Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

President Biden to Meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin; Parents of American Held in Russian Prison Interviewed on Possible Efforts to Free Their Son; Longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Ousted; Trump D.O.J. Sought Records of White House Counsel McGahn; Ex-Congresswoman Katie Hill Pushing to Make Revenge Porn a Federal Crime. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The disinformation efforts that try to diminish democracy will not stop, but that's why it's important to acknowledge when our government gets things right, whether it's vaccination rates or the vaccination donations, that remind the world that there is no moral equivalence between democracy and autocracy.

And that's your Reality Check.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: John Avlon, thank you very much. NEW DAY continues right now.

I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. On this NEW DAY, President Biden meeting with NATO leaders right now. What he's saying to set the tone as a tense summit happens on Wednesday with Vladimir Putin.

Plus, the family of a U.S. Marine veteran held in a Russian prison pleading for their son's safe return. They're standing by to speak to us right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And new revelations about the Trump Justice Department's secret subpoenas. Trump's own White House counsel had his phone records subpoenaed, too. And keep the COVID shot and it could cost you your job if you work at one of the biggest hospitals in America. We'll talk to the doctor in charge.

Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, June 14th. President Biden's new strategy aimed at restoring U.S. leadership in the world and its credibility with traditional allies is continuing this morning in Brussels. Meetings underway right now with NATO partners. Before the summit events even began, the president told the NATO secretary-general a strong alliance is essential to addressing new threats from China and Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have new challenges, and we have a Russia that is not acting in a way that is consistent with what we had hoped, and as well as China. I want to make it clear -- NATO is critically important for U.S. interests in and of itself. If there weren't one, we'd have to invent one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now, the NATO summit is a bit of a prelude to President Biden's high-stakes face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland. And if nothing else, the two leaders agree on one thing, that the relations between the two countries are at a low point.

BERMAN: One of the issues President Biden will address is freedom for Americans imprisoned in Russia. That includes Trevor Reed who has been held there since 2019. A Russian count sentenced Reed to nine years in prison for endangering life and health of Russian police officers in an altercation. Reed, a Marine veteran, denies the charges, and U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan called the trial theater of the absurd, and now we're hearing from Trevor Reed in his own voice, at least in his own words, in a letter he sent to his family from the hospital while sick with COVID. The letter is dated June 7th. He was forced to write in Russian by prison authorities even though he doesn't speak it fluently.

It says in part, quote, "I've got a little pain in my lungs. Also, I suffer from cough from time to time. I have lost a few kilograms in weight." He asks, quote, "Does the embassy and the State Department in Washington know about me?"

Joining us, Paula and Joey Reed, Trevor's parents. Thank you both so much for being here. It is nice to see you again. I want to talk to you about the letter, which is rather heartbreaking in just a moment. But first, Russian leader Vladimir Putin was asked directly about your son in a TV news interview, and I want to play you, and I have to warn you, you're not going to like what he has to say here. It's not particularly gentle. Listen to what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Your guy, the Marine, he's just a drunk and a troublemaker. As they say here, he got himself -- faced on vodka and started to fight. Among other things, he hit a cop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And for that, he's sentenced to nine years at a Russian prison. What's it like to hear that from the Russian leader?

PAULA REED, MOTHER OF U.S. MARINE VETERAN IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA: Well, obviously, it's very offensive to us, and it's not true. So it's difficult to hear.

JOEY REED, MOTHER OF U.S. MARINE VETERAN IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA: We have never said anything about President Putin. That's a government issue, and a political issue, but we find it strange that he's made these false statements against our son. First of all, if that were true, why didn't he prove it? Why didn't his kangaroo court prove it? Anyone who was there instantly, news media, whoever attended, said this is a joke. The police keep changing their stories. It's not true.

So it's offensive, and to me, it seems like a world leader, somebody who is supposed to be one of the biggest world leaders to say something like that, it's beneath the position.

[08:05:03]

BERMAN: And he's saying it as your son is clearly suffering. That letter that you have now seen written in Russian from prison where he talks about suffering from COVID, having problems in his lungs. What are your concerns, Paula, this morning?

