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New Day

U.S. Embassy Warns Americans to Leave Russia Now; Russians Try to Flee Putin's Draft; Gen. David Petraeus is Interviewed about the War in Ukraine; Mark Luther is Interviewed about Hurricane Ian; Anderson Cooper Explores Loss and Grief in New Podcast. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 28, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:02]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the hurricane heading to Florida here in a moment.

First, though, we have breaking news this morning.

The U.S. embassy in Moscow is warning Americans, do not travel to Russia and it is advising Americans who are already there in Russia to leave immediately while they still can.

CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon with more on this.

Barbara, tell us about this. Tell us what prompted this.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, another grim message, another message about the real state of U.S.-Russian relations at this point. The U.S. embassy posting a security message warning Americans, if you are in Russia, get out and get out immediately. The security alert saying in part - and let me just read it to everyone - saying, Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals' U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consul or assistance, prevent their departure from Russia and conscript dual nationals for military service. U.S. Citizens should not travel to Russia and those residing or traveling to Russia should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain.

It doesn't get any more specific than that. If you are in Russia, get out.

The security alert goes on to actually mention that Americans have been arrested now in Russia who have participated in some of these public demonstrations, warning Americans in Russia they have no guarantees of any kind of due process or judicial treatment, that they can be arrested on the streets and taken in to custody.

So, you know, this comes as we have seen Putin's rhetoric about the potential use of nuclear weapons, as we are all watching the explosions of that undersea gas pipeline in northern Europe. Another indicator this morning now, the U.S. embassy telling Americans, if you're in Russia, get out.

Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Barbara Starr, live for us at the Pentagon.

This morning, satellite images capturing ten-mile-long lines of traffic just north of the Russian-Georgian border as thousands are fleeing in hopes of avoiding Russian President Putin's conscription order, his draft. But Moscow has preempted the exodus by handing out draft papers to military age men right there at the border.

Let's go to CNN's Melissa Bell, who is standing by live at that border crossing.

This is really the first look live that we've gotten here, Melissa. Tell us what you've seen.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've been seeing for the last 24 hours or so since we've been here, Brianna, is just the other side of that checkpoint. You showed a moment ago that line of traffic that goes back now ten miles. People getting out of their cars and really coming across this border any which way they can, with their bicycles, on foot, carrying what little they had.

These are pictures of Russian refugees, Brianna. And it's the first time we've really seen anything like this. They've been coming over in huge numbers, not just over this border to Georgia, but to other borders as well, to Finland. One hundred thousand have crossed in the last week to Kazakhstan.

And here, on this border crossing, it really hasn't stopped day and night, the numbers. And the stories they tell are really all the same, that they fear this partial mobilization, they fear the shambolic way it's been put in place, some of them have no prior military experience but they say, look, people are being taken off the streets and we don't want to end up having to go to the Ukrainian front lines or find ourselves in prison. This was our last chance to go. Others say they fear that the partial mobilization could become a full one, saying, look, we just can't trust our government anymore. And this, we felt, was our last chance to get out.

And I think one of the most poignant things standing here and speaking to them come day and night is what they take with them, not just the determination at this stage, Brianna, to get out while they can for fear that at some point these border crossings may close altogether, but the sadness that, as one of them just told us, he takes with him as he knows these are the very last steps he will ever have taken in his homeland.

Brianna.

KEILAR: The last time we saw lines like this was in Ukraine, getting out of Ukraine. And there we saw that man behind you wheeling past his bicycle with trash bags full of his belongings, presumably all that he has brought with him. And, Melissa, I mean, does that just tell you what he thinks about

what might happen if he stays and what he thinks about the war in Ukraine and what could happen to him if he fights in it?

BELL: That's exactly right, Brianna. You see the speed, the urgency with which they left everything. We're talking here about students, math teachers, people who were working in Moscow and other Russian cities who took their stuff the day that that partial mobilization was announced and just went for the border. They've come all the way to this border. Of course, it's a vast county. It takes them a long time to get here for a start, and then have carried what little they have over, some of them entirely alone, leaving their wives and children behind them. And, again, that fear that they may not be able to see them for a very long time, if ever again.

