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New Day

White House Says, Biden Agrees in Principle to Summit With Putin; Wisconsin GOP Seek Jail for Mayors, Officials as Part of 2020 Election Probe. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 21, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It's going to be played with his son, Bronny, who's likely two years from potentially being drafted.

[07:00:06]

LeBron said, whatever team he's on, I'm going to play for them.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: That would be something to see. You think he goes back to Cleveland?

SCHOLES: We'll see. If they draft Bronny, they could make it happen, that's for sure. It's a package deal.

KEILAR: Thank you, Andy, good to see you.

New Day continues right now.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, February 21st, Presidents' Day. I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

And we do begin with a diplomatic Hail Mary. President Biden agreeing to meet with Vladimir Putin with one major condition, the Russian president must hold off on invading Ukraine, and that appears to be a big ask, because new satellite images show intense Russian troop activity close to Ukraine's northeastern border. The U.S. also has intelligence suggesting orders have already been sent to Russian commanders to move forward with an attack on Ukraine.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A White House official says Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, will discuss a possible Biden-Putin summit when they meet, the secretaries meet on Thursday. But there are concerns an invasion could begin before then.

This morning, 75 percent of Russia's conventional forces are now in position to attack Ukraine. That is enormous proportion of a very large army. Just moments ago, Air France became the latest airline to cancel flights to and from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Our Matthew Chance is live there with the latest developments this morning, Matthew. And once again, there is this very real picture of what's happening on the ground while there is still a discussion about possible diplomacy. Your take?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're right. I mean, look, there is, at the very least now, a glimmer of hope that the diplomatic path could -- well, has not run its course yet. With that agreement that came in the early hours of this morning here local time, in principle, there is a possibility for the U.S. and the Russian presidents to meet. That's going to be further discussed by the two top diplomats from the countries. Secretary of State Blinken and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that meeting is going to take place in Europe, the location yet to be announced on Thursday. And so it's at least a glimmer of hope.

But you've got to set that against the ratcheting up of tensions that we have all been witnessing across the weekend. Latest satellite image indicating that Russian forces are moving out of their holding positions closer to Ukrainian border areas. It's typical if there is an invasion about to happen. We already know that President Biden has said he's convinced a decision has been made by President Putin to invade. And then over the weekend, as you mentioned, there was that intelligence that CNN gained access to from the United States that the orders that actually have been given to commanders to attack.

And so we really are in the 59th minute of the 11th hour. And I guess that's when any kind of diplomatic breakthrough is likely to happen. And so, look, it's not certain yet. The Kremlin this morning have already played down the possibility of the two presidents meeting. But at the same time they haven't ruled it out. I guess the big question is we know that both sides are very entrenched in their positions. The Russians say they want, for instance, concrete guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO, the western military alliance. That's just one of their demands. The Americans said that is a nonstarter. So unless there is some kind of compromise in the wording, even if there is a presidential summit, we could still end up exactly back in the same place, John.

BERMAN: Yes. Look, Thursday is the day when Lavrov and Blinken meet. That is four days from now. That is a lot of time between now and then. And the leaders wouldn't meet until after that.

Matthew Chance, we appreciate you being there. Please keep us posted.

In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding a Russian security council meeting today. The Kremlin says it is out of the ordinary and comes as intensifying shelling is causing deep concern.

Our Frederik Pleitgen live in Moscow with the latest on this. Fred, so what exactly is the Kremlin saying about the meeting today and the possibility of this summit?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, John. Well, they are certainly saying it is an out of the ordinary meeting, it was a meeting that is unscheduled. And if you look at Russian state media, they really made a big deal out of the fact that this meeting was taking place with Vladimir Putin's security council, obviously very much indicating that they will be talking about the things that are going on around Ukraine, and certainly very much in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine as well.

We haven't gotten any sort of information what exactly was spoken about or whether or not any decisions were made.

[07:05:00]

But I can tell you from being here, that the narrative that is being created here is certainly very different than the one you are hearing in Ukraine, and certainly than the one that you are hearing from the United States. Just the past couple of hours that I have been here and looking at the situation early this morning here Moscow Time, the Russian state media has said that there was shelling by the Ukrainians toward Russian separatist positions, that a Russian separatist had died, that a civilian had died. Then they said there was a border post that was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery fire.

