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Roughly 16,000 U.S. Citizens in Sudan; Countries Rush to Evacuate from Sudan; Biden Finalizing Re-Election Plans; Plane Engine Catches Fire After Possible Bird Strike; Jury Selection Begins in Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 24, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The race to flee war-torn Sudan. This morning, countries around the world rushing to get citizens to safety. U.S. diplomats and their families airlifted from the U.S. embassy, with an estimated 16,000 Americans still there. What the White House is now saying.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden is ready to launch his re- election bid. New details on those plans, the thinking of those around him, and a new poll that suggests most Democrats are still on the fence about another Biden run.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A scary site in the friendly skies. Fire erupting on two planes within days, one midair after a possible bird strike, the other during takeoff.

These major stories and more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: Happening now, a global race to evacuate diplomats and citizens from Sudan as the intense fighting rages on. Over the last 24 hours, at least 1,000 people have fled the violence by air. Scene after scene of U.S. allies packing cargo planes just hours after U.S. officials confirmed that all U.S. personnel had been removed. On President Biden's order, and under the cover of darkness, U.S. special ops flew into the war-torn capital city. The troops were on the ground less than one hour before airlifting nearly 100 U.S. diplomats, staff and their family members out. At this hour, roughly 16,000 Americans remain in Sudan. Most of them hold dual citizenship. We're going to have much more on that in just a moment.

But first, the World Health Organization says clashes between rival military factions have now killed more than 400 people, 4,000 others have been wounded.

CNN's Sam Kiley is in Djibouti, which is where many diplomats and their families and others have been evacuated to.

Sam, why don't you tell us what you are seeing there. SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The

(INAUDIBLE) is burned (ph). It's gone. It's run out.

BERMAN: Sam, John Berman in New York. Can you hear me?

KILEY: (INAUDIBLE) nine. I mean -

BERMAN: Sam?

KILEY: What - can you put in (INAUDIBLE) -

BERMAN: Sam Kiley obviously is in Djibouti having a hard time hearing our coms.

Djibouti is, of course, on the coast, on the Red Sea coast of Africa. The U.S. has a very large military base there. That is where a good many U.S. personnel, the diplomatic personnel and their families have been taken to. Sam has been seeing them coming in there. We'll try to get Sam back in just a moment.

First, though, let's go to Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we're going to get back to Sam on the ground there very quickly.

But as John has been discussing, President Biden now says all U.S. government personnel have now been evacuated from the region. The State Department leading the effort to coordinate the evacuation.

Let's get more on that. CNN's Kylie Atwood is at the State Department with the very latest.

Kylie, what are you learning about the other Americans still in Sudan? What are you hearing from the State Department this morning?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, listen, it's a complicated picture for those Americans who are still in Sudan because what the State Department said over the weekend is that they have no expectation that they are going to be running a U.S. government-led evacuation for those American citizens like they did for the U.S. diplomats. And that's pretty typical, right? When U.S. citizens are stuck in a country, traditionally they have to follow the guidelines that the State Department gives them leading up to any sort of crisis. And for more than a year now the State Department has been telling Americans not to travel to Sudan. And so what they're saying now is that they still want to be in touch with those Americans, they still want to provide them with support.

What they're doing is they're offering them some convoys that are going out of the country, led by other countries. So, the UAE and Turkey are leading some convoys. We also heard from the NSC's John Kirby earlier this morning saying that there is a U.N. convoy headed to Port Sudan and that has dozens of American citizens in that convoy. He also said that the U.S. is going to work on getting unmanned assets to monitor those convoys, essentially drones, that can make sure that there aren't any issues, any conflicts with those convoys along the way. And then the U.S. military has assets, Navy assets, at Port Sudan to try and help those Americans, you know, get to a safer place.

But the complicated picture here is that, you know, there are about 16,000 Americans that are in the country.

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Of course, many of those are probably not only American citizens, but also citizens of Sudan. It's their home. Many of them aren't going to want to leave. But what we're going to be watching for here is the pressure potentially mounting on the Biden administration to see if these convoys work out of the country that are already being led, and if they don't, what more the Biden administration can or should do to support those Americans. But, for now, what they're saying is that it would be even more dangerous for those Americans on the ground if the U.S. were to actually try and evacuate more of them by flight, like they did over the weekend with those diplomats.

