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President Biden Hosts Singapore's Prime Minister at White House; At Least 9 Killed in Russian Airstrike on Mykolaiv Government Building; Officials: 90% of Residential Buildings in Mariupol Damaged or Destroyed; Biden Meets with Singapore's Prime Minister as Ukraine & Russia Express Optimism Following Talks; WAPO: Logs Show 7-Hour Gap in Trump's Jan. 6 Phone Records; Criminal Contempt Charges Recommended for Scavino, Navarro. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 29, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We also discussed a wide range of concerns for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. That includes ensuring that all nations in the region, including China, uphold the principles that enable a free and open region.

Singapore and the United States are both committed to freedom of navigation as well as unimpeded flow of maritime commerce in the South China Sea.

We shared our concerns about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and their destabilizing ballistic missile launches and in clear -- which are clearly in violation of multiple U.N. Council resolutions -- Security Council resolutions.

We both urged North Korea to refrain from further provocations and return to the negotiation table for serious and sustained diplomacy.

We are deeply concerned, both of us, by the continuing suffering and violence in Burma following last year's military coup. The coup that caused a humanitarian crisis and reversed a decade of democratic and economic progress for the people of Burma.

Singapore and the United States agree that the military regime must urgently implement the ASEAN five-point consensus and return Burma to its path to democratic transition.

We also discussed the war in Ukraine. Last week in Europe, the world saw the strong unit -- unified response and resolve among the NATO alliance, the G-7 and the European Union to answer Putin's brutal and unjustified assault on Ukraine.

Today, with the prime minister's visit and Singapore's strong leadership on this issue, it's clear that Putin's war in unacceptable to nations in every region, not just in Europe but in every region of the world.

It's an attack on core international principles that underpin peace and security and prosperity everywhere, including in the Indo-Pacific. Today, Singapore and the United States are united in sending the

message to all nations, to all nations, regardless of their size or population, they are equal in the right -- in their rights on the global stage.

They have a right to sovereignty and territorial integrity and to determine their own future, free from violence and intimidation.

Mr. Prime minister, our nations cooperate closely on security and counterterrorism. We have for some time. And we have deep commercial and economic ties.

We've also developed deep personal ties, I must acknowledge.

And I -- we're going to continue to deepen our partnership and seize the opportunities to meet the challenges of the moment and to meet them together.

Fighting COVID-19, making sure we're prepared for the next pandemic, increasing our climate ambitions, and working to decarbonize the shipping sector, cooperating in everything from cybersecurity to space exploration.

Promoting a broad-based economic growth throughout the Indo-Pacific, including by working together to develop an Indo-Pacific economic framework that will drive enduring prosperity across the region.

So, we have a large agenda, Mr. Prime minister, an important agenda, a shared vision that we are jointly pursuing.

A free and open Indo-Pacific, an Indo-Pacific that is connected, prosperous and more secure and more resilient.

And the U.S./Singapore partnership is essential, I believe, to realize that future.

So thank you, again, Prime Minister Lee. I always appreciate consulting with you.

As I told you, both you and Singapore punch way above your weight. Way above your weight. And I value the time we spend together and look forward to many more meetings.

The floor is yours.

LEE HSIEN LOONG, SINGAPORE PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, President Biden. Thank you for those warm remarks.

President Biden, Ladies and Gentlemen --

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: All right. That is the president of the United States, Joe Biden, meeting with Singapore's president. They are holding a joint news conference there.

If they take questions, we will get back to it. But the president saying that in any nation, Putin's war is unacceptable. Let's get back to what's happening in the region.

Before we went to the president and Singapore's prime minister, I was getting ready to go to Ben Wedeman. And he's in Mykolaiv, a city hit hard by Russian attacks.

So Ben back with us now.

Let's talk about the strikes that continue there. More people were killed there. What can you tell us?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you, Don, that at 8:45 this morning, local time, this city was shaken by a large blast, a Russian airstrike on the regional governor's headquarters. In fact, very much on his office itself.

