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Biden Announces New Effort To Cut Gas Prices; Biden Says Putin Seems To Be Self-Isolating; Heavy Shelling In Eastern Ukraine As Russia Shifts Focus; Jared Kushner Voluntarily Meets With January 6th Committee. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 31, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Able to weatherize your homes. Save them money to keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's a direct grant.

This program has been around for a while, and in the past, it's delivered to families -- average families another $327 in savings when they weatherize. But now we have the ability to reach 10 times as many families because of the legislation that we already passed in the legislation.

In addition to that, we're also setting new standards to boost fuel economies for new vehicles sold in America. Within five years, we're going to travel 10 miles more on every single gallon we have because the average fuel economy of 49 miles to the gallon is going to be required. That means hundreds of dollars in savings for families at the pump.

We're also setting similar standards for appliances, from your air conditioner to your microwave to your refrigerator, washers, dryers. It's just one of a hundred actions we're taking to save the average family $100 per year in utility bills.

Look, the bottom line is this. Between rapping up -- ramping up production in the short term and driving down demand in the long term, we can free ourselves from our dependence on imported oil from across the world.

Look, I know gas prices are painful. I get it. My plan is going to help ease that pain today and safeguard again -- against it tomorrow. I'm open to ideas to strengthen the plan, but I will not be put off and put it on hold. It's time to deliver true long-term energy independence in America once and for all. And I'm going to continue to use every tool at my disposal to protect you from Putin's price hike.

This is not time for politics. Americas -- Americans can't afford that right now. So let's meet this moment together. Remember, we're the only nation that has turned every crisis we ever faced into an opportunity. We have a crisis, the price at the pump. So let's show some true strength of this nation, show our unity, our resolve, our innovative spirit in America, and come out of this, long term, much better off. If we stand up to the bullies of the world, the autocrats and the

dictators, we stand up for those who are ready to unite. Unite with us, the United States of America.

So, may God bless you. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How badly is Vladimir Putin being misinformed by his advisers?

BIDEN: That's an open question. There's a lot of speculation, but he seems to be -- I'm not saying this with a certainty. He seems to be self-isolating. And there's some indication that he has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers. But I -- I don't want to put too much stock in that at this time because we don't have that much hard evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, how much in monetary terms do you estimate today's announcement will reduce gas prices? And when can Americans expect to see these changes?

BIDEN: That's a really important question, and there's no firm answer to it. But prices already came down when it was announced ahead of time that Biden was going to release so much -- so much energy -- so many barrels of oil from the SPRO. They're already come down. My guess is we'll see it come down -- continue to come down. But how far down, I don't think anyone can tell.

And there's going to be a slight delay because if you go out there and you're a gas station and you purchased X amount of gas at a certain price, you're not going to lower the price of the pump until you're able to get back what you invested. And that -- I'm talking a matter of, I think, you know, days and weeks. But it's hard to tell.

And the other thing is exact. But it will come down. And it could come down fairly significantly. It could come down the better part of, you know, anything from 10 cents to 35 cents a gallon. It's unknown at this point.

I'm also waiting to see whether or not our allies, exactly how many, how many barrels they released from their supplies. Now, my guess is it could be as high -- somewhere between 30 million to 50 million barrels. And the higher the number, the more likely the prices will come down.

Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: All right, President Biden there talking about the administration's efforts to bring down gas prices, talked about three different phases. One, of course, as we've talked about leading up to this, releasing 180 million barrels, one per day for the next six -- three months rather, or six months, I should say, from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Also these fees it is asking -- oh, here's the president.

BIDEN: Whoever asked that question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I asked that, yes.

BIDEN: Question of whether he's pulling back the forces depends on how you read exactly what's going on.

[14:05:05]

Thus far, there is no clear evidence that he's pulling all his forces out of Kyiv. There is also evidence that he is beefing up his troops down in the Donbas area. Depending on your view of Putin, I'm a little skeptical. It's an open question whether he's actually pulling back and going to, say, I'm just going to focus on the Donbas and I'm not worried about the rest of the country.

I'm a skeptic. But I don't have proof that, in fact, he is not going -- he's taking a pause, doing all he can to use all the troops he has in the Donbas and continue to keep an eye on and try to move beyond the rest of the country. Don't know the answer. But it appears so far that he has not pulled all of his -- the idea he's pulling all the troops out from around Kyiv and moving south, there's no evidence that he's done that.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: All right, the president also talking about Vladimir Putin's strategy in Ukraine, but this event, of course, was to talk about gas prices.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But President Biden is the master of the circle back when he has something else he wants to see. This isn't the first time.

BLACKWELL: Thought about an answer, something he wanted to hit.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Something else he wanted to say. Exactly.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Yes.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Kaitlan Collins is with us from the White House. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is with us also, along with CNN global economic analyst Rana Faroohar.

