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Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Remain-In-Mexico Policy; Russia's Nuclear Threats; Kamala Harris Tests Positive For COVID; U.N. Secretary-General Meets With Putin. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 26, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:23]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

America's top two defense officials both say Ukraine can win this war and the fighting could ultimately weaken Russia. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with allies from 35 countries today to discuss the future military needs of Ukraine.

Secretary Austin said Russia's actions in Ukraine are -- quote -- "indefensible" and called out Russia's foreign minister for talking about the possibility of a nuclear war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The danger is serious and real, and it should not be underestimated.

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I think this -- any bluster about the use of nuclear -- possibility of use of nuclear weapons is very dangerous and unhelpful.

Nobody wants to see a nuclear war. Nobody can win them. Again. I think it's unhelpful and dangerous for -- to rattle sabers and speculate about the use of nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Vladimir Putin just wrapped up a meeting with the U.N. secretary-general in Moscow. We will talk about that in just a moment.

But also today, a source tells CNN that American diplomats returned to Ukraine for the first time since Russia's invasion. They took a day trip to Lviv.

Meantime, heavy fighting continues in Ukraine's east. And, in Kyiv, a curfew, it's just about to start to protect people from Russia's provocative actions. Also, in the capital city crews have just begun demolishing this monument. It was erected to pay tribute to the Russian-Ukrainian friendship. It's been there for 40 years.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Oren Liebermann joins us now from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

So, Oren, Secretary Austin said that Russia is waging a war of choice. Tell us what else happened at this defense summit today.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the key messages we heard from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as well as from Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, was the bottom line here, and that is that they believe that Ukraine can win.

But that's contingent upon the continued flow of weapons into the country. And that's what this was all about, first making sure that the U.S. and its allies, more than 40 countries in attendance here, are all on the same page with supporting Ukraine, with the moral clarity behind that, and with the position that Russia has committed atrocities inside of Ukraine.

And then the key question, who has the weapons Ukraine need, and how quickly can they get into the country, because time is critical here?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUSTIN: We don't have any time to waste.

The briefings today laid out clearly why the coming weeks will be so crucial for Ukraine. So we have got to move at the speed of war. And I know that all the leaders leave today more resolved than ever to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression and atrocities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov was here. He started this off with a battlefield situation update.

And that was to inform the conversations about what weapons it is that Ukraine needs. And then that was broken into two separate questions, the short and the long term, what's needed to keep Ukraine in the fight and allow them to succeed, and then what's needed in the long term for Ukraine to defend its own sovereignty as this conflict drags on, and perhaps even after there is some sort of end to this conflict.

And then, at the end, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that this would essentially be a monthly discussion. And that's a key statement, Victor and Alisyn, because this is now long term. And the U.S. sees this conflict dragging on for quite some time.

BLACKWELL: Oren Liebermann for us at Ramstein, thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: So, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the U.N. secretary-general today and claimed that Russia and Ukraine achieved a -- quote -- "serious breakthrough" during negotiations in Istanbul, but says then the situation changed dramatically after the allegations were made that Russia committed war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

BLACKWELL: Mass graves and murdered civilians were found in the town of Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian forces.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now from Brussels.

So, what's been the reaction to what Putin said, that we made some progress and then Bucha?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes.

I think a lot of people who've watched closely what Russia has done after those -- after Russia made that offer in Istanbul, and then the war crimes were discovered in Bucha, Putin had expected really to be just bringing Zelenskyy into the table, the negotiating table, or, rather, the talks table, to present him with a fait accompli on Russia's advances across other parts of the country.

[14:05:11]

And that didn't happen. And Russia complained that it had pulled out of Bucha as a sign of good faith and this was its gesture at the Istanbul talks. So, of course, the reality on the ground was that Russia pulled out from around Kyiv because the Ukrainian forces held them back and pushed them back, and the Russians lost so many troops and so much -- so much hardware.

So Putin's words, under close scrutiny, ring hollow, and not for the first time, obviously. His allegations today, after his meeting with the U.N. secretary-general, again, what we have heard before, claiming that the war crimes that were committed by his troops inside of Bucha, these alleged war crimes, were actually provocations by the Ukrainian forces.

So, Putin really sort of doubling down or sticking to -- sticking to his lines. This is -- I think Guterres was seeing no change in the position of Russia, though he did say that he thought the U.N. said that Guterres thought that he had got some sort of agreement from Putin for the U.N. and the Red Cross to be engaged in helping get civilians out of Mariupol.

