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Second Round of Biden-Putin Talks Now Underway. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 16, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning, we are live from Geneva, a second expanded round of talks happening right now between President Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The two men greeted each other a few hours ago with a handshake on the steps of the Villa La Grange here in Geneva before heading into the first round of talks. They lasted just about two hours, just the two presidents, as well as secretary of state, Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, now larger groups under way trying to hash out some of these issues and disagreement and possible agreement.

A very good morning to you, I'm Jim Sciutto live in Geneva.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And it's great to have you there, Jim. Good morning everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow live in New York.

And the sit-down comes as President Biden looks to send a clear messages to his Russian counterpart in a relationship that he says has reached a low point. So what can the two leaders accomplish over the course of today? There is a lot on this agenda, from nuclear arms, to climate change, to recent cyberattacks and a potential prisoner swap for Americans detained in Russia.

SCIUTTO: There will not be a joint news conference with the two presidents afterwards. Instead, each leader will hold its own press briefing.

Our team is covering every angle of this highly consequential summit. We begin coverage with CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny just outside the building where the meeting is taking place this morning.

And, Jeff, tell us what's happening right now. We were told at the start of the day four to five hours in total of talks, but with the possibility that it might expand, go longer or perhaps be shorter. How are things going based on reading the clock at this point?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, that first meeting between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin and their two top diplomats went 93 minutes. That is according to the time announced by White House officials. And now they are moving into phase two. It was scheduled on the clock on the itinerary to go about an hour and 20 minutes, so just slightly longer rut right about shaping up as people thought it would.

So, again, it is on track, this longer summit in total, to go about five hours. But so many issues on the agenda to discuss. Of course, it is up to the two presidents and their officials who are in there with the room with them to decide how long they want to talk about all of these matters.

Of course, it began with a handshake, and we saw a chaotic moment inside the room there, but then we do not know what the conversations, how they unfolded after that. That will be up, of course, to both, the White House and the Kremlin, to really shape their own narrative about this. So we're already getting a sense of that.

A U.S. reporter asked President Biden in the photo opportunity there if he trusts Vladimir Putin. It appeared that President Biden nodded in the affirmative. Well, a short time after that, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki sent out an statement saying that President Biden was not nodding in the affirmative that he trusts Vladimir Putin, he was simply acknowledging the scrum and the chaos in the room. So, a sign the White House, says that President Biden does not necessarily trust Vladimir Putin, as we heard earlier this week, where he says, he has to first verify that he is willing to enter into a trustful type of conversation.

So all of this is happening as President Biden had this to say about why he's meeting face-to-face with Vladimir Putin. Let's listen.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: As I said outside, I think it's always better to meet face-to-face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, always better to meet face-to-face, that's a brief response to some of the criticism that's been leveled, really, from a few different areas about why have a face-to-face meeting at all, is Putin being elevated by all this. But President Biden has made clear he wanted to engage directly with President Putin.

Now, there are five U.S. officials alongside President Biden in that meeting for the second part of this summit. Let's take a look at the names of people in the room right now. Of course, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a longtime adviser to Mr. Biden, a longtime foreign policy adviser, now the secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, of course, the national security adviser, who has been at President Biden's side, Victoria Nuland, a noted Russian expert, Eric Green, who's the top National Security Council expert on Russia and, of course, Ambassador John Sullivan, the ambassador to Moscow who, of course, was sent back to the U.S. in April, a sign of tension.

[10:05:03]

Jim, that could be one area of agreement here, if both sides agree to send their envoys back to their respective foreign capitals. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Jeff Zeleny, I should say, just across the lake from the location, Villa La Grange, of that ongoing summit meeting.

Let's bring in now CNN White House Reporter Natasha Bertrand as well as Chief International Correspondent for CNN, Clarissa.

Clarissa, each side has, as always in summits, its own definition of success and failure. As you go into this for Biden and then for Putin, what constitutes a win here?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think for the Biden administration, it's a heavier lift, right? President Putin, simply by turning up and standing next to President Biden, the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, that's already a win for him from a public relations point of view. And so I think he will feel actually that he needs relatively little to get out of this summit. Don't forget, he was not the one who requested it.

For the Biden administration, with the close analysis and some criticism that they have faced, they want to show something to come out of this. Now, no one is expecting it to be a tangible deliverable in terms of, oh, we'll solve the cyber thing, or, oh, Alexei Navalny is going to be released, or, oh, aggression in Ukraine will come to an end. I think everyone has measured expectations, but there still needs to be something to explain why this was necessary at this moment in time.

Both leaders have used this word, predictability, trying to inject an element of predictability into the relationship. And so, if that can be achieved on some level, and it could be just opening a series of dialogues or reinstating those ambassadors or starting the process for a prisoner release, then I think certainly both sides will probably call it something of a success.

SCIUTTO: And describing the goal as being predictability has already changed from previous administrations of both parties, frankly, going back to Bush, in each case where they talked about somehow reinvigorating the relationship, resetting it, whatever the verb is.

WARD: No talk of that this time.

SCIUTTO: And didn't get there, none of it. Much more --

WARD: It's closer to the cold war.