P. REED: Well, obviously, we're very concerned. All along since the beginning when he was telling us that he was sick and they refused to give him a test. And then it took, I guess, about 10 days to get him a test. Finally, they gave him a test and they found out when he was positive they sent to isolation, and we haven't been able to hear from him. That's my understanding. We questioned to see if he was getting medication or any type of care, but I think that just by isolation is what they consider the care there. So we're very worried about him.

J. REED: And it's very concerning that the embassy has contacted everyone daily, multiple times, the foreign ministry, the prisons, and they just keep giving them different excuses. They're getting the runaround. And other than the time that they sent him to a mental facility at one of the worst prisons in the world, and we lost track of him for nine days, again, we're thinking, if he's OK, why don't you just tell someone? And Trevor signed a power of attorney giving the jail permission to speak about his medical situation to both his attorneys and the embassy, and no one has been able to contact him.

BERMAN: You talked about the U.S. embassy in Moscow. What's the nature of your contact with them now, or the U.S. State Department? How often are you in contact?

P. REED: We talk with the U.S. State Department weekly. And with the embassy, we email with them daily, and sometimes multiple times during the day. We know that they have gotten cut down to a skeleton crew, but they're working very hard on Trevor's behalf to let us have communications, but they have been denied every step of the way.

J. REED: When I was in Russia for 14 months, I got to know the main officials who deal with this situation, and the last year, they have been extremely helpful. And Paula, when her and my daughter came for the beginning of Trevor's trial, they also actually got to meet Charge d'affaires Gorman who is in charge right now along with the American Citizens Services reps. And so they have been extremely helpful, and now we engage with them more than once daily.

BERMAN: I had a chance to speak to both of you in February, and you expressed to me that you were appreciative of a bit of change in tone and tenor from this administration to the last, their willingness to talk to you, also their willingness to stand up to Vladimir Putin. I'm wondering what your hopes are for this summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, and what you have been told that the U.S. or President Biden will try to do in regards to your son.

P. REED: Well, we have been told that President Biden is definitely going to bring up Trevor's case and Paul Whelan's case with President Putin, and our hope obviously is that they can come to some agreement that will let our son come home. I guess Putin is open to a prisoner exchange. And I know some people say we shouldn't do a prisoner exchange because Paul and Trevor are innocent of the charges against them, and the people that we would be trading are guilty criminals. But I really don't care how my son gets home. I just want him to get home.

J. REED: We think of prisoners who were guilty and pled guilty that have been in American prisons for years, it's like, OK, just let them go. Then we don't have to pay them and house them. And they have served plenty of time already. And not major crimes. Just make the trade. And again, we're very happy to hear Putin say he's open to a trade. And we hope that will happen immediately.

BERMAN: There's been a lot of posturing between President Putin and President Biden leading up to this summit. I wonder how concerned you become when you hear this tough talk.

J. REED: In the modern world, both locally and nationally and internationally, that's become the norm. There's a lot of that rhetoric that goes out, and that rhetoric is for their own constituency. And we hope that's all it is, it's posturing, and that when they sit down with all of their people, that they can actually communicate. And if there's anything in this summit that can be accomplished easily, it's the freeing of our son and Paul Whelan.

BERMAN: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did an interview where he talked about, where he defended, I should say, U.S. policy toward Russia during the Trump administration. I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There was no administration that was tougher on Russia. We worked diligently to support Ukraine with defensive weapon systems. We built out the United States military.

We need to move forward, and we need to continue to defend the United States against the threats that Vladimir Putin may pose, whether it's cyber or kinetic or any of the information efforts that Vladimir Putin will try to foist upon America if President Biden is weak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:01]

BERMAN: Joey, do you agree with that when he says no one has been tougher on Russia than the Trump administration? Do you really feel like that was the case?

J. REED: Well, first of all, all the things he said, those are probably true, the things that we did do, but the things that that administration didn't do, other than Pompeo occasionally, was speak publicly against the things that the Russian government has done. And all I can say is when it came to prisoners, that administration would only count the prisoners that they brought home. And I believe President Trump said he had 100 percent success rate in freeing prisoners. I guess he wasn't talking about the other 80-something Americans that were wrongfully held in countries around the world.

