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Putin Says Talks With Ukraine Are At Dead End; Retired U.S. Marine in Ukraine Training Troops There; U.S. Monitoring Reports Of Russian Chemical Attack In Mariupol; U.S. Inflation Hits 40-Year High, Rising 8.5 Percent In March; Biden To Announce Emergency Waiver On Summer Ethanol Ban; Fireworks And Magazines Recovered At Brooklyn Shooting Scene. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 12, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Today Vladimir Putin said talks with Ukraine have, quote, hit a dead end. He also vowed to continue the violence in Ukraine until Moscow succeeds.

Russia has started its major assault on the eastern region. This video from Twitter shows a residential area and a shipping yard under fire. Now Ukraine's President Zelenskyy says Putin could be entering a, quote, new stage of terror after reports of a chemical attack. Investigators trying to determine if Russia used chemicals in the city of Mariupol. A senior U.S. defense official said the Pentagon cannot confirm those reports yet.

A commander for Ukraine's Azov battalion posted online that a drone dropped, quote, a poisonous substance of unknown origin and that three people suffered affects from it.

So, let's bring in CNN's Jake Tapper now. He is with us in Lviv, western Ukraine. So, Jake, we just heard the Russian president there. He spoke today and he seemed to confirm what we have suspected that he's not interested in talks with Ukraine. Now what?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER: Now the war continues. I mean, what he also said at that joint press conference with Belarusian strongman Lukashenko is that the atrocities in Bucha were fake. They even posited that it was the Brits who staged those mass murders in that city. So, it doesn't really change anything. Putin is his apparatchiks continuing to lie about what's going on. And they continue to blame Washington, D.C., Brussels and London for what's going on. And they continue to insist that they invaded this country and are slaughtering innocent people because they had to do so for defensive purposes. I mean, it's just up is down and black is white.

CAMEROTA: So, Jake, a U.S. senior defense official says that the U.S. is willing to consider sending more weapon systems to Ukrainians. That's obviously something that the Ukrainians have been begging for. So, is that happening?

TAPPER: There is a big chasm between what they want, the Ukrainians ask for and what Americans as of now are willing to give. Some of that is because the Americans don't believe that the Ukrainians have their expertise to use all of the material, supplies, weapons that they are asking for, including drones. But there is this constant push and pull between the Ukrainians wanting more weapons to defend their country and the United States.

Recently, I think in terms of trying to get some of these drones, these special drones, finally the United States agreed to help train some of the Ukrainians to use them. But that has been going on for a long time now. This push and pull, Ukrainians wanting more weapons, the United States not convinced that the Ukrainians can use them and trying to figure out some compromise in between.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and on the topic of training, I know that you spoke to a retired American Marine, a Special Forces commander, who is in Ukraine, who is training Ukrainian soldiers. So, what did he tell you?

TAPPER: Well, he talked a lot about not about not what is needed in terms of weaponry by the Ukrainians but also what's needed in terms of training. Here's just a little snippet from our conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. ANDREW MILBURN (RET.), U.S. MARINE CORPS, VETERAN TRAINING UKRAINIANS: They lack medical training. And you know, evidence of that is if you talk to Ukrainian medics, there are some horror stories out there.

[15:35:00]

So, injuries that would be easily survivable in Iraq or Afghanistan by U.K. or U.S. soldiers, Ukrainians are dying from here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, Col. Milburn is a retired Marine cornel and he is one of the many veterans, U.S. veterans in this country. They are not currently -- as far as anybody knows -- American troops on the ground here. But there are a lot of U.S. veterans. We'll be talking more about that coming up on "THE LEAD".

CAMEROTA: That is really interesting. Jake, thank you very much for sharing that. And be sure to watch "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" for more of his reporting. It starts at 4:00 p.m. Eastern right here in CNN.

All right, so joining me now is Matthew Miller, special advisor on communications to the White House National Security Council. Matthew, thanks so much for being here. So, what about that? This week, will the U.S. be giving more weapons or training to the Ukrainian soldiers?

