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President Biden Delivers Remarks on Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 24, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:01]

QUESTION: 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, but everybody seems to be in for some economic pain.

How economically painful is it going to get for people in this country? And I do have one more question.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First of all, there's no doubt that when a major nuclear power attacks and invades another country, that the world is going to respond, and markets will respond all over the world. So there's no doubt about that, number one.

Number two, the notion that this is going to last for a long time is highly unlikely, as long as we continue to stay resolved in opposing the sanctions we're going to impose on Russia, period.

What's the next question? I'm sorry.

QUESTION: The next question is, did you underestimate Putin? And would you still describe him the way that you did in the summer, as a worthy adversary?

BIDEN: At the time, he was -- I made it clear he was an adversary. And I said he was worthy. I didn't underestimate him.

And I have read most of everything he's written. Did you read the -- I shouldn't say -- I'm not being a wise guy. The -- you heard the speech he made, almost an hour's worth of speech, as to why he was going into Ukraine.

He has much larger ambitions than Ukraine. He wants to, in fact, reestablish the former Soviet Union. That's what this is about. And I think that his ambitions are completely contrary to the place where the rest of the world has arrived.

QUESTION: You're confident that these devastating sanctions are going to be as devastating as Russian missiles and bullets and tanks?

BIDEN: Yes, Russian bullets and missiles and tanks in Ukraine. Yes, I am.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Biden, if sanctions cannot stop President Putin, what penalty can?

BIDEN: I didn't say sanctions couldn't stop him.

COLLINS: But you have been talking about the threat of these sanctions for several weeks now.

BIDEN: Yes, but the threat of the sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of the sanctions are two different things.

They're two different things. And we're now going to -- he's going to begin to see the effect of the sanctions.

COLLINS: And what will that do? How will that change his mind-set here, given he's attacking Ukraine as we speak.

BIDEN: Because it will so weaken his country that he will have to make a very, very difficult choice as to whether to continue to move toward being a second-rate power or, in fact, respond.

COLLINS: You said in recent weeks that big nations cannot bluff when it comes to something like this.

You recently said that the idea of personally sanctioning President Putin was on the table. Is that a step that you're prepared to take? And, if not...

BIDEN: It's not a bluff. It's on the table.

COLLINS: Sanctioning President Putin?

BIDEN: Yes.

COLLINS: Why not sanction him today, sir?

QUESTION: Mr. President...

Why not sanction him today, sir?

QUESTION: Mr. President, if I can, you detailed some severe and swift new sanctions today and said the impact it will have over time.

But given the full-scale invasion, given that you're not pursuing disconnecting Russia from what's called SWIFT, the international banking system, or other sanctions at your disposal, respectfully, sir, what more are you waiting for? BIDEN: Specifically, the sanctions we have imposed exceed SWIFT. The sanctions we imposed exceed anything that's ever been done. The sanctions we imposed have generated two-thirds of the world joining us. They are profound sanctions.

Let's have a conversation in another month or so to see if they're working.

Yes.

QUESTION: Can I ask you about Zelensky? Sir, you spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday, sir.

QUESTION: What's the risk that we are watching the beginning of another Cold War? And is there now a complete rupture in U.S. and Russian relations?

BIDEN: There is a complete rupture right now in U.S.-Russian relations if they continue on this path that they're on.

And in terms of a Cold War, that depends. You have the vast majority of the rest of the world in total opposition to what he's doing, from Asia, to South America, to Europe, to across -- around the world. And so it's going to be a cold day for Russia.

The idea -- you don't see a whole lot of people coming to his defense.

QUESTION: And are you -- are you -- if I could follow up, sir, are you urging China to help isolate Russia? Are you urging China to help isolate Russia?

BIDEN: I'm not prepared to comment on that at the moment.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: No, no. Yes. No, no, no. He's had his hand up a long time.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

How concerned are you that Putin wants to go beyond Ukraine into other countries, and the U.S. will have to get involved if he moves into NATO countries?

BIDEN: Well, if he did move into NATO countries, he will be involved -- we will be involved.

[14:05:00]

The only thing that I'm convinced of is, if we don't stop now, he will be emboldened. If we don't move against him now with these significant sanctions, he will be emboldened.

Look, every -- well, anyway.

