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CDC Mask Guidance Set to Change?; U.S. Woman Cured of HIV; Putin's Next Move?. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 16, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:36]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

The U.S., Ukraine and NATO all say they have not seen evidence that Russia is pulling back troops from Ukraine's border, despite claims from Moscow. The Russian Ministry of Defense released this footage of military equipment crossing a bridge from Crimea back into Russia, saying tactical exercises are done and the armor is headed back to its permanent deployment.

But Secretary of State Tony Blinken says Russia is still building up its military in key locations along the Ukraine border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Unfortunately, there's a difference between what Russia says and what it does.

And what we're seeing is no meaningful pullback. On the contrary, we continue to see forces, especially forces that would be in the vanguard of any renewed aggression against Ukraine, continuing to be at the border, to mass at the border.

President Putin's put in place the capacity to act on very short notice. He can pull the trigger. He could pull it today. He could pull it tomorrow. He could pull it next week. What we're seeing on the border remains deeply, deeply concerning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, today in Ukraine, it's a day of unity declared by the Ukrainian president. CNN has exclusive reporting about the latest Ukrainian intelligence assessment. It says that Russia does not have enough troops near its border for an effective full-scale invasion. It also said that Russia has amassed 148,000 forces positioned along the border. Of course, we heard from the president more than 150,000 here in the U.S.

Let's go down to Ukraine.

CNN's Erin Burnett is live in Lviv.

So, Erin, there have been these discrepancies between the Ukrainian assessment of Russian readiness for a full-scale invasion and the U.S. assessment.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Right, a big discrepancy, and Russia putting out that video that Alisyn was talking about, right, but that's it.

They have said that they were finishing drills and pulling back -- pulled back before. They said that in December and look where we are here in February. So, it's not what the U.S. is seeing. It's not what Ukrainian intelligence is seeing. It's not what NATO is seeing.

All of them say not only do they see no evidence of a pullback. If anything, they see an escalation and more troops actually coming in. The press secretary, Jen Psaki, just moments ago saying, we will know it when we see it, in terms of troops being pulled out, but as of yet no evidence and nothing to support any pullback from any intelligence, whether it be the U.S., NATO or from Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: Erin, tell us what you're learning on the ground about that cyberattack on Ukraine's defense agency and then those top banks yesterday? Do we know anymore?

BURNETT: So, yes, I mean, what -- I remember we were talking about this yesterday.

Well, now apparently, we understand from Ukrainian intelligence that that attack is ongoing. And, furthermore, they say that this attack is -- we were talking about, oh, there's been attacks like this before that they say have emanated from Russia. They say this, though, now is the single biggest cyberattack of this type that they have ever seen in the history of Ukraine.

And it is still ongoing. And, again, the context is so important, right, of a hybrid war that would consist of both cyberattacks, as well as physical attacks, and the sense that a massive cyberattack could be a precursor to something much bigger.

So they do say that it's ongoing as we speak. And they say it was coordinated and well-planned, that the sites that they're crashing, ostensibly the Russians, three orders of magnitude traffic to crash those sites than they would ordinarily have, so it's quite debilitating.

BLACKWELL: Now, today, as I mentioned at the top, is this day of unity across Ukraine. We heard from the Ukrainian president. How was it marked?

BURNETT: So, it's interesting.

Here in Lviv, they have days of unity. They had had one last month, right? So this was sort of hastily convened by President Zelensky. So much talk of there being an invasion day. He said, well, let's have a day of unity.

So the people who work for the government have the day off. When you walked down the streets here, all the flags were out. All the flags were out. Obviously, it was hastily convened. So, here in Lviv, there weren't massive turnout, by any stretch of the imagination, but 200 or 300 people, people singing the song "Ukraine, Ukraine."

And there was that feeling of gathering and singing some popular songs. And I know, obviously, there were even bigger gatherings around the country in other places like Kharkiv, where Sam Kiley actually attended one of the events.

And Sam is with us now too.

So, Sam, what did you see in Kharkiv?

[14:05:01]

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, you mentioned that hybrid warfare there. And you're absolutely right.

And I think one of the interesting things about the Ukrainian response to all of this, including the latest intelligence analysis, which has been backed up by the president's spokesman, saying that, in the view of the Ukrainians, there is not yet enough Russian troops to conduct a full-scale invasion. I think they probably mean invasion with occupation, because they have got plenty enough if they want to do something less dramatic to continue to make Ukraine feel unstable.

