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Blinken: Russia Could Use Fake Or Real Chemical Attack As "False Flag"; Judge Rules Former President Trump, Don Jr. & Ivanka Must Testify In NY AG's Investigation Within 21 Days; Video Showing Police Breaking Up A Fight Between A Black Teen And A White Teen In NJ Mall Prompts Outrage. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 17, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Millions of Americans are under severe weather threats.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray is with us. So what's the forecast?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Victor, we do have a severe threat for tonight for places across the Southeast, also a winter component to this storm system. We've seen eight or nine inches of snow already across portions of the plains.

We'll start with the severe side. We do have a tornado watch across portions of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee. This goes until 6:00 p.m. Central Time where we could see the potential for severe storms, even tornadoes possible. It feels like springtime across the south, just plenty of Gulf moisture being pumped in and then you have this front that's swinging on through and that will trigger these storms all across the south during the late evening and overnight hours -- as you can see this thing pushes out by late tomorrow.

And on the winter side of this, you can see Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, we could see some travel trouble as far as this winter side goes as well, guys.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Jennifer Gray, thank you for the update.

BLACKWELL: It's a brand-new hour here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Victor Blackwell.

CAMEROTA: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

Today, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said Russia is laying the groundwork to justify an invasion into Ukraine. Blinken changed his travel plans to give a last-minute speech to the United Nations and detailed several scenarios the Kremlin might use.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: First, Russia plans to manufacture a pretext for its attack. This could be a violent event that Russia will bring on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government. We don't know exactly the form it will take. It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, . The invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake -- even a real -- attack using chemical weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: President Biden warned the potential invasion could come in days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have reason to believe that they are engaged in a false flag operation so they have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have they're prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine. My sense this will happen within the next several days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, with warnings of false flag operations, there is an intense focus today on the Donbas, a contested area in Eastern Ukraine. Both Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian armed forces report renewed shelling there.

This is new video in to CNN of a kindergarten building. You see some of the colorful blocks here, the cartoon characters on the wallpaper. Ukrainians say this was hit and three civilians were hurt. Also, the White House is calling the expulsion of a high-ranking U.S. diplomat from Moscow unprovoked and an escalatory step.

Bart Gorman was the number two official at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. He was ordered out and left Russia's capital last week.

CNN's Erin Burnett is in Lviv, Ukraine.

Erin, so the U.S. is detailing these types of false flag operations that Russia could use and quite vivid pictures painted by Secretary Blinken. What more do we know about that?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": You know, what's incredible about this is that they are offering this level of detail and this is the consensus view of the U.S. government. As Senator Tim Kaine said, there are some European allies who don't fully agree that Putin is eminently going to attack. But, obviously, that is firmly what the U.S. government believes.

You know, Antony Blinken laying out, you know, that there could be a terrorist bombing, a so-called terrorist bombing Russia, right, that the Russians actually conduct themselves and blame on the Ukrainians. Russia could say they find mass graves, for example, in the Donbas region and blame that on Ukrainians for some sort of a genocide or ethnic cleansing, that the Russians could stage a drone strike against civilians and blame that on Ukrainians, talking about even a fake or even a real attack using chemical weapons, that they would blame on the Ukrainians.

So, Secretary Blinken going through and detailing all these very specific possibilities that they say the Russians are currently planning to do as a pretext to launch an actual invasion to retaliate against Ukrainian aggression.

CAMEROTA: Also, Erin, U.S. intel says there are no signs of Russian de-escalation as Russia had claimed.

U.S. intelligence officials estimate, in fact, that up to 7,000 additional Russian troops have been moved to the Ukrainian border in just the last 48 hours.

So, I mean, all signs except for what the Russians say, all signs point to an escalation.

BURNETT: Right. All signs point to that and, in fact, the U.S. says half of the Russian battle groups positioned along the border of the country are within 30 miles of the border.

You know, one thing I should say, you know, I was in a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in the region we're in in Western Ukraine, one of the predominant religions.

