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Soon, Biden Remarks on Russian Invasion of Ukraine; Biden Speaks As Russia Invades Ukraine. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:34:11]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Biden set to address the nation and, indeed, the world about the ongoing Russian attack and invasion of Ukraine. Biden has called it already a, quote, "premeditated war."

We're going to take you live to the White House, to the East Room there, when the president takes the podium.

Here to discuss until that happens, we have CNN chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, CNN national correspondent, John King, CNN senior political correspondent, Abby Phillip, and former director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.

General Clapper, I do want to ask you, because a viewer just asked me, why would Russia want to seize Chernobyl, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, on one hand, it may be just to assure themselves that they have control of Chernobyl because Chernobyl was a disaster for Russia as well.

[13:35:05]

And they may suspect or be concerned about potential sabotage by the Ukrainians, you know, to make it look as though Russia were responsible for exposing radiation, et cetera, because it's still hot.

So I don't know exactly the answer to that. I could speculate. One, they simply want control or they're concerned about sabotage.

TAPPER: We're sitting here in 2022 talking about nuclear fallout from 1986. We're talking about nuclear weapons.

Dana, you and I were just talking about how Vladimir Putin and General Marks was talking about it, too, in his latest address, to be polite, reminded the world that Russia still has one of the greatest arsenals of nuclear weapons that the world has ever seen.

We should remind people, Ukraine used to be the third-largest nuclear arsenal until in 1994, I believe it was.

In the -- they made a deal with the United States and the then-Soviet Union, we'll give up our nuclear weapons as long as you both promise to protect our sovereignty, which, of course, is not happening.

Anyway, nuclear weapons. That's where we are.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, exactly right. And when -- if you go back in recent history over the past century, when you think about Russia and, for the most part, it was the Soviet Union, that was where we were.

That was where our parents were in the Cold War system. And the Cold War fear that all of the West, including especially the U.S. felt with regard to Russia.

One question as we wait for President Biden is, how far is he going to go when it comes to potential -- and I really emphasize potential ways to stop Vladimir Putin?

Because we don't know if there's stopping him, certainly, not with regard to Ukraine but then beyond.

There's a lot of pressure -- I talked to members of Congress in both parties before coming on here -- a lot of pressure on him to be very personal.

And be very specific when it comes to the oligarchs, their money, their children who are here in the U.S., either living or going to school or in any way, shape or form.

To hit him as -- him, Putin, and the people around him, as personally as possible.

And those are the kinds of specific pieces of rhetoric that people are listening for, certainly on Capitol Hill.

And in the coming days, the policy discussion that is going to be happening on a bipartisan basis.

TAPPER: And I think that's one of the challenges for President Biden.

And I think, in the last week or so, two members of Congress that I've had on my show, Elissa Slotkin, Democratic from Michigan, and Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida, have done a good job of explaining why the American people should care.

Because this isn't just some lofty notion of democracy and freedom for another country. Not that we shouldn't care about that. We should.

But this actually has serious economic and national security implications for the American people.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. This has to be, I think, what Biden has to announce over the coming days, the gas pedal to the floor in terms of stopping Putin.

Because going back to what you were just discussing with the threats, not so veiled threats in his statement this morning, he was basically saying, this thinly veiled rationale that I have for invading Ukraine, if you dare to get in my way, there will be consequences for you.

And that thinly veiled rationale could theoretically be deployed against a number of other countries in that region. And so the response has to be significant.

And President Biden should take Republicans up on the offer to work together for bipartisan, strong sanctions.

Maybe not because that is the only way to go here in terms of how to deploy sanctions, but because the message of unity, of pushing aside the people on the far right who are saying crazy things in awe of Vladimir Putin.

And saying that, at the core of American politics and policy, there's unanimity about how to respond. I think there's value in that. Not just for domestic audience but for the global audience as well.

TAPPER: John, I think the history of Vladimir Putin and how he views the world is important for the American people to understand.

In 2005, Putin gave a speech in which he said that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe in the history of the world was the downfall, of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

He does not think that the NATO countries, as it exists now, the 30 NATO countries, he doesn't think that all those countries have a right to be in NATO.

So the idea that he's going to stop at the borders of current NATO countries, to me, is quite questionable.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He gave a repeat of that speech just the other day with much more aggressive language. And that's the scary part.

You're now seeing the full exposure of Vladimir Putin and who he is after years of acting as a bad actor.

[13:39:59]

He's been a bad actor for a long time but in a cloak-and-dagger way. Interfering in U.S. elections and other Western democratic elections but then denying it.

Taking it by -- as General Clapper said earlier, taking Crimea, doing things that, yes, are outrageous but just enough to not provoke a giant reaction.

Now openly, publicly, allowing our correspondents on the border to videotape his troops rolling into another sovereign nation.

Why has Vladimir Putin chosen this moment to go big and go public to essentially defy and challenge the West. Which is why what we're about to hear from President Biden is important.

He's done a good job so far keeping the NATO allies, keeping the Western nations, getting Germany out front, saying we'll take the economic hit of canceling the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Now can you sustain it?

Putin plays a long game. He thinks the West will get tired, the West will give up, the West will let me get away with it.

