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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Meets with Ukrainian President as Russia Completes Buildup of Military Along Ukrainian Border; President Biden to Hold Press Conference; New York Attorney General Asking to Speak to Trump Family concerning Financial Filings of Trump Organization. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2022 - 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 BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Russia has nearly completed its military buildup along the border with Ukraine.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: And this morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian President Zelensky, and he's going to meet with Russia's foreign ministers on Friday.

Let's go to Matthew Chance with his latest reporting from the region on this. Matthew?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, thanks so much, Kasie. That's right. That idea that Russia has almost completed its military buildup is something that we got exclusively from Ukrainian military intelligence just last night, saying that that buildup has been continuing, and there are more than 127,000 Russian troops now close to the border of Ukraine. That's the latest Ukrainian assessment.

As you mention, Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, is in Kiev right now. He has just been meeting with President Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, where he is going to be briefing him on the outcome of negotiations that were held in various places last week with Russian officials and what will be discussed on Friday in Geneva when Secretary of State Blinken sits down with Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. Still, the idea that he has come to brief the Ukrainians is something that the Ukrainian officials, Ukrainian president said they're really grateful for. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to thank you and President Biden and the U.S. administration for the support, for the military aid, and increasing aid, for the help that was already given by the U.S. And we hope that in the future this support will continue.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It is up to Ukrainians and no one else to decide their own future and the future of this country. So the president asked me to underscore once again our commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity, to its sovereignty, to its independence. And I know that is a message you've heard not just from us but from so many partners throughout Europe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: So very much a united front being put up by these two figures, these two countries. But behind the scenes privately, Ukrainian officials say there is some frustration with the U.S. stance. They want more than just words of support. They want military aid up front to try and combat any Russian threat. They want sanctions to be imposed on Russia ahead of time as a deterrence. And they want to discuss loan guarantees as well, because the lack of foreign investments in this country because of the crisis has led to billions of dollars of losses, they say, which they want compensated for.

BERMAN: Matthew Chance for us in Kiev. Thanks so much for being with us. And again, at the top there, we mentioned that the United States feels that Russia has all but completed its military buildup along the border with Ukraine. And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says we are now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine.

Joining me now is White House communications director Kate Bedingfield. Kate, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine. If Vladimir Putin wants to launch an attack, what can President Biden do to stop it?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, the aim here is if he determines, if he decides to launch an attack, is to make him regret that decision. The president has said, in no uncertain terms, that he will impose sanctions, that he will impose retaliation that will be a problem for Russia and the Russian economy.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, if this is a decision that President Putin decides to make, it is one that will not bear out well for Russia in the end. And what President Biden has been able to do, as you saw from Secretary Blinken being on the ground there, an intensive work that has been happening in European, he has been able to work with our European allies to bring them together to be united around this issue, which I think you will remember from having covered it is a drastically different tack than the previous president took. So President Biden has been clear if President Putin makes this

decision, he will impose sanctions, and ultimately this will be a terrible decision for the Russian people and the Russian economy.

BERMAN: But those actions will be taken after, right? I guess one thing to make clear is it's possible that all of those bad events to Russia and Vladimir Putin would only happen after troops are in Ukraine, right?

BEDINGFIELD: We are continuing to try to create an environment of de- escalation. Again, that's what you see with Secretary Blinken on the ground doing intensive work. President Biden has been involved in doing intensive work trying to create an environment of de-escalation. But ultimately, if President Putin makes this decision, that's a decision he will make, and the United States will respond.

BERMAN: So Kate, the president is giving a news conference today. Thank you for that. I think the American people are grateful to hear from President Biden today. You know he's going to face a series of questions, and I think to an extent you know what many of the questions are, and one I imagine will be something to the effect of what grade would you give yourself on this first year in office?

[08:05:00]

So what has he done well, briefly, but where do you think he will admit he needs to do better?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I think what you're going to hear from the president this afternoon is that he believes that he has laid down a foundation for progress. If you look at what we have been able to achieve in the first year of this administration, we have gotten shots in arms and saved lives. We went from 2 million vaccinated when President Biden took office to over 200 million people vaccinated now. We have been able to create 6 million jobs. We brought the unemployment rate down faster in one year than any other president in history. The Biden agenda has gotten people back to work.

