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Biden, Putin Speak Virtually Amid Ukraine Tensions; Theranos Founder Back in Court for Cross-Examination Today. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 07, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:03]

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And if Joe Manchin is not ready to go, that means this bill will not advance. One senator who votes could essentially scuttle this process. He's not willing to begin the debate.

But they also have other significant year-end business to deal with here, including raising the national debt limit before the December 15th deadline. There are serious bipartisan talks happening between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. They're trying to ensure that process, that bill, the debt ceiling could be increased by just Democratic votes alone. But there are still questions on how that works and not much time remaining, uncertain how this all gets resolved within a window shortening here. Guys?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Manu Raju on the Hill, thanks so much.

So, joining me now to discuss more, Seung Min Kim, she's Political Analyst for CNN, also White House Reporter for The Washington Post.

So, there's another possibility here, right, is that Schumer doesn't clearly have the votes in the Senate prior to Christmas, but he puts it on the floor anyway and basically dares Manchin to stand in the way.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And you're hearing the irritation come into the open with some of his fellow Senate Democrats. Dick Durbin, second ranking Democratic senator, told us reporters last week after the Thanksgiving break that he's telling Joe Manchin, look, Joe, you have to make a decision soon. So, you're sensing that sort of irritation, aggravation.

And Chuck Schumer, again, this morning, has promised that Christmas deadline. But as Manu pointed out, several hurdles that the Democrats have to go through before they can put this on the floor.

And the tough part for this Build Back Better bill is that there's no forcing mechanism. There's no government shutdown. There's no debt default. You don't have to get it done by a certain deadline. It's sheer political will and the desire to get it done by the end of the calendar year, but, obviously, many obstacles still remain.

SCIUTTO: And we've seen deadlines pass before. KIM: Right.

SCIUTTO: All right. So, Devin Nunes is now leaving Congress, though he was lined up for a prime position in Congress, arguably the most prime chairmanship in latter days, chairman of the House Ways and Means. Why is he leaving?

KIM: Right. Well, yes, again, certainly, the House Ways and Means Committee with that jurisdiction over tax policy a very, very valuable chairmanship for a Republican member, should he get it, but he is going off into go back into Trump's orbit. And a lot of it -- he didn't cite redistricting as one reason, but at the same time that California is one of the states where Democrats had the upper hand in redistricting. He did not say this in his letter to constituents, but Central Valley District was going to be tougher, if the proposed map held, that was going to be a harder race for him next year. So, could that have played a role? Certainly, it may have.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEWSROOM: Does it also, Seung Min -- does it give him -- I mean, look, is it just simply a more desirable place for him to be right now, which is as close to Trump's orbit as possible and potentially being in that orbit with, you know, a decent paycheck if things work out?

KIM: Right, right. Well, the evolution of Devin Nunes over the last several years has been definitely one to watch. You have a Republican who is as establishment as it could come. He used to actually call out the fringes of his own party, very close to former Speaker John Boehner, former Speaker Paul Ryan. But, really, in the beginning of the trump years when he held that chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, really got close into Trump's orbit, became one of President Trump's biggest allies, especially in the Russian investigation. And that's clearly where he's decided to stay for the time being.

HILL: Yes. It is great, as you point out, that, yes, something of an evolution, that is for sure. Seung Min Kim, great to see you, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, as we mentioned just moments ago, President Biden and Vladimir Putin, they are speaking right now on a video call, a Zoom moment, like many of us have had, though with big consequential events around it, fears Russia amassing troops from an invasion of Ukraine.

I'm going to speak to Bill Browder, who was going to -- who was key to getting sanctions passed on Russia in the past, now a target of Russian authorities, how he sees this all playing out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

HILL: Right now, President Biden meeting virtually with Russian President Vladimir Putin in what may be one of those consequential international talks since Biden took office. And the meeting, of course, comes as the U.S. is now weighing what actions to take if Russia decides to invade Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Among those actions, possible sanctions on members of Putin's inner circle and a new reporting, my colleagues and I broke this morning, a half a dozen sources telling CNN, the U.S. now has planning underway for possible evacuation of U.S. citizens in Ukraine if Russia is to invade. We are following all the latest developments out of this critical call.

