Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ukrainian Father Describes Life on Day 188 of the War; Biden Addresses Gun Crime and Policing in America. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 30, 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]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Ukraine's President Zelenskyy is promising to chase Russian troops all the way to the border as Ukraine ramps up its new counter offensive against Russia. The Ukrainian military says it's broken through Russian defenses at several points in Ukraine's south and damaged bridges to isolate Russian units on the front lines. Ordinary Ukrainians are just trying to survive day-to-day. My next guest is one of them. Maybe you remember Alex Dayrabekow. He sang The Beatles' song "Yesterday" to comfort his newborn son just after the onset of the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX DAYRABEKOW, UKRAINIAN CITIZEN AND FATHER OF THREE: Oh, I believe in yesterday suddenly ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: He recently tweeted that his son Artie, the youngest of three turned 6 months old, and that was August 9th. And Alex Dayrabekow joins me now from Bucha there in Ukraine, a place that has endured so much suffering in this war. Alex, it's good to see you. I've got to say, I was surprised when my team told me you were back in Bucha. Of course, we know Bucha, especially for the massacre that happened there, that the U.S. government and so many others have determined to be a war crime. What is Bucha like today?

DAYRABEKOW: Hi, Victor. Very nice to see you. I'm really pleased. Well, you know, when we came back to Bucha in the beginning of this summer, we were so much shocked in the first place, seeing all those images and devastations. In fact, I'm holding a piece of shrapnel in my hand now. This is a piece that I found in one of my windows, broken windows, and this is something tangible for me. I keep it in my hand just to remind myself that the war is still going on. So, we tried to accommodate ourselves in this devastations, but every time we would go out in the streets, we would be shocked again and again.

BLACKWELL: Back in the spring, people were afraid to come out of their homes. There were no markets open. Are people out on the streets now? Are markets available? How much does it look like pre-invasion Bucha now?

DAYRABEKOW: Well, let's be honest, it will never look like pre- invasion. The devastations are everywhere. You can see some houses roofless, lots of broken windows. Some houses are completely destroyed, just nothing. Completely up out of the ground, but, you know, this is the new norm. People are in the streets, in the parks, the children are playing in the fountains. There is cafes, restaurants stores opened. Lots of tours coming to see. This is like military tourism. But when we see all of this, we remember that Russians stayed here just for one month, and we cannot even imagine what it looks like in those occupied regions that are still under Russian rule.

BLACKWELL: Listen, before I run out of time, I don't want to miss this question. We have the video of you with Artie who's now six months old, he was just a couple of days old when we first spoke with you.

[15:35:03]

How is he doing?

DAYRABEKOW: Well, the kid is growing. The kid is growing and we're trying to give him, you know, this normal life in this war period. You know, we are trying to be happy as we can, you know, and pay attention to him, read books about child behavior. Something that we didn't do in the first months of the war. We truly believe that our army will kick the enemy out of this country, and my son will remember someday those times from the videos that I shoot for him.

BLACKWELL: Yes, when his country was at war for the first months of his life. You mentioned your confidence. Of course, the counter offensive has begun, some of those villages have been taken back from Russian control in the south. But no one questions the Ukrainians' resolve, that you are committed to keeping your territory. But I know you follow the machinations, every chapter of this war, are you confident that Ukrainian fighters have the resources to do it?

DAYRABEKOW: I've been following it from day one, every day. Me and my wife, like every other Ukrainians is reading news all the time. We have the resources. Thanks to the West, we have a lot of resources. Unfortunately, it's not enough to kick them out without sufferings and damages, but as we can see the counter offensive started, and we all hope, all Ukrainians hope, that we will succeed.

BLACKWELL: Alex Dayrabekov, I thank you for sharing your story with us and spending some time with us, especially when you've got the three boys there as well, and all that's happening around you. Alex, good to see you. Thank you.

DAYRABEKOW: Thank you, Victor. Thank you, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Thank you so much.

President Biden, as everyone knows, is in Pennsylvania, he's about to start speaking on policing and gun safety. We're just waiting for him to start speaking. And we will bring that to you as soon as it starts.

Meanwhile, with just ten weeks until the midterms, some Republicans are suddenly shifting their tone on abortion. So how are voters supposed to know where they really stand? That's next.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Let's go to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. President Biden is addressing gun violence, public safety, and policing in America.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By the way, please sit down. I'm sorry. Please sit down. I keep forgetting. Thank you.

But look, when I ran for president, I said I looked at the world the way I looked at it growing up in Scranton, and that wasn't hyperbole. I meant that. What families wanted in Scranton when I was growing up and my mom and dad and my grandpop was the basic, basic, basic as it is today, a decent job, the opportunity to be treated with dignity, everyone, my dad would say, everybody. Everybody's entitled to be treated with dignity, to simple dignity.

The fact is that they want to be able to go to good schools, stay in safe neighborhoods, a decent place to live, and just a fair shot, just a fair shot for their kids. You know, a peace of mind knowing your kids can go to school or a playground or movies or a high school game and come home safely and not have to think about it.

