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Western Officials Helped Ukraine "War-Game" Counteroffensive; IAEA Inspectors To Maintain Presence At Ukraine's Nuclear Power Plant; Mikhail Gorbachev, Last Soviet Union Leader, Dies At Age 91; U.S. Life Expectancy Lowest In Decades; FDA Authorizes Pfizer & Moderna's Updated COVID-19 Boosters; Goldman Sachs Dropping COVID Rules For Most Workers; Biden Condemns "MAGA Republicans" For Defending 1/6 Insurrection; Fetterman To Skip Next Week's Debate. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 31, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: CNN's Katie Bo Lillis is here with us now.

Katie Bo, the war gaming comes with a message to the Ukrainian military. What is it?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes, so, Victor, one of the are central messages from the Western and the U.S. side to the Ukrainians has been keep your objectives for this operation limited.

Don't overextend yourself along an extended front line. For example, don't get bogged down. In other words, don't bite off more than you can chew.

But, Victor and Alisyn, this comes at a really interesting moment in this conflict.

Multiple U.S. and Western officials who spoke to my colleague, Natasha Bertrand, and I emphasized that the Russian and Ukrainian militaries are more evenly matched militarily than they have been perhaps at any other point in this conflict.

And there's a number of reasons for this. You know, part of it, of course, is that the numbers are a little bit more evenly matched in terms of manpower in Kherson in the south.

Part of it is, of course, this influx of sophisticated Western arms and military equipment that the West has provided to the Ukrainians.

Part of it is the morale issue. The Ukrainians unquestionably have a higher morale in their fighting force than the Russians do.

But part of it, according to sources familiar with the latest intelligence who spoke to us, say it's simply sheer competence on the Ukrainian side.

The Ukrainians are making up for shortfalls in artillery with mere capability. Now, the officials who we spoke to are not placing any bets that

Ukraine is going to be successful in this offensive in retaking Kherson or any of the other territories that it has lost to Russia over the last six months of this war.

But they did emphasize to us that Ukraine not exactly the underdog that it was when this war started in February of this year -- Victor, Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: That's really interesting,

Katie Bo Lillis, thank you for sharing your reporting.

Here to discuss, we have CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

So, Colonel, what's the goal of this counterterrorism offensive? Is it to get rid of Russia from the southern part of the country, or is it just to pick off little villages and just kind of, you know, step by step keep this slog going?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Alisyn, it's actually both. But you have to do it in sequence. And so as Katie Bo was mentioning in her reporting, what you're looking at is a more tactical approach.

What they're trying to do is, you know, at the strategic level, it would be to get rid of the Russian forces and rid them of southern Ukraine. But that's something that they really can't do.

But what they can do is they can take off individual pieces and take out the forces, say, around Kherson, which appears to be the first objective that the Ukrainians have.

What the Ukrainians will need to do is establish a pattern of victory. And if they can continue that pattern of victory, Alisyn, then that will help them, you know, with any type of future military movements, plus any eventual peace negotiations that might be coming up as well.

BLACKWELL: We've learned that this IAEA team that is going to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, they've arrived in the city before going to the plant itself. And that Moscow is now welcoming a permanent presence at the plant.

Now, of course, this is good news because they can be there to avoid catastrophe. But does this give us any insight into Russia's long-term goals if they are willing to allow this team to stay?

LEIGHTON: Victor, I think it's really interesting that they're doing this. I think it's -- in many ways, it is in their interests, at least from a technical standpoint, to actually have a team there.

It also means that the Russians won't have to potentially concern themselves with manning and maintaining a force at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

So of course, their calculus is going to be very different from the Ukrainian calculus when it comes to figuring out what to do next. Certainly, it would be different than what the U.S. would do in a situation like this.

But it is a bit of a glimmer of hope, I would say, that the Russians are allowing the IAEA to do this and perhaps to maintain a more permanent presence.

The nature of that presence, of course, will be something that we'll have to figure out. And we'll be -- you know, the devil will be in the details in that sense.

CAMEROTA: Colonel, while we have you, we want to get your thoughts on Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at the age of 91. What is his legacy, given what we're seeing now with Putin? I mean, has Putin worked to obliterate whatever that was?

LEIGHTON: In many ways, he has, Alisyn. So this is really interesting. I was stationed in Berlin when the Berlin Wall came down. And of course, Gorbachev was the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the time. So he was the Soviet leader.

And it was his choice, his decision not to clamp down on the freedom protests in Eastern Europe that were happening at that time that really made for the kind of Europe that we see today.

So you know, as far as the West is concerned, we were very happy with what Gorbachev did.

Putin, on the other hand, looks at Gorbachev as inaugurating the catastrophe that was the -- in his opinion, the demise of the Soviet Union.

[14:35:06]

Putin was sitting in Germany as the KGB official then, and he saw it as an absolute disaster that the Soviet Union was obliterated from the map because of, in his view, Gorbachev's actions.

BLACKWELL: Retired Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you, sir.