Joining us now, Bill Browder, he's CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. He advocated for the Magnitsky Act, which if you don't know about it, enacted by the Obama administration, authorizes the U.S. government to sanction human rights offenders. It has a lot of bite, those sanctions too bite. Bill Browder, it's good to have you on us this morning.

BILL BROWDER, CEO, HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: Great to be here.

[10:40:00]

SCIUTTO: Bill, you know about sanctions in Russia. You know which sanctions hurt the most. And, by the way, Magnitsky Act sanctions certainly have worked in many respects. But the U.S. has tried sanctions for seven years since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and it's still there. What of the menu of new sanctions that the Biden administration is considering right now do you consider most potentially impactful?

BROWDER: Well, you have to understand that Putin is not a normal head of state. He's a man who has accumulated tens, if not, hundreds of billions of dollars in his time as president. And he doesn't keep that money in his own name. He keeps that in the name of people who he trusts, I call them oligarch trustees. And so we have an extremely easy way of getting him to stop doing bad stuff, which is simply to go after the people who hold his money for him. And there's no mystery who those people are. They are many of the biggest oligarchs in Russia.

And so we have not yet done that on a vast scale, and that would stop Putin in his tracks right now. You know, he can accumulate as many troops on the border as he wants, but the moment that he sees his own wealth in jeopardy, that's the moment he stops doing whatever he's cooking up.

HILL: What are the chances though, Bill, of that actually happening?

BROWDER: Well, I think the chances of it happening are high if he were to do something really crazy, like crossing the border with these troops. I'm not sure Biden is even going to threaten that. I don't know what Biden will be saying right now. But that has to be one of his calculations.

And for what it's worth, I don't think he's going to invade. I think this is a posturing. I think he's doing this -- and it's not the first time he's done this. When he amasses all these troops, this is a great way for him to then get every concession that he's ever asked for from the west because nobody wants to go to war with him. SCIUTTO: Are you concerned about that possibility here? Because I know that there are Ukrainians who are concerned that they get sold out here, right, to prevent conflict, the Biden administration makes assurances, particularly about Ukraine's potential theoretical joining of NATO, which is not on the table right now. Do you see that as a possibility?

BROWDER: Yes. So, that's the kind of thing Putin is looking for. So, he puts a bunch of troops at the border. Doesn't cost him anything. There's no young men coming back in body bags. He puts these troops on the border and then he says here's my list of demands. Ukraine can never join NATO. Let the gas flow into Germany through Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Don't mess with me in all of my activities in the Middle East and Africa. He's got a long list of things that he wants to accomplish, and it doesn't cost him much to put a bunch of troops there so that he has a negotiating position.

And because everybody is so afraid of going to war with Russia, which I don't think he has any intention of doing, the world will basically say, yes, the western world, I should say, Biden and the Germans and the E.U. and so on, will say, yes, what's on your wish list, we'll grant it. That's how he operates.

HILL: So, to that end then, Bill, look, President Biden is going in to this differently than what we saw under former President Trump, the important meetings that he had yesterday with European leaders, making sure that there is this unified front going in there. But still at the end of the day, how much leverage does Joe Biden have right now?

BROWDER: Well, certainly, he has all the leverage in the world because, as I said, Putin is a very rich man. He keeps his money with oligarch trustees, and that money is held in the west. That's his Achilles' heel. We could stop him cold if we just freeze the assets of the top 20 oligarchs in Russia. Immediately, everything will stop, all bad things will stop because Putin owns half those assets.

SCIUTTO: One thing the Biden administration has done that the Trump administration has not here, and that is spoken with one voice, both in terms of the administration itself, but also with allies. There is a unified Russia, don't do this, response from the U.S. and its NATO allies. Does that make a difference to Vladimir Putin?

BROWDER: Well, Vladimir Putin loves to divide and conquer, and so, yes, absolutely. The more we can speak with a unified voice, the better it is. It's very hard to speak with a unified voices because there're all sorts of conflicts of interest among our allies. So, the Germans want their Russia gas. They're almost ready to give up sovereignty for Russian gas. And there's all sorts of irrational or things that seem irrational to us, actions by these people in Europe.

