announcement surprised the French president, its tone did not. Says a French presidential source who describes it as rigid and paranoid. Something they say that chimes with what Macron had first noticed during his more than five hours of talks with the Russian president in Moscow on February 7th, when the Russian president struck him as different, stiffer and more isolated, than he had been in the past.

And few western leaders have seen as much of Vladimir Putin these last few years as Emmanuel Macron. The Russian president was one of the first foreign leaders to visit Macron just after his election in 2017 at Versailles. And the Russian leader visited Macron again during his summer break in the south of France in 2019. And then again at the Elysee palace in December of that same year.

(On camera): That was the last time that Macron have seen Putin until he met with him in Moscow. What Elysee Palace sources say is that by then, he found himself opposite a man who was much changed. Macron felt that Putin was now on an ideological drift, no longer the man he had met in December of 2019.

(Voice-over): By Saturday, Putin was once again making televised remarks, referring to Ukraine's leadership as a Nazi or fascist regime, urging Ukrainian armed forces to seize power even as the country's Jewish president was defiantly speaking to the world from Kyiv and Ukrainian forces and civilians were putting up stiff resistance.

BERNARD GUETTA, JOURNALIST AND MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PALIAMENT: I think that this guy lost touch with realities actually, reality and realities. American realities or western European realities. Ukrainian reality and even Russian realities. Because the Russian people, this is clearer and clearer every day, doesn't support this war.

BELL (voice-over): By Sunday, another televised address and a further escalation. The Russian president putting his nuclear arsenal on high alert, blaming NATO for its aggressive status.

PETRO POROSHENKO, FORMER UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: With this nuclear madness, Putin posed as much greater threat to the world than Bin Laden.

BELL (voice-over): Even as the Russian invasion slows in the face of Ukrainian resistance, the question is now one of disconnect even within the Kremlin. Ukraine's foreign minister saying Sunday that their intelligence suggest that even those close to Putin are against the invasion. A military move that may have devastating consequences for Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BELL (on camera): Jake, there was another phone call today between the French and the Russian president that lasted 90 minutes.

[17:19:57]

Now, the French read out of the call talks about the French insistence on the need for de-escalation. The Kremlin's readout is much more about Putin insisting once again on the need to denazify Ukraine. So sort of disconnect again between the leaders. The French insist that it's important to keep talking, but at the very least, what these phone calls provide is something of an insight into the mind of a man who has been remarkably difficult to read and whose mind the world right now, Jake, would really like to understand a lot better.

TAPPER: All right. Melissa Bell in Paris with that report. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Let's discuss this all with "Washington Post" columnist Josh Rogin and he former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor.

Ambassador Taylor, let me start with you because the former director of National Intelligence under Obama, retired General James Clapper, said something that reflected a conversation that is really going on, as you know, intensely among intelligence circles in the west right now. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I personally think he's unhinged. I really worry about his acuity and balance right now. And, you know, here is a guy that really has his finger on the potential nuclear button so that to me bears close watching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Look, I don't need to tell you as former ambassador to Ukraine. Putin has been a murderous thug for decades. That hasn't changed. But what seems to have changed is his calculations, his strategy, his emotional outbursts. Do you think that he has lost his mind in some way?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Jake, I've never met this man, but all indications are that he is not in full control of his emotions, of his thought patterns. He's got this kind of almost fierce anger, fierce hatred for President Zelenskyy.

President Zelenskyy, young politician, showing the world what leadership really is, and President Putin doesn't know how to deal with that. President Putin does not understand Ukrainians or this Ukrainian.

TAPPER: Josh, what is the chance that he's acting this way, you know, the madman theory that we used to say about Trump like, you never know what he's going to do. He wants to keep world leaders, you know, afraid of him. Is there a chance that that's what he's doing?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm sure that's part of what he's doing. There's no doubt that over the years Vladimir Putin has become more erratic. Part of that is strategy. Part of that as Ambassador Taylor said, he's not getting good information. But part of that is that he has accumulated power, total power over the Russian state.

So he can afford to do whatever he wants within that state and, you know, it doesn't really make sense that he's suicidal. In other words, he could be evil without being irrational. So, what we have to do is we have to watch his actions because his actions are that he will escalate and escalate until he finds resistance. That's rational way of doing business, evil as it may be.

