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Putin Lands in Geneva for Summit; Israel Strikes Gaza; Biden and Putin to Begin Summit Today. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 16, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The information about what the format of this is going to look like. We know at the beginning it will be President Biden and President Putin and just one staffer each in the room while they're meeting. And then later on they'll open it up. It will be a bigger delegation that's going to be joining them.

And, of course, the White House has said no meals are expected during this summit, even though it's expected to go on potentially four or five hours. And, Wolf, I think what that really says and what that really underlines is that this is all formality, all business, no chumminess or light-heartedness that you often saw at that last summit between President Trump and President Putin in Helsinki in 2018.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we're told the foreign minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, has already arrived at the Villa La Grange for this meeting. We're now waiting for the president of Russia to disembark from the plane and head over. History about to unfold.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much, Wolf.

I'm joined here by Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a columnist at "The Washington Post," and CNN's Bianna Golodryga, CNN's senior global affairs analyst, as we are watching Vladimir Putin arrive pretty much exactly on time in Geneva, Bianna. And not for nothing. I mean Vladimir Putin has showed up late, very late, to some meetings before. So this might be a signal that he's not messing around here, by the book.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: He's going by the book, I it would appear, but who knows how long he'll be on the plane before he leaves. But, you know, historically, there have been times where he has been notoriously late, and that was seen as a symbol, as a message sent to President Obama in particular, a start of their rather gloomy relationship.

So he's on time. I wouldn't read too much into this. But I think that he knows this is as much about a PR on the global stage as it is about anything that's going to be discussed at -- with him and President Biden. But, yes, off to a good start.

BERMAN: So far.

Max Boot, Jim Sciutto referred to it before, Fiona Hill, who was President Trump's chief Russia adviser in the National Security Council said, she wanted to fake a medical emergency at the last meeting between Trump and Putin it was so bad. It was so humiliating. So that's one bar for this meeting today. But is it the only bar for success? What are you looking for?

MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS AND COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, you definitely will avoid this kind of kowtowing to Putin that you saw under Trump, which was unprecedented for an American president. So that's a win right there.

But, clearly, Biden will go in there and he will draw some red lines with Putin. He will lay down the law to Putin in a way that Trump certainly never did. And I think especially on issues of human rights, talking about the need to free Alexey Navalny, those are issues that have completely gone off the table during the Trump administration. I think they will be back on the table with this Biden/Putin summit.

But, you know, I think it's going to be -- you know, there's not going to be a lot of takeaways. I don't think there's going to be a lot of agreement. But I think there will be a frank exchange of views, as the diplomats like to say.

I will say, John, you know, just watching this spectacle and hoo-ha, in a way this is sort of -- it's certainly not Putin winning in a way that he did with Trump, but he is winning in some sense because we and everybody in the media, we're all treating this like this is Reagan/Gorbachev '85, this non-stop coverage, treating Putin as if he were the head of another superpower, when, in fact, he leads a country that has a smaller GDP than Canada. So, in a sense, he is already being elevated on the world stage with the president of the United States. And I think, you know, Biden's key task will be to ensure that he doesn't win any more victories out of this summit.

BERMAN: And that's the risk that President Biden takes with asking for this meeting at all, that what Vladimir Putin most wants in the world is respect, and what you're looking at right here is a type of respect.

GOLODRYGA: The embodiment -- it's the embodiment of respect and it's legitimacy that he is the leader of Russia. Obviously, you have Alexey Navalny, who is in prison and has been in prison since January. His wife posting a photo just yesterday of her and her family visiting him in prison. Clearly this is a sign where Russia has clamped down over the past few months, especially since Navalny's return on any sort of dissonance, on any sort of opponents. And as Clarissa had said, there are parliamentary elections coming up in September.

And this is coming at a time where I have to say, though, the Russian views of America have actually gone down over the past few years as well. So I don't think that Putin wants to come out of this meeting looking as if he gave anything significantly up.

BERMAN: We have the benefit of simultaneous translation when we have you here next to us. Just tell us what that says on the airplane.