[08:35:05]

And, you're right, until now we really hadn't seen the face of Russians in this way. What we'd seen is Ukrainian refugees, Russians who had been on the front lines of Ukraine, those who had bravely protested for time to time. But it's another thing entirely to watch these young Russians, not those who had money and could flee before, but those that have left in desperate urgency with a sense, Brianna, that they're fleeing for their lives.

KEILAR: Yes, Vladimir Putin may be trying to hide his war from Russians, but I don't know how when your child goes to school and shows up and the math teacher is gone, how you're going to be able to hide that.

Melissa Bell, live for us on the Georgia/Russia border, thank you so much for that report.

I do want to bring in former CIA director and former commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus.

General, I mean, when you see these pictures, which are pretty extraordinary, of just the few belongings that people are fleeing Russia with, you know, what should Vladimir Putin be taking from watching all of these fighting age Russian men fleeing Russia?

DAVID PETRAEUS, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Well, he's clearly very, very desperate, Brianna. The fact that they're conducting this mobilization reflect a dynamic on the battlefield in Ukraine that is inescapable, and I think irreversible. It is that Ukraine has done a vastly better job at mobilizing its country for a war. So, now a country that's one third the size of Russia has a larger army, it's much better equipped thanks to the U.S. and other NATO countries, the U.S. now over $15 billion of arms and ammunition. It's organized these forces and now it's employing them very effectively, taking back territory that Russia seized since 24 of February and threatening to do it again in the east. There's another city that's about to be encircled from which the Russians will have to withdraw.

The Russians have taken huge losses, many multiples already just in the seven months of this war compared with nearly a decade in Afghanistan. Putin is unable to provide the number of replacements. That's why he has taken this really quite desperate step, which he really didn't want to take because he knew that there would be demonstrations, he knew there would be this kind of exodus from the country of military age males fearing that they would be conscripted, even if they don't meet the criteria of this mobilization. As your reported noted, the shambolic way in which this mobilization has been carried out and very highly criticized by Russian citizens.

So, he's in a very, very tough spot. And, again, I don't think that the number that he will gather with this particular mobilization will result in adding well-trained, physically fit, qualified, coherent units that can withstand the Ukrainian offenses that will go on. Maybe that they can plug a hole here or there, but it appears fairly inevitable that the Ukrainians are going to continue to take back territory and they could take all the way back to what began on 24 of February when Russia launched this unprovoked invasion.

KEILAR: How - so, you think - and, look, you've been saying since February that Ukraine could reclaim territory taken by Russia. So, you think they can hold that and take back more. How far do you think they can go?

PETRAEUS: Well, assuming that we continue to arm and equip and fund them, as we have and as our NATO and western allies have, and keep in mind that this could be a cold winter in Europe with the gas flow disrupted and so forth, but assuming that they - that we continue to support them, and I think we will, I believe we should, very strongly believe that, I think they can continue to take ground.

The winter is not going to slow the Ukrainians down as much as individuals predict. They're on their own soil. They're fighting for their own security. This is their war of independence, if you will. Their morale is now sky high, Russian morale is very low. And if we start to see Russian units begin to crumble and then perhaps in some areas even collapse, which is not out of the question, I think you could see Ukrainian forces roll this all the way back, at least to some of the major strongholds, the major cities that Russia will have taken, which will be just as difficult for the Ukrainians to take as they were for the Russians given the challenges of urban combat.

But over the months ahead, there is going to be continued momentum by the Ukrainians. The Russians will be desperate to try to hold that back. That's the reason for this mobilization. That's the reason for Putin's threats of use of nuclear weapons and so forth.

I don't think that is going to happen, although we need to be concerned about it. And, of course, our U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has openly said that they - that the U.S. has communicated with Russia about what would result from its use -

KEILAR: Yes. No, and -

[08:40:09]

PETRAEUS: Which would not (ph) actually reverse the situation on the battlefield. It can't change this terrible dynamic for Putin, which is that Ukraine has done vastly better at recruiting, training, equipping, organizing and now employing forces than Russia has.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really - it's really interesting to hear you say that about the nuclear weapons, especially considering what we've heard from president -- former President Medvedev.

