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CNN Reports, Ivanka Trump Meeting Today With Jan. 6 Committee; President Zelenskyy Addresses United Nations After Bucha Massacre Exposed; U.S Ambassador to U.N. Addresses Russian Atrocities in Ukraine. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 05, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:04]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN NEWSROOM: What role then will satellite, will phones, will all of this technology play in the investigation into these war crimes and images that we're seeing now?

SHAWN TURNER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR U.S. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Yes, Bianna, look, it's a great question. I think it's going to be critical because, as the general said, in the case that the general dealt with, you had video. In this case, we're going to be able to go back and we're going to be able to look at satellite footage of what was happening on the ground at various times. And that footage will at least give us some sense of how that comports with what Russians were claiming.

Now, we already know the Russians are claiming that what we're seeing in Bucha, what we're seeing in other areas with regards of mass graves, we know that they're claiming that those things are being done by the Ukrainians and we know that's nonsense, but we will need evidence to support what we know is true. And so I think that satellite footage that will tell us where Russians are, where Russians are not and where Ukrainian forces are and approximately to the time that we're seeing these mass atrocities will be critical over time.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Shawn, you've spent years in intelligence, reading intelligence, analyzing it at times. There's a lot of speculation about the strength of Putin's leadership given the economic costs, his economy is now paying right now but also the embarrassment of the losses so far in Ukraine. Is it realistic to imagine that his leadership, his power is under threat or do you think it's premature to be speaking in those terms?

TURNER: Yes, Jim, I think it's premature to be speaking in those terms at this point. Look, when we think about Russia, Russia is what we call a hard target. We do our very best over time to collect the best intelligence we can and we've gotten better over the years and we continue to get better.

I will tell you, I've been proud of the intelligence community and my former colleagues because the intelligence that we are collecting has been intelligence that this administration has made a decision to go ahead and to get out there in the public as quickly as possible so people can see what the Russians are up to.

But I think what that intelligence also tells us is that it's very difficult to understand what Putin will do going forward. You mentioned at the start of this invasion, look, there was a time when we were very certain that Putin was going to focus his efforts on the Donbas region and that he may not go any further. But we all now know that that's clearly not the case. And at some point, the intelligence community was able to see that.

And so I think going forward, we'll continue to focus heavily on understanding the people around Putin, collecting intelligence on the people around him, but we have to be mindful of the fact that, at the end of the day, Putin is going to make decisions, and he's isolated, he's not going to share those decisions with a lot of people. And so we're going to be limited in our ability to really understand what he's going to do until the last minute, even with the best intelligence.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. The dangerous part is that, clearly, plan A for him did not work and now he's on to plan B. What does that look? What does plan C look like in those terms as he becomes more and more desperate here?

General George Joulwan and Shawn Turner, thank you, as always.

Well, right now, the U.N. Security Council is discussing Russia's war on Ukraine. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among those expected to speak. We'll listen to their remarks live as soon as they begin.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

GOLODRYGA: And this just into CNN, we're learning that Ivanka Trump will meet today with the House select committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Whitney Wild joins us now. Whitney, did we expect this to happen?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: We thought it was entirely possible, and especially after you saw Jared Kushner go in a few days ago, it seemed more and more likely that she was going to go in. So, again, just to recap, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former President Donald Trump and former White House Senior Adviser, will meet with the January 6th select committee. That's according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

In addition to being one of President Trump's closest advisers, Ivanka had a unique perch from which she saw the events of January 6th. She was with her father for most of the day. She was in the Oval Office for these key meetings, key conversations.

The committee has already heard testimony from other White House officials who recounted Ivanka Trump being in the room during a call with her father and then Vice President Mike Pence.

The committee asked Ivanka Trump to appear voluntarily. Her interview is not under the pressure of a subpoena. Again, this meeting happening virtually, so, unfortunately, we won't be able to ask her any questions as she comes in and out, but the information could be pretty crucial, Jim, especially after we know that Jared Kushner was in that deposition for six hours last week.

SCIUTTO: No question. And, listen, there are a lot of questions, lots of things that she had firsthand knowledge of. Of course, the question is does she seek protection from executive privilege in any way? I mean, do we know if that's a tactic?

WILD: I don't think we know yet. But it is an interesting dynamic to ask somebody about the relationship with their father. It's an entirely intimate relationship. So, I am really curious to know how deep and personal these questions are going to get when it comes to her conversations with her father.

But, again, we already know from past people who have testified, they put her at key moments inside the oval at key times.

[10:40:03]

Here is just a quote from the 11-page letter that the House select committee sent her on January. General Keith Kellogg testified that at the close of the call between former President Trump and then Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump turned to General Kellogg and said, Mike Pence is a good man. They're definitely going to ask that. It's all of these things.

And then if I've said it once, I've a thousand times over the last 14 months. One of the key areas to nail down is what the president was thinking, what he understood about what he was doing and what his actions meant at the time, his closest advisers are very crucial to that.

SCIUTTO: She's a daughter but she's also an official paid role in the White House.

WILD: Right, exactly.

