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Ukraine Declares End To Battle For Mariupol; NATO Expansion; President Biden Addresses Buffalo Mass Shooting. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 17, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:21]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: "Evil will not win."

Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

President Biden's delivering a speech to a nation shaken by another mass shooting steps from where this horrific attack happened in Buffalo, New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In America, evil will not win, I promise you. Hate will not prevail, and white supremacy will not have the last word.

What happened here is simple and straightforward, terrorism, terrorism, domestic terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The president and the first lady also laid flowers at a memorial site before meeting with the families of the 10 victims all killed while shopping and working at a grocery store simply because they were black.

This hatred is what led President Biden to run for president. And this hatred is detailed in the suspect's plans. We have learned he made multiple trips to that store as early as March, even speaking with a security guard who the shooter would later kill in this attack.

CNN's Joe Johns and Shimon Prokupecz are live for us in Buffalo.

Joe, first to you.

Tell us more about the president's visit today and his message.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this speech, especially, Ana, was many things.

It occurred after the president had private meetings with the family members, the survivors of this awful shooting, along with first responders and leaders from the community. But when we got to the speech, it was the Joe Biden we have come to expect in situations like this, with his unique perspective on loss, given all the personal loss he has suffered, and somewhat of an elegy to both the victims and the survivors, telling them, for example, in time, but only in time, will the memory of your loved one bring a smile to your face before it brings a tear to your eye.

And then he turned to the dark side of all of this and gave us some of the most important stuff. And that was especially about the racist lies that individuals tell that lead to this form of violence.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I call on all Americans to reject the lie, and I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain, and for profit.

White supremacy is a poison. It's a poison running through -- it really is.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Running through our body politic.

And it's been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America, none.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And, look, the failure for us to not say -- the failure in saying that is going to be complicity. Silence is complicity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: But, as expected, the president did not call out any individuals by name for amplifying racist lies. The White House says today was a day for consoling the people of Buffalo -- Ana.

CABRERA: Shimon, what are you learning about how the suspected gunman was radicalized and just how much planning went into this?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the president there talking about poison, right?

And law enforcement officials I have been talking to and some of the investigators, he -- this suspect here was consumed by this poison, was consuming it, studying it for months and months. One of the things they say that he was most fascinated by and perhaps radicalized by is the Christchurch shooting in 2019 from New Zealand.

There, a white supremacist shot and killed 50 people. And he studied that shooting and in many ways replicating what happened there here behind me at the Tops supermarket.

We learned from investigators that he had been here several times before the shooting, in fact, the day before, but, then just yesterday, authorities revealing that he was here back in March. In one day, he visited the supermarket three times, talking with the security guard, noticing what was inside, in fact, drawing maps of the aisles, noticing where the exits were.

[13:05:02]

So he did a lot of work and a lot of planning before he decided to unleash this vicious and violent attack. The other thing authorities have found is that he talked about in these writings that he wanted to do this back in March. It's unclear why he chose not to do it back in March and instead chose Saturday as the day.

Of course, as I said, he drew those maps. He was consuming a lot of this information, really studying. Authorities are still trying to figure out a lot about his life, certainly what exactly brought him to this point, and it's still very much part of this investigation -- Ana.

CABRERA: Shimon Prokupecz there in front of all that crime scene tape.

We know that supermarket is going to be closed for quite some time as this investigation continues. Thank you.

Thank you to Joe Johns as well.

So much to discuss here.

I want to bring in Rashawn Ray, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor of sociology at the University of Maryland College Park, also with us, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger, and Daryl Johnson, former senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security.

Thank you all for being part of this important discussion.

Rashawn, first, I just want to get your thoughts on the president's visit today and his message today. We had heard from activists and family members prior to that speech, and they wanted President Biden to do more than just be empathetic. They wanted him to call out this crime for what it is. It's about hate. It's about race. It's about right-wing ideology.

Did he meet this moment?

RASHAWN RAY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, I think one of the things that Biden has been trying to do -- and, as you noted, this is one of the reasons why he ran.

People want to get past sound bites. They actually want to see policy change to hold people accountable. As you noted, make no mistake, this was about white supremacy ideology. This was about individuals going into a black neighborhood -- black neighborhoods have always been targeted by hate -- and went into this neighborhood and killed 10 people. People want to see Biden actually pass the policies that put him in

office. A lot of people came out in Georgia, Michigan, across the country to put him in office. Not only have we not seen advances as it relates to hate crimes, but voting, policing. Reparations are not even on the table.

People want to see more, and they haven't gotten that.

CABRERA: So, Gloria, politically, do you think this horrific attack and the words we heard from the president today change anything?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Not immediately. I don't think it does.

The Democratic leaders of the Senate have been working with some Republicans to try and close loopholes, background checks. Joe Biden himself was the person, you will recall, who passed the assault weapons ban, which has expired.

And I think, right now, as you're heading into this election, it isn't going to change anything politically, except that perhaps more Democrats will start talking about this and will start openly saying, Replacement Theory is racist.