But, again, Putin, on that point saying that it was the Ukrainian forces who were stopping the civilians getting out of Mariupol, rather. What the Ukrainians have said about that is very clearly that the Ukrainian civilians in Mariupol want to be able to leave and they want to be able to go to the rest of Ukraine. And what's happening is Russia, they -- the Ukrainian officials say Russia is tricking those civilians into forcing them to go to Russian-controlled areas and Russia.

So, again, Putin's words not matching the reality on the ground.

BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson for us in Brussels.

Thank you, Nic. Overnight, two guided missiles rocked the city of Zaporizhzhia. One

person was killed, another injured. the Ukrainian military says Russia is ramping up its troops -- troop presence in the northeast, and this is an effort to partially blockade the city of Kharkiv.

CAMEROTA: CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward joins us now from Kyiv.

So, Clarissa, you just came back from Kharkiv. What's the significance of this Russian troop buildup? And what's the impact on the fighting in the south and the east?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, basically, Alisyn, Russia has a strong vested interest in trying to effectively neutralize the city of Kharkiv.

It's up in the northeast corner of the country. It's just less than 30 miles from the border. And it's right next to a key supply route, as Russian forces continue to push down towards that strategic city of Izyum, and then also trying to push even further as Russian troops also come up from the south and move in from the east.

So, this is sort of a three-pronged offensive that they're trying to launch. And the end result of it is that you're seeing a lot of heavy fighting in several parts of the country. In Kharkiv, where we just were, it is pretty much relentless shelling in certain parts of the city day in and day out, the governor today saying that two people were killed today in that shelling.

In the east, where Russian forces have been trying to sort of essentially cut off like a rump -- the rump of Ukraine and take back the -- or take over, rather, the so-called Donbass region, today, they were trying again to take a town called Marinka. Ukrainian forces saying that they were successfully able to repel that attack, but several people were killed as a result.

Also, fighting continuing in another city or town that we visited called Popasna. Three people were killed there as a house collapsed under the weight of heavy artillery. So this is really ugly fighting, Alisyn, but it's also really incremental in terms of the ground that Russian forces are actually successfully being able to take.

And they are facing a lot of Ukrainian counteroffensives, making their goal that much more difficult to achieve.

BLACKWELL: Clarissa, I want to ask you about your latest report. You were out with a paramedics team. They're going around, of course, as people are injured in the Russian shelling.

We saw these two young people, and you were with them as an area that you were trying to get into, this building, was hit by Russian shells. I want to play a bit of the story and then talk with you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: "Get in," Vladimir shouts. "Faster, faster, faster." We take cover under the stairwell. Aleksandra is trying to find the wounded person, but there's no signal. At that moment, another barrage goes on. We brace for the impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:10:19]

BLACKWELL: Unbelievable.

First, we're glad that you and your team and the paramedics team, you're OK, but what was that moment like?

WARD: So this is a common strategy that we saw the Russians implement, Victor, in Syria. It's called a double tap.

And, basically, you shall or strike a certain area. And then, as rescue workers run in to try to help people on the scene, you shell or attack in this case was rockets that area again. And the end result is, frankly, absolutely terrifying, as I think you can see from that clip you just played, because there isn't any really good way when you're in that situation to try to extricate or extract yourself from it.

The only thing you can do is try to find hard cover and wait until you think the moment's passed and that there is a safe moment to do. So what was so extraordinary watching Aleksandra and Vladimir as they continued under an incredibly stressful situation to maintain their calm, to keep trying to get a phone connection. They're not using radio systems. They're using cell phones. Those cell phones get cut out the minute you have heavy shelling like that.

They're patiently waiting, calling again, trying to find this wounded person. They're not wearing helmets. And these are the sorts of dangers that they're finding themselves every day in. And yet they keep doing the job.

And the problem with the double tap is, there's no real way to avoid or evade it, because, for them, as emergency services workers, they have to go and tend to the wounded. And so this is just a risk that they're having to contend with every single day.

CAMEROTA: Yes, your piece, Clarissa, was just so illuminating for the rest of us to see the Herculean task for all of these emergency workers trying to save the people that they still can.

Clarissa, please stay safe. Thank you very much for your reporting, as always.

Joining us now is Steven Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and retired Army Major John Spencer. He's the chair of the Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum.

Gentlemen, great to have both of you.

Major, I want to start with you, because, today, we heard Defense Secretary Austin say that the U.S. wants to see Russia weakened to the point where it can't launch any more of this -- type of invasions.

But can I just pull up for everybody the military power that Russia still has, as far as we know, and how it compares to Ukraine's, because I just think that it's so stunning. In the 2021 budget, Ukraine had 4 -- basically, $4.7 billion in their budget for their defense. Russia has $45 billion.

