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Inside Politics

Jill Biden: Husband "Over prepared" For Meetings With World Leaders; Now: Biden Meets With British PM Boris Johnson; Trump Insulted & Scorned Allied Leaders On World Stage; Biden: I'll Let Putin "Know What I Want Him To Know"; FBI Director Testifies After 1/6 Bipartisan Report Released. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 10, 2021 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

KING BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's amazing right? You can hear this - cheer for this principal who is saying his version of - classic. Made famous with - Houston they send - that sending them off in style. This is T Wingate Andrews High School in North Carolina congratulations to that graduating class. That's amazing. Thanks for joining us, everybody. John King picks up from here.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to Inside Politics. I'm John King in Washington. A busy day right now President Biden and the British Prime Minister behind closed doors for their first bilateral meeting renewing the so called special relationship.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Mr. President welcomes you to the call.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You say a great President to be here tonight.

JOHNSON: Fantastic to see you. You know what I think is yours - is your first big overseas trip since you've been--

BIDEN: It is going to be my great catching many times. But this is the first time as President of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Presidents' bridge building in Europe includes a new promise to buy 500 million COVID vaccine doses and to donate them to 100 countries around the world. And the Russian President sends a pre summit message cracking down on the key opposition movement and musing about a Donald Trump comeback. This morning, the First Lady says her husband is more than ready for the challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JILL BIDEN, U.S. FIRST LADY: I think he's so well prepared. I mean, he's, you know, we - he's been studying for weeks, you know, working up to today. Of course, he knows most of the leaders that that will be here. And Joe loves foreign policy. This is his forte. So I think the meetings are going to be prepared for the meeting. Oh my gosh, he's over prepared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get straight to Falmouth, England's Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins and our Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward. Kaitlan let me start with you. As we heard in the pleasantries between the Prime Minister and the President, it is Mr. Biden's first international trip as President he has had in the past.

Some tensions, some disagreements, some of them stylistic, some of the policy with the Prime Minister, what are we looking forward today?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you saw the Prime Minister say there that he wasn't going to disagree with President Biden, when he joked that they had in common. They both had married up or anything else where they going to disagree on.

Though we know privately behind the scenes that's unlikely because there are a few differences where they have a fundamental divides and opinion on certain subjects but what they're really trying to do here is restore this relationship talk or essentially renew the relationship between the UK and the U.S.

Part of that is going to be that renewal of the Atlantic Charter. That was really what paved the way for the relationship, the special relationship in wake of World War II and what we've seen for the last several decades ever since then.

And so that is what the White House has been emphasizing is going to be a big take away from this first sit down between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Biden here as its first one on one with another world leader.

But we know behind the scenes, there are a few other topics where they disagree on. We know that during the height of the campaign, the 2020 campaign, President Biden said privately that he believed Boris Johnson was a clone of Donald Trump. And he did not mean that as a compliment.

Of course, they also have disagreements on it when it comes to Brexit. And you really saying Boris Johnson tried to pave the way for a post Brexit Britain here. And what they're going to have to talk about is what it when it comes to Northern Ireland, and the disagreements there of what President Biden believes should be the policy going forward and maintaining that agreement?

And the White House has said privately that President Biden is not going to lecture Prime Minister Johnson on this, but it is something that they are going to be talking about when they are meeting behind closed doors as they are right now.

KING: And Clarissa Ward helped put the moment in context. It's remarkable just to see world leaders meeting face to face; it's been more than a year, since you could have face to face diplomacy. As Kaitlan knows, there are some significant issues to discuss.

But part of this is just Joe Biden introducing what he hopes to be a new American perspective to first global allies and then Putin.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: AS that's exactly it. This is about showing that there is a new act in town, things have changed. America is now recommitted to resuming its role on the world stage.

It's recommitted to the special relationship, not just with the UK, with other G7 partners with NATO partners with EU partners. This is about really pushing forward the idea that liberal democracies are not under threat, that they are still forming a hugely pivotal and important role in leading the free world.

Now they're going to have their work cut out for them because as Kaitlan mentioned, there are areas of disagreement and the broader picture in context. The backdrop if you will of this G7 summit is incredibly complex. You're looking at the Coronavirus pandemic.

You're looking at the economic fallout of that pandemic issues of climate change and of course, the major thing here, how do liberal democracies come together to form a united front against the threats posed by Russia and by China very different but very distinctive threats. One former UK diplomat calling it this way saying China is the challenge. But Russia is the threat.

[12:05:00]

WARD: And as President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to show the importance of this relationship and the relevance of this very G7 gathering. It will be very interesting to see the kind of language they use to show what kind of a stance they plan on taking against Russia, and particularly, of course, President Putin with that summit coming up next week?