GOLODRYGA: It says (speaking in foreign language). It says "Russia."

BERMAN: There you go.

GOLODRYGA: Right.

BERMAN: There you have it.

GOLODRYGA: He's on a Russian plane.

BERMAN: Right.

Bianna Golodryga, Max Book, thanks to both of you.

Let's go to Brianna in Washington.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I'm here with Kylie Atwood and John Harwood.

As we are watching this, Putin arriving, as my colleague, John Berman, just said, on time kind of surprisingly there in Geneva. You know, I just wonder, John, it's been some time since we have seen a meeting between two leaders that is getting as much attention as this one.

[06:35:07]

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Kylie was saying in the break that when Trump met with the North Korean leader a few years ago, that was something that had a buildup comparable to this.

But I think Joe Biden comes with the wind at his back. He's had a successful meeting with American allies, establishing the tone that this is a multi-lateral alliance, that he's standing with the free world. He follows a president who was openly aligned with Vladimir Putin. Putin helped him get elected. Trump then advanced Russian objectives as president. He stuck a finger in the eye of NATO allies. He questioned the U.S. commitment to Article 5, to collective defense under NATO. So, in some ways, it's easy for Joe Biden to come back and say, I'm doing what normal American presidents do. I'm standing up for the United States.

Now, there's a challenge because there are limits to how the United States will use its power to check Russia. We don't want to go to war with Russia. And he does have some malign activities that he wants to stop, like the cyber warfare that has been conducted from within Russia. And there's questions about how much he can get Putin to take control of that situation.

But, nevertheless, he's got a favorable backdrop to begin this meeting. And it's interesting that Vladimir Putin, as we've heard earlier in the -- in the run-up this morning, may not be playing some of the same game that he has in the past, arrived on time. They've changed the tone of Russian media. Instead of portraying Joe Biden as a doddering old, senile American leader, they're establishing a tone of respect, which is what you do when you realize that you're going to be face-to-face with somebody who may, in fact, be somewhat formidable.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a very interesting point because, look, unlike any past president, Republican or a Democrat, under President Trump, America was getting rolled by Russia was the appearance when you saw these events. That is not going to be the case today.

The question is, you know, what does Joe Biden walk away from this with?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And I -- and I do think there's something to be said for the fact that President Biden, in his first phone call with President Putin, brought up things that President Trump never wanted to broach with Putin, right?

And we've also seen that he comes off of a president who there were concerns about certain things that he was doing with Russia, the motivations for those things, and that was then, you know, really made clear when there were issues about transparency. And so as we were discussing, you know, at one point President Trump took the notes of an interpreter after he met with President Putin and told that interpreter not to discuss the meeting. And then, of course, in Helsinki, he had a two-hour-long meeting with President Putin and there was no one else in the meeting except for the interpreters.

This format that we see today, extremely different. President Biden has his secretary of state, Tony Blinken, in the first part of the meeting and then he's joined by a number of really respected U.S. diplomats who know Russia well. I think one of the folks who is notable in that room is Tori Nuland. She has spent a tremendous amount of time working on U.S./Russia relations. She's known by the Russians as a Russian hawk. So they're going to see that and say, they're sending a message by even who they have in the meeting.

Of course, what can they get out of the meeting? That's the big question here. But the folks at the table are sending a message to those Russians.

HARWOOD: And, Brianna, Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council and Russia expert, showed what -- in her conversation with Don Lemon last night, how low the bar is set for Joe Biden. She talked about the humiliating performance that Trump gave, humiliating for the United States in Helsinki, where he expressed subservience to Vladimir Putin, said, well, I believe him over my intelligence agency. She said it was so bad that she thought about screaming and faking a medical emergency to bring the press conference to a close. That tells you something that someone who -- she is not a liberal Democrat. That she would consider going that far tells you --

KEILAR: Specifically embarrassing herself in a way, right, or staging something -- HARWOOD: To spare the United States from the embarrassment that Trump

was visiting upon the United States.

KEILAR: To spare the United States. Exactly right.

And, look, let's go back to Wolf in Geneva.

