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China's Xi, Russia's Putin Meet For High-Stakes Summit; Mayor Dan Gelber (D-Miami Beach) Discusses Spring Break Chaos, State Of Emergency After Shootings; Jury Convicts 6 Oath Keeper Associates For Jan. 6 Roles; Bacteria In Some Eye Drops Linked To Vision Loss, Eye Removal. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 20, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: China's President Xi Jinping arriving in Moscow this morning in a show of support for embattled President Vladimir Putin. Let's listen.

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KEILAR: This summit could have many consequences for the war in Ukraine.

The two leaders are meeting right now on the first day of Xi's three- day state visit. China is framing this as a chance to promote a peaceful resolution to the war. Russia is already saying that it is open to hearing China's proposals.

Let's bring in Beth Sanner, a CNN national security analyst. She's also a former deputy director of National Intelligence. And we're also joined by retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, a CNN military analyst and former commanding general for U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army.

Beth, what is China trying to do here?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, you know, I think - I like to phrase it as China wants to have their cake and eat it too.

What Xi wants out of this visit more than anything is to build up Xi's position as a global statesman and to be seen across the world as this great statesman that can bring peace.

But this isn't a trip about peace. This is a trip about Xi. This is a trip about China. And this is a trip that is designed to really reinforce whatever is in the interests of China.

And at some point, Russia is going to figure out that being the supplicant in this relationship won't be such a great deal.

KEILAR: General, I wonder, do you think that China is ultimately going to give Russia assistance? And if China does that, how does that affect the global dynamics of this war?

LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: You know, first, I got to say I agree completely with Beth. It's a difficult situation for China to be in.

As with Xi as the new senior strategic partner in this relationship, he wants two things. He wants to prove to Mr. Putin that he can deepen support and trade and cooperation with Russia. He's doing that in the shadows.

But he also wants China to be perceived, especially in Europe where he has a lot of trade, as a peace broker. And that's more the public facing piece of this.

[13:34:59]

So, you know, Putin is going to ask China for a lifeline in several areas, Brianna, equipment, ammo, support on the world stage.

You know, Xi is shaking hands with Putin three days after Putin's been - has a warrant for his arrest by the ICC, so it's not really a good time for Xi to be there.

So there's some real problems in this relationship. And what is shown in public versus what's going on behind the scenes are two different things.

KEILAR: You know, Beth, if Xi wants to be seen as a peace broker, I mean, who is going - it's one thing if he wants to project that, including to some countries in Europe. Who is going to buy that?

SANNER: A lot of countries in the global south really do buy that and want to buy that because they're suffering so much, the consequences of this war from inflation, higher interest rates, growing debt, and shortages of food.

So they have said that, at the G-20 meetings and at Bali at previous meetings, so there is an audience there.

But I also want to point out that the ICC arrest that Mark raised are important to the global south as well.

And we had the South African spokesman for the president of South Africa come out today and say that South Africa understands its obligations, in other words, to arrest President Putin.

And he was planning on showing up in South Africa for a BRIC summit in August. So these things can have an implication. And Putin is definitely more isolated.

KEILAR: General, I want to get your perspective on something the White House Spokesman John Kirby said. Any peace plan that might come out of this meeting would likely include a cease-fire as a starting point.

And this is what Kirby says about why the U.S. wouldn't support it.

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ADM. JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SPOKESMAN: The cease-fire called right now would basically just ratify Russia's conquest and give Mr. Putin more time to reequip and retrain and restart operations at a time and a place of his choosing.

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KEILAR: General, at what point and under what circumstances, if at all, could a cease-fire serve Ukraine instead of undercutting Ukraine?

HERTLING: Well, we don't know, Brianna. But for a cease-fire to be viable and sustainable, Ukraine has to be at the table to discuss it. So far, Xi has not called President Zelenskyy that we know of. He may in the future.

But, you know, one of the things that I think Russia is attempting to do - this is my view - is they are attempting to create another frozen conflict inside Ukraine. They have four others throughout Europe we used to track on a daily basis.

If he can create that frozen conflict and not be forced out of Ukraine, that's desirable right now because his military and his political machine has failed so miserably.

So if he can create a frozen conflict, freeze things the way they are, Putin sees success. That's not success to Mr. Zelenskyy.

You know, in China's 12-point plan that they gave and has been publicized, they say, in point number one, they want to respect the sovereignty of all countries and international law.

That's what China says. So how do you do that when sovereignty and international law is constantly being violated by their junior partner under Mr. Putin?

KEILAR: It's a very good question.

General, Beth, thank you to you both.