So, I don't think we can make our policy based on the idea that he's a crazy person. We have to see him as an erratic leader who has ultimate power inside of his own country who is willing to take risks and that's not crazy. That's just bad. That's just threatening.

TAPPER: And ambassador, over the weekend, Putin put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert. Here's what Senator Rubio, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, here's how he assessed that he wrote, "Putin's legitimacy built on image as the strong leader who restored Russia to super power after the disasters of the 90's, now the economy is in shambles and the military is being humiliated and his only tools to re-establish power balance with the west is cyber and nukes." Do you agree?

TAYLOR: I think what he's doing there Jake is performance. He is, again, trying to intimidate, trying to bully probably President Zelenskyy, may be President Biden, with this rattle of the nuclear sabre. So I think this is something -- his nuclear forces are already on alert. That's not a new thing. This is a performance. TAPPER: What do you think about the idea that there are people within

Putin's circle who don't think that invading Ukraine was a good idea? We saw him berate one of his intelligence chieftains in front of the cameras the other day. Is this somebody who just won't even listen to a contrary point of view?

ROGIN: Vladimir Putin has been in power 10 years longer than Xi Jinping. There is no descent. He's disabled all of the pieces inside of his own government that could challenge him. So, if you're inside that system, there is no upside in even saying something so no one would say something. You would die. You go to jail. Your whole family would go to jail.

So, all that means is that we can only follow him. We can only deal with him. All the side talks of these people he's throwing at the Belarusian border to talk with the Ukrainians, they don't have any agency. They don't have any power. All they can do is report back to Putin. So we have to message to him.

And that's the combination of diplomacy. It's a combination of military moves. And as he goes up the escalation ladder, we have to be very careful about that, but not allow it to paralyze us. He's playing a game of escalating to see what we'll do in return, and we have to respond proportionally, but not overreact and that's a delicate and difficult thing to do with a guy who has mastered murdering civilians all over Ukraine.

[17:25:00]

TAPPER: Although, I should note, the Biden administration has not escalated our nuclear threat level, which seems to suggest they --

ROGIN: Well, that's because they think, and they're right, that while we failed to deter Putin from invading Ukraine, he's still deterred against attacking us.

TAPPER: Right.

ROGIN: We would still win that war. He knows that. Again, he is evil but he's not suicidal.

TAPPER: All right, Josh Rogin, Ambassador Taylor, good to see both of you.

While Russian troops invade Ukraine, in Moscow, police are busy conducting their own crackdown. Speaking out against the invasion will get you arrested if not worse. We're going live to the streets of Moscow, next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:29:58]

TAPPER: We're back with our "World Lead" and Russia's crackdown within its own borders. Russian authorities have now detained nearly 6,000 of their fellow Russians for participating in what the Russian government calls unsanctioned anti-war protests. CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now live from Moscow. Nic, what are the penalties for protesting there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, you can get detained overnight, you can get a relatively small fine. If you get picked up again, the fines and detention go up. But you can end up with a maximum of 20 years in jail. You can end up with hundreds of thousands of rubles fine and massive amounts of money or they were until the ruble tanked today. So it's a serious consequences for Russians.

You know, they're worn by the government. If you go out and protest and you get picked up, you can get a criminal record. And that criminal record can stay with you for the rest of your life and can impact you for the rest of your life. So, you know, the Russian government here is making it pretty clear to people, don't come out don't get arrested. Don't protest, don't say what you think about the war. Don't try come against our rule and our word. They're really are trying to control the narrative here completely.

TAPPER: And Nic, countries worldwide are slapping Moscow with unprecedented sanctions. We've really never seen anything like this. How are people in Moscow responding to this financial meltdown?

ROBERTSON: Yes, there's -- it's here and there. It's not affecting people on the street too much. And it is, and we try to park our car using a parking app and the Apple Pay wouldn't work. And our producer tried to buy a coffee on the way into work this morning. And her Apple Pay didn't work.

But other places, you know, some credit cards are working. Some aren't. I think the real problems at the moment, with the leadership. Putin was meeting with his Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the head of the Central Bank, the head of other banks, trying to figure out what he can do. This big rainy day fund $630 billion has been saving since the last time he invaded Ukraine because he knew he was going to get more sanctions in the future because he probably had an idea about what he was going to do in Ukraine.