And he had two significant legislative victories with the American Rescue Plan, which, again, funded the vaccination program and gave schools and businesses across the country the resources they needed to stay open, and of course the bipartisan infrastructure law which he was able to pass with Republican votes which people said wasn't possible in Washington anymore. So he has had enormous success in this first year, but he would also be the first to say there is a lot more to do to finish the job, to get the virus under control, to bring prices down. So you're going to hear from him on all of this this afternoon.

BERMAN: Is there anything he thinks he needs to do better?

BEDINGFIELD: He has been laser focused on both taming COVID and growing the economy. And again, he would be the first to say, we're not where we need to be on either. We have made enormous progress. If you look at where we were on testing, for example, we now have 375 million at-home tests being administered in this country every month, up from just 2 million from when the president took office. So we have made big progress, but there's more to do.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about something that Democrats, or I suppose independents, Bernie Sanders and Democrat Elizabeth Warren have hinted or outright stated the last day, which is that with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema standing in the way of changing filibuster rules to pass voting rights legislation, there's been a suggestion that they would support primaries, Democratic opponents in Arizona and West Virginia against these two senators. How does President Biden feel about the possibility of Democratic primary opponents for those senators?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I'll tell you from my position here at the White House, John, I leave the politics to you all and to the pundits and to others. Here at the White House, we are focus used on delivering for the American people and delivering results. So I am not really at liberty to talk about politics from my position here.

BERMAN: The president is, though, right? Do you expect that he has an opinion on it?

BEDINGFIELD: If the president has an opinion on it, he will certainly share it when he's asked about it.

BERMAN: One of the things that has not gone the way the president has hoped was passing the big spending, $1.7 trillion Build Back Better agenda, Joe Manchin standing in the way of that. It has not passed yet, right? It has not passed yet? Manchin currently says he won't pass it as it is, or he won't vote for it as is. So how supportive would the president be of passing smaller versions or piecemeal versions of that?

BEDINGFIELD: First of all, I would dispute your characterization, John, that it is a big spending bill since it is entirely paid for, will not impact the deficit, and does not raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year. So to call it big spending bill is a bit of a misnomer.

But broadly, the question you're asking is, is the president going to push forward on the priorities that he has laid in Build Back Better? And yes, he absolutely is. He believes it is fundamental to our ability to grow our economy, to get people back to work, to reduce the costs of things like prescription drugs and childcare, which is exactly what this bill will do. It will reduce the cost of insulin for the mother who is trying to afford insulin for her child. And that is for President Biden not just a question of cost but a question of dignity.

So yes, he is going to continue to work with leaders in Congress, he's going to continue to push forward. He believes that this is critical to bringing down costs on the things that people rely on in this country.

BERMAN: Would he do it in parts? Does he mind doing it in pieces and parts?

BEDINGFIELD: He's not going to lay out a strategy right now in front of the public. This is the work that gets done one on one with Congress as we're working through on how to get it done. So I'm not going to lay out a legislative strategy for him here in this very interview. But he will do everything in his power to work with Congress to get these pieces done because they are critically, critically, important for the American people.

BERMAN: I just want to leave one announcement the White House did make this morning is 400 million, did I get that number right, N95 masks?

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, N95s, yes.

BERMAN: So when and how can people get those?

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, so they will be available at community health centers and pharmacies and locations around the country. And they'll start shipping very soon. And if you want to get one, you can go to your local pharmacy and pick one up.

BERMAN: Kate Bedingfield, I will only say the Build Back Better plan will cost money, and in that sense that money will be spent whether or not it is equaled in revenue increases --

BEDINGFIELD: It is, but it is deficit neutral. And, in fact, economists say it will reduce the deficit over time because of the investments it's making. So it's just important to put that context out there for people.

