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Putin Speech Marks Nearly One Year Since Russia Invaded Ukraine; Sales of Existing Homes Fell in January for 12th Month in a Row; Today, Justices Hear Pivotal Case on Big Tech Ability. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired February 21, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour this Tuesday, I'm Jim Sciutto.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kristin Fisher.

Next hour, President Biden is set to speak from Warsaw, Poland, just one day after that unprecedented trip to Ukraine's capital. And CNN, of course, will bring you that speech live when it happens.

Also this morning, Polish President Andrzej Duda welcoming President Biden to that presidential palace, the two holding meetings on their support for Ukraine amid Russia's ongoing war in the country.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I would argue, NATO is stronger than it's ever been. As I told President Zelenskyy when we spoke in Kyiv yesterday, I can proudly say that our support for Ukraine remains unwavering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: While this just hours after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, delivered his own state of the union, state of the nation speech in Moscow, trying to blame the U.S. somehow for the war in Ukraine, of course, you'll remember it was Russia that invaded country a year ago this week. He also announced that Russia would officially suspend its participation in the new START nuclear weapons treaty, as it is known. The State Department said last month Russia was already not in compliance. The question is what this means going forward. Will Russia perhaps break the limit on nuclear warheads set by that treaty?

We begin this hour in Warsaw where President Biden will speak in the next hour. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Phil Mattingly is there, CNN Senior International Correspondent Sam Kiley, he is in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Phil, first, you there, the White House deliberately saying this will not be a response to Putin's speech. What is the president's message?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, it is an unavoidable split screen moment even if it was not scheduled that way or planned that way. And if anything else, well, White House officials very closely watched what President Putin detailed this morning, that hour and 45-minute speech. Their primary takeaway was something they were very cognizant of before the speech even started, and that is there no near-term endgame right now, there's no sense that Russia is moving off the line or President Putin is moving off the line it has maintained now for more than 365 days.

And that drives at the importance of what President Biden will be trying to do today here in Warsaw just days away from the one-year marker of this Russian invasion to try and underscore the importance of what has transpired over the course of the last year and what is necessary in the year ahead. And driving all of that has been kind of the central theory of the case President Biden has had since before this invasion began, and that is the importance of the coalition put together despite the divergent equities both domestic and geopolitically.

The 30-plus countries have been able to come together, whether or sanctions, whether on economic aid, whether on significant more than $30 billion on the U.S. side defense assistance and try and underscore the point that only has that been extraordinarily critical in the last year but it is an absolutely essential element of the year and perhaps further along in the year ahead.

Perhaps more than anything else, though, Jim, the president wants to broaden this out. If yesterday was a dramatic, symbolic moment, really kind of characterized for full effect on the ground in Kyiv, this is a moment to step back and try and drive at the fact that this is a bigger picture issue than just two countries or the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. and its assistance of Ukraine, but instead an inflection point that the president wants to underscore is critical to drive this going forward, understanding that the durability of that coalition, the durability and resiliency of the Ukrainian people has been critical over the last year, but it is even more essential in the months ahead, guys.

FISHER: Yes. And, Phil, I like what you said there, an unavoidable split screen moment. Even if the White House does not want President Biden's speech to be a rebuttal to President Putin, the world will likely see it that way given the fact that it comes just a few hours after.

Sam, to you, today's speech, of course, comes on the heels of President Biden's unprecedented and surprise trip to Kyiv. What has the reaction been like there where you are in Ukraine to that trip and what are the Ukrainians there really listening for? What do they want to hear in President Biden's speech, which is now just about an hour- and-a-half away?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristin and Jim, I think that the key moment was obviously seeing the U.S. president there alongside the Ukrainian president in the capital of Ukraine very close to the one-year anniversary of Putin's invasion of this country.

Now, in terms of what the Ukrainians really want to see out of this, they're pretty straight forward, and this comes from the government down. Yes, it is an expression of solidarity.

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Yes, the U.S. has led the world in getting a coalition to agree really, ultimately what victory might look like for the Ukrainians and that it probably now looks like ridding the country of Russians altogether. But, really, Ukrainians want the weapons. They want them here and they want them now. And they want strategic weapons that's going to give them the edge in what is anticipated to be a Russian invasion.

