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Top U.S., Russian Diplomats Meet Amid Ukraine Invasion Fears; Interview with British Ambassador to the U.S. Karen Pierce on Russian Threat of Invasion against Ukraine; Trump Faces Mounting Legal Battles. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2022 - 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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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY KATE OU, CHICAGO HOMEBUYER: Maybe that's where some of the nerves and the excitement all come together.

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VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Now home prices up 17 percent last year. That with these rising rates and very, very low inventory, you're going to lose some homebuyers. But realtors also say that this may ignite a little bit of a buying frenzy to try to get any homes that are still on the market.

And Jim and Bianna, just two tips from realtors. They say if you can get preapproved, do it now, and see if your mortgage broker will let you lock in to today's rate so that you don't end up paying more down the road -- guys.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much.

Very good Friday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

Moments from now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be back on his way to the U.S. after an emergency trip to Geneva to stave off what would be a devastating war between Russia and Ukraine. Following this morning's critical meeting with his Russian counterpart, Blinken promised a severe and united response by the West if Russia invades.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: This was not negotiation but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas. I made clear to Minister Lavrov that there are certain issues and fundamental principles that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade space there. None.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: Basically saying the U.S. is not going to rule out NATO membership for Ukraine. Blinken standing firm. Both sides did signal after today's talks there could be at least more diplomatic discussions ahead. We'll see where those go.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now from Moscow. Let's begin, though, with Fred Pleitgen. He's in Geneva where those talks took place.

Listen, expectations were low and managed going into this. Do the sides consider these talks successful?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, I'm not sure they necessarily consider them successful. Certainly I'm not sure the Russians really consider them to be successful. But I do think that they consider them to possibly be a launching pad to wider negotiations that could happen along the way and possibly even bigger negotiations between President Biden and President Putin, possibly in the future as well.

But as the secretary of state was just saying in that sound bite that you played, he didn't even call them negotiations. He said they were an exchange of ideas. I think that's a little bit less than the Russians wanted. The Russians of course had been saying for days that they wanted written responses to some of those concerns and demands that they had put forward during the last round of talks here in the Geneva.

They obviously didn't get those. They will get those in a certain form at least next week. But I was actually able to ask the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a press conference after this meeting took place whether the Russians felt that any sort of headway had been made, but the Russians were disappointed the way this meeting have gone down.

Let's listen to some of what he had to say.

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SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Antony Blinken repeated his position on the right to choose alliances. I asked how America is going to fulfill its obligation, which was approved at the highest level in the framework of the OSCE. Along with the right to choose alliances, the obligation does not strengthen anyone's security at the expense of infringing on the security of others.

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PLEITGEN: So as you can see there, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying that there will continuously be talks, this is not the end of the dialogue. As right now we understand that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is about to depart here from Geneva in what has been a beautiful but very cold day, about to head back to the U.S. after these very important talks that the Russians won't be completely satisfied with but certainly does seem as though there will be another round, there will be other rounds of talks ahead, which, of course, is preferable for the United States, its allies and especially the Ukrainians to the alternatives that could have been in play with those Russians continuing to amass their forces near Ukraine.

And as we've learned today, Jim, also now having placed S-400 anti- aircraft system in Belarus as well -- Jim, Bianna.

SCIUTTO: As you were speaking there, Fred, we saw Antony Blinken board his U.S. State Department plane for his departure from Geneva following those talks.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And it's interesting. As this was all playing out, Ukrainian President Zelensky gave an interview to "The Washington Post" reiterating that he thinks that these sanctions that the U.S. and the West are threatening if Russia invades should in fact go into effect now to deter Russia from invading.

But I want to turn to Nic now because Russia has said that they're going to be waiting for the U.S. to share its concerns in written form next week. Even Lavrov suggesting that they would make that public. How significant is that response, and could that lead to further talks or perhaps the end of talks if they don't like what they see?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. There certainly is an opportunity here for the diplomatic process to continue, but it does seem to be contingent on whether the Russians are happy with what they hear or what they see written down.

