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U.S. Working With Poland On Deal To Provide Jets To Ukraine; U.S. Weighs More Options To Target Russia: Ban Oil Imports; 267,000 Ukrainian Refugees Have Crossed Into Romania. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 07, 2022 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

MAJ. GEN. MICHAEL REPASS (RET.), FORMER NATO SPECIAL OPERATIONS ADVISER TO UKRAINE: -- Air Force has demonstrated you've given the aircraft, or if they have the aircraft they're going to fight, they're going to be very, very good at taking down Russian aircraft for that.

So the additional things that they need, you've already mentioned the air defense business. I'm working with some retired general officers. And we're also working on air defense trying to get that thing moving. That is a high priority. They need those two air defense assets, ground based air defense. The other thing they need, John, is they need to have the command launch units for the javelins, they need more of those.

They've got a ton of javelin missiles, they don't have as many command launch units. Stay or same thing, they need a command launch unit for that. So there -- those are the things that they need on the ground, every commander that my contacts have talked to, they said, we need antiaircraft and we need antiarmor weapons.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: You're right. In that piece, I mentioned that anything easy that can be done has been done, that every choice on the table left is a difficult choice. If you're in the room right now, if you're President Biden this morning, he called the leaders of Germany, France, and the UK, and you're saying what can we do? What can we all agree on? Because there could be some differences among the allies. What should be on the table? Maybe not a final decision to do it, but what kind of things should they be debating knowing that over the weekend, Putin issued a threat that he considers any aid an act of war?

REPASS: Well, I don't think President Putin should consider humanitarian aid to that work. So we should do things in a humanitarian perspective as well. We can set up humanitarian stage corridors for the refugees. We can also set up humanitarian safe zones, where people can live that are free for bombing and coercion from Russian ground forces that can be done, that has to be negotiated with the Russians. The Russians would have a hard time rejecting these things on the basis of a humanitarian reason.

Also, we need to start talking about how we're going to manage a resistance or how we're going to support resistance in the country. That is a very complex endeavor. Go ahead.

KING: No, I was just going to follow up on that point. You mentioned, and you say, you talk about supporting resistance in the country. That was one of the reasons earlier I talked about, you know, if they can cut off the highways here, and you just, our Nick Paton Walsh showing the program, he's down here in Odessa, the Russians are trying, again, it's not going as quickly as they'd like General Repass. But they are trying to shut off all the sea access, Sea of Azov across Black Sea so that Ukraine cannot get supplies from the water.

And then if you cut off the highways, and it's harder to get supplies from the NATO. If you're supporting whether what's going on today, and this week, or potentially down the road or resistance in a Russian occupied Ukraine, how do you get through that?

REPASS: Well, you would have to come through the nations that have joined them. Starting up north you get Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. There's also the Moldova area as well. So there's a lot of international boundaries there, international borders, that things can be moved across.

Quite frankly, John, the Russia do not have enough force in country. They cannot muster enough force to bring it in country to secure all those borders and prevent everything from coming across them. They'll be -- they'll interdict some things, that's sure. But they -- a lot of things will get through. We should be able to press the borders and sustain them logistically.

KING: General, grateful for the report and insights. Again, we'll continue the conversations we watch these important conversations and then ultimately, the decisions in the days ahead. Appreciate your time, sir.

[12:33:27]

Coming up for us, the Biden administration just to this point, weighing additional ways to punish Russia, no fly zone widely seen as a nonstarter but we'll walk through some of the other options under debate.

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KING: We have some new information to share. This just in from a senior U.S. defense official who says Russia has now committed nearly 100 percent of its combat power that had been staged on the border of Ukraine. And Russia has launched 625 missiles against Ukraine so far that from that senior U.S. defense official.

President Biden consulting with top European allies this morning about additional ways to punish the Russian President Vladimir Putin. There's growing pressure here in the United States to ban all Russian oil imports, and the Biden administration is trying to work a deal to transfer some Polish fighter jets to Ukraine. Ukrainian officials continue to appeal for NATO enforced no fly zone over Ukraine. But the Alliance views that at least at the moment as far too dangerous. The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee explains why. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), VICE CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: So that means flying AWACS 24 hours a day, that means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky that means World War III.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share their reporting and their insights Margaret Talev of Axios, Toluse Olorunnipa of The Washington Post, and Sabrina Siddiqui of The Wall Street Journal. So the no -- the NATO no to a no fly zone is holding for now. One alternative on the table to help with additional airpower, in addition you send in antiaircraft missiles, you send an antitank missiles is this idea of potential swap with Poland. Poland has some old Soviet era MiG fighter jets,that's what the Ukrainian Air Force flies. Have Poland send them in, the United States would bring in some U.S. jets to backup Poland, if you will, how viable?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It could be viable in terms of allowing the Ukrainians to essentially have the fight on their own. You're not going to have a no fly zone. You're not going to have NATO come in and, you know, get into direct combat with the Russians, but allowing the Ukrainians who have shown incredible fight so far to, you know, state some of this fight on their own, have some of the worst -- the fighter jets come in from Poland that the United States seems very willing to backfill some of those orders.

