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Biden Considers Sending Troops to Eastern Europe to Deter Putin; U.S. State Department Orders Families of Embassy Personnel in Ukraine to Evacuate as Fear of Russian Invasion Escalates; DOW drops more than 1,000 Points; Source: Former AG Barr had "Preliminary" Talk with 1/6 Committee; Fauci: Omicron Wave is going "In the Right Direction". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 24, 2022 - 12:00   ET

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

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Hello and welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your busy news day with us.

A tense Cold War frontline a weekend of escalation and now President Biden mulling a make or break decision, as he sent more U.S. troops to Vladimir Putin's neighborhood. Plus the committee investigating the insurrection is now talking to the Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, and report new details ahead.

And a new COVID inflection point Omicron cases, starting to level off even as deaths rise, but COVID fatigue is taking a toll on our mental health and on our trust in government. We begin this hour though with that new pressure on Vladimir Putin and the debate over whether it will help or whether it will backfire?

In just hours, President Biden convenes secured call with European leaders to discuss Ukraine. That will happen as the president ways whether now to deploy thousands of U.S. troops, warships and aircraft to NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

Also today, NATO the Western Security Alliance putting its forces on standby the hope that new pressure forces Putin to back off of a potential invasion of Ukraine, the risk that the Russian leader uses more American and NATO forces on his doorstep as a pretext for an invasion.

CNN is on the front lines of this story. And we begin at the White House with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Kaitlan, big discussions for the Commander in Chief?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Certainly big discussions, and this call that was just announced by the White House is going to take place this afternoon about 3 pm Eastern, and it's going to be President Biden and the leaders of Europe to talk about this standoff that has not only not changed.

Putin has not back down, as you noted, but it has escalated in recent days. And there wasn't much progress made during the talks between the United States and Russia in Geneva last week now leading us up to this call. That's going to happen this afternoon.

And John, it's also equally important because it comes as CNN and other outlets, including "The New York Times" are now reporting that President Biden is considering sending additional troops in the thousands to NATO allies in Eastern Europe, to the Baltic States to these other allies there to increase those troops presence.

And while it doesn't appear that he's made a final decision there you can see, of course, this is exactly the situation that Putin had hoped to avoid where the president is considering taking this step. And it would be a big deal, because last week, we heard from President Biden in that press conference, John, where he said, if Putin moves, then he would increase troop presences in places like Poland, Romania, this would be taking a proactive step here.

So this would seem to be a shift and how the administration is viewing this increasingly delicate situation. And so these were decisions that the president was briefed on by Pentagon leaders while he was at Camp David this weekend.

It doesn't appear that he's made a final decision yet. There's been no announcement from the White House or from the Pentagon. But it does appear that they are finalizing these possibilities for President Biden. And of course, this is what Putin has tried to avoid.

You see there, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, these Baltic States, these NATO allies if they increase the true presence there that is, of course, very close to Putin's border. That is right there. And that is the situation that he's hoped to avoid that he's trying to avoid.

The question is how he responds if President Biden does make this decision and when the United States moves on this.

KING: Significant afternoon ahead for the President of United States. We're going to get days ahead for all of us, Kaitlan Collins, appreciate you kicking us off from the White House. Another sign of this tension and of the planning the State Department now ordering families of American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country let's get to the State Department and CNN's Kylie Atwood.

Kylie this again, as Kaitlan just noted a bit of a shift last week it was let's give diplomacy time. Now it is let's be careful and get the families out.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. After Secretary of State Blinken met last week with Foreign Minister Lavrov, he was very clear in saying the United States is going to continue pushing the diplomatic front, but that the United States also needs to be prepared for continued Russian aggression, which would then trigger massive consequences.

And of course, if Russia moves forth with that, with that possible invasion into Ukraine, the United States has to protect its people that are there. And so the wheels started to get in motion for that over the weekend, the State Department allowing some U.S. government officials who work at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev to leave the country and ordering all of the families of the U.S. government personnel at that embassy to leave the country.

So that is a very significant decision that they made. Now, they aren't saying that it is because of something that happened in the last 24 or 48 hours that triggered the State Department to do this. Instead they are saying it is the totality of the situation that they are looking at with continued Russian aggressions with continued Russian military troop buildup along the border of Ukraine that triggered them to make this decision.

Now of course, the embassy is still operating. There are going to be some people who stay back and keep it up and running and we will watch to see if there any other movements to further draw down that embassy presence.

