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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Interview With Thomas Friedman; Middle East Mission; Gun Violence; Americans Return to Restaurants, Stadiums & Schools As Vaccinations Climb and Cases, Deaths Decline; CNN: Wuhan Lab Illnesses Raise New Questions About COVID Origins; Georgia Judge Allows Another Ballot Review in Fulton County; 21 Runners Die in Severe Weather During Ultra Marathon in China. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired May 24, 2021 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: I bet that they're going to miss some of that.
[16:00:01]
ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Yeah. It's like, you know, it's the real thing. It's not so bad.
CAMEROTA: Yeah, it sounds better. OK, so you and I will go together. That will be great.
HILL: Done.
CAMEROTA: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: As the U.S. returns to normal, attention now turns and more earnest to the origins of the pandemic.
THE LEAD starts right now.
A new report points to stronger evidence that COVID may have started in a Wuhan lab as details of sick lab workers as far back as November 2019 are discussed.
Weekend of violence on the streets of America. A dozen mass shootings in eight states. A 5-year-old among the wounded, and it could be just the beginning of a tragic and deadly summer.
Plus, a deadly race. Twenty-one runners dying at a high elevation when hail, high winds and freezing temperatures swoop in. How an ultra- marathon turned into an extreme test of survival.
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. And we start today with our health lead and a return to pre-pandemic life for many Americans -- crowded restaurants, live music, fans in the stands.
America largely appearing open for business in many places as COVID cases, deaths and hospitalizations are at their lowest point in months and continuing to trend down, and a key milestone for vaccinations. Twenty-five states and Washington, D.C. have now fully vaccinated at least half of their adult populations, and nine states have more than 70 percent of their adult populations at least partially vaccinated.
This good news comes as new scrutiny begins about the or since of the deadly coronavirus. CNN has learned that a U.S. intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan lab were hospitalized in November 2019.
The Chinese forth had claimed to the World Health Organization that the first patient with COVID-like symptoms was discovered in December.
But let's begin now with CNN's Alexandra Field and those declining case numbers in the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the feeling sweeping across the country.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: It's time for everyone to come back. It's time for us all to be together.
FIELD: New Year city's public schools will fully reopen for in-person learning by the fall. Some of the latest in an onslaught of declarations of incredible progress if not quite victory in the fight against COVID-19, as so many Americans feel safe enough to celebrate. Thousands in a maskless crowd swarming the greens at the PGA championship over the weekend. The New York Knicks selling out Madison Square Garden to mostly vaccinated fans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back in front.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a game!
FIELD: New COVID cases across the country falling now to a stunning low. The average daily number down 87 percent since the start of the year with average deaths dropping about 80 percent in the same time.
But Americans are still being urged to assess their own risk level and take precautions where necessary, even as hospitalizations also fall.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: It shows really a rapidly declining overall vulnerability of the U.S. population. Bottom line is that that the people who are getting infected now tend to be people who are younger, less vulnerable to the infection, because a lot of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated.
FIELD: Half of all states report they have fully vaccinated half of their adult population with the Northeast states leading the way and Southeast states lagging behind.
The state of Maine recording the most success, almost 63 percent of adults there are fully vaccinated. And nine states have already reached a goal set by President Joe Biden, to get 70 percent of all adults at least one shot of the vaccine by July 4th.
GOVERNOR JIM JUSTINE (R), WEST VIRGINIA: Every single one of our young people, we're going to give a $100 savings bond.
FIELD: West Virginia is trying to entice more young people to get their shots, with $100 gift cards or savings bonds for those between the ages of 16 and 35.
New York is targeting travelers opening vaccination sites at New York City airports.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's give you a CDC card.
FIELD: Just as more people prepare to spend much less time at home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FIELD (on camera): And, Jake, as we see so much progress towards vaccination and so much progress toward lowering infection, where states are, of course, easing up. On Friday, New Jersey will drop most of its masking and social distancing requirements. That will apply to all people regardless of vaccination status. However, officials in New Jersey are still strongly urging people who are not vaccinated to either wear a mask indoors or just go get that shot -- Jake.
[16:05:03]
TAPPER: All right. Alex Field, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Let's talk to Natasha Bertrand now. She's been following the U.S. intelligence report on China's Wuhan researchers.