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The Russians have been pushing and pushing and pushing for about a month now to get the United States to give a written response to what they put on the table, you know, in mid-December, this -- you know, their security concerns. They know the answer. This is the problem. They know the answer they're going to get. Secretary Blinken made it very, very clear on Russia's demand that Ukraine can't join NATO. That's off the table.

So the Russians know this. So the clock is ticking. The clock is ticking. And the question is really is, President Putin trying to run down the clock as he maneuvers more forces into position, there's a big military exercises coming up in Belarus that will put, you know, another 100,000 Russian and Belarus troops very close to the capital of Ukraine? Is that what this is about, or is there a real path to diplomacy?

There was a hint to that in what Sergey Lavrov responded to Fred's question that, you know, one nation's security can't binge on neighboring nations' security, sort of an OSCE fundamental that the United States and Russia are both members of and Lavrov pointing out that the U.S., you know, signed up to that.

You know, I think when you look at that, is Lavrov there saying that we're willing to settle for arms control agreement and reciprocal forced dispositions across the border which the U.S. says that's something we can discuss? It just seems so unlikely at this stage. And it seems very hard to know how much longer the Kremlin can continue to play this out when they're not really getting the answers that they want.

SCIUTTO: And through all this, we should remember that eight years ago Russia already invaded Ukraine, remains in Ukrainian territory, in Crimea as well as in Eastern Ukraine. They've done this before.

Nic Robertson, Fred Pleitgen, thanks very much to both of you.

And joining me now to discuss this and other issues is the British ambassador to the United States, Dame Karen Pierce.

Ambassador, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

KAREN PIERCE, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Thanks very much for inviting me.

SCIUTTO: Despite these talks this morning, I hear from speaking to U.S. officials a fair amount of pessimism about Russian intentions. And I wonder what the U.K. view is this morning. Does the U.K. believe that Russia will invade Ukraine again?

It's not that we believe Russia definitely will invade Ukraine. It's that that risk, that risk that she does is extremely high. And I'm a firm believer in capabilities, not intentions. As your report said, the Russians have forces in Belarus, they have force on Ukraine's eastern border. There's the Crimea example. If we go back to 2008, there's a Georgia example of Russian intervention.

And the Russians are not de-escalating. So I think to be honest that President Putin, Russia has a number of objectives. They run them in parallel. They typically have a range of scenarios and they push one or the other depending on circumstances. But we have got to be ready for a Russian intervention, a Russian incursion.

SCIUTTO: OK.

PIERCE: And as our foreign secretary said today in her speech, you know, we really urge President Putin to step back.

SCIUTTO: As you note, through all this, through all these talks, those Russian forces have not moved. In fact, in CNN's reporting and others, that Russia has added forces in recent weeks. What has diplomacy achieved so far?

PIERCE: Well, diplomacy is keeping going. I don't want to overstate that, but I do think it's important that the talks continue and that Secretary Blinken was able to meet Mr. Lavrov today in Geneva. And we need more of that. We need more NATO-Russia talks. But fundamentally, the European allies and America are very close together on this. And we do urge the Russians to use the existing agreements on European security. There are lots of agreements. They go back to 1975 and the Helsinki Final Act.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PIERCE: There are many mechanisms and they should use them.

SCIUTTO: As you know, when President Biden spoke on Wednesday, and the White House has later clarified, walked back these comments, he did reference potential disunity among NATO allies if Russia does not carry out a full invasion but something short of that. He described that as minor incursion, though, as I said, the White House has tried to clarify.

I do wonder, though, was the president revealing there that there is some disagreement among NATO allies as to what to do in response short of a full invasion? Is there disagreement?

PIERCE: I haven't seen any disagreement. In my experience, when NATO confronts security challenges like this, it typically looks at a range of options and a range of scenarios of what will happen in circumstance X or Y and what are your options in those circumstances.

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So I don't find it unusual that allies would want to debate different scenarios and different responses. But I think the key thing is any incursion by Russia will bring a very severe response. And we do hope Moscow understand that.