Active personnel, Ukraine has 196,000. Russia has 900,000. Armored vehicles, Ukraine has 3,300. Russia has 15,000 armored vehicles. Look at combat aircraft, 132 vs. 1,300, helicopters, 55 Ukraine, 948.

How is Russia going to be weakened to the point where it can't do any more of these invasions with that kind of arsenal?

MAJ. JOHN SPENCER (RET.), MADISON POLICY FORUM: Great point. Russia is huge.

I agree with Secretary Austin's comments that Russia is already weaker with the force that it has put into Ukraine to do this illegal invasion. It has lost estimates of 25 percent of its people, its soldiers, its equipment. The sanctions are working. They won't be able to replace things like cruise missiles.

They are severely already weakened, and those sanctions are working. I agree with you, though. If Russia was to double down for some reason and fully mobilize its entire army, it would have to convince its population.

I mean, Putin is an evil dictator, but he doesn't act alone. That would be a significant change to the current situation if he did that. But every day that Russia spends in Ukraine, they become weaker.

BLACKWELL: Ambassador, I want you to listen to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, in which he says that an unchecked Putin has serious consequences for far more than Ukraine, the world. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: if there is no answer to this aggression, if Russia gets away with this cost-free, then so goes the so-called international order. And if that happens, then we're heading into an era of seriously increased instability.

So, right now, it's the -- now's the time, and right now is the opportunity here to stop aggression and to restore peace and security to the European continent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Mr. Ambassador, that's exactly what President Zelenskyy has been saying for more than two months now. But his argument is that the world is not coming in aggressively enough to protect that global stability.

[14:15:06] To that, you say what?

STEVEN PIFER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UKRAINE: Victor, it's a good point that General Milley made.

And I think what you have seen over the last nine weeks, since Russia launched this unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine, is that the world is doing more. So, originally, there was a focus on providing things like Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-armor missiles, because those were things that the Ukrainian military could use very quickly without a lot of training.

But now, as it looks like this war may drag on and it may take months, you now see the West beginning to provide things like armor, the United States providing heavy artillery, so weapons that will allow the Ukrainian military, with some training -- and they will now take -- have to take the time to do that -- but to do a better job of defending themselves, and continue what the Ukrainian military has been doing, which is really frustrating Russian goals.

You look at the original Russian invasion plan, and it failed. And now the Russians are concentrating just on Donbass. But given the determination that the Ukrainians have demonstrated, if they have continued Western support and weapons, they can foil the Russian operation in Donbass as well.

CAMEROTA: Ambassador, one quick follow-up for you.

We don't talk much about Russian intelligence operations. But you tweeted you think that they have been significantly damaged. How?

PIFER: Well, over the last two months, you have seen countries in Europe -- I think 28 countries have now expelled more than 400 Russian personnel from Russian embassies and consulates.

And my guess is that, when a government in Europe made a decision, let's expel some Russian so-called diplomats, basically, their counterintelligence services said, these are the intelligence operators. And so I suspect -- I don't know this. I haven't talked to anybody in those counterintelligence services.

But, usually, they would target the Russian intelligence officers. So, if you have seen several hundred Russian intelligence officers now sent home out of Europe, that's got to be a major setback to Russian intelligence operations in European countries.

BLACKWELL: Major Spencer, we heard from Secretary Austin that Ukraine believes that it can win, the allies believe that Ukraine can win.

Has the definition of winning this war changed over the last two months? And what is it now?

SPENCER: I personally don't think so, not in the eyes -- clearly, in the eyes of Russia, it has, right? Winning meant taking all of Ukraine. They failed. They lost that war to take Kyiv. So, now winning for them has been redefined as taking the Donbass. For Ukraine and I think for the West and what we have seen just in the

past week, 40 nations rallying against one, the definition of winning for Ukraine is to push Russia all the way back to Russia, all the way back to the original sovereign lines of Ukraine, in my opinion.

BLACKWELL: Major John Spencer, Ambassador Steven Pifer, thank you.

Vice President Kamala Harris has just tested positive for COVID-19. We have got some breaking developments there ahead.

CAMEROTA: And President Biden's power to set immigration policy is being tested today. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether to end a key Trump era rule.

What the justices are saying -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:22:41]

CAMEROTA: Vice President Kamala Harris has just tested positive for COVID-19. The administration says she has no symptoms and she plans to isolate.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Jeff Zeleny has the latest.

Jeff, what more do you know?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know that when Vice President Harris was coming into work this morning here at the White House about an hour or so ahead of her scheduled meeting with President Biden, where they were going to read the presidential daily brief together -- that's the intelligence assessment -- she took a routine COVID test.