[15:05:07]

And one of the most devoted group of people in the church that I've ever seen, people lined up for confession. And next to that a pile of shrapnel. And next to that, a picture of young men with a picture of the Donbas region behind them who have died fighting the Russians in Donbas and people praying there, right? Shrapnel on the ground in this church.

It is an omnipresent part of life, this ongoing -- what they consider themselves already at war with Russia over the Donbas, right? More than 1,000 people have died in recent years in that war. So, they consider themselves to be already at war.

And I will say one thing tonight on the ground, and as I say, all of this news from Secretary Blinken and President Biden did happen late here in the Ukrainian day. There is not this imminent sense here or what you hear from our colleague Sam Kiley over on the other side of the country, you are just not getting from the people who live here a sense of panic and fear of an imminent attack.

They're not naive, they're not unafraid, they're not worried, but they're not panicking and sort of in a sense of imminent flight that you are getting from Washington. It does continue to still be a disconnect.

BLACKWELL: Important there.

I mentioned at the top the expulsion of this high-ranking U.S. diplomat. Put some context around that for us.

BURNETT: So this is really interesting, right? This was the deputy chief of mission in Moscow and the State Department releases this today as part of all of these points they're making about Russian aggression. It is important to know that that was a choice, that they told -- they chose to tell us about this today.

He was returned back by their own account to the United States about a week ago, and he had been expelled from Russia two weeks before that. So this event, the expulsion, actually happened three weeks ago. They're choosing to tell us about it today. They do say it was unprovoked and they say that, you know, this hurts any possible diplomacy when you start to reduce people and have these sorts of actions, and that is no doubt true.

But it is important for us to all acknowledge they did have a choice on when to tell us about this and they did choose to do that today as part of how the U.S. government is communicating on this crisis.

BLACKWELL: All right, Erin Burnett for us in Lviv -- Erin, thank you for that context.

Let's go to Belarus now which borders Ukraine and Russia.

CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is in the capital Minsk.

Fred, you spoke with the leader of Belarus, an ally of Vladimir Putin. What did he tell you?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he says that Belarus at least under his leadership is fully in the corner of the Russian Federation. I was able to see victor today and for the first time actually some of the Russian forces that the U.S. says are threatening Ukraine. Of course, a lot of those forces are around the borders on Russian territory, but tens of thousands of Russian troops are right now here in Belarus and they're conducting large-scale exercises with the Belarusian army.

Now, the U.S. says it's not clear whether the forces are going to be leaving Belarus after those exercises are over and the U.S. really does fear that Russian forces could try to invade Ukraine from right here in Belarus. I put that to the Belarusian leader and he tried to laugh that off saying it was absolutely not true. He did, however, say there was an agreement between Russia and Belarus and the two sides would support each other.

I want to you listen to some of the other things he said to me when I confronted him with these allegations from the United States. Here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, BELARUS (through translator): You have to admit if you have any shame at all that you missed this under the eyes of the entire global community. You accuse Belarus and Russia that we would invade Ukraine yesterday. We didn't. So your intelligence and the billions of dollars you are spending on it are useless. At least admit this. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: You see Alexander Lukashenko giving me an earful after I asked him that question. The military maneuvers were formidable. The force the Russians have here is one that is competent. I saw the air force, the ground forces, and I also saw some of those very dangerous Iskander missile launchers that can actually fire all the way from Belarus, all the way to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

But again, both the Russians and Belarusians, guys, are saying that those Russian forces will withdraw after these exercises are done, guys.

CAMEROTA: Fred, something mysterious just happened in Belarus, also, that we want to you explain to us. Last hour, one of our military analysts showed us this newly constructed bridge in Belarus that it was believed the Russians had just put up to transport equipment and now, it's gone. What's happening?

PLEITGEN: Yeah. That's a very good question. Certainly not any straightforward answers but that bridge was seen as something significant because it was across Pripyat River which is actually very close to Ukrainian territory.

And the reason why that seemed so significant on the satellite images was because that would have given the Russian military or any military that wanted to a very short and quick way to get into Ukraine. Now one of the things we have to have given the Russian military or any military that wanted to a very short and quick way to get into Ukraine.