[12:40:11]

We heard Secretary of State Blinken on all the Sunday shows yesterday essentially saying if Poland or other NATO countries provide some of these jets over to the Ukrainians that the U.S. would send the jets over to those other NATO countries. So it could be one way to provide additional firepower to the Ukrainians, especially since we've seen the Russians really struggle to meet up with their timeline. They essentially want it to be done with this war by now. And it seems like it's going to be a much longer fight.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But is it viable and is it going to imperil Poland? This is really what Poland wants. And does it create more kindling for the spark that everybody is hoping to avoid in terms of bringing NATO countries into it?

So for every action, including this, there is maybe not an equal and opposite reaction, but there is an implication for every action. And so you see this problem, as you're trying to figure out, how do you empower Ukraine? How do you deal with an oil embargo? How do you deal with all of these things that there's a political imperative and a humanitarian imperative to do something now, but there are long term consequences for all of these steps?

KING: Right. If you look at the statement out of the Polish government, they're essentially saying there's no such plan, except unless NATO as an alliance, said, it must be the plan. In other words, we're not doing this on our own. We're not doing this on our own. And that's critical to keep the alliance together, which is one of the reasons President Biden is pushed back against those who have said, why not more aggressive sanctions, why not instantly go essentially, you know, at the top level, go all the way out.

He said, I have to keep 30 nations involved. I'm trying to get other nations around the world, in addition to the NATO alliance. Just got off a phone call, well ran a little longer than an hour with the Prime Minister of the U.K., the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, one of the issues there is I'll come to the U.S. calculation in a minute. One of the ideas is to further punish Putin just put a ban, an outright embargo on buying Russian oil. That's a hard one for the Germans.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And this is something that the Biden ministration is now actively exploring. They had been reluctant to go so far as issuing a ban on Russian oil imports. And it's something that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they want to do in coordination with their European partners, because they think it's much more effective if this if this is done across the board, rather than the U.S. taking this step unilaterally.

Now, this has been something that Germans, as you put have also been reluctant to do. But frankly, for the Biden ministration, there's been concern about rising gas prices. They've obviously already increased alongside inflation here at home. So what would also be the impact on American consumers if they were to issue some kind of embargo on Russian oil, but they faced growing pressure from bipartisan members of Congress to take this particular step.

And so in doing so, they're also looking for ways if they go that far, to temper oil prices here at home, which includes now meeting with officials in Venezuela in discussing perhaps easing oil sanctions on the Venezuelans to pour more oil back into the global market, perhaps even a meeting with the Saudis. We know that those relationships significantly frayed over human rights concerns in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

So it's something that Biden ministration is moving toward, and based on my conversations with administration officials, it seems like it's going to be inevitable, but again, a step that they want to take with other NATO partners.

KING: And that, the part you just mentioned, the complicated pieces of the puzzle of bad actors, just -- let's call them the partner being polite, the puzzle of bad actors in the sense that because you need to rally the world against Putin, and the impact of that on oil markets could impact everybody turns to higher prices, gas supplies, disrupt economies, the Biden administration being more friendly to Venezuela and opening the door to conversations with the Saudis after when President Biden came to office, he was trying to draw a much tougher line because of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

TALEV: This is big time politics, and everything is relative, and we're seeing all of that. And when you look at the world, there's not a lot of good actors, right? I mean, when you're dealing with energy, which is what all of this is, ultimately comes down to two levers energy that's impacting the economy and the threat of nuclear weapons and what it would mean for the U.S. and any country in the world to imperil itself against a country that also has nuclear weapons.

But I think what we're seeing here, look, Biden has domestic pressures as well. He's got Democrats as well as Republicans pushing for the oil embargo. He's got Republicans saying, if you don't do it, we're going to beat you over the head. And if you do, do it and prices go up, we're also going to be over the head because you haven't expanded domestic drilling. Mike Pence pouring money into a campaign to attack Democratic incumbents we're reporting today over the prospect of higher oil prices. This is tricky stuff. Biden is going to be pressed to make a decision soon that's going to have major political implications at the moment.

KING: And to the point about tricky stuff. Last week, the administration was saying, A, we don't do anything unilaterally. B, we don't want to do anything that would disrupt global energy supplies. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, in her letter to Democratic colleagues called for the Russian oil embargo. Speaker Pelosi is not going to do that without making a phone call to the White House first. She believes that, you know, maybe they're pushing the train out of the station, but that trains about to leave the station.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes. And it doesn't make it -- makes things easier for the White House to have both, you know, top Democrats both in the Senate and the House pushing for this as well as some Republicans pushing for this even though as Margaret said Republicans are going to attack the White House over these price increases that we're seeing at the gas pump. And that is something they have to be incredibly, very aware of, because people are going to be going on their summer vacations in a matter of months. And if the gas prices are $5 a gallon, it's going to be very difficult.

