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Putin Arrives in Geneva, Summit with Biden Begins Soon; Biden, Putin Arrive at Summit Site for High-Stakes Meeting. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 16, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): That car, of course, with its flag on the front.

[07:00:01]

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. And President Biden, in a short time, will be making same route, indeed a route of history. They'll be going over one of the bridges which has American flags and Russian flags. They are flapping indeed flapping in the breeze here this morning on a very warm day in Geneva.

So, President Putin, for all the question of if he would arrive on time, if he would keep President Biden waiting, for now, at least, it appears that he will not. He's arriving at the summit site first. And that is also something the White House was pretty insisted on, having him arrive first to not leave President Biden waiting.

So, in a few short moments, we do expect that President Biden will be making this same route here. And then this meeting is likely to get underway. Of course, the Swiss president will be sharing a few remarks, welcoming both leaders here. This is neutral soil in every respect, so this is something that certainly as this meeting begins, the Swiss are watching us with interest, but, of course, it's between U.S. and Russia. Wolf?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. This motorcade is making its way to the Villa La Grange, it should be there momentarily, not very far from where we are right now. Jeff, thank you very much.

Let's go to our Moscow Correspondent Matthew Chance. He's here with all of us in Geneva as well. So, set the scene once again, Matthew, for us. Because from the Russian perspective, they have a lot they want to hear from the American president.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN MOSCOW CORRESPONDET: Yes, they certainly do. They've got a whole range of common ground, which they say they want to explore in this historic summit with the American president, climate change, arms reduction, the managements of regional conflicts. You know, Russia is keen to take what it seems as its rightful place, at the top table of international diplomacy and then a whole range of issues.

The other priority, of course, is the sort of, you know, runaway train, if you'd like, that has been the U.S./Russian relationship over the past several years with the sanctions regime being really ratcheted up on the country from the U.S. and other countries as well. The Russians want to put a brake on that a little bit because it is having a severe impact on the country's development, on the country's economy.

But I think this is key here, because the big win from this summit, I think, has already been had by the Kremlin. Because the fact that it's taking place at all is a symbolic victory for Vladimir Putin, it's on par with the U.S. president and it shows him respect, of course, and that sort of symbolism is something that is very meaningful indeed to the Russian leader.

And so he, I expect, is very happy with the fact that this meeting is taking place at all. And he's going to want to show his domestic audience and people watching this all over the world as well that he is not going to back down in the face of, you know, American -- I mean, how do you describe it, hostility, perhaps, on the issue of, for instance, allegations of Russian cyberattacks on the United States. I don't think we're going to see anything from Vladimir Putin on that in terms of a concession or even an admission that Russia engages in that kind of activity.

The same with Ukraine, don't expect any ground being given on the annexation of Crimea, or on the support for rebels in Russia's east. And the same again when it comes to the crackdown that has been set up, if anything, in the past several weeks ahead of this summit on the opposition groups inside Russia, with people being arrested, with Alexei Navalny who's in prison, of course, an opposition figure, his anti-corruption group being essentially outlawed and designated as an extremist group, the Kremlin say that they are prepared to talk about that with President Biden. They're going to inform him about it, but they're not going to discuss it with him. That is not on the agenda.

As you can see right now, Wolf, as I speak to you, there is this motorcade approaching the Villa La Grange. These are the cars of the presidential administration, the limousines, the armored limousines of the president's administration. That's the car where Vladimir Putin, with the flag out on front, there he is, arriving at this historic summit. These cars were actually brought in several days ago on Russian military transport aircraft flown in from Moscow well ahead of this summit.

And you can see there Vladimir Putin arriving with his delegation, with his security team, with his entourage, as, first of all, of course, to be greeted by the president of the Swiss Federation.

We've talked a little bit about who would go first, who would arrive first. And it was some pretty fancy diplomatic footwork arranging for Vladimir Putin to be greeted first of all by the president of the Swiss Federation.

[07:05:03]

Because if he was going to be late, as he often is, he would have been late for this meeting, not late for the more important meeting, forgive me, here in Switzerland, with President Biden, which is going to be taking place shortly after this, Wolf.