Now one of the things we have to point out there were also and are still are military exercises going on in that greater region as well. That's one of the big concerns of the United States because some of those military exercises are very close to the border with Ukraine.

Was that bridge there part of those military exercises and that has since been taken away? Unclear. Very difficult to say. But you are absolutely right. It seems as though that bridge which was there a couple days ago does not seem to be there anymore.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, it was not a mirage. That thing was really there and now, of course, it's up to the analysts to figure out what that was.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much for being there for us in Belarus.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Fred.

Let's turn now to Ambassador Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "The World: A Brief Introduction."

Mr. Ambassador, welcome back.

I want to start here with the expulsion of Bart Gorman, the deputy chief of mission there at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The decision by the administration to tell us three weeks after the

expulsion and now they're considering a response. If they're trying to de-escalate tensions, should there be some reciprocity?

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: It's a fair question. I never thought that removing diplomats or cutting off diplomacy was a sanctions. I don't quite understand it.

So to kick out Russian diplomats out of the United States, I'm not sure how it sends the message that we're interested in a diplomatic outcome. It's not that the people working in embassies are going to be that critical. It's going to have to take place at a higher level.

But my advice for the administration would simply be to turn the other cheek, let this happen. We've got bigger concerns right now than immediate reciprocity.

CAMEROTA: Richard, what about your other advice to the administration? Is there still diplomacy to be had here at this hour?

HAASS: Short answer is you keep trying but it takes two to tango. We'll see whether Mr. Putin is interested.

My advice more broadly, Alisyn, most of what the administration has done, and I think it's been effective, has been to prepare for a large-scale invasion. What I think now is they have to spend a lot of time working on two other scenarios. One is something much more focused, something in Eastern Ukraine where the Russians go in on behalf of Russian ethnics living there.

And secondly, we ought to be prepared for the scenario where what we're now seeing continues for days, weeks or months, where tens of thousands of Russian troops are parked outside Ukraine, you have intermittent cyber attacks, economically destabilizes the country to some extent.

So, we ought to be prepared for a long haul crisis rather than for something sudden.

BLACKWELL: The Russians today submitted their 11-page written response to the U.S. after the U.S. sent their thoughts, their statements, to the Russians. It took a weekend for the U.S. to reply to Russia. Russia took three weeks to come back with an answer.

And it seems like it's just written statements of what was discussed in person. They have their demands. The U.S. is not going to meet them.

Any surprise here? What's the relevance of this paper traffic?

HAASS: There is no relevance. If diplomacy is going to work, it's not going to happen in formal written statement. It's going to happen because Putin essentially tells Sergey Lavrov, his foreign minister, to cut a deal and he'll give them certain parameters.

This is theater. This is to either intimidate or to probe. Everything Putin seems to be doing is about probing. He's doing things in order to see what the reaction is.

It's quite possible even at this relatively late date, he's still deciding what he's going to do but this sort of formal written statement is not how diplomacy works.

CAMEROTA: Richard, about what you said in terms of this being a long haul crisis and this could go on for days, weeks, months, and it's sort of no skin off Putin's back, how can Tony Blinken, secretary of state Tony Blinken and President Biden stay engaged at this level if this is how long it goes on?

HAASS: Well, it's a great question because you have the rest of the foreign policy to worry about and for the president all things domestic to worry about, so at some point they're going to have to ratchet it down.

But that's why you've got lieutenants and for Tony Blinken and people underneath him, Jake Sullivan and the national security adviser, people underneath him, ambassador to NATO and others, we're not going to be short of manpower and the president simply has to weigh in on the big directional issues, which is what he's done today.

But this can't become his full-time job, if that's what you're getting at. He can and he must continue to provide essentially the fundamental direction for U.S. policy.

CAMEROTA: Ambassador Richard Haass, always great to see you. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, sir.

HAASS: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Breaking news, a judge has just decided that former President Trump and his son Don Jr. and his daughter Ivanka Trump must all comply with subpoena requests in the next 21 days.