Kaitlan, this is unprecedented. This release from the strategic reserves, one million barrels a day. So how did he get to this point?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, of course, he is facing a lot of political pressure at home, as people are feeling those gas prices, the effect of those, and the most direct way that this war is hurting Americans here, of course, and so that's why the president was addressing it, though I do want to talk about what he answered to that first question really quickly because he said that Putin seems to be self-isolated and he has indications that Putin has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers. Now, I should note that President Biden added a caveat there, saying

he doesn't have hard evidence of that. That is clearly what some of the intelligence is showing, but that is noteworthy because we had heard that Putin had felt misled by a lot of his military advisers. There was some mistrust between the two of them, tension between President Putin and his top military advisers, according to this declassified intelligence yesterday.

But yesterday President Biden didn't want to talk about it, but there he told our colleague, MJ Lee, he believes that Putin has fired or put under house arrest some of his own advisers as this invasion has gone on, and obviously, as we have noted, Russia clearly thought their military was better equipped and better -- had a better strategy than it did. So that is really notable from President Biden there.

It's the first time he's commented in detail on this declassified intelligence. But back to the announcement he was making when it comes to gas prices and what they are doing with this historic release from the strategic reserves. This is the biggest release that they have ever done. It's going to be a million barrels a day for the next 180 days, next six months, so about 180 million barrels of oil that they're releasing, and it is all a direct effort to try to lower gas prices.

And the president is also calling on oil companies here at home to ramp up production. You saw him asking Congress to put fees on those that he believes are not doing enough, but that is something that is going to take a long time, even if they do increase production. He acknowledged that there, saying it's going to take months, not days. That's why he's doing this release.

We should note industry experts do still believe you could see record high gas prices this summer. They just may not be as high as they had initially predicted.

BLACKWELL: So let's continue with that.

Rana, the president said no one really knows how low gas prices will come down, but does this help, and how soon?

RANA FAROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: It's a great question. I think it depends on, A, how much European countries release, and B, how quickly and by what method these reserves can get out there in the country. Are they going to come by pipeline? Are they going to come by ship? You know, are there going to be logistics issues in play?

I think what's really interesting, though, is the president is really connecting the long-term and the short-term here. He's saying, we need more energy security. This is a national security issue. We've got to pump more at home, made in America, all of that, connecting that to climate change, jobs and lower prices, potentially, for consumers.

The other thing that really struck me, I must say, is hearing him say this is not just about consumers. It's about community and country. I think you're going to hear a lot more about that sort of patriotic capitalism going forward. CAMEROTA: Rana, one more question about the oil and gas initiative or

announcement that he's making. Basically, the oil and gas industry is sitting on more than 9,000 approved permits for production on federal lands and the president really hit there that it's time for that to stop. What does all that mean?

FAROOHAR: Well, it's very interesting, economically and politically. This administration has been very tough on big companies and companies with high profit margins, companies doing a lot of buying back their own shares, which artificially raises prices for stock owners but doesn't do much for main street.

[14:10:02]

He's hitting that message home again. Again, that is a message you're going to hear all throughout the rest of the year and into the midterms, and you know, I think it's legitimate at this point. You're talking about, you know, a crisis. You're talking about a sort of wartime industrial strategy and he's using all the levers, the Defense Production Act, that are at his fingertips to push companies.

BLACKWELL: Nic, to you. The news that the president made here, talking about Vladimir Putin in which he says that President Putin seems to be isolating himself, maybe put some of his advisers under house arrest. This is after we hear from U.K. spy officials that they believe that there's low morale within the ranks of Russian troops, that they are refusing some orders, that they accidentally shot down one of their planes.

I wonder if potentially this house arrest suggests that now maybe President Putin knows what has been kept away from him.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: There's certainly been concern raised about Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defense minister. He is one of the people who's sort of in the inner, innermost circle and most trusted by President Putin. They've known each other for decades, grew up in St. Petersburg, and there were hints that he perhaps had been removed from Putin's inner circle.

It really isn't clear but Putin has demonstrated that he isn't getting accurate information. He overreached by going for Kyiv. What we heard from Jeremy Flemming, the head of U.K.'s GSHQ, the spy agency, as you say, very much like the NSC in the United States, they're saying that the Russian troops sabotaging their own equipment, didn't have the right equipment, mistakenly shot down one of their own aircraft, wouldn't go into combat when they were ordered into combat.

This is information that they believe, the British believe, is being withheld from President Putin. But I think you're also seeing today President Putin taking some decisions, and I have to reference here what President Biden has announced about the oil because President Putin has sort of matched that and raised the stakes in Europe today because he has told the European Union that all gas -- all gas and oil products must be purchased from Russia going forward in rubles only.

