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Kyiv Mayor Reporting Suburb of Capital Hit by Rocket Attack; Austrian Chancellor Says Putin Believes He's Winning This War; Dolphin Dies on Texas Beach After Crowd Tries to Ride It; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Signs 15-Weel Abortion Ban into Law; Mask Mandate Returns in Philadelphia as Cases Rise. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 17, 2022 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:22]

PAULA REID, CNN ANCHOR: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington in for Jim Acosta.

New insight into Vladimir Putin's state of mind as Russia prepares for a major ground assault in eastern Ukraine. The Russian president is, quote, "in his own world" and believes he is winning this war. That's according to the Austrian chancellor who met with Putin face-to-face. And new images show what Putin's troops are doing to eastern Ukraine ahead of a planned ground offensive, and you may find them disturbing.

Intense shelling in Kharkiv has killed five people. An official there saying Russian attacks cannot break the will of the Ukrainian people. He witnessed a medic shielding a wounded woman during the shelling. And today is, of course, a holy day in Ukraine, Palm Sunday. Russian shelling hit this church, but this brutal war could not stop Ukrainians from practicing their faith. Children, civilians, soldiers across the country pausing to worship, including in Bucha where residents survived a Russian occupation that displayed the worst of humanity.

So it should come as no surprise that the Ukrainian troops who remain in Mariupol are not giving up. Soldiers in the decimated city refusing Russia's demand to surrender in order to save their lives. In an exclusive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper Ukraine's president gives an alarming update on Mariupol's civilians who were not able to escape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE (through translator): The situation is very difficult in Mariupol. It's clear that things won't get better. With each passing day it's growing more unstable. Unfortunately, it is difficult for different reasons. I will not talk about the cruelty with which the Russian authorities have treated Mariupol, the Russian military. There are two components, no one knows how many people died among the civilian population. If anyone gives you a figure it would be a total lie.

Hundreds of thousands were evacuated, several thousand, tens of thousands were forced to evacuate in the direction of the Russian federation and we do not know where they are. They've left no document trail and among them are several thousands of children. We want to know what happened to them, whether they're in good health. Unfortunately, there just isn't any information on this.

And regarding what population has remained there, we also don't have a definitive answer. One day they say there are 50,000 or 60,000 left there. And then another day someone says 100,000. And now we have information that perhaps 10,000 people have died there, all civilians who stayed. We're talking about civilian deaths, not military.

ZELENSKYY: And we can worry about 5,000 children deported from this region to Russian side because they didn't allow them to go to the Ukrainian side, I mean, the Ukrainian controlled side. So we don't know where the children, where are they? Nobody knows. And so that's why I said the question is more than difficult and more than complicated so there's a lot of information which we have to check and which we don't know exactly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: I want to go back to CNN's Phil Black who's in Kyiv. Phil, after a brief pause Russian forces have stepped up attacks in the capital and the surrounding areas. What is your latest reporting there on the ground?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula, for the third day in a row an air strike has targeted the outskirts of Kyiv. The latest hit the eastern side of the city impacting what officials describe as civilian infrastructure, damaging that infrastructure, they say, and interrupting possibly electricity and water supplies.

The Russian military has said it will continue to target Kyiv if it believes that Ukraine is preparing military attacks on Russian territory. Meanwhile, in the east of the country there continues to be an escalation in bombardment in some key areas, notably in the city of Kharkiv where officials say that shelling in the central and residential parts of the city injured 20 people and killed five more.

In villages and towns in the Luhansk region, well, these are areas that continue to be bombarded and shelled almost daily and that happened again over the last 24 hours or so.

[18:05:07]

This is seen as a buildup to Russia's planned new offensive operations in the east, operations in which it is thought will try to very soon drive through Ukraine's defensive lines and establish more control over the eastern area known as the Donbas. And in the south of the country, in the region of Mykolaiv and Kherson Ukrainian officials say that ground forces there, Russian ground forces, are still behaving more aggressively.