CAMEROTA: Kara Scannell is back with us. We're also joined by former U.S. attorney and former deputy attorney general, Harry Litman.

Kara, you promised there was going to be news at 3:00. You weren't kidding. So, what does this mean?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, very prompt, right, at the top of the hour.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

SCANNELL: So the judge is saying that Donald Trump, his son Don Jr., and Ivanka Trump all have to sit for deposition. This deposition and must be completed within 21 days.

Now, the judge also, this one line in the opinion gets to the heart of this. He says, in the final analysis, a state attorney general commence uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud and wants to question under oath several of the entities, including its namesake. She has the clear right to do so. So the judge saying across the board Trump and his kids will have to come in.

Now, we do know the president's -- the former president's lawyers and lawyers for his kids have signaled that they will not answer questions. They will assert the Fifth Amendment because of this ongoing criminal investigation and Eric Trump, who had already been deposed, did assert the Fifth Amendment more than 500 times.

Now, the former president's personal attorney during this court hearing raised the issue of an appeal. He signaled to the judge if it went against them they would move to appeal and would move to do so quickly. Obviously, the clock is ticking here. The judge is saying they have to sit for this deposition under oath within 21 days.

BLACKWELL: All right. So, Harry, to you, if this could go to an appeal, and they are likely not going to answer the questions what does this mean for the investigation?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: All right. So on an appeal, it looks like this is what happened in the summer trial. It looks they can bring an appeal. That doesn't mean the court of appeals will issue a stay or it doesn't mean the court of appeals won't go very quickly -- I should say the superior court, the appeals court in New York.

For the investigation, it means a treasure-trove of information if they answer the questions, but what it likely means is Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. And Ivanka Trump invoking their Fifth Amendment rights hundreds of times, which Trump's lawyer said that's going to be on every headline, everywhere in the world, and to win the judge basically said, so what? That happens all the time.

And they seem to be arguing for an exception for a special famous person. A little bit more on the theme of Trump doesn't have to comply with the law. The judge's opinion, eight pages, which he did in just the last few hours, was scholarly, federal precedent, state precedent, and took a few swipes at Trump. Cites George Orwell, cites Alice in Wonderland, basically saying, you know, your guy's arguments are really out there, completely missed the mark is another thing he said.

So I think what we're looking at if and when they have to sit, and I think they will even if it's more than 21 days, is a massive invocation of the Fifth Amendment. And under the civil law, Victor, you can make an adverse inference there. If there's a jury in this trial, they will be permitted to hear, unlike in a criminal trial, he took the Fifth Amendment, you can conclude that his answer would have been adverse to him.

So that at a minimum is a step forward for her investigation.

CAMEROTA: I always love a good through the looking glass reference during times like this.

LITMAN: Right.

BLACKWELL: You remember --

LITMAN: Humpty dumpty -- BLACKWELL: -- what is said about people who take the Fifth Amendment.

They said mob bosses do that.

LITMAN: Yes.

BLACKWELL: So, the adverse inference, the former president made it himself.

CAMEROTA: Kara, earlier this week we reported the Trump Organization's longtime accounting firm had basically said you can't trust anything in these documents for, I think, the past ten years. We no longer believe the veracity of it. Did that play into this?

SCANNELL: Yeah, the judge notes this move by Mazars where they shouldn't rely on the decades' worth of these documents, and he kind of goes straight at what the Trumps' response was to that, where they tried to say that because Mazars didn't say they found fraud, just that you shouldn't rely on them, saying that rendered the AG's investigation moot because if she's looking to bring a fraud charge and the accounting firm didn't say that, it's moot.

Well, the judge called that argument as audacious as it is preposterous. So, definitely taking into account the moves by Mazars this week.

[15:20:02]

CAMEROTA: All right. Kara, thank you very much for that breaking news.

Harry Litman, thank you for helping us understand it all.

All right. Later this hour, Vice President Harris will land in Germany for high-level security talks. We have more on what's expected there.

