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New Day

Biden Warns Russian Attack Likely in Next Several Days; Black Teen Pinned to Ground, Handcuffed After Fight With White Teen. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: It's just behind the times right now.

[07:00:01]

We were talking beforehand, people just don't seem to care.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: And especially if they're not going to play.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, thank you very much.

New Day continues right now.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, February 18th, I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

And at any point, Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to speak at the Munich Security Conference. She will meet with the leaders of NATO and 13 heads of state, all while Russian forces stand poised to invade Ukraine. President Biden stating a war in Ukraine could break out -- let me make it clear, saying that Russian could invade Ukraine within the next several days.

This afternoon, the president will speak to global allies about the Russian troop buildup and how to deter it.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Overnight, new video from Russia's defense ministry. So, this is from the state, considering the source here, claiming to once again show tanks and armored vehicles returning to home base by rail after completing military exercises.

Now, western officials say this overall is not true. They're dismissing this as propaganda. Ukraine says there have already been 20 violations of the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine today so far and its forces have suffered two casualties as a result of enemy fire along the frontlines.

Natasha Bertrand is traveling with the vice president and she's joining us live now from Munich with our top story.

So much happening and such a critical time for the security conference. What are you expecting?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Brianna. It is an extremely high stakes trip obviously for the vice president coming at this moment when Russia could invade Ukraine at any moment. And we are hearing that she's going to be meeting with the Nato secretary- general, Jen Stoltenberg, in about 20 minutes. That's when she is expected to kind of show up across the street from us here. And then she'll be meeting later with some of the Baltic nations, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and kind of reiterating her support and the United States' support for our NATO allies on that eastern flank there who are feeling particularly threatened by Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Obviously, they are right kind of on Russia's doorstep there.

Obviously, this is a vice president who has been focused primarily on the southern border and on stemming migration and not necessarily on these kind of transatlantic relationships. So, this is not something that she is deeply experienced in but her aides do say that she is prepared to come to this conference and convey unity, convey that the United States and our western allies are unified against this Russian aggression, that they are willing to impose severe consequences if Russia does invade, and also that they are willing to bolster that force presence on NATO's eastern flank if, in fact, Russia does make further moves.

So, she is prepared to give a speech tomorrow kind of outlining all of this. It's a major speech that's going to be happening right behind me at this hotel. And she will then be meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who, of course, is going to be leaving in his country at a very pivotal moment, right in that window, of course, that the U.S. says that, virtually, anything could happen with regards to Russia.

She will also be meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. He has been a key player in this in trying to Russia to deescalate, trying to negotiate with Ukrainians and the Russians a kind of peaceful settlement to this. So, a lot of activity here, she is going to be meeting with over a dozen heads of state, we're told.

Major test for her, she will have some backup here. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going to be here as well, this meeting with his G7 foreign minister counterparts. He obviously is a very experienced diplomat. He has been with President Biden for many years now. He is a very trusted ally. And so she, if she needs anything, if anything goes awry, then Blinken will be here. But her aides expecting everything to go fairly smoothly.

KEILAR: All right, we will be keeping our eye on that. Really a test for her, really, Natasha. Thank you so much, Natasha Bertrand.

BERMAN: So, as the world braces for a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is meeting today in Moscow with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko. The two countries are currently holding joint military drills inside Belarus.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live in Minsk. And, Fred, you've just done some remarkable reporting, the likes of which I really have never seen inside Belarus with the leader there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, we got some pretty good access to major military drills here in Belarus. And, of course, right now, as you pointed out, Vladimir putin and Alexander Lukashenko are meeting. And the first thing they talked about was improving their military cooperation.

We certainly got a firsthand look of that yesterday with those massive drills, just as the U.S. fears that possibly Belarus could be used as an area from where they might invade Ukraine.

[07:05:00]

Now, I was able to speak to Alexander Lukashenko briefly yesterday in quite a testy exchange. Here's what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (voice over): For the first time, we're getting a close-up view of some of the Russian forces the U.S. says are threatening Ukraine, conducting massive live fire drills with the Belarusian military inside Belarus. The U.S. says it fears this could be one of the places from which an attack on Ukraine could be launched.