There have been, we have seen the evidence of this up and down the eastern front here, of softening up operations conducted by the Russians against Ukraine, the attacks on Kherson today, which killed several civilians, multiple-rocket launching systems used there, all of the way up to Kupyansk where I was yesterday, where an S-300 hit a small village just a few days ago, a lot of smashing up of the civilian effort to try to break the will of the Ukrainian people. But Ukrainians won't be able to break the will and the ability of the Russian Armed Forces to function. And to do that, they say they need jets and they need long range missiles. And so far, they are not getting them. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, Sam Kiley, as I always say, keep yourself and your team safe out there. Phil Mattingly in Poland, thanks so much.

Well, this morning, in a speech to Russia, President Vladimir Putin tried to blame the west for the war in Ukraine, claiming the U.S. is, quote, responsibility, in his words, for the escalation there.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: The elite of the west do not conceal their ambitions, which is to strategically defeat Russia, finish us off once and for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FISHER: Joining us now to talk about this, CNN Presidential Historian Tim Naftali and Ian Garner, Historian and Translator of Russian Propaganda, also the author of the upcoming book, Z Generation, Into the Heart of Russia's Fascist Youth. Good morning.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIENTIAL HISTORIAN: Good morning.

FISHER: Good morning to both of you.

So, Ian, I'll start with you. I'd love to just get your reaction to this very lengthy speech that we heard from President Putin today. Is it what you expected or were there some surprises in there that stood out to you? IAN GARNER, HISTORIAN: I mean, it's so thoroughly what was expected that it almost could have been the speech that Putin gave last year when he declared at the beginning of the special military operation. There was really nothing. It was a sort of wheel out of the greatest hits, that is that Russia is at war with the west, that it is engaged in this great civilizational conflict, that the war is not really about Ukraine at all, it is about the survival of the nation, that the west is somehow the blame and Ukrainian Nazi is how to somehow to blame for unimagined, of course, genocide that's happening in east of Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Tim Naftali, you are a historian. You have covered presidents through the decades, really, pre during the cold war, post- cold war, and now back where we are. You have dueling speeches from Russian and U.S. presidents. You have the two powers arming opposing sides of a war in Europe, and now you have China considering joining. Are we back to the dangerous cold war among the superpowers?

NAFTALI: No, I do not believe that we are in a cold war. And, in fact, I believe it is very important for President Biden to continue framing this conflict as one over the sovereignty of a European nation. The frontline states are in Europe. He, in fact, will be giving a speech from a frontline state, Poland, and we are working with our NATO allies as the arsenal of democracy to help the Ukrainians regain their sovereignty.

It is very important, I believe, for President Biden to continue the focus on Ukrainian sovereignty. As he had mentioned, Russia wants to make this all about an existential western threat to it, and therefore, it is all about Russian sovereignty for Putin, while you know, we all know, those of us who followed this closely understand that this is about Ukrainian sovereignty. And I believe President Biden will continue that focus. It is not in his interest to play Putin's game by making this Washington versus Moscow. Putin would very much love to turn this into Kennedy and Khrushchev, but it is not.

FISHER: And that's probably why the White House has been emphatic, that this is not -- the speech coming is not going to be a rebuttal to what President Putin said this morning.

But, Tim, what should President Biden say? If he is not going to talk about that, what do you think he should really focus his remarks on when he speaks about an hour-and-a-half?

NAFTALI: Why sovereignty matters, why Europe matters, why values that we Americans hold dear are values that many in the world hold dear. This is not an attempt to create a U.S. global system. This is an attempt of American and its allies to try to help Ukrainians be free and recover their freedom.

So, I think this is a very important opportunity to inspire but also to clear about who is making the sacrifice.

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It's the Ukrainians first and the rest of Europe second, and we Americans are trying to help them as best we can without being directly involved in combat.

SCIUTTO: Ian Garner, your book, you speak a lot about how Putin has been able to turn Russian propaganda into maintaining public support for the war, even as Russian has -- its forces have fared so poorly there. How is he successfully maintaining that? And as the war continues, does it survive? Does he keep the public on his side?