And, of course, none of that, so far, we have actually been able to independently verify. But you can tell that the narrative, the drum beat that's being created here is that there are Russians under attack, there are Russians who are having to flee. And, of course, the conclusion to that can be, if you look at Russian state media, in many cases at talk shows, it already is that Vladimir Putin is going to do something about it. And that certainly is something that meshes with the information that Matthew was just giving, that apparently satellite images show Russian forces leaving some of those encampments that they were in and, apparently sort of fanning out close to the border area.

We do, however, have to say that the Russians are saying all of this is hysteria, that no invasion is imminent and that they still want diplomacy to prevail. That's something that the spokesman for Vladimir Putin told me just a couple of days ago.

BERMAN: Yes. And that means they are highlighting this extraordinary security council meeting today there to show that maybe they are taking one step forward to that border there.

Frederik Pleitgen, please keep us posted. Thank you.

KEILAR: Now, the Kremlin is firing back at U.S. intel that claims Russia's post-invasion planning includes a hit list of Ukrainians to capture or kill. A Kremlin spokesperson calls it absolute fiction. So, what is the true answer here?

We have CNN's Katie Bo Lillis to join us.

Look, I think there certainly would be an expectation that they do have supporters of Zelensky's they consider enemies. So, where is the truth here?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes, precisely. So, what my colleague, Kevin Liptak, and I have learned from sources familiar with the intelligence is that the U.S. has intelligence that it says shows that the Russians have been developing a list of Ukrainian politicians and other public figures that they say have got to go if Putin does choose to invade Ukraine and the government in Kyiv topples. Now, what our sources tell us is that this is part of Russian planning to establish a friendly -- Moscow-friendly collaborator government in Kyiv that would essentially do Moscow's bidding but that Putin could point to on the international stage as legitimate. So, of course, they have also developed lists of, according to our sources, politicians that are pro-Moscow that they could use to populate this new collaborator government.

But, of course, for the officials who are marked for removal, their fate much more dire. What our sources are telling us is that the most likely outcome for these people is assassination or prison.

KEILAR: Assassination or prison. I mean, if Putin does want to go all the way to Kyiv, if he manages to topple the government, it would actually seem odd that he wouldn't have a plan when it comes to these pro-Ukrainian versus pro-Russian politicians.

LILLIS: No, precisely. And this is one of the signals that intelligence officials have been really closely watching from the beginning as an indicator for Putin's intent here. Does he have essentially a governance plan for post-invasion? And, of course, that's exactly what this appears to be.

And the U.S. now, of course, has written to the U.N., the top U.N. official on human rights, warning that, look, we have credible information that suggests that Russia has identified Ukrainians for imprisonment, for sending to camps, and for potential killing in the event of an invasion. It's all sort of part of this broader and pretty remarkable U.S. strategy to try to make public as much as it can about what it knows in an effort to blunt the effectiveness of Russian planning exactly like this.

KEILAR: They are putting it all out there. Katie Bo Lillis, thanks for the report.

LILLIS: My pleasure.

BERMAN: I want to bring in Ian Bremmer. He is the president of the Eurasia Group and really has been right in the middle of all of this. He was one of the moderators in the Munich Security Conference attended by Vice President Kamala Harris and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as other world leaders.

Ian, you're so good at cutting through the smoke and the bright shiny lights flashing everywhere. I am curious what you think the most important development is this morning. What is the thing we should be looking at right now?

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT EURASIA GROU: This morning, I would probably say it's come in the last hour. It is the formal request by the puppet leaders of these separatist republics, if you will, the occupied territories of Ukraine in the Donbas, that have formally requested that the Russian government send military troops to help. This is, of course, comes on the heels of last week when President Putin met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and said that acts of genocide were being committed against those Russians, many of whom are passport holders.

So, I mean, unfortunately, the news we have right now, I mean, the diplomacy is still going on. But all the actual news on the ground is negative, literally all of it.

[07:10:02]

The likely next steps would be that the Russians would approve military groups to go into Ukrainian territory, that they occupy, the Russians occupy but not formally.

And, by the way, that is considered a red line for the United States. If that would have happened, that would probably stop the Blinken- Lavrov meeting from occurring later this week. It certainly would stop any potential Biden-Putin summit. It might not stop President Macron in France from continuing to go engage in diplomacy. And I suspect that that's part of the reason why the Russians are thinking about a more incremental approach as opposed to all-in, suddenly invade, bomb Kyiv, remove the government, because that will bring together the NATO alliance in a much stronger and sharper fashion.