And, Natasha, what is the U.S. saying about this U.S. intelligence report that we've learned about?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN REPORTER: They are actually saying it's too early to draw any conclusions about the origins of the pandemic, that there needs to be more weight kind of thrown behind the World Health Organization investigation into how this pandemic actually started, how it spread and where it began.
Right now, the U.S. intelligence community knows that the pandemic did emerge from China, but that's pretty much all they know at this point and the administration is saying that they are throwing all of their diplomatic weight behind this WHO probe and Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, actually did address this today at the press briefing.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: An international investigation led by the World Health Organization is something that we've been pressing for for several months in coordination with a range of partners around the world. We need that data. We need that information from the Chinese government.
What we can't do and what I would caution anyone doing is leaping ahead of an actual international process. We don't have enough data and information to jump to a conclusion at this time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERTRAND: So, again. It's too early to say according to the Biden administration whether there's anything conclusive that they can reveal about the origins of this pandemic which has gone between the idea that it was a lab leak, that these researchers who got sick were essentially researching this coronavirus and then spread it and got sick themselves or whether it spread naturally, for example, in a wet market.
TAPPER: And how is the Chinese government responding to this?
BERTRAND: They are calling it completely untrue. They said that the United States is just trying to spread this lab leak theory and hype it. But, of course, the WHO investigation that was preliminarily conducted was deemed inclusive by a lot of people because it relied so heavily on what the Chinese were telling the researchers and they weren't providing access to all of the raw data that the investigators actually needed. So, it remains to be seen whether a fuller investigation is going to reveal more about this.
TAPPER: And you can tell the Biden people are treating it full delicately because they want full cooperation from the Chinese. They don't want to have them close up.
All right. Thank you so much, Natasha Bertrand.
Let's bring in Dr. Peter Hotez. He's a dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College.
Dr. Hotez, let's start with this U.S. intelligence report. If researchers in the Wuhan lab were hospitalized as early as November 2019, a month before the Chinese government claimed the first person with COVID-like symptoms showed up, what might that tell you?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVLEOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Well, we don't know it. I mean, it could be from COVID-19 or possibly another coronavirus since they were working on other coronaviruses at the institute. I mean, we're not going to get to the bottom of this, Jake, as Jen Psaki said until we have an international team of scientists and what this has to be done it will require six months of outbreak investigation.
There's a method to this where we're taking blood samples from laboratory animal reservoirs, from individuals across Hubei province because there's some indication it might not have started in Wuhan but other parts of Hubei, the province where Wuhan is the largest city in.
We need to interview the scientists. We need to go through their records, the logs of the virus. Until we can do all that have in a transparent way, I don't think we're really ever going to get a full answer as to what happened and, you know, I think that the evidence that this was a natural, has national origins is still pretty strong. We know SARS came out of China in 2002 and 2003. That's another coronavirus pandemic, but that's got to be the emphasis. We've got to be able to have an international team in there.
TAPPER: Right. I'm personally skeptical that the Chinese government is ever going to be transparent about this, aren't you?
HOTEZ: Yeah. I mean, so far by their behavior and actions they have not been, and, of course, dismantling that whole wet market ahead of all of this, it's really frustrating, but I still think there's enough evidence that could be collected to really get to the bottom of it, and I think it's still possible that this is natural origins, and it's not even in the Chinese interest to cover this up at this point. They need to understand it themselves.
TAPPER: Your mentor --
HOTEZ: This is now -- this is our second coronavirus disaster coming out of China.
TAPPER: Your mentor Dr. Fauci admitted earlier this month that he's not certain that the pandemic started naturally saying, quote, I'm not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best our ability what happened, unquote.
Other than the Chinese government not wanting to be embarrassed about how they handled all of this, whether or not it occurred naturally, why do you think it's such a mystery?
[16:15:10]
HOTEZ: Well, it shouldn't have to be a mystery because, you know, we do have -- we have -- the signs of epidemiology is incredibly complex and sophisticated and it has the ability to identify the origins of COVID-19 and that has to be the real emphasis and so this insistence on lack of transparency or covering it up is going to help nobody. We've got to understand that because otherwise this is going to happen again.
Jake, this is our third major coronavirus pandemic --
TAPPER: Yeah.
HOTEZ: -- in the last -- in the 21st century. Yeah and we're going to have COVID 26 or 32 unless we start understanding this better.