And it's that, the permanent instability that Ukrainians have been living with since 2014. And that was the point. The whole attitude here in Kharkiv over this day of unity, as this package shows, is one about let's try and stay calm and carry on. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KILEY (voice-over): The chorus of Kharkiv Opera House singing in defiance of this, Russia amassing what the U.S. says are 150,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine's border.

In Kharkiv, 25 miles from the frontier, a day of national unity is quickly marked amid dire warnings from Washington.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An invasion remains distinctly possible.

KILEY: Here, though, a message of calm.

(on camera): Do you expect an invasion? (voice-over): "No, we don't expect it," he says. "I think we should be ready for anything. But I'm also sure everything is going to be fine."

If the Russians did attack, they'd have a short run to Kharkiv.

(on camera): We're driving north towards the border with Russia, which is now about 15 or 20 minutes away. About half-an-hour and beyond that is the city of Belgorod.

Now, around Belgorod, according to Russian reports, there is the First Guard's tank army. On paper, they're capable of mastering 50,000 or so infantry, 600 to 800 tanks. They have Iskander surface-to-surface missiles.

But there isn't a single sign on this road north of Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people, of any kind of Ukrainian military activity.

(voice-over): Just trucks waiting for routine crossing into Russia and business as usual at the border crossing here. Russia is on the other side of that fence.

The locals here relaxed.

Ludmila (ph) says: "How is it that we're forced to quarrel with our brothers? I just can't comprehend it. On the contrary, we should not have borders at all."

"There is no will to fight with Russia, and we don't see the will of the Russians to fight with us. There are no armed forces, not even a hint," says Alexander (ph).

In case Russia does send tanks into this vast landscape, Ukrainians insist that they recall the words of their national anthem. "Our enemies will die, as the dew does in the sunshine, and we brothers will live happily in our land."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KILEY: Now, Erin, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, has talked about these massive presences -- well, presence of Russian troops as the new normal. He's saying that there may well be now, as a consequence of this, reinforcement, possibly permanent reinforcement of NATO forces on NATO's eastern flank, all of this perhaps counterproductive to what Vladimir Putin wants to achieve.

But, ultimately, what he's already done is de stabilize the Ukraine, cause it to have economic difficulties, capital flight. Investors are losing confidence here. And that means, ultimately, that a pro-Western successful democracy on his doorstep is kicked down the road, Erin.

BURNETT: Yes, I mean, that's exactly the point, that you see the economic destabilization here in Lviv, right, where you have all these I.T. and all this sort of moving towards the future of not just an energy-powered economy, right?

You see it here, businesses moving, people not sure where to go, completely destabilizing.

Sam Kiley, thank you so much.

And, Alisyn and Victor, as I hand it back to you, I just want to follow up on something else Sam said, when he was talking about that there is -- there are enough forces to invade. And there are, but he said, crucially, perhaps not to occupy.

And everything that you see here and we're hearing from reporters in all the other cities of this country, there is such a will to fight back. I was talking to a former general the other day. He said, in the classic counterinsurgency calculus that you would run if you needed to not just attack and take over, but then occupy a country, would be one soldier for every 50 locals.

Based on the population of Ukraine, that would mean Russia would need 800,000 troops to actually successfully occupy. That's magnitudes greater, right, than they have right now amassed on that border. So the question is, what kind of fight back and militia and insurgencies do they see?

[14:10:02]

And what you see here is people who are uniformly willing to fight back. And that is what makes this calculus so crucial for Putin.

CAMEROTA: Such helpful context, and really helpful to have you and Sam on the ground there for us talking to locals.

Erin, we will check back with you. Thank you very much.

Let's bring in retired Army General Wesley Clark. He served as supreme allied commander of NATO and is a CNN military analyst. We also have William Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He is now vice president for Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

General, I want to start with you.

How do you assess this? I mean, if the Ukrainian intelligence agencies are saying they don't see enough troops amassed for a full invasion, and the locals appear to be going on business as usual, do you think there's a difference between, obviously, invasion and occupation? And do you think that they have enough? Are 150,000 troops enough for a full-scale invasion?

WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think you can do a whole lot of damage with 80-some-odd tactical groups, plus hypersonics and airpower in Ukraine.

