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Biden Campaigns in Battleground States; Talks Between Israel and Hamas Continue; Interview With Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); Congress Holds Hearing on Afghanistan Withdrawal; Peter Navarro Heads to Jail. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 19, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:01:03]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening this hour, former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro will turn himself in to federal prison for contempt of Congress and make history in the process.

Up on Capitol Hill, the top military leaders who oversaw the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 will testify about the chaotic and deadly exit. I will speak to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Mike McCaul.

And we're following reaction to Trump's claim that any Jewish person here in the United States who votes for Democrats -- quote -- "hates their religion and everything about Israel."

Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington, and you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin in Miami. Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is set to make history when he reports to federal prison in Miami in just a matter of minutes. The 74-year-old will be serving time for refusing to turn over documents or testify before the January 6 Select Committee investigators.

He will become the first former White House official to ever be jailed for contempt of Congress.

CNN's Randi Kaye is on the scene for us in Miami.

Randi, I understand Navarro will be speaking to reporters any minute as he gets ready to walk into that prison. Any idea what he will say?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

We are here in a parking lot just down the road from the prison, folks here behind me, of course, setting up for this news conference. We expect that he will express some anger about how all of this went down and some frustration, for sure.

As you know, he had asked the Supreme Court to intervene. He wanted to remain free while he challenged his conviction, and they rejected that request. But we can tell you a little bit from his prison consultant, who has been speaking with CNN. Yes, he does have a prison consultant who has been helping him sort of transition to what life will be like on the inside.

And we can tell you from that prison consultant, Sam Mangel, he has told CNN that Navarro will spend about four months likely in an air- conditioned unit for elderly male inmates. He's 74 years old. There will be bunk beds. There will be about 80 men in that dormitory.

He will have to take classes. He will have to get a job inside that prison. The consultant said he's been urging him to work as a library clerk, so he can avoid the warmer temperatures, Wolf, on the outside here in Florida.

And on the inside, he will be able to use e-mail. He will be able to make phone calls. He will be able to watch television. We understand there are about 12 television sets in that area of the prison where he will be. And some of them are in Spanish and some of them are in English.

And the consultant also told CNN that he actually has two other clients. One is a doctor. One is engaged in politics. And they are both going to help Peter Navarro acclimate, if you will, to prison life.

But just a little bit about him, we know that he was convicted in September for not complying with this subpoena to share documents and testify before the House select committee which was looking into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He did file that emergency request, as I mentioned, with the U.S. Supreme Court, which was rejected.

And he now is about to become the first former White House official to actually go behind bars to serve time in prison for contempt of Congress. We know that he was sentenced to four months, Wolf, but his prison consultant tells CNN that it's likely he will only serve about 90 days of that time, depending on how things go, because there are laws in place that allow for early release of federal inmates, Wolf.

BLITZER: And the lesson learned is, if you get a legal subpoena from Congress to testify and provide documents, you should comply with that subpoena, otherwise potentially face, as he's about to face, four months in prison.

Randi Kaye in Miami, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, here in Washington, we're just a couple of hours away from a very high-stakes hearing on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee are looking for answers about the Biden administration's rather chaotic exit from that country back in 2021.

[11:05:01]

Two of the top military officials who oversaw the withdrawal from Afghanistan are expected to testify, the former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley and the former head of the U.S. military's Central Command General McKenzie.

CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand is joining us right now from the Pentagon.

Natasha, what are we expecting at this important hearing?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Wolf, this is the first time that these two retired generals will be testifying publicly on Capitol Hill since they left their posts.

And I think one of the really big questions going into this hearing is whether they are going to go further than they had previously in their descriptions of the recommendations they made to the president over the Afghanistan withdrawal and further in their criticisms of how the withdrawal played out, because they are civilians now. They are no longer in government.

So whether that gives them a little bit more freedom to discuss that very chaotic exit from Afghanistan in 2021 really remains to be seen. We know that the State Department in its after-action review of the U.S. withdrawal said that the decision of both President Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security.

The State Department was pretty scathing here in just how this withdrawal played out and the fact that the Biden administration, in making that decision to leave, actually destabilized the Afghan government because it made the Afghan government believe that they were no longer going to have that support from U.S. troops in the country.

So, Mark Milley, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he has said publicly that he believes it was a strategic failure by the United States to essentially allow the Taliban to take over the entire country, to take over Kabul in 2021. He has said that he believes that the evacuation of U.S. personnel of Afghan allies should have been done and begun much sooner.