MATTHEW MILLER, SPECIAL ADVISOR ON COMMUNICATIONS, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I will say not just this week. I will say there's not a day goes by that we aren't landing new deliveries of security assistance, new weapons into Ukraine. And in addition to that, there's not a day that goes by that we are not in high level conversations with the Ukrainian government about additional capabilities that we can provide them. If you just look at what we've already provided. Thousands of Anti-tank weapons, ten antitank weapons for every Russian tank that's in the country.

And you can see how the Ukrainians have used those to such devastating impact in destroying Russian tanks and defending the city of Kyiv. Which still stands thanks to the bravery of the Ukrainian military and thanks to the weapons that we and our allies and partners around the world have provided them.

So, we are in constant conversations with the Ukrainians about new types of weapons we can provide them. Jake mentioned drones. We have provided the Ukrainians with drones. We've helped them acquire drones from other countries. And we continue to talk about new capabilities that we can get in to them all the time.

CAMEROTA: But Matt, how about Mariupol? Because we've heard that there's -- it's surrounded basically. And that their version of marines, the Ukrainian marine unit says, we're surrounded. We don't have enough ammunition. We don't have enough supplies. How can you get them the weapons they need?

MILLER: Well, with respect to ammunition, we've already gotten over 50 million rounds of ammunition into the country. And we do continue to get new rounds of ammunition. With respect to the coastal areas in the south, like Mariupol, one of the things that the Ukrainians specifically asked us for was to help them acquire coastal defense systems. That was a request directly from President Zelenskyy to President Biden. And what we did to fulfill that request, we looked in our stocks, found that there was nothing that was an exact fit for what the Ukrainians needed and what they can use.

So, President Biden went around to some of our NATO allies and asked them to supply weapons from their stocks set for the Ukrainians and you saw the result of that when last week the United Kingdom announced that they would be provided coastal offense systems. That would be a more useful fit.

These are the kind of conversations that happen between our two countries every day. Where the Ukrainians will come to us with capabilities that they need. And we will look at their capabilities and look through what's available in our stocks, how quickly we can get it there. And then like I said, some sometimes go around to other countries.

Another great example is air defense systems, something we know the Ukrainians have wanted. They weren't systems that we had that were perfect match for their needs. And so, we worked with a third-party country, Slovakia, to get a system in from their country and backfill Slovakia with Patriot Missiles. Those are the kind of decisions and efforts that are going on really on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis here at the White House and at the Pentagon to try to get weapons into the hands of the Ukrainians so they can use them on the battlefield.

CAMEROTA: I appreciate you spelling all of that out. And I'm not suggesting that the U.S. isn't doing all of that. It's just that when you see the onslaught that's starting in the ease in Ukraine, do you think that Ukrainians have enough that they can beat back the Russians there?

MILLER: Well certainly, I think will continue to see a brutal campaign by the Russians. It's clear what's happened in the first phase of this war. Russia did not achieve its initial objectives. They wanted to take the city of Kyiv. They wanted to achieve regime change, depose the Zelenskyy government and they failed. So, now they're moving to this new assault in the east.

And so, what we can do is to continue to work with the Ukrainians to provide them new capabilities. Now that doesn't mean it won't be a brutal, you know, long slog ahead. I'm sure it will be. We expect it to be. But what we can do is provide the Ukrainians with the defense systems they need. And I will say, in addition to some of the systems I went through a minute ago that we've already provided, we are in talks about new capabilities. And I think you can expect to see new capabilities announced in the very near future. Specifically for the fight in the east.

CAMEROTA: So, if you want to know some right now if you want to tell me anything that you think you will be sending.

MILLER: I think not.

CAMEROTA: OK, well the meantime, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby talked about how that you apparently have some intelligence that Russia might be mixing -- the fact that they might be using or mixing some chemical agents along with riot control agents. I assume that that's like tear gas or something. If it turns out that Russia has launched a chemical attack or using any chemical weapons, what's the response going to be?

MILLER: So, I will say first of all, we have not yet confirmed that they used chemical weapons in the siege of Mariupol. But as you said, we did have information even before yesterday, even before this week, that the Russians might use riot control measures, specifically tear gas mixed with other chemical agents to try to break the Ukrainian defense of that city. We made that information available to the Ukrainians so they could prepare and defend themselves. And of course, we've warned for some time that the Russians might resort to these tactics and have been quite concerned about it.

