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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Soon: Biden & Putin Meet Face-to-Face in High-Stakes Summit. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 16, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:47]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Big morning. Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, June 16th. It is 5:00 a.m. in New York. It is 11:00 a.m. in Geneva, Switzerland.

We begin with breaking news. A historic showdown in Geneva that President Biden has framed as a fight for democracy itself.

Just moments from now, the world will witness a high stakes summit between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man Biden once called a killer who has no soul and who he now calls a worthy adversary.

The White House has released the schedule for the president's big day in Geneva, 7:35 a.m.

JARRETT: The stakes for President Biden could not be higher. He will be facing off against one of the world's most cunning leaders whose main foreign policy objective is undermining U.S. political stability and prestige. Mr. Biden's goal: returning stability and predictability to U.S./Russian relations.

CNN is live in Geneva this morning with Wolf Blitzer, anchor of "THE SITUATION ROOM."

Wolf, a huge day ahead.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": It certainly is, Laura, Christine.

This is a truly huge moment in American history, U.S./Russian relationship. That relationship between the United States and Russia at its lowest point right now since the Cold War. Both President Biden and the Russian President Vladimir Putin have been projecting confidence that they're ready to take each other on, but the pressure will certainly be on with a full policy agenda on the table, including arms control, Ukraine and the Russian hacking of critical U.S. networks. And as President Biden has framed it, proving that democracy still works. Right now, President Biden is here in Geneva with some momentum from

largely very successful summits with the G7 and NATO allies. Less than an hour from now, President Putin is expected to land at the airport here in Geneva. We now know the meeting -- the meeting is scheduled to begin 7:30, 5:00 a.m. Eastern. That's just a little bit more than two hours or so from now.

After a photo-op, they will sit down for talks expected to last, get this, four to five hours. The men will first meet with a single aide for each in the room, then the meeting will expand to include more officials after the talks Biden and Putin will hold separate at least as of now separate news conferences potentially that could change, but that's highly unlikely. So the stakes here are clearly enormous.

Joining us here in Geneva, CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen.

But first let's get straight to our Moscow correspondent Matthew Chance. He's outside the Villa La Grange where the summit will take place a short time from now.

Matthew, so set the scene for us, you're there.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. This is the 18th century Villa La Grange where the historic summit will take place in just a couple hours from now. You can see they've already put out the Russian, Swiss and American flags and red carpets as well because the two leaders will be walking through that door into the various state rooms inside that mansion on the banks of Lake Geneva where they will be having those talks, talks lasting between four and five hours after which there will be separate solo media conferences by the two presidents.

The Russian tent where the President Putin will be having his conference is just over there, the American one is in a different location all together. But make no mistake, this is a historic meeting but it's also a very fraught one, with a whole list of issues as long as your arm that the two presidents need to discuss, whether it's cybersecurity and attacks in cyberspace on the United States, whether it's the military threat that Russia poses against it's neighbors, particularly Ukraine, or the Russian crack down on dissidents, opposition supporters at home.

These are all issues which President Biden has committed to bringing up in this face-to-face summit with President Putin. The truth is on none of those issues and this is our perspective from vantage points that we've occupied from Moscow for the past several years, you know, I can't see President Putin to giving an inch on any of those issues.

[05:05:04]

So it promises to be a very tense encounter indeed. I think that's reflected in the fact that they decided not to have a joint press conference and will be having news conferences separately.

BLITZER: Back to back news conferences. Stand by, Matthew.

Jim Sciutto, I just want to get your thoughts. Most experts don't believe there's going to be a radical change in U.S./Russian relations as a result of this summit, but there's so much at stake right now nevertheless.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. Listen, the fact that both leaders, both countries felt these talks were necessary is indicative. And remember the genesis of this that Biden expressed interest in this first when there was a real crisis in U.S./Russia relations. You had tens of thousands of Russian forces masked on the border. There's genuine concern in the Pentagon that Russia was preparing for a formal -- further we should say invasion of that country. And Alexey Navalny, his life was in danger. He's being denied basic medical care, severe concern within the State Department that he might die.

So, at that point U.S./Russia relations on a precipice. You might say we pulled from that. Those troops on the board of Ukraine were pulled away. Navalny is at least getting medical care, though, he's still in prison. But those pig picture issues remain.

And I will say this, it strikes me that in negotiations for this summit, both sides deliberately allowed for flexibility in the timing here and that, yes, four or five hours of talks today but they could go longer in case they make progress on some of these issues.