That rainy day fund isn't accessible to him. The United States is cutting off the dollar part, the E.U. cutting off the Euro part, the U.K. is cutting off parts and sterling. Don't know if he can get his hands on the gold. That's what he was going to use to keep the country afloat. Now, that's been taken away from him.

Government, the central bank put up interest rates, doubled them to 20 percent today. The Stock Exchange was close today. And it's going to be close tomorrow. The ruble tank down 30 percent. There is a real fear. And this is when it would really hit the man on the street more that if the stock market opens, the bottom is going to drop out of the ruble and people here really, really will be left wondering what their economic future and savings look like. And that's a problem for Putin, if that happens.

TAPPER: All right, Nic Robertson in Moscow, thank you so much. Let's now turn to the southwest region of Ukraine where we find CNN's Nick Paton Walsh live for us in Odessa, Ukraine. Odessa is one of the country's most populous cities. More than 1 million Ukrainians live there. It's along the Black Sea. Nick, Russian forces have been attacking various towns that lie in the Black Sea. What are people in Odessa telling you about this ongoing threat?

NICK PAYTON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Well, there is a deep sense of concern. It has been for a matter of days, Jake, and we've seen the town barricaded various key landmarks here with sandbags, troop positions put in front of it. A real sense, I think, of people here not quite knowing what possibly could come next.

There's a recognition that if Russia wants to control Ukraine, they need to have their hands on this vital port city, its economic levers over the rest of the country as the maritime access, frankly, for ships the port to the rest of the world. We've heard sirens during tonight, certainly, and I think fears that the moves happening around this area will ultimately impact this third largest city. We were in Hudson (ph), sitting far to the east of here along the Black Sea as well. That according to a resident I spoke to tonight now has Russian tiger (ph) vehicles driving in its streets which would suggest that the balance of power there after a very intense fight for the bridge near it, that may have shifted.

Over the weekend, we were in Mykolaiv, that's also on the Black Sea on an inlet from the larger body of water. A lot of fears there that the bridge drawn up that they were liable to see another Russian assault. That appears to be something the mayor is warning of again. He's told men in the town to gather for the city's defense. On Sunday night, he said get Molotov cocktails organized a circular defense fears there that they have a large convoy of Russian armor heading their way according to the mayor.

And here in Odessa, the broader fear that they feel the sirens, the building up of defenses, the broader anticipation of the worst must be due to something. Although tonight, I'm standing here in the pitch black indoors with a blackout, curfew in place but a huge sense of foreboding in the air, Jake.

[17:35:11]

TAPPER: All right, Nick Payton Walsh in Odessa, Ukraine. Please stay safe. Thank you so much.

Coming up, a major milestone in the investigation into the January 6 insurrection. It could have an impact on cases against some of the rioters. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our politics lead today marks a major new stage in what the U.S. Justice Department is calling the largest criminal investigation in the history of the United States. It is the first trial for a rioter who participated in the January 6 interaction and pleaded not guilty. Now the Justice Department will lay out a sweeping case against Guy Reffitt, whose own teenage children testified against him.

CNN's Ryan Nobles joins us now live from the Capitol. And Ryan, what are the charges against Reffitt and what happened in court today?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Jake, the Justice Department is accusing Reffitt of five different charges, including obstruction of Congress. They're also accusing him of bringing a semi- automatic handgun here to Congress on January 6, and also for threatening his children to keep quiet and not testify against him or his role on January 6.

[17:40:20]

Today in court, it was all about jury selection. They got about halfway through that process, some 24 people have been eligible to participate in the jury. That hasn't been without some complication, though, Jake, because this is a Washington, D.C. based jury. Many of these individuals watched what happened on television that day.

They feel a special connection to it, because they are residents of the District of Columbia. But they should be able to see the jury in totality by sometime tomorrow. Jake?

TAPPER: And there are hundreds of rioters lined up on the court docket after Reffitt. What might this trial outcome mean for the rest of them?

NOBLES: Yes, this could have a big impact on many of those trials that are still pending right now. There are 750 total defendants right now, only about a third of them have already pled guilty. That means that there are 500 still awaiting trial. And if the Justice Department is successful in this prosecution, it could lead to many of them just deciding to not risk a trial and just taking a plea deal, particularly because what the Justice Department is attempting to do here is something unique. It's not often that they are dealing with obstruction of Congress charges, especially in an environment like this one that led to the January 6 insurrection.