And coming up, spring break chaos, a state of emergency and curfew in Miami Beach after two deadly shootings. And city leaders are thinking about even more restrictions. The Miami Beach mayor, Dan Gelber, will be joining us live, next.

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KEILAR: Miami Beach is cracking down on what is turning into a chaotic and deadly chaotic spring break.

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KEILAR: One visitor captured this video from his hotel room window showing the chaos after a deadly shooting on Friday night.

The city has declared a state of emergency and a strict curfew from midnight to 6:00 a.m. after a second fatal shooting early Sunday morning.

The mayor has called for a special commission meeting later this afternoon to discuss what to do next.

And Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber is joining me now.

Mayor, I'm really sorry for what your city is dealing with.

Is this curfew working? Do you expect it to be extended.

MAYOR DAN GELBER (D-MIAMI BEACH): Last night, it worked. And I believe it will be extended through Thursday to Monday of next weekend.

So, you know, it's one of the things in our toolbox. We don't have a whole lot because we really are not allowed to act ahead of spring break to roll back things like alcohol sales and things like that. So we're doing what we can do.

KEILAR: So that's part of it here, right? The curfew includes no liquor sales after 6:00 p.m. Do you see that as a big part of the problem? And how is that sitting with tourists and business owners?

GELBER: It is part of the problem. Because, look, we don't want spring break. We don't ask for it. We don't advertise for it. We don't want people to come here for it.

We don't think it's good for residential communities to have tens of thousands of young people looking to do a rite of passage. And then throwing guns into it becomes an entirely different thing.

We don't want it. If we can take away some attracts, like liquor and things like that and late-night partying, then that should help somewhat.

[13:45:05]

In terms of the business community, listen, this is a pretty simple question for me, at least. If people are getting shot on Ocean Drive, then we're not going to weigh that and balance that against, you know, receipts for a business.

We have to protect the public and that's all we can do.

KEILAR: And there was a surge in crime and unruly behavior during last year's spring break. You saw that. GELBER: Yes.

KEILAR: Is there anything you could do to preempt the violence when you are sort of expecting maybe a cycle each year? Could you have put a curfew in place ahead of time already?

GELBER: No. We tried last - a couple of years ago, we tried to roll back liquor sales just in March. A judge told us we couldn't do that ahead of time because there wasn't anything to document the need for it.

Perhaps now after a couple of years in the same few weeks, a judge will reconsider that. But we tried that and we were shut down.

We do have an immense amount of police, by the way. We have - all of our police are out. We borrow police from the county, from other cities. We have police on ATVs, police on horses.

We have park rangers, all sorts of presence everywhere. We have goodwill ambassadors walking through the crowd. We have learned how to at least create a great presence.

And, in fact, the two incidents you referred to, within seconds, there were police on the scene, and within minutes people were apprehended.

So obviously, we are, you know - we have a police presence we need. But events are still happening, and crimes are still happening.

So the only solution, at this point, is just to stop spring break, which is something I've been trying to do for years. And I hope we can find a way to do it because we don't want a spring break in our city.

KEILAR: How do you do that? You mentioned having some limited tools in your toolbox. Other than locking down the city, maybe going for a preemptive curfew - it sounds like maybe that is something you're considering - what else do you do?

GELBER: I think the preemptive actions are the only way to project out to the community that might want to participate in the spring break that they might not want to come here because it's not going to be the good time they're hoping for.

You know, they know there are police everywhere but that doesn't seem to bother anyone. And most of the people aren't here to break the law. I don't want to make it sound like tens of thousands come here to break the law.

The problem is, when you have tens of thousands of young people all crowded together looking to participate in a rite of passage, you know, how many have to sort of go beyond the pale of conduct or to criminal misconduct before you have total chaos and things like we saw over the weekend?

So for us it's a question of volume. It's a question of young people acting out and a question of guns, all mixed together to make an entirely ungovernable situation, which we don't want any part of. And I've been saying this for some time, and I know it's not what typically a mayor of a resort city might say, but this is not what we're looking for and it's not what my residents want.

And, frankly, it doesn't fit our brand. We are a cultural city. We are an arts city. And I think people typically - the rest of the year, they come here for that.

But during spring break, we got a whole different kind of tourist.

KEILAR: There are some reports we've seen that say that crime was rising even before spring break. Was that what you saw? Has that been your experience yearly?

GELBER: No. No, I think crime rate has been actually going down generally.

And, remember, almost all of our substantial crime, serious crime is almost always visitors acting on visitors. We don't - residents are not typically perpetrators or victims of serious crime.