The United Kingdom, Germany, and France have today said they won't do that. The European Commission president is meeting on this issue right now to form a united position for the European Union. So, President Putin, it appears, is essentially saying that he thinks he's got through the first hurdle of sanctions and that he doesn't need this money for these gas and oil products coming from the European Union, and that's certainly the assessment of the Polish prime minister earlier today.

He said that Putin has calculated, for now at least, in the short- term, he survived that first round of sanctions. Now that obviously raises the other question. What sort of advice is Putin getting about his finances? If he was so misadvised about his military, is he miscalculating now? He's certainly indicating on the issue of oil, taking today, the day that President Biden announced releasing all those reserves, to then essentially tell Europe, if you don't buy in rubles, you're not going to get gas and oil. We all know what that could potentially do to the markets.

CAMEROTA: Nic, really interesting. Kaitlan, Rana, thank you all.

OK, turning now to the latest on the war in Ukraine. A short time ago, the Ukrainian Nuclear Authority said Russian forces has withdrawn from Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster.

BLACKWELL: The U.S. is also saying that it's seen Russians pulling back from an airport they seized northwest of Kyiv. The NATO secretary general warns the Russians are not withdrawing but repositioning to the contested Donbas region. You heard President Biden mentioned that possibility as well. Ukraine believes Russians are also regrouping in Belarus to the north.

Meanwhile, Russian attacks continue. Images from Kyiv and Chernihiv show how extreme the suffering is. Russia had promised to drastically reduce hostilities in both cities but that is not happening. The mayor of Chernihiv said that attacks are actually increasing.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Don Lemon joins us from Lviv in western Ukraine.

So, Don, we've all been following that widespread destruction of the southeastern port city of Mariupol. 90 percent, we're told, of the buildings there are damaged and then there was this humanitarian corridor that was supposed to be set up to help Ukrainians get out of the city, but what happened?

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's a terrible situation here, Victor and Alisyn. 45 buses, as a matter of fact, were headed to Mariupol, and a Ukrainian official said that they were held up at a Russian checkpoint. The official said that the hope was to open a humanitarian corridor to help the 100,000 Ukrainians still stranded in Mariupol. No word on any movement of that convoy.

[14:15:02]

But the International Committee of Red Cross is also trying to get the civilians safe passage there, so we'll continue to report on that. The Russians are saying one thing, doing another. I want to get right to Ukraine's capital now and CNN's chief

international anchor, is of course Christiane Amanpour. She is in Kyiv. She's been there for a few days now, reporting from the ground.

Christiane, hello to you. An official tells CNN that the Russians have increased their number of aircraft missions in the last 24 hours. Air strikes are also becoming more common in Kyiv. What do we know about where this is -- has been happening and why those regions?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: So, a senior Defense official, actually U.S. senior Defense official tells me that, yes, they do think that the assault on Kyiv by the ground forces has stalled and has stopped and they have not monitored any further advances for several days now. They also see what we're hearing now, you know, quite a lot from various different organizations, whether it be NATO, the U.S., Ukraine, et cetera, and actually, forces on the ground here, that the forces are regrouping and shifting away from the capital and into Belarus for resupply, refitting, and maybe, who knows where they might come back.

Would it be back to Kyiv? Would it be over to Donbas, which apparently the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the president has said they want to concentrate on? That, we don't know. But what we do know, according to the official, and we witnessed it today, is that as this is happening, the Russians will continue with their air strikes, i.e. missiles and aircraft, and sure enough, today in the last few hours, we have had two very, very significant missile strikes here in the heart of this city, not far behind me by the river.

We're not sure exactly what the intended target was, but it's, for us, certainly for the last several weeks, it is a development. It's a first. So what are they doing? Not entirely sure. But that does seem to be happening as they're also trying to regroup -- Don.

LEMON: Christiane, I've been watching your reporting, and you have been speaking to -- I saw you speaking to a female member of parliament who is now carrying her gun around. I saw you speaking to some of the folks who managed to stay there, and to some of those soldiers who have been defending the capital there. Do they know what is coming next?

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, just like everybody else, they say, you know, we'll believe it, you know, when we see it actually happening. We're not going to take any Russian word for it. And the reason they say that is because they really, really do have experience. I was out at the outskirts of this capital, somewhat, you know, further out to the northeast, and that is where the Ukrainian defenders actually halted the first Russian armored assault that was coming from that region and from that direction to this capital.

And they stopped it. They stopped it with their anti-tank missiles, the Javelins. We spoke to a couple of the soldiers about that, and they told me that they did it because as this column was coming down, the first thing the column did was turn its guns on residential houses, and the Ukrainians could not believe it. And they said, as we watched them just keep doing that, we -- you know, they didn't know we were here.