If they successfully make that case with Reffitt, it should make it easier to make that case with many of these other defendants, particularly because the jury pool is going to come from that same group of people here in Washington, D.C. So Jake, if they're successful, it could mean a lot more plea deals. If they're unsuccessful, it could mean a lot more trials. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Ryan Nobles, thanks so much.

Coming up, a deadline today for America's pastime which could decide if the upcoming baseball season will strike out before it even gets to the plate. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:46:25]

TAPPER: In our sports lead, it is the bottom of the line for Major League Baseball, specifically for labor negotiations and whether the team owners are going to allow us a season of baseball. League owners imposed a deadline of today for a new collective bargaining agreement with players or face the cancelation of Opening Day on March 31st.

Joining us now is legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas. Bob, you and I are supposed to go to a Phillies-Mets game this season. And I have to say it seems like the owners --

BOB COSTAS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

TAPPER: -- be willing to blow off the first month of the season. So bottom line, are we going to get to go to that Phillies-Mets game? Is there going to be baseball?

COSTAS: Well, they're going to play at some point. Remember, when the 94 World Series was lost, then the dispute continued into 95, they played a 144 games season and still had playoffs, and World Series and all the rest. So we're going to have baseball at some point. Today is the day where the owners have said no agreement by midnight tonight or whatever. And March 31st is out the window.

They are continuing now with marathon sessions in Jupiter, Florida. At least that's a somewhat optimistic sign because the last week or so, they have had these ongoing face-to-face negotiations, where most of the time since the lockout was imposed on December 2nd, they haven't met at all or there have just been sporadic meetings. So there is some sense of urgency here. There are arcane issues that are better being discussed on the Major League Baseball network than here on CNN.

But underlying all of it is historic antagonism between these two sides. No matter how much they thrive, it -- there seems to be kind of a built-in mistrust, and they can't really see their mutual interest. And that is often an impediment to reaching a reasonable conclusion.

TAPPER: And as you suggest, fans are less concerned about these arcane sticking points negotiations, more concerned about the game on the field where baseball has issues.

COSTAS: Yes, and the owners have said -- and they put something on the table now at least for consideration that they have to address baseball's problems, pace of play, lack of action. So among the proposals, a 22nd pitch clock regulating shifts, you have to have at least two infielders on either side of second base, expanding the playoffs, which would obviously provide more revenue, especially coming from television and might address some of the players concerns that some teams are tanking to keep payroll down.

If there are more playoff spots available, there might be more incentive to improve your team. So, and the other is the Universal DH, which apparently is coming to the National League. Many people will not like that. But it is something the Players Association would likely embrace because DH is tend to be high-priced players and the higher the salary for one guy generally that high tide raises other boats.

So those are among the possible on-field things that could change sometime in 2022. And fans, obviously, care more about that than the economic issues.

TAPPER: I'm anti-DH, but I just like to see some baseball at this point. Bob, surprisingly --

COSTAS: Yes.

TAPPER: -- not unrelated development today, Yankee Hall of Famer Derek Jeter resigned as CEO of the Miami Marlins. This comes with the backdrop that some teams seem fine with getting the revenue sharing from other teams and not really caring about putting together a decent franchise, right?

COSTAS: Yes, some teams clearly are just keeping payroll down. The Pirates and the Orioles, for example, may have opening day payrolls, which in the aggregate are less than the money the Mets will pay Max Scherzer alone which is $43 million in 2022 if they play a full season.

[17:50:04]

But what's tricky here is that so-called tanking can be a legitimate strategy. When you strip it down in order to build it up, the Cubs did it and won a World Series. The Astros did it and became a powerhouse. But first, they traded veteran players for prospects and they hope that their team would coalesce at the right time, that all kind of peak and they'd have a successful run.

Then there are other teams that say they're doing that, but don't follow through on it. And reading between the lines, Derek Jeter, who was committed to winning every day of his baseball life, signed on as the face of the franchise on a minority owner. He understood, OK, we'll get rid of some high price veterans. They traded Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich. MVP talents got rid of that payroll in return for prospects.

