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Obama Makes First Post-Presidency Visit To White House; Zelenskyy To U.N.: World Has Yet To Learn The Full Truth Of Horrors Unfolding Across Ukraine; CNN Crew Escapes Artillery Fire During Russian Attack; Ukraine: Russia Turned Back Evacuation Convoy Headed To Mariupol; White House: U.S. To Announce New Sanctions On Russia Tomorrow; Sources: Ivanka Trump Meets Today With Jan. 6 Committee; GOP Rep. Fred Upton, Who Voted To Impeach Trump, Won't Seek Re-Election. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 05, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But they've got to figure out a way to connect with voters, particularly base voters that largely don't show up in the same way that other voters show up in midterms.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Phil, what do we know about the relationship today between President Biden and former President Obama? And they both talked about their relationship when President Obama was in the White House.

And how does that compare to the relationship that we know of with Vice President Harris and President Biden today?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a great multilayered question that we could probably spend the next hour on.

Look, the way Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, framed it is they're real friends, not Washington friends in terms of the former president and the current president. And I think that's the case.

But it's also a complicated relationship. I think there have been moments where President Biden felt slighted, certainly, by the former President Obama's team, to some degree by President Obama himself in 2016, and when he took his time in 2020 to come out with an endorsement.

They are not regularly on the phone with one another. They obviously haven't seen each other in-person, even though they live a couple of miles apart.

But I think the relationship is real and grounded in what both were referring to, eight years by one another's side, every single week, having lunch in the same place they had lunch today, going through the struggles, legislatively, through life, obviously, with the death of Beau Biden.

And I think that they talk. And they certainly -- the current president seeks the counsel of the former president.

But I think both are very cognizant that this is a very different moment. The former president is very cognizant of the fact that Joe Biden is his own president and needs to be his own president.

And I think the current president knows this is his administration, and he doesn't want to, A, be in the shadow or, B, be entirely reliant on somebody who had the job before him.

CAMEROTA: OK, Phil Mattingly, Nia-Malika, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, thank you all.

So the chairman of the Joint Chiefs says Russia's invasion of Ukraine is, quote, "the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world that he's seen in his 42 years in the military." We'll tell you more.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Also, President Zelenskyy makes an emotional appeal at the United Nations. Hear what he said next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:21]

BLACKWELL: Ukraine's President Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations Security Council today. He really laid out the description of brutalities that Russian forces have inflicted on the people of Ukraine.

Now, we want to warn you that the images that you are about to see, they are disturbing.

Zelenskyy played a video showing images similar to these.

He talked about the Ukrainians killed, some of them toddlers, some with their hands tied, left on the streets of Ukrainian cities. He compared the atrocities to acts by the terror group, ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): 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.

They were -- their tongues were pulled out only because the aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: President Zelenskyy also said the world has yet to see what Vladimir Putin's soldiers have done in other occupied parts of Ukraine. CAMEROTA: There's new footage of the village of Borodianka that shows

total destruction. Zelenskyy said the number of dead is even higher there.

He urged that the international community bring the Russian military and its leaders to justice immediately.

A Human Rights Watch investigator was in Bucha on Monday, chronicling the carnage. NATO also says it's gathering evidence. And the U.S. announcing its support for a multinational team that is collecting proof for a future war crimes prosecution.

The U.N. says Putin's war has forced 11.3 million people from their homes. That's one in every four Ukrainians. And 4.2 million have left the country and are now refugees.

BLACKWELL: CNN's chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour, is in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

Christiane, President Zelenskyy spoke about immediate accountability for Russia and Vladimir Putin. What we've learned a lot about these sanctions is that the impact comes over time. So now what?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, exactly. And even if it was a trial, that is going to come over a long period of time too.

Clearly, there's going to have to be some kind of effort made to gather all these different attempts and organizations who are going around trying to gather forensic evidence.

Clearly, there's going to have to be some kind of tribunal or some kind of forum whereby it can all be collected under one roof and one group. Otherwise, it's going to be really difficult in terms of gathering it all and having some kind of thread that you can follow.