Now if -- we went to the scene of the blast and it was reminiscent from the shock-and-awe campaign of the United States.

[13:35:06]

According to local officials, at this point -- and this is new -- the death toll from that strike was 13, nine people -- excuse me, 12 people, 33 people wounded.

Now the governor himself, apparently, was sleeping late and that's why he was not at the -- his office at the time. But this -- his office is literally right in the middle of this city.

It seems to have been a precision strike. But what happened was that windows in all the surrounding buildings shattered -- Don?

LEMON: Ben Wedeman, thank you very much. We'll check back with ben.

I want to home in on what's happening in Mariupol. We have new images. Take a look at this apartment building. It's been reduced to a shell of itself. Its former self, after an attack.

And 90 percent of the residential buildings in the city have either been damaged or outright just demolished. Just destroyed by the Russian attacks.

CNN's international correspondent, Phil Black, is live here with me in Lviv to talk about that.

Phil, Russia's now focusing on shifting to southern Ukraine. Is there much hope left for Mariupol?

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There doesn't seem to be, Don. You can see the scale of the damage. The extent of it is extraordinary. So little of the city left.

And what we understand is that the pro-Russian fighters in that city are making progress day by day by day.

The Ukrainians say that their forces, what's left of them, are still defending. They call it a circular defense. Circular because they're surrounded, as they have been for some time.

But the territory they're defending gets smaller every day. So it does seem that there's a sense of inevitability to this. It's difficult to see how the fall of Mariupol can be prevented.

LEMON: You've covered Moscow for a very long time. Why is Mariupol, why is the strategy here so significant, so strategically important for Putin?

BLACK: Ever since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, there's been speculation that Russia would launch an operation to charge down the coast of the Sea of Azov from its southern border in order to create this land corridor connecting the border of the Russian Federation to the Crimean peninsula.

Because, up until now, they have been separated from one another, connected over a bridge that's been built recently. But that's it.

And so in that sense, I think the expectation is that seizing and maintaining that land corridor is one of the bare-minimum military goals of Putin and Russia in this campaign.

And they've established it so far except for one piece. The only missing piece so far is Mariupol.

We've shown, as we've covered this for some weeks now, what they have been prepared to do in order to capture this city. And that is turn it to rubble.

LEMON: Rubble.

BLACK: Yes.

LEMON: It's sad. The more pictures we see, the worse it gets every single day.

BLACK: Mariupol is gone.

LEMON: Thank you, Phil Black. I appreciate it.

Ana, I don't know if you can hear that. As we go back to you in New York, we're hearing air raid sirens going off. They've been going off a couple of times today. Picking up in the background.

We'll see what's happening and let you know.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Yes, please stay safe. We know that Lviv has been a place that's been targeted in the past over the weekend with some shelling.

So do stay safe and keep us posted on what takes place there.

We'll be right back.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President.

CABRERA: We're back. Let's go back live right now to the White House and President Biden in his press conference with the prime minister of Singapore.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- military operation near Kyiv and another northern city in Ukraine.

Do you see this as possibly the war beginning to come to an end, or do you see this as Russia trying to buy time and recalibrate for a new military effort?

[13:40:06]

BIDEN: We'll see. I don't read anything into it until I see what their actions are. We'll see if they follow through on what they are suggesting.

There are negotiations that have begun today -- or not begun, continued today, one in Turkey and others.

I had a meet with the heads of state of four allies in NATO, France, Germany, the United States and -- and Great Britain. And there seems to be consensus that -- let's just see what they have to offer. We'll find out what they do.

But in the meantime, we're going to continue to keep strong sanctions. We're going to continue to provide the Ukrainian military with their capacity to defend themselves. And we're going to continue to keep a close eye on what's going on.

Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Good afternoon, Mr. President.

Good afternoon, prime minister.

Prime minister, you've advocated the benefits for the United States to develop a bipartisan consensus on Asia. Asia depends upon a predictable U.S. policy towards the region.

