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Evelyn Farkas is Interviewed about the Biden/Putin Meeting; FBI Warns of QAnon Threat; House Leaders Meet with Pelosi; California Reopens Today; NIH Says COVID was in the U.S. in December 2019. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired June 15, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Management, deliberately, by the Biden administration in advance of this. They are not telegraphing any enormous compromises here.

What then constitutes success for President Biden in this meeting with Putin?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND EURASIA: Yes, so, first, Jim, thanks so much for having me on.

Second, I would say, we have to step back and remember why this meeting is happening because the invitation was extended by President Biden, by the White House, when Russia was amassing its forces on the border of Ukraine, blockading the Black Sea, it looked like there was going to be another invasion of Ukraine and Alexey Navalny was hanging on at death's door in prison and the Russian government wasn't transferring him to the hospital. So this meeting was done in part to save Ukraine, to save Alexey Navalny. So that's already something, at least a short-term gain.

Now, moving ahead, what I hope and expect is that President Biden will lay out consequences, clear, potential consequences to the Russian government, to the president, to President Putin, for his continued aggressive foreign policy.

All these actions that he's taken against the United States and our allies, as well as human rights abuses, in Russia and around the world, they will have consequences if he continues them. And that's what we have to convince the Russian government to believe because if we don't, they're going to continue doing what they've been doing and eventually we're going to have a lot of life and then, you know, a conflict.

SCIUTTO: What are those consequences, though, because successive administrations, going back to George W. Bush and then Obama and then Trump and now Biden have said I'm going to get this relationship right. I can turn it around. I'm going to find the right mix of carrot and stick to change Russian behavior. But none of their approaches have worked, frankly. And Russia's aggressive activities, hostile activities have continued, particularly in cyberspace.

So what difference does President Biden have to offer in terms of consequences?

FARKAS: Well, I -- OK, so, first of all, in terms of approach, I think it's really important to note that President Biden comes into office not seeking any kind of reset. Every other president has tried to start fresh with the Russian government.

So this president knows, he was vice president, you know, and he's dealt with this Russian government, you know, Vladimir Putin, even as a senator, so he knows that we're not going to change the regime, we're not going to change their objective. We would like to temper their behavior. We'd like to change their behavior. And the consequences, I mean, there's a whole range of things we can do.

Just taking sanctions alone, Jim, you know, the sanctions that we have put on Russia are very targeted. If you compare them side by side with the sanctions we have on Iran or North Korea, I mean they pale in comparison.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

FARKAS: There's a lot of room there to ratchet up. So that's just one area.

Obviously, on cyber, we can respond in kind to the Russian government, which we've been doing a little bit more increasingly over time, including over the -- even in the Trump administration.

SCIUTTO: You know you mentioned the reset. Of course, as I remember, it was in Geneva that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, handed Sergey Lavrov, still foreign minister, that reset button to sort of demonstrate that change. Of course, the reset did not happen in the Obama administration, nor really in the Trump administration.

So when we look at this meeting as they meet tomorrow, how important is the message simply from Biden that I am not Trump. That I will not have a Helsinki moment and take Putin's word over the word of U.S. intelligence agencies on Russian election interference, for instance. How substantive is that because Putin's a tough character. He doesn't listen to words much, does he? I mean he looks at actions.

FARKAS: That is correct. I mean I think the best that, you know, President Biden can do is telegraph that he's -- he is full of resolve, you know, that his government is resolved to respond if the Russians continue, that there will be consequences.

Look, they have ratcheted up the sanctions. I mean they did this actually before the summit, before the agreement for the summit in order to show the Russians that they were serious. They took some actions that have been considered under previous administrations and also by Congress and not enacted. So they have been showing increasing resolve. But, clearly, Putin is going to be watching to see what the real

actions are, and he -- and, undoubtedly, he will test us after this summit.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely. That's what he does. He always tests. Pokes for weaknesses. Sees how far he can go with consequences.

Evelyn Farkas, thanks so much for joining us. We're going to have a lot to discuss in the coming days.

FARKAS: Thank you, Jim.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, ahead, a stark warning from the FBI. Followers of the conspiracy group QAnon could become more violent. The FBI warns lawmakers' so-called digital soldiers may seek to harm, among others, Democrats.

[09:35:01]

We'll have those details ahead.

And a quick programming note. Be sure to watch a CNN special report that reveals new details about what happened during the insurrection on January 6th. Drew Griffin talks to those who were there. "Assault on Democracy: The Roots of Trump's Insurrection" is Sunday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time and Pacific right here on CNN.

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HARLOW: Welcome back.

A startling warning from the FBI that says QAnon conspiracy theorists may be emboldened to carry out physical attacks of violence. This warning as part of an unclassified FBI threat assessment that was sent to lawmakers late last week. And this comes as Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to announce a new strategy nationally on combating domestic terrorism.