They recently attributed this to the sinking of the Moskva, the Russian missile cruise that went down in the Black Sea a few days ago because, says Ukraine, of Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. Russia still hasn't acknowledged that that sinking was the result of the Ukrainian military, it has only blamed a fire on board -- Paula.

REID: Phil Black, thank you very much for that report.

And joining me now is former Defense Secretary William Cohen.

All right, Mr. Secretary, as we're seeing Kyiv is still very much in Russia's crosshairs even though of course the ground advance there has ended. So does it appear to you that Putin still is focused on trying to take the capital?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I think that is his goal to be sure and Putin can't quite get the lies straight. First they said that the sinking of the ship was caused by a couple of sailors smoking and got into the ammunition cavity as such, holding, and then they said, well, they're firing on the Ukrainians because of the ship going down. So they can't get their story quite straight because they're lying all the time.

But I think, obviously, this is still a major target, Kyiv is, for Putin. And he's also just kind of reminding you and all of us that they're still capable of hitting the city as the focus now shifts to the east and the south.

REID: Now Austria's chancellor recently met with Putin and today he said Putin had, quote, "his own war logic." So how difficult is it for the U.S., for NATO to deal with someone when so much of this conflict depends on this one incredibly unpredictable person?

COHEN: Well, what we have seen is that Putin is one person who has disrupted the world economy, the world order as such, and he remains solely, I guess, confined to his own quarters at his own choosing and separated from most of his key advisors apparently. But the fact is, he must know what's going on. The generals have to tell him, I hope, the truth so he'll know what to do in terms of reordering his priorities and where he's going.

But nonetheless I don't think we can try to game this in a way that appeals to either the rationality of the irrationality of Putin. He is who he is. We know what his goal is. We know what his methods are and that is attack civilians. Kill as many as possible to break the spirit of the Ukrainians and to lay siege to their cities.

I hope that everybody gets a chance to watch the interview, you referred to it earlier, Jake Tapper did with President Zelenskyy. It's one of the more remarkable interviews that I've ever seen in the way it's been conducted and the humanity, the courage obviously but the humanity of President Zelenskyy that talks about the courage to keep going is almost Churchillian as he's trying to rouse his people to stay the course even though the Russians are plundering innocent people, plundering the cities, and just slaughtering innocent people.

He still managed to raise up his honor in saying we've got to fight this to the death. And so I think he deserves so much credit, so much admiration and so much support from us. Whatever he needs, we should be giving it to him. REID: I agree with you. Jake did a great job on that interview. And

President Zelenskyy has called again on President Biden to visit Ukraine. The White House keeps ruling that out. Obviously a presidential visit is a security challenge even for a fully functioning country, not one that is under an invasion. So what is the analysis here? Are there pros and cons, or is it just never worth it to make a trip like that?

COHEN: Yes, moving the president is a very large challenge. Unless they're willing to put some kind of a covert mission under way which he could show up and join hands with President Zelenskyy to show his support. I think it's unlikely. But rather than having the president come, I would think that President Zelenskyy would want more weapons. Send me weapons. I'd love to have the president, but give me what I need to fight this battle.

[18:10:03]

I would also suggest that perhaps either the secretary of Defense or secretary of State might travel not only to meet with President Zelenskyy but go pay a visit to Finland and Sweden, just see how things are going there. The Finns and the Swedes are not at least contemplating the possibility of joining NATO. That might be an important signal to send to the Russians as well.

REID: That's a great point. Well, Zelenskyy says he's not going to make any land concessions to Russia in the east. And this is obviously a very tricky issue because some say Zelenskyy should consider making concessions to save lives in the short term. Others of course say that would be appeasement. Potentially rewarding Putin. How do you see this analysis? What's your take?

COHEN: President Zelenskyy indicated almost from the very beginning that he was willing to talk about remaining neutral, to find some way to accommodate the security needs of Russia. That has been dismissed by Putin. He said no, I'm through talking. I'm just going to kill you. And now he's saying surrender in Mariupol. It reminded me of what happened during the Second World War when the Nazi soldiers had members of the 101st Airborne Division surrounded and general, I believe it was McAuliffe, he was running out of food, running out of ammunition, running out of medical supplies, running out of everything.