KEILAR: So, if the stage is set for Russian troops to go into the Donbas, then the question will be how far do they go? How far do you think that Putin will go? Do you think he goes all the way to Kyiv?

BREMMER: The cost of going to Kyiv are massive. And I don't just mean the sanctions cost, which at this point I do believe the Russians feel like they can live with. Remember, I mean, they were threatened with massive economic sanctions after 2014 when they went into Crimea. And a few years later, they're hosting the World Cup, right? I mean, they have foreign western leaders coming to visit them.

So, Putin thinks that we've been there before. But I do think the cost in Ukraine, and Putin thinks of the Ukrainians as part of the great Russian nation, his ability to hold it, to integrate it to have it as part of his empire, if he has to kill tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and he has to have a government that is going to have to face an insurgency, frankly, I think is something that he would like to not have to do if he can avoid it.

And so part of what I believe Putin's strategy will be is to continue to give opportunities for the west to make mistakes. So far, I mean, the west has held together very strongly. I mean, after Afghanistan and with the new German chancellor and the French president with his own elections coming up, and the Brits with a shambolic prime minister, all these scandals, I think Putin would have expected to see a lot of divisions. That hasn't happened so far.

I think part of the reason that we will see this escalation happen in a more incremental way is to see if the Europeans start to fragment from the United States, see if the Ukrainian government feels like it's going to start suing for peace. The danger, of course, is that if he persists and none of that happens, then the worst-case-scenario, it's like Tolstoy said, you may not want war but sometimes war wants you. BERMAN: Ian, one of the things you hear out there from analysts is that President Biden has played a bad hand well. The thing about that is it still is a bad hand. At the end of the day, it's still -- they're not great cards.

You were talking about the idea that the president has been able to keep NATO allies together here. Do you think, as some have suggested, that NATO somehow is actually, ironically, as far as Putin is concerned, stronger and more unified today than when he started this adventure?

BREMMER: John, there's no question about it. I mean, I have been going to the Munich Security Conference for well over a decade now. And, you know, this was by far the strongest and most coherent NATO has been. I mean, every year you go to Munich and they're talking about, oh, the Germans aren't paying enough and no one is talking about who is paying the bill for NATO right now.

It's true the Germans don't spend much on defense, the Germans are going to spend a hell of a lot more as a consequence of very tough sanctions on Russia than the Americans are going to, and they are not complaining about it. They are prepared to do it. So, NATO absolutely feels stronger.

But I also have to say the political consequences for Biden, even after having -- playing this bad hand well, but it's a very bad hand, is that the Russians still go and they actually invade Ukraine and tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians are slaughtered, I will tell you the impact that will have on Biden domestically will be horrible.

Our country, of course, is very divided. Trump was beaten on for four years for being seen as being a pawn of Putin to align with the Russian president, and yet it is under the Biden administration that they lose Ukraine? I mean, irrespective of whether it's Biden's fault or not or if Trump would have done something different, I think that's going to be entirely too juicy for the Republicans to avoid. And I think it will be a serious problem for Biden.

KEILAR: Indeed. Ian, thank you so much for your insight, Ian Bremmer with us this morning.

A blissful day at the beach, check this out, shattered by a chopper slamming into the surf, no warning, just a few feet from some of those swimmers you see there. Hear from one of the first responders to that scene, just ahead.

And what Buckingham Palace now says about Queen Elizabeth's positive test for COVID.

[07:15:04]

BERMAN: Republicans in Wisconsin still questioning Joe Biden's win and threatening to throw people in jail over it.

Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning in Wisconsin, conservative former State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who is leading a probe of Wisconsin's 2020 election, is calling for several Wisconsin mayors and other elected officials to be thrown in jail if they don't comply with subpoenas.

Joining us now is the Wisconsin attorney general, Josh Kaul. Thank you so much for being with us. Explain to me what this investigation even is and what Gableman wants out of these mayors.

[07:20:00]

JOSH KAUL, WISCONSIN ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes. First, thanks for having me. This is an investigation that started in the middle of all these conspiracy theories we heard from the former president about the 2020 election. President Trump actually met with the speaker of our assembly. They met on a private plane. And this large-scale investigation was launched soon after. And it is theoretically a look into the 2020 election.