KING: Kylie Atwood at the State Department thanks for the latest from there. This accusation from the British only adds to the tensions; the UK Foreign Secretary says the Russian government is planning to install a pro-Moscow leader in Kiev. CNN's Matthew Chance is right there in Kiev.

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KING: Matthew, let's start there. I want to ask you in a minute, you've covered Vladimir Putin for a long time on actually how he's what he's likely to respond to all these actions. But inside Ukraine right now, what does the government see it has Joe Biden on the phone with European leaders it has NATO saying we're ready to send more troops to the region?

From a Ukrainian perspective, are they getting the attention the unified response they've been demanding and asking?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think to some extent, yes, John. But there's also a certain amount of frustration that's been simmering behind the scenes that's bubbling up to the surface.

And we've had quite a strong reaction of prickly reaction, if you like, from the Ukrainian authorities, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, to this decision by the U.S. State Department to allow non-essential workers from the embassy to leave and to order the families to out of the country as well.

They're saying that's an overreaction. They're saying it's premature. They're saying that there's nothing in the security situation has deteriorated over the past couple of days that would warrant this kind of that kind of action.

Of course, at the same time, it's been expected as well, because, you know, what diplomats have told me here is that United States has always had a very low bar when it comes to moving to move the families out other countries and Britain has done it as well.

But other countries in the European Union, they haven't taken that step. And of course, other countries who have embassies here as well, aren't even speaking about doing that, at that at the moment. But again, it does expose this blue water between the Ukrainians in the United States, the U.S. gives Ukraine all of military and diplomatic and political support as well.

But again, behind the scenes there is this difference of opinion about the impending nature of the of the war, the Ukrainians still believe, despite the intelligence, their own intelligence, which I've seen, which does show that there are these tens of thousands of troops from Russia, that have gathered near their border.

They do believe that Russia does not intend to attack they see it as a bluff in the Kremlin putting it out there in order to extract concessions from the Western from the United States. And so they are trying to play down the possibility of an invasion. They're saying he's having a material impact on Ukraine's economy, foreign investment has been withdrawn.

The stock market, and the bond market is crashing for them and that's making the economic situation here, much more different, difficult. They want to play that situation down. But of course, you're seeing Washington, others that saying that the threat that Russia coming into Ukraine, once again, is very real indeed.

KING: And let me cap your years of experience reporting from Moscow. Vladimir Putin is unpredictable. So we all need to be careful. But the United States this is definitely you sense the shift.

Last week it was Lavrov meeting with Secretary Blinken. It was working to exchange papers; we're going to try to keep talking. Now as the President of United States saying should I move more troops into Eastern Europe? Let's get the NATO allies on board.

Let's talk with the European leaders as well to get them on board. How does Vladimir Putin react to what he has to now see, as the West giving him a lot more tension and perhaps a lot more military in the neighborhood?

CHANCE: Yes, well, I mean, on one hand, on the one hand, it is sort of playing into the hands of the Kremlin isn't it by putting even more forces into Eastern Europe? Exactly the kind of military presence that the Kremlin said is the reason that it is bolstering its forces itself and says poses a national security threat and a security threat to Russia.

It's not clear what choice the United States President had at this point, though. I think we need to remember though the negotiation track, the diplomatic track is still very much alive, the United States and NATO will be giving their written responses to the Kremlin.

On those core demands of refusal of you know, the demand to stop expanding NATO and to refuse to let Ukraine ever to join the military alliance. And those written responses will likely form the basis of negotiations going on for days, perhaps weeks.

You know, it could be a situation in the sort of granular type of diplomacy that the Russians that the Kremlin likes to carry out. It could say, let's get together there could be some kind of breakthrough on clause seven of the response.

And so yes, that that written document could form the basis of more negotiations, which could set back any plans for an invasion by weeks if not longer.

KING: Important days ahead, Matthew Chance grateful to have you in the rest of our team in Kiev. We're blessed here at CNN at these times of tension have a fantastic team overseas to help us. Matthew thank you so much. Ahead for us we now know a key Trump cabinet member is talking to the January 6 Committee some new details next.

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KING: A live look the big board you see it down right there the Wall Street down. That's the New York Stock Exchange -1000 points and counting. You see that the markets off to a bad Monday worries about Fed policy worries about tensions with Ukraine worries about inflation. The beginning of this week looks like another tough week on Wall Street. We'll keep our eye on that the DOW down right now more than 1000 points.