TAPPER: On a brighter note, Dr. Hotez, new cases are down 56 percent in the last month, that's the lowest level since last June. Hospitalizations are also down nearly 30 percent over the last month. Is it the safe to say -- I know it's not over, but we're on the other
side of this?
HOTEZ: Well, I think we have to be careful because for a couple of reasons. Remember, this time last year, we were also at the nadir, the lowest point of our epidemic and then we had that horrible surge across the southern states in the summer. And I'm worried that could still happen again. In the report it was said that the vaccination rates in the South are lagging. They are not just lagging. They are about half the rates in the Northeast. The South is still incredibly vulnerable, and I'm quite worried about a surge happening and until we can work out ways in order to get states like Alabama and Tennessee and Georgia vaccinated to the same levels in the Northeast as well as Wyoming and Idaho. We still have a lot of vulnerability.
And we just got some bad news out of Houston this week. So the group at Houston Methodist Hospital which has been sequences all the virus isolates from Houston has now found that the B117 variant which has accelerated across the country, a significant number of those B117 variant isolates now have the second mutation in the 484 position that can be resistant to vaccines, just like the South African strain, the B1351 and the P1 from Brazil.
TAPPER: Uh-huh.
HOTEZ: So we've got to be more aggressive in figuring out how to vaccinate the South.
TAPPER: All right. Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you so much.
Twelve mass shootings across America over weekend, part of a shocking surge in violent crimes with heads in the sand in Washington, D.C. What might the summer months look like?
And President Biden possibly presented, possibly with a history-making opportunity he in all probability did not want. The question is, will he take it?
Stay with us.
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[16:16:53]
TAPPER: In our politics lead, today, Trump's big lie about the election lives on, this time in Georgia's most populous county where yet another ballot audit is set to begin. A judge ruled that absentee ballots can be unsealed in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta after a handful of groups filed a lawsuit asking to examine to see if any of the ballots were counterfeit. The votes have already been counted three times in Fulton County, with Republican and Democratic state officials agreeing there was no evidence at all of widespread fraud.
CNN's Dianne Gallagher joins us live.
Dianne, walk us through how this audit is going to work.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, there's still details we don't have because the plaintiffs in this case have until the 28th of May to submit their proposal to the judge about exactly the way that they want to go about this audit. Now the judge has said already there are certain stipulations that he plans to enact like making sure that the ballots remain in the custody of Fulton County, but there is a likelihood that we're going to see them examining and scanning the ballots although the plaintiffs and whomever they choose to bring in to assist with this audit are not going to be able to handle the actual absentee ballots themselves.
We're talking around about 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County, and as you mentioned, there's already been audits there. Gabriel Sterling, an official with the secretary of state's office and a Republican, noted that they actually spent thousands of hours investigating the exact claims that are contained in this lawsuit.
A Democrat who is part of the Fulton County Commission told me that this is simply just another way to perpetuate the big lie and also pointed to the fact that the big lie is already being seen in the state of Georgia in having a hand, they say, in enacting that law, SB- 202 which in some cases restrict the right to vote for some Georgians, Jake.
TAPPER: And, Dianne, we should note that this audit in Georgia is not the same as that deranged one we're seeing happening in Arizona where they are looking for bamboo threads in the ballots because of insanity having to do with conspiracy theories of Chinese ballots or whatever. Explain how this one is different.
GALLAGHER: Yeah. So -- that is actually what some election workers and experts are afraid of that, this audit, so-called audit in Arizona, is going to give the word audit a bad name in general. What's happening in Georgia or what we expect to happen in Fulton County is the fact that they are still going to have custody of those ballots.
That's a big difference because in Maricopa County, you remember, there's a lot of drama the way they have turned those ballots over, so much so that the secretary of state says, that look, the machines may not be able to be used afterwards because they might be compromised on top of the fact that the Republican state senators who are running this audit chose somebody to do the audit who doesn't have any audit experience and the CEO of the company Cyber Ninja continue to perpetuate -- well, conspiracy theories about the big lie this.
[16:20:07]
And so, this appears to be at least a little more of a traditional audit albeit the fact that, again, Jake, this will be the fourth one. So a lot of officials have said, who were working in this, that, you know, one time, three times, number four, when is the end of 2020 and six months out, who knows?