[08:10:01]

BERMAN: Kate Bedingfield, appreciate seeing you this morning. Thank you very much.

BEDINGFIELD: Nice to see you, John. Thank you.

HUNT: So very interesting interview there, John. Couple things. One, she -- they have not hesitated in the past to talk about their legislative strategy for Build Back Better, which is to do one giant piece of legislation with all this in there. So suddenly not revealing the strategy tells me, OK, we're rethinking this.

But let's go back to the press conference for a second and the conversation we had earlier this morning with David Axelrod, because I think even more than the specific questions that the president is asked today, I think the major thing people are going to be watching for is, does the president seem like he's coming from a position of strength or a position of weakness? And that's important across a whole host of issues, whether it's the legislative agenda he's trying to pass here at home, or probably more critically at this point Vladimir Putin, who has troops amassed on the Ukrainian border and is trying to figure out whether and when potentially to invade Ukraine.

BERMAN: The Ukraine situation is no small crisis. It is a big crisis, and the way that the White House talks about it is frank, but not reassuring. And I'm not saying they should be in the sense that they're not telling us that it won't happen. They're not saying that Vladimir Putin isn't going to invade Ukraine because I think the possibility very much exists that he will.

President Biden, it's interesting, if you remember back to his news conference after he met with Vladimir Putin, to me it was among the most animated I have seen him, energized. And I say that not qualitatively. I just think it was an area he was deeply engaged in and cared a lot about. So I expect if he is asked about that, and he will be, you're going to see a president who is engaged with the subject even if he doesn't have any easy answers about it.

HUNT: In that press conference he flashed some anger at our own Kaitlan Collins for pressing him. And I'm going to be watching, too, to see if he keeps his temper in check today because I think that will give us a little bit of insight into how the White House is feeling, generally.

BERMAN: And when Kate there suggested that the president is going to speak frankly and admit where things aren't going well, President Biden is someone who does occasionally tell you what's on his mind even maybe when he shouldn't.

HUNT: He does.

BERMAN: So it is very possible --

HUNT: He very much does.

BERMAN: -- that he'll say I could do this better. Or I wish I would have done that. But I think you probably hit on the most important thing for him is, is it perceived to be coming from a position of strength?

HUNT: Strength or weakness.

Let's go to this now. Breaking news overnight, New York attorney general's office saying that they have identified several misleading statements and omissions in the Trump Organization's financial statements. Joining us now, CNN correspondent Kara Scannell and co- host of EARLY START and an attorney at law, Laura Jarrett. Kara, let's start with you. Bring us up to speed on this investigation.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: So this investigation has been going on now for -- since 2019. Letitia James's office has subpoenaed a lot of documents and records. And what she wants now is the testimony of the former president Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and his daughter Ivanka Trump. And through this filing that came out overnight, James's office has alleged that they have substantial evidence of misleading statements, omissions in these financial statements that were provided to lenders, that were provided to insurers, and that were used, some of these appraisals that were used in filings with the IRS.

They say that this covers a range of their properties, including a commercial building in lower Manhattan, golf courses in Scotland and in Los Angeles, several of their properties involving a lot of loans. They say that they need to speak with the former president because he signed these financial statements. He was okaying memorandums that related to them. Also, they need to speak with Donald Trump Jr. because he was involved in this property in lower Manhattan. He also, once his father became president, took over running the company with his brother Eric, and then also signed off on these financial statements.

And they want to speak with Ivanka Trump because they say that she was the key liaison with Deutsche Bank, and that bank has lent the Trump Organization more than $300 million. The New York attorney general's office alleging that their representations to that bank were false.

This is something that will ultimately be up to a judge to decide whether these subpoenas for testimony will go through. We have just gotten some response from the Trump Organization this morning. They have issued a statement where they say, "The only one misleading the public is Letitia James. She defrauded New Yorkers by basing her entire candidacy on a promise to get Trump at all costs without having seen a shred of evidence and in violation of every conceivable ethical rule. Three years later she is now faced with the stark reality that she has no case. So in response to Trump suing her and filing multiple ethical complaints, and on the heels of her failed governor's race, she has no choice but to mislead the public yet again by misrepresenting the facts and ignoring her own inflammatory comments. Her allegations are baseless and will be vigorously defended."