She tested positive, we're told, on a rapid test, and then took a PCR test, tested positive on that as well. So, she immediately returned to her residence at the Naval Observatory here in Washington and did not come in contact with President Biden this morning.

And, in fact, it has been since early last week that she has seen President Biden face to face. So he is not considered a close contact, in terms of having to quarantine or being threatened of COVID himself. And the reason that is, she was on the road all last week traveling in California. And then he was on the road in Seattle and Oregon as well.

So, just as their schedules worked, they had not planned to meet until this morning. But this is the first time that she has tested positive since the pandemic began. Of course, she's the highest U.S. ranking official to test positive for COVID-19, leaving only President Biden to not so far test positive.

But his aides have said it could be a matter of time, of course, because so many people at the White House and across Washington and beyond have tested positive. Of course, all of them are boosted, et cetera. But this is having one immediate impact. The Senate this afternoon was supposed to vote to confirm a couple top

of members to the Federal Board of Reserve and the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Because two Democratic senators have tested positive as well, and she's that swing vote, those will have to be put off until everyone recovers -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

ZELENY: Sure.

BLACKWELL: The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today on whether the Biden administration can end a Trump era policy that says certain non Mexican migrants trying to enter the U.S. back to Mexico. This is the so-called remain-in-Mexico case.

And it will be a test of President Biden's power to set immigration policy.

CAMEROTA: So, today's arguments come just one day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the White House from ending Title 42. That's the Trump era policy that turns migrants away at the border because of the COVID public health crisis.

[14:25:00]

So, joining us now is CNN's Priscilla Alvarez and CNN Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue, who attended today's hearing.

So, Ariane, what did the justices say about this?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right.

Well, they really grappled with this. As you said, this is a Trump era policy that said that these migrants, if they came via Mexico to the border, could be sent back to Mexico while their legal challenges played out.

And Biden and many critics, Biden, even before he was president, objected to this policy. They said, look, this particular class of migrants, many of them have a credible reason to be in the United States. And they were being sent back to really dangerous and squalor conditions.

So, basically, Biden went to get rid of the program. He was immediately challenged in court by Republican states. And the lower courts stymied. They said that he had to reinstate the policy. And the ruling was pretty broad. It said, not only did he violate federal law in the way he tried to get rid of the program, but he said, in fact, that immigration law requires a program like this.

That is a very, very broad holding. And a couple of the conservatives in court said that they seemed -- they suggested they agreed with it. And it was hard to tell, though, if there's a majority. The liberals pushed back hard here saying, in particular, Biden shouldn't be forced to keep going with this policy, particularly given the fact that it has so many foreign policy implications. For instance, Mexico is a key player here. And Biden would be forced

to sort of work with Mexico here in a program that he didn't want in the first place. So we're only going to know what this court does by the end of June and early July. And it was difficult to tell definitively coming out of oral arguments today which way they were going to rule.

BLACKWELL: And, Priscilla, Ariane just explained some of the opposition to ending this policy, likely largely along party lines. But why is the Biden administration so focused on ending it?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, simply put, President Joe Biden has said this policy is inhumane.

And the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, laid that out in two termination memos in trying to end this policy. And to remind our viewers, this policy was unprecedented. It was first implemented in 2019 under the Trump administration. And what it did is allowed authorities to basically -- or have migrants remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date.

The way it previously worked for decades was that, on a case-by-case basis, the authorities might allow someone to be released into the United States while they went through those proceedings while living in the U.S., not in a separate country, which is what this policy requires.

But when the administration tried to end the policy, Texas and Missouri sued the administration and blocked them from doing so, and they had to therefore reinstate the policy. And, today, we heard from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who expressed optimism coming out of the oral arguments. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC SCHMITT (R), MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL: But, today, this is a central question about the rule of law and about border security.

The Biden administration's level of lawlessness and how they have handled these issues is staggering. And that's why we have been victorious before at the lower court, why we're back here today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: And the state of Missouri also sued the administration over its decision to end that public health authority known as Title 42. That is a separate Trump era policy that allowed authorities to turn migrants away at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The big difference between the two policies here is, under the COVID border restrictions, migrants cannot even seek asylum in the United States. And so that -- the judge yesterday said that he plans to temporarily block the administration from ending those restrictions.

And that really goes to the bigger picture here and the challenge for the Biden administration as to navigating these legal challenges as it tries to set U.S. immigration policy. And that is going to be the big difficulty moving forward as we wait for outcomes in the next weeks and months -- Victor and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Priscilla Alvarez, Ariane de Vogue, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Another mass grave discovered near Mariupol. Russian forces are reportedly making Ukrainians bury their own in exchange for food and water.

We will speak to a Ukrainian Parliament member who is from that city next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)