And this, I think, is what Biden was saying today. He was saying, look, silence is complicity. And so, if more and more people get put on the record about this, get asked questions about this, what do you believe in Replacement Theory? What do you think of it? Do you believe that it's racist? Do you believe that people are coming across the border to replace white people and take over the country, et cetera, et cetera?

I mean, let's have a debate on what people really believe about Replacement Theory. Maybe that will happen. Maybe that will happen.

But, honestly, I have to say, after years of covering efforts to get some kind of gun control in this country, I would have to say that I'm not optimistic. You get a little piece of this and a little piece of that.

CABRERA: But maybe it's not just about gun control.

BORGER: That's right.

CABRERA: I mean, it's bigger picture. I mean, he's talking about white supremacy, about domestic terrorism.

And so, Daryl, President Biden, he used that word terrorism today. His secretary of homeland security, however, says that's a legal term. Laws are a little bit, I guess, a gray area right now when it comes to domestic terrorism and how you go about prosecuting that. So he wouldn't call it that.

I wonder, is it important to use that language, especially given that the Department of Homeland Security says domestic terrorism is the greatest terror threat to this country at this moment? DARYL JOHNSON, FORMER LEAD ANALYST, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY:

Yes, so I applaud the president for using that word, because it is applicable to this case.

And an organization I belong to, we Are Many United Against Hate, issued a call to action yesterday. And one of the things that we have asked is for both Republicans and Democrats to come out and condemn these types of attacks and categorize them as acts of terrorism.

I mean, the media has us accustomed to equating terrorism from only them Middle East. But we do have homegrown terrorism here in the United States carried out by white people.

[13:10:06]

So it's important to use that term, because acknowledging the threat is the very first step in trying to combat it.

CABRERA: Rashawn, you expressed some frustration about the lack of action taken so far and what this president has been able to accomplish when it comes to issues of racial injustice and dealing with hatred that exists in the population and society at large.

President Biden ran as a great unifier. He called the race a battle for the soul of this nation. Where are we in the battle?

RAY: Well, look, I think we are in the thick of the battle.

What we just heard is important for people. Some statistics need to be laid out. Three out of four of the domestic terrorist acts that happen in the United States come from right-wing extremists, primarily white nationalists; 60 percent of hate crimes have to do with race.

We are in this battle for the soul of the nation. And as my grandfather would always say, who served 21 years in the Army, Purple Heart Bronze Stars, a drill sergeant, our silence is our acceptance.

Biden noted that. But what people, again, want to get past are narratives. Part of what needs to happen is what is happening in the state of Maryland, which is the Lieutenant Richard W. Collins III law, which actually expands the scope by which prosecutors can pursue individuals for hate crimes.

It says that race and other protected clauses simply have to be one of the reasons why people engage in behavior. The other thing that academics have noted is that maybe we need to start thinking about these hate groups as gangs. That will give law enforcement more of the ability to pursue them in different ways and investigate them in different ways.

But it's very clear that we are in a moment in time where people are getting attacked in school for speaking the truth, that people are getting attacked for going to get eggs and bread from the grocery store. And more needs to be done from the White House to our dinner tables to prevent these sorts of things from happening. And this is why, in Dallas, just recently, a 9-year-old little boy who

was white went to his neighbor's home and pulled out a whip and whipped the door with it. It was something out of 1922 or 1822 or maybe even 1955, when Emmett Till was killed. And then the father shot at the father -- the black father of the little girl.

We have to realize that people who go into the grocery store in Buffalo come from parents like that who start off as little kids like what we saw in Dallas.

CABRERA: And so how does that become normalized or seen as acceptable in society?

We have seen some Republicans, Gloria, like Liz Cheney, call out members of her own party, saying they have a role in all of this and is urging a course correction for those members of the party. Do you think that will happen?

BORGER: No, I don't think that will happen right away, at all.

But I think what we see happening -- and this is not just Republicans -- what you see happening is, we used to talk about lone wolf, and we used to counsel ourselves by saying, oh, this person is just crazy. This person is a lone wolf. He acted alone in killing 10 people, et cetera.

There are no more lone wolves. That's not what it is. They are seeing things. They are reading things. They are so-called educating themselves on the Internet. And they are becoming a part of a pack. And this is what we are seeing now.

And this is why the head of the FBI has said this kind of domestic terrorism is what we really have to fear in this country right now. And we all have to kind of try and wrap our -- wrap our heads around that, that this is the greatest fear that we should be thinking about as American citizens, that it comes from within, and not from outside.

CABRERA: And so quickly, Daryl, I just want to come back to some of the new reporting that we learned from Shimon regarding this radicalization that happens on the Internet.

In fact, through some of these platforms like 4chan and Twitch, we're learning that the shooter's own writings show his beliefs came from -- quote -- "from the Internet and with little to no influence by people I met in person."

And so are law enforcement monitoring these platforms in real time to try to thwart potential threats? Because, presumably, the evidence of the alleged shooter's radicalization was there.

JOHNSON: Yes, so when I first started following this threat back in the '90s for the government, you actually had to meet someone in person and radicalized that way.