GARNER: The really effective mechanism that Putin has is not Putin as a speaker. He is dull speaker. Today, these two hours of rather flaccid delivery won't have appeal to many ordinary Russians who probably just won't watch. Well, what he has is a huge army of internet operatives, savvy media operators in Moscow, around Russia, at spreading these messages, turning them into memes, videos, putting them out into schools and the youth group.

What we are beginning to see though is a certain sort of end of the rally around the flag effect that we saw at the beginning of the war. People are starting to ask where does this end and what does victory of a special military operation even look like.

SCIUTTO: Yes, especially when that special military operation has such staggering Russian military losses.

FISHER: Yes. And we talked about how the Russian public is viewing this war, but how about the American public and the support that, you know, President Biden is going to have to continue to have to ask the American taxpayer for as it continues to support Ukraine's efforts, Tim?

NAFTALI: That's a tough call, because many Americans of the cold war generation are accustomed to us focusing on our leadership and our reputation. President Biden has a very, very narrow line to walk because we do not want this to be our reputation versus Putin's reputation. That only serves Putin's purposes. But by the same token, we have to inspire our fellow Americans and seeing this as the fight of a generation, that the future of sovereignty in Europe affects the ability of the United States to be free itself, even though we are not directly attacked or being attacked by Russia.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And the Ukrainian leaders will often say, we are fighting this war for Europe as well, not just for their sovereignty. Tim Naftali, Ian Garner, thanks so much to both of you.

And still to come, back here at home, the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments today in a case that could upend the internet, as we know it. We are going to explain exactly how.

FISHER: Plus, the EPA administrator is back in East Palestine, Ohio, today, even sipping some tap water from the faucet, you can see it there, weeks after that train derailment spilled toxic chemicals in the area. A local health official is going to be joining us to discuss.

SCIUTTO: And experts are warning that mortgage rates will remain uncomfortably high this year. Any relief in sight? More coming up.

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SCIUTTO: All right. The latest numbers show that existing home sales fell in January for the 12th month in a row, another sign that the once red hot housing market is cooling down.

FISHER: CNN's Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with more. So, does this seal the deal that this once red hot market is cooling down?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it really is cooling down and quickly, 12 months in a row of falling existing home sales. This is the biggest part of the housing market. And when you look year-on-year, it's almost a 37 percent fewer home sales than the year before in January. So, that just tells you how quickly this thing is unraveling.

Interesting though, I've got to tell you home prices nationwide were up about 1.5 percent. So, home prices have slowed their red hot advance, but they have not really turned lower on average. Of course, real estate is very local, right? So, out west, you saw home prices fall in some of those markets, but pretty much everywhere else, especially in the northeast, home prices staying firm here.

Now, one thing we're watching are mortgage rates, mortgage rates at 6.32 percent two weeks in a row here. They had been really on fire all the way from November up until the last few weeks, and that is double from what they were a year ago. And that what has one real estate CEO calling a normalization of the housing market. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BESS FREEDMAN, CEO, BROWN HARRIS STEVENS: We are normalizing. I think everybody has started to accept the fact that the 2 and 3 percent mortgage rates are gone, and I think this was the only way to really quell inflation and get it receding in the right direction.

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ROMANS: Every time we get information, guys, about how the economy remains strong, I think you're going to see pressure on those mortgage rates to stay up here in the 6, knocking on the door 7 percent level, because there's still more work for the Fed to do, right? And in housing is where you see the Fed's work really affecting the economy.

SCIUTTO: So, let me as the question, does the Fed look at the sales or house prices, in effect, because they're all about inflation, right, and house prices are part of inflation in terms of making their determination about further interest rate hikes?

ROMANS: They look at thousands of things. And mostly what they are looking at right now are consumer inflation numbers and job market numbers. The job market still is very, very strong here, and consumer inflation numbers, they seem to have peaked, but they are still holding up there given how much the Fed has been raising the interest rates. So, those are the two areas the Fed is really looking at.

The housing market, though, is the only place in the economy I can really say, without any doubt, you are seeing high mortgage rates affecting the housing market.

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The rest of the economy seems at least so far pretty impervious.

SCIUTTO: No question. Christine Romans, always, good to have you on.

ROMANS: Nice to you see, guys.