How assured are you, though, that the momentum that you've seen with ASEAN/U.S. engagement has the ability to move the needle on shared objectives in the Asia-Pacific toward the fundamentals that we all need to live by, peace, prosperity and economic development?

And basically, how well is President Biden doing in this regard?

(LAUGHTER)

LOONG: I think you put it at a broad level. There's consensus in the United States on the direction of their policy in the Asia-Pacific.

They want to engage China. They are developing -- trying to develop a stable, predictable relationship with China.

And at the same time, engaging other countries in the region, not just on strategic and security issues but also on economic cooperation and trade and other investment and environmental and sustainabilities.

So at the very broad level, I think the consensus is there. At a level of specific policies, each administration launches new initiatives.

I'm quite convinced, having seen several administrations, that this one --

CABRERA: OK. We wanted to give you a taste of some of the questions and answers taking place at this joint press conference.

Again, that's the prime minister of Singapore meeting with President Biden today at the White House. And they called this a critical meeting leading up to it.

And they discussed what's happening in Ukraine with Putin's war, as the president called it.

Let's go to our Barbara Starr at the Pentagon now.

Barbara, the president's expressing extreme caution or what was, you know, progress as it was described by the Turkish officials today.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: He is being very cautious, and I think it's very fair to say the State Department, the Pentagon lining up behind him with that note of caution.

All indications, at least for today, are some Russian forces are backing away from the capital, Kyiv, repositioning, withdrawing from the capital, if you will.

And that the Russians are now focusing on their military operations more in the south and the east in the so-called Donbass region.

That is something that the Russians want to take full control of beyond what they already have.

But look, that's where the battlefield is today. And that's why you're seeing the caution.

Nobody can really be sure if this is a long-term move by the Russians, if it really signals progress on the road to some kind of agreement, or if the Russians are simply buying time and they may circle back at some point.

Remember, you know, Russian ground forces are very slow on the battlefield. They have not been making significant progress.

The destruction, the overwhelm overwhelming destruction you're seeing is coming from Russia's air force.

It's the launching of missiles by their aircraft, which are finding safe haven back across the border in Russia and launching from there, staying out of the range of Ukraine surface to air missiles, Ukraine air defense.

So there's a lot of reason for caution.

Look, they hope it's a signal in the right direction. But this is a real situation where they're going to have to see how it plays out over the next several days.

President Biden very much making the point he wants the coalition to hold together and he wants to continue providing defensive military equipment to the Ukrainians so they can continue to prosecute their campaign.

The biggest risk right now would be if the coalition were to falter -- Ana?

CABRERA: All right. Barbara Starr, thank you very much.

[13:44:57]

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: New details are emerging about an unexplained gap in President Trump's phone records on the day of the insurrection.

You may recall, CNN reported back in February that several hours of phone records were missing from the official White House documents turned over to the Select Committee.

According to "The Washington Post" and CBS News, that gap, in which no calls are shown, going to or from Trump, is actually seven hours and 37 minutes, from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on the day of the insurrection. That is the entirety of the capitol attack.

[13:50:01]

I want to bring in CNN's senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, Elie Honing.

Elie, help us understand the significant of this gap in the phone records.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Ana, there's a lot we know and there are really important things we don't know.

Here's what we know for sure. During the morning of January 6th, Donald Trump was using the official White House phone, the one on the log, to make a series of calls, every few minutes.

He was calling important people, advisers, some of whom had been involved in the plot to try to steal the election. And then seven hours and 37 minutes later he picked up that phone again. But there's that gap.

Who is he talking to before and after the gap? Because that gives us some important indications.

People like Steve Bannon, who we knew was crucial in plotting to steal this election. Rudy Giuliani, who was leading the effort to pressure Mike Pence, your state legislators. Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, really important people. People in on that plot.

We know Donald Trump was in contact with them until 11:17 and then he stopped. That leaves us with a gap.

