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Russian Invasion Threat; 3,000 New York City Workers Face Termination Over Vaccine Mandate; Trucker Protest. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired February 11, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: I covered the White House starting in 1997 for CNN.

It was a pleasure, an honor to work with Jim. He's a Texas native, a long career that included stints at CNN, ABC and at NPR, a good man, a very funny man. We will miss him.

Thanks for joining INSIDE POLITICS today. We hope you have a safe weekend.

Ana Cabrera picks up right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks for being with us on this Friday.

A fierce standoff at the U.S.-Canadian border is dealing a blow to the already struggling economy. Some officials are now prepared to use force to move protesters blocking key trade passages. Ontario has now declared a state of emergency. A manufacturing CEO tells CNN the blockade is screwing up -- his words -- the lives of workers and consumers alike, and warns it will make inflation even worse the longer this goes.

The three top business groups here in the U.S. have a similar warning and are urging a fast solution. Just this week, U.S. auto workers are estimated to lose up to $51 million in wages, as supply shortages shut down plants.

We have all the angles covered.

Let's start with Miguel Marquez on the protests.

We know Michigan's governor is now offering to help Windsor's mayor move these truckers and their supporters. Miguel, what is the plan and how are protesters responding?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't think the Michigan governor or anything in Michigan is going to help what's happening here right now.

The protesters are still in that same location at the foot of the bridge here in Windsor. One thing has happened in the last couple of hours. They have opened up a lane. You can see that one area, that the far sort of left lane is now open all the way.

Authorities have asked for that to be opened so that emergency vehicles could get through if necessary. There's also a customs and border people who work down here. It's really impeded, that small area, just before you get onto the bridge.

It does not mean the bridge is open yet but there have been a lot of discussions between a small group of protesters and the police who are here on the scene discussing. It is not very clear. The protesters have sort of closed themselves off to the press today. They are clearly negotiating something and talking about something.

There is concern, increased concern among the protesters because, right now, there is a judge here in Windsor who is considering a legal work by the city in order to give them the ability, essentially, to move in and move these protesters out.

The federal government has moved in resources. The provincial government has moved in resources. And we suspect, in the hours ahead, we are going to see a much heavier police presence, an option for these protesters to stay or to leave. They will probably ticket some people, make some arrests.

And if they still refuse to leave, they will likely move in force, not just here in Windsor, because the government is now moving resources to all the different locations where these protests are happening in different locations around the country, and seemingly to at least close -- just close to simultaneously sort of move all these protesters out at the same time.

I think patience have worn to that point, thin enough to that point that we are probably going to see a much greater activity in the hours and days ahead. Certainly, it feels that way here on the ground, with protesters negotiating with police and even doing some infighting with themselves about whether or not they should be talking to police at all -- Ana.

CABRERA: Interesting.

And, obviously, Mother Nature is now playing a role in all this. Wonder how that could further impact these protests. Stand by for me.

I want to bring in Matt Egan, because the economic threat is so great here.

Matt, can you help us better understand how all Americans could soon feel the brunt of this?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Ana, the U.S. and Canada have one of the largest trading relationships on the planet.

And that relationship supports millions of jobs and the production of billions of dollars of goods. The Ambassador Bridge in particular is really central to these trading ties. We're talking about every day 10,000 commercial vehicles crossing this bridge carrying $300 million of goods. Nearly 30 percent of yearly U.S.-Canada trade crosses it. All of this is being disrupted right now by these protests. Now, the

auto industry is particularly exposed to this disruption, because you have factories on one side of the border that rely on parts being built on the other side of the border.

Now, we have learned that everyone from Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and Chrysler parent Stellantis have had some production impacted. And we just recently learned that the Ford plant in Ohio that makes pickup trucks is down because it can't get the parts that it needs.

Earlier today, Toyota confirmed that it's slowing down production at a factory in Alabama. That's some 500 miles away from the bridge.

[13:05:07]

I want to caution, though, some plants are coming back online, some are going down. This is a fluid situation. There's literally a lot of moving pieces here. But this is clearly not a good time for this to happen, when the United States economy is -- still is already dealing with a 40-year high in inflation, much of that being driven by a shortage of cars.

We learned just yesterday that new cars and trucks rose -- the prices for new cars and trucks rose in January by the most on record, more than 12 percent, used cars and trucks up by more than 40 percent. This is really the last thing the U.S. economy needs.