And now it appears that as he reaches year five of a rebuilding plan, that he believes the Marlins owners are not willing to commit the funds that he thought they would eventually commit when they got to the pivot point, when the rebuild was beginning or should have been beginning to show dividends in the one last column.

One other point before we run here, Jake, the owners don't mind. They would like to reach a settlement obviously. But if we lost all of April, it would hurt the players in theory and lost salary more than the owners. It wouldn't hurt the national television revenue. Attendance tends to be relatively sparse, especially in cold weather cities in April and school is still in session.

So if they had to take that hit and blow off the entire first month of the season, it's not out of the question. But we have our fingers crossed that cooler heads, as they say, will prevail.

TAPPER: Yes, it's more of a hit for the players who lose 1/7 of their salaries for the year. Bob Costas, always so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

If the world doesn't do something fast, it will mean death. The terrifying new warning about the warming planet, that's next.

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[17:56:18]

TAPPER: In our Earth matters series today at the U.S. Supreme Court, a major case to decide who can regulate the power sectors playing it warming emissions. Republican attorneys general want Congress to regulate the gases. The Environmental Protection Agency says they should wield that power. But Mother Earth is running out of time for us to litigate the climate crisis and, quote, delay means death. Those are the words of the United Nations official reacting to a new report showing that the planet is barreling toward the key 1.5 degrees Celsius increase, where billions of people and other species will no longer be able to adapt to the rapidly changing increasingly deadly climate.

CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir joins us now live. Bill, usually these reports come with even more depressing news that there's nothing humans can do to stop it. Is that true here to?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, to a point, there are certain things baked in, but how bad it gets depends fully on how soon humanity stops using fuels that burn. That's the basic challenge. At least theoretically, it's much harder in practice as we're seeing, but this is 3,600 pages written by hundreds of Earth scientists from every country really around the world.

It's conservative because it needs the agreement of 195 countries and they essentially say we have the proof now. And it's looming even more. A warmer world is more dangerous world not just because of bigger fires and deadlier droughts and bigger storms. It's a hungry and thirsty a world because of lack of fresh food and water. Scarcity issues for that. It's a more depressing world.

This study looks at mental health, the toll that this is having on people who survive these unnatural disasters. And it's a poor world as both the developing world as the brace for things they really can't afford. And the developed world has to spend a ton to protect itself.

TAPPER: Right. There's refugee crises, also environmental refugees causing potentially big conflicts in the future. How is adaptation already happening in cities that are already prone to flooding and how much does that cost?

WEIR: Well, it depends regionally. Right out west, they're trying to adapt to life with not enough water, you know, to grow cotton and lawns and people. And then eastern coastal cities, especially like Charleston, for example. They are raising mansions, literally. This is a 250-year old mansion, they raised about 15 feet on the series of jacks. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, the city is rezoning as we speak. I talked to Mayor John Tecklenburg, about managed retreat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR JOHN TECKLENBURG (D), CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: It's up to us to take the comprehensive plan and rework our zoning ordinance to reduce density and reduce development rights in low-lying areas. And that's what we're set out to do.

WEIR: That's what you're doing.

TECKLENBURG: So that 10, 20 years from now, Bill, when those decisions are brought forward about development, and they're in areas below 12 feet or 15 feet above sea level, we're going to say, sorry, no, thanks. We don't want that to occur here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: And Jake, this, of course, will affect property values, which affect property taxes, which pay your teachers and your cops and beach towns. And so, it is so complicated, but the message here is the sooner communities can get in front of this and brace for what's coming and try to mitigate the worst of the damages. We can control just how painful it gets.

TAPPER: And you and I have talked about this before, Bill, everybody talks about, oh, this environmental bill costs this much money, this environmental bill costs that much money, no one calculates all the wildfires or the flooding or all the future disaster that your kids and my kids are going to have to deal with.

Bill Weir, thank you so much. Really appreciate it as always.

Turn out, you don't want to miss President Joe Biden's very first State of the Union address right here on CNN. Anderson Cooper in Ukraine and me in D.C., we are going to host the special live coverage at 8:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

Until then, you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the TikTok at JakeTapper. You can tweet the show at TheLeadCNN. You can listen to our podcast if you miss a show.

Our coverage continues now with Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM." See you tomorrow.