QUESTION: And can you talk anything more about your conversation? Can you... (CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Why not sanction Putin directly today?

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

QUESTION: Sir, India, which is a major defense partner of the United States, is India with you fully on the issue of Ukraine and Russia?

BIDEN: Does the Defense Department of the United States...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Sir, India is one of your major defense partners. Is India fully in sync with the United States on Russia?

BIDEN: We're going to be -- we're in consultation with India today. We haven't resolved that completely.

QUESTION: One more question.

BIDEN: OK, thank you all very much. Thank you.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Biden in the East Room of the White House talking about the latest in the Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He talked about cutting off exports from the United States to Russia, talking about freezing Russian assets, talking about imposing new sanctions.

Let's go right now to Clarissa Ward, who is in Kharkiv, Ukraine, about, I don't know, somewhere between 15 and 20 miles from the Russian border. We have teams throughout the region.

And, Clarissa, you just heard some kinetic sounds of some sort, bombing or shells?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake.

It was sort of ironic. As President Biden was laying out the U.S.' response to this invasion, we were here on the ground hearing a loud series of booms. They were still quite far in the distance. And -- but, still, you can imagine for the people of this city just how unnerving a time this is.

Because the reality is that no one knows what is coming next down the pipeline. Will there be an all-out ground assault on this city? This is the second largest city in the country, 1.4 million people. You have a huge buildup of Russian tanks and weaponry and personnel, field hospitals, blood just on the other side of the border.

And from what we understand, there have been movements towards this city. Ukrainian forces have been trying to defend the city. And, so far, they haven't reached it. But, for people here, this is a moment of real urgency, because, if Russian troops arrive here in the city, what does that mean happens next? Will they surround it? Will they attack it? Will they lay siege to it?

A lot of people have been hunkered down in subway stations, metro stations. They have become now impromptu bomb shelters, hundreds of people we saw down there for hours with their children, with their pets, with whatever they could grab from their homes before they left.

And the only thing they don't have is any sense of where this goes now. We heard a lot of those people saying to us once they understood we were international journalists, what is the world going to do to come to our aid?

And I think these sanctions, robust as they are, will be greeted certainly by Ukraine's leadership with positivity, because they are very strong. But for most ordinary people on the ground, the reality is, in this moment, it doesn't provide that much comfort, because sanctions, as we know, they can take a while before you really feel the bite.

And a lot of people theorize that President Putin has already factored the cost of them into his calculations and has clearly gone beyond the Rubicon in terms of abiding by international norms and responding in rational ways to things like sanctions.

And so the fear here becomes that that won't deter him, that it won't be enough to stop what could be a bloody onslaught, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Clarissa Ward in Kharkiv in the Eastern Ukraine.

Let's go now to Erin Burnett, who's in Western Ukraine in Lviv.

And, Erin, this is -- I think it's -- empirically, these are strong sanctions, an announcement of measures that the United States is taking that will hurt the Russian economy. But I do wonder what people in Ukraine will think, if it's too little, too late.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Certainly, there will be something about -- I second exactly what Clarissa saying.

It will be welcomed by the government. To people here, it will not feel like much. But there is great gratefulness and enthusiasm for what the United States has done. I think so much depends on what happens over these next hours and days, though, Jake.

But, as you -- you described them as robust. I think that's fair. Obviously, it's a disappointment that Europe would not get on board with bands to the SWIFT banking system.

[14:10:00]

I suggest four numbers matter here, Jake. One of them is $100 a barrel. That is where both Brent and crude oil are trading right now. So denying Russia and those companies that deal with that the ability to benefit from that, that's pain. To the extent that they can still sell it to China, which they can, China is still going to remain, unless there is a big development here, going to pretty much become the primary buyer of a lot of Russian things and the primary provider of those tech exports.

So I give you that number. Another number, 33 percent, that's how much the Russian stock market finished down today after initially losing half its value. So there is pain there.

Putin said about an hour or two ago to the wealthy in that country that your patriotic duty is to now shoulder some of the downside here, making it very clear there will be pain.

The other number Jake is the unknown. Did you hear the president say, elites and their families, the billionaires, the corrupt? He didn't tell you how many and he didn't tell they -- who they are. He said we're going to know in the coming days. And that is crucial.

