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Mark Meadows Stops Cooperating With January 6 Committee; Interview With Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS); Biden Holds Call With Putin. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 07, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Don't forget you can also listen to our podcast. Download INSIDE POLITICS wherever you get your podcasts.

We will see you back here tomorrow.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

Tens of thousands of troops at the ready, the fate of Eastern Europe hanging in the balance, and one critical phone call to bring down the temperature.

Moments ago, President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin wrapped up their videoconference, President Biden's biggest foreign policy test yet aiming to get Putin to stand down after Russia's military buildup on the Ukrainian border sparks fears of an imminent offensive that could destabilize the region and test the limits of NATO.

And new today, sources tell CNN the administration is exploring options for a potential evacuation of Americans from Ukraine in the event of an invasion.

We are tracking this with two of our senior correspondent, Phil Mattingly at the White House and Matthew Chance in Ukraine.

Phil, what are we learning so far about today's call?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, still limited details about the contents of the actual call itself.

We should learn a lot more in about an hour, when the president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is slated to brief the press on that phone call. But the stakes were extraordinarily high going into it.

And, Ana, as you noted, two hours and one minute was the time of that call, where President Biden and his team went into that call with two real clear goals, one, to make clear that there is -- there are diplomatic options for an off-ramp here as this buildup has commenced over the course of the last several weeks and off-ramps that don't involve actions by either side, perhaps an invasion on the Russian side, perhaps severe sanctions from the U.S. side.

The other is to make clear that those sanctions and the options for them are on the table and absolutely will be imposed should the Russian president pursue an invasion, should he push further than he already has up to this point.

U.S. officials have been working very closely with their European allies on a package of sanctions that they believe would have a significant amount of bite, targeting potentially President Putin's inner circle, their financial system, their energy sector as well, the types of sanctions that officials hope just the threat of would perhaps lead President Putin to back off or start to pull out troops.

Now, going into this meeting, this virtual meeting where the president was in the Situation Room, there wasn't any sense that President Putin had decided to invade Ukraine at this point in time. But there also wasn't a clear idea of what his actual intentions were, whether it was just to send a message, to try and get attention, to try and get perhaps bilateral discussions with the president of the United States, or if there was something else that were in the plans.

I think those are the questions that we're looking for answers to here in about an hour, a recognition right now that this is a very serious moment, one that the president and his team hopes they could walk President Putin away from either in this call or in the days ahead.

CABRERA: Yes, and emphasizing just what's at stake here, this reporting about potential evacuation contingency planning happening right now. What more can you tell us about that?

MATTINGLY: What we know at this point is, there have been discussions inside the administration about contingency planning related to evacuating Americans from Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion and a significant deterioration of the security situation in the country.

Now, these are preliminary plans. Nothing is on the table in terms of hitting the green light on them at the moment. Sources make clear the airports are still open, borders with neighbors are still open as well.

But I think it underscores the seriousness with which the administration has been viewing what they have watched in terms of the troop buildup over the course of the last several weeks and making clear they want to be prepared for any type of contingency, prepared for anything that may happen.

Again, it's not something that's moving forward at this point in time, but there's a recognition, a palpable sense inside the administration about how serious this moment is, and the preparations are under way on several fronts, including that one, Ana.

CABRERA: OK, thank you. Stand by for me, Phil. Matthew, the Ukrainians have seen this movie before. What are they

saying about this moment?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ukrainians, Ana, are watching these talks very carefully, indeed, because it's the future of their country that is at stake, depending on what President Biden says to Vladimir Putin of Russia, could depend -- could determine whether the military tensions, the very real tensions that are building on the borders of this country from the Russian side, ratchet up even further or whether they de-escalate.

Remember, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, went into this video conference call with President Biden with his own demands as well that he has been, I expect, set out -- setting out to the U.S. leader, specifically, that the Russians want legal guarantees that NATO, the Western military alliance, will move no further eastward, it won't expand any further, for instance, to include Ukraine.

They want a legal guarantee of that, remember. They also want guarantees that, even if Ukraine doesn't join NATO, it won't be the sort of base for further sort of military deployments, like missile systems, NATO's military infrastructure, things like that.

[13:05:00]

The Russians, in their words, want NATO -- Ukraine to not become any kind of forward operating base for the NATO alliance.