[09:40:06]

Let's go to Evan Perez. He's following all of this.

Evan, you've got this, which is -- I mean terrifying when you -- when you read the details and what they say could happen.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

HARLOW: Coupled with the announcement from Garland coming today.

PEREZ: Right. Garland's going to be speaking at about 11:00 a.m., which is going to lay out this new domestic violent extremist policy that the Biden administration has been working on, Poppy.

And one of the things that we saw from January 6th is that in the days and the weeks leading up to the insurrection, there were people who made clear that they had violent intentions. And the FBI didn't really know what to do with this. The Capitol Police certainly had some of this intelligence and they didn't know what to do with this.

And so that's one of the things that they're trying to address here and one of the things that the administration is laying out is what they're calling four pillars. One of them is to share domestic terrorist related information with the federal, state and local officials. Another one is to prevent domestic terrorism recruitment mobilization to violence. Disrupt and deter domestic terrorist activity and to confront some of the long-term contributors to some of this.

And, look, the issue here is that there's a lot of -- a lot of things that people say online, certainly in the domestic setting, that is protected free speech. And that's one of the things the FBI had trouble with in trying to discern what was protected free speech and what were people making the -- their intentions known.

The other problem, Poppy, is that we had a lot of the disinformation that was being -- that was fomenting this and that was feeding this was coming from the top, from the president. And people around him. And that's something that I think the Justice Department will always struggle to do. And certainly your chief disinformation officer is the president of the United States, in this case the former president of the United States.

HARLOW: Yes.

PEREZ: So I think this new policy is going to help try to make some of this information more shareable. But, in the end, there's no new domestic terrorism law that's being -- that's being put into place here. So there's still going to be a lot of struggle to confront this issue.

HARLOW: So much struggle, especially when they're confronting a big lie that so many people believe because it's coming namely, as you said, from the former president.

PEREZ: Right.

HARLOW: Well, Evan, thank you for that reporting, very much, at the Justice Department.

PEREZ: Sure.

HARLOW: Next hour, House Homeland Security Chairman Benny Thompson, along with other committee chairs, are going to speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They're expected to discuss a way to move forward with investigating the January 6th Capitol riot.

Our Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill with more.

Lauren, walk us through what the options are because I just read Pelosi just said something like, I'll let you know when I decide.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's exactly right. And this meeting that is going to happen in just a little under an hour, Poppy, isn't necessarily going to be a meeting where a decision is made. Instead, she's going to be talking further with those key chairmen about their options, which include some kind of select committee, another vote in the Senate to try to create this commission. Of course, they were short the Republican votes just a few weeks ago when they had that on the Senate floor.

There's also discussion of empowering a current committee to just go ahead and launch a bigger investigation rather than start a select committee, Poppy. So those are kind of their options.

Now, a couple of minutes ago, Democrats are meeting in their caucus wide meeting this morning. Pelosi sort of gave them the sense that she was still taking input from members. She wants to hear from her caucus to try to make a decision about what to do moving forward.

Remember, in just a couple of months, you're going to have members up for re-election, really in full campaign mode. And so a conversation has to happen about what is the smartest thing politically for some of those frontline members. Is a select committee going to just look too political? And I think those are sort of the issues that they're trying to balance right now, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, for sure. A lot of factors weighing in here.

Before you go, Lauren, hearing some momentum building, at least in the Senate, behind what looks to be a $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal. What are you learning?

FOX: Well, this bipartisan group, of course, is going to go ahead and unveil some more details to their respective conferences today in private lunches. Then we'll get a better sense of whether or not Republicans, rank and file and Democratic rank and file are really going to be behind this proposal.

Although I will tell you that last night I had some conversations with several progressives who said they might be open to this modest bipartisan proposal if they can get some kind of guarantee from some of their moderate senators that they would back a bigger bill through that 51-vote process known as reconciliation that gives Democrats the ability to pass sort of a bigger, more fruitful legislation through the votes with just Democratic votes, Poppy.

HARLOW: OK. We'll watch. More like you'll watch for us and let us know, Lauren, thank you, on both those fronts.

Well, ahead for us, the first state to shut down because of COVID largely reopens today. That is California.

[09:45:00]

We'll take you there next.

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HARLOW: Welcome back.

After becoming the first state to shut down because of the pandemic, California's largely reopening today. It means most restrictions, like capacity limits, social distancing, mask requirements will end for those fully vaccinated.

Dan Simon is in San Francisco this morning.

Good morning, Dan.

Most, not all, restrictions going away. What stays?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Poppy.

Well, first of all, it is a big milestone for the state of California. Actually, I saved "The San Francisco Chronicle" when the stay-at-home went into effect. We're going back to March 17, 2020.