And the Nazis said you have a chance to surrender honorably and he had one word for the Nazis, he said nuts. And I think this is what President Zelenskyy is saying to Putin. No, I'm not surrendering. I could have done that before, before you killed these thousands of people. I'm not going to surrender now. I'm willing to talk about how we can resolve this peacefully taking into account what you need but I'm not going to surrender and I'm telling you the same thing that our people told the Moscow ship when they said surrender, and they gave a pretty provocative response similar, nicer perhaps than the word -- not as nice, I should say, as the word nuts.

Same thing. We're not going to surrender. We have fought too hard, too long, we've lost too many, and we're not surrendering. And we're going to take the battle to you as you come into the east and the south.

REID: Secretary Cohen, thank you so much.

COHEN: My pleasure to be with you, Paula.

REID: And coming up, after a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Austrian chancellor says the Russian leader believes he is winning the war. So is Putin misinformed or playing three-dimensional chess? We'll ask the grandmaster, Garry Kasparov next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:16:50]

REID: Well, Vladimir Putin thinks Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. That's according to Austria's chancellor who met with Putin in Moscow last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL NEHAMMER, AUSTRIAN CHANCELLOR: I think he is now in his own war logic. You know. He thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the Russian federation. He doesn't trust the international community. He blames Ukrainians for genocide in the Donbas region. I think he believes he is winning the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Here to discuss legendary chess grandmaster and fierce Putin critic Garry Kasparov. He's the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and Renew Democracy Initiative and the author of "Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped."

All right, Garry, there's been some debate about whether Putin's advisers are really giving him an honest accounting of what's going on in the war. Now Austria's chancellor says he thinks Putin is, is getting the full picture, but by what metric would Putin be so confident that he and Russia are winning here?

GARRY KASPAROV, CHESS GRANDMASTER: I think Putin knows that losing this war is not an option for him. For dictator for life losing the war, it's devastating. It's a matter of political survival and, in many cases, probably in his case, it's a matter of physical survival. So that's why he has to pretend that he's winning the war. He knows he has to claim victory and he's desperately trying now to gain some ground in east and south of Ukraine and see what comes next.

Accepting defeat is impossible for him because a dictator looks weak. He's no longer carrying the aura of invincibility and soon he will become a scapegoat, both for his disillusioned henchmen and for angry crowd, angry population, angry mob, that would blame Putin for economic hardship. For what? You promised us an easy victory. Instead there was suffering and we also lost the war. REID: Well, we've all seen this carnage in Ukraine and we know that

there are concerns about what will happen if Putin feels that he's backed into a corner including concerns about the nuclear options. So what's more dangerous, Putin thinking that he's winning or Putin being desperate and feeling defeated?

KASPAROV: I'm puzzled by this question. So for people in Bucha, Kramatorsk and dozens and dozens of Ukrainian villages and towns, this question is irrelevant. Many of them are dead or about being dead. We're talking already about tens of thousands civilians being killed, and I think at the end of the war we'll have hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. What else could be worse than that?

I heard this kind of logic when Americans and Europeans contemplated actually against the Assad regime saying, if we would interfere and stop Assad, things could be worse.

[18:20:05]

The outcome, half a million dead Syrians and millions and millions of refugees. I don't think we should think any more about what Putin likes or dislikes. I think the whole world owes Ukraine full support. Give them the weapons to fight. NATO actually could intervene. I believe that NATO is not obliged to act on Article 5, if you're not a member of NATO, but nothing prevents NATO from offering full help to the country that is heroically fighting against Russian invasion and actually standing on Putin's way to destroy European security infrastructure.

So that's why I think, you know, right now we owe Ukrainian a clear statement that the goal of this war is for Ukraine to win and whatever happens to Putin that's not about consideration.