In terms of now what? Obviously, the sanctions have not yet deterred Putin, except to say that the sanctions, plus the unbelievable resistance of the Ukrainian people, have forced the Russian troops back.

But the analysis over in NATO, over at the United States, the Pentagon, intelligence, et cetera, is that Putin is merely regrouping to go full-on into Donbass. That is in the east.

And that is what the ambassador to the U.N. said to Zelenskyy right after his speech. He said, "We didn't come here to occupy" -- well, first of all, denying all those images and all those atrocities, which everybody can see and satellite imagery has picked up.

And then saying, we've just come here to help so-called blood-soaked Donbass.

So, they're preparing for a very heavy assault on the east.

CAMEROTA: And, Christiane, we just showed the footage of Borodianka and the devastation there. And we've been warned there will be other towns like Bucha.

It's just hard to get your head around the barbarism that we're seeing.

[14:40:05]

AMANPOUR: Well, it actually is. I mean, it's incredible.

This is meant to have been a modernized military. President Putin was meant to have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars over the last 20-plus years he's been in power, modernizing, training, equipping his military and this is the way they act.

Not only have we seen them completely unable to carry out the ground operation that Putin had planned, but then we see a complete lack of discipline and a complete lack of either knowledge or intent to follow the rules of warfare.

And that is something that is just amazingly disheartening to watch from the third biggest army in the world, the third biggest military in the world, and from a country that has launched an unprovoked war. And this is what they do when they are thwarted.

There are Ukrainian officials who believe that a lot of these war crimes, crimes against humanity, these executions that have been taken against civilians in these places that we've seen, is because soldiers have been frustrated and angry that they haven't managed to, you know, to be able to, let's say, take Kyiv, for instance.

And they're taking it out on the most vulnerable and the least able to protect themselves or punch back. Unlike the soldiers, who have been able to do that.

BLACKWELL: That's some important context there.

Christiane Amanpour, thank you.

A CNN team reporting near Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine came dangerously close to incoming Russian artillery rounds on Monday.

Senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, and his team, they were stopped there to talk to Ukrainian soldiers when Russian forces began to fire in their direction.

Watch this. This is some of what they saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(EXPLOSIONS)

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Down here, John. Down here. Keep on rolling.

You see it over there? (voice-over): We hug the earth.

(CROSSTALK)

WEDEMAN: Two more artillery rounds.

(EXPLOSIONS)

WEDEMAN (on camera): Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

(CROSSTALK)

WEDEMAN (voice-over): And so we run with full body armor to the cars.

UNIDENTIFIED UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Go, go, go, go,

(EXPLOSIONS)

UNIDENTIFIED UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Go, go, go, go,.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Go, go, go.

WEDEMAN (on camera): All right, now we're trying to get out of this area as quickly as possible. Our other car, completely destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: And Ben Wedeman joins us now.

Ben, I mean, look, your reporting just drives it home for everyone watching the horror that's going on in all of these little towns. And I know that our viewers' hearts were pumping right along with you.

But when you were saying, as you were running there, you know, we're trying to get to safety, how do you know which area is safe right now in Ukraine? Where were you trying to go?

WEDEMAN: Good question. Basically, the officer at that position told us to go, because there could be more incoming rounds. My inclination would have been to stay put and keep my head down. But so we left.

And just the point is, once you get going, you better get out of there very quickly. And that's what we did. Fortunately, there were no more incoming rounds as we left.

But we were fortunate. Those soldiers, we spoke to them this morning by phone. They came under bombardment yet again overnight. Nobody was injured. But this is the reality.

That's the frontline. We're in Mykolaiv, far from the frontline. But, in effect, it is the frontline in this war.

Yesterday, there were a series of Russian rocket attacks on this city, at least 10 people killed, 46 people wounded. Among the places hit, an oncology hospital where Doctors Without

Borders was visiting. They saw one person killed, several injured. A children's hospital was hit.

A CCTV caught one of their ambulances parked without anybody in it, fortunately, taking a direct hit with a rocket. The marketplace was hit yesterday. Nine people killed in that incident, 41 injured.

[14:45:01]

And that's just yesterday.