And as far as our son goes, Pompeo and Trump never said his name. The current administration, we had a meeting with Secretary Blinken six days after confirmation, and they have been speaking out for him at the White House press corps and also at the State Department. And we're extremely happy that they're publicly saying this is wrong and demanding his release, and now they're having discussions which we hope will lead to some resolution to the issue.

BERMAN: And Paula, just the letter that Joey -- I'm sorry, that Trevor did manage to get out of prison, talk to me more about the letter, what you see in it, what your takeaway is.

P. REED: I feel like as his mom, I know him pretty well, and I feel like he's feeling a little lost right now. He's not sure -- he's concerned we don't know he's there and that the government is not working to try to get some communication with him. So I feel like he thinks that he's a little abandoned, not by the government, but just because he's being isolated in Russia and he's feeling a little lost. So it's very concerning. Also, his health is concerning. So that's not the kind of letter that any mom wants to get from her son.

BERMAN: Paula, Joey Reed, thank you so much again for coming on, sharing your thoughts with us this morning. We hope you get some kind of resolution in the next few days. Thank you. And keep us posted.

P. REED: Thank you, John.

J. REED: Thank you, Mr. Berman. Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, Brianna?

KEILAR: Let's talk more about this now with chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, Michael Isikoff. And he's also the host of a very good podcast, "Conspiracy Land," which has a new season out today. And certainly, you have your hands very full with that, but you just listened to Trevor Reed's parents. And this is going to come up when Biden and Putin meet in Geneva on Wednesday. They say they're hoping that there's some kind of agreement for him to come home for a prisoner exchange. What do you think this discussion is going to be like, and do you think that's a possible?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: Well, apparently, Putin did throw out the idea that he's open to a trade, but that's after calling their son a drunk who was picked up for unruly behavior. But nine years in prison is so off the charts and a reminder that this is an authoritarian regime in which its court system is completely subjected to the political whims of the Kremlin. So we will see. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a deal in the making here. But look, this summit is going to be compared to the infamous summit in Helsinki where Trump and Putin stood there and Trump backed up Putin.

KEILAR: Over his own intelligence community.

ISIKOFF: Over his own intelligence community. Clearly, the Biden people are making a break from that. There's not going to be a joint press conference. Biden will give his own account of the meeting afterwards, and I think that sends an important signal right there.

KEILAR: He's not going to stand side by side with him in a joint presser. It sends a very, very loud signal.

I do want to turn now. I really wanted to see what your perspective is on Israel right now, just amazing what we're watching, the transition of power happening there. The long running minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially out after more than a decade in power, and yesterday Naftali Bennett was sworn in as his replacement. Let's listen to what Netanyahu had to say during his final remarks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We'll be back, soon. We'll be back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That is quite the unruly moment there. What are you seeing? What are you making of this moment in Israel?

ISIKOFF: Look, Israeli politics is unusually unruly, as a norm. But that said, the real question here is, what, if anything, does this new government going to do in terms of a change in policy with Palestinian Arabs, with the West Bank, with Gaza? It's not at all clear there's going to be the kind of dramatic break from Netanyahu that a lot of people would be hoping for. Bennett, the new prime minster, is a hardcore pro-settler guy. We haven't heard too much about his willingness to tack from that. So I think a lot of people will be celebrating the end of Netanyahu.

[08:15:00]

He has been there for so long, but you know, whether this is lead to any real progress in peace talks going to lead to any real progress or peace talks remains to be seen.

KEILAR: I know you're paying a lot of attention to what's happening at the Department of Justice and what we learned about the former Department of Justice under President Trump. There were secret subpoenas that targeted his perceived enemies, ones that he was very public about who his enemies were.

ISIKOFF: Right.

KEILAR: How do you think it's possible that his Attorneys General didn't know about this? ISIKOFF: Look, these kind of subpoenas, certainly to Members of

Congress and to members of the press, require high level political approval.

KEILAR: And they're family members, by the way.

ISIKOFF: Right, and their family members. So, you cannot -- I mean, Barr, Sessions, Rosenstein, have all said they were not aware of ones to Members of Congress. Somebody approved them. They could be misremembering or something else, or it is worth remembering that this is not unprecedented that the Justice Department is doing leak investigations, have done this kind of thing before.