SCIUTTO: Whitney Wild, thanks very much. I believe we are going to the U.N. now. We have Richard Waltz (ph) standing by because the Ukrainian president expected to begin his comments any moment now. We also have Nic Robertson.

Let's go to the Ukrainian president before the U.N. Security Council. Have a listen.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Dear Madam Chairman, Dear Mr. Secretary General, distinguished members of the Security Council and other members of this meeting, thank you very much for this opportunity. I'm sure that all the representatives of the United Nations member states will hear me today.

Yesterday, I returned from our city of Bucha recently, liberated from Russian troops, not far from Kyiv. So, there is not a single crime that they would not commit there. The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. They shot and killed women outside their houses when they just tried to call someone who is alive. They killed entire families, adults and children and they tried to burn the bodies.

I am addressing you on behalf of the people who honor the memory of the deceased every single day and the memory of the civilians who died, who were shot and killed in the back of their head after being tortured. Some of them were shot on the streets. Others were thrown into the wells. So, they died, they are in suffering. They were killed in their apartments, houses, blowing up grenades. Civilians were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars in the middle of the road.

Just for their pleasure, they cut off limbs, cut their throats, slashed their throats, women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because the aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them. So, this is no different from other terrorists, such as Deash, who occupied some territories.

And here, it is done by a member of the United Nations Security Council destroying internal unity, borders, countries and taking the right of more than a dozen of countries who are (INAUDIBLE). They pursue consistent policy of destroying ethnic and religious diversity. They inflame wars and deliberately lead them in such a way that to kill as many regular civilians in cities to leave the country where they deploy their troops in ruins and filled with mass graves.

You all see that. And they support hatred at the level of the state and seek to export it to other countries through their system of propaganda and political corruption. They promote global food crisis that could lead to famine in Africa, Asia and other countries and will surely end in large scale political chaos in many countries and destroying their domestic security.

So, where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee? It's not there. Although there is a Security Council, and so where is the peace? Where are those guarantees that the United Nations needs to guarantee? It is obvious that the key institution of the world, which must ensure the coercion of any aggressor to peace simply cannot work effectively.

Now, the world can see that what Russian military did in Bucha while keeping the city under their occupation, but the world has yet to see what they have done in other occupied cities and regions of our country. Geography might be different or various, but cruelty is the same, crimes are the same and accountability must be inevitable.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you of Article I, Chapter I of the U.N. Charter.

[10:45:03]

What is the purpose of our organization? Its purpose is to maintain peace and make sure that peace is adhered to. And now, the U.N. Charter has violated literally starting with the Article I. And if so, what is the point of all other articles today, as a result of Russia's actions in our country, in Ukraine, the most terrible war crimes of all times we see since the end of World War II, and they are being committed.

Russian troops are deliberately destroying Ukrainian cities to ashes with artillery and airstrikes. They are deliberately blocking city, creating mass starvation, they deliberately shooting columns of civilians on the road trying to escape from the territory of hostilities. They even deliberately blow up shelters where civilians hide from airstrikes. They are deliberating creating conditions in the temporarily occupied territory so that as many civilians as possible are killed there.

The massacre in our city of Bucha is only one, unfortunately, only one of many examples of what the occupiers have been doing on our land for the past 41 days. And there are many more cities, similar places where the world has yet to learn the full truth. Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Borodyanka and dozens other Ukrainian communities, each of them is similar to Bucha.

I know and you know perfectly well what the representatives of Russia will say in response to the accusations of these crimes. They have said that many times. The most significant was after the shooting down of the Malaysian Boeing over Donbas by Russian forces with Russian weapons or during the war in Syria. They will blame everyone just to justify their own actions. They will say that there are various versions, different versions, and it's impossible to establish which one of those versions is true. They will even say that the bodies were -- of those killed were allegedly thrown away and all the videos are staged.

But it is 2022 now. We have conclusive evidence. There are satellite images. And we can conduct full and transparent investigations that this is what we are interested in, maximum access for journalists, maximum cooperation with international institutions, enrolment of the International Criminal Court, complete truth and full accountability.

I'm sure that every member state of the U.N. should be interested in this. For what? In order to punish once and for all, those who consider themselves privileged and believe that they can get away with anything, so show all the other potential war criminals in the world how they will be punished. If the biggest one is punished, then everyone is punished.

And why did Ukraine come to Ukraine? I will tell you, because Russia's leadership feels like colonizers in ancient times. They need our wealth, our people. Russia has already deported hundreds of thousands of our citizens to their country. They have abducted more than 2,000 children, just simply conducted that, those children and continue to do so. Russia wants to turn Ukraine into silent slaves.

The Russian military are looting openly the cities and villages they have captured. This is why, it's looting. They are stealing everything, starting with food, ending with earrings, gold earrings that are pulled out and covered with blood. We are dealing with a state that is turning the veto into the U.N. Security Council into the right to die. This undermines the whole architecture of global security. It allows them to go unpunished, so that they're destroying everything that they can.

So, if this continues, the countries will rely only on the power of their own arms to ensure their security and not on international law, not rely on international institutions. The United Nations can be simply closed. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to close the U.N.? Do you think that the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.