They do have some issues where they have shared interest, set aside cyber but the Iran nuclear deal, something that both of these countries want. Afghanistan, some sort of stability there after the U.S. and NATO withdraw.

So, perhaps on those issues you might see some positive things coming out of this.

BLITZER: They're also going to discuss Syria where Russia has obviously a lot of influence right now that war ten years still going on, a lot of people still getting killed.

You know, for Putin and you covered Putin, you've been to Moscow, Fred, many times. This is an enormous moment for him because he is a world leader on the world stage. He loves that.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, he absolutely loves that. And I think one of the things that you have seen from Russian state media from the Kremlin as well is the fact that President Biden as Jim was just saying maybe those overtures to get that summit going in the first place, that was seen as a huge victory for the Kremlin. It shows that Vladimir Putin is extremely important to the United States, important in world affairs.

And one of the other things that was also shown as well is that while President Biden was going to the G7, was going to NATO, meeting with many leaders there, there's only one leader who gets a single summit to himself and that is Vladimir Putin. And so, they are saying, look, it's a strong moment. And I think some of the things that Russians viewed as things that went their way ahead of this summit is the fact that the U.S. decided not to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

That's really important and the Russian leader, he showcased that in the St. Petersburg economic forum just a couple of days, saying gas is going to flow through that pipeline very soon, causing a lot of issues with the U.S.'s Eastern European allies.

So the Russians obviously view this as already being a victory for Vladimir Putin and obviously Putin himself is someone as we've talked about this at length, he has been so many of these summits. He's dealt with so many U.S. leaders, he feels he's really well-prepared.

I want to mention one thing that Jim and you were talking about which is really important is Syria and, of course, is Ukraine as well. One of the things we picked up on is that Putin is bringing his envoy for the Middle East, Alexander Lavrentiev, who is someone who is very, very important.

So they are clearly looking for some sort of cooperation, not necessarily cooperation but at least to try to talk on those issues.

BLITZER: As you and I know, Jim, for the president, for President Biden, he's been preparing intensively over these past few days. I think it's fair to say he's been preparing for decades for this moment when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when he was vice president of the United States. Foreign policy that he believes is his strength.

SCIUTTO: Decades, right? That is his resume and he's met Putin before as vice president when he said famously, right, I don't think you have a soul, someone who has experience standing up to Putin.

It's interesting to me as you look at this summit here. Biden is approaching this in a -- you might say much more realistic way than several of his predecessors. Each president, George W. Bush came in, Obama came in and Trump, came in saying we can reset this, right? We can somehow revolutionize this relationship. George W. Bush said I saw into his soul, Hillary Clinton presented Lavrov here in Geneva I think with that famous reset button and then Trump, of course, imagined they could have a warm and fuzzy relationship.

Each of those presidents came in thinking they could turn it around. It didn't happen in the real world. Biden approaching this more realistically saying the best I'm hoping for is a predictable not a warm and fuzzy relationship.

BLITZER: All right. Don't go too far away, guys. Jim Sciutto and Fred Pleitgen are going to be with us for our special coverage.

The last leg of a marathon race this right now for President Biden, three summits in one trip.

[05:10:03]

We're getting ready for this biggest challenge right now, the summit with the Russian leader. We'll have much more of our special coverage. We're live here in Geneva, Switzerland. Stay with us.

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BLITZER: Welcome back.

We're live in Geneva, Switzerland, just a little more than two hours from now the critical summit between President Joe Biden and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's expected to begin. You're looking at live picture coming up from the Villa La Grange where it will be taking place, not very far from where we are right now.

We're hearing a lot of sirens going on. Security obviously here in Geneva is extremely intense. Two world leaders are here, this summit obviously very, very critically important.

President Putin expected to land very soon, less than an hour or so from now here in Geneva.

Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is with us.

Also joining us, CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger of "The New York Times."

You have a terrific piece in the "New York Times" about cybersecurity and how that's going to play during this meeting today between these two world leaders.

Are we going to see any real difference emerging from this discussion?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's going to be an interesting question to see. This is the first summit, Wolf, where cyber is taking an equal status with nuclear weapons.

For 70 years when Soviet and then Russian leaders were meeting American presidents, the whole overlay of it was the control of nuclear weapons. That's still going to be a big subject, we've heard there's going to be a lot of discussion of strategic stability. But what we know is that the attacks that are happening every day, much lower level, not nuclear in nature, but beginning to bleed American companies, the government and so forth are coming out of Russia.