REID: Well, certainly many people would not deny the atrocities in Ukraine but there are concerns about escalation, particularly the nuclear option. Now almost seven years ago you warned the world, right there in the title of your book, that Putin must be stopped. He obviously wasn't stopped. But now much of the world is united against him. So how does sanctions and the efforts to punish him, have they gone far enough or too little too late?

KASPAROV: Look, it's definitely not too late. Naturally. The same kind of sanctions, even 50 percent of the sanctions eight years ago, eight months ago, maybe even eight weeks ago could have a different effect, maybe could have saved from this horrible war. But right now we're in a situation where, as you said, the free world is united. The weapons being supplied to Ukraine. The sanctions are tightening but, again, it's all about our response but we still act, you know, a strategic goal.

I think the United States and NATO allies and Europe have to come up with the joint statement that the goal of this war is to make sure Ukraine recovers its territories. You also had earlier in the show a discussion about territorial concession. We're not in the position to tell Ukrainians what to do. If they want to fight for every inch of their territory, that's their right, and we have to supply them. As for escalation Putin doesn't need any reason to escalate. Right now

his army is stuck in Ukraine. I don't think he has any chance of taking NATO. Ukrainians' old-fashioned missiles hit Russian flagship. His army is not match for NATO, and I don't think his generals and admirals are willing to commit suicide for Putin's crazy geopolitical ambitions.

REID: What about inside Russia? Do you expect to see more anti-Kremlin sentiment at this stage in the war? Do you think it will build as the sanctions ripple in the country and these losses continue to mount?

KASPAROV: Eventually, yes. This is the order of moves that cannot be reversed. First, the Russian public and Russian elite have to recognize the war is lost. The bad news coming from Ukraine will inspire more people to rise because economic hardship will increase. So miliary defeat in Ukraine, social-economic revolt, and then you will have conditions. The right conditions for a palace coup. Because many of Putin's inner circle will be looking for a scapegoat and it's always a dictator who should be blamed for all the failings.

REID: Garry Kasparov, thank you so much for joining us.

KASPAROV: Thank you for inviting me.

REID: A quick programming note, the unbelievable true story of the man who took on Putin and lived to expose the truth. The Sundance Award- winning CNN film "Navalny" airs next Sunday at 9:00 p.m. here on CNN.

And still to come, a plea from wildlife officials after this stranded dolphin dies on a Texas beach.

Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:28:20]

REID: A sick dolphin stranded on a Texas beach died after being harassed by a crowd of beachgoers. A nonprofit called in to rescue the dolphin says people pushed the animal back in the water and then tried to swim with it or ride on it. The dolphin did not survive the harassment and died before rescuers could get it to the beach.

Now I'm joined by Heidi Whitehead. She's the executive director of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

All right, Heidi, what did rescuers find when they arrived at the scene?

HEIDI WHITEHEAD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TEXAS MARINE MAMMAL STRANDING NETWORK: Well, we actually received a call on our hotline from a well- meaning individual on the beach that had stated that members of the public had pushed the dolphin back into the water and they had also been crowding it, riding the animal and even pushing the dolphin under water. So, unfortunately, the dolphin died a very short time later and was already dead by the time rescuers arrived. REID: So what do you recommend people do if they're walking along the

beach and they come across an animal like a dolphin or a stranded whale alive? What should they do with that animal?

WHITEHEAD: The very first thing they should do is call their local stranding network responders so that trained professionals can assess the dolphin's health and then provide the proper care and give proper first aid instruction. So well-meaning individuals really need to realize that they're causing undue harm and further injury to a stranded dolphin by pushing it into the water. We have to remember that these are air-breathing mammals and so they're often too weak to swim or to surface to breathe and that's what brings them to the beach. So it's really important that they get the care that they need and they remain on the beach.

[18:30:04]

Even though that may seem counterintuitive you want to get an aquatic mammal back into the water. It is going to cause undue harm and could even lead to the animal's death.

REID: And you make a good point. Look, maybe not everybody knows you're not supposed to help usher the animal back into the water but certainly people should know better than to try to ride a distressed animal, and many people are rightly outraged by this. Have you been able to identify any of the individuals who took part in this harassment? And will they face any charges?