TAPPER: Yeah, that's a good question. Dianne Gallagher, thanks so much. Appreciate it. It's a disturbing trend. The summer months often lead to an increase
in deadly violence. Is that the new status quo or might there be some solution within reach?
Stay with us.
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[16:25:21]
TAPPER: In our national lead, an alarming spike in violence across the United States this weekend. Twelve mass shootings across eight different states. One of the youngest victims a 5-year-old boy in Texas, he was injured outside a sports complex in San Angelo, just west of Waco.
CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people killed or injured excluding the shooter.
And the shootings this weekend added to an increase in violent crime now going up even more, as CNN's Adrianne Broaddus reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across America, families are preparing to bury loved ones after a weekend scarred by gun violence. Since Friday at least 48 shootings in Chicago, ten deadly. A bullet ended the life of a 14-year-old girl who attended a concert in North Charleston, South Carolina, Saturday.
DAVID BROWN, CHICAGO POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: This is a sad day that we have to be here today to talk about another death of another young person.
BROADDUS: In Atlanta, three people shot and killed inside this condo.
New Jersey police are investigating a shooting at a house party. Two people were killed and 12 others injured on Saturday.
Three people were killed in Youngstown, Ohio, and at least three others injured after gunfire erupted outside a bar.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would say certainly there is a guns problem and that's something the president would say and there are communities where local violence and community violence is an issue.
BROADDUS: Over 7,500 people have died from gun violence in the United States this year, including at least 471 teens and 120 children. That's according to the gun violence archive. That's a 23 percent increase from last year.
And on the day he was supposed to graduate with an engineering degree, Charlie Johnson was shot and killed in downtown Minneapolis. His sister accepted his diploma in his place. Johnson was one of two people shot and killed in Minneapolis Saturday, eight others injured. The violence especially painful for families who have lost young
children to gun violence in recent weeks. In Minneapolis, three families united on Sunday pushing for justice.
Six-year-old Aniya Allen didn't get to finish the happy meal she was eating when someone shot her in the head. She died at the hospital.
MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS: Every parent should have the ability to send their kid outside to play without the risk of getting hit by gunfire.
BROADDUS: There's now a $30,000 reward to find the person who killed her. City leaders are also offering cash for other shootings that left two children in critical condition, one shot in the head on a trampoline.
KAY G. WILSON, ANIYA ALLEN'S GRANDFATHER: Not only do we want justice for our babies, we don't want these people out here to shoot somebody else's babies and there will be another press conference because another family will be standing up there with us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROADDUS: And that was the grandfather of the 6-year-old who was shot while eating the happy meal. K.G. Wilson used to live here in Chicago. He left years ago to escape the gun violence here moving to Minneapolis. He's often the first person on the scene of a crime or murder helping those families and providing resources, but he couldn't keep the violence away from his own.
Meanwhile, here in Chicago the superintendent of police said today too many guns are in the wrong hands -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Adrienne Broaddus, thank you so much.
I want to bring two different voices on this. Anthony Barksdale served as acting police commissioner in Baltimore. Also with me in studio, CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson.
Commissioner, let me start with you. It seems to happen every year as we get closer to the summer. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, 7,500 people have been killed already by gun violence just since January of this year. That's up more than 20 percent this time last year. Obviously, the pandemic was going on and it's up more than 40 percent from the same time period in 2019.
What do you make of this surge and what is it about this time of year?
ANTHONY BARKSDALE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Jake, when you have the better weather coming on people want to be interacting and that includes good citizens and unfortunately bad citizens. So that social interaction leads to opportunity for violent criminals, and that is something that we don't want to see happen but, unfortunately, looking at this data, we've got a serious problem on our hands and we've got to deal with it.
TAPPER: And, Nia-Malika, take a listen to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on crime and gun violence in America.
[16:30:06]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I would say, certainly, there is a guns problem, mass shootings that get a lot of attention, that we lower the flags.
There are hundreds, thousands of people who lose their lives. And that's one of the reasons the president will continue to advocate for the Senate passing back -- universal background checks, but also advocate for actions in states where we have seen the greatest level of activism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, she's right.
I mean, one of the things that, if you look at the data, most of the gun violence is not committed by so called assault rifles.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.
TAPPER: It's handguns.