So it's a little bit of a different scenario for us than most cities. And we're policing essentially a playground of other people.

That said, crime has not been going up in our city. And we've been increasing our police force. I think, since I've been mayor, we've added 40 positions. And we've increased substantially our park ranger program, which is a uniformed presence, as well.

KEILAR: Well, Mayor, we are glad to hear that things seem to have calmed down a little bit. We wish you luck.

Mayor Dan Gelber, thank you.

GELBER: Thank you very much, Brianna.

KEILAR: Breaking news, a jury in the conspiracy trial against six people affiliated with the right-wing Oath Keepers militia group has found all six guilty on varying degrees for the actions, their actions on January 6th.

Joining me now is CNN's Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, tell us what we know here.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: We are getting word from the federal court in Washington today that a jury returned a verdict convicting another set of people affiliated with the Oath Keepers.

Members of that far-right paramilitary or militia group that had gone to the capitol on January 6th, had been moving together as part of a stack formation.

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Now in this group, all six were found guilty of different types of charges.

Four of the people, of the six people who were on trial here, were convicted on all charges, including that serious charge of conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding of Congress on that day, January 6th.

Two others were convicted of a lesser charge, entering or remaining on restricted grounds.

But really, Brianna, whenever you step back and look at this, this is the third trial that the Justice Department has put on of - against members of the Oath Keepers.

The two previous trials were about seditious conspiracy. So it was really - those were looking at leaders of the group.

And on each of these, the prosecutors have needed wins to make the point they're trying to make about January 6th.

This is the centerpiece of the prosecutions. And they have been able to secure convictions before a jury at every single one of these trials thus far - Brianna?

KEILAR: What does it do to some narratives about what January 6th was and was not?

POLANTZ: Well, in this situation, it just underlines that juries in D.C. - so the place where all of these charges are being brought, because this is the community that was affected on January 6th. I

t happened in the District of Columbia on Capitol Hill. And these juries are finding these people are guilty of one thing to block Congress at times, maybe not all of them in this case.

But many of the people in these cases that are going to trial, the juries are finding that they wanted to be disruptive, potentially even violent.

In this case, related to the Oath Keepers, all of these Oath Keepers cases are not just about what happened on the grounds of the capitol.

They're also about what happens before. How much planning and coordination was going on. That's why there are conspiracy cases as well. Four conspiracy convictions today.

And related to the Oath Keepers, there was much talk about people bringing guns around the capitol and potentially using those, if they needed to, on the grounds that day.

So the Justice Department has found this all out and are making it a case that they are being successful on - Brianna?

KEILAR: Katelyn Polantz, thank you for that.

And we'll be right back.

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KEILAR: We're learning new details about a recent widespread bacterial outbreak linked to over-the-counter eye drops resulting in dozens of infections, vision loss, even surgical removing of eyeballs, and even one death.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us.

This is so serious, Elizabeth. The eyedrops in question have been recalled. Tell us about this bacteria.

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, this is really very, very serious, as you said. It is a rare strain of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. It's a strain that has not been found in the United States and it's been found to be resistant to drugs.

Let's look at what's been found so far. So you can see the name there of the brand of artificial tears lubricant eyedrops.

So 68 patients in 16 states found to have infections of various kinds. Eight people are known to have lost vision. Four people have had surgery to remove eyeballs. And there's even been one death.

Let's look at symptoms. Obviously, if you're using eyedrops and having these symptoms you definitely want to talk to your doctor. Eye pain, discomfort, redness, discharge. If you feel like something is in your eye, blurry vision and increased sensitivity to light.

This is not the first time we've heard about eyedrops being recalled recently. There are other brands recalled. I'll give you the names.

To be clear, only the first one is the one we were just talking about. The other three on the list that we're about to shows have not had any sort of bad effects from them. Reported. They are being recalled out of an abundance of caution.

If you look, only that top one, EzriCare and the other have there been adverse events. But the other ones are being recalled out of, for what some of them, they say is an abundance of caution.

You want to make sure you're seeing these names. They are, of course, also on CNN.com. Make sure you don't have them in your medicine cabinet - Brianna?

KEILAR: Real quick, if people used these and don't have symptoms, should they check with their doctor?

Cohen: I don't think it's ever a bad idea to check with your doctor. But from what the CDC has said, there's not a reason to be worried necessarily without symptoms. They say if you have symptoms, definitely go to your doctor.

But you know what? Never a bad idea to talk to your doctor.

KEILAR: Very good.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

That's it for me. Thank you for joining us.

CNN NEWSROOM continues after a break.

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