The president has made clear that if Russia does use chemical or biological weapons there will be consequences. Those consequences will be proportionate to the form the attack takes. Chemical weapons attacks could take any number of forms. And so again, I don't want to speculate about what that might be given we haven't even confirmed that an attack took place here. I think the most important thing we can do now is to continue to investigation what actually happened to talk to the Ukrainians of how to collect and analyze information and see if we can confirm whether a chemical attack did indeed occur.

CAMEROTA: OK, Matt Miller, thank you. We really appreciate your time today. MILLER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, back to our breaking news on the New York City subway shooting. CNN has obtained a new photo of fireworks that police say the Brooklyn subway gunman dropped. We are also learning that at least 29 people have been hospitalized in connection with this shooting. That's a much higher number than we had. -- 29 people hospitalized. We have the latest next.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Happening right now, President Biden is touring a bioprocessing facility in Iowa. And he's going to speak soon on his plans to tame inflation and lower gas prices. Today, the U.S. Labor Department released new inflation numbers showing prices jumped 8.5 percent over just the last 12 months. That's the highest inflation rate in the U.S. in more than 40 years. Prices continue to rise on everything from gas to food and housing. With us now to discuss, we have CNN business reporter Matt Egan and CNN economics and political commentator Catherine Rampell. We also have Jeff Zeleny who is with the president in Iowa. So, Jeff, what is the president's plan? What's he going to say today?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: While Alisyn, President Biden just arrived here at this ethanol plant behind me on a very windy afternoon here in Iowa. And we do know the president is going to announce that he is lifting the summertime suspension of a rule that requires a lower blend of ethanol gas in the summer. So, what he's going to do is allow from June 1 through September 1, allowing a higher blend of ethanol gasoline called E-15 to be used. And that of course, the administration says through this EPA waiver will knock down the price of gas in some parts of the country by $0.10 a gallon or so. Not a lot, but of course, the White House is saying every little bit helps.

Now this is something that environmentalists oppose. Because they believe that this E-15 creates more smog in the atmosphere. So, somewhat controversial that the president believes that this is something that he has been urged to do by farm state Senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, to have this E-15 available to use this summer. So, it's one of the reasons he's here. But of course, also just trying to use every tool in the toolbox to try and show that the White House is focusing on inflation, starting of course, at the gas pump.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, Jeff, are they going to be changing their messaging at all? I mean, I know that they keep calling this Putin's -- Jeff, hold that thought for second. Let me bring in Matt Egan and Catherine Rampell right now.

Matt let's talk about gas prices, OK. OK. What Jeff just talked about -- he's going to talk about ethanol. So, I just want to show everybody the national average of gas prices a year ago. It was $2.86 per gallon. One month ago, $4.33 per gallon Today, $4.10. Going in the right direction, I suppose. So, what will this do today?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: This probably is not really going to move the needle all that much on gas prices. That's because the national average is based on regular gasoline and E-15 -- what the president is talking about -- is not considered regular gasoline. But families can save about 10 cents a gallon if they switch to E-15 this summer. The average family uses about 90 gallons of fuel a month. So that works out to about nine dollars of savings a month. That's not really going to change much for anyone.

The other issue here is that in order to actually take advantage of this, you have to be able to find E-15. And the White House says that 2,300 of the nation's 145,000 gas stations have it. So, a lot of people are not going to be able to take advantage of it because they can't really find it. As you mentioned, prices are coming down at the pump, down 20 cents in the last month. Some analysts do think $4 gas could be coming. The bad news is that a lot of it depends where oil prices go. Prices were down big yesterday. They were up a lot today. And that is still a lot to do with the situation in Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that. So, Catherine, give us the big picture? Because as I was just saying, the Biden administration continues to call this Putin's price hike. But when you ask the American public in terms of how they feel about the economy, which in some ways is firing on many cylinders. I think that they see inflation and economy as synonymous. And they think it's just all bad.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, certainly if you look at the job market, it's a completely different story than if you then if you look at what's happening with prices. And Americans do seem to be paying a lot more attention to what's happening with prices.