HENDERSON: Yes.
TAPPER: Is there an opportunity for Biden to do something here?
HENDERSON: You know, how many times have we been having this discussion, Jake, about the environment we live in, so much gun violence, and then whether or not there will be any action on the Hill?
The biggest opportunity, I think everyone thought, would be 2013, after the terrible massacre of those kids in Sandy Hook in Connecticut, and nothing happened.
And so I think, in some ways, you find in Joe Biden someone who has looked at the history of what has happened at the congressional level over these -- last year and is really sort of looking at the states. And you do see some movement in states, places like California, places like Washington state, places like Maryland as well.
You have this situation where there is a narrow majority, and not even really a majority, a deadlock, in the Senate. You have a bill that has passed out of the House, but it doesn't look like there's going to be any movement out of the Senate.
Joe Manchin, of course, of the Joe Manchin-Toomey bill in 2013, he has expressed an interest in bringing that up, a much narrower bill that looks at expanded background checks. But, listen, there just doesn't seem to be the environment and the political will, the bipartisan will to get something done on this. TAPPER: And, Commissioner, 63 of 66 police departments reported an increase in violent crimes last year, not just involving guns, but violent crimes, including homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault.
"The New York Times" reports a trend in the same direction this year. What do you think needs to happen to change this trend?
ANTHONY BARKSDALE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think we need to go back, look at history and look at when a city turned things around.
I will start with New York when the NYPD implemented CompStat by the Jack Maple, four simple tenets to turn around violent crime in the city. And the four tenets are accurate, timely intelligence clearly disseminated to all rule. Number two, rapid deployment, get those cops where the crime is occurring. Rule number three, effective tactics, Jake. When they get there, what are they going to do, how are they going to do it?
From uniform to plainclothes, what's going to happen? And rule number four, relentless follow-up and assessment. And you have got to hold the police executives, not just the guys at the bottom, the officers, accountable.
So, if we look in history, we have seen violence in America before. And we have seen how we went about fixing it. And we just need to study and implement what has worked before right now.
TAPPER: Yes.
And I have to say, I mean, there are a lot of Democrats who really didn't like the defund the police language last year and thought it hurt them in the midterm elections, Congressman Jim Clyburn among them. Wait until violent crime starts increasing significantly in cities, and you will have even more people, I think, turning against that kind of language just out of their own fear.
HENDERSON: Right, even though there hasn't been any real movement in actions around defunding the police across the country--
TAPPER: Right. Right, absolutely.
HENDERSON: -- even though there has been this rise in violent crime really going back a couple of years, if you look at it. And you saw a massive increase in 2020. Not clear why that is. Maybe it was because of the upheaval of the pandemic.
But I think you will have people start to turn against this movement, even more so than they have, the defund the police movement. You see, for instance, this battle for the mayoral -- mayor's office in New York really coming down to police, coming down to violent crime, coming down to what these individual candidates, people like Andrew Yang, would actually want to do in the mayor's office, should they get reelected.
But, listen, this is a perennial conversation that Americans have been having for decades. There is -- this is a country that's awash in guns, and that often you see this uptick in crime that we're seeing over the summer.
TAPPER: Yes, which is not even to say that the reallocation of funding wouldn't work.
HENDERSON: Right.
TAPPER: It might.
HENDERSON: Yes.
TAPPER: But people, when they're scared, cling to security issues.
HENDERSON: I think that's right.
TAPPER: Commissioner Barksdale, Nia-Malika Henderson here in studio, thank you to both of you.
Mission to the Middle East. The secretary of state heads to a region that was just on fire a week ago. Can the Biden administration keep that cease-fire from crumbling?
Stay with us.
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[16:39:24]
TAPPER: In our world lead: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his way to Jerusalem right now, charged with President Biden's first big peacemaking project.
It has been three days since Israel and Hamas arrived at a cease-fire, a deal brokered under pressure from the U.S. and others after 11 days of bloodshed, 11 days that killed almost 250 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, and 12 Israelis, according to the Israeli Defense Forces.
CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, is in Jerusalem force.
Nic, give us a sense of the mood on the ground in Israel. Is this cease-fire going to hold, do you think?
[16:40:01]
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think the sense for right now, Jake, is that it's going to hold.