We got our missiles, we fixed him -- and this is one guy, I fixed him in my sights and good-bye to that tank and everybody in it. And we saw, you know, at least half a dozen shells of armored vehicles and tanks. Then I spoke to the commander of the operation, and this is what he told me sort of more about the big picture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: As for now, looking at previous fighting we've had, I can tell you that we are trained better, he tells me. We have stronger morale and spirit because we're at home. They are afraid, but they go because they're made to.

I can tell you I'm almost sure the Russians are regrouping and not retreating, he says. Besides, we are preparing ourselves to go forward. We're not preparing just to defend here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So you see they really do feel that they have everything on their side, but let's just pause for a second because it is not all rosy and rose-tinted glasses by any stretch of the imagination. Obviously what's happening in Mariupol, absolutely inhumane, even the French have said, well, and the French have said that even if there had been a corridor that had been allowed, it wasn't even for enough hours to amount to anything, much less stopping the buses that were meant to evacuate people from Mariupol.

And so, you know, this remains a very dangerous, fluid and very difficult situation, and the Ukrainians need more weapons.

LEMON: Yes. I can back up what you're saying, Christiane. I spoke to a family just today who escaped Mariupol. They've been here in Lviv for a few days, and they said when they saw the Russian soldiers at those checkpoints, they said the same thing. They were made to come here.

[14:20:03]

They didn't come here on their own volition. They were made to come here. So what your commander is telling you is what I'm seeing on the ground from families who escaped Mariupol as well.

Christiane, I've been glued to your reporting. Continue to report and we'll get back to you. Thank you so much.

Back to New York and Alisyn and Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Don, we'll go back to you in just a moment. Thank you.

Let's turn to Washington now. The House committee investigating the Capitol riot is interviewing former President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. We'll talk about what they want to learn from him.

CAMEROTA: And the Justice Department's investigation into January 6th is expanding. What they're looking at now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:04]

CAMEROTA: Right now, former President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is meeting with the House January 6th Select Committee. He's the first member of the Trump family to sit for an interview with that panel. Also, the Justice Department is widening its investigation to include the people who planned the pro-Trump rally before the Capitol riot, not just the Capitol rioters.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Ryan Nobles joins us now with the latest.

So, Ryan, Jared Kushner was not in the country leading up to January 6th, so what's the committee hoping to learn from him?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a great point, Victor, and I think more than anything it shows us the wide net that the committee is casting as it relates to their investigation into the insurrection on January 6th and that they're not just interested on the events of that day specifically, but everything that led up to what happened here on January 6th, and even though Kushner was not even in the country on that day, he was still one of, if not the closest advisers of the former president, Donald Trump, and of course, his name most recently popped up in this series of text exchanges between the former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas.

So it shows that Kushner was at least aware of the activity that was taking place within the White House, within the campaign, and beyond as it relates to trying to overturn the election results. And it's also important to keep in mind as well that the committee is talking to a lot of people because they have gaps to fill, right? We know now about that big call log gap where there's just more than seven hours of information that is missing from the official White House records, and the committee's made it clear that they're going to find that information from other sources, maybe even Kushner is an example of those sources. Listen to what Adam Schiff told me about trying to fill those gaps last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): We have multiple sources of information about what the president was doing on January 6th. We're putting together a pretty complete picture of what he was doing and importantly what he was not doing while this building was under attack.

In terms of the reasons why reportedly there is a big gap in the call records, that is certainly an issue that the committee is looking into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: But there are a couple of notable things we should say about this Kushner interview. First, it appears he came before the committee voluntarily, which is a very important point and then of course there is the still open question of what happens with his wife, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, who was in the Oval Office on January 6th.

The committee has asked her to come forward and speak to them. She has yet to do that to this point -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, so, Ryan, now tell us how the Justice Department is widening its investigation of the Capitol attack.

NOBLES: Yes, that's right. Up until this point, the Department of Justice focus has really just been on those individuals that actually broke into the Capitol and caused violence. They hadn't really seemed to widen their scope beyond those exact individuals but you can now see that they're starting to broaden that a little bit more and look at the planners of the events that brought people to Washington and also those who funded those events and raised money around it.

Now, at this point, they don't appear to be leaning towards indictments. This seems to be more of a fact-finding mission. They are subpoenaing individuals who have direct knowledge of how these rallies were organized and who paid for them. We don't know exactly what direction they're leaning towards but this doesn't necessarily mean that they're widening the scope into the election -- the efforts to overturn the election.

It may still be related to that violence. That's still an open question. The Department of Justice not commenting on it publicly, but it is significant that the probe is -- seems to be a lot wider than it was just a couple of months ago.

BLACKWELL: All right, Ryan Nobles for us on Capitol Hill. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, are Russian soldiers sabotaging their own equipment? Did they shoot down their own aircraft? What U.K. intelligence is saying.

BLACKWELL: And we're also expecting an update from the Pentagon on the latest fighting in Ukraine. We have that for you ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)