Members of Congress, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were investigated at the request of Vice President Cheney during the Bush years. We know about the Obama administration aggressively pursuing leak investigations and secretly getting the phone records of reporters.

So, I suspect at the end of the day, this is going to get awkward for the Garland Justice Department because as much as they want to make a break from Trump, there were undoubtedly career prosecutors who filed these motions in court, who defended them before Judges, and you know, either they were ordered to do something they thought was unethical or improper or they were following what they thought to be department rules, existing department rules, and that's going to make it very difficult for Merrick Garland because he is not going to want to -- he's an institutionalist, he's not going to want to dump on people who are career prosecutors who have been there for many years and doing what they thought was the right thing.

KEILAR: Yes, and he is trying to sort of restore the Department of Justice.

ISIKOFF: Yes.

KEILAR: We'll see how he manages the tensions between these two things. Michael, it is great to see you. Thank you so much and again. You are the host of "The Conspiracy Land Podcast," which you definitely check out if you haven't already. Thank you so much.

ISIKOFF: Thank you.

KEILAR: So, next, we have much more on this. We're going to speak with a former Member of Congress who was in power at the time of these secret subpoenas.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And a requirement for COVID vaccinations at New York's largest hospital. Will they make any exceptions?

And Republican Senator Ron Johnson says stupid stuff, which may be the least newsworthy headline of all time, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:36] KEILAR: Former White House Counsel, Don McGahn says that Apple

notified him and his wife that the Justice Department sought their records in 2018 when he was still the top lawyer representing the President. This is high level members of the Trump Justice Department saying they were unaware of a probe into Democratic Members of the House.

Let's talk about this now with former Congresswoman Katie Hill. Thank you for joining us in studio today.

KATIE HILL (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

KEILAR: I want to ask you first what we heard from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday about this on CNN's "State of the Union."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): How would it be that there could be an investigation of Members of the other branch of government and the press and the rest, too, and the Attorneys General did not know? So who are these people? And are they still in the Justice Department?

And again, this is just out of the question no matter who is President, whatever party, this cannot be the way it goes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: She doesn't believe that the Attorneys General under Trump could not have known about secret subpoenas, this wide reaching, Members of Congress, reporters, even the President's own White House counsel. What do you think?

HILL: I think there is no way that they couldn't have known. It seems to me that you're not going to find lower level staff or people within the Department of Justice who are going to execute on something like this without sign-off from the highest people in the department.

So to me, that's just a no-brainer, and it's clear that they are trying to protect themselves by denying that. So, I think we're going to have to get to the bottom of this, and I hope that the House under the Speaker's leadership is able to get people to testify and get to the bottom of the matter.

KEILAR: So, why do you think -- what do you think should happen and how do you think Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, who as Michael Isikoff pointed out, is an institutionalist. He is doing stuff that a lot of Democrats are saying, wait, really? What should he do to balance this?

HILL: Look, I can't speak to department protocols or anything. My hope is at the very least, he is doing an internal investigation to determine what is going on, who is still at the department that is responsible for this, and how it happened through the chain of command. At the same time, I think that the investigative powers of Congress

are going to be tested, and hopefully, some of the people who have been subpoenaed in the past and have resisted that will be inclined to show up this time.

KEILAR: Has Congress been neutered in terms of being able to subpoena people? It seems like they should be able to get Bill Barr to come and testify, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein.

HILL: Well, I certainly think that the precedent that was set under President Trump was that you don't have to show up to a congressional subpoena, especially if it's under the other party, and if that's the case, then you kind of wait it out, right? You just wait it out until people aren't interested anymore.

And I hope that that that's not something that's going to be able to continue under this new administration. But it's ultimately going to be put to the test. We have no other option but to try and to try to bring back some of the norms that predated the Trump administration.

KEILAR: I want to ask you about Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who at one point, you had an across the aisle friendship with, which seemed sort of like, I don't want to say an odd friendship, but it is one that because it was kind of odd, got some attention.