WHITEHEAD: You're right, the harassment side of it is appalling behavior and not only is it appalling but it's also illegal and it's against the Marine Mammal Protection Act that these dolphins are federally protected under so what happens is we collect all of the information that we can at the site as rescuers including photos and videos from beachgoers, and we turn that over to NOAA Fisheries which is the federal entity that protects marine mammals, and so their office of law enforcement is currently investigating the case.

REID: What kind of penalties are there for people who harass stranded sea animals like this?

WHITEHEAD: Violations can be prosecuted both civilly and criminally, and they're punishable by fines of up to $100,000 and up to one year in jail time. So there are steep fines and it's definitely something that is a serious offense.

REID: Wow. Now in this particular case, do you have any idea at this point why this dolphin was stranded on the beach?

WHITEHEAD: We do believe that this dolphin was sick and that is what brought it to the beach. We did bring it back to our laboratory where we're able to perform a full necropsy or animal autopsy and so we've been able to collect samples. We've made some gross observations, and we're sending those samples out for things like pathology and other analysis, and so once we get those analyses back then we'll be able to report back to the federal entities as well, and determine how this harassment may have played into the eventual death of the animal. REID: Heidi, thank you so much for joining us and for your important

work helping animals in distress. We appreciate it.

WHITEHEAD: Thank you for having us.

REID: And coming up, four states move to restrict abortion access this week. Abortion rights activist Gloria Allred joins me live next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:37:01]

REID: The number of states making it harder to get an abortion grew by four this week. Florida being one of them. On Thursday Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

CNN's Nadia Romero is following these latest developments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Using their voices and risking their freedoms.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: No justice, no peace.

ROMERO: Katelyn Danehy-Samitz and Sarah Parker lead Women's Voices of Southwest Florida, a nonprofit organized to defend reproductive freedoms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to speak up.

ROMERO: The group helped raise awareness when the Manatee County Board of Commissioners discussed the possibility of introducing an abortion ban.

SARAH PARKER, PRESIDENT, WOMEN'S VOICES OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: Well, I had to sit down and I cried. We had put so many hours and so much time in that. And we want something.

ROMERO: But their message was not loud enough to drown out the will of Florida's legislature and the governor.

PARKER: It makes me angry and it makes me sad and it makes me worried. It feels like we're going backwards.

ROMERO: This week Governor Ron DeSantis signing a 15-week abortion ban into law.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: There you go.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

ROMERO: Without exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking. DESANTIS: This will represent the most significant protections for

life that have been enacted in this state in a generation.

ROMERO: Two days before DeSantis, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that makes performing an abortion a felony except in the case of a medical emergency.

GOV. KEVIN STITT (R), OKLAHOMA: We want Oklahoma to be the most pro- life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.

ROMERO: And also this week Kentucky's GOP-led legislature overwrote the governor's veto with a bill that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

So far 18 states have introduced legislation banning or limiting access to most abortion. 14 states have passed their restrictive legislation. Three states so far this year, Kentucky, Florida and Arizona, following a 2018 Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

ADRIENNE JONES, SPEAKER, MARYLAND HOUSE OF DELEGATES: Now let's go and sign these bills.

ROMERO: Now some Democratic controlled legislatures aim to protect the rights of Roe v. Wade with new bills of their own. Maryland lawmakers expanding access to abortion.

JONES: We are preparing for some of the most restrictive abortion actions that we've seen in a generation.

ROMERO: In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer filing a lawsuit to challenge the state's almost 100-year-old abortion ban even though it's not enforceable due to Roe v. Wade.

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN: We've got to take those current assaults on women's rights seriously and use every tool we have to fight back. This is not just a theoretical risk. This is a real and present danger.

ROMERO: With many states rewriting their abortion laws, all eyes point to the Supreme Court. The court heard arguments on the Mississippi law back in December. Legal experts argue a decision could be handed down in June right before summer break with pro-abortion activists continuing their fight to the highest court in the land.