Maybe I'll install a puppet regime, take a more pieces of land. The West will give up. They don't have the patience, resilience, determination to hang in.

President Biden has to lead that effort. It's a big moment.

TAPPER: All right, We'll squeeze in a quick break before Biden comes out. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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TAPPER: Here's President Biden. Let's listen in.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good afternoon.

The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine, without provocation, with justification, without necessity.

This is a premeditated attack. Vladimir Putin has been planning this for months, as we've been saying all along.

He moved more than 175,000 troops, military equipment, put in positions along the Ukrainian border.

He moved blood supplies into position. And built a field hospital, which tells you all you need to know about his intentions all along.

He rejected every good-faith of the United States and our allies and partners made to address our mutual security concerns through dialogue to avoid needless conflict and avert human suffering.

For weeks, for weeks, we have been warning that this would happen, and now, it's unfolding largely as we predicted.

In the past week, we've seen shelling increase in the Donbass, the region in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists. The Russian government has perpetrated cyberattacks against Ukraine.

We saw a staged political theater in Moscow, outlandish and baseless claims that Ukraine was about to invade and launch a war against Russia.

[13:45:01]

That Ukraine was prepared to use chemical weapons. That Ukraine committed a genocide. Without any evidence.

We saw flagrant violation of international law, an attempt to unilaterally create two new so-called republics on sovereign Ukrainian territory. And at the very moment that the United Nations Security Council was

meeting to stand up for Ukraine's sovereignty, to stave off invasion, Putin declared his war.

Within moments, moments, missile strikes began to fall on historic cities across Ukraine. Then came the air raids. Followed by tanks and troops rolling in.

We have been transparent with the world. We've shared declassified evidence about Russia's plans and cyberattacks and false pretexts so that there could be no confusion or cover-up about what Putin was doing. Putin is the aggressor.

Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences.

Today, I am authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to Russia. This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.

We have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the United States and our allies.

And I want to be clear, the United States is not doing this alone. For months, we've been building a coalition of partners representing well -- more than half the global economy.

Twenty-seven members of the European Union, including France, Germany, Italy, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and many others, to amplify the joint impact of our response.

I just spoke with the G-7 leaders this morning. And we're in full and total agreement. We will limit Russia's ability to do business in dollars, Euros, Pounds and Yen to be part of the global economy.

We'll limit their ability to do that. We're going to stop the ability to finance and grow the Russian military. We're going to impose major and impair their ability to compete in high-tech 21st century economy.

We've already seen the impact of our actions on Russia's currency in the Ruble, which early today hit its weakest level ever, ever in history. The Russia stock market plunged today. The Russian government borrowing rate spiked by over 15 percent.

Today's actions -- we have now sanctioned Russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets. We've cut off Russia's largest bank, a bank that holds more than two-thirds of Russia's banking assets by itself. Cut it off from the U.S. financial system.

And today, we're also blocking four more major banks. That means every asset they have in America will be frozen. The second-largest bank in Russia, which has $250 billion in assets.

As promised, we're also adding the names to the list of Russian elites and their family members that are sanctioned -- that we're sanctioning as well.

As I said on Tuesday, these are people who personally gain from the Kremlin's policies and they should share in the pain.

We will keep up this drum beat of those designations against corrupt billionaires in the days ahead.

On Tuesday, we stopped the Russian government from raising money from U.S. or European investors.

Now, we're going to apply the same restrictions to Russia's largest state-owned enterprises, companies with assets that exceed $1.4 trillion. Some of the most powerful impacts our actions will come over time.

As we squeeze Russians' access to finance and technology for strategic sectors of its economy and degrade its industrial capacity for years to come.

Between our actions and those of our allies and partners, we estimate that we'll cut off more than half of Russia's high-tech imports. We'll strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military.

It will degrade the aerospace industry, including their space program. It will hurt their ability to build ships, reducing their ability to compete economically.

And it will be a major hit to Putin's long-term strategic ambitions.

And we're preparing to do more. In addition to the economic penalties we're imposing, we're also taking steps to defend our NATO allies, particularly in the east.

Tomorrow, NATO will convene a summit -- we'll be there -- to bring together the leaders of 30 allied nations and close partners to affirm our solidarity and to map out the next steps we will take to further strengthen all aspects of our NATO alliance.

[13:50:11]

Although we provided over $650 million in defensive assistance to Ukraine just this year, this last year, let me say it again, our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict.

Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the east.

As I made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power.

The good news is, NATO is more united and more determined than ever. There's no doubt, no doubt that the allied states and every NATO ally will meet our Article 5 commitments, which says an attack on one is an attack on all.

Over the past few weeks, I ordered a thousand additional forces as part of our commitment to NATO.

On Tuesday, in response to Russia's aggressive action, I authorized deployment, ground and air forces stationed in Europe, to the eastern- flank allies.

Our allies have also been stepping up adding the other allies, the rest of NATO, adding their own forces and capabilities to ensure collective defense.

Today, within hours of Russia's unleashing its assault, NATO came together and authorized and activated an activation of response plans.