CAMEROTA: So the FDA is authorizing new COVID boosters for the Omicron variant, and we have details for when you should get one.

BLACKWELL: And Goldman Sachs is rolling back COVID mandates for most of its employees. What this signals for the rest of America's work force, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:15]

CAMEROTA: U.S. life expectancy is falling for the third year in a row.

BLACKWELL: The average is now just over 76 years. That is the lowest we've seen since 1996.

CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here with us in New York.

Are we expecting this to bounce back after the COVID era?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it should bounce back somewhat. But even before COVID, the United States was really one of the only developed countries in the world where life expectancy was falling even before COVID.

Opioid overdoses, suicides, and liver cirrhosis were driving that before COVID.

And then we saw, you know, the first year of COVID life expectancy dropped a year. Now two and a half years into COVID, and we can see that the primary sort of driver of this over the last three years, 50 percent of the drivers of these early deaths is COVID.

But you have these other things as well. You can take a look at the list there. But unintentional injuries, guys. That's the drug overdoses that we're talking about. Suicide, you can see that in red. Those were big issues and pretty -- you know, pretty specific to the United States.

It's hard to believe, but life expectancy was already going down in this country as you mentioned. So we'll see how much of a bounce there is.

I can show you one other thing that I thought was interesting. We looked at this, the United States dropped. You'll see this graph again now. That's the red line at the bottom.

In the blue, right above that, that's other similar countries. You see they went down as well the first year. But they've already bounced back up.

The United States is really the only country to still sort of have that downward trajectory.

CAMEROTA: Wow. That's really shocking.

Let's talk about something to fight COVID, and that is that the FDA today authorizes this updated booster to specifically fight the Omicron variant.

So when should we all get that?

GUPTA: We're going to hear specifically from the CDC on this. But what it sounds like is the FDA is saying that anybody who is now over the age of 12 -- remember, it was people over the age of 50. Anyone over the age of 12, who has not received a shot in at least the last two months is likely to be eligible for this.

This is what's known as a bivalent vaccine. It's protected against the original strain, which is what everyone has gotten in the past, and now specifically BA.4 and BA.5.

They sort of anticipated that those two variants would be the predominant variants and they are. It's about 90 percent of the variants right now in the country, the infections are caused by these variants.

So that will offer more protection against those circulating variants as well.

BLACKWELL: So even as we're seeing these new boosters come online, there are some companies that are lifting the mandates. Goldman Sachs is lifting the testing and the vaccine mandate, not New York City.

Is this the right time to do that?

GUPTA: You know, Victor, that's almost a philosophical question. You get the sense, from hearing the CDC guidelines -- and they're in accordance with the CDC guidelines. These are not sort of going against those guidelines.

But it's almost the question of, is this the steady state we're willing to accept at this point.

Take a look at New York specifically, you can see that New York and the community transmission is medium. That's where we are right now. So there would not be indoor masking that would be recommended, things like that.

But if you look at the overall transmission, like how much virus is out there. If I'm in an indoor location, how likely am I to come into contact with this virus? That's the areas in red. And that's pretty much everywhere.

So with these variants, if you have protection, you know, you should not be at risk of getting severely ill. But you can still get pretty sick. People are knocked out of work for several days, things like that.

It's surprising that it's just sort of gone from all these things to nothing. I mean, leaving aside mandates, the idea that testing should be available. Do I have it or not? I may not even be sick but I could spread it to you.

Should that be something you should be entitled to know? I think this is almost more of a philosophical question.

We know there's a lot of virus out there. We know some 400 people are still dying every day. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. But is this the steady state the United States is willing to accept?

And 60,000 people die of flu every year. Less than half the country got a flu shot before COVID. Maybe this is it. I don't know. But it does seem like a lot of, you know, sickness and death out there still happening.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, if you have had COVID, how long of protection do you have?

GUPTA: Well, the CDC will say when you no longer have any symptoms -- in terms of getting another shot or are you saying protection?

CAMEROTA: Protection.

GUPTA: Probably two to three months, you know? It's a little bit hard to say. We know that the antibodies do wane from both the vaccine and infection acquired immunity.

In terms of getting a shot, like, let's say you have COVID, should I get the booster. What they'll say is as long as you don't have any symptoms, you're OK to get it.

But you probably do have protection for two to three months so it's probably reasonable to wait.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that's good to know. Because some people think, oh, I have it for a year. No, two to three months.

(CROSSTALK)

[14:45:03]

GUPTA: That's what it looks like right now.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, always great to see you.

GUPTA: You, too.

(CROSSTALK)

GUPTA: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: Pennsylvania politics, let's get into it. It's getting uglier by the day. Senate Candidate John Fetterman says he will not debate his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz. His reasoning and how Oz's campaign is responding. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The White House is getting ready for President Biden's big primetime speech tomorrow night in Philadelphia. The White House says that it will be focused on the battle for the soul of the nation.