We also have a response this morning with Eric Trump tweeting. He is saying this is a window dressing, again reiterating his claims that they believe that Letitia James has abused her office, and saying that this is all part of her bid to revive her political career.

[08:15:05]

BERMAN: So, Laura, Letitia James in this statement overnight, or filing overnight used the word substantial evidence of fraudulent activity, substantial evidence, which is to an extent she will need because these aren't easy cases to make. Explain it.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR, EARLY START: So, they're not easy cases. I think we have to pause and note how extremely rare it is to see this type of move from the attorney general in New York. She is going on the record in a filing after 11:00 p.m. last night in a tweet saying significant evidence against the former president of the United States and his closest family members.

We know that she has had a number of high-level executives into the grand jury, as Kara's has done so much great reporting on that. She wants the top-level people. She is saying she has evidence that they're connected in this someway. I mean, she is laying out here in devastating detail a pattern of fraud. That's what this is at bottom.

And the question is just now, who is responsible? And from her perspective, the only way she can get at who exactly is responsible is to actually sit them down for a deposition and get her hands on the documents.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Kara Scannell, Laura Jarrett, thank you both very much for your reporting and insights this morning. We really appreciate it.

JARRETT: Sure.

HUNT: Meanwhile, new CNN reporting just in, growing resentment among Democrats toward Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

BERMAN: Plus, a live look, live you can tell by the hair of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson getting grilled by parliament. So what did he know about these parties during lockdown? When did he know it, and could this lead to his ousting?

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[08:20:28]

HUNT: Welcome back.

A brand-new batch of subpoenas issued by the House committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riot include three attorneys connected to former President Trump -- Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell and former Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn. The committee also subpoenaed and obtained records of phone numbers associated with one of Trump's children, Eric Trump, as well as Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was engaged to Donald Trump Jr.

Here to discuss, CNN senior political correspondent and anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY", Abby Phillip, and national reporter at "Axios", Jonathan Swan.

It's great to have both of you on board this morning.

Jonathan, I want to start with you, because you've reported extensively on this period of time. In fact, the letter to Sidney Powell that subpoenaed her to talk to the committee includes some of the reporting that you have done. And you say that you absolutely cannot do a serious investigation without focusing on these three people. I mean, what are your takeaways from this move by the committee?

JONATHAN SWAN, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, it turns out now both Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani subpoenas my reporting on Trump's final days. And it's really important for people to remember the context. So, by mid-December of 2020, these fringe lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, had supplanted the professional lawyers in the White House and at the Republican national committee. And they told Trump what he wanted to hear, which is his own lawyers were weak and treasonous and unwilling to fight for him.

And instead, they laid out this elaborate plan to commandeer the resources of the Department of Homeland Security to go around the country and seize voting machines. This was illegal, plainly illegal, and in the view of the White House lawyers, deranged. But this all sort of culminated in this Oval Office meeting on December the 18th, which was a shouting match, almost became a fistfight, as I laid out in the reporting, between Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, this very interesting character Patrick Burn, and then the White House counsel Pat Cipollone, another lawyer, Eric Hirshman.

It was this truly bizarre meeting that went over the course of four or five hours and ended up in Trump's personal residence. And so, any serious investigation of the insurrection has to lead back to this Powell-Giuliani crew because they imprinted in Trump's mind the idea that there was actually a path using government resources, an illegal path to overturn the election.

BERMAN: You know, Sidney Powell just put out a response saying she's going to go. She's going to talk to the committee, Abby. That will be something.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yeah. And she's made it pretty clear that she has no regrets or remorse about the lies, she still believes them, still plans to espouse them in the setting of the committee.

But, you know, I mean, Jonathan makes a really important point, as we try to understand what these subpoenas and requests for records indicate, it actually does indicate that this committee is laser- focused on what mechanisms there might have been for there to have been interactions between the president and people involved in the Stop the Steal rally, people involved in the January 6th conspiracy to overthrow the election.