[09:50:03]

You can see the headline there. Look at the headline today, grand reopening day as virus loosens grip.

Now, what is changing? Now, it can be a little bit confusing so let's go through some of these things.

Now, if you're fully vaccinated, Poppy, you can pretty much go anywhere without a mask, indoors and outdoors. But if you're unvaccinated, you're still asked to wear the mask indoors, but it's going to be on the honor system.

Now, businesses, they can still require the masks at their own discretion, but you have the big stores like Apple, Costco, Safeway, saying that they're not going to require anyone to wear masks. But you still need to wear the masks on public transportation, K-12 schools, airports, hospitals, et cetera.

Now, capacity limits, they are all gone. So you can now pack into the restaurants and the bars and the movie theaters.

But something to keep in mind, for indoor, mega events, that's 5,000 or more people, the organizers are asked, you know, they're asking if you can show vaccination status or a negative COVID test and 10,000 outdoors, it's recommended that the organizers ask for vaccination status. But not everybody, of course, carries that vaccination card. So the state plans to require or they're going to put out an electronic vaccine card coming soon. This is what Governor Newsom had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We'll be doing something that provides you the opportunity, we'll announce this later this week, to have an electronic version of your paper version of vaccination. It's not a passport. It's not a requirement. It's just the ability now to have an electronic version of that paper version.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: So it will be certainly good to have that on the phone.

So, Poppy, obviously, it took a long time for people to get used to the stay-at-home order and the mask mandate, et cetera. It's going to take a little bit of time for people to get used to the new normal, as well.

Poppy.

HARLOW: It is. But, wow, those headlines, Dan, where your state, where it was and where it is now. It's a big day for sure.

Thanks, Dan.

Well, researchers at the National Institutes of Health now have even more evidence that COVID was in the U.S. as early as December 2019. That is weeks before the first case was officially reported.

Let's go to our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, who joins us now.

Good morning, Elizabeth.

We're about to cross, sadly, 600,000 deaths from COVID in the United States. And it just makes you think, I mean, knowing sooner would have meant action sooner.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It could have meant action sooner. I remember -- I remember asking questions of health officials, how do we know COVID isn't here already or how do we know it wasn't there earlier?

But let's take a look at how this has grown since January of last year. It's just been unbelievable. And what it is, what's interesting about this reporting is that it might have started even before January of 2020 as we thought. So let's take a look.

In Massachusetts, the first patient was announced February 1, but in a new study, NIH researchers found antibodies in blood samples from January 8th. So that's obviously earlier than February 1. And it takes two weeks for those antibodies to start up.

So that means that it was probably back in December of 2019. In Pennsylvania, similar, but a little later, the first patient announced in that state, March 6th. Antibodies found in blood samples from February 15th. So these were frozen blood samples. This is very good research. This really points us in the direction that there were COVID cases in the U.S. long before we thought there were.

HARLOW: Yes, if we had known.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for letting us know now.

COHEN: Thanks.

HARLOW: Everyone living within three miles of this huge fire at a chemical plant in Rockton, Illinois, has been told to wear face masks. Those living within one mile have been evacuated, those officials say air quality is currently safe there. The fire started yesterday. It's expected to burn for at least several more days. Look at those images. Wow. The fire chief says he does not want an environmental nightmare to occur by chemicals running off into a nearby river. The chief says the fire was started by a catastrophic incident, but they haven't released many more details since that.

All right, let's go back over to Jim in Geneva.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, we are now awaiting the arrival of President Biden. He left Brussels where the NATO summit had taken place a short time ago, expected to land within the next hour. We, of course, 24 hours away -- less than 24 hours away from his summit, a crucial one, with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Someone who he said, ten years ago as vice president, has no soul. How will they deal face-to-face now that Biden is commander in chief? We'll be watching.

Please stay with us.

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[09:59:06]

SCIUTTO: The breaking news this hour, minutes from now, President Biden will arrive here in Geneva, Switzerland, ahead of his first and crucial sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Good morning. I'm Jim Sciutto, live in Switzerland.

HARLOW: It's great to have you there, Jim.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, live in New York.

Well, tomorrow's meeting with Putin comes on the heels of Biden's first international trip as president, where he focused a lot on restoring and securing partnerships with some of America's strongest European allies. But all eyes are on, again, what is expected to be a tense, long meeting with his Russian counterpart.

SCIUTTO: The U.S. and Russia have a long list of issues of confrontation, cyber-attacks, Russia's continuing occupation of Ukraine, its detention of Russian dissidents, but also, administration officials emphasizing before this summit, areas of potential agreement, including on restarting the Iran nuclear deal.

[10:00:04]

In advance of the meeting, many years ago, Biden called the Russian leader a killer.