[10:50:01]

The U.N. Charter must be restored immediately. The U.N. system must be reformed immediately so that the veto is not the right to die, that there is a fair representation in the Security Council of all regions of the world. The aggressor must be brought to peace immediately. Determination is needed.

The massacre from Syria to Somalia from Afghanistan to Yemen and Libya, that should have been stopped a long time ago, to tell you the truth. If tyranny had at least once received such a response to the war, it had reached, it would have ceased to exist and honest peace had been guaranteed after it and the world would have changed for sure. And then perhaps there would not be war in my country against our people, against Ukrainian people, against our citizens. But the world watched and did not want to see either the occupation of Crimea or the war against Georgia or taking the entire Transnistria from Moldova and how Russia was preparing the basis for other conflicts and wars near the borders.

How to stop it? Right away, the Russian military and those who gave them orders must be brought to justice immediately for war crimes in Ukraine. Anyone who has given criminal orders and carried out them by killing our people will be brought before the tribunal, which should be similar to the Nuremberg tribunals.

I would like to remind Russian diplomats that a man like von Ribbentrop has not escaped punishment for crimes in World War II. I would also like to remind you that Adolf Eichmann also did not go unpunished. Nobody of them escaped the punishment. But the main thing today, it's time to transform this system, the United Nations.

So, therefore, I propose to convene a global conference and we can do it here in peaceful cave in order to determine how we are going to reform the world's security system, how we will rely, how do we establish guarantee of recognition of borders and integrity of states and countries, how we will assert the rule of international law.

It is now clear that the goals set in San Francisco in 1945 for the creation of a global security international organization have not been achieved and it is impossible to achieve them without reforms. Therefore, we must do everything in our power to pass on to the next generation an effective U.N. with the ability to respond preventively to security challenges and thus guarantee peace, prevent aggression and force aggressors to peace, have the determination and ability to punish if the principles of peace are violated. There can be no more exceptions or privileges. Everybody must be equal, all participants of international relations regardless of economic strength, geographical area and individual ambitions

The power of peace must become dominant, the power of justice, and the security power as humanity has always dreamed of it. Ukraine is ready to provide a platform for one of the main offices of the newly updated security system as similar to the Geneva office that deals with human rights and (INAUDIBLE) office that deals with environmental protection. And in here, we can have U24 office that can specialize in preventive measures to maintain peace.

I would like to remind you of our peaceful mission in Afghanistan, when we, Ukrainians, evacuated from that country, more than 1,000 people at our own extent, it was a very difficult phase and Ukraine came to their help. We took in people of different nationalities, ethnic groups, different faith, Afghan citizens of European countries, U.S., Canada. We did not look who needed help. Was it one of our own or somebody else, we helped all of them. We saved everyone. If every time there was a need, everyone in the world would be confident that help would come.

[10:55:04]

The world would be definitely safer.

Therefore, Ukraine has the moral right to perform the world security system. We have proven that we help others not only happy times but dark times too. And now we need decisions from the Security Council for peace in Ukraine.

If you do not know how to make this decision, you can do two things. Either remove Russia as an aggressor and a source of war, so it cannot block decisions about its own aggression, its own war, and then do everything that we can do to establish peace, or the other option is please show how we can reform or change, dissolve yourself and work for peace. Or if there is no alternative and no option, then the next option would be dissolve yourself altogether. And I know you can admit that if there is nothing that you can do besides conversation, we need peace. Ukraine needs peace. Europe needs peace and the world needs peace. And, finally, I would kindly ask you very much to watch this short video. Please give us one more minute of your time, the video that we want to show that one country can violate rights and that's the result of being unpunished. If possible, please watch this video because it is impossible to get everyone to come to our country and see it with your own eyes. Therefore, I would ask you to watch this video. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not sure, is the video just coming?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Upload it to the technicians of the Security Council.

SCIUTTO: We're waiting here for a video that the Ukrainian president said he was preparing for the members of the U.N. Security Council to watch. Let's listen in to see if they're able to get that through.

BARBARA WOODWARD, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: We don't have the video. I propose that while we sort that out, I thank his Excellency, Mr. Zelenskyy, for his compelling and powerful remarks. We will come back to the video when we sort it out, the technical issues around it.

And may I say, speaking in my national capacity, may I express appreciation to the president for his leadership in wartime and for the extraordinary fortitude and bravery of the Ukrainian people under this unprovoked and illegal invasion.

I resume my function as the president of the Security Council, and while we sort out the technical video, I propose to give the floor to those council members who wish to make statements. And I now give the floor to the representative of the United States.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Thank you, Madam President. Let me also start by thanking UAE and Ambassador Nusseibeh for her successful presidency during the month of March.

Madam President, as you begin your Security Council presidency, I want to thank the United Kingdom for your leadership and for organizing this vital discussion on Ukraine today. I also want to thank the secretary general for his remarks and the other briefers.

And I'd like to extend a warm welcome to President Zelenskyy. I was so moved by the address he made recently to our Congress and we're truly honored by his presence here under the circumstances that he and Ukraine face today.

[11:00:07]