And I'm sure the Ukrainian generals are right. It does take several hundred thousand people to occupy a country of this size. But I'm reminded of our discussions in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. I and many others said we didn't have enough troops to occupy this country in a small invasion force. Well, we went ahead anyway. And we certainly get a lot of damage in Iraq. So we went in with less than 100,000 troops. And we went all the way

to Baghdad and seized it. And the Russians have studied our tactics. They know what we have done. They have got equipment that is superior now to the equipment that we had then. So their calculations of what is sufficient may or may not be the same as the Ukrainian generals.

So I'd be very cautious about thinking that, oh, nothing can happen because they don't have several hundred thousand troops there. I think we're in a waiting game. I think Putin is stretching this out to see how much he can get. Who's going to break first?

Is it the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian armed forces? Is it NATO? Is it some country in NATO like Germany? Who's going to be the weak link in all of this? And he's going to play this until he's played it out. And then he has to make a decision, what's my military option? And what's the best option?

He wants to create confusion. He wants to see who breaks on this side. It's an old Russian tactic. Out of the chaos comes their plan.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

All right, Mr. Ambassador, let's talk about the diplomatic effort now. We heard from the secretary-general of NATO that he sees signs that Russia wants to continue the diplomatic route. We saw Chancellor Scholz speak with Putin after Macron of France and after Johnson of the U.K. President Biden had a virtual meeting with him.

These readouts now start to sound the same day after day, the same threats, the same consequences. Can you take us inside the room? Are there real negotiations or just a restatement of, this is what will happen, and, from Putin, here is what I want?

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: So, Victor, the -- there are no negotiations going on yet.

And just as General Clark said, that's a decision President Putin is going to have to face. That is, he's got two options. He can invade or he can negotiate. If he invades, he's been hearing from all the people you just mentioned, both in person and on the phone with President Biden. He's been hearing in some great detail the cost he will bear, the price he will pay.

And it's a variety of prices. It's a variety of currencies, if you will. He's going to have a lot of Russian soldiers who will be killed, who will come back to Russian cities and towns to be buried. He will have sanctions like he hasn't seen before. And I'm sure he's heard the details of those sanctions. He knows that it's not just on him and his people right around him.

But it's also on the Russian economy, both immediately by sanctioning these three largest Russian banks, but also squeezing his economy by denying him the electronic components, the sophisticated electronic components that he needs for his whole industry. So he's heard all of this, and he has to make a decision. He has to decide whether to invade and bear those costs or to

negotiate. And you're right. We have been hearing signs, even from President Putin himself, that he's willing to negotiate. Hasn't started yet. Those negotiations haven't begun. They are long-term. They take time to address the concerns that he's raised and the rest of the concerns that we have about what the Russians are doing.

They have got concerns about what we're doing. And that's the basis of negotiation. So that can still happen. And it looks like he, President Putin, would like to make that happen.

CAMEROTA: General Clark, we just heard from Erin Burnett, who said that the cyberattack is ongoing, that they're still seeing evidence against the defense agency and these top Ukrainian banks.

[14:15:08]

Is that suggestive that things are ratcheting up, the next step will be militaristic? What does it tell you that this is ongoing?

CLARK: It is ratcheting it up. It is continuing pressure.

But in addition to the cyber, of course, you have got a naval blockade, under the guise of Russian exercises in the Black Sea, so the Russians can't export anything. The next cyberattack could go after the electricity grid.

It could be -- there could be acts of sabotage that are going on there. It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to attack tomorrow. It could be a different kind of cyberattack. They could go after the command-and-control centers. They could shut the media down. They could try to block television signals coming out of Ukraine.

There are many, many different options. He's going to slowly ratchet up the pressure without committing military force decisively during this phase while he soaks us on the diplomatic front. He wants to see, what can he get for how little military effort? And if it's enough, then he might pause it for a while, six months, a year.

But if it's not enough, maybe he goes now. I just -- I think it's really kind of unpredictable at this point. But I go back to what Secretary Blinken said this morning. He could attack tomorrow. He could attack next week. We just don't know how he is calculating the costs and benefits.

BLACKWELL: All right, General Wesley Clark, Ambassador William Taylor, thank you both.

CAMEROTA: Federal guidance on masks may be changing, along with the way the CDC looks at data. So we're going to tell you about that.