And with the advent of the Internet, this has become a force multiplier. It's giving the extremists ways to network with other extremists, share ideas, share capabilities, be able to look up information for potential targets that they're going to go after, that they do this in the comfort of their own home and within anonymity and encryption.

[13:15:00]

So it is very difficult for law enforcement to detect and deter these types of threats online. So, we got to rely on the citizenry. We got to rely on private industry for a majority of that responsibility.

So, law enforcement can work hand in hand to train private industry, these social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and others, YouTube. And then the citizenry also needs to be educated on how to detect potential indicators of radicalization.

And, through that, we can see something, say something, report it to law enforcement, and then they can intervene.

CABRERA: Daryl Johnson, Rashawn Ray, Gloria Borger, thank you. Appreciate all of you.

We're standing by for more from the president. And if he says anything before he returns to the White House, we will bring that to you.

Plus: It was a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, but it appears the battle for Mariupol's massive steel plant, the final holdout in that port city, is coming to an end. What this means in the larger fight.

And lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree on something today. UFOs aren't just science fiction. One even calls them a potential national security threat.

More on the rare public hearing that is fighting to get the truth out there.

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[13:20:39]

CABRERA: Welcome back.

The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who spent the last two months holed up in a steel plant in Mariupol is now in Vladimir Putin's hands.

The Russian Ministry of Defense released this footage, which they say shows Ukrainian fighters finally brought out of the Azovstal steelworks.

Meanwhile, President Biden will welcome the prime minister of Sweden and the president of Finland to the White House on Thursday, one day after they hand in applications for NATO membership.

CNN correspondent Melissa Bell is in Kyiv, and CNN Europe editor Nina dos Santos is in Stockholm, Sweden. Melissa, let's start with these developments from Mariupol. What do

you know about where those Ukrainian soldiers are going and what this means for the fight?

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, simply, for the time being -- and I think this is probably the most worrying aspect from the point of view not just of Kyiv, but, more specifically, Ana, those many hundreds of families that are waiting to get their loved ones back, loved ones that have been living under such terrible circumstances in the Azovstal steel plant.

All we know for now is that they are in the hands of Russian forces. They are prisoners of war. They have essentially now surrendered to them. Now, the idea is that they now become the -- or are the subject of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. And we expect what -- certainly, the hope on the Ukrainian side is that some kind of swap will be agreed, a prisoner of war exchange.

But what this means for the war is perhaps the most interesting development of all today. Perhaps we can just look at a map of that Russian-held territory, as a result of Azovstal fighters having surrendered, Mariupol now in the hands of Moscow, with that last redoubt of Ukrainian resistance now gone or going, since we expect those evacuations to come to an end in the coming hours.

And when you look at those gains and what Mariupol represents, you're talking about essentially a land bridge between Russian-held Crimea, annexed, of course, in 2014, and those Russian-backed separatists in the east Donbass, and essentially an entire area of land that will not only make it -- would not only make it easier now for Moscow to concentrate its fight against Ukraine, but, actually, if it chose to, to simply to announce that this is what it intended to keep.

Now, certainly, we have been hearing between the lines from an adviser to President Zelenskyy in terms of those negotiations between the countries -- two countries in terms of finding an out, an end to this war, those negotiations have now been officially suspended, with Ukraine saying that Moscow is simply being unreasonable.

And reading between the lines of what President Zelenskyy's adviser had to say, you get the sense that, from the Ukrainian part, there is no willingness to accept any idea of a partition of their country, Ana.

CABRERA: Nina, let's talk about the potential expansion of NATO.

It was only earlier today that Finland's government overwhelmingly approved the proposal for NATO membership. So, what happens next?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: Yeah, well, it's been a real feverish day of various announcements and documents being signed here in Stockholm, because we have also got the Finnish president here on a two-day state visit, obviously, to mark this occasion.

This is a show of force, with two countries then trying to make sure that they benefit from a collective show of force if they manage to become part of a 30-strong member bloc that is obviously activated by one member getting attacked. All, in that case, would come to their defense.

Sweden and Finland have for so many years tried to avoid becoming politically and militarily aligned. But they felt that, after the invasion of Ukraine, they had no other choice.

In fact, just today, I spoke to the prime minister of Sweden, and she said this was, yes, a momentous U-turn for her personal party, her personal politics and her country as a whole, but things are just radically different now these days.

So, what happens next? Well, they have got to convince all 30 members of NATO that it would be good for them to join. They do have all of the criteria. These are countries that spend heavily on the military and the army and the navy. They have got specialist defense technology. It would be very much welcomed by almost all NATO members for them to join, except one is holding out, and that is Turkey.

Now, the U.S. president, Joe Biden, as a show of support from the United States, just a few hours ago invited both of these two leaders to Washington, D.C., to talk about their accession to NATO. That is being viewed as an opportunity to speed things up significantly -- Ana.

[13:25:13]

CABRERA: And, again, that meeting expected to happen on Thursday.

Nina dos Santos and Melissa Bell, thank you, ladies.

Major primary day back here in the U.S., and, on the ballot, the direction of the Republican Party. What you need to know about today's vote.

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