I want to ask you about these Nord Stream pipelines looking, obviously, like sabotage where you have holes in them in multiple locations. And it appears that signs are pointing toward Russia, though Russia hasn't claimed responsibility for this.

Is that what you would expect? And what message, if this is Russia, are they trying to send?

PETRAEUS: Yes, I think probably that is the case. They have the technical expertise, the knowledge of the pipelines, all the rest of that capability. And, clearly, what they're trying to do, again, is to force Europe to force Ukraine to seek some kind of negotiated resolution.

Now, I think there will be a negotiated resolution at some time. President Zelenskyy has said that this is how this will ultimately end. The question is, where will Ukraine and Russia be on that battlefield when the times comes for that.

And I would also note here that I think we need to be thinking ahead to that moment. Again, many, many months, perhaps longer, from that particular point. But we need to be thinking about what kind of security guarantee we and our NATO allies would provide for Ukraine because to make a negotiated resolution durable and to give confidence to outside investors and to whatever marshal plan kind of support will be provided, there will need to be an ironclad security agreement for Ukraine this time, noting that in the past we've been reluctant because we were concerned about Putin's sentiments on NATO expansion.

Well, that did not work out. We should be very blunt with him about that and say, that will not be the case this time. We will provide a security guarantee and ensure that it is enforced.

KEILAR: It feels so far off as we look. But as Ukraine is making these gains on the battlefield, perhaps not as far off as it could be.

General Petraeus, thank you so much for being with us.

PETRAEUS: My pleasure, Brianna. Thank you.

KEILAR: I want to head back now to Tampa where we find our John Berman.

And we see the winds now, John, from Hurricane Ian just shy - and I mean just a smidge shy of a category five. This is a huge storm at this point in time.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, 155 miles per hour. As you say, two miles per hour short of a category five storm. And it still could strengthen as it approaches the southwestern coast here. This is an historic hurricane with potential catastrophic impact. A

near worst case scenario for some parts of southwestern Florida, particularly about 80 to 100 miles south of where I am.

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida just told the people in Collier County, in Charlotte County, in Saratoga County, again, that's south of here, if you haven't evacuated already, it is too late. It is time to hunker down, to shelter in place. Storm surge of up to 16 feet over the next several hours.

Again, this is CNN's special live coverage of Hurricane Ian. More right after this.

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[08:47:45]

BERMAN: I'm John Berman, live in Tampa, Florida. This is CNN's special live coverage of Hurricane Ian as it moves ever closer to the Florida coast, particularly the southwestern coast, about 100 miles or so south of where I am, headed right toward Punta Gorda. One hundred and fifty-five-mile-per-hour winds. Just two miles per hour short of a category five hurricane. A forecast now of a storm surge that could reach 16 feet in some areas, which would be historic. Worse than this part of Florida south of here has ever seen.

I want to bring in Mark Luther from the University of South Florida Ocean Monitoring Lab.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us.

You had been watching closely where we are right now, Tampa Bay. There had been concern of catastrophic, historic storm surge here. Now it has moved south, that concern, but it's very much the same situation. Why are they anticipating something that could be so devastating?

MARK LUTHER, DIRECTOR, OCEAN MENTORING AND PREDICTION LAB, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA: Well, again, these winds are unprecedented in anyone's memory here. When the - the west coast of Florida is very broad and shallow. And when you get very strong winds blowing towards the coastline, it drags the water towards shore. And once the water gets to shore, it has no place to go except to pile up on land. So that's why we get these massive storm surges, or have the potential to get these massive storm surges.

In Tampa Bay, we're on the opposite side of the eye wall, and we're getting actually lower than normal, probably by 10 to 12 feet lower than we would expect.

BERMAN: Well, again, that's good news for here but very dire news potentially south of here. And one of the concerns has been - and just to give people a sense, had the storm surge concern been where I am here on the Hillsborough River, initially they were like 10 to 15 feet, that could have been lapping over the edge here. South of here, also, so many people have moved in and built in these low-lying areas. There are population centers on this low-lying ground. So, how could structures be affected by this?