Hamas feels that it's scored some political advantage. It's gained the greatest support within -- among the Palestinian people. That's how it's pitching its success.
the Israeli government feels that it had 11 days to go after Hamas' weapons that have been -- they have been building up over many, many months, indeed, over several years now. So, that's a gain for the government here. Secretary Blinken will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He will meet with the foreign minister here, Gabi Ashkenazi. They're very likely to say to him, whatever you do here, and you're going to talk about rebuilding, and you're going to want to put money back into Gaza, make sure that Hamas doesn't get its hands on it.
And Secretary Blinken's message is going to be, we're not going to do that. We're going to try to put it through the United Nations and through the Palestinian Authority and try to big up, if you will, the influence and importance of the Palestinian Authority.
When Secretary Blinken goes to meet with the Palestinian Authority later in the afternoon, he's likely going to pitch the message to them, you need to think about getting those elections you put on hold, get those held, also just reemphasize the reengagement, since they stopped talking to U.S. diplomats when President Trump announced that Jerusalem was going to be the capital of Israel.
So, there's that. But I think the real big headline here, Jake, just has to be, Secretary Blinken wants to make sure that the cease-fire holds -- and it is -- but is not going to be getting to sort of big- time peace negotiations about a two-state solution, because the political capacity and will on both sides isn't there, Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Nic, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Stay safe.
Joining us now to discuss, Thomas Friedman, "New York Times" foreign affairs columnist and author of "The New York Times" bestseller "From Beirut to Jerusalem." It's a great read, if you have not read it.
Tom, good to see you.
I want to start with your opinion article in "The Times." You say that you think the Israel-Hamas cease-fire could be President Biden's opportunity for a Nobel Peace Prize. You write to Biden -- quote -- "You may be interested in China, but the Middle East is still interested in you. You deftly helped to engineer the cease-fire from the sidelines. Do you want to, do you dare to dive into the middle of this new Kissingerian moment?" -- unquote.
Give us your estimate on whether or not you think Biden will lean into this diplomatic victory and try to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians a priority?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, Jake, I think, picking up where Nic left off, I think their first priority is to try to stabilize the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
And I think they will be working a lot actually with the Egyptians on that to create a framework by which aid can get in there and won't be used to rebuild Hamas' strategic capabilities, their missile capabilities.
Beyond that, this administration really, really, really, really does not want to get embroiled in Middle East peacemaking. And I understand that, because they really don't see in Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority here leaders for a historic decision. And I understand and respect that.
But I do think it is very important to recognize that, like after the '73 war, all three parties have taken a pretty serious blow here. Hamas has taken a serious military blow. Israel got up got a flash of the future, Jake. On one day, you had mob fights between Israeli Arabs and Jews in Israeli towns, you had rioting on the Temple Mount, you had violence in the West Bank, and, of course, you had the conflict with Hamas and rockets from Lebanon.
So, that is not a future Israel would like, a five-front war. So it took a shock there. And the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has also had a shock. Four Arab states have opened relations with Israel, led by the UAE, and ignored them.
So, the raw material is here, but for what? I think it's for this, Jake. I think the most important thing President Biden can do is to simply keep alive the idea of a two-state solution, to make (AUDIO GAP) that they understand that, hey, whether it's the Clinton plan, the Obama plan, or the Trump plan, the United States still believes in a two-state solution.
And as part of that, we are going to reopen our embassy to the Palestinians, either in Jerusalem or Ramallah. It was shut by Trump, because Trump really created a one-state entity.
TAPPER: Right.
FRIEDMAN: He removed all the embassies into one.
And so I think that's the most important thing Biden can do right now. And that would not be a small thing.
TAPPER: And, Tom, in addition to all the military and physical violence going on in Israel, there's also a shifting political reality in the United States among Democrats and Democratic voters.
You say in your op-ed -- quote -- "Democratic lawmakers tell me that they're being savaged on Twitter and Facebook for even remotely suggesting Israel had a right to defend itself against Hamas rockets. A dam has burst" -- unquote.
[16:45:07]
There is increasingly a progress progressive movement to recognize that Palestinians deserve rights as well, and a lot of that has manifested itself in anti-Israel sentiment.
FRIEDMAN: There's no question the combination of Trump and Netanyahu together over the last four years created the impression that Israel could have it all. It could have West Bank settlements, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and through effective police and military action, control the West Bank and keep the situation quiet.