But for too long, too many families haven't had that peace of mind. They watch the news and they see kids being gunned down in schools and on the streets. Almost every single night you turn the news on, that's what you see. They see their neighbors lose their loved ones to drugs like fentanyl, which is a flat killer. They see hate and anger and violence, just walking the streets of America. And they just want to feel safe again. They want to feel a sense of security. And that's what my crime plan is all about.

You know, I call it the "Safer America Plan," and both your members of Congress voted for it. It's based on a simple notion. When it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police, it's fund the police. Fund the police and give them -- we expect them to do everything. We expect them to protect us, to be psychologists, to be sociologists, I mean, we expect you to do everything. I'm not joking. Everything.

You realize more police officers are killed dealing with domestic violence than anything else? Do you realize that? The point is we ask so much of you, so much of you. I've not met a cop who likes a bad cop. There's bad in everything. There's lousy Senators, there's lousy presidents, there's lousy doctors, there's lousy lawyers, no, I'm serious.

[15:45:00]

But I don't know any police officer that feels good about the fact that there may be a lousy cop. I'm tired of not giving the kind of help they need.

Folks, look, we're in a situation in this country where we have to give them additional resources, they need to get their job done. Matt gets it -- Matt Cartwright. And I'm not just hyperbole. Matt's the chair of the powerful subcommittee that controls the funding for public safety. He knows what it means investing in an effective and accountable community policing that builds public trust and strengthens public safety.

I'm old enough to remember when cops used to walk the beat in Wilmington and in Scranton because they knew everybody. They knew the kid, they knew if someone was in trouble, they knew whose house to go knock on the door, and say, mom, your son just did. I'm not being facetious. They knew the neighborhoods.

As part of the American Rescue Plan, I signed into law last year -- which they voted for -- we set aside 350 billion -- with a B -- billion dollars for state and local governments all across America. And urged them to use it like your governor did to make communities safer.

Here in Pennsylvania Governor Wolfe is using $250 million of that money to reduce crime and violence across this state and Mayor Brown just described how it's helping fund community policing here in Wilkes-Barre.

But guess what, every single Republican member of Congress, every single one in this state, every single one voted against the support for law enforcement. They talk about how much they love it. They voted against the funding. Flat out. Flat out. Every Republican in the House. Every Republican in the Senate. Every single one.

I know we expect so much from our law enforcement officers, so we need to support them. That's why my crime plan to help communities recruit, hire, and train nationwide more than 100,000 additional officers, accountable officers for community policing. And I mean it.

Folks, when it comes to fighting crime, we know it works. Officers on the street who know the neighborhood, not a joke, who know the neighborhood, who know the families they're protecting, who get the training they need to be able to do their jobs well, who work to earn the community's trust. And as we hire more police officers, there should be more training, more help and more accountability.

Without public trust law enforcement can't do its job serving and protecting all the communities. If I can just interject for a moment, my deceased son Beau, he was the Attorney General of the state of Delaware, and what he used to do is go down on the east side, called the bucket, highest crime rate in the country. It was a place where I was the only white guy that worked as a life guard down in that area on the east side. And you could always tell where the best basketball in the state is or the best basketball in the city is, it's where everybody shows up. He would go down and hang out and sit on a bench with my grandson who's now 17 years old, and the police used to be in the car, local city police, and he'd walk up and bang on the window. Say get out of the car dammit, meet these people, let them see you, let them know, let them know who you are.

Well, the truth was, remember what happened to community policing? We went from having enough cops on the street to cities doing well and then decided they don't need more police officers. So, they reduced the police forces so you didn't have two cops in every vehicle. You had one cop in every vehicle. And I don't blame one cop for not getting out in some certain neighborhoods, not getting out of the car.

And what happens is it used to be, I can remember that when my son was the Attorney General, he would go around in the tougher neighborhoods and he would ensure that every single cop gave his cell phone number to the local liquor store owner, the local church, the local grocery store, the local hamburger joint, so if there's a problem, they get on the phone and call.

Because what do people not want to do in tough neighborhoods? They don't want to be identified as turning so and so in. I remember going on the east side in Wilmington, and one of those old Victorian three- story apartment buildings, and going up to see a woman whose name -- she's passed away, I won't mention her name now -- and stand in that rotunda, that part that stuck out around the building.

[15:50:00]

And she said, Joey, I know -- I know what's going on, they all planned it downstairs. I can hear them. But I'm afraid to tell anybody. Afraid to tell anybody -- the gangs. And so, I got a phone number for the local cops. She called. They promised not to identify her because they knew there would be retribution, and the crime rate began to drop, for real, not a joke.

You got to know people. You got to know and got to be able to trust the police. The police have to be able to trust the community. But we slipped away from that. We have a hell of a lot fewer cops today than we did when I wrote that initial crime bill. But now we have to get back to it.

And by the way, I'm not making a case there aren't bad cops. There are some really lousy cops. There's some really lousy doctors, there's really lousy lawyers. I mean it. But here's the point. As we have seen too often, public trust is frayed and is broken, and it undermines public safety when it gets frayed. It literally undermines safety.