Wolf, you know, it's worth pointing out here that Joe Biden has a lot of support from American allies as he is going into this meeting. They want him meeting with Vladimir Putin.

We also spoke to the chief of staff for Alexey Navalny here in the last few days. He also says it's best that Biden is speaking with Putin rather than not speaking with him. So, you know, Biden does have a considerable amount of backing from many people, many countries around the United States.

[06:40:06]

BLITZER: Yes, he certainly does and he comes here with the backing of not only the NATO allies, but the G7 allies as well. And that's why he had those meetings before showing up here in Geneva.

You know, we're told, Jim Sciutto, that the foreign minister of Russia has already arrived, Sergey Lavrov, at the Villa La Grange. The Swiss president, he, Parmelin, he's also there. He will be speaking.

You're getting some more information as well.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's notable, the choreography of this is remarkable. And, of course, none of it's by accident. The scheduling, who arrives first, who arrives second. But I found it notable that Putin will arrive at Villa La Grange prior to President Joe Biden. Putin has a habit, you might call it, of making U.S. presidents wait, clearly not accidental, Clarissa, I'm sure you agree with me, a little bit of one-upmanship in that sense. So I expect that President Biden's team made sure he came afterwards.

BLITZER: There -- there he is, by the way. There we see the Russian president walking down those stairs. He'll get into that limo and head over, we're told, to the Villa La Grange. It will be an important moment, Clarissa, that we -- that we will watch all of the, you know, of the -- whatever they're doing publically will be translated and accessed. Some of it will be significant. Some, not so significant.

I do expect, though, that there could be some agreements that could emerge from this, relatively easy agreements. I mean they're not that easy, but relatively easy. A prisoner exchange, for example, returning an ambassador to Washington, returning a U.S. ambassador to Moscow. Those are things that potentially could unfold.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I would say the most likely of all of those is the returning of the ambassadors. I think you could see the beginning of a dialogue about a prisoner exchange. I think you could see discussions about cooperation on climate change, on Afghanistan, on Iran potentially. There's also the potential for some movement on Syria because, of course, the Russians have threatened to completely close off the border crossing that allows aid to get into Idlib province. So there are certain areas where there is the potential for some kind of announcement.

However, when you look at the broader scheme of things, when you look at the things that the U.S. cares about, whether it's cyberattacks, whether it's Alexey Navalny, the support for Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, I would say be incredibly measured in your expectations because President Putin doesn't have any vested interest in giving an inch on any of these topics. He is quite happy to continue in his role as an adversary to the west. One Kremlin aligned thinker put it this way. He said, the best you can really hope for is a relationship that's hostile but respectful. So clearly the bar is pretty low here.

BLITZER: Yes. And, you know, it's interesting, Matthew Chance is on the scene for us over there. He's been speaking with Russian officials. I see a quote from Dmitry Peskov, Matthew, the Russian spokesman, saying, we have a big backlog of issues to address, so President Putin arrives in a constructive spirit of openness to raise questions and to try to find solutions.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BLITZER: Which is relatively an upbeat assessment.

CHANCE: Yes, it is, given the mountain that's got to be climbed if there's going to be any real progress on core issues between these two countries.

You know, look, I -- there's an acknowledgement and there's an understanding, of course, at the Kremlin that this is going to be a very tough meeting. I mean there's a list as long as your arm of fraught issues between the two countries, whether it's cyberattacks on the United States, whether it's the military threat that Russia poses to its neighbors, including Ukraine, or whether it's the, you know, the crackdown on dissidents and opposition officials, all of these issues Vladimir Putin knows are going to be raised by his American counterpart, Joe Biden.

But, you know, I think you can also expect to see the Kremlin give any ground -- give any ground on those issues. But the Kremlin are trying to emphasize the areas of common concern, climate change, the arms control discussions that they want to have, the regional conflicts like Syria and Libya and Afghanistan and things like that.

And the hope is, I think, from the Kremlin point of view, that they can walk out of this with some kind of agreement to have further talks on those -- on those issues where there is common ground. But, you know, there's also that reality. And the Kremlin's spokespersons has said this, that these talks are going to be tough, that, you know, there's not much that they -- that they agree on at this point, Wolf.