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JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: We're in touch with hundreds of American citizens that are there who want -- who may want to leave. It's up to them, of course, to decide to do that. We're doing the best we can to give them the information that they need, that they can rely on and to do so safely. But, honestly, the fighting in Khartoum is not in a situation where we would want people moving about too freely or too aggressively right now. The safest thing for many Americans to do, who didn't get out when they were warned to get out, is to stay safe right now and let's see if the situation can improve.

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ATWOOD: And, of course, one of the concerning things, Kate, is connectivity, communication with those Americans who are still there. We heard this morning on CNN THIS MORNING from the family member of a woman who is there with her young child, an American teacher who is there with her child who is about just a year and a half years old. And her family hasn't been able to be in touch with her for more than 18 hours now. And that is, of course, because of the fighting that has been ongoing. So, there are a lot of concerns from Americans at home who have family members in Sudan.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And, Kylie, we're going to have another family, a sister with two brothers who have been caught up in Khartoum. She's going to be joining us in the next hour.

But in the meantime, there's a lot of moving parts clearly as this is get -- the violence there is getting worse, not better.

Kylie Atwood is at the State Department for us tracking it.

Kylie, thank you.

John, back over to you. BERMAN: Yes, Kate, you know, Kylie was saying communication has been

hard. For us, too. Our Sam Kiley, we had a hard time speaking to, he is in Djibouti on the coast, which is where many Americans have been evacuated to.

Sam, if you can hear me, tell us what you're seeing there.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, here in Djibouti, this is the center now of a global effort. One of the kind of - I would venture a very rare gathering of the elite troops from around the world from countries from South Korea and Japan, all the way to the United States of America, Europe, British SAS have been on the ground here. Part of the evacuation that they organized yesterday involved an 18 kilometer move by British troops guarding a group of 100 plus Britain's and others. When the British ran that - an evacuation by air out of an air base on the outskirts of Khartoum, a less problematic evacuation in some ways because they were able to land fixed wing aircraft, unlike the Americans who went in with helicopters. But in both cases, the level of fighting now makes it extremely difficult for people to get aircraft in. There are attempts ongoing. It's quite difficult, frankly, to keep track with how many people from different countries are being moved because there are so many different countries involved.

The French and Germans have recently landed back in their home territories with people that they have evacuated. The Egyptians are moving people over land. Uganda has got 300 people on the move in a bus convoy heading to the Ethiopian border.

All of this going on, of course, when the Sudanese themselves overwhelmingly are trapped. Alongside, of course, those estimated perhaps 16,000 Americans and international contributors to Sudan in particular, aid workers, scattered throughout the country.

This -- the focus of the fighting is in Khartoum, but it is country- wide. And that is posing very serious problems. Now, there's a lot of effort going into looking at Port Sudan as a possible exit point for people who are being evacuated, but as we heard earlier on, the effort of getting there is going to be left largely to individuals. The Emirates have also been trying to organize convoys, but there's no armed escort of an international organization for an army effectively for civilians to get out to Port Sudan, and there is a catastrophic shortage of fuel, water, food and, of course, the vehicles are in short supply amidst all of this chaos.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, I wish we could show people on a map. The land route evacuations, they're vast, they are dangerous, it's complicated, which is why Djibouti, where you are, is such an important place to airlift people out if they have the resources to do that.

The U.S. operation to get embassy staff and personnel to where you are, Sam, how complicated a mission was it? KILEY: Well, it's extremely complicated effort, which is why it could

only involve a relatively small number of evacuees. What the Americans did was taking with them some British members of the special air services, part of the British effort, they flew in with three helicopter -- helicopters of -- Chinook helicopters via Ethiopia, where they refueled.

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They then had to fly very, very low, and these are relatively slow- moving aircraft, in order to avoid any possibility of ground fire effectively if you're very low you can get over people before they realize you're there. Then they spent less than an hour on the ground having pre-positioned the people that they were going to evacuate in an American compound. And then taking off and then flying them back to Ethiopia.

And this is all being conducted at a time when the Sudanese air force, remember, is all - is continuing to conduct air attacks on Khartoum itself. So, this is going on during bombardments from the air by the Sudanese air force. A highly complex operation. Not one you can do with -- to evacuate many thousands of people at all.

John.

BERMAN: Sam Kiley, in Djibouti, it's great to have you there. Please keep us posted throughout the morning, Sam. Thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

At the heart of this conflict in Sudan these two men, Sudan's military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of a paramilitary group, known as the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, until recently the