Now, the impact to consumers is going to really depend on how long this lasts, and which vehicles, which models actually suffer from these production outages. But, Ana, you have got to fuel for the factory workers here who, through no fault of their own, are losing shifts and paychecks every day this disruption goes on.

CABRERA: Yes, consumers are impacted. Workers are impacted, obviously. And I think it's interesting to note that this began, of course, as a trucker protests against the vaccine mandates, but about 85 percent-plus of truckers who cross the border there in Canada regularly are fully vaccinated.

So it's even a smaller percentage who are impacting the greater good here.

I appreciate your reporting, Matt. Miguel Marquez, thank you.

So exactly who and what are fueling these protests? Ottawa's police chief says some Americans are now playing a bigger role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER SLOLY, OTTAWA, ONTARIO, POLICE CHIEF: We are now aware of a significant element from the United States that have been involved in the funding, the organizing, and demonstrating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN fact-check guru Daniel Dale is with us now. Daniel, how much support is coming from the U.S. to these protests?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: I don't want to make it sound like these protests are a foreign operation. Canada has a far right of its own. Canada has other citizens unhappy with COVID restrictions. Same with Prime Minister Trudeau more generally. Some of them are just calling for him to resign.

So the U.S. didn't invent these protests. But, with that said, it is just remarkable, as a Canadian myself, to see just how much attention this Canada story is getting from right-wing U.S. media. I personally spent four years as a U.S. correspondent for a Canadian newspaper. I can tell you almost nothing that happened to Canada ever made right- wing news like FOX in this country.

These protests have been a nightly fixture on FOX News. Some hosts seem to be trying hard to make similar protests happen in the U.S. And they become a hot topic for Republican politicians as well. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): The Canadian truckers are heroes. They are patriots and they are marching for your freedom and for my freedom.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want those great Canadian truckers to know that we are with them all the way.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: The question is how long before protests like this come here?

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS: Will we need our own trucker rally to end all of this insanity once and for all?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So we don't have hard figures on U.S. donations to these protests. But there is no doubt that all this U.S. attention and, frankly, as you saw, FOX advocacy has helped the organizers generate millions in online donations.

FOX host Tucker Carlson has even himself been selling T-shirts in support of the protests.

Now, as a Canadian, I can tell you this right-wing coverage has tended to leave out some important facts, even when it hasn't been straying into outright falsehoods. Number one, this protest involves a tiny minority of Canada's truckers.

As you said, more than 85 percent of the Canadian truckers who regularly cross the U.S. border are fully vaccinated, similar to the percentage for Canada's adults as a whole.

Convoy organizers claimed in January that about 50,000 trucks were involved. It was actually in the hundreds of actual trucks, maybe into the low thousands, depending on what vehicles you count. But other participants are far right activists or just citizens unhappy with Trudeau or COVID restrictions.

Now, FOX is also depicting these protests as a kind of revolution, a popular uprising. Look, Canadian polling has consistently shown that a majority, sometimes around two-thirds of respondents, in Canada disapprove or pose of the protests. And, as Matt Egan said, they're now impacting important economic activity, impeding the operation of auto plants, for example.

I would not be surprised if that opposition number increased further.

CABRERA: And there's obviously a lot of misinformation circulating on social media.

Can you fact-check some of the lies that seem to be circulating and maybe actually motivating some of these protesters?

DALE: It's hard to know where to start.

So, this week, there's a reported letter from Prime Minister Trudeau circulating on social media talking about how he would meet with certain demonstrators, depending on when they got vaccinated. Completely fake, completely made up. It's a phony image.

There was a very viral story among supporters of the protest that a judge or court in Canada ordered Ottawa police to return fuel they had seized from demonstrators, again, completely made up. There was no court order.

There was also claims that Ottawa police are hypocrites somehow because they are supposedly exempt from vaccine requirements, even though the cross-border truckers are not. No, Ottawa police are not exempt. They were initially exempt, but, in late October, more than three months ago, the police chief ended that exemption.

[13:10:07]

They're now required to be fully vaccinated. And a huge percentage are fully vaccinated. Of 1,480 officers on the force, only 10 -- or fewer than 10, I should say, are on unpaid leave because they haven't yet gotten even one dose.

CABRERA: Daniel Dale, I'm really appreciative of all of that fact- checking you did for us. Thank you.

Let's talk more about vaccine mandates, this time in New York. And as many as 3,000 New York City employees could be fired today for refusing to comply with the city's vaccine mandate. A city official says there could end up being fewer pink slips because some workers are now rushing to get a COVID-19 shot.