BLITZER: Now, there we see the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, receiving the Russia President, Vladimir Putin. They're going to go inside, Clarissa. And then momentarily, we're told, President Biden will show up and there will be a photo op with the three of them as well.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this is really the sort of moment that everybody is looking at. The Russians love symbolism, people will be reading into every microscopic detail about the body language. You saw President Putin there, I think, looking pretty relaxed and pretty jovial. This is a president once described by President George W. Bush when he was a candidate as one cold dude and one who certainly is very difficult to read.

So everybody is going to be watching very closely to see how that first greeting looks, whether it seems to be friendly, whether it seems automatically that each is trying to sort of assert himself over the other.

BLITZER: And, Jim, it's very carefully scripted, choreographed, all of this. The U.S. side wanted Putin to arrive first because, normally, if Biden would have arrived first, Putin would have been late and kept him waiting, it would not have looked good.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Putin has a way of making U.S. presidents wait and that is no accident. That is all about one-upmanship. So, Biden making sure he comes afterwards so he doesn't have that awkward moment.

Big picture, I think, that beyond how they look and sound and the choreography, we should remember that both leaders felt to talk now face-to-face mattered was important. And if we could remember, dial back a few weeks when Biden was initially floating this idea was when relations between the two countries were something of a precipice, right? Tens of thousands of Russian forces massed on Ukraine's border, U.S. genuinely concerned about a full-on invasion, Alexei Navalny facing death, U.S. officials feared, being denied even basic medical care.

He reached out then because he said, we have to talk now to make sure this doesn't get worse. They pulled back from that precipice, but since then there have been other consequential Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. So, still a very tense situation with genuine disagreements, and one that we should note, Biden arrives with the allies unified in standing up to those threats.

BLITZER: The first round of talks after this photo op, the welcoming that we're about to see, Clarissa, will include the two presidents plus Secretary of State Tony Blinken and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. The four of them will meet in the first round and then later in the day, it will be expanded.

WARD: Exactly. And what we're hearing some sources close to the Kremlin is that the appetizer or the hors d'oeuvres will be to get out of the way, for example, the U.S. is very upset about the treatment of Alexei Navalny. Alexei Navalny cannot be allowed to languish in prison, he cannot be allowed to die in prison. The U.S. is upset about the treatment of Ukraine.

To get all of those issues out of the way that the U.S. feels strongly about, that President Biden has made abundantly clear, he feels, are very, very important to articulate, particularly post-Trump, and then they'll get onto the main course, which is the, actually, in many ways, tougher issues of where can we cooperate, how can we build guardrails to keep this relationship on track. And

these are going to be small areas. This isn't going to be a huge, broad reset by any stretch of the imagination, but the tricky part is setting those constructions or dialogues or processes up to allow the relationship to continue beyond today.

In some ways, today is the easier part. It's continuing to keep that relationship on the tracks in the long-term future that becomes tricky. And so today is all about building those foundations.

SCIUTTO: And, by the way, this is a case where those appetizers matter, right, to making those very definitive statements as a U.S. president, we will not stand for the murder of Alexei Navalny, we will not stand for the invasion of Ukraine, in a way that Biden's predecessor deliberately did not, right? I mean, he often raised questions about whether the NATO alliance really mattered, maybe Russia belongs in Ukraine. I mean, that was this president. So even if they don't, and it won't, radically change Russian behavior --

WARD: And they know it won't.

SCIUTTO: -- and they know it won't, but those statements do have meaning.

Now, the test, of course, will be has the Biden administration come up with a strategy with sticks in addition to any carrots they're offering to change or minimize or hold back or at least keep from getting worse, this whole host of Russian behaviors such as cyberattacks. It's not clear yet. We haven't heard what that strategy is beyond what has been tried before, sanctions, et cetera.

[07:10:01]

So that's a test for the Biden administration.