SCIUTTO: -- obtainable, perhaps.

WARD: The cold war, when you had these summits, it was always almost microscopic agenda, very small areas where both countries could agree to have a dialogue. Usually, it was about nuclear weapons. Arms control may again be on the table today, but much more modest expectations. Nobody is talking about a reset here. President Putin has no interest in a reset. He is quite lap playing the arch-villain and keeping the west as an adversary. You will not see him bowing and scraping in any way and nor will you see President Biden bowing and scraping. He is also going to be delivering a very firm tone, making it clear that America does stand for these values and that President Putin's feet will be held to the fire when Russia does not.

SCIUTTO: And you saw that something in their body language as they were first sitting down across from each other.

So, you cover the White House, Natasha. How has the Biden administration set up where it hopes to go here? And I assume you've been pressing them today. How are they beginning to spin expectations for what the end result is here?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Look, several White House officials are pretty much in the same position that we are, just kind of waiting to see what happens. They don't really know what to expect from Vladimir Putin because, of course, he is notoriously unpredictable. And that's why -- that's part of the reason why they've been lowering expectations this could go really well or could go really badly. We just don't know at this point.

But I was talking to a former senior official in the NSC who dealt with Russia yesterday, and she was saying, in this situation, you're pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't. And that's in response to critics who say that maybe this isn't the right time for a summit. But certain international observers will say, look, diplomacy here is a good response to the tensions that we're seeing at this point. And at the same time Biden can differentiate himself from former President Donald Trump in the sense that he can actually approach President Putin and not be obsequious and not be deferential and actually say to him or convey to him what U.S. values are and what they expect of the Russians.

So I think this is pretty much a situation where the U.S. -- the bar for the U.S. performance is also fairly low especially after Helsinki in 2018. Biden, of course, will be expected to have some kind of announcement to make or some kind of -- during his press briefing, some kind of deliverable to announce, but at the same time, people aren't really expecting all that much because everyone knows that Vladimir Putin has not really changed who he is.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Well, we will be looking at that messaging as well because that will be in sharp contrast to what we heard from President Trump in Helsinki when he stood next to Putin.

Natasha, Clarissa, thanks so much.

What effect, if any, will this summit have on Russia's disinformation campaigns, targeting American politics, as well as its continued attacks on the U.S. political process?

[10:10:07]

CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash joins me now.

This is an ongoing disinformation campaign by Russia, which sadly has some allies in the U.S., right? Because a lot of the rhetoric, a lot of the attacks you hear from Russia, echoed by some in the U.S. and then the other way around, a lot of critiques of Biden you'll hear echoed by Russians. What can Biden do to counteract that in a summit like this, given that Putin has clearly decided it's in his interest?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's hard to imagine that he's actually going to stop Vladimir Putin from trying to meddle in U.S. elections. Because as you have written in your book, Jim, Vladimir Putin did it in pre-U.S. elections and elections throughout Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, those countries who were trying to have viable democracies.

And so I think what you just heard from Clarissa and Natasha, it's so important to underscore that one word, which is predictability. I think at this point, it is predictable here in the United States that Russia will try to meddle. And that's not nothing. It means that U.S. intelligence services can be on the lookout, as they were in 2020, perhaps a lot more aggressively than they were in 2016.

But the other thing that is so noteworthy that we've already seen, Jim, and I also just want to underscore this, is what Jeff Zeleny came back on to report to you about 10, 15 minutes ago, which is that Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, wanted to make clear that President Biden was not nodding in ascent, saying, yes, I trust Vladimir Putin. They didn't want to let, never mind a news cycle go by, but a matter of minutes go by without making that record clear immediately because that has so many ramifications in terms of perception and in terms of this summit, which is happening as we speak, ongoing.

SCIUTTO: Yes. When former President Trump met with Putin, particularly in Helsinki, but not confined to there, he would often accommodate, apologize for Russian activity, even famously, in Helsinki, take the word of Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies on election interference. And, by the way, as you know better than me, got both Republican and Democratic criticism at the time.

To hear a Democratic President Biden call out this kind of behavior deliberately -- I don't mean to hunt for bipartisanship in Washington where it's very difficult to find, but do you expect a meeting of the minds here where folks on both sides of the aisle to say, yes, that was necessary to hear that message?

BASH: Maybe this is going to say naive, but I do. There are still Republicans, even and especially those who are leading or at least high ranking in some of the Foreign Affairs Committees, Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, who are more old school when it comes to wanting and understanding the importance of making sure that the Russia relationship is stable, and making sure that the U.S. is on equal footing and not kowtowing to Russia, which is what was so stunning about that Helsinki moment.

Will there be partisan griping? Of course, there will be, particularly from those who actually kind of play into Russia's hand on the first thing you asked me about, which is election meddling, by sharing misinformation and propagating that. But I do expect that while there will be criticism, that there will also a more of a genuine desire to get some form of an accomplishment for the greater good, geopolitical good and also when it comes to American national security.

SCIUTTO: Perhaps to show his diplomatic chops, right, because this is his first, most consequential diplomatic trip so far as president. Dana Bash in Washington, thank you so much.