So far, they have only sanction five of them. Today, the U.K. came out with a list of 100. I need to go through that to give you a better sense of how strong that is. But the ones that the U.S. government put out the other day, not a single one was in the list anywhere near the top 25, 35, 45 wealthiest Russians.

So this list is going to really matter. That is the great unknown number. So I think these are just a few of the things to think about. They have real meat and bones. They matter. He's right. It's a long- term, not a short-term proposition. So there's a lot of unknown. But a lot is going to come down to who those individuals are, and are they really going to block them from access to the things they care about the most, the art galleries, the yachts, the women and the glitz of the Western world?

That's what they want. And if that isn't blocked, then they will not be effective.

TAPPER: All right, Erin Burnett, stay safe in Lviv.

Let's go now to Matthew Chance. He's in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

And, Matthew, I guess one of the questions I have for you is, it does seem as though, given the Russian troops that you saw not far from Kyiv not long ago, it does seem that the capital city of Ukraine is under threat of being captured. And I'm wondering how tangible the threat is and what you're hearing on the ground.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's in jeopardy, obviously.

In terms of what I'm hearing right now, it's very quiet. You look out about -- around the expanse of the Ukrainian capital right here behind me, and it seems very calm. There's nobody on the streets. You can't hear jets in the sky. You certainly can't hear the thundering airstrikes that we witnessed 24 hours ago.

But I know for a fact that, just 15 miles away, there is an air base which has been taken over by Russian special forces. And there are other air bases and strategic locations around the capital city as well where Russian forces are positioned, creating an airhead, an air corridor, if you like, so that more troops, presumably, and armor can be brought in.

And so it opens up the whole question of, what does Vladimir Putin have in store for this capital city? The concern amongst Ukrainian officials -- and they say this quite openly now -- is that they think, within the next few days, that Russian forces will have surrounded the capital, with the intention of taking it over, with the intention of toppling the Ukrainian leadership and installing instead a pro-Moscow puppet government.

Well, earlier, I witnessed that process perhaps firsthand, the start of it, at least. I confronted or had an encounter, an unexpected one, with the Russian forces. And, first of all, we thought they were Ukrainian troops. So we went out to talk to them outside the base that had been -- where they had been fighting, where Russian troops had landed.

And I asked them, who was in charge? Was it the Russians and the -- or the Ukrainians? And they said, it's the Russians. And I said, well, where are the Russians then? Where are they now? And they said, we're the Russians.

And so it was at that point that we realized that we'd come in direct contact with that forward special airborne forces that had been sent by Moscow to take over those strategic locations. There was a brief firefight in the area, as the Ukrainian military tried to stage a counteroffensive.

But when we left that location, it was the Russians still very much in control. And that still hangs a big question over what will come next for Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital and, of course, for the rest of the country where there are things like that happening, clashes like that happening across the nation -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Matthew Chance in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Nic Robertson's in Moscow, Russia, for us.

Nic, you just heard Matthew hypothesizing as what comes next. Do the Russians create a multi-hundred-thousand-troop occupation? Or is there something else they can do? Can they install a puppet government, a puppet regime and recognize the -- quote, unquote -- "independence" of that country, as they did I believe in the breakaway republics of Russia? I'm sorry, of Georgia, of Georgia.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. Yes.

Jake, I think, from the language that we have heard from the Kremlin so far, the way that they talked about denazification, this is -- this is something without substance that they level at the government in Kyiv right now.

[14:15:08] So, I think it's very clear from the Kremlin they absolutely intend to replace the government of President Zelensky. What they plan to do in that place -- in place of him is anyone's guess. But it would seem very reasonable to think that they would have to put somebody in charge of the country. Who that person is isn't clear.

Certainly, the British government about four weeks ago outed the name of one Ukrainian politician who they thought Russian authorities want to install as president of the country, whether that's -- whether that's changed subsequently.

The Kremlin at the moment is saying that they're not intending to have an occupation in the country, that they're intending only to denazify, as they call it, and hit the military installations.

What we have witnessed here in Moscow this evening are ongoing protests for several hours, anti-war protesters. I can tell you, more than 800 people have been arrested in Moscow this evening, more than 1,500 people arrested in different protests across Russia in 50 different cities.