BLACKWELL: Ben, I just cannot imagine you pile into the cars and then you get into one where it's leaking fuel. So now you've got to run out of that while it's incoming to get into the next one.

Let me ask you about this evacuation convoy that was heading to the city of Mariupol. And we have seen the pictures and video from that city. It was turned back by Russian forces. What do you know about that?

WEDEMAN: Yes, they've been trying to get to that city now since Saturday. And they have been -- for the security -- because of the security situation, they say, they haven't been able to get in.

Now, there are also convoys trying to bring supplies into the city and others trying to take people out. All of those, if they get out at all, it's under extreme difficulty.

Now, the mayor of Mariupol says that in the last two weeks, only two shipments of food have gotten into the city. That doesn't say that multiple attempts were not made.

But what we see appears to be just Russian obstruction to make life as difficult as possible.

The mayor says more than 100,000 civilians need to be evacuated from that city that's been under what can only be described as a medieval siege.

But they're just getting -- they're just not able to get out -- Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right, Ben Wedeman for us. We are glad that you and the team you are with there are all OK.

Thank you, Ben.

CAMEROTA: So, a Biden administration official says a new round of sanctions on Russia will be rolled out tomorrow. The package will be announced in coordination with the E.U. and G-7 nations.

It will ban all new investment in Russia and increase penalties on Russia's financial institutions as well as Kremlin officials and their families. BLACKWELL: Joining us now, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Steven

Pifer. He's the William Perry fellow at Stanford University. And also with us, CNN global affairs analyst and "Time" magazine contributor, Kim Dozier.

Welcome to you both.

Mr. Ambassador, let me start with you.

And as we learn more about Bucha and the potential that there are other cities like this where we see these atrocities, President Zelenskyy says that it's going to be hard to talk about peace when you see what's done.

Are peace talks really possible now with Russia after what we're seeing?

STEVEN PIFER, WILLIAM J. PERRY FELLOW, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND COOPERATION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY & FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, let me begin by saying the images that you see in Bucha are absolutely horrific. But they seem to be part of a pattern of Russia's indiscriminate shelling of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv without regard to where civilians are.

And I fear you're going to see more Buchas because this kind of atrocity, this kind of brutality seems to be very fairly common practice with the Russian military.

And it will make, I think, negotiations more difficult. But President Zelenskyy has also said he would like to find a way to end this war. And that's going to be a decision he'll have to make about how far he can negotiate with the Russians under these conditions.

And I think it's important that the West really follow Zelenskyy's lead on this question because he's going to have to weigh all the factors when he decides what kind of a conversation he can have with the Russians, given what they're doing to his country.

CAMEROTA: Kim, it's not just that they're attacking civilians willy- nilly. It seems to be targeted.

I don't know how else to interpret what Ben Wedeman just reported, that an oncology hospital in Mykolaiv was hit, a children's hospital and an ambulance. And that's what the Russians are doing.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it seems like they are just lobbing off indiscriminate fire. Perhaps intentionally or perhaps because they don't have the proper maps.

Some of the reporting on the ground is revealing that, that they've come in not knowing where they are, sometimes, when they take over a town. And because they just apparently don't care.

And the problem for President Zelenskyy is in these peace talks that, look, Ukrainian officials have said they have to do just to try to find some way to stop the fighting, and to show that they're willing to talk.

But President Zelenskyy has said he would put things he's proposed, like taking it out of the Ukrainian constitution that the country is trying to join NATO, he would put that to a vote of Ukrainian citizens before passing it and agreeing to it.

And can you see the majority of Ukrainian citizens saying yes to that after what they have gone through and survived? That's going to make it really hard for that aspect of the talks. I just don't see it happening.

BLACKWELL: Mr. Ambassador, what about U.S.-Russia relations? President Biden has said that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.

[14:50:02]

Can the U.S. cleanly compartmentalize the videos or the pictures of victims with their hands tied behind their back, dead toddlers on the side of the road?

STEVENS: I think it makes it more difficult to have a conversation with Mr.. I mean, he is the commander-in-chief of the Russian military.