CNN national correspondent Athena Jones has this one covered for us.

Athena, 3,000 workers sounds like a lot, but what percentage of the city's work force is that? Could this impact city services?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana, it does sound like a lot, but, actually, it's less than 1 percent.

New York City has more than 370,000 municipal workers, and the vast majority of them did go ahead and get vaccinated, as required under this mandate that former Mayor Bill de Blasio announced back in the fall. When he announced it, he said: "Our public employees are going to lead us out of the COVID era."

Now, Mayor Adams has said he's going to enforce this. And this is what he said when he was asked about this yesterday. He said he wants the these workers to keep their jobs, but you have to follow the city's vaccine requirements if you want to keep your job.

And he said, we're not firing them. People are quitting. If you are not following the rules, you're making that decision.

So, as I mentioned, most of these workers have gotten the shot. And these ones who are -- who may be fired if they don't rush and get that shot today, these are employees who have who have not been working. They have been on unpaid leave since November. So city services aren't expected to be affected, because, number one, they have already been on leave and it's such a small number.

We are seeing protests. You see that outside City Hall right there. There's people protesting. And there has been at least one lawsuit filed. There was a lawsuit filed by several unions representing firefighters, police, sanitation workers, teachers and the like.

They asked for a temporary restraining order. That was denied to them by a judge. So there is some pushback. But the bottom line is, people argue, in order to lift other mandates, it's important to have vaccine mandates, so as many people are vaccinated as possible -- Ana.

CABRERA: And the vaccine mandates have proven effective in getting those vaccination numbers up when they have been implemented.

Thank you, Athena Jones.

A stark new warning on the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. CNN has learned that U.S. and its allies have new intel that Russia could attack before the Winter Olympics are over.

And fractures to the back and front of his skull. Bob Saget's autopsy report reveals the surprising extent of his fatal injury.

Plus, a horrifying story that's now being compared to the Ahmaud Arbery case. A white father and son duo are accused of chasing and shooting at a black FedEx driver.

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[13:17:20]

CABRERA: There is a growing sense of urgency over the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Multiple sources tell CNN that new intelligence suggests Russia is prepared to attack Ukraine even before the end of the Olympics. The Closing Ceremony is just nine days away. Two officials tell CNN the White House convened a meeting last night with several Cabinet members and senior national security officials.

And within just the last couple of ours, the president spoke with NATO and European leaders, all of this as new satellite images show Russia is moving more troops, more weapons, more equipment along Ukraine's border, increasing its strength and its readiness.

That has left Ukraine facing a potential invasion from three sides.

CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt is there in Ukraine.

Alex, Ukraine's government has consistently downplayed the threat, but a short time ago, I understand it set in motion a demand for Russia to explain its military activities. Can you walk us through this?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, this is essentially a diplomatic maneuver, demand by Ukraine telling Russia, what are you up to? It's part of what's known as the Vienna Document, in which signatories, including Russia and Ukraine, have to explain unusual military activity.

Everyone agrees this is highly unusual military activity from Russia. If they had to explain it, if they answer this, which they likely won't, they will just say, we're simply carrying out exercises.

But, Ana, these are massive exercises, historic exercises; 30,000 Russian troops have been sent to Belarus for these 10 days of military drills. That's the biggest deployment of Russian forces to Belarus since the Cold War.

And that border sits just north of Kyiv, which, according to our latest reporting, is on the list of targets for Russia if they do choose to invade. As you mentioned, Ukraine will soon see military activity from Russia on three sides, not just to the north in Belarus, not just to the east in Russia, but also down south in Crimea and the Black Sea, where they plan to carry out huge naval exercises, blocking off parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov just to the east of there.

Ana, as you noted, they're -- the Ukrainian officials have consistently downplayed what they call alarmism from NATO. And we are continuing to hear that tonight. A spokesman for the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, said that, in response to travel advisories that have gone out and talk of evacuations from embassies, that the -- there has not been a significant enough change in the security situation to justify that.

We also told the Ukrainian Defense Ministry about our new reporting about this new intelligence. And the response from them was: "Again, these statements have already been heard."

[13:20:02] Ana, on the streets of Ukraine, we're hearing similar things. There is no alarm. I have been speaking to people here in Dnipro. It is a Friday night. They say that they're not even thinking about it, that they are not worried about it.

So, Ana, a huge disparity between what we're hearing from capitals in Europe and the U.S., and what we're hearing from Ukraine -- Ana.

CABRERA: Definitely makes you question what the intel is here, because we know that the administration knows much more than most of us.