[15:50:00]

Maybe because that affects a larger swath of the American public. Right, I mean, there are relatively few people who are at risk of losing their jobs, even when the economy was really, really bad. Everybody is affected by inflation. Now in terms of to what extent this is about Putin or about the war. Obviously, the war has disrupted the energy market and driven up prices and we're seeing some of that price come down recently.

But the increase in prices obviously, long predates the war. We've been seeing inflation rise for most of the past year. In fact, for the last six months, inflation has been above the Fed's average target of 2 percent. So, this is not just about the war. This is about persistent supply chain problems and it's about the fact that demand is really, really strong in part because of policy choices that we've made. And so, people are trying to buy stuff and there isn't enough stuff for them to buy. Driving up prices.

CAMEROTA: OK. We'll see what the president has to say about all of that. Catherine, Matt, thank you very much. Good to see you both.

EGAN: Thank you. Our breaking news here out of New York. CNN has obtained a new photo

of fireworks that police say the Brooklyn subway gunman dropped. And at least 29 people we now know have been hospitalized. Police are still searching for this gunman, as far as we know. We have an update on all the breaking news, next.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Our breaking news here in Brooklyn. That manhunt continuing after the mass shooting at a New York subway station. A new photo we have for you now, of fireworks found at the scene. Investigators say that the shooter they're looking for dropped them. As CNN's Shimon Prokupecz joins me now. So, tell us about this photo, what we know.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I'm looking at this photo here, Victor, it's a bag that police say he left behind. In it, there was some kind of fireworks. It looks like maybe some wiring and some other. This looks like the smoke canisters, perhaps, that the police have been talking about that he used in this incident.

The fact is when you look in this bag, it looks like this individual was prepared for much more. You see the additional smoke canisters, other pieces of wiring. I don't know what that would be for. But this was in what looks like a reusable shopping bag -- kind of what you get at the grocery store.

We also know now that police are hook for a U-Haul that may be connected to this. They obviously have recovered a lot of evidence already to have all of this that's in this bag. The weapon, the gun that they believe was used in this, and then these high-capacity magazines.

We think we may be getting an update from police here in the next hour or so. So, we're waiting to find out if in fact, that's the case. But we haven't heard from police now for about several hours. This happened now, well, just about eight hours ago. So, we're waiting to hear for an update from the police.

But as we've been talking about it, they've been very optimistic that on this investigation, and that they can find this person who's responsible.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and we also know that the number of those injured, that's a revised number. We know at least 29 people have been taken to hospitals -- 13 of them, according to the hospitals that have reported having received some of the victims here -- 13 of them have been discharged. There have been smoke inhalation injuries as well. Some shrapnel. People obviously we know have been shot as well. But that number, of course, in breaking news, fluctuates and we could get more information.

PROKUPECZ: Yes, also, what's been happening is some people have been taking themselves to the hospital. So early on, the FDNY was transporting some of the folks from the scene but then later on, some took themselves to the hospital.

Look. I can't even imagine what these people went through, sitting in this subway car feeling trapped, smoke, and someone just starts firing at you and you're trapped in there. You know, it could have only been, let's say, 30 seconds. That's a layoff time and something these people will have to suffer with for the rest of their lives.

BLACKWELL: And these 29 people are people that have physical scars, the physical injuries. They will be the others. And as I've said, were 40 to 50 people on the train. Those people, many of them had kind of the scars we won't see, having to live through that trauma and start to, the healing process after that.

Shimon Prokupecz, thank you for the reporting. We'll let you get back to that. But there have been many updates and developments over the last two hours during our show. Of course, investigators we now know have an image of this alleged shooter. That is certainly going to help them. They're looking for this U-Haul vehicle. We know that U-Haul is working with authorities to try to get them as much information as they can. Arizona tag, AL31408.

And of course, Shimon, just brought us that photograph of the fireworks that they say that the shooter dropped. Of course, we learned also that the gun jammed and that's what ended this shooting. A lot of developments, Alisyn, as I toss it back to you.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Victor. It sure sounds like they've gathered a lot of evidence and obviously things are breaking constantly. So, thank you for that very much. So, we will stand by for more developments from the scene of that breaking news and the subway shooting.

In the meantime, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper live from Ukraine starts right now.