KING: That's an excellent point. We've heard only pleasantries and greetings so far as we get to the substance of the G7. What specifically is said by all the leaders, not just the American President, Kaitlan and Clarissa will join us again, in just a moment.

Let's bring the conversation in studio with us to share the reporting and their insights, POLITICO's Laura Barron-Lopez and Vivian Salama of "The Wall Street Journal". Let's just listen a little bit first to the President. Again, this is Joe Biden's wanted to be president for a long time.

This is his first international trip as President, and he says he wants to send a message to the world; Trump has gone America is back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: At every point along the way, we're going to make it clear that the United States is back. And democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future that we're committed to leading with strength, defending our values, and delivering for our people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That statement will be welcomed, especially the European leaders and the other G7 leaders who want to act on climate. United States opted out for four years, who wanted more cooperation as opposed to the Trump view, NATO, the Europeans are a problem. But what changes in substance?

VIVIAN SALAMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: A not a lot I mean, this is the first time obviously, that President Biden is over there meeting with a lot of his counterparts in Europe, and a lot of times with these diplomatic meetings, you don't see a lot of deliverables upfront.

What they are happy to see is that the American President is now sort of talking the talk of multilateralism, which is a sigh of relief for a lot of these European countries. But at the same time, there are at the heart, some really challenging differences among them.

And you know, you're talking about China, there's some differences between Macrons' view of France and President Biden's the UK has its own incentives. The Germans are looking to complete a project on a Russian pipeline, which President Biden is completely against.

And so beyond just this talk of Kumbaya, we're going to work together. There are a lot of challenges. And also like, is this very important because President Biden such a personable guy. He wants to meet face to face, and he's obviously very, very experienced in foreign diplomacy. Before he was vice president he worked in the Senate for many years in the Foreign Relations Committee.

So he obviously has a lot of experience. But a lot has changed in the last eight years. Boris Johnson is a new figure in the UK. Emmanuel Macron is new in France. And so he really wanted these face to face engagements so that he can make some breakthroughs on his agenda.

KING: And I think you make an interesting point, because when he traveled as a Senator, he could say to a world leader, this is important to America, or this is important to the American Congress. When he traveled as Vice President, he could say this is important to Barack. This is important to President Obama and our administration.

Now he has to say it's important to me, it's important to me, I want you to do this for me. And so let's put up some of those differences you talked about with the UK tensions over Brexit Biden was never for it. And he's worried about tensions in Northern Ireland. Right now with the Germans, you mention, particularly the pipeline to Russia and investment deals with China.

You look at France, the European strategic autonomy that Macron has talked about, and also a united front versus China Macron says, could be counterproductive. The question is can Biden have broad based agreements on big principles and certain steps while still working through? Yes, this is not going to be perfect, we're going to disagree on some things. LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's going to be the difficulty for Biden in these meetings, which is whether or not he can get a bit of that united front against China and so being laid out Germany and France don't necessarily think that that's what is in their best interest for their economies.

They think that they should have their own approach towards China separate from the United States, talking about autonomy there. So that's going to be really difficult for Biden to get them all together and say that look, you should side more with the U.S. than with China.

KING: And as we watch it play out the one thing we do know and you hear this from all of these countries, that the president we mean with that Trump was unpredictable. Trump often demeaned, especially the Europeans involved.

And so what we do know is that a week when we're done with this trip, we do not expect to have any of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S. PRESIDENT: Germany is a capital of Russia because they supply. They get rid of their coal plants and get rid of their nuclear. They're getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia.

I heard that President Macron said NATO was brave. And I think that's very insulting. It's a tough statement that when you make a statement like that, that is a very, very, very nasty statement to essentially 28 including them 28 countries and you just can't go around making statements like that about NATO. It's very disrespectful. This is why he's a great politician because that was one the greatest non answers I've ever heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:10:00]

KING: Trump liked the public spats, the public disagreements. He especially like attacking NATO and the European Union. Biden is by nature a multilateralist but that doesn't mean as we've discussed, the style is completely different. It doesn't mean on the substance that guarantees progress.

SALAMA: It's going to be really interesting to see because obviously President Trump was sort of a provocateur going to the Europeans and pushing them. On this flashback eight years, President Obama was enormously popular in Europe. Angela Merkel of Germany was almost smitten with him because he was they had such a great relationship.

And so President Biden is now going to have to try to toe that line and see where he fits in to this European story? And a lot has changed, like I said, in Europe over the last eight years, Russian influences increasing in Eastern Europe and a lot of new challenges.