Alex Marquardt, thank you so much.

Before a first shot, though, can be fired, the Biden White House has launched a different kind of attack, an information war. The administration has shared some previously classified intelligence with the public, from Russian troop numbers, to Kremlin plots. Administration officials tell CNN the goal is to partly defuse Russian lies that could actually trigger a war and to throw Putin off his game.

I want to get Phil Mudd in here. He was an FBI senior intelligence adviser and CIA counterterrorism official.

Phil, is it a good idea to let Russia know what intel the U.S. has?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think it is, as long as you can ensure that you're not giving them an advantage.

Look, the issue here is not whether you release intelligence. The issue here is whether you release intelligence that gives the adversary advantage. I have been watching the stuff come out, and I can't imagine that Putin is learning anything about it.

I don't think it's just a message to Putin. I think the politics and diplomacy of this are really interesting. Let's make an assumption that Putin uses some sort of pretext to move into Ukraine.

What the Americans are partly trying to do is to set the stage to go to the Europeans and say, look, there was not a provocation. We told you time and time again that he, Putin, is going to create a fabrication, and, therefore, we have to stand united over this fake invasion, and we can't step back.

That's for Europeans who may not be too excited about confronting Putin. It's not just about saying what's happening today, Ana. It's about preparing the battlefield for the future to tell everybody, we have got to stand together. He just lied to us.

CABRERA: Well, U.S. officials say there are signs the strategy is working.

In fact, the Biden administration telling us it believes Putin has been caught off-guard by some of this intel that's been released and intelligence intercepts have actually picked up Russian military and intel officials grumbling about the exposure of their plans.

So, how disruptive do you think this is to Putin and his plans?

MUDD: Well, let's take one item off the table before I give you an answer. And that is the presumption that we know how Putin thinks.

The hardest thing in this intel business is not seeing what's happening on the ground, counting tanks, counting artillery, listening maybe to tactical communications among the Russian military. The hardest thing is to understand what an adversary wants to do.

I doubt we know what Putin wants to do. I'm not sure he knows. But to your point about whether we have gotten an advantage over Putin, I think there is one clear effect of what we have done over the last month. And I think you can dispute about whether we have been too aggressive. The clear effect is to tell Putin, if you do this, the pain quotient, whether we support the Ukrainians more, whether we even mount a counterinsurgency from a place like Poland, whether NATO is united, that pain of moving in here, vs. the pain of moving into Crimea years ago, is going to be a lot higher.

So, from that perspective, I think the U.S. is winning. We have told him, if you go in, get ready. It's going to be ugly.

CABRERA: Phil, we reported earlier this week on the meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin.

And, today, Russia is saying Macron declined to take a COVID PCR test administered by Russian doctors ahead of that meeting. According to Reuters, he didn't want Russia to have his DNA. What do you make of that? Would you have taken that test?

MUDD: I would not have, but mostly to tell Putin, you don't own the turf. I own the turf.

Look, there's a power game going on. Remember, there's this story that I thought was fascinating. Putin meets the former German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and brings a dog in the room, presumably because Merkel -- and he's heard reports of this -- Merkel fears dogs. He's trying to show he's the power figure.

Did you see that photo of Putin and Macron in the room? The table is 18-feet-wide. Putin says, if you want to come in here and have a person-to-person meeting and you refuse to take a test that I'm telling you need to take, and you decline that test, I'm going to make you sit at a table that looks like there's not really a personal meeting because we're 18 feet apart.

This is not about PCR tests. This is about power plays by Putin, who still thinks like a KGB guy, Ana. It's fascinating.

CABRERA: So, do you think Putin was insulted? Do you think Macron one-upped him?

MUDD: No, I think Putin saw an opportunity to show -- Macron is trying to say that he's the leader of Europe in conversing with Putin. Putin is trying to say, none of you is the leader of Europe. I own the conversation here. I will talk to the Europeans, but you guys are secondary players.

[13:25:00]

I don't know which one won here, but I certainly don't think Macron did. At most, at best for Macron, it's a draw.

CABRERA: Interesting.

Phil Mudd, I always appreciate talking with you. You always bring interesting tidbits to the conversation.

MUDD: Thanks.

CABRERA: All right, new details in Bob Saget's autopsy report, offering even more insight into his death, fractures to both the back and front of his head. But the big question is, how did that happen?

And the popular online puzzle -- you have of Wordle, right? -- helps save a woman held hostage by a naked intruder.

This, you got to hear.

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