Back here to big news in Washington and potentially a bad development for the Former President Donald Trump. A source tells CNN the Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr has had a preliminary discussion with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

And there's this from the Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson. A key line of questioning for the former attorney general could be a draft Trump Administration memo that instructed the military to see voting machines. Let's get the CNN's Ryan Nobles up on Capitol Hill Ryan that's a big deal.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's no doubt about that. The fact that Barr would even be cooperating on any level with the January 6 Select Committee tells us a lot about how far this investigation has come?

Now I'm told this conversation that Barr had with the committee was what they describe as informal, not on the record. So there's still a long way to go before they're going to be able to take some of this information that they've learned from the former attorney general and make it a tangible part of their investigation. We should also point out that there's been a lot of talk about this draft executive order that did discuss different ways to try and interrupt the certification of the election process through seizing voting machines and other things.

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NOBLES: That doesn't really have anything to do with this conversation with the former attorney general. The Committee just received that document through this tranche of information that came from the National Archives. And their conversation with the attorney general happened several weeks ago.

So these are, you know, part of the investigation that is moving down on different tracks at this point. But it's all part of the big scope of what they're trying to ascertain, when it comes to trying to figure out exactly what led to the January 6 insurrection and peddling these election lies are a big part of that.

And John, Barr is a figure in all this is also very important, because you'll remember that he left the White House, he left his job as Attorney General right after declaring that from his viewpoint, as you know the top illegal investigator in the country, that there was no significant evidence of voter fraud this despite the fact that the president himself continue to peddle that lie.

So we'll have to see how this plays out over time, whether or not Barr will sit for a formal interview on the record whether or not he will even appear in a public hearing? Those are all options that could theoretically be on the table.

But we're a long way before that point. And this is just a preliminary conversation between Barr and the Committee. We'll have to see how it all plays out?

KING: And so Ryan, here's what I consider more proof that a lot of Republicans are getting nervous that this committee might be doing good work that this committee might actually be building a detailed timeline of the events not only of that day but from Election Day up until January 6.

This is the Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich not shy about using congressional oversight, legitimate powers of congressional oversight back in his days as speaker who says somehow this committee even though it has the full authority of United States Congress, this committee, he says is wrong, listen.

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NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: These are people who are literally just running over the law, pursuing innocent people causing the dishpan thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for no justification. And it's basically a lynch mob.

I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down. And the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep, and they're the ones who are in fact, going to, I think face a real risk of jail for the kind of laws that are breaking.

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KING: Simple question?

NOBLES: The idea that congressional oversight would lead to jail time, its just lunacy even from a Former Speaker of the House. But I think the thing that we need to just look back on the facts of what's happened with this investigation, John.

Is that basically every step of this process has been litigated every single time that committee attempts to make a move, the former president and his associates, throw them into court to try and hash all this out.

And every single time the courts have agreed with the committee, and it's not just necessarily democratic appointees, you know, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to prevent the flow of information from National Archives to the committee. And that's a conservative court, and they turn down that opportunity.

So it's very similar to these, you know, false claims of election fraud after 2020, where Trump and his associates continued to say that there was all this evidence of fraud. But yet that in charge those litigating this issue, those that were responsible for conducting the elections, both Republican and Democrat said time and time again, that it just didn't exist.

It's the same thing here. Everything this committee has done so far has been legal. The courts have held up that proof of legality, and there's no reason to make a claim such as this. It just really doesn't make any sense.

KING: It does not make any sense. Ryan Nobles I appreciate that. Just to make that point this footnote Liz Cheney one of the two Republicans on the Committee tweeting this. A Former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our constitution.

This Congresswoman Cheney says is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels. It's an important point she makes there. Up next for us, COVID deaths are up, but there is evidence Omicron nearing its peak

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KING: Many of the COVID numbers remain bleak, especially a rising daily death count. But Dr. Anthony Fauci says a close look at the case count suggests we are very close to a turning point.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, PRESIDENT BIDEDN'S CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: But what we would hope that as we get into the next weeks to a month or so we'll see throughout the entire country, the level of infection get to below what I call that area of control.

And there's a big bracket of control. Control means you're not eliminating it, you're not eradicating it but it gets down to such a low level that it's essentially integrated into the general respiratory infections that we have learned to live with.

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KING: Well, let's take a look at the numbers and try to get into what Dr. Fauci is talking about there? Number one, if you look at cases right now, Sunday, 681,000 plus new COVID infections, that's a big number, but it is down 15 percent from the January peak of more than 800,000 cases.

So Omicron surges up plateaus starting to come down a little bit. That is still though, a horrific number. We know from two years of this, the death toll tends to lag cases come down deaths are still going up.