BLITZER: And, John Berman, I think it's fair to say that President Biden has been preparing decades for this moment that we're about to see unfold here in Geneva right now, 36 years in the U.S. Senate, including as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that eight years as vice president of the United States, now he goes into this highly, highly critically important summit.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: He's a president who has met with not just Russian leaders, but he's been around long enough to have met with Soviet leaders as well, Wolf. So we're awaiting the arrival of President Biden at this historic summit.

And as we wait, we're joined by CNN Counterterrorism Analyst and former CIA Counterterrorism Official Phil Mudd. Phil, great to see you this morning.

Look, President Putin arrived on time. And that's not nothing. This is a guy who likes to mess around with people he's meeting and often shows up late. In terms of the profile that President Biden, the White House would get, the intelligence profile of Vladimir Putin, what do they know about him as they head into this meeting?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think there are two things you need to look at, high end and low end, John. At the high end, I'm not sure what you could tell President Biden. As someone just mentioned, he's talked to Soviet leaders. Biden has been watching this stuff for half a century. How do you go into the Oval Office and say, this is how you understand Vladimir Putin.

Everybody on the planet who looks at foreign policy knows how Vladimir Putin thinks. He wants to reassert Russia. He's done that in places like Syria and Crimea. I think the interesting intelligence that Biden would be receiving is on stuff on cyber intrusions. Up to the date, are we still seeing that this week? Really, interesting question.

Remember the Colonial Pipeline issue, ransomware, the group, the cyber group in Russia that shut down a pipeline in the United States? Here's an intelligence question I'm sure Biden got an answered. How confident are we that Russia knows where these people are, can find them and is willing to extradite them to America. That's a conversation that will be happened today.

So high end stuff, I think, Biden knows already. The tactical stuff, I think, would be really interesting.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Obviously, Putin is dealing with a very different person than he dealt with in the last president, Phil. And he knows coming to this that he is going to get a much harder line. There really wasn't even any line from former President Trump. So he's going to get a harder line from Joe Biden.

But I know that you think that Putin is in the driver's seat actually here. Explain why.

MUDD: Yes. Well, a divided -- a vulnerable America is good for Vladimir Putin. Putin wants to reassert Russia, as I mentioned, as he did in places like Eastern Ukraine, in Crimea, in Syria, as he's done by trying to insert stuff, sort of cyber warfare, if you will, during the American elections. America is diverted. It's diverted by divisions within America. It's diverted by the pandemic, America, including President Biden has other priorities, particularly China, if you look at the prominence in China in the NATO Summit.

So if you're Vladimir Putin walking into this meeting, you're going to walk away saying, I got to get on the world stage, including domestically on T.V. and Russia with the biggest player on the planet along with the Chinese, that is President Biden. Already, by having the meeting, I think Putin wins.

And I'd close by saying, what's Biden going to do about it? How is he going to confront Russia? I don't see how that happens. Sanctions are already tough and Putin has already got what he wants, Brianna.

BERMAN: We're looking at pictures right now live on the street of Geneva. We are told that President Biden is en route. He should be arriving very shortly at the Villa La Grange, where this summit will take place.

President Putin arrived minutes ago. As of now, they're on time. This whole thing is going exactly as scheduled, carefully choreographed.

Phil, you were talking about the fact that Putin already has what he wants. What are the chances that U.S. intelligence or the White House or Joe Biden he has some information that could surprise Vladimir Putin?

Well, you know what, hang on one second, Phil. Let's go to Jeff Zeleny on the ground, in Geneva. I think we're getting close to a presidential arrival. Jeff?

ZELENY: John, we are seeing President Biden's motorcade about to approach on here K. Wilson. And, of course, it's named after President Woodrow Wilson, as we mentioned earlier. And he'll be making his way across the bridge over to Villa La Grange.

We can see right now the American flag and Swiss flag on the beast, of course the presidential motorcade, but has indeed taken President Biden across Europe for the last six days. And it is that journey that has led President Biden to this moment. So as he makes his way along here with all of his advisers, he will be sitting in that meeting. Of course, the first meeting with Secretary of State Tony Blinken and then five advisers joining for the second meeting, so key to all of this. But keeping this mind, as he told us the other day, he wants to verify first and then trust.