And so what Ukraine is watching for very carefully, which, of course, works with NATO very closely, it wants ultimately to join the Western military alliance -- what Ukrainian officials say that they're looking for, watching very closely, is what concessions U.S. president might make to President Putin of Russia to allay his security concerns, and perhaps to avert what would be an absolutely devastating invasion by Russian forces if a decision was taken to go ahead -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK, Matthew Chance, thank you so much. Phil Mattingly, our thanks to you as well. We will await more reporting.

For more at this moment, I'm joined by Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. He's a senior member of the Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thanks for your time.

As we await more details about this call, what do you hope comes from this virtual meeting?

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): Well, I certainly hope that the president approach this phone call with a message of strength and resolve.

There is absolutely no excuse for President Putin doing this. There's no pretext that he can offer as an excuse for amassing some 90,000 to perhaps over 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. So I hope the president didn't rule out anything. I hope he didn't rule out a military response, frankly, from the United States. But I hope he also made it very, very clear that this is not a good

way to get concessions from the West and from the United States of America, and the best thing he can do is withdraw his troops. And if he wants to talk about further economic engagement, we will have that conversation.

But we're not going to make concessions while 90,000 troops are on the border of a country that President Putin has already invaded once.

CABRERA: You said you hope he didn't rule out a potential military response. What would take it to that level, in your mind? And what kind of response would you support?

WICKER: Well, I think the thing to do is not take anything off the table.

When it comes to our nuclear policy, if you will recall, we don't take things off the table there. We make it clear that every option is open. That's been a policy of Democrats and Republicans administration in, administration out.

As a matter of fact, U.S. National Guard troops from California are present in Ukraine today. The California National Guard and the Ukrainian military have a partnership. So there are uniformed American servicemen present there today, just as there are, for example, Mississippi troops in some of our other allies in the former Soviet Union states.

CABRERA: So there's all kinds of contingency planning happening right now, including potential evacuations of Americans, should Putin invade Ukraine.

Just given that that is something being discussed right now, what does that signal to you?

WICKER: Well, it signals that we take the situation very seriously.

And the fact that our commander in chief spent two hours on the phone with this leader of our adversary regime is important. I'm glad that he did that.

I think, also, the president -- I hope the president made it clear that, should Mr. Putin persist in this, and not withdraw his troops, the consequences and the sanctions will apply not so much to the Russian people, but to Vladimir Putin himself, to his oligarchs.

They are the ones who have ravaged the Russian economy. They're the ones who have become multi-multi-billionaires, at the expense of the people of Russia, who we'd like to be our friends. And so we're going to hit -- I hope the message is that we're going to hit them hard with sanctions if they make a move.

CABRERA: Well, the sanctions, our reporting is, that are being considered would be against Putin's inner circle, the Russian energy producers, as well as a potential nuclear option, we're told, which would be disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international payment system used by banks around the world.

But I'm just wondering why you think more sanctions would be effective, because we know this administration has hit Russia with multiple sanctions over the course of taking office, from starting in March sanctions imposed connected to the treatment of Navalny. Then, a month later, there were sanctions imposed because of the cyberattack involving SolarWinds.

And then, just a few weeks ago, there were more sanctions the Biden administration imposed having to do with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And clearly that has not deterred Putin's actions.

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WICKER: Well, clearly, those sanctions have been ratcheted up. And I support them.

But I can tell you that the ultimate tool of disengaging them from the world financial system is something that Vladimir Putin does not want. He's already, frankly, run the economy and the Russian system into the ground. The people there not being well-served.

But this would be a devastating blow. And so I can just assure you that there is bipartisan support among senior Democrats and Republicans in the Congress and on the Armed Services Committee for much tougher sanctions. There are things that have been done that send a message. And I approve of them, but there's much more that can be done to actually make it clear that this would be the crossing of a line that we absolutely cannot accept.

Mr. Putin has surprised us twice before, at least on two occasions, 2008, when he invented a pretext to invade Georgia, a free sovereign former republic in the Soviet Union, and then 2014, when he went through the pretext of sending un-uniformed, unidentified troops in, which everyone in the world realized immediately -- in Crimea were and in the Donbass area were Russian troops.

CABRERA: Right.

I mean, clearly this is not something that happened overnight. We got to this point over the course of a number of years. Do you feel like the last administration emboldened Putin by weakening in some ways the NATO alliance?

WICKER: No, but I will say that perhaps I'm a stronger advocate for NATO than some people have been in the last several administrations.

I believe they are a vital tool. And I think, in the end, the Trump administration and the Biden administrations came down clearly in support of NATO.

But this is a time for resolve. And this is a time to make sure that Mr. Putin understands that there are military consequences...