And President Biden is now going to have to try to work with these new figures in Europe to see if they can work together? LOPEZ: And art and Biden has also built himself up in the lead up to this trip, which was throughout the entire campaign, Biden said that he was the one with the most foreign policy experience, the one that could talk to foreign leaders, put the U.S. back on the map, change the direction that Trump was heading in. And so he has a lot to live up to.

KING: What's proof? It's testing time now for those campaign promises. And we'll continue the conversation in just a moment. We should tell you, the Biden/Johnson meeting just wrapped up. Up next some new reports, on one of the goals of the Biden/Putin summit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

KING: There is some new reporting this hour on a new goal for the Biden/Putin summit in Geneva. The American side, we are told hopes to get the Russian president to agree to send their respective ambassadors back to Washington and to Moscow. Right now no senior diplomat is present in either country. Let's get to CNN's State Department Corresponded, Kylie Atwood. Kylie, walk us through this.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So what we're learning is that President Biden is going to address the dramatically strained U.S./Russia diplomatic relationship with the aspiration that both of the leaders can agree to send their ambassadors back to the respective countries.

So we should John that over the last few months, both of these countries have been operating without Ambassadors in the respective capitals. So Russia pulled their Ambassador from the United States, after comments from President Biden calling Putin a killer earlier this year.

And then the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow returned to Washington for consultations. And we should note that the State Department said that he is going to return to Moscow in the coming weeks. But that, of course, would be contingent on the idea that he could actually get something done that he could have meetings.

And so this is something that we're tracking closely, particularly as the Biden Administration has tamped down any expectation of major deliverables during this meeting.

KING: Kylie Atwood, I would appreciate the new reporting. Russia sending its own signal but one of President Biden's ahead of Biden's trip, Moscow court put Putin's chief opponent on par with ISIS and Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and outlawed the biggest group of Kremlin critics from participating at all in Russian politics.

Our panel is still with us. And Clarissa Ward, let me start with you, because of your deep experience with this. So the President Biden wants let's put our ambassadors back to work, let's allow them to have meetings, let's send them back to Moscow and to Washington. That is a modest that would be a modest takeaway from a summit that has giant complications.

WARD: Modest indeed, and I think everybody's predictions here are erring on the side of modesty. Indeed, the question becomes what really is the metric for success here? A lot of people internationally have called into question whether the two leaders should even be meeting at this stage?

What real tangible results could be gleaned from that, particularly as, as you said President Putin made a very clear statement via a court in Moscow delivering that message, Navalny's organization is an extremist group, making it abundantly clear that he is not interested next week when he sits down with President Biden in having conversations about issues that he believes are personal, domestic Russian political issues.

If he does bring those up, as President Biden has said he will. He is likely to be called out by President Putin, who has essentially accused the U.S. John of hypocrisy, saying, hey, when you arrest the rioters who stormed the Capitol, you don't see us talking about it. So why are you interfering with our opposition that obviously puts President Biden in a really tough position because the whole purpose of this trip is about reestablishing international norms about re establishing those fundamental core values of liberal democracies, human rights being tantamount among them?

But unclear how the President will be able to raise those issues with Putin in a meaningful and substantive way that will have any real tangible result at the end, John?

KING: Which begs the question, Kaitlan Collins, what is the White House expectation for the takeaway that we just heard the First Lady say the president is over prepared? That sets pretty high expectations for a summit with someone as experienced at this as Putin? And then let's listen to the President yesterday describing his trip, especially the part of the end about his message to the Russian President.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I'm heading to the G7, then to the NATO ministerial, and then to meet with Mr. Putin to let him know what I want him to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What does he want him to know? What is most important to President Biden to talk about Kremlin poisoning of potent critics, Russian military aggression in Crimea? Is it about cyber attacks in Russia? Is it all of the above what is most important for the president?

COLLINS: Well, I think the White House has often said yes, he is going to confront him over all of these things. But also it's not just going to be pushing the entire time because one other thing they keep returning to and talking about the Putin/Biden relationship is stable, but predictable. That's what they want to see, of course, predictable is not often a

word that people would use to describe Putin. He is someone who thrives in chaos. He often tries to put U.S. Presidents on their heels. And so we talk about how prepared Biden is when it comes to foreign policy, and for a summit like the one that he's embarking on this week, meeting with so many world leaders.

[12:20:00]

COLLINS: Putin is also someone who has been in public life for a very long time. And so I think that is what the White House is trying to manage - are the optics of what this is going to look like? And right now, it's not even entirely nailed down.