And so -- but we -- America has an enormous amount of power because America controls the banking system, and the banking system, the dollar system is what allows everything to function for the Russians and their economy.

[10:45:00] HILL: Bill Browder, great to have you with us this morning. Thank you.

BROWDER: Thank you.

HILL: Disgraced Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes facing cross- examination on the stand today. She's already admitted to doctoring documents and claims she was being abused. An attorney who's been in the courtroom joins us next.

But, first, here's a look at some of the other events you can watch for today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

SCIUTTO: Today could be the last day Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder, former CEO of Theranos, is on stand in her criminal trial.

HILL: She is accused of defrauding investors and patients over a blood scanning technology that never worked, as she claimed it did. Now, she's been testifying for several days. Prosecutors are set to grill her again today.

Joining us to discuss is Ellen Kreitzberg, who's a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and has been inside the courtroom for significant parts of this testimony. It's great to have you here.

I mean, this really has just gripped so many people, this story, cross-examination continuing today. How, so far, for folks who haven't been following, how has Elizabeth Holmes been on stand? Has she been making eye contact with the jury? Has she been -- if you were a defense attorney for her, would you be happy with what you've seen so far?

ELLEN KREITZBERG, PROFESSOR, SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW: Yes. She has really done a terrific job on the stand. She's clearly well-prepared, well-rehearsed, and yet it sounds natural, it sounds convincing. Remember, she's someone who was incredibly persuasive in talking everyone from General Mattis to Dr. Kissinger to the Walton family to invest in her company, some of them in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So, she's an effective communicator, and that's coming through on the stand.

SCIUTTO: Beyond moving the jury, right, or the essential facts of this case, and I wonder what role, given your time covering this but also being in the courtroom, the discussions of doctoring documents in this, what role that plays, what impact that has had so far.

So, that was one of the government's strongest pieces of evidence. It was really that she doctored it in the sense that she put the company, the pharmaceutical logo on the top of the report, and the pharmaceutical companies, and there were three of them, had neither validated the report, approved the contents of the report or even given permission to use their logo. So, that seemed very strong evidence by the government.

When Elizabeth Holmes got on the stand, she admitted she was the one who put the logo on the documents, and that was much to surprise of everyone. It may have been the weakest part of her testimony. Her explanation was that she wanted to demonstrate they had worked with the companies and therefore really was doing it in the spirit of being more forthcoming. It doesn't seem that that explanation resonated that well.

HILL: She was saying -- correct if I'm wrong here. She didn't think that other people would think that this would mean, if those logos were there, that the companies had endorsed it or they had written the report. That does seem a little flimsy for someone who, you know, was apparently so well-versed in so much else.

KREITZBERG: Exactly. A lot of her explanations seem more compelling, but to think if you put a pharmaceutical Pfizer logo on the top of the report, that everyone would think they had at least authorized it, reviewed it, read it or validated it. And to say that she didn't think anyone would believe that doesn't really resonate.

SCIUTTO: What are the potential outcomes here, Ellen? Is it just up or down, multiple charges? I mean, is there a middle ground, right, as a potential result?

KREITZBERG: There's actually a lot of middle ground. One of the interesting things to remember is it's a criminal case, so the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, when she took the stand, one of the dangers for the defense side is that instead of looking at the government's case and saying did they prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, they may look to her testimony and saying did she convince me she was innocent.

So, we have 12 jurors who are all going to evaluate her and the evidence. We could have what's called a hung jury. One juror who believes she's not guilty results in a non-verdict.

HILL: I would imagine that all of this is really providing rich fodder at Santa Clara, at the law school, plenty to discuss both here and in semesters to come. Ellen Kreitzberg, really great to have you with us today, thank you.

KREITZBERG: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: And thanks so much to all of you for joining us today. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HILL: And I'm Erica hill.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts after a quick break. Stay right there.

[10:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN AT THIS HOUR: And good morning, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

We begin this hour with breaking news. Right now, President Biden is holding what may be the most important foreign policy meeting of his presidency so far. In new video just released, you're looking at it here, by Russian state media, you can see Biden from the White House situation room meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a video call.

[11:00:06]

The meeting comes at a critical time with Russia amassing tens of --