BLITZER: We will see very soon.

This summit is about to begin here in Geneva. Our special, live coverage will continue right after a very quick

break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:48:28]

KEILAR: All right, Vladimir Putin arriving just moments ago in Geneva for this high-stakes summit with President Biden. We're going to take you there in a moment.

First, though, breaking overnight, Israel launching air strikes and hitting targets in Gaza. This is a first since that cease-fire went into effect nearly one month ago. The Israeli military says the strikes were ordered in response to incendiary balloons that were launched from Gaza that sparked multiple fires in southern Israel.

CNN's Hadas Gold is live for us in Jerusalem.

Hadas, is this escalation now a concern? That's certainly the question as we look to what happened a month ago.

HADAS GOLD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it just goes to show you how tense the situation is and how quickly it can escalate into something even mean serious. Now, Israeli officials saying these incendiary balloons were sent yesterday from Gaza into Israel. They may look harmless, but Israeli officials saying that they started at least 20 fires in southern Israel.

Now, militants in Gaza saying that they launched those balloons in protest to a controversial Jewish/Israeli flag march that took place yesterday in Jerusalem. Participants passing alongside Damascus Gate, the main entrance for Muslim worshipers into the old city.

I was there yesterday. We were hearing chants from these participants, things like, "Jerusalem is ours," "Jerusalem is our home." And even some of them who were chanting, "death to Arabs." So the balloons were sent in protest to that.

Now, the IDF saying that overnight they struck Hamas military complexes and meeting places. According to Palestinian media, the strikes caused material damages but no casualties.

[06:50:01]

Now, incendiary balloons being sent from Gaza into Israel are nothing new, but the response from Israel, launching air strikes, that is something knew and something that I heard from Israeli officials after the conflict last month, that 11 day bloody conflict with the Hamas militants in Gaza, is that they want the equation to change. Where they want Hamas to understand that these balloons will be met with some sort of force. They no longer want just no response. That anything such as these incendiary balloons that cause fires, that cause damages, they will be met with air strikes in response.

And, Brianna, yesterday the march and the actions from the Hamas militants were seen as a serious new test for this brand-new Israeli government led by new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, just sworn in on Sunday.

KEILAR: Yes, what is changing, if anything, with Netanyahu out there.

Hadas Gold, live for us from Jerusalem, thank you.

John.

BERMAN: Putin has a history of making a scene at big events, including keeping his guests waiting. Will he try anything this time?

And a former top Russia experts recalls the mortifying experience at the last U.S. summit with Russia, the one where Donald Trump was there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am Brianna Keilar.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman.

Wolf Blitzer joins us this morning live in Geneva.

BLITZER: Where history is about to unfold.

Thanks very much, guys.

We're only moments away from this truly historic face-to-fact meeting between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin's plane, as you saw live here on CNN, touched down in Geneva just a little while ago. He's expected to arrive at the iconic Villa La Grange very, very soon. President Biden arrived in Geneva last night.

Today's summit is expected to last, we are told, four to five hours. The two sides covering a range of topics with relations between the two global powers, badly frayed right now.

We have every angle covered with reaction from the White House, from the Kremlin and beyond.

Let's start our coverage this hour with CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff, get -- set the scene for us because the two leaders are about to arrive. They'll be greeted by the president of Switzerland. And then their meetings will begin.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, they will. And anticipation certainly is high here in Geneva.

President Putin landed just a short time ago. And he will be coming behind me here on the road, as well President Biden a short time ago.

And just a bit of history. This road is named after President Woodrow Wilson for his contribution to the League of Nations back in 1919. So this is certainly a sense of history that is framing this entire summit that is happening.

But we do know that this summit, Wolf, will be an act in two parts, if you will. President Biden and President Putin will meet with their two top diplomats first and then after that meeting they are going to be meeting with five official from each side for a longer meeting, if you will.