BLACKWELL: And there's been COVID backlash at the ballot box. San Francisco voters recalled three school board members because of pandemic decisions that left kids at home.

The city's mayor joins us ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:21:20]

CAMEROTA: The CDC says it's reviewing its guidance on masking, but many states and cities are not waiting to loosen their COVID restrictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: As we consider future metrics, which will be updated soon, we recognize the importance of not just cases, which continue to result in substantial or high community transmission in over 97 percent of our counties in the country, but,, medically severe disease that leads to hospitalizations.

We want to give people a break from things like mask-wearing when these metrics are better. And we are looking at an overview of much of our guidance. And masking in all settings will be a part of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now.

So, hello, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello.

BLACKWELL: What else did we hear from Dr. Walensky?

COHEN: I'm going to summarize it in a word: maybe.

BLACKWELL: Maybe.

COHEN: Maybe. Maybe we're going to change mask guidance.

But I will tell you that, watching this administration over the past year, when they say maybe, when she says it, when Dr. Fauci says it, that means they're heading in that direction. They don't bring it up unless they are headed in that direction. So who knows for sure, but I think that they are going to be likely heading down the road to change -- to lessen -- to make it less severe their mask guidance.

And let's take a look at why. First of all, let's take a look at what they require right -- what they -- the guidance they give right now. Right now, they say, if you're in a community of high transmission, you should be wearing a mask indoors. Look at that map. It's almost all red. Almost every community in the U.S. is experiencing high transmission. So, therefore, the CDC guidance is wear a mask.

However, you can see the cases are going down dramatically. And to Dr. Walensky's point that she just made, hospitalizations are going down dramatically. So, for those reasons, I think they are going to -- I don't think they're going to lift it entirely, but I think they're going to make some pretty dramatic changes. BLACKWELL: OK.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this other medical breakthrough. So, a woman in the U.S. has become the third known person to be cured of HIV. How? How did this happen?

COHEN: Right. I mean, to use the word cure is very strong, right? Doctors don't use that term very often.

What happened with these three people is that not only did they have HIV, but, just by chance, they also had a blood cancer. This woman had leukemia. So she was diagnosed with HIV, then with leukemia, and her doctors wanted to treat her with a stem cell transplant.

So they went and got umbilical cord cells out of a registry from a newborn who they knew had a particular gene that made them resistant to HIV, because you can -- you can do that. You can select for that. So they selected for that, gave her, her stem cell transplant, which she needed for leukemia. Four years later, no evidence of HIV.

Now she's the third person, but it's exciting, because, well, first of all, it's number three. That's good. But, also, she was from a racially diverse background, and people from racially diverse backgrounds, sometimes, it gets tricky to do these transplants. And in this case, it wasn't.

Also, she didn't get a terrible complication of these transplants called graft vs. host disease. She didn't get it. And the other two did. So that's also good news.

Now, you might think, wow, well, everyone should get this if you have HIV, but that's not the case. These transplants can be extremely dangerous. They can be quite deadly. You only want to give them if you absolutely need to. And we have great HIV drugs.

So let's take a listen to what Dr. Anthony Fauci said on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: This person happened to have an underlying disease which required a stem cell transplant. So I don't want people to think that now this is something that can be applied to the 36 million people who are living with HIV.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, as Dr. Fauci said, you're not going to do this transplant for people with HIV, unless they also happen to have a blood cancer and need the transplant, and, in which case, it can be really useful and worth the risk.

[14:25:02]

CAMEROTA: Fascinating.

COHEN: It is.

CAMEROTA: Modern medicine just keeps advancing.

COHEN: It is.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much for all that.

COHEN: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Thank you.

Overnight, an historic recall election, three members of the San Francisco school board kicked out of office. Parents say they focused too much on the names of the school buildings and not enough energy on keeping their kids in the classrooms.

We will discuss the national implications with the city's mayor next.

CAMEROTA: And let's take a look at some live pictures of the parade for the Super Bowl champions.

And, Victor, as you know, those are the Los Angeles Rams.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I do know those.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: The celebration in L.A. happening days after they beat, as you well know...

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... the Cincinnati Bengals.

BLACKWELL: Yes, I do know.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BLACKWELL: Bengals quarterback?

CAMEROTA: Bengals quarterback.

BLACKWELL: We will have that after the break.

CAMEROTA: Joe Burrow.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: There we go!

(LAUGHTER)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)