The trick now is figuring out what was going on, who was he talking to during that gap in time?

CABRERA: How do investigators, lawmakers on the House committee get to the bottom of it?

HONIG: There's ways to do this. You have to do a bit of investigative reverse engineering.

There's things the committee knows from testimony that they got from other witnesses. We know that, in that seven-and-a-half-hour gap, Donald Trump spoke with Kevin McCarthy.

This is the call where McCarthy is in the capitol while it's under siege and he begs Donald Trump to call off his followers.

He was on the phone with Senator Lee.

So you subpoena the recorder for McCarthy, for Lee, and you look at every phone call, every phone call has two ends to it, what phone is on the other end. Look at that number, then you can subpoena those records.

And that will fill in what phone was Donald Trump using during that key period.

Then the other question is, was he in contact with other people? Again, by reverse engineering it, you look at those phone records, who else was this phone in contact with?

CABRERA: The committee has had some challenges in getting people to talk or getting people to hand over records.

One of the people they've been trying to get to cooperate is Dan Scavino, who they held in contempt of Congress, the committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress just last night. Now it has to go to the full House for a vote on that.

The question is, what is he potentially -- what role does he have? What role does he have to hide?

If he is held in contempt, do you think the DOJ will do anything about it?

HONIG: Dan Scavino is potentially a key player here. He was one of Donald Trump's right-hand men. Reportedly -- we've heard Gloria Borger and others report -- Donald Trump would frequently use Dan Scavino's phone to send tweets and talk on the phone.

We know for sure Dan Scavino talked to Trump several times throughout January 6th.

Interestingly, he was in the first batch of subpoenas that the committee served way back in September. And only now are they getting around to holding him in contempt.

What happens next? If the full House votes on contempt, it goes over to the Justic Department. Only DOJ gets to make the decision on whether to charge him criminally.

Let's remember, they have charged Steve Bannon criminally.

But the question is, where on earth is DOJ on Mark Meadows? It's 105 days since Congress, since the committee sent over a contempt referral on Mark Meadows. Radio silence from the Justice Department.

If they've not decided yet on Mark Meadows, I don't know how long it will take for Dan Scavino.

If they don't charge these people with contempt, they will really undermine the ability for people to testify.

CABRERA: We heard multiple members of the committee, when they voted for contempt of Congress for Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, they said, do your job, do your job, do your job.

HONIG: Yes.

CABRERA: That was like the chant almost or the cheer. They were directing it to the DOJ. There was a level of frustration expressed on their behalf. And 105 days for Mark Meadows.

We know he was in the White House, which could complicate things in terms of identifying what is executive privilege and is he covered by it?

What do you think the holdup is here?

HONIG: It's a great question. Look, there was a palatable sense of frustration yesterday. They kept saying, DOJ do your job so we can do ours.

There's only three possibilities with Meadows. One, the DOJ has not decided yet on whether or not to charge him. It took 22 days to charge Steve Bannon. This isn't that much more complex.

Two is perhaps DOJ decided we're not charging Meadows but we don't want to announce it because then you undermine the committee.

The third is maybe DOJ is just sort of putting this on hold and hoping that the committee and Meadows will come to a negotiated agreement and keep DOJ from taking on what will be a very difficult, politically charged prosecution. CABRERA: Even if the DOJ moves to hold Meadows in contempt, to

prosecute that, even if they move to follow up on these additional contempt of Congress referrals, would it get done any time soon? What is that process?

[13:55:02]

HONIG: There's no way that the process of an indictment, a trial will happen before the midterms at this point with Mark Meadows.

But let's remember, this law that -- the criminal law for contempt of Congress -- that is not meant to force someone to testify.

It won't force Steve Bannon to testify, even if he's convicted. It's just meant to punish.

CABRERA: OK, Elie Honig, as always, thank you so much.

HONIG: Thank you.

CABRERA: That does it for us today. I'll be back tomorrow, same time, same place. Until then, you can always catch me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.

The news continues after a quick break.

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