When you see a pattern of these kinds of atrocities, this kind of brutality, you know, he is ultimately responsible. Have we seen Putin come out and call for an investigation?

I mean, there was one case of a reported shooting or injuring Russian prisoners by the Ukrainians. And Zelenskyy immediately came out and said we're going to investigate this.

Have we seen the Russians call for that? Has Putin called for that? No we haven't. Has Putin called out in any way for the Russian military to be behave according to the rule offense war? We haven't seen that.

So I think it's going to make the conversation harder. But I think the White House doesn't want to totally exclude it. Because at some point, you may have to have a conversation with Mr. Putin as distasteful as it might be.

CAMEROTA: So, Kim, tomorrow, a new round of sanctions being announced. The E.U., the United States, are they slowly turning up the gas on these sanctions or has most of the fire power been used against the Kremlin?

DOZIER: A lot has been used. But remember, in first round of sanctions, it was only a handful of Russian banks that were sanctioned, for instance. With each of these new rounds, they are ratcheting it up a bit.

Also what's happening is, as the horrible images come out, people across Europe are seeing what's going on in this war, and perhaps being a bit more willing to accept higher energy prices.

As countries, like France and Germany, which get so much of its fuel from Russia, as they look for alternatives and more expensive sources, the people are willing to take that on.

But is hasn't -- none of the sanctions so far have had an impact on Russia's actions.

And from people that I heard from today inside Russia talk about Russian public opinion, they are blaming the West for some sort of anti-Moscow sentiment for passing these sanctions so far. They are not blaming Vladmir Putin.

CAMEROTA: Really helpful context.

Ambassador Steven Pifer, Kimberly Dozier, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Sources tell CNN Ivanka Trump is meeting with members of the January 6th committee. The questions lawmakers will likely ask, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:29]

BLACKWELL: Sources tell CNN that Ivanka Trump meeting today with the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection.

CAMEROTA: Ivanka served as senior advisor to her father during his presidency and was with him at times on January 6th. She is reportedly appearing voluntarily.

CNN's Ryan Nobles joins us now from Capitol Hill.

So, Ryan, we know that Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, met with the committee for something like six hours last week. What do we know about Ivanka's appearance today?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think, Victor and Alisyn, there's no doubt that Ivanka Trump presents some of the most unique insight into the days leading up to and on January 6th of anyone who has met with the January 6th Select Committee up until this point.

Not only is she close both personally and professionally with her father, but she was in close proximity to him throughout January 6th.

She was there for the rally on the Ellipse on that day. She was in and out of the Oval Office on January 6th. She also went to that back room where he was holding court as the insurrection was playing out.

And as committee members have said over and over again, they want to know what she knows about what happened on January 6th.

Listen to what vice chair, Liz Cheney, had to say not too long ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): We have firsthand testimony that his daughter, Ivanka, went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: And there's also one other key aspect of what happened on January 6th that Ivanka Trump was privy to.

According to committee testimony that the committee has already received, they believe she was in the Oval Office when the former president was on the phone with Vice President Mike Pence that morning.

Perhaps it was Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to apply this pressure campaign on Mike Pence to deny the certification of the election results, something Pence ultimately resisted doing.

So there are a lot of questions that the committee has for Ivanka Trump. Of course, Victor and Alisyn, the big question is, will she answer any of them in the specificity that they're looking for.

BLACKWELL: Certainly.

Ryan, before you go, another member of the House has announced retirement. This time, Republican Congressman Fred Upton. What do you know?

NOBLES: Yes, Victor, you know, Fred Upton's decision to retire is significant because, of course, he was one of those 10 Republican members that voted to impeach the former President Donald Trump. He was somebody that was in the former president's cross hairs.

It looked, by all accounts, that he was prepared to run for re- election but the redistricting situation in his state required him to go into a primary with a fellow incumbent Republican and it was just a battle he decided was not worth waging at this point.

[14:59:52]

Upton has been somewhat of a moderate Republican. He's certainly conservative on most of the big issues. But someone who seemed very uncomfortable with the direction the Republican Party was heading.

And this is just another one of these dwindling Republican voices that are leaving the party who aren't necessarily happy with the direction the party is heading in.