Look at this 2000 Americans dying, 2033 Americans losing their lives to COVID on Sunday; the Delta peak was just over 2100 deaths. So the death count continues to go up even as those cases come down a little bit. If you look at this from a regional perspective again you get what Dr. Fauci is talking about.

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KING: The Northeast, where Omicron hit first starting to come down; the Midwest is the blue, a plateau, the South, which was late to Omicron a plateau there may be the beginning of a dip there.

At that point, let's bring in to share her insights and expertise Dr. Megan Ranney, Associate Dean of Public Health at Brown University. So, Dr. Ranney, if you're looking out in the distance, yes, yes, things look better from the horrific peak of Omicron. But you're in the emergency room every day wishful thinking a week or two down the road doesn't help you today and yesterday, does it?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE: No. And you know we've been down this road before of trying to declare victory and then having that victory snatched from us in the last minute. So I really hesitate to say this is done.

Yes, a month or two from now we will likely be in a very different situation. But we cannot make the mistake of declaring victory too soon. There are two things first is our hospitals and intensive care units across the country are still at a crisis point from the combination of COVID and folks who are really sick with a lot of other problems. They need help.

We need stabilization, staffing, for hospitals, nursing homes, and so on right now. And the other part is we cannot say we're done. We need to be proactive about preparing for what may well be another surge. If we've learned anything about COVID it is that this virus mutates another variant could be ahead. And if we declare victory, then we're once again setting ourselves up to fail. KING: So the question then is, where the sweet spot is, you make a very key point, don't over celebrate or don't prematurely celebrate. But others make the point that if you want to keep the American people involved, when you tell them you need to do this is a time to step back.

This is a time to have a little bit more freedom. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the Former FDA Commissioner says this as conditions improve in the United States, we must be willing to relax provisions as aggressively as we implemented them. Lean in like the UK.

Dr. Gottlieb is talking about this. If you look at the UK cases, here's their big old Omicron spike up to 180,000, dropping down to about half that 91,000. So Dr. Gottlieb says if things get better, you got to essentially give people a longer leash. Do you agree with that? Or do you think it's premature to talk about that here?

DR. RANNEY: No, I think that's exactly right. We've said all along that we have these stricter precautions in place in the midst of a surge when the surge passes when people get vaccinated. When we have higher levels of immunity, we do need to let up and we have done that before.

So looking ahead a month or two from now could I see us relaxing mask restrictions? Could I see school policies change 100 percent, but is today the day to do it absolutely not and should we expect that those precautions may need to be put back in place in the future, yes.

KING: I want to read something you wrote in "The Washington Post" on Friday, because you and I have had a conversation now for going on two years about this. And I'm grateful for your perspective.

I don't think any of us say thank you enough for what you actually do when you're not on television and what your colleagues do when you're not on television. And for those who aren't. And for those who never are on television every day, man in the front lines.

You write this I will celebrate like everyone else when the Omicron wave passes. But I know there will be another one probably another Coronavirus variant, possibly something else. My colleagues and I will keep showing up for work, because if we don't who will, but we have been changed and not for the better. Talk about that last part.

DR. RANNEY: I have difficulty John explaining to the general public what healthcare workers have been through over the past two years? The surge after surge that we have taken care of watching our own colleagues leaves bedside care because they are so exhausted.

And not being able to provide the care for the patients who are coming through our doors because of short staffing and because of lack of resources. It is an almost unimaginable place to be. And my worry is for those of us who are left who have kept calling for help and not having it come.

I worry that we're now in a moment of compassion, fatigue, of putting up armor in order to keep walking into the hospital or the nursing home or the clinic. And that our healthcare system may never recover because I have not yet seen the political will to redesign the way that healthcare and public health are delivered in this country so that we can actually treat our patients and our healthcare workers the way that they deserve.

KING: I hope that the experts in this town and state capitals are on the country. Listen, listen to that point right there. I hope you haven't been wrong very much in the last few years. But I hope you're wrong about that. But at least we can't have a reset to get back to where we need to be. Dr. Ranney thanks again, as always grateful for your perspective.

DR. RANNEY: Thank you, John.

KING: Thank you. Breaking news - now the DOW you see the board right behind me there dropping sharply. Let's get to our CNN's Business Reporter Matt Egan with the latest. Matt, what's happening?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Well, John of fear has clearly taken over the stock market once again. We see the DOW down about 1000 points 2.9 percent. The NASDAQ is down more than 4 percent it's a big move in one day especially after a long series of losses.

The NASDAQ is now on track for its worst month since 2008 and worst January ever so what's going on? I think there are three big factors here.