SCIUTTO: You heard the Ukrainian president say, why not impose sanctions preemptively? Why wait? By the way, Russia has not responded to the threat so far as we've noted. The forces are still there. Would it be smart to impose sanctions today as opposed to wait for any invasion?

PIERCE: I think in general terms NATO and the West were a defensive alliance. I really want to stress defensive. We tend to wait for things to happen and then respond to them. That's the way we do things. That's the democratic way. It's a defensive way. But I'm sure all options on sanctions remain on the table and our leaders are getting together very frequently to talk about the best response in various scenarios.

SCIUTTO: In the midst of this crisis, there is a political crisis at home for the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, including within his own party. Do you, as the U.K. senior representative here in the U.S., have confidence in Johnson's leadership?

PIERCE: Well, I'm a civil servant. I'm a public servant. So the answer is yes, of course, I support my government. I work for my government. I think you'll find the prime minister is absolutely focused on the Russian-Ukraine crisis. He's been making phone calls. He talked with the chancellor of Germany this morning about Ukraine. And he's also been leading the response on Omicron.

I'm pleased to say that the U.K. looks as if it's coming down to the pandemic and we've been able to relax our restrictions. So hopefully, that is a piece of good news and the prime minister is very much readily focused on those.

SCIUTTO: And the U.K., I should note, for folks listening here in the U.S., has also relaxed its restrictions for international travelers to the U.K. Significant.

Before we go, I should note for folks that you were U.K. ambassador to Afghanistan in years past. As you know, the U.S. and NATO left behind tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the West through the years in the war against the Taliban, and many of them faced grave threats today. I've spoken to folks in that category.

Do you believe that NATO owes those people, particularly those who served in the military in the fight against the Taliban, owes them a safe exit from that country?

PIERCE: I think we owe them our continued interest and our energy in trying to get those who are particularly vulnerable to be able to leave, to have that safe exit. And as you say, many Afghans worked for NATO countries and NATO countries are very much still engaged in trying to ensure safe passage.

But also in trying to get the Taliban to live up to human rights commitment and to make the situation in Afghanistan fundamentally one in which Afghans want to stay and feel safe in rebuilding their country. So those conditions, those human rights conditions, very much guide our official dealings with people in Afghanistan at the moment as well as trying to help those who need to leave, who are very vulnerable to do so.

SCIUTTO: Ambassador Dame Karen Pierce, thanks so much for joining the program this morning. You're always welcome to come back.

PIERCE: Thank you so much.

GOLODRYGA: Really important conversation there.

And still to come, a very difficult week for former President Trump and his escalating legal troubles as the D.A. in Georgia calls for a grand jury to look into his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in the state of Georgia.

And hope for relief from the current wave of coronavirus as more areas across the U.S. see a peak in cases.

SCIUTTO: Plus, this hour, the three men sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, they're back in the spotlight as a judge decides that certain evidence can be withheld from their upcoming federal hate crimes trial.

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SCIUTTO: A number of legal setbacks for former President Donald Trump just in the last week. We can go through them. The Supreme Court denied his request to keep his White House records secret from the January 6th Committee. It's digging into info now from his children. And the New York attorney general says she has found significant evidence of business fraud. Add on to that something that a lot of lawyers say maybe the most significant development and that is the Georgia district attorney requesting now a special grand jury in the investigation into Trump and his allies' attempts to straight-up overturn the results in Georgia in the 2020 election.

GOLODRYGA: One thing is for sure the former president is keeping his legal team very busy. Let's discuss with CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

Dana, always great to see you, my friend.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You too.

GOLODRYGA: I'm curious, let me ask you about the January 6th Committee investigating the insurrection because there had been some criticism late into last year that they weren't moving fast enough, especially seeing that the midterms were around the corner. There's been a slew of news coming out of them whether it's who they're subpoenaing or whether what the Supreme Court just ruled, that they could, in fact, gain White House classified information.

Do you see their investigation progressing here to the point where something tangible could actually come out of it in terms of perhaps implicating the president himself?