Because this is a summit that has been in the works for quite some time now, several months, actually, before the White House had even confirmed they were meeting. And John right now, it's not even clear that the two of them will be holding a joint press conference at the end, as you saw Trump do with Putin.

And I think when they actually get in the room together, their question is, is it one on one? Is their staff, we're still waiting to find out even just minor details like that? Because, of course, when Putin does sit down with Biden, he is sitting down with a very different world leader than he has been dealing with for the last four years when it was Trump.

Who often embraced him on the world stage took his side over that of US intelligence. And so I think that those are the factors at play. It's more of the optics of what comes away from here, whether it comes to over concrete deliverables.

KING: I think that's the key point. Let's bring the conversation back into the room here in the sense that if you listen here to remember Alexei Navalny, the Chief Putin Critic is in prison. Russian court yesterday just labeled his group extremists, essentially saying you can no longer play in Russian politics to the principal opposition to Vladimir Putin right now.

Mr. Navalny's Chief of Staff on CNN this morning says he's a little worried that this summit is a propaganda boon a victory for Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEONID VOLKOV, CHIEF OF STAFF TO PUTIN DISSIDENT ALEXEI NAVALNY: Since the only think he could feed into his propaganda machine, would be some success on international level on international policy, that's why he Putin is already hardly selling the story about meeting this Biden's?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Vivian Salama, what's the challenge back to President Biden to make clear that the narrative out of this summit as an American President delivered at least a very tough message where they get results or not? Time will tell? SALAMA: John Clarissa said something really interesting earlier that widely in Europe, they're seeing China as the challenge in Russia as the threat. And so President Biden obviously getting a lot of criticism because of the fact that he's acknowledging Putin and giving him this meeting, sort of granting him a win, if you will.

But what the White House is saying is, it's because he is such a threat, that this is so urgent, and they have to meet face to face. And again, President Biden really stressing that he knows Putin he has met him before. And he feels like face to face discussions are the way to go, and to solve so many of these problems.

And so it remains to be seen, but also one thing that we have to really emphasize language with regard to Eastern Europe, and especially Ukraine, supporting Ukrainian sovereignty, things like that President Biden seeing that as a threat, not just to a European ally, but to the rest of Europe.

And so that is something really critical and also a big change from President Biden's predecessor, President Trump, who questioned a lot of that.

KING: Laura Barron-Lopez does the White House share that? Is that how they view the metric? Standing next to Putin and saying things Putin does not like.

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think that clearly the confrontation, and clearly, taking a firmer approach is something that Biden wants to do. And it's something that he - that he thinks is important in this meeting, not just the firm approach, but also beyond that, are they going to get any deliverables? I know that Kaitlan said that may not be a big thing that comes out of this meeting.

KING: It's fascinating. This is a fascinating trip that's on the book ends we'll get there. Clarissa Ward, Kaitlan Collins. Thank you Vivian and Laura are going to stay with us. Up next, brand new testimony from the FBI Director confirms there is no current investigation into Former President Trump's role in cheering on the January 6th, capitalist insurrection.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Today FBI Director Christopher Wray on Capitol Hill facing tough questions from lawmakers in both parties about the deadly January 6th insurrection. The bipartisan Senate report released just this week about the incredible security and intelligence lapses by Capitol Police and Federal Law Enforcement around the insurrection. Take a listen this is Wray just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): For the people who incited the riot.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Well, I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to be discussing whether or not we are or aren't investigating specific individuals. I just don't think that's appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider joins us now with more. What else are we learning Jess?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, John, Director Wray spoke really about the enormity of this FBI investigation, the number of arrests more than 300 at this point. But he did dance around that question that repeated question about whether prominent politicians including, of course, the Former President, whether they're being investigated for their words and actions that some have alleged helped incite the Capitol attack?

So as you heard their Director Wray first told Congressman Cohen, that he couldn't comment on whether specific individuals were being investigated, but then he was pressed further by Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee. She asked specifically if Former President Trump's words were being referred for investigation.

Director Wray there, though, was more forceful and he said he was unaware of any investigation to the Former President. But he's still really wasn't definitive. And that has been the big question ever since January 6. But Director Wray he was very forceful speaking out against the Capitol attack.

He said he was outraged by what happened. And he and others at the FBI, he says are determined not to let it happen again, and saying as he has before the Capitol, rioters they weren't inspired in, as he says by extremist ideology.

Now, Director Wray was also questioned about his interview with "The Wall Street Journal" last week where he seemed to compare the recent string of cyber attacks in this country to September 11th. Here's how we responded to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WRAY: Let me just say that I don't think any attack ransomware or January 6th can--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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