So, the mood on the streets here in Russia, you have the police who are standing by here still in this Central Moscow location, telling people that they do not have the right to gather here, they do not have the right to hold an anti-war protest. Government officials have been warning them, if they do, they could face prosecution.

If they are prosecuted and found guilty, then that would be a criminal record. That criminal record could hurt them further on in their life. So this is a very tough warning from the government for the citizens of their country.

If they plan their own leadership in Ukraine -- this is hypothesis -- if they plan to control the country of Ukraine, the citizens of Ukraine can therefore expect to have the democracy that they have been enjoying transferred into an autocracy like this, where the population doesn't have the right of protests, as they do in Ukraine at the moment, doesn't have the right to come out and voice their own opinions, doesn't have the opportunity to vote in free, fair and independent elections.

Precisely how the Kremlin here intends to manage that isn't clear. But it's absolutely clear, in their own country, they will brook no dissent. People we have seen being arrested today harshly arrested, thrown up against the side of police vans, posters taken off of them that have said, "Stop the war."

There is a hard press in Moscow to force the message at home that they intend to force through this war in Ukraine.

TAPPER: All right, Nic Robertson in Moscow, Russia, thank you so much.

Let's go to the White House now, where our chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins was just trying to get an answer to the question from President Biden, why not sanction Vladimir Putin? And, Kaitlan, great question. He did not ultimately answer it.

COLLINS: No.

And, Jake, this is something that President Biden I have actually spoken about before, because this is something he said was on the table in recent weeks, where a big focus of the talk here at the White House has been what the response would do if Putin did what he did last night.

And they have been compiling this list of sanctions, the ones that President Biden unveiled today, talking about them with allies, and just also, of course, after in recent days, you saw those initial actions by Putin, the ones that people like the secretary of state, Blinken, said would lead to what happened last night and this attack that's unfolding, this attack that's unfolding on Ukraine right now.

President Biden had said that sanctioning President Putin himself personally was on the table and was in the list of options. He told me today that that is still something that is on the table, that is a consideration of his. But he did not say why he's choosing today to not take that option, to not take that step and go as far as to sanctioning the Russian leader himself.

He did say they will be adding some rational elites to the list of sanctions. Of course, that is often a way that U.S. officials have talked about in a way to target the leader himself, saying maybe he stores his wealth in other places, takes other actions with those in his inner circle.

So we will be waiting to see exactly what those names are and who is on that list, Jake, of who's going to be affected by this today. But I do think what just happened in that press conference and with President Biden's remarks before them speaks to the larger question of what is going to happen next here, which I think, as you have seen senior defense officials say, they do believe Putin is targeting the capital of Ukraine.

They do believe he is going to try to remove the leadership and put in his own pro-Russian leadership there. It raises a lot of questions about what's next here. And you saw President Biden saying that he believes President Putin will become a pariah, that Russia will become weakened because of the actions that he's taken.

Of course, how that works and the calculus that the Russian leader himself is putting into this really remains to be seen, what it looks like next, and how they respond.

One other thing I do want to note, President Biden said he had spoken to the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, which happened last night, when Zelensky asked him to help rally the international community behind Ukraine to help them at this time of what is obviously so desperate need.

[14:20:03]

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much.

And let's come back to my panel here.

Before I do, though, I want to note that the secretary of defense has ordered the deployment of 7,000 U.S. service members to Europe. I believe they are going to Germany to bolster our NATO allies. In addition, troops and service members that are already in Europe are going to be going to the eastward flank, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, all of which are NATO countries.

Abby Phillip, one thing that is particularly warped in Vladimir Putin's view -- everything is upside down -- but to call the removal of Ukraine's democratically elected president, who is Jewish, denazification, the removal of Nazis, is yet another indication of just his warped view of the world.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, living in a fantasy land.

But what is propelling him is, as President Biden said, naked aggression. And that's the scary part. The question, though, is, how does this end? As Kaitlan was saying, a President Biden said Putin committed an assault on the very principles that uphold global peace. This was never about genuine security concerns.

So how do you get them back at the table? How do you get them out of Ukraine? It almost seemed today that President Biden was effectively conceding they're probably not getting him out of Ukraine. These sanctions are not about stopping this particular conflict. It's about deterring potentially Putin going even further.