BLACKWELL: And a New Jersey police department is being criticized after officers broke up a fight between a black teen and a white teen, and put only the black teen in handcuffs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: A New Jersey police department is under fire after cell phone video caught two officers appearing to go easy on a white teenager and penalizing a black teenager though both were fighting.

BLACKWELL: So, the video shows officers separating the two boys but only restraining, you see here, and eventually handcuffing the black teenager.

[15:25:07]

Well, now, there are claims of racial bias that even prompted a response from New Jersey's governor.

Here is CNN national correspondent Athena Jones.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Accusations of racial bias by police after they broke up a fight between a pair of teenagers, one black, one white, at a New Jersey mall. A now viral video shows the teens having a heated discussion. The white teen pointing his finger in the face of the black teen who pushes the white teen's hand away. The white teen then shoves the black teen and the two begin to tussle.

At one point, the white teen tackling the black teen and pinning him to a couch then throwing him to the ground. When police arrived to break up the fight, a female officer pulled the white teen away and pushes him to the couch without handcuffs. While the other officer presses the black teen to the ground and kneels on his back. The female officer also coming over to kneel on his upper back while they place him and only him in handcuffs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

JONES: Treatment some viewed as unequal, unfair and racially biased. Police handcuff the black teen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yo, it's because he's black.

JONES: CNN affiliate WCBS spoke with one of the teens involved, 14- year-old Kye, who asked his last name not be used.

KYE, TEEN INVOLVED IN NJ MALL FIGHT: I was confused why they saw me as a bad person, as aggressive.

JONES: The eighth grader telling CNN affiliate WABC the fight began after he stood up for a friend, a seventh grader, being picked on by the other teen who the station identifies as a high school student. The teen calling the encounter with police scary and frustrating.

KYE: If they don't know how to treat the situation and deal with the situation equally and fairly, then they shouldn't be able to deal with the situation at all.

JONES: New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy saying --

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): I'm deeply disturbed by what appears to be a racially disparate treatment in the video. We are -- underscore with emphasis that we're committed to increasing the trust between law enforcement on the one hand and the communities they serve on the other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES (on camera): Now the Bridgewater Township Police Department responded in a post on Facebook. They said: We recognize that this video has made members of our community upset and they're calling for an internal investigation. They want to say we have requested that the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office assist us in this matter and are requesting patience as we strictly adhere to the New Jersey attorney general's internal affairs directive. So, that investigation is going on. Both the prosecutors and the police department are asking anyone who

has video, any other videos, to get in touch with them and to turn them in and, of course, Kye and his mother say they want to seep the officers fired. As his mother put it, she wants them to be unemployable, the larger picture, people say this is more evidence of racial bias embedded in policing in America and American society.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, those families and that community, they deserve some answers.

Athena Jones, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Well, the New Jersey NAACP is calling for the officers to be removed from the force pending an investigation.

Richard Smith is the president of New Jersey's NAACP state conference.

Richard, thanks so much for being here.

Is there any other explanation for why the white teenager would be treated with kid gloves and the black teenager would be treated with handcuffs?

RICHARD T. SMITH, PRESIDENT, NAACP NEW JERSEY STATE CONFERENCE: There is no other explanation. And thank you for having me.

The NAACP is once again disappointed -- not surprised, but disappointed -- to see still another police action that irrefutably showing the action of African Americans when they're in police custody. You know, despite all of the dog and pony shows, the years of talk about bias training and accountability. When you look at this video, it cannot be denied.

When the Bridgewater police showed up, they saw a white youth and a black youth and almost immediately without even thinking, the black youth was thrown to the ground, knee in the small of his back, knee on his neck, reminiscent of George Floyd, handcuffed behind his back laying face down on the floor reminiscent of Eric Gardner, I can't breathe. But yet at the same time, the white youth was ushered over to the couch and sat down.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

SMITH: So, I mean, you know somewhere along the line this has to stop. And in my community, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Something needs to be done, and these officers need to be removed.

CAMEROTA: I do want to get to that. One of the striking things just like in the George Floyd case, the witnesses, many of whom were teenagers, instantly knew what was happening. It didn't take them long to interpret. So let me just play that little bit of the video.