[12:45:23]

SIDDIQUI: -- President Zelenskyy has been very clear that more action needs to be taken. And of course, you've seen this reluctance on the part of the U.S. and NATO allies to directly get involved in some sort of conflict with Russia. So it's more about what else can the administration do to provide both military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine at this time. Also, the question of whether or not the U.S. will label Putin's actions at war crime, that's something now that the administration has a process for evaluating, so those are some of the key actions we're looking at this week.

KING: It's a Monday in a critical week ahead, obviously, as they start to put all these pieces together. Everybody stay put, appreciate the time here.

Humanitarian crisis in real time, more than a half million, look at these faces, more than a half million refugees, million and a half, excuse me, fleeing Ukraine, as Russian troops advance. We'll be live on the ground and one of the locations where those refugees are crossing out, next.

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[12:50:50]

KING: You see the map here, the refugee flight from Ukraine, the western city of Lviv, that's right about here. Well, the mayor there now says it has reached its capacity to deal with refugees with 200,000 people in shelters. And in Romania, at least 267,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed into that country since the Russian invasion began, that's according to Romania state secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Romania estimates 30,000 new refugees enter that country now every day and it says that number will grow quote, substantially. CNN's Miguel Marquez right there in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. Miguel, tell us what you're seeing.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is exactly the problem. They expect those numbers to grow and they are trying to prepare for it. At this station, the central station here in Bucharest, refugees from across the border, about 12 different border crossings come in here. And then they move across here into other areas of Europe. I want to show you sort of how this is working here. They have ambulances here. They have everything that they need for refugees.

They've set up several temporary refugee centers. So when they arrive here, this fast food restaurant has now turned into one, it is jam packed right now. There are two other areas in this train station. All these people with the reflective vests are basically helping Ukrainians as they arrive here. The Romanian government is giving them free transit, free train fare to the border with other countries so they can keep moving on. But it's extremely difficult. It takes days sometimes. The man heading up the entire efforts to get refugees in and out of Romania says this situation was unimaginable just a couple of weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RAED ARAFAT, HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS IN ROMANIA: So we see children, a lot of children. We see children coming only with their mothers because their fathers are staying there to fight. And this is a real humanitarian crisis. No one in Europe expected to see this happening again after what happened in World War II.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now what we are seeing now though, is a situation where the people who came first they had more money, they had resources. The people they are seeing now because the need is so great in Ukraine. A lot of this people have the clothes on their back. They have no money. They don't even have documentation that is making things more difficult for the Romanians as well. They're setting up a green line now from the Moldovan vote border all the way into Romania so that people can get to Romania and then move out to either Poland or Hungary or Germany, other places across Europe and around the world. John? KING: Miguel Marquez live for us in Bucharest, the World War II reference, they're quite chilling. Miguel, thank you for that breathtaking important reporting.

[12:53:37]

Up next for us, there are some other big news headlines today including in a brand new interview, the former Attorney General Bill Barr has he's willing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Some new reporting just in from the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense ordering an additional 500 U.S. troops to support NATO allies around Ukraine. Those troops, the deployment will include a KC-135 refueling aircraft. It will go to Greece. Additional troops will go to Poland, Romania, and to Germany.

Another news today, this is a big new headline, the Supreme Court rejecting a bid to review the decision that freed Bill Cosby from prison. The court said it will not revisit the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court opinion which overturned Cosby sexual assault conviction last June. Cosby was in prison after being convicted of drugging and sexually abusing Andrea Constand. He was let go on grounds his due process rights had been violated.

Here in Washington, D.C. more demonstrations expected on the Capitol beltway today, that after a convoy of cars and 18 wheelers did lapse in protest of coronavirus mandates and restrictions. On Sundays, the caravan of up to 1,000 vehicles, it caused quite a traffic backup on a 64-mile loop around the nation's Capitol. It is unclear how long these protests will last. The D.C. officials are preparing for several days of disruptions. The convoy of course inspired by the Canadian trucker protest, which began in late January and went on for weeks.

The former Attorney General Bill Barr says Donald Trump was responsible at least in part for the January 6th attack on the Capitol. But he stopped short of saying you could make a legal case that Trump should actually face criminal charges for it. Barr sat down with NBC for an interview ahead of the release of his tell all book on the Trump administration. When asked about the January 6th Committee investigation, Barr said he is willing to cooperate with the panel if asked to testify. Trump responded to Barr's interview with NBC by calling him quote, a coward and quote, a big disappointment.

This programming note before we go, there was no one, no one like Anthony Bourdain. This is the story you haven't heard from people who knew him the best, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain premiers Sunday night 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

[13:00:07]

Thanks for joining us in Inside Politics today. Don't forget you can also listen to our podcast. Download Inside Politics wherever you get your podcasts. Hope to see you back here this time tomorrow. Ana Cabrera, Anderson Cooper pick up our coverage right now.