And there's a lot of Israelis who thought that as well. At the same time, Jake, we have to recognize that this conflict didn't just start on TikTok last week. TAPPER: Right.
FRIEDMAN: There have been -- there have been a Clinton peace plan that was rejected by the Palestinians. There was an Olmert one. There was a Barack Obama one.
You know, the Palestinians also have to come to terms and progressives have to come to terms with the fact that, you know, this conflict didn't start last week. And we do everyone a favor when we be the reality principle for both sides, that the Palestinians have got to get their act together and respond to two-state proposals. And at the same time, Israelis have to recognize that the notion that they could have it all, the occupation, peace, a one-state solution, and both Palestinians and the world would accept that is really a fantasy.
And so, you know, winding your way through those two is going to be very difficult. I'm glad, you know, progressives are speaking out on this. We shouldn't want to accept this Netanyahu approach. But at the same time if they want to be credible with Israelis in the center, they have to recognize that this isn't -- the situation isn't all Israel's fault, either. They have to hold both sides accountable.
TAPPER: All right. Thomas Friedman, thank you so much for joining us as always. A pleasure.
An extreme sport turns deadly when the weather takes a wild turn. That's next.
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[16:51:35]
TAPPER: In our sports lead, 21 marathon runners died in China this weekend after encounters severe weather during an ultra marathon. That's a grueling 62-mile run.
CNN's Tom Foreman is also a marathoner. He's written a book on the subject called "My Year of Running Dangerously" and shows us what went wrong during the race.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mountain race of just over 60 miles began by all accounts in cool weather. Then the wind began to howl, knocking runners off their feet, slashing the roads with hail, and knocking temperatures close to freezing.
My hands and feet no longer had feeling so I lowered my head. I thought, I must see my family again.
At the beginning of hypothermia, there was only blurred vision, and I turned more severe when I came unconscious later.
Hundreds of rescuers took to the rugged trail only to find 21 athletes, including some of the best ultra marathoners in the country did not make it, stunning the sports world. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Complete and utter shock.
FOREMAN: Mike Worthy (ph) is one of the most renowned endurance runners on planet and he knows how tough trails can be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can be, like, jagged, horse trails, it can be running down sheer cliffs. You can be hiking up water falls. When something happens to one of us, it kind of happens to all of us.
FOREMAN: On top of the frequently brutal terrain, ultra races are much often longer than marathons, 50, 100, 200 miles and more. Camille Heron (ph), another top world runner knows all about the dangers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And part of being an ultra runner is using your head, being able to troubleshoot and work through problems to keep going.
FOREMAN: Still, ultra marathons are growing wildly from about 34,000 annual runner just over two decades ago to more than 600,000 now. Races typically issue stern safety guidelines, but with the loss of all those Chinese runners, many rules may be reconsidered.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just all stunned right now. I mean, my heart just really goes out to them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: There's never really been a tragedy like this in ultra running before, and make no mistake, these were excellent runners, people who train in the worst possible conditions -- crushing heat, brutal cold, on terrain that you can barely walk on. They do it because this is all about testing the limits of human capability.
I think as the investigation moves forward here, Jake, there's going to be a lot of focus on the weather forecast, what people knew, what they should have known, and whether or not there was a sufficient way for them to get out of the circumstance, because I can assure you, in some of these races you may want to drop out at 30 or 35 miles, but you're out in the wilderness, there's just nowhere to go.
TAPPER: All right. Tom Foreman, real, tragic story. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
As reports of anti-Semitic hate surge in the U.S., a QAnon linked congresswoman draws a vile comparison between mask mandates and the mass slaughter of Jews during the holocaust. We'll talk about that next.
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[16:59:21]
TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
This hour, it's being called a state sponsored hijacking -- a plane flying from one democracy to another democracy, forcibly diverted so that a dictator could detain a journalist. And now, we're hearing from that journalist for the first time since his arrest.
Plus, a Pentagon report is coming soon on an apparent national security concern, unidentified flying objects. I'll talk to a former U.S. official who was in charge of looking into these unexplained sightings.
And leading this hour as public leaders condemn the acts of violence committed against Jewish Americans by pro-Palestinian demonstrators from coast to coast in the past few days, some vile comments from Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia also coming under scrutiny.