[08:50:00]

LUTHER: Well, again, the water is the most damaging factor in a storm like this. A wall of water like that coming into these developed areas is going to just devastate anything in its path. You put the surge of 12 to 16 feet. Then you put 10 to 12 foot waves on top of that. It's just an enormous battering ram that's going to sit there for hours pounding on structures and then on top of that you put the high winds that are going to pull the roofs off of structures, knock trees down, destroy the power grid. It's going to be the worst thing we've seen in 100 years probably.

BERMAN: Mark Luther, we do appreciate you being with us, anticipating real problems over the next several hours here in Florida. Stay safe. Thank you.

LUTHER: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, Brianna, let's go back to you.

KEILAR: All right, Berman, thank you so much. And, of course, we'll be back to you here shortly.

In Iran, dozens of people have been killed as protests spread nationwide, but the country's foreign minister told NPR, quote, it's not a big deal.

Thousands took to the streets after the death of Mahsa Amini. She died while in the custody of the morality police where she was for not wearing a head scarf.

CNN's Clarissa Ward was asked about this on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": You've also reported from Iran in the past. What do you make on what's going on there with the protests in the streets and the question of the leadership, especially the women protesting in the streets?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is extraordinary the bravery of these women. I mean, next level. A 22- year-old woman was reportedly beaten to death for daring to show her hair. And this groundswell that you have seen of women going out and pulling off their head scarves and demanding to no longer be second- class citizens effectively, and risking everything, their lives, their livelihoods, their security. And the idea of how frightening that is to these majority -- sorry to say it -- geriatric men who have been ruling Iran for four decades -- now I'm never going to get a visa -- but it's an extraordinary thing to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That was Clarissa Ward there. In his new podcast "All There Is," Anderson Cooper takes listeners on

a deeply personal exploration of the universal experiences of loss and grief. Throughout the series Anderson and special guests share moving conversations about the people we lose and how to live on without them. Here's a preview where Anderson talks about the loss of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I wasn't really surprised by my mom's death, but I was surprised by the loneliness I felt afterward, and still feel. She was the last person from the little family that I grew up in. The last person who knew the same stories as me, and had the same memories.

Now, I'm the only one. I feel like a lighthouse keeper on an empty island. And I feel like I need to preserve all that happened because if I don't my mom and my dad and my brother, the life that we shared and all those moments and all their friends, they'll all just disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And Anderson is with us now, of course, the host of his podcast, "All There Is." And you have a little guest there, Anderson, Sebastian.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I do, yes. This is Sebastian. Yes. Yes, Sebastian, say hi. He's got his truck. Here we go.

KEILAR: Oh, my gosh. You are the spitting image of your brother Wyatt, you are, Sebastian. All right, hang in there with us, Sebastian.

COOPER: Yes, Sebastian is seven months old.

KEILAR: Seven months old. Oh, he's so beautiful.

Anderson, I have been looking forward to talking to you about this and also kind of loathing it because it's such a tough subject for me personally as well. I lost my mother in 2016. But I'm just so glad that you're doing this because I think it's something that we don't talk about a lot and that we need to.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, it -- you know, I'm sorry for the loss of your mom, but the -- you know, look, grief and loss it's among the most universal human experiences. It's something we all have gone through already or sadly will go through. And if you haven't, you're lucky, but you will.

And the - you know, for me it was the isolation and loneliness I felt as being the last one left from my immediate little family that I grew up in. My dad died when I was 10, my brother when I was 21 by suicide, and my mom just three years ago.

[08:55:03] So, going through her stuff -- I was going through this process of going through her things and packing up her apartment and it was overwhelming. And I just started making recordings.

I know. I know.