Belarusian strongman and staunch Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko was combative when I confronted him with the allegations.

ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT: Do you still believe we're going to attack Ukraine from here or have you already overcome this mental block?

PLEITGEN: It's not about what I believe. It's about what the United States says. The United States says there is a very real threat of an attack from Russian territory or Belarusian territory towards Ukraine.

LUKASHENKO: The we have an agreement between Belarus and Russia. We have practically formed here a united Russia/Belarus, a united army, that is, you might say. And this is our official position. Please take it into account as we are taking into account your position.

PLEITGEN: The drills are called Allied Resolve 2022, and, officially at the Russian and Belarusian militaries fend off attacking them. It involves tens of thousands of troops, including both countries' air forces and Russia's dangerous Iskander missile system, that could easily hit Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, 250 miles or 400 kilometers from here.

The big question, where will all these Russian troops go when this exercise ends?

Both Minsk and Moscow say all Russian forces are going to leave Belarus once these massive exercises are finished. But the U.S. and its allies are still skeptical and they say they will believe withdrawals happening once they see it. The Biden administration says there are now more than 150,000 Russian troops near Ukraine's borders and that an attack will probably happen within days. Lukashenko ripping into the U.S.' assessment.

LUKASHENKO: You accused Belarus and Russia that we were to invade Ukraine yesterday. We didn't. So, your intelligence and billions of dollars that you're spending on it are useless. At least admit this.

PLEITGEN: Russia says it has no intention of attacking Ukraine but today also warned if security demands it has made to the U.S. are not met, there will be an answer using, as Moscow puts it, military technical measures.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (on camera): And we just got some important information, some important new lines from that meeting between Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, because the two actually talked about those Russian forces possibly withdrawing here from Belarus after those exercises are done, John. And what Alexander Lukashenko said, he said, they could withdraw within a day, it could be a month, they will stay as long as necessary. So, clearly, they are trying to keep the ambiguity up, which certainly the U.S. says is very concerning. John?

BERMAN: Yes, that's a big deal. no specific end date, it seems. Frederik Pleitgen, terrific reporting, thanks so much for being with us.

KEILAR: And joining us now, Founding Partner and Washington Correspondent at Puck Julia Ioffe and CNN Military Analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark.

General, of course, we're seeing this video coming from Russian state T.V. They are trying to say they're pulling tanks out of the region, but that is not really the story and they're not admitting to it. But what are you seeing with the various military activity, including the shelling in Eastern Ukraine? What does it tell you?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This is a buildup to an attack. These are the kinds of preliminary measures that Russia is working on. It may be with artillery, or they may seeking to discombobulate the government in Kyiv. These are threats. This is pressure. This is a period of maximum diplomatic coercive pressure on Kyiv and NATO.

There is uncertainty. There is confusing Russian reports. This is all part of the strategy. Some of these withdrawals are probably staged or may be old film. We don't know. What we know is the intelligence shows the buildup is continuing. What we don't know is whether President Putin has made the decision to attack or when or if he will make that decision. It is all part of the psychology that the Russians are applying against Ukraine and the west.

BERMAN: Julia, how is this playing inside Russia? What signs can you read from how the Russian media is reporting this? JULIA IOFFE, FOUNDING PARTNER AND WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Well, those are kind of two different questions, because there's very little left of the Russian independent media, but Russian state media is spinning this -- it's very strange. I spent a few hours last night watching all the news reports. And on one hand, they are saying the U.S. is being hysterical, making all of this up, and they said, we were going to -- that we, the Russians, were going to invade on Wednesday and we didn't.

[07:10:05]

And it showed just how stupid they are. But at the same time, you know -- and they're also reporting that, oh, the west is saying we were going to stage a false flag attack, but then at the same time they had a report, for example, that they seized Ukrainian plans to invade the Donbas, to retake the separatist breakaway regions, which is clearly fake.

So, it's very kind of anti-Ukrainian, veryu anti-western, very deeply kind of sarcastic and cynical and kind of head-spinning.

KEILAR: Yes. And these are kind of mutually exclusive things, right? So, it's puzzling. But I wonder, General, do you think based on what you are seeing that Vladimir Putin would be more likely to just kind of bite off a piece, you know, the Donbas, or that he might consider going all the way to Kyiv?

CLARK: Actually, I think that he is more likely to go for Kyiv than just to bite off a piece. I think if you look back at the record of what the United States has done in Iraq, we sort of set a model for what he might do in Ukraine. We went in with less force than we needed to fully occupy the country, all of us. I was a CNN Military Analyst at the time. We were all saying, you don't have enough troops. You don't have enough troops. Rumsfeld was directing the size of the force. We went right in for Baghdad and we forced regime change.

What Vladimir Putin wants is a regime in Kyiv that will keep Ukraine out of NATO and it will also send a strong signal to the west that his military is really, really powerful. So, I think he's going to make a grab for Kyiv, if I had to make a prediction on this. And I think he's going to wait until after this nuclear exercise, or maybe in the middle of the nuclear exercise, that is scheduled to come.

And one more thing I think we have to understand. When Russia says there's no intent to invade, we are looking at capabilities and intelligence. That intent can change at the drop of a hat. An intent does not mean he will not invade. It just says, right now, I don't have any intent. While intent it is changeable at a moment's notice. And that's what this propaganda, this going on in Moscow is all about, to prepare a way for him to say, no, I looked at NATO now. Now, I think we have to do this.

So, the intent is very changeable. So, we are still under extreme threat. We have understand that is is probably growing each day.

BERMAN: Julia, what about how Putin views the Ukrainians themselves? Is this the Ukraine he thought it was?

IOFFE: I don't think so. I think the Russian government hasn't really taken into account how much they themselves have changed Ukraine. By their invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the annexation of Crimea, the fomenting of a separatist war in the east, they have made the Ukrainians far more anti-Russian than they ever were before any of this happened when there was a legitimate kind of yearning for the Soviet Union, yearning for the Russian homeland in the east. It seems that that has all kind of fallen by the wayside because of Putin's own actions.

And to the general's point, I think this is a grave miscalculation, as would be this kind of lightening attack on Kyiv, regime change. You know, if the Russians haven't learned from the U.S. mistakes, that you just swoop in and decapitate a regime, that doesn't mean it will stay decapitated and that it will be a stable or would be a good neighbor. Because either they're going to have to occupy Ukraine and face a bloody insurgency that will be armed by the U.S. and western countries or, you know, they pull out again Ukraine and it goes right back to a pro-western and even more probably militantly pro-western government because of this very invasion.

And, you know, I worry at this point that even if Zelensky, for example, or the Ukrainian government were to say, you know what, never mind, joining NATO isn't worth it, it is not worth risk a major war and occupation by Russia, let's just table this NATO thing and we're going to drop our membership bid. I worry that because of everything that has happened in the last eight years, and especially in the last three months, that the population won't accept it, will push him out of power, and bring in an even more pro-western, pro-NATO government.

So, Russia has, as much as Putin is seen as a master strategist here in the west, he has really put into force and put into movement consequences that he can't really control.

KEILAR: Really interesting to hear that it's possible he may have misread this.

[07:15:00]

Julia, General, thank you to both you for the conversation.

CLARK: Thank you.

IOFFE: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: And coming up, two teenagers were fighting. Only the black teen was handcuffed. We're going to speak to him next about what he wants to happen, also a police officer kneeling on him.

And a New York judge ruled that Trump and his two eldest children must testify about the Trump Organization's business practices, but will they comply?

BERMAN: An extraordinary move from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, why he just snubbed -- he did more than snub, he wants to throw Congressman Liz Cheney out of Congress.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: New outrage this morning about the police response to a fight at a New Jersey mall over the weekend. It at the center of a viral video that shows different treatment for a black teenager.

[07:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, no, chill, chill. Brian, get up, Brian, Brian, Brian. (BLEEP).

Oh, no. (BLEEP). (BLEEP).

Yo, it's because he's black, racially motivated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You see the black teenager put on the ground and handcuffed, the white teenager left on the couch.

Now, there's concern over how the officers handled the situation. Governor Phil Murphy said he was, quote, deeply disturbed by what appears to be racially disparate treatment. And the NAACP is demanding the officers be removed from the force.

Joining me now is Z'Kye. He was the teen that was arrested and handcuffed by police. His mother, Ebone, is with us as well and their attorney, Benjamin Crump.

Z'Kye, this video now seen more than 1.8 million times, and you have been speaking out about what happened to you. What kind of response have you been receiving?

Z'KYE, INVOLVED IN MALL FIGHT: Messages on TikTok and stuff like that.

EBONE: Moral support.

Z'KYE: Yes, saying I'm doing a great thing.

BERMAN: You say the fight broke out after you tried to defend a 7th grader from the person who you ended up fighting with who say is a high school student. What happened next?

Z'KYE: The cops came over. An officer put his knee, pinned me to the ground, put his knee on my back and started handcuffing me. And the female officer that was with the other boy, he left and helped and put the handcuffs on me and put her knee on my back too.

BERMAN: It looks like the other teen, based on the video we saw, threw you on the ground before the police arrived. They pulled him off you, put you in handcuffs. What was going through your head as this was happening?

Z'KYE: I felt like inferior, like I was less important.

BERMAN: You knew -- I mean, did you know what was happening to you vis-a-vis the other teenager?

Z'KYE: No, it's not until I watched the video that I realized what actually happened.

BERMAN: And when you found out that he had been sitting on the couch and you were in handcuffs, what did you think about that?

Z'KYE: I was like mad. I was angry that they treated me differently.

BERMAN: And, Ebone, talk to me about the phone call that you must have received and what it felt like to hear your son had been put in handcuffs.

EBONE: When he called me, he didn't go into details. It wasn't until I picked him up. I found a little information out. I felt like the information as kind of sugar-coated at the beginning. When I recently talked to the male cop, he told me that it was protocol in any situation like this to have them handcuffed. So, you know, it didn't bother me -- well, not that it didn't bother me, but I'm like, okay, well, both were treated equally and we just have to deal with the situation. But as I found out, he wasn't put in handcuffs.

So, when they say that it's protocol, I'm just saying, who is the protocol for? Because if only the black kid was, you know, put in handcuffs, it just makes me wonder.

BERMAN: Ben, when we look at the video again, there seems to be a moment when the other teenager actually puts his hands up expecting to be handcuffed. He thought, hey, it's happening to the guy on the ground there, it's going to happen to me too, but it doesn't happen. So, how do you explain the disparity?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR Z'KYE AND HIS PARENTS: You can't explain it. When he put his hands up and the white policewoman tapped him on his shoulder as if you're free to go, it tells us what we have been saying all along. It seems to be two justice systems in America, one for black America and one for white America. And the reason I think this video has been so viral is because now we see it.

A lot of black people have been saying forever that the police treat us differently. And we have to do something about this, John Berman, because if we don't, these things end up to happen results like Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery when they profile our little black boys.

BERMAN: So, Ben, what do you want to have happened here? The Somerset County prosecutor's office is saying it's investigating. Do you think the officers should be suspended?

CRUMP: I think they should be suspended, or if they were doing biased policing, they need to be terminated. [07:25:01]

Because what message are we sending to society, especially our young children, our young minority children, like Z'Kye, if they say the police are going to treat us differently. We are presumed guilty and white kids are presumed innocent. We have over 100,000 black men in prison wrongfully incarcerated. It starts with incidents like this where we see on that video.

BERMAN: Z'Kye, I know you didn't ask to be put in the middle of this but obviously you are right now. So, what's your message to people out there seeing this and what happened to you? What do you want people to take away from this?

Z'KYE: I want people to know that like people shouldn't be treated differently because of the color of their skin and what they look like.

BERMAN: Well, look, as I said, I know you didn't ask for this but it is something a lot of people are looking at asking a lot of questions. Z'kye, Ebone, Ben Crump, thank you all very much for being with us.

Z'KYE: Thank you.

EBONE: Thank you.

CRUMP: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, a week of legal blows to former President Trump and his two eldest children, this time a New York judge making them testify under oath in an investigation that could turn the family beside inside out.

KEILAR: And the feud between Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney reaching a stunning new high or low with McCarthy officially endorsing Cheney's primary opponent. How she's responding, next.

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[07:30:00]