So, of course, President Biden has met President Putin before, but this is a different meeting, a different moment, a different time. So, as the motorcade now makes its way across the bridge going around the other side of the bank of Lake Geneva, certainly much anticipation here on the streets.

[07:15:08]

They've been closed down for the last several hours, flags from both countries waving in the breeze. But in just a few short moments, President Biden will be arriving there with his first face-to-face is up summit with President Putin, who many are wondering if he should be having this at all. But we should point out he's the fifth American president to have a meeting with Putin, and it's coming about the same time as his predecessors' open dialogue.

Certainly, President Bush, President Obama and President Trump started that dialogue in the first six months of their term. President Biden, of course, going a bit further doing a face-to-face meeting so early, he wants to see if he can have a stable relationship, open dialogue, if you will, with President Putin. We do not know how the summit will end, but we know now finally it's about to begin. John?

BERMAN: All right. Let's go back to Wolf, who's also in Geneva. Wolf?

BLITZER: Yes. That motorcade, by the way, John, is right below where we are here in Geneva, right over this bridge. You can see the American flags and the Russian flags, we were on that bridge yesterday before the American and Russian flags were put there. We watched it all unfold.

The Swiss government obviously welcoming these two world leaders, they're only a couple of minutes away from the Villa La Grange right now. The president of the United States will be arriving shortly. There will be this photo opportunity with the Russia president, the president of Switzerland as well, and then the formal meetings will begin, I'm sure, tough talks, very serious talks.

Kaitlan Collins, our Chief White House Correspondent, is on the scene for us here in Geneva. So, what are you hearing, Kaitlan, about this first round when the secretary of state and the foreign minister of Russia, the U.S. secretary of state, they'll be joining the two presidents for this first round of discussions?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we should note, Wolf, it's a little unusual that it's the secretary of state is the one person that has been picked to be in the room. Typically, it's not always the figure that you would expect, but Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, is incredibly close to President Biden, so that is going to be the one person that is in the room with him when this meeting first gets kicked off.

You'll see President Biden arrive essentially at any moment now, as you see the motorcade making its way through Geneva. And then they are going to be in a room, and it's just going to be President Biden, Secretary Blinken, President Putin, and the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov, who just arrived a short time ago. And so that's really going to be a critical meeting, I think. That's where they're going to be looking each other in the eye and getting a sense of how the day is going to go.

And the White House says they are preparing for any outcome, essentially. They're hoping there are not going to be any surprises, but they've really tried to lower expectations going into this, Wolf, saying they do not expect a big set of deliverables when President Putin and President Biden walk out of the door.

One thing to also be watching is who else will be in the room when they open it up to a few more staffers, those are going to be the ambassadors, each respective ambassadors for the countries who have not been in their posts for the last several months and have both instead been back at home, including the ambassador to Russia, the U.S. ambassador to Russia. That's John Sullivan.

He came back to the United States in April for what they said were consultations, but, Wolf, it came amid very high tensions between the United States and Russia, as you were seeing that Russian military buildup on the Ukraine border. And John Sullivan had said he would go back to Russia before this meeting happened, but, Wolf, that did not happen. So that is something that people will be watching for, if it could be a potential concrete outcome after this summit is over, whether or not they agree to send their respective ambassadors back to each country. But, Wolf, there are a lot of unknowns here right now as they're waiting on President Biden to arrive and to actually get in the room with the Russian leader and see how that's going to go.

Of course, as John was noting, President Biden has a long history with Russian leaders. He met several Soviet leaders when he was a senator. He led several delegations there to talk about arms control, even back in 1979. Often President Jimmy Carter once dispatched him to help lead those talks.

And so this not something that's new to him, but as Jeff Zeleny was noting, it's a new situation given the dynamic has changed. And now, they are both president of their respective countries, and, of course, what's on the table has changed. It's not just arms control anymore. Cyberattacks and ransomware attacks have been really brought to the forefront of the agenda in a way that we have not seen in any other meeting between a U.S. leader and a Russian leader in the way that we have today. And the White House has said that is one of several things they expect President Biden to confront him over.