I started making recordings on my iPhone just to kind of narrate myself through it to kind of give myself somebody to talk to about it and I never really -- and I didn't mean to make it into a podcast, but I -- some friends of mine heard what I was doing and listened and suggested it. And, you know, I just think there's this yearning out there for people who have experienced loss and want to talk about it and want to hear about it. And there's so much we can learn from other people. That's one of the things, to be able to talk to amazing people like Stephen Colbert, whose dad and two brothers died in a plane crash when he was 10. Today's episode, which just is released, this is the third episode, it's called "Sadness is Not an Enemy." It's with a guy named Dr. BJ Miller (ph). He's a palliative care physician. He lost his sister, Lisa (ph), to suicide. And he's just -- he helps - he helped me and I think he's going to help a lot of people sort of just rethink the stories we tell ourselves in our grief and rethink how we - how we think about loss and how we think about sadness and tears.

KEILAR: And you mention your children in your podcast. I'm just so curious how it has been, how fatherhood has been and growing as a father has been as you experience that alongside grief. You know, that's been one of the tricky things for me is, some of the biggest joys in life have this sort of bitter-sweet edge because I can't share them with her.

COOPER: Yes, I totally understand that. And Stephen talks about that in the second episode of the podcast of how, you know, he worried when his children -- because his father died when he was 10, he worried that every time his child was approaching 10 that he would die and that he wouldn't be there for that child after 10 years old.

And so, you know, for me it was about not wanting -- I used to see -- my mom had experienced great loss throughout her life and I would sometimes see this sort of sadness pass behind her eyes that was always kind of present. It never really went away. And I realized I don't want to be bringing this into my - into -- I don't want to pass this on to my kids. I don't want there to be, in the basement, all these boxes of unopened things going back 50 or 60 years that I'm going to leave them with to go through and kind of make sense of. I want them to know the stories.

That's the thing about being the last -- kind of the last one from your immediate family is, I'm the last one who knows all the little stories of all the things that happened, of how -- oh, that time my brother did this or that time my mom and dad did this and, oh, this, you know -- the significance of, you know, oh, this truck was from -- this was given to me by my mom in 1973.

KEILAR: Yes.

COOPER: All those kind of things just get lost. And I think it's important that those get passed down as much as possible. And I didn't want to pass down with the sense of obligation to my kids. So I wanted to just go through everything and get things in order and also be able to have a lightness when I think about them and when I think about all the family members I've lost and be able to tell my kids about them without it being this kind of thing that, oh, don't talk to dad about that because it makes him really sad.

KEILAR: Yes, no, because there's a richness in those memories and the kids, they love those memories. They like to know what it is to be a part of this family, even as they don't get to experience these loved ones of yours because they are a part of it as well.

COOPER: Yes, totally.

KEILAR: Anderson, thank you -

COOPER: I'll just show you -

KEILAR: Oh, yes, show me.

COOPER: I know you've got to go, but I just want to show you a very quickly, like, I just put up this wall of all these photos I've been finding in my mom's stuff. And it's all, you know, family photographs of Benjamin and his family, but also, you know, there's like a record cover that my dad modeled for back in the '50s that I found in a box. And all these little notes from my dad I found. I sort of framed them and put them on this wall. And it's nice for the kids to kind of be able to see it and get a sense of their history.

KEILAR: Yes, and your dad and your mom will be very real to them, right -

COOPER: Yes.

KEILAR: Even though they don't get to meet them.

COOPER: Yes.

KEILAR: I mean, how important is that for you to have that shared experience?

COOPER: It's very important. I mean, you know, thankfully my dad wrote a book about growing up in Mississippi, which is where he was from, and his family growing up and my family. And so that's been a real incredible thing to have, like a letter from my father, kind of, that's been a guide post throughout my entire life. And so - and having recordings of my mom, it's been extraordinary.

And so for people who are out there, you know, I just recommend thinking about this, not in a depressing way, but thinking about the loved ones in your life who may no longer be here in a certain time and, you know, recording things with them, learning the stories so that all that stuff just doesn't disappear with them.

KEILAR: Yes. No, it's such a beautiful thing that you're doing.

Anderson, thank you for spending some time with us and for sharing Sebastian with us. What a good sport he was.

COOPER: Yes. You know what, he's very mellow.

[09:00:01]

KEILAR: He's very mellow. Unbelievable.

All right, thank you, guys, so much.

And I just want everyone to know that "All There Is with Anderson Cooper" is available now on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a brand-new episode available today.

And CNN's special coverage of Hurricane Ian continues right now.