I know that you have certainly spoken out against him since he has come under Federal investigation for crimes that involve alleged sexual conduct with a minor and obstruction of justice, and certainly, you have Democrats who are calling for him to be removed from the House Judiciary Committee.

[08:25:18]

KEILAR: He has denied these allegations. That's important to note here. What are your thoughts on whether he should be removed from the committee?

HILL: I think he absolutely should be removed from the committee. You can't be overseeing a committee that has jurisdiction over an investigation that you're part of, that you're involved in, actively involved in. I think he should be removed from any committees right now while the investigation is pending, and at a minimum, judiciary.

KEILAR: Are you gobsmacked by what you've heard?

HILL: Yes, that's a good way of putting it. I think, yes, I mean, it is horrifying. It's depressing. It shows you the double standard for what's expected of men and women, and I think that I'm not optimistic that he is ever going to resign or be held accountable because of gerrymandering and because of the way that things have played out in the past.

KEILAR: You were friends with him. I wonder how you make sense of this.

HILL: Oh, yes. I mean, I've had to reconcile that myself. It's just -- it I just disgusting. It makes you look at your own friendship and your own interactions in a different light. So --

KEILAR: You have been leading an effort since you left Congress to deal with the issue of revenge porn and on the Violence against Women Act, and really, these issues altogether are about what women endure and should not endure. What is the status of that fight? It seems like we haven't really heard a whole lot about this progressing.

HILL: Yes, so the Violent against Women Act passed the House in March. And since then, there has been pretty much no progress. And I get it, the Senate is busy. They have a lot of must-pass things. This whole standoff over the filibuster, there is the desire to not work in whatever we can within reconciliation.

But right now, women are dying every single day. Every 20 seconds, somebody is -- a woman in particular is abused by a significant other, and women are shot, 56 women a month are shot and killed by their significant other or a former significant other, and there are all kinds of things that are done in this violence against women act reauthorization that would address some of those issues.

It is a bipartisan bill. It is not something that should be subject, well, that should be held back because of the filibuster. We should be able to get those 10 votes. So, the organization that I founded, Her Time, we're really mobilizing around an effort to target 10 to 15 states of Republican senators that we think can be brought over to bring the public pressure and say that this is not something in which we should be engaged in partisanship bickering. This is about saving lives and it's that urgent.

Within that, we have a provision we were able to get in the House version called the Shield Act, which makes cyber exploitation, intimate image abuse a Federal crime, and that's the first time it would ever be a Federal crime. It's a big deal. It sends an important message to anyone who is considering sending these pictures or sharing these pictures of someone else.

This is absolutely wrong. It is not just wrong for you as an individual, but it is wrong for us, as a society and it has to not be normalized anymore.

So, I'm really hopeful we are going to be able to make some progress on this over the summer and that the Senate ultimately brings it up for a vote very soon.

KEILAR: Yes, here in the post #MeToo era, it's hard to imagine, there are just not been this appetite to push some of these measures forward.

Before I let you go, will you run again?

HILL: Listen, I haven't written anything off. The last two years -- well, a year and a half have been really, you know, tragic and important for my family and for me in terms of figuring out what the next steps are, and right now, I need to figure out my role in making sure that this gets passed, helping women run for and getting elected to office, and the work that we're doing with Her Time is supporting candidates, supporting incumbents, and you know, ultimately, 2022, we have to hold the House.

Everyone needs to remember that all of this work we have done before, all of the frustrations around, you know, we're not getting as much done as we want to, the Senate is holding us up because of the filibuster. Literally, none of that will matter --

KEILAR: But doesn't that make you want to get back in the arena?

HILL: You know, sometimes, but sometimes I wonder, you know, maybe my role is more important on the outside. So, I'm still definitely on that kind of figuring it out piece, and at the same time, we have got redistricting happening, and there's six months probably to go before we really know what these districts are going to look like and what districts are going to be competitive.

Mine, the one that I ran in before might not even be a competitive district. So, my attention might need to be elsewhere to do what I can to protect the majority. So I've got time to decide, and a lot of legal battles and legal debt to go in the meantime.

KEILAR: All right, we will keep asking. Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it.

HILL: Thank you. Good to talk to you.

[08:30:10]