CABRERA: Well, Trump frequently attacked NATO, you will recall.

WICKER: ... in addition to financial consequences.

CABRERA: I do want to ask you about China as well.

The former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called President Biden's diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics window dressing and said the U.S. should boycott the Games altogether. Do you agree with her?

WICKER: If I were the president of the United States, I would pull -- I would pull our American team out of the -- out of the Beijing Olympics.

This is a brutal, genocidal dictatorship, who's not our colleague, who is not our international partner, but who is a sworn adversary, not only of our presence to open shipping lanes and have free trade around the Pacific, but also to those countries, independent democratic countries who have chosen to live free and not be under the communist Chinese thumb.

So I would do that.

But, also, let me say what we did in Afghanistan sent an unwanted, unhelpful signal to Russia and China. And how we resolve this situation in the short term against Mr. Putin and his clear provocative designs on Ukraine will send a strong message to President Xi and the communist Chinese regime.

CABRERA: China says the U.S. will pay the price for this diplomatic boycott. What kind of response do you expect?

WICKER: Well, I -- they are welcome to say what they would like.

Our response should be a bipartisan response of resolve that we are going to make sure that our friends, that the signatories of the Taiwan Friendship Act between the United States and America and our friends and Ukraine can depend on the United States to supply them with the ways and means they need to defend themselves, just as Israel defends itself.

I don't want to get in a war in Taiwan. I don't want to get in a war in Ukraine. But the best way -- and we have learned this centuries and centuries out -- the best way to avoid a war and to preserve the peace is through a clear demonstration of strength and resolve.

[13:15:05]

CABRERA: OK, Senator Roger Wicker, got to leave it there. Thank you very much for taking the time to share your perspective.

WICKER: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Thank you.

Telling all and backing out. Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows now says he will not comply with the January 6 Committee on the very same day his new book reveals secret details about Trump and his fight with COVID. So how can Meadows possibly claim executive privilege?

Plus, finally some relief for the price you pay to fill up your tank and to heat your home, why gas prices are now starting to fall.

And rapper Travis Scott officially responding to the slew of lawsuits filed against him for the deadly Astroworld tragedy.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're back in just a moment.

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CABRERA: We're following major developments in the investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot involving three key players in the Trump orbit.

Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows now saying he will no longer cooperate with the January 6 Committee after initially saying he would sit down for a deposition and after already providing thousands of e-mails.

Meantime, Mike Pence's former Chief of Staff Marc Short is cooperating with the January 6 Committee. And the court date now set, July 18, for former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's contempt of Congress trial.

Lots to discuss here with CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

Gloria, let's just take these one by one, first the Mark Meadows news. Why this sudden change of heart?

(LAUGHTER)

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Mark Meadows has published a book, which really describes, in some ways, the president's state of mind on January 6 and a lot of other interesting information about how sick he was during COVID, I might add.

But those leaders of the committee have said publicly, well, we'd like to ask him about these things. These are some things we want to talk to him about. And his attorney in a letter today said, wait a minute, you can't do that, because that's covered by privilege.

And their point was, well, if you wrote things in your book, then maybe we should be able to ask you about it. And his attorney said, no, we're happy to answer questions in writing, but we're not going to come in and do a deposition anymore.

So the book is responsible. The other thing I think behind the scenes is that Donald Trump is absolutely furious, as we reported last week, at Meadows for writing these things in his book, and I think he's trying to pull back.

CABRERA: Right. Well, let me just read part of an excerpt from the book, as you

describe. This was Meadows writing in his new book from October 2 of last year. He paints the picture.

He says: "Dr. Conley," the White House physician, "pulled me aside and delivered some bad news. Although the president's condition had improved slightly overnight, his oxygen levels had now dipped down to about 86 percent and could be trending lower, a dangerously low level for someone his age."

Meadows said he had arranged for four doses of a monoclonal antibody drug to be sent to the White House in secret. He actually got approval from the FDA for the president to receive this treatment. So, as you point out, our reporting is, Trump is not happy with Meadows about this and other disclosures and revelations coming in his book.

But let me get this straight. Meadows is willing to throw Trump under the bus about this, was half-cooperating with the January 6 Committee, but now not so much. I mean, it seems like he's trying to have it both ways.

BORGER: Well, he is. I think he is.

And I think perhaps he was a little bit flummoxed by the former president's reaction to what he was saying, because, if you remember, the narrative, both from the president's doctor at the time, Dr. Conley, and the president and folks in the White House was the president was doing OK.