BLITZER: Yes. When it comes foreign policy, as you say, Kaitlan, no one is closer to President Biden and the secretary of state, Tony Blinken. 20 years ago, I remember Tony Blinken was just a legislative assistant to then-Senator Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They have worked very closely all of these years, including eight years that Biden was vice president. We're waiting.

There they are. It looks like he's there.

[07:20:00]

The president of the United States has just arrived, the Swiss president has welcomed him. They're about to walk in.

It's interesting, Clarissa, you see the president of the United States, you see the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, but we don't see -- I think it's interesting, but you tell me, Clarissa, we don't see Putin there.

WARD: No. And we're anticipating, I think, any moment now to see all three of them standing together. But, yes, separate entrances, President Biden arriving last, which was very much by the U.S.'s design. No one wanted to see an awkward situation whereby the U.S. president had to sit around and wait for President Putin, who is fond of such displays of one-upmanship. But, imminently, I expect we should see all three of them greet each other formally. And, of course, everybody will be watching very closely to see what, if anything, the can glean from the body language, from the nature of the greeting, of course, President Putin notoriously inscrutable.

We talked about Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, also Russia's foreign secretary, Sergey Lavrov, a very seasoned diplomat, has been doing this for decades, also notoriously tough, can be very charming, can be inscrutable. I interviewed him once, he never looked in my eye during the entire interview because he understood that's a very powerful tactic for maintaining control of the situation.

So, the Russian side also has very experienced diplomats and politicians at their disposal. It will be interesting to see how they interact with one another.

BLITZER: And The Russian foreign minister, as you know, I know, and Clarissa knows, his English is fluent.

WARD: Absolutely fluent.

BLITZER: I have interviewed him.

WARD: I have as well. And at the end of the interview, you know what he said to me, Wolf? He looked me in the eye and he said, you sound quite pathetic.

BLITZER: Pathetic?

WARD: Pathetic. And I was like, my goodness, I will take that as a badge of honor. But it goes to show you, there are all of these tactics that they understand are very powerful ways of unnerving, maintaining control of the situation.

SCIUTTO: Lavrov is a survivor. I mean, he survived going to the 90s, senior positions back in the Yeltsin administration.

It's interesting as we look at these next hours, they say four to five hours of talks. But they don't really know because they have deliberately built flexibility into this to allow them to go longer or always the possibility to go shorter, if you have severe disagreements. But I think it's the former that I would focus on, allowing for these to go a bit longer, perhaps we have more to talk about, perhaps we make a little bit more progress here or there, and they have a lot of experienced folks in the room to do this.

This is not Trump/Kim, where you just have based kind of on personality and hopes. You have the secretary of state, Blinken, the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, someone -- a diplomat like Sergey Lavrov, and they're going to be doing these breakout, these more expanded sessions beyond the one-on-one, where they hope to get down to the nitty-gritty. But, again, they don't know how well it's going to go. And that's why they built in some flexibility.

WARD: I wonder, a question for you two, because, obviously, you would know better than I, but how much back-channeling will have been happening between the two different sides in anticipation of the main event, in terms of the agenda, isolating those areas of potential cooperation?

BLITZER: Yes. Normally, in a summit like this, there's a lot of back- channeling going on, and they usually know in advance before the talks even begin what the outcome is going to be. But I suspect -- I'm anxious to get your thoughts. I suspect they don't know what the outcome of this summit is going to be. SCIUTTO: Well, they don't, but they are certain to have done more groundwork than was the norm in the Trump administration. I remember covering the Trump/Kim summits and there were things they didn't know. I remember Mike Pompeo arriving there early hoping to meet with his North Korean counterpart before and that didn't happen. It was all down to personality in the room. And, of course, we saw how those summits turned out, a lot of pomp and circumstance but no progress on the key issues there.

So they hope this is different because they have laid that kind of ground work. But, again, as we've discussed repeatedly, so many of these central issues are ones that are really intractable for both sides.