And General Frank McKenzie, who was the CENTCOM commander at the time, he has said that he recommended to President Biden that roughly 2,500 American service members stay in Afghanistan in order to kind of have that stabilizing presence there.

The Biden administration has said repeatedly, in their defense, that if they had kept the troops there, they would have been attacked by the Taliban because of the decision by the Trump administration to strike this deal with the Taliban to leave by May of 2021.

And so they basically have said their hands were tied. We will see what McKenzie and Milley say today in the hearing, but it should be eye-opening, because, as I said, they do have a little bit more freedom now that they are not in government, Wolf.

BLITZER: Very important point,

Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon, thank you very much for that update.

Joining us now, the Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCaul. He is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that will hold this hearing later today.

Chairman, thank you so much for joining us.

Specifically, what answers are you looking for from General Milley and General McKenzie today?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): Why did this go so wrong? I think they're going to set the record straight.

They're free to tell their story now. They're not -- no longer within the Department of Defense. These are the two top generals who oversaw the evacuation. They will say there was no plan for evacuation. And if you don't have a plan, you plan to fail.

That's exactly what happened in Afghanistan. I think all roads lead to the State Department and the White House, and I think that's what you're going to hear from these two commanding officers today.

BLITZER: You mean you think they're going to blame the State Department and the White House for the failures of the U.S. withdrawal? Is that what you're saying?

MCCAUL: Absolutely.

I think what they're going to say is that there was no evacuation plan. Now, the State Department, by law, has to request the evacuation plan. They didn't do that until Kabul was actually falling and the embassy was being evacuated.

That led to the chaos, the drama. It also led to the Abbey Gate bombing, the suicide bomber that killed 13 service members. Many of the families, by the way, Wolf, will be present at this hearing today. And I can tell you they are not happy with this president. They don't think he's ever publicly apologized to them or even stated the names of their deceased, the fallen, their children who were killed that fateful day.

BLITZER: I know you previously threatened, Chairman McCaul, to hold the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in contempt of Congress over documents related to the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan he has since agreed to send you.

Did your office receive all of them and how will they figure into your investigation?

MCCAUL: We did. And this was the second time I had to go down this road. I told the secretary it's not a conversation I want to be having, but you're not complying with congressional subpoenas, as required by law.

So, the first one was the dissent cable. Imagine the embassy in Kabul as it's getting ready to fall and the Taliban's moving in. We had 23 employees, an extraordinary number, crying for help, essentially: We need to get out of here. It's going to get overrun by the Taliban. We need to remove employees and the documents and destroy classified documents, which, by the way, were not all destroyed. [11:10:17]

And then, secondly, the notes to the after-action reports were not produced. And a second time going through contempt proceedings, we got those documents. I have to say, Wolf, we're sorting through the classified and unclassified. But needless to say it's very revealing about what was happening on the ground at the time, a very consistent narrative of chaos, no plan, no direction from the White House, then leading to the Abbey Gate suicide bombing.

BLITZER: Are you prepared, Chairman, to hold any former or even current Biden administration officials accountable over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan?

And what would that look like if the answer is yes?

MCCAUL: Well, I think somebody needs to be held accountable. And what form that takes, we will see where the evidence goes in this matter.

I'm a former federal prosecutor. I don't prejudge facts until they come in. But somebody has to be held accountable for this. Somebody has to say, I'm sorry for your child being killed at Abbey Gate. And that really hasn't happened. And so I do think this will lead to accountability. It should.

But the fact of the matter is, the commanding officers on the ground at that time were all promoted. There was no accountability within the DOD. In fact, also, Wolf, after the sniper testified that he had the suicide bomber in his sights and requested permission to engage him, he got no response from his commanding officer.

That is a case where there's no accountability present. The DOD has yet to produce any of the documents that the chairman of Armed Services and myself have requested, including the sniper photos, which would confirm if this was indeed the suicide bomber.

We also need to hear from the commanding officers on the ground that made these decisions, or lack thereof, in terms of dealing with ISIS-K and suicide bombers.

BLITZER: This will be a very important hearing, because the U.S. has to learn the lessons. If there were major blunders that developed during the course of that withdrawal, the U.S. has to learn what happened to make sure it never happens again. I speak as a former Pentagon correspondent right now.

While I have you very briefly, Mr. Chairman, let me discuss with you Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. The White House said yesterday that President Biden made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that a ground invasion of Rafah in Southern Gaza would be a mistake and that Israel should pursue more precise strikes on Hamas targets.

Do you agree with that?