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DASH: No question. And you saw more and more as that criticism got louder and louder members of the committee strategically putting out whether in public in clear ways in letters or in other ways that they have gotten a lot of information voluntarily from members of the Trump administration, people who were in and around meetings. We now know that Keith Kellogg, who was a top adviser to Mike Pence, has -- we know he spoke to the committee, but we now know that he gave a lot more information than we realized.

And there is a lot that we don't know. But what is clear is if you combine the witness testimony and now what the committee is going to get and is already getting, the hundreds of pages of documents that the former president was so desperate to keep from the committee, they're going to have a much more fulsome picture. And we know that whether it's the Democrats or the two Republicans on the committee, they want to know the whole picture, not just about the FBI, not just about the actual insurrectionists but most importantly the president's role and the role of the people around him. And it looks like they are more and more painting that picture.

SCIUTTO: We already know what the Trump world's response is and will be to January 6th the January 6th Committee. They're going to call it a partisan committee, though it's not. It's got Republicans on board, it's got a lot of former Trump administration officials testifying under oath as to his potential wrongdoing. But I wonder, given the multitude of investigations, is there one that they are particularly worried about?

A lot of lawyers will say it's the Georgia one that has the most potential for criminal charges. Is that the one that Trump world is most nervous about? DASH: Yes. Yes. Now, let's just say, politically speaking, the former

president and the people around him are going to do what they have always done, which is to say it's a witch-hunt, there are people who don't like me, they're trying to take me down and use the court system to do it. Having said that, Jim, I believe in talking to people in and around the Trump circle that Georgia is, of all of the things that have happened this week, the most worrisome because it is a criminal probe.

Now, the grand jury that was impaneled is fact-finding. They don't -- I don't believe that they can actually indict him or anyone. But it is a first step and it is the kind of step that we haven't seen anywhere else. And even in New York where they're looking at different issues. They're not looking at his role in trying to undermine the election if that's more person. It is perhaps the most significant that we have seen thus far when it comes to any potential criminal implications.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. I mean, listen, we all heard the reporting. Just find the 11,000 votes, that I need the 11,000 votes, right? You can't get more front and center than that right there.

DASH: No.

GOLODRYGA: Let me ask you finally about the new reporting this morning centering around Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and warning his colleagues not to threaten him with potentially not voting for the speaker position if the GOP takes back the House after the midterms.

People had been anticipating that we may see this battle play out. What is the significance if he is in fact losing power? And by the way, we have yet to hear from former President Trump as to what he thinks about him taking over as leader if in fact Republicans do win.

DASH: And there's no question that is by design. The former president is keeping his cards very close to his chest so that he can try to pull as many strings in Kevin McCarthy's world as he possibly can.

This reporting, I encourage everyone to look at it from Michael Warren and Melanie Zanona, is really, really great because it is explaining what those of us here in Washington are hearing, I'm certainly hearing multiple times a day, which is an open question, murmuring rumors, not just rumors but discussion that I'm having with Republicans who will have a vote about whether or not McCarthy really is a shoo-in if Republicans do take control.

And the fact that there are clearly, based on this reporting, so many of his members who are actively, outwardly threatening to withhold their vote if he doesn't act their way, it's just one of the many tricky dynamics that he is facing and that Republicans are facing, because if not McCarthy, then who? A lot of that will depend, guys, on how big, if the Republicans win, how big the majority is and what the makeup of that majority is, what kind of Republicans are elected.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Senses to the infighting that is taking place right now. You know, to be honest, both parties.

Dana Bash, always great to see you. Have a wonderful weekend.

DASH: Good to see you, guys.

GOLODRYGA: Thank you.

DASH: You too.

[10:25:03]

GOLODRYGA: And still ahead, a new study dismisses any connection between the coronavirus vaccine and infertility. What the study found, plus what to watch for concerning vaccines for kids younger than 5. That's coming up next.

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GOLODRYGA: New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have dipped in recent days, which may be a promising sign that the Omicron wave is starting to subside.

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