CAMEROTA: President Biden is sharpening his attacks on one wing of the Republican Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You can't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. Now I'll tell you what I was going to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: My MAGA Republican friends in Congress, don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th.

[14:50:03]

You can't be pro law enforcement and pro insurrection. You can't be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th patriots.

No one expects politics to be a patty cake. It sometimes is as mean as hell. But the idea you turn on the television and see senior congressmen saying, if such and such happens, there will be blood in the street. Where the hell are we?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Kaitlan Collins is live at the White House for us.

So, Kaitlan, is this President Biden's new tone from now through the midterms?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It certainly seems to be a preview of what he is going to be arguing to voters before they do go to the polls on election day in November.

Obviously, making an argument for Democrats there as he was in Pennsylvania yesterday.

Very forceful comments from President Biden. And those ones about not being in support of defunding the FBI, which you have seen from some members of the Republican Party since the search of Mar-a-Lago happened by FBI agents, we're certainly incredibly forceful.

And probably his most forceful condemnation to date since that search actually happened. And you have seen the uptick in threats against the FBI.

Tomorrow night, we're told, could build on what he said yesterday in the sense of he is really sharpening his attacks on Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, knowing that they've got 10 weeks to go.

But we're told that yesterday was focused on law enforcement, on crime, and the president trying to make the argument that Democrats are actually the party of law and order, which is this mantel that Republicans say they hold.

And tomorrow, we are expecting it to be very politically focused and return to that theme that you so often saw from President Biden when he was a candidate on the campaign trail.

Arguing that the election in 2020 was a battle for the soul of America, that he is the one to unite the country.

And also what we're told to expect tomorrow night is basically that Democrats are the ones who are going to be the ones to preserve democracy, basically, this threat that is still facing democracy that the president will argue is very much still underway.

So expect that from him tomorrow I thought tonight. We are told it will be about a 20-minute speech from President Biden.

Also, you can't ignore where he is going, Pennsylvania, where he will be for the second time. It will be his 15th time tomorrow since taking office that he has visited the political battleground.

That's where Democrats feel there's a chance of taking back a Senate seat, flipping it from Republican to Democrat. And of course, they have other critical elections on the ballot this November as well.

So it's no mistake he is going back to Pennsylvania to deliver this speech tomorrow, and will also be there again on Monday -- Alisyn and Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right, Kaitlan Collins, watching it for us. Thank you very much.

Let's talk more about Pennsylvania and shift to the Democratic Senate nominee, John Fetterman, who says he will not participate in next week's debate with GOP nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman's campaign says it's due to Oz's campaign's recent mocking of his health issues and recovery.

CAMEROTA: Fetterman wrote, in part, quote:

"My recovery may be a joke to Dr. Oz and his team, but it's real for me. I will not be participating in a debate the first week of September but look forward to having a productive discussion about how we can move forward and have a real conversation on this once Dr. Oz and his team are ready to take this seriously."

CNN's Eva McKend joins us now.

Eva, is Fetterman saying he cannot debate for medical reasons?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: That certainly seems to be what he's suggesting.

Alisyn and Victor, in the immediate sense, this means we won't see these candidates' debate in a race that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. And that really leaves Pennsylvania voters at a disadvantage.

As we've reported, Fetterman's campaign has been tight lipped on details about the candidate's recovery. So legitimate questions about his health status remain.

But he says the way Oz has raised his stroke recovery has been unacceptable.

For his part, Fetterman has spent a considerable amount of time mocking Oz on social media, mainly pointing out that, up until recently, the celebrity doctor lived in New Jersey.

Oz not letting up the pressure in trying to push Fetterman, though, to debate. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MEHMET OZ, (R), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE FOR PENNSYLVANIA: I offered John Fetterman numerous opportunities to explain to me how I can make it easier for him to debate.

He also doesn't leave his home and go out and answer questions. I've done 180 campaign events.

And here's the deal, democracy needs candidates who actually listen to the voters, answer their questions, and are accountable to what they say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: Now, Oz suggests, if he has the opportunity to debate Fetterman, it will allow him to show Pennsylvanians how far to the left Fetterman is on the issues.

But that could be a miscalculation when you speak to voters in the state. They are very familiar with Fetterman from his time as a mayor of Braddick just outside of Pittsburgh and as Pennsylvania's current lieutenant governor.

One of his hallmark issues is decriminalizing marijuana.

[14:54:58]

A voter I spoke to recently in Pittsburgh told me they were even considering voting for Fetterman despite disagreeing on many issues because they felt like they knew him and liked him.

There could be some center-right voters that support Fetterman because of how he has branded himself, despite his history of championing progressive policy positions.

One thing for sure, though, we're not going to see these two debate the first week of September.

BLACKWELL: All right. A very contentious race there in Pennsylvania.

Eva McKend, good to see you. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, we are waiting for Donald Trump's legal team to respond to the DOJ's latest filing, which alleges that all of those classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were, quote, "concealed and removed" to "obstruct" the DOJ's investigation the investigation. All that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)