[06:55:10]

And flexibility here is the -- really the rule of the day. The meetings are expected to go at least five hours, but they could go much longer, of course they could go shorter. So a lot of tea leaves will be read by how long and how well these meetings go.

But, Wolf, the expectations for this summit certainly have been building as President Biden has been traveling across Europe to come here to Geneva. He's been talking with world leaders to get them to buy into the idea that he's having this summit at all.

Of course, he faced some criticism back home from some Democrats and Republicans alike for why he is essentially elevating Vladimir Putin. But he said as he talked to world leaders, they all, to a person, thanked him for holding this summit with Vladimir Putin.

Now, of course, he is just trying to open negotiations to see, in the White House's view, if he can have a stable dialogue with Russia. That is very much uncertain. But on the agenda, of course, cyberattacks, human rights, and so much more.

But, Wolf, for President Biden, this is something he essentially ran on. This is what he was elected to do, to restore the transatlantic alliance and then to try and confront autocracies like Russia. So this, for President Biden, is really the capstone of a life's work. It's certainly the highest-stakes summit he has ever had.

But the question is, what will it produce? That is unknown. But it certainly will set the relationship that he will have for the rest of his term with President Putin.

Of course he's the fifth American president to meet with Vladimir Putin. So certainly coming in -- he's coming into this meeting with a different set of expectations, certainly a different moment on the world stage. Russia is no longer the superpower that it was. But in the area of cyber, they have shown -- certainly just within the last few weeks how difficult of an issue this is.

So, Wolf, this is going to be scheduled to be underway here in the next few minutes or so. We'll see the motorcades pass in front of us. And then a long day of waiting here for all of us outside the summit to see how it's going inside.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, we certainly will. We're told that President Putin will arrive at the Villa La Grange first, and then President Biden will arrive. There will be a photo opportunity with the Swiss president and then their first round of meetings will begin.

Let's go over to CNN's Natasha Bertrand. She's getting new information.

What do we know, first of all, about this first round, how it's being structured, Natasha?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Wolf, so President Biden and President Putin will be meeting with their top aides, President Biden with Antony Blinken, secretary of state, and President Putin with his -- the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. And that will be the first meeting that the four of them have together after they all arrive here at this summit site.

And then the next round of meetings will be expanded. There will be about five members on each side. And the president will be accompanied by Blinken again, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, a State Department official, Victoria Nuland, and the senior director for Russia on the National Security Council, Eric Green.

Now, we are told that these meetings are expected to take around four to five hours and there's not going to be any breaking of bread. There will be no meals that will be shared between the two leaders. It's going to be a very tightly choreographed summit.

But, of course, we are told that it could go well beyond the allotted time here depending on the progress that the officials make on certain subjects. However, there will not be a joint press conference afterwards and that's, of course, to avoid the kind of spectacle that arose in 2018 between President Trump and President Putin in Helsinki. They do not want the president to be on the same level there as the Russian president with the opportunity for the Russian president to draw any moral equivalencies or to try to undercut President Biden in any way.

So it's going to be a very long day. They're going to start out meeting pretty much one on one and then with their top national security advisers. It will expand and then we will see those joint press conferences later on.

BLITZER: Yes, too bad no breaking of bread. I've been here for a couple of days now in Geneva, the bread, the croissants, delicious. I'm sure they would enjoy that if there were some breaking of bread. No breaking of bread. We'll see what -- if that changes.

Natasha, we'll get back to you.

So, what is the Kremlin saying just ahead of this high-stakes summit? Jeff Zeleny is joining us right now. He's got more on this.

Jeff, first of all, before we get to the Kremlin, you're getting more information? ZELENY: We are, indeed, Wolf. You can see behind me here the motorcade

for Russian President Vladimir Putin is just beginning to roll by here on K. Wilson (ph). It is the avenue that is right next to Lake Geneva here. Of course in the shadow that you can see all of the cars going by here. Specifically President Putin is right there in that car, of course, with his flag on the front.

[07:00:02]

They'll be making their way around Lake Geneva, over to Villa La Grange, on the other side of this lake here from our position.