MCCAUL: Well, as I said on Sunday, I do believe, as I was briefed on, that, for Israel, the IDF to go after high-value targets in Hamas -- I mean, Hamas high-value targets in Gaza, and that would be close to Rafah, that's where they are right now.

It seems to me you don't have to do that with 100 tanks rolling in. You can do that in a very -- from a special operator standpoint. And I believe and I certainly -- I hope that's what Israel is contemplating, is to target these high-value targets of Hamas in Rafah.

They're not going to stop until Hamas is eradicated, and they will not stop during Ramadan. But there's a difference between 100 tanks rolling in and special operators going in with a specific mission to take out high-value targets.

BLITZER: And, very briefly, before I let you go, Mr. Chairman, I know you have a lot going on, I want to get your reaction to what former President Trump said yesterday, saying that any American Jewish person who actually votes for Democrats, in his word, that person hates their religion and everything about Israel, also hates everything about Israel.

Do you condemn what the former president is saying?

MCCAUL: Well, I think religion is a very personal matter. I think, you ought to leave politics out of it.

But I will say, as I mentioned on Sunday, that even Chuck Schumer now is being impacted by the base of his own party. There's no longer this traditional alliance with Israel that we have seen in a bipartisan fashion ever in my terms in Congress over 20 years. Now you're seeing a faction within the Democratic Party that's more pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel.

And I think that's a problem for the Democratic Party as they deal with their base.

BLITZER: But you're not prepared to condemn what Trump is saying about American Jews who are Democrats?

[11:15:00]

MCCAUL: I can't comment on every Trump comment every time I go on CNN. I'd be talking until midnight tonight.

So, Wolf, suffice it to say, it's a very personal matter, religion, and wouldn't be my words. But, having said that, I understand the sentiment that the Democratic Party is not representing their values.

BLITZER: Congressman Mike McCaul, thanks so much for joining us.

MCCAUL: Thanks, Wolf. Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: And we will have much more coming up on the war in Gaza.

We're learning that the latest round of talks has ended in Doha, Qatar. Israel's head of security services, the Mossad, David Barnea, has just left after meeting with officials from Egypt and Qatar. Those countries have been the main go-between with Hamas. Israel's Foreign Ministry now says a counterproposal is expected to be sent to Hamas, but no timeline was given.

Barak Ravid is joining us right now. He's a CNN political and global affairs analyst and a politics and foreign policy reporter for Axios.

Barak, thanks very much for joining us. I know you're doing excellent reporting on all of this.

Was any meaningful progress made in these latest round of talks in Doha? What are your sources telling you?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hi, Wolf.

So, first, as you said, the Mossad director landed back in Israel earlier today, but quite a big Israeli negotiation team stayed in Doha to continue those talks. And those talks are taking place in this secluded compound in Doha, where Qatari and Egyptian mediators are just sort of like shuttling between two rooms, in one room, the Israeli team, in another room, Hamas officials, and trying to hash out an agreement.

And what's interesting here and the reason it matters is that, after something like between two to three months of talking about -- I mean, negotiating about how we are going to negotiate, now there's actual negotiations of the details of the deal.

And this is going to take something like two weeks. And I think that, in two weeks, we will know whether we have a new hostage deal with the cease-fire or not.

BLITZER: Barak, I want you to stand by. We have more to discuss.

But there's some breaking news coming out of Miami right now. The former Trump White House aide, Peter Navarro, is getting ready to walk into a federal prison in Miami. I want to listen and hear what he just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, FORMER DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF TRADE AND MANUFACTURING POLICY: When I walk in that prison today, the justice system, such as it is, will have done a crippling blow for the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege.

The second and related story has to do with the emergence of lawfare and the partisan weaponization of our justice system, which we have seen come to this country with a vengeance since the coming of Donald John Trump as president. And that keeps getting worse.

So let me walk you through those two stories. And, again, I'm hoping, as journalists, you will do some background, some research. I'm asking you to fact-check everything I say today and write the bigger stories here, which I think are the important ones. So let's talk about some facts here. I am the first senior White House

adviser in the history of our republic that has ever been charged with this alleged crime. And I say alleged because, for hundreds of years, this has not been a crime. And, for 50 years, the Department of Justice has maintained the principle of absolute testimonial immunity.

And it was only with my case that somehow that has changed. And here's where the homework is, because the big constitutional separation of powers are these. Can Congress compel a senior White House adviser, what they call the alter ego of a president, to testify before Congress?