[18:40:01]

PARKER: Maybe they will come back and stand behind Roe versus Wade. I hope that they do and I want to believe so.

ROMERO: Nadia Romero, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: As Nadia mentioned there's growing concern that the Supreme Court and its current conservative super majority, 6-3, could overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1973 that made a woman's right to end a pregnancy legal.

I just want to bring in victims' rights attorney Gloria Allred who not only has a legal perspective on abortion rights but also a personal one.

Gloria, you have of course talked openly about getting an illegal abortion in the 1960s after being raped. So tell us what happened and why you have described yourself as, quote, "living evidence" of what happens when abortion is criminalized.

GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS' RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Thank you, Paula, and, yes, I was one of the many women who, before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973 because the Supreme Court of the United States decided that a woman has a constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion, at least at certain stages of her pregnancy, before that time many states were making it a crime as some are now to have an abortion.

So women like me, and I was in my 20s, we had to try to figure out how are we going to have an abortion when it would be a crime not for a woman to have one but for a licensed health care provider like a doctor or a nurse to provide one. So we had to have back-alley abortions. I had one. I was left hemorrhaging, 106-degree fever, and the abortionist said don't call me. I can't do anything for you afterwards.

And so then I went to the hospital, and in those days they only took women in the hospital not to have abortions but to try to save their lives if they were hemorrhaging and about to die from one. I don't want anyone else to ever be in that position. But that's the position, dangerous to women's lives, that they're in today.

And, Paula, you know, in the same way that Putin calls it a military -- a special military operation in Ukraine and we all know it's a war on Ukraine, this is not just a ban or restrictions on abortion. This is a war on women. Let's call it what it is. This is a race among many anti-choice states to try to control women, to see who can control women the most, who can control and end their choices about their bodies the most, and who can endanger women and place their lives at risk.

Who are the women whose lives are most at risk in these anti-choice states? Poor women, young women, rural women, women of color, many women, they can't travel to another safe haven state where abortion is legal.

Let's talk about Oklahoma. Let's talk about Florida. In Oklahoma women from Texas where the governor made abortion illegal and they actually allowed for bounty hunters for citizens to sue anyone who aided or abetted anyone to get an abortion in Texas, you know, to sue them and possibly win $10,000 in a lawsuit in attorney's fees, some of those women were going to Oklahoma where they could still get an abortion. Now Texas women can't even do that. Same with Florida. Many southern states tried to outlaw abortions so

many women from southern states they went to Florida for an abortion. Now there is no safe haven in Florida. This is about women's lives, this is about women's health, and we are in danger today and those women that I named often they are young, they have no voice. They have no money. This is absolutely the worst risk to women's lives that we've seen in a long time, and some states are even trying to outlaw medication abortion where a woman can get a pill in the mail and self- induce an abortion.

They're trying to make it a crime in some states to even take a pill to self-induce an abortion. This is -- we are at risk. We are at a turning point and we are concerned about June where the U.S. Supreme Court decides that Mississippi case and decides whether or not women will have a legal right to a safe abortion.

REID: Well, speaking of the Supreme Court, as you know, it's currently 6-3 in favor of conservatives. The GOP controls the majority of state legislatures as well as holding the majority of gubernatorial seats. Now polls continue to show Republicans on track to also have a very strong showing in the November congressional midterms. So are you surprised that steps to repeal abortion rights have not done more to galvanize support from your side at the ballot box?

[18:45:01]

ALLRED: I do think if there is a rollback, a reversal or a significant erosion of Roe v. Wade in June when the United States Supreme Court decides this Mississippi case, it will be galvanizing for pro-choice supporters to go and vote as it is, I think for example, in Texas. We're seeing, you know, in the race for Texas, the next race for Texas governor, we're seeing the Democratic hopeful, Beto O'Rourke, getting higher and higher in the polls. And I think that's because many pro- choice people in Texas are getting galvanized and they're going to want to vote for someone who is pro-choice like Beto O'Rourke is over the Texas governor who is outlawing abortion in the state.