But I think there's a big question mark at the end of that about why that would actually -- what is the argument that that would actually work? Because this might inflict pain on the Russians, on Putin's allies. But that threat was not enough to stop him from going into Ukraine. It's hard to see it stopping him from doing anything more.

TAPPER: And, John King, in the last -- we have been covering Ukraine and we have been covering Russia for a long time now, not just this latest episode, but in general.

Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush's former national security adviser, told me in 2014 that it was a mistake for the Bush administration to have not imposed sanctions on Russia after Russia took parts of Georgia. General Clapper just told me the other day that he wished that the Obama administration had been more aggressive in 2014 when Putin seized Crimea.

Are we going to have another interview in five years, six years of somebody from the Biden administration saying, yes, we did some tough sanctions, but I wish we had done everything, I wish we'd thrown everything at him?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It appears not, but you raise a good question. Come back in a year or two or three, and put it to that test. But I do think, at the moment, you see the romanticization of the

United States government would somehow hope that Putin would come into the West or not be a bad actor, that is over. That is over at the moment, when you hear bully, empire, aggressor, war, sinister, pariah, those words from the president of the United States about Vladimir Putin.

I was covering the Clinton White House when Putin first came up as prime minister and then president. I remember Bill Clinton meeting with him at the time. Could he be a reformer? Who is this guy from the KGB who had been a relative moderate as the mayor of St. Petersburg? Would he be a moderate when he -- and then he replaced Boris Yeltsin.

George W. Bush, remember, at the Slovenia summit, "I looked into his soul."

And so the evolution is now complete. Vladimir Putin has exposed himself. But I think Abby made a key point at the end there. Can the president now hold this alliance together? Can he keep the American people with him if gas prices go up, if there's other turmoil in the economy?

America stands up to bullies, the president said here, because Erin Burnett talked about the next days and hours. And we will see how much military action tonight. When the daylight comes, where are Russian troops? are there more troops on the ground? We can't answer those questions.

But the president said the Ukrainian people are going to have a tough few weeks and months. The president was conceding, I cannot stop Vladimir Putin from taking Ukraine. I'm going to make it very painful for him to keep it.

TAPPER: And I read a piece in "The Atlantic" a few weeks ago by Anne Applebaum that said that the West is just dealing with Putin all wrong, that we keep acting as though he is somebody who is an operator in the normal order of things. And we can't. The West can't anymore.

And that's been obvious for years, that everything that he enjoys, from access to Western banks, to oligarchs being able to buy condos in Miami and London, all of it needs to be taken away, that there's no other way to deal with him. He only understands brute force. Do you agree with that?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I do.

And I think what heightens all the frustration here about the imposition of sanctions is, it doesn't give you instant gratification. They, full up, Ukraine. Well, I think the notion of metering out more sanctions is diminishing returns now. And I don't quite understand the reticence.

I think we ought to use every tool we have.

TAPPER: Throw the book at them, as it were.

CLAPPER: So to speak.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And, on that note, we heard a lot -- because of the moment we're in, the what is really important. What are you going to do?

[14:25:05]

And so President Biden laid out the answer to that, talking about more sanctions, talking about sending more U.S. troops to bolster, not to be in Ukraine, but to bolster NATO and American allies in Europe.

But beyond the he's a bully, beyond the he's a pariah, and saying that -- using the word empire, which our friend David Sanger noted that an American president hasn't talked about empire since Ronald Reagan and the evil empire, so all that's important, but there was -- I'm actually a little bit surprised there wasn't more of the why. Why is this important, right, American citizens?

TAPPER: Right.

BASH: Now, for a lot of people, it might seem obvious why, but maybe not ever -- in fact, we know it's not everybody, because there's more of a divided America than we have seen ever before on stopping the likes of Vladimir Putin.

So there wasn't as much of that as I thought there would be. And I -- having said that, I understand that this is a moment in time where an American president is standing up and saying, this is what we're going to do in the short term, but, along with that, we're used to hearing, and this is why we're going to do it, a bit more.

TAPPER: Indeed.

Thanks to all of you for joining me.

Our coverage of the breaking news in Ukraine, Russia invading a sovereign country, continues on CNN.

I will see you back at about -- about an hour-and-a-half, 4:00 p.m. Eastern, for "THE LEAD."

See you then.

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