And executive privilege goes back to George Washington and his remarks to the Congress regarding the Jay Treaty. And he said very simply and clearly, succinctly, elegantly, that -- to write to the Congress, he said, I cannot command you as members of Congress to come to me. You cannot command me to come to you. And the reason is the constitutional separation of powers.

[11:20:02]

And as the legal doctrines have evolved, and the Supreme Court has been very adamant about the sanctity of executive privilege, that privilege has extended to what's called alter egos of the president, which is what I am, as one of his highest advisers.

And the principle here related to effective presidential decision- making is simply that, if a president does not have the ability between and among his advisers to get...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, we're just going to continue to listen a little bit longer to Peter Navarro, who is walking into a federal prison.

Katelyn Polantz is with me here.

You have been doing a lot of reporting on this story.

He received a legal subpoena from the United States Congress, from the Select Committee, to testify, to hand over documents. He refused to comply. It went through all the courts, including the Supreme Court, who has just the other day refused his appeal to avoid going to jail.

Yet he's continuing to insist that what he did was legal.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right, Wolf.

I mean, he is saying one thing there that is very much true, that this doesn't happen, that he is the first...

BLITZER: It's the first time this has happened, but...

POLANTZ: Right, a senior White House official.

What happened in his case, though, is different than even Steve Bannon, who was charged and convicted with a very similar crime for not responding to a House January 6 investigation subpoena. The difference is that the courts found that Peter Navarro, as much as he talks about how he was a White House official, he forfeited any ability to say he had executive privilege in the court system once he received this charge.

And he still had to appear before Congress and turn over documents. And he did not. Now, there was a period of time long ago when Congress did lock people up on their own whenever officials didn't respond to their subpoenas. We aren't in that era anymore. And it is very difficult for the Justice Department to decide they want to bring a case like this and take it through the courts.

But what happened here is, he just didn't have this executive privilege bubble as protection. And the court system said, this is a prosecution that the Justice Department can bring. At the end of the day, it's good for Congress that they can have enforcement like this. Peter Navarro says it's very bad for the executive branch.

But this is just evidence of the consequence of what happens when you just don't show up for Congress.

BLITZER: And the courts rejected all of his appeals over these many, many months. And now that's why he's going to go be spending at least four months in jail right now.

All right, Katelyn Polantz, thanks very much.

We have a lot more news coming up. We will take a quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:22]

BLITZER: Right now, primary voting is under way in five states.

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have secured their parties' respective presidential nominations, but tonight's results could portend major implications for November, testing the power of Trump's endorsement in a key Senate primary race and President Biden's standing with Democrats.

Out there on the campaign trail right now, President Biden is kicking off a multiday swing of battleground states out in the West, stumping in Nevada and Arizona later today to discuss various kitchen table issues. Trump, meantime, is focusing in on his own legal problems, and they are enormous. He's complaining that he will have to -- quote -- "mortgage or sell great assets" to cover the massive judgment in his New York civil fraud case.

CNN chief -- CNN White House correspondent, I should say, Priscilla Alvarez is joining us right now.

Priscilla, you have just been promoted to correspondent. You're not the chief correspondent, but you are a correspondent in the White House.

A very big day for President Biden right now. Tell us what's going on.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

It's especially a big day for targeting Latinos, who make up a sizable portion of voters in Arizona and Nevada, and at a very crucial time, where polls have shown that there is waning support among Latinos, many of whom are also leaning toward voting for former President Donald Trump.

So, the president going to be speaking directly to them and launching an initiative focused on Latinos, all of this after his campaign this morning released a new bilingual ad that also touches on some of those key issues that the president is going to be weighing in on during this trip.

That includes, for example, lowering health care costs, lowering housing costs or improving housing costs and creating clean energy and manufacturing jobs. But, also, he's expected to touch on some of those defining themes of his campaign. That's abortion, which could be on the ballot in Nevada and Arizona this year, and protecting democracy, so all of that being tied into these stops, which are important.

Of course, the president won Nevada and Arizona in 2020, but this is going to be a close race, with some polls showing that Trump is ahead, so President Biden with a busy day today, going to Reno and Las Vegas and Phoenix, and then tomorrow heading to Texas.

BLITZER: Priscilla Alvarez, congratulations on your promotion once again. Thank you very much for that update.

Also right now, voters in Ohio are headed to the polls for a very high-stakes Republican Senate primary. The three-way race is a critical test of the power of Trump's endorsement. The winner will face off against Democratic incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown in a race that potentially could shape the balance of power here in Washington.

CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, is joining us now from a polling place in Ohio's capital city of Columbus.

What are you hearing over there, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, of course, this is going.