Families across the country have to ask, why in this nation -- for example, so many black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their life just by living their lives. Come from neighborhoods like I come from. And down in Delaware, if you have a 16 or 17-year-old son and they get their driver's license, you sit down and say, look, if you get stopped, put your hands on the wheel, don't do anything. I'm being serious. I'm being serious.

But here's the point. Simply jogging, sleeping in their homes, you know, they made headlines or not, a lot of lost souls. Increased trust makes policing more effective and it strengthens public safety. And the communities, by the way, that want the police more than any other community are the tough, poor communities. Black, white, immigrants, they need the help. They want the help. It's not that they don't want it. They want the help.

Without that, victims don't call for help. Witnesses don't step forward. Crimes go unsolved. Justice isn't served. I took executive action, which I'm allowed to do as president. I always admired governors can take executive action. But all kidding aside, to make some of these reforms for federal officers, I couldn't do it for state officers.

One, no federal officer is allowed to use a choke hold. No federal officer can do restricted no-knock warrants. We created a national database for officers who have misbehaved and been held accountable so they can't hide. My plan will make sure state and local governments adopt these same reforms.

My plan does something else really important. It addresses the opioid epidemic. You know how many people are dying of opioid overdoses now, and by the way, laced with fentanyl. The Attorney General Shapiro can tell you more about that you never want to know, for a fact, for real. He's been such a strong leader on this.

But we're going to impose tougher penalties for deadly fentanyl trafficking that's poisoning communities across this country. This is a key part of the unity agenda I'm announcing, that I announced in my State of the Union Address. We can do this. We have to do this. We'll make America safer.

My plan also takes common sense action to reduce gun violence and violence overall. It builds on the progress we made this summer when I signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law we passed in 30 years. It took 30 years. And we beat the NRA. We took them on and we beat the NRA straight up. You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials.

The NRA was against it, which means a vast majority, the vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn't even stand up and vote for it because they're afraid of the NRA. It's not unusual. Every Democrat, Republican Senators, they get afraid of certain interest groups. They voted against it. Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders and teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country like the students of this great university support it.

And the NRA and the vast majority of Congressional Republicans voted against it, saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on the NRA and we're going to take them on again, and we won. And we will win again.

But we're not stopping here. I'm determined to ban assault weapons in this country.

[15:55:00]

Determined. I did it once before and I'll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear, it's not about taking away anybody's guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples how every gun owner should behave. I have two shotguns at home. I care -- it's a long story but I'm not opposed to guns. But I support the Second Amendment. And I support the Second Amendment.

But the Second Amendment, that's one of the most conservative justices in history, Justice Scalia once wrote, quote, like most rights, the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not unlimited. They're not unlimited.

Right now, you can't go out and buy an automatic weapon. You can't go out and buy a cannon. And for those brave right-wing Americans who say it's all about keeping Americans independent and safe. If you want to fight against a country, you need an F-15, you need something a little more than a gun.

Now I'm not joking. Think about this. Think about the rationale we use, that's used to provide this. And who are they shooting at? Shooting at these guys behind me.

Folks, look. I went to every major school shooting in the country since I was a chairman of the Judiciary Committee all the way through as vice president and president. Over 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States of America, over 26,000 by suicide. When guns are the number one killer -- listen to this -- when the guns are the number one killer of children in America -- of children and number one, more children die from guns than active duty police and active duty military personnel combined. Hear that again. More children in America die from guns than active duty police and active duty military in the United States combined.

We have to act. We have to act for those families in Buffalo, Uvalde, Newtown, El Paso, Parkland, Charleston, Las Vegas, Orlando. I've been to every one of those sites. Sit down with those parents. I spent four hours last time. Met with every single one of the parents and families that lost someone. See the looks on their faces. Think about it. Think about the devastation that's occurred.

We have to act for all those kids gunned down on our streets every single day that never make the news. There's a mass shooting every single day in this country in the streets of America. Every single day. You have to ask, you have to act so our kids can learn to read in school instead of learning to duck and cover.

Literally, schools all across America, kids are showing up. The psychological damage done to our kids, not just COVID, but COVID and how it's impacted us, and on top of that, the child going to school, children see this on television.

You know, we're living in a country awash with weapons of war. Weapons that weren't designed to hunt, were designed to take on an enemy. Well, that's what they're designed to do. For God's sake, what's the rationale for these weapons outside of a war zone? They inflict severe damage.

When I was recently in Uvalde, I almost hesitate to say it because some of the kids are there. You know what some of the parents had to do? Supply DNA, supply DNA because the AR-15s just rips the body apart. Could not identify, could not identify the body.

And a 20-year-old kid can walk in and buy one? DNA to say that's my baby. What the hell is the matter with us? Now I'm not joking. Think about it. What are we doing? And by the way, how many -- my dad used to love to hunt in the Poconos when we lived in Scranton. How many deer or bear are wearing Kevlar vests? Huh? Not a joke. Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun. Five times.