[05:15:03]

And there are two different kinds, there are the ones who are being sponsored by the state, by Putin, by his intelligence services and there are the ransomware groups that are mostly criminal. The question is, can you find a way to bring both of those under control and I have my doubts.

BLITZER: The U.S. is much more vulnerable to cyber warfare and you make this point and I've heard it from U.S. officials, intelligence officials, the U.S. much more vulnerable to cyber warfare than the Russians.

SANGER: Well, we are because so much of our economy is in private hands, you can't really mandate what kind of security is in those systems and when you look at how the Russians have attacked the United States and infrastructure, what they've done? They've gone through private companies.

Colonial Pipeline, the company when it was shut down ended up causing those gas lines, a private firm, right? Banks all private firms, utility companies.

So, our infrastructure is in the hands of groups where the government can't necessarily mandate the security. Sometimes that security is excellent, sometimes as we learned it's pretty poor.

BLITZER: Yeah, sometimes, it's very, very poor.

You've been doing a lot of reporting on this, Jim, and U.S. officials, they suspect that these criminal gangs inside Russia who are engaging in this cyber warfare to make money, that there is a connection with the Russian government despite the denials from Putin.

SCIUTTO: Well, at a minimum, they couldn't operate there unless the Kremlin allowed it to. So whether they're directing them or not is an open question, but they could certainly crack down more, right? And to David's point, these attacks are in Russia's interest because they destabilize the U.S., they weaken the U.S., which is an expressed intention of this Russian president in a whole host of fields.

You know, this is Russian policy and strategy in effect to fight this kind of low level war. And to David's point about, you know, they used to talk about nuclear weapons and by the way, they're still going to talk about that here. But cyber is very much at the top of their agenda, and by the way those weapons are being used every day.

You know, the nuclear weapons there was this idea, let's prevent the possibility that these horrific tools could be used. They weren't being used every day thankfully. Cyber warfare is already taking place right now. I mean, that is an active low level cyber war confrontation that's taking place.

For Biden, he's got to change that dynamic. The status quo serves Russia. He's got to change the dynamic. The open question is whether he can.

BLITZER: What do you anticipate, David? You're doing a lot of -- you and I have covered these kinds of summits for many, many years. What do you anticipate emerging from this one?

SANGER: Well, I think in the cyber arena, they're going to try to get to some understanding of what the sort of guardrails are here. I think President Biden is going to have to make a point, look, there are certain parts of our infrastructure where we simply can't tolerate this because it veers off toward an act of war.

But as Jim points out here, these are all short of war activities and the Russians are carefully calibrating them to make sure that they don't result in a kinetic response, a military response to Russia. In other arenas, on human rights, I think that you're going to see Putin basically say this is an internal matter, we're not taking it from you and we don't need to.

BLITZER: As you know the Russians like other U.S. adversaries they always say, oh, well, what about what's going on in the United States? They always try to equate what's happening there with some of the negative things happening in the United States.

SANGER: And, boy, have they been given ammunition. You are going to hear a lot about January 6th I would suspect because Putin realizes that it plays right into his hand.

BLITZER: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: And, by the way, he has a U.S. ally in that disinformation in that he has a former president who echoes many of those same points about January 6th, about the election being corrupted and fraudulent, you know, it's amazing how often Russian propaganda aligns with a lot of the lies you hear from the former president.

BLITZER: The former President Trump. Even while Biden is here on a critically important summit is really railing against the current president of the United States. Politics does not necessarily stop at the water's edge, at least not now.

David, thank you very much.

Jim Sciutto is going to stick around.

Let's go back to New York. Laura Jarrett is on the scene for us there -- Laura.

JARRETT: Thanks, Wolf.

President Biden set to meet face-to-face with his craftiest adversary, Vladimir Putin. It's his first time as president. It all starts in just a couple of hours. So what are the two sides thinking? That's next.

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[05:23:05]

JARRETT: Welcome back.

Fresh off meetings with traditional U.S. allies the summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin is a major political test for President Biden. Both leaders have acknowledged going in that relations between the two nations are at a low point.

Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny. He's live in Geneva for us.

Jeff, good morning to you.

Plenty for these two men to discuss today but what is top of mind for President Biden?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORERSPONDENT: Laura, good morning.