BLITZER: All right, hold on for a moment. Now, this photo op is about to take place. We will hear from the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin.

[07:25:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President of the Russian Federation, Mr. president of theUnited States of America, on behalf of the Swiss government, I would like to welcome you to Geneva, the city of peace. It is an honor and a pleasure for Switzerland to host you here for the summit, and in accordance with its tradition of good officers, promote dialogue and mutual understanding.

I wish you both presidents a fruitful dialogue in the interest of your two countries and the world. Best wishes and goodbye.

BLITZER: All right, so there you have it. Reporters are shouting questions, but we did see a handshake, a pretty significant handshake, Clarissa, from these two leaders, the Russian president, the U.S. president, the opening statement from the Swiss president translated into Russian and then English.

WARD: Yes, welcome to the city of peace, he said, and wishing fruitful conversations not just for your countries but for the entire world. And I think that's part of what's important to remember here when we're looking at the summit, when we're looking at the historical significance, potentially. This isn't just about the U.S. and Russia sitting down for a conversation. This is about democracies challenged by authoritarian regimes. Many countries across the world will be looking to see what happens today, whether anything can be taken out of it and turned into something more productive.

SCIUTTO: These moments are about moments. And I'll tell you one moment I noticed there in the Biden/Putin interaction, the handshake, Biden looked Putin in the eye with a smile, Putin looked away. Again, you don't want to read too much or too little, but, again, these are about public posturing, it's about how you project strength, and that was a notable moment to me, as you watched the shake hands.

WARD: Who goes first, who extends their hand first.

SCIUTTO: Yes, exactly. Biden did extend.

BLITZER: We were waiting to see if there would be that handshake.

SCIUTTO: And there was.

BLITZER: And there was that handshake, and it was a significant handshake. It's a good way to start this meeting. And let's see what happens over the next four or five or six hours.

SCIUTTO: And as the president of the Swiss Federation said, Guy Parmelin, to promote dialogue and mutual understanding, that's the intention, and he said, goodbye, because his job is done, he's done the ceremony, and now the hard work is happening behind those closed doors.

WARD: And the door is closed, very symbolically, and now we are left to wonder what will go on in those rooms over the course of the next four or five hours, and what role they may have in reshaping or at least improving somewhat the relationship.

BLITZER: And they both did give a wave to the journalists who were outside, and the journalists, that's their job to ask questions. So they were shouting questions. We're not surprised they were not answered.

SCIUTTO: Exactly. You know one thing that will not happen in this summit that happened when former President Trump met Putin, is tearing up the notes after the meeting, right? You had moments like that that were extremely unusual under the prior president. Here, much more pro forma. You will have the note takers in the room, you will have other diplomats involved, at least in the expanded sessions, not the one-on- one sessions. But that's something that is not insignificant either, a return to a more traditional way of the U.S. conducting diplomacy.

BLITZER: Evan Osnos is joining us right now, our CNN Contributor, Staff Writer for The New Yorker. He's also the author of the important book, Joe Biden, the Life, the Run and What Matters Now. Evan, thanks so much for joining us.

So, give us your thoughts as the president of the United States goes into this new meeting with the president of Russia.

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, one things that anybody in Joe Biden's office learns when they get there is that he believes that diplomacy, foreign affairs is an extension of domestic affairs, domestic policies, grills his advisers sometimes to the point of exhaustion over what it is that's on the mind of that foreign leader that they're sitting down with, what are their priorities, what are their fears, what are the pressures bearing down on them in their own domestic politics.

He has sometimes irritated diplomats over the years. As he said to me in the past, he said, look, I look at what they tell me to say, and I say, this doesn't make sense. I need to convey to the person across the table that I understand deeply what their problems are. In this case, Vladimir Putin, of course, has reasons for both, I would say, some feelings of strength and vulnerability. Obviously, his economy is in terrible shape, there's a spike in COVID infections. And at the same time, you've got high oil prices and you see him cracking down on descent.

[07:30:00]

So he's dealing with a counterparty here today who can go either way in the sense that he can either be acting out of a sense of feeling empowered or can be looking.