SCIUTTO: All right. Today, the Supreme Court is hearing a pivotal case that could profoundly change the way you and I use the internet. At issue, a lawsuit from the family of Nohemi Gonzalez. She is the lone American killed in the 2015 Paris terror attacks. They are suing, her family, Google, arguing the company promotes and profits from the extremist content posted on YouTube, which Google owns.

FISHER: And the decision against Google would obviously have major implications on the liability shields that have so far really protected the big tech platforms from lawsuits.

So, CNN's Brian Fung joins us now. So, Brian, you have been listening to the oral arguments. Bring us up to speed. What have we missed?

BRIAN FUNG, CNN TECH REPORTER: Well, this case has the potential to transform the internet. It is a case about whether YouTube can be sued for the recommendations that it posts on its website, urging or recommending that people watch videos produced by the terrorist group, ISIS.

Now, the plaintiffs in this case have argued that Google should be held legally responsible for recommending these videos. But Google says it should not be able to be sued because of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is a federal law which protects the right of the websites to moderate their content that's on their platforms as they see fit.

A ruling against Google could have really significant effects that just doesn't just apply to YouTube but potentially to other web sites affecting how they could face lawsuits, about how they rank or present content, and it would potentially transform the internet, because even things like upvoting or user contents on a website could be construed as recommendations that might open up a website up to legal action. So, this could have really sweeping implications for the internet.

SCIUTTO: And perhaps enormous incentive for them to better police the content there. Brian Fung, thanks so much.

Well, reports of headache, rashes, other health problems are rising after a train wreck spewed toxic chemicals into the water and air in East Palestine, Ohio. We are going to speak live to the chief clinical officer for a local health system about exactly what patients are telling them and what is behind it all. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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SCIUTTO: This morning, the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, is back in East Palestine, Ohio, 19 days after a train derailed there, releasing toxic chemicals into the air, ground and water. He's meeting with village officials and people who have continuing safety concerns. Regan and the governor trying to instill some confidence to drink some water right out of the tap earlier to show it's all safe.

FISHER: Yes. Drinking the tap water becomes a photo-op. And in about 90 minutes, the state is opening a health clinic for residents who say that they're experiencing rashes, headaches and all sorts of other symptoms since that train wreck.

So, joining us now, Dr. James Kravec, he is the chief clinical officer at Mercy Health, which is, I believe, primary care practices in East Palestine and the surrounding areas. Dr. Kravec, I know you are busy, so thank you so much for joining us this morning.

DR. JAMES KRAVEC, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, MERCY HEALTH YOUNGSTOWN AND LORAIN: Thank you for having.

FISHER: So, I'd like to start by just asking you what exactly you're seeing. Has your hospital seen an uptick in people coming in complaining about these types of symptoms, rashes and whatnot?

KRAVEC: Yes. We have a primary care practice in East Palestine that's within the one-mile evacuation zone of the initial accident. We also have a practice several miles down the road in Columbiana with walk-in care as well. And we are seeing the patients from that area, not so much in the emergency room apartments in our hospitals, but in our primary care offices and our (INAUDIBLE) care. We are. We are seeing patients with rashes, some eye irritation, sore throats, upper respiratory symptoms. So, we're seeing that but we're also seeing flu, COVID, common winter colds and all of those as well.

SCIUTTO: So, how do you distinguish them? And it's flu and cold season. Some of the symptoms you described consistent with the flu and cold. How do you distinguish what are resulting from those typical seasonal things and what might be resulting from this or do you know?

KRAVEC: We really can't tell. The rash, it might be from a new detergent. It might from some dietary. But still it could be from toxins or exposures, it certainly could be. As far as the upper respiratory, the cough, the runny nose, there is no test. There's no way we can tell. And we treat our patients with compassion and further symptoms and do the best we can, but there really is no way to tell whether it is a toxin exposure or it's a virus.

FISHER: The fact that the state is opening up this new health clinic today, how much do you think that that is going to help?

KRAVEC: Well, I think it is important that we focus in on taking care of the patients and their concerns. They are seeing the patients in their practice. We have been members of this community for four years In East Palestine. Some of our physicians have been there for their entire career. And this is their family. This is their home. And the patients are worried.

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They need to have a place to go, to have their concerns addressed. And I think the more help we can get, the better.