This will enable NATO's high readiness forces to deploy and when and where they're needed to protect our NATO allies on the eastern boundaries of Europe.

Now I'm authorizing additional U.S. force capabilities to deploy to Germany as part of NATO's response, including some of the U.S.-based forces that the Department of Defense placed on standby weeks ago.

I've also spoke with Defense Secretary Austin and chairman of Joint Chiefs, General Milley, about preparations for additional moves, should they become necessary, to protect our NATO allies and support the greatest military alliance in the history of the world, NATO.

As we respond, my administration is using the tools -- every tool at the disposal to protect American families and businesses from rising prices at the gas pump.

We're taking active steps to bring down the cost, and American oil and gas companies should not -- should not exploit this moment to hike their respect prices to raise profits.

In our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue. We're closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption.

We've been coordinating with major oil-producing and consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies.

We are actively working with countries around the world to elevate collective release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves for major energy-consuming countries.

United States will release additional barrels of oil as conditions warrant.

I know this is hard and that Americans are already hurting. I'll do everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump. This is critical to me.

This aggression cannot go unanswered. If it did, the consequences for America would be much worse.

America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are. If Russia pursues cyberattacks against our companies, our critical

infrastructure, we're prepared to respond.

For months, we've been working closely with the private sector to harden our cyber defenses, sharpen our response to Russian stinger attacks.

I spoke to President Zelensky of Ukraine, assured him the United States, and together with our allies, will support the Ukrainian people as they defend their country, will provide for humanitarian relief to ease their suffering.

In the early days of the conflict, Russia propaganda outlets will keep trying to hide the truth and claim success for its military operation against a made-up threat.

History has shown, time and again, how swift gains in territories are eventually give way to grinding occupations, acts of mass civil disobedience and strategic dead ends.

In the next few weeks and months, it will be hard on the people of Ukraine. Putin has unleashed a great pain on them.

[13:55:00]

But the Ukrainian people have known 30 years of independence. They have repeatedly shown they will not tolerate anyone who tries to take their country backwards.

This is a dangerous moment for all of Europe, for the freedom around the world. Putin has committed an assault on the very principles that uphold the global peace.

Now the entire world sees clearly that Putin and his Kremlin -- and his Kremlin allies are really all about.

This was never about a genuine security concern on their part. It was about naked aggression, about Putin's desire for empire by any means necessary.

By bullying Russia's neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing borders by force, and ultimately by choosing the war without a cause.

Putin's actions betrays sinister vision for the future of our world. Where nations take what they want by force.

But it's a vision that the United States and freedom-loving nations oppose with every tool of our considerable power.

The United States and our allies and partners will merge from this stronger, more united, more determined, and more purposeful.

Putin's aggression against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly economically and strategically. We'll make sure of that.

Putin will be a pariah on the international station. Any nation, in account on Russia's naked aggressions will be stained by association.

When the history of this area is written, Putin's choice to make it totally unjustifiable war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger.

Liberty, democracy, human dignity, these are the forces far more powerful than fear and oppression.

They cannot be extinguished by tyrants like Putin and his armies. They cannot be erased for people's hearts and hopes by any amount of violence and intimidation. They endure.

In the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subrogation, make no mistake, freedom will prevail.

God bless the people of a free and democratic Ukraine.

And my God protect our troops.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: Associated Press.

Zeke?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- President Putin at this point. What interactions have you had with the Russian government?

BIDEN: I heard the first part, do I have any plans to speak with Putin at this point, and what?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What communications have you had with the Kremlin as far as military operations and making sure it's not spiraling into a larger conflict?

BIDEN: It's a large conflict already. The way it's not going to aspire to a larger conflict is by providing all the forces needed in the eastern European nations that are members of our NATO.

NATO is more united than it's ever been.

I have no plans to talk with Putin.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: "Wall Street Journal."

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, you didn't mention SWIFT in your sanctions you announced. Is there a reason why the U.S. isn't doing that?

Is there a disagreement among allies regarding SWIFT and whether Russia should be allowed to be a part of it?

PUTIN: The sanctions that we proposed on all the banks are lethal consequence, maybe more consequences than SWIFT, number one. Number two, it is always an option but right now that's not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take.

Cecilia, ABC?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sir, sanctions clearly are not enough to deter Vladimir Putin to this point. What is going to stop him? How and when does this end? Do you see him trying to go beyond Ukraine?

A second question I'll give to you now. The statement he gave last night, that the threat he gave the West will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. Is he threatening a nuclear strike?

BIDEN: I have no idea what he's threatening. I know what he has done, number one.

Number two, no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. It's going to take time. We have to show resolve.

So he knows what is coming. So the people of Russia know what he's brought on them. That's what this is all about.

This is going to take time. It's not going to occur, he's going to say oh, my god, these sanctions are coming, I'm going to stand down.

He's going to test the resolve of the West to see if we stay together. And we will. We will. And we'll impose significant costs on him.

[13:59:56]

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will he go beyond Ukraine, sir? Do you see him going --

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Two topics just really quick. First, markets are down and gas prices are up. I know you always stress the difference between Wall Street and Main Street.