Top of mind for President Biden I'm told by White House officials is if he can see if Russia wants to have really a productive relationship. We should set expectations here as the White House has been really doing for several days is a lot of the aggression and the disagreements will remain, but the question is can President Biden engage in a productive relationship and does Russia want to return more not international stage and be judged more by a normalized behavior?

There are some areas where President Biden believes they can find agreement. Those areas are on reducing nuclear arms. There's a new start treaty already under way that they are talking about. Climate change is another one. The Iran nuclear deal is another one.

Potentially returning ambassadors to their respective posts in the U.S. and indeed in Moscow.

Of course, the list of grievances is much longer. Cyber attacks. You know, the ransomware attacks on critical pieces of the nation's infrastructure back in the U.S. will be central to all of this, as are human rights.

So the really opening line of discussion here is how can President Biden really assess what President Putin wants to do. Does he want to, you know, have a stable relationship?

Interestingly, the two men have talked by telephone twice earlier this spring, once in January and once in March. So they have had some conversations and of course they have met before.

So, this puts President Biden in a different place than recent American presidents who had never met with President Putin before.

[05:25:05]

So we will see if all the experience and all the time traveled around the world and really working with world leaders for President Biden actually helps him in this regard. But the White House believes they can find at least some areas of agreement if Russia wants to -- Laura.

JARRETT: How do you trust and how do you have enough confidence that whatever the deliverables are that those can actually go through.

ZELENY: Right.

JARRETT: Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: The president has spent days at G7 and NATO talking to Western allies.

JARRETT: Yeah, shoring up --

ROMANS: Projecting this Western unity, he's he's been talking to his colleagues and knows exactly what everyone needs from this relationship between the United States and Russia and Russia and the West.

Four previous U.S. presidents, though, have gone face-to-face with Vladimir Putin with little to show for it. President Biden is hoping to avoid the pitfalls his predecessors faced.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is covering that part of the story for us from Geneva.

Natasha, good morning.

We know the president has been preparing for weeks, he has -- the language has changed a bit, he is now calling Putin a worthy adversary. Less a killer, more a worthy adversary.

So what's the strategy for dealing with Putin, knowing Putin and what he's capable of?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE RPEORTER: Well, that's right, Christine. So, he has been preparing for weeks and weeks. He actually met with top Russia experts and former officials before he left on this trip to have them brief him essentially on Vladimir Putin and what to expect.

Of course, the Russian president is notorious for throwing curve balls and trying to undercut foreign leaders when he does meet with them. So he has been doing extensive preparations with his foreign policy and national security team, particularly Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

But really what this summit is going to focus on is narrow issues where they can cooperate. As Jeff mentioned there will be talks about extending nuclear arms agreements, about the Iran nuclear deal to which Russia was a party, along with the United States and, of course, Syria, the Middle East being a top concern of both countries.

So, what we're going to see today is a tightly choreographed summit, very -- very -- on message, very disciplined. There is not going to be a breaking of bread, there won't be meals that will be shared by the U.S. president and by the Russian president. Everything is going to be pretty tightly choreographed.

So there are fewer opportunities for the Russian president to go off script but of course anything could happen. U.S. officials told us that the talks could extend well past the allocated times here and, of course, the president likes to go off script, the president likes to be chatty and chummy with the foreign leaders that he does meet.

But what we're anticipating is that there will be a lot of frank and blunt talk by the U.S. president here to Russian President Vladimir Putin today.

ROMANS: And, Natasha, he's been hearing from world leaders the last few days, right, about what they need from this relationship as well. I mean, he's going armed with a bit of Western unity, isn't he?

BERTRAND: That's right. And that was the -- really the purpose of his meetings in Brussels and in England this past week was to get the foreign leaders' input on what should be on this agenda with Putin and kind of get the wind at his back is what U.S. officials have been saying prior to meeting with Russian President Putin.

Of course, he even talked about it with the queen of England, bringing up Vladimir Putin with her, and, you know, this is all part of an attempt by the U.S. to show allies that they are going to incorporate them back into the process here as opposed to President Trump's go it alone strategy.

ROMANS: Less America alone, more all together in the same boat together.

Natasha, thank you so much. Keep us posted.

Let's head back to Geneva now with special coverage of the Biden-Putin summit. Wolf Blitzer takes it from here.

Hey, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, guys, thank you very much.

One of the most pivotal summits in years just about two hours or so away if that. Just ahead, some of the areas where President Biden and President Putin might agree. We have new information that's coming up next right here on CNN.

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