BASH: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: So, what kind of approach is President Biden taking with Putin right now, to be a fly on the wall in that room? Is it more adversarial? Is it trying to tread lightly, diplomatically? Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel weighs in, and that's coming next.

Plus, what is it like to be face-to-face with Putin, a man Biden has publicly accused of being a killer? We're going to talk about that ahead as well. Please stay with us.

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SCIUTTO: Well, after about two hours of the first round of their summit talks, President Biden and Vladimir Putin are right now taking part in a second round. It's a larger, expanded meeting with a number of their top diplomats involved. They have multiple crucial issues on the agenda, lots of them very difficult ones, including Russian cyberattacks on the U.S., Russian meddling in U.S. elections, Russia's continued occupation of Ukraine, as well as the mutual interest in restarting the Iran nuclear deal.

[10:20:00]

Joining me now, former U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Secretary Hagel, good to have you on this morning.

And you were prescient. You said in 2016 before President Trump was elected, that whoever won that election should sit down with Putin, and you said, otherwise, we can find ourselves very quickly in another cold war buildup. It appears that, sadly, you predicted right.

Given all these areas of disagreement and escalation in those areas, describe how dangerous the U.S./Russian relationship is at this point, in your view.

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, thanks, Jim, for having me on. I think the world is as dangerous, as volatile, as uncertain as we've seen since probably the early days of the cold war. And I think it represents an even more dangerous world because of technology, because of cyber, because of all the things that you know and the world knows that's going on.

So, President Biden has always been a foreign policy leader who has believed in engagement. And I think this is about as much as anything else, and, Dana said it earlier, stabilizing a relationship.

This engagement is very important. You've got to find some rationale, some roadmap, some highway here to stabilizes the relationship. This isn't going to produce all kinds of new initiatives, but if you can stabilize the relationship, build a foundation and a basis of further communication, which we're going to have to have to deal with these big issues, both where we have common interests and common challenges where we don't agree, that's fundamentally first.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Both sides have described the state of U.S./Russia relations at a low point and the seriousness, really, the urgency from the Biden administration demonstrated by it reaching out for this summit a number of weeks ago when, for instance, there was real concern that Russia was going to carry out an all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Notably, the Biden administration says it is not looking here to reboot, reset, reinvigorate the relationship but just make it more stable, more normal. Describe to us what that would look like.

HAGEL: Well, I don't know exactly, Jim. But what I do know that unless there is a new sense of stability brought into the relationship, meaning the two leaders of the two nations being able to communicate and deal with these issues honestly, directly and clearly, then the future is pretty bleak.

I think there are a number of common interests that we can work together on. Obviously, we've got a pandemic health issue, we've got an environmental issue, we've got trade issues, supply chain issues. Certainly, that's outside, in a way, of our nuclear differences and other differences that we have, cyberattacks that we know are clearly coming from the Russians.

And so you don't start with the hard things. You don't start with the complicated problems first. You start with the things that you can agree on and then you work out and address the other issues, the big issues, the important issues, and I think that's the approach. Where this goes, I don't know.

My guess is Putin is very smart, very savvy, very clear, and he can sense this as well. Biden is probably as experienced in foreign policy and government, in relationships as any president we've ever had. So I think these two men understand it. I think the people around them understand that there's an awful lot at risk here.

SCIUTTO: Yes. You look for posturing. You look for statements at events like this but also in advance. And it was notable to me in the days leading up to this that President Biden, for the moment, at least, took Ukraine's membership in NATO off the table. He said, in his words, school is out on that question, that remains to be seen. We know Russia would not welcome Ukraine's admission into NATO. They would view that very much as in their territory. Was that, in your view, an important concession from Biden, or did he go too far given all that Russia has done in Ukraine?

HAGEL: Well, I think it was realistic. The fact is -- the sad fact, Jim, Ukraine has had nothing but a series of corrupt governments since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, Crimea, for example.

[10:25:00]

And that all happened when I was secretary of defense.

The Russians were in Crimea. They had a 25-year lease, military lease for bases there. They had troops there. 90 percent of Crimea is nationalist Russian. The Eastern Ukraine is much the same. Now, that's not to excuse what Putin has done here but that was a pretty easy step for Putin to make.

And I think before NATO entry for Ukraine is that some criteria have to be met. That's the way it is for any new member of NATO. They have to meet certain criteria, and cleaning up the government is a big one. And there are some other ones as well.

So I think the way Biden has handled this is exactly right. We're not walking away. I mean, the Pentagon announced last Friday that there's $150 million new package of equipment coming to Ukraine. So we're not going to walk away from Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Good point there. And, notably, Biden is the third U.S. president, right, who will be in office with Russia occupying parts of Ukraine and annexing part of it. Multiple administrations have not yet figured out how to solve that problem. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, thanks so much to you.

HAGEL: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: We are live in Geneva. You're looking the right side of the screen, that's live pictures of Villa La Grange, where Biden and Putin, among their advisers as well, as we speak. We are monitoring the developments coming out of this important summit.

Please stay with us. Our live coverage continues, next.

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