So yes, I think June could be a turning point. We're very concerned. I've never been as concerned as I -- you know, since 1973 and all the attempts to challenge Roe v. Wade. I've never been as concerned as I am right now because our lives are at risk and, by the way, not only are we looking at the four states that you talked about on the segment who have rolled back and banned and restricted abortion rights, we're also looking at many other states who are in line, have also tried to do it and then we have what we call trigger laws.

Many states passing rollback of the right to choose abortion in their states, and that doesn't become effective until July 1st. In other words they're hoping if U.S. Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade then they have their laws ready on the books, will go into effect to outlaw abortion in their states, and deny access to women who want to get abortions in those states.

So we're going to have about half the state's pro-choice and half the state controlling women, not trusting women. And it's going to have a big impact on minors as well, teenagers, who desperately need abortions and who won't be able to get them even in some states, even if they have parental consent.

REID: All eyes on the Supreme Court in June. Arguably one of the biggest cases that they'll be deciding in recent memory.

Gloria Allred, thank you so much.

ALLRED: Thank you.

REID: And tomorrow Philadelphia becomes the first city to require indoor masks again. How officials are defending that decision amid significant pushback.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:59]

REID: Tomorrow, Philadelphia will become the first major U.S. city to resurrect its indoor mask mandate. The reason for the move, COVID cases in Philadelphia County have jumped 81 percent in the past two weeks and they're not alone. More than half of states are seeing a rise in cases as all the orange and red on that map, sparking concern Philadelphia could be a preview of what's ahead for other cities.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is on the scene. All right, Polo, folks in Philadelphia, they're known to speak their minds so what can you tell us about this decision and how it's going over in the city of brotherly love?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And some of them certainly are, too, Paula, and look in this neighborhood just north of Philly, we've seen some of that signage that's already up that's requiring masking. Now some of those signs may have been there since the start of the pandemic, while others have just been put up. Either way, they are going to basically kick in tomorrow as the city will require masking for indoor public spaces, you're talking schools, you're talking restaurants, museums as well, and the list goes on.

Now here's something important to point out, that according to the city of Philadelphia, businesses and institutions do have a way around it to basically stay mask free and that's if they can ensure that all of the occupants in their spaces are basically vaccinated so we'll have to see tomorrow if any businesses here in Philly decide to go in that direction. In the meantime, important reminder to our viewers how we actually got here in the first place.

The city of Philadelphia (INAUDIBLE) nearly 50 percent increase in COVID cases in the last two weeks and that's what basically escalated their COVID measures here into the second phase which is why these masks will be required tomorrow. But also some important context when you look at the numbers and where they stand, they are still just a fraction of what they were during the previous surge, about 142 daily cases an average of daily cases as of the last update which is the last week which is well below the 225 that would be required to basically escalate to the third stage. And when it comes to hospitalizations as of Monday, 44, well below the

100 that would be required for them to escalate their response there. So in the meantime, though, Paula, streets are certainly busy and people are getting ready as the city gave folks basically a week to prepare, again, starting Monday you will start to see those masks back on already a third time that we've seen this here in Philly.

REID: Wow, well, it'd be interesting to see how that goes over and good luck to the people who have to enforce that.

Polo Sandoval, thank you so much.

Coming up, we're going to go back to Ukraine and the continued fight in Mariupol as Russian forces announced they will close down the besieged city for entry and exit on Monday.

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REID: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington. Jim Acosta is off.

And we begin with disturbing information from Mariupol, Ukraine. Russian forces in the decimated city announcing a city closure and a pass system, and warning that men remaining in the city will be, quote, "filtered out." That's according to an adviser to the city's mayor.

Now CNN has not been able to independently confirm this, but it comes as Ukraine is rejecting Russia's demand to surrender the city despite Russia's threat to eliminate all resistance.

Now you may find this next video disturbing but it shows how Russia is launching relentless attacks in eastern Ukraine ahead of a planned ground offensive. Five people died in renewed Russian rocket and artillery attacks in the city of Kharkiv. Now Russia also shelling a church on this.