This is a president who, for most of his tenure in office, spent amount of time using outside advisers, outside lawyers, outside allies to really do a lot of this work, to really establish relationships between himself and people on the outside of the White House, and in some cases boxing out the official channel.

So, to me this indicates that they really are kind of focusing on the ways in which the official channels were left out of this conspiracy and might have allowed President Trump to have communications or even engagement in the efforts to organize this rally.

HUNT: I want to talk a little bit of politics with you, guys now since we have you here. Jonathan, what Democrats are doing in the Senate is essentially attempting to continue this process of changing the Senate rules. We know that Senators Manchin and Sinema are not on board with it. Our Manu Raju is reporting, frustration has been building inside the Democratic Caucus.

[08:25:05]

You have feminist groups, NARAL, Emily's List basically threatening to pull their support from Kyrsten Sinema over this.

What do Democrats gain from having this fight today in your view?

SWAN: Well, I mean, if the goal of congressional Democrats is to drive Senator Joe Manchin out of the party and into the welcoming arms of Mitch McConnell, this seems like the playbook that you would run. I don't understand why they believe -- maybe it's just desperation. But why they believe based on recent history that publicly threatening Joe Manchin will succeed in getting him to capitulate to Democrats. I mean, he represents a state that Donald Trump won by almost 40

percentage points, beat Joe Biden by almost 40 percentage points. It is a deep red state. Joe Manchin is a unicorn Democrat in West Virginia.

HUNT: Probably the last one ever.

SWAN: Maybe, maybe. All of his political incentives push him towards not the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party. So, I mean, okay. You can have progressives threatening him. But he's privately told people that helps him back home. Of course, it does. Anyone who has two brain cells can see that.

So, I don't actually understand. Maybe it is just venting and frustration and there actually is no strategy. But if there is a strategy, I'd like someone to explain it because it doesn't seem particularly coherent to me.

BERMAN: You know, I tried to drag White House communications director Kate Bedingfield into it. She couldn't answer -- to her defense, she couldn't answer the question because of the Hatch Act, she really can't get into electoral politics while she's standing there, but --

HUNT: However.

BERMAN: However, it wasn't like she said we love Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema either, even though she can't touch it.

But I don't think, Abby, that if the progressives and people in the center are getting into this fight with Manchin and Sinema, I kind of doubt that it is the same fight that the White House wants to get into.

PHILLIP: I mean, no, not at all. Look, the White House understands -- I mean, frankly, Joe Biden can't step foot in West Virginia at all because it's just not a place where he has much political juice.

But even in Arizona as well, there is talk of a progressive challenge to Kyrsten Sinema. You got Congressman Ruben Gallego who's mentioned a lot in that conversation, being very critical of her. There are the same red flag. This is a state Joe Biden won by a relatively narrow margin. It is a major, major battleground.

President -- former President Trump was there just a few days ago just to highlight the balancing act that Democrats face. So, there is a fine line here between putting pressure on Kyrsten Sinema to encourage her to do something that she's repeatedly said she will not do and pressuring her to the point that you push her or another candidate so far left they can't win in that state. It's a real question mark here for Democratic activists.

And from the White House's perspective, it doesn't seem like that kind of pressure is going to work. What they need is an actual legislative strategy. What are the proposals that can get some of these senators over the line that make them believe there might be the possibility for bipartisan progress. It's not clear what the proposals are. But right now there is a

complete lack of -- there's a complete lack of a plan. We will see if President Biden provides more clarity later today at his press conference.

HUNT: Yeah, it's going to be a very interesting day. And I would say anyone who thinks that Arizona is anything other than a swing state at this point is really not paying attention.

Abby Phillip, Jonathan Swan, thank you both very much. It's great to have you here.

BERMAN: Happening now, in the United Kingdom, members of parliament grilling Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Can he survive the swirl of scandal? We're going to go live to London.

And ascending from the Jim Crow South to the highest echelons of fashion's elite. We remember the legendary Andre Leon Talley.

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