Meadows, in fact, was the only one at the time, who told journalists that the president was not doing OK. Remember, he tried to keep that off the record, but he was photographed doing that. So they had to put that on the record.

So they were trying to keep this a little hush-hush from the American public. And, of course, they didn't succeed. And Trump, who wants to run again for president, by all accounts, doesn't want this out there.

CABRERA: Right.

And so, Elie, my question to you is, if Meadows isn't cooperating with the January 6 Committee, but the fact that he's written this book about his time in the White House, how do you square those two things in terms of his executive privilege argument?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Ana, this is yet another infirmity problem with Mark Meadows' executive privilege argument.

A privilege inherently is a confidential communication between two people. If one of them goes and talks about it publicly, writes a book about it, generally speaking, you have given that away. So that's one problem.

We also on top of that have the problem that we're still talking about executive privilege being evoked by a former president, a former administration, which looks like it's about to get shot down in the courts. And then you have the fact that these communications probably aren't even covered by executive privilege anyway, because they appear to relate to wrongdoing and not to the kind of legitimate policy discussions that the privilege is meant to protect.

So what's Mark Meadows' game plan here? Looks to me like it's delay. I mean, that seems to be the game plan across the board here.

CABRERA: Absolutely.

But the good news is, not everybody is doing that. Let's talk about pencils former Chief of Staff Marc Short. We're learning exclusively that he is cooperating with the January 6 Committee.

Gloria, how significant is this? What sort of information could he provide?

[13:25:00]

BORGER: Well, I think it's incredibly significant.

Marc Short was with Mike Pence a lot of the time. For example, he was with him for most of January 6, as you have just put up here. He was in the Oval Office on January 4. And, remember, that was the time when Donald Trump was really making his argument to Pence and saying, you got to stop. You got to stop this count, these Electoral College votes.

And after he did that, he was banned from the White House by Donald Trump. I think Marc Short has a lot of information about Pence and Pence's conversations perhaps with him and how the vice president really felt. And I think he is probably going to be very forthcoming, because he's probably very upset at the way Mike Pence was treated.

I mean, remember, the former president did not even call Mike Pence on January 6, when people in the Capitol were saying "Hang Mike Pence," to see how he was doing.

CABRERA: Elie, could investigators, do you think use, Short's cooperation to encourage others to cooperate with the committee?

HONIG: Absolutely, Ana.

That's the real path here to finding truth. The committee, realistically, is never going to hear from Donald Trump. They're never going to hear from Mike Pence. They're not going to hear from Bannon or Clark or potentially Meadows now either.

That said, that doesn't mean they're at a dead end. Good investigators know you have witnesses all around a scene like this. You have advisers. You have people who maybe were on the outside looking in.

Mark Meadows -- excuse me -- Marc Short can tell us what happened at these key meetings. I mean, you look at that January 4 meeting in the Oval Office, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, John Eastman, they're not going to testify. But guess who was there? Marc Short was there. He can tell the committee exactly what happened in the Oval Office that day. CABRERA: Quickly, Elie, on Steve Bannon. Just this afternoon, a judge

set a trial date in his contempt of Congress case for July 18.

I mean, that feels like a long ways away. That's seven months from now.

HONIG: Yes, Bannon wanted to make it even farther out. He wanted it in October.

Look, the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution gives every criminal defendant like Steve Bannon a right to a speedy and public trial. He definitely wants the public part, not so much into the speedy part. He was trying to delay this. Yet again, the playbook here seems to be delay, delay delay.

He seems to have partially succeeded in getting it kicked out at least until July.

CABRERA: But why so long? That's what I don't understand. I mean, this could give anybody else who doesn't want to cooperate with the committee reason not to cooperate.

HONIG: I completely share that. I went through this frustration as a prosecutor trying to get judges to try my case quickly.

Now, that said, this case is different than your normal federal case. There's constitutional and separation of powers interests here. I think this judge should moved this up. Prosecutors wanted to do it in April. Prosecutors said we can try this case in one day. Now, Bannon said it's going to take 10 days. That shows you what a circus he intends to make this.

I have tried murder cases in less than 10 days. But I think the judge should have taken this and moved it to the very top of the queue.

CABRERA: All right, Elie Honig, Gloria Borger, much more to come, obviously.

BORGER: Yes.

CABRERA: Thank you both for your thoughts and insights.

Don't look now, but the Dow is soaring, as gas prices for both your car and your home finally are falling. What's behind the moves, and will they last?

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