What's happened, though, is that Justice Gableman has requested interviews and depositions but in a way that is not permitted by law. The law says that he is supposed to do that in a public setting in front of a legislative committee. He's instead trying to do that in private. And so there have been challenges to his subpoenas. And now, because of those challenges, he has gone to court and seeking to compel private testimony. And if it doesn't happen, as you said, they will put people in jail.

BERMAN: And my understanding is, mayors, and this is who he is threatening right now, they have no direct influence or oversight over elections in Wisconsin, correct?

KAUL: That's right. Some of the people he's tried to interview don't really have a role to play, like mayors. Others do and are happy to testify. The administrator of our State Elections Commission, for example, testified just this past week about elections issues in front of the same committee that he is supposed to be representing. But instead of having that hearing in public, he's insisted on doing it behind closed doors.

BERMAN: Does the law allow for these people who are not complying to be thrown in jail?

KAUL: Well, he has certain subpoena authority. But what we've argued is that he's gone way beyond and asking this to happen behind closed doors. He has got to do it in front of a committee.

Now, if somebody defies a court order, that's a different matter, but we don't have that right now. And, in fact, we went to court previously to try to get this sorted out but the court said that this issue wasn't imminent enough to address. Well, now we have got this new motion and I expect we will hear from the courts soon on this. BERMAN: All right, it will end up in court. There's another matter going on in Wisconsin, and, again, no evidence at all -- there have been investigations already, no evidence at all of any kind of fraud that would have overturned the election results, 21,000 votes separated Biden and Trump in Wisconsin. But you have a character, State Rep. Timothy Ramthun, who is man running for governor, saying that he wants is for the state to somehow decertify the 2020 election results now, throw out those electors? Is that even possible?

KAUL: That's right. It's not possible. It's illegal and unconstitutional. And what it is is the end of this more than a year now of the big lie. We have seen some Republicans in Wisconsin cynically try to use that to their advantage to pass voter restrictions or to conduct this Gableman investigation. And what had been simmering has now really boiled over.

And some people are demanding that the election be decertified, even though there's no evidence that the election results from 2020 weren't accurate. And, in fact, there is a lot of evidence that they were accurate, and the fact that the decertification just isn't possible under the law.

BERMAN: What is all of this, the totality of this, tell you about where things are right now in Wisconsin?

KAUL: It's really concerning for the health of our democracy. One of the principles that our democracy relies on is that the party that loses the elections accepts the results and goes on to contest the next election and hopefully, in the meantime, works with the party that wins the election. But when you convince people falsely that election results can't be trusted, it under means what is at the core of our democracy, which is an agreed upon understanding that the results reflect the will of the voters.

And if there is legitimate fraud, of course, that should be looked into. But here, there is no question about the outcome of the results. And by undermining that confidence in the elections, people undermining confidence in their democracy.

BERMAN: Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, thank you for being with us this morning.

KAUL: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: Is there still a possibility for diplomacy to stop what could be an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine? We're going to speak to a key Democrat, coming up.

KEILAR: Just days into his Justice World Tour, Justin Bieber already canceling one of his shows. We're going to tell you why, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00] KEILAR: President Biden agreed in principle overnight to meet with Russian Leader Vladimir Putin if Putin holds off on invading Ukraine. Ukraine, the U.S. and its NATO allies insists that war can still be averted through diplomatic and other nonmilitary means.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: While we believe President Putin has made the decision that the die is cast, until that die settles and until the tanks are actually moving, the planes are actually flying, the bombs are actually dropping, we're going to do everything we can with diplomacy and with deterrence and dissuasion to get President Putin to reverse the decision that we believe he has made. And part of that is making very clear what he risks in terms of sanctions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is Congressman Stephen Lynch. He's a democrat from Massachusetts. He's also chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, which held a hearing on the crisis in Ukraine last week.

Sir, thanks for being with us this morning.

And I just wonder what you think the chances are of this Biden-Putin summit actually happening.

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): Well, good morning, Brianna. Thank you for having me.

I think some of the intelligence we've heard as of yesterday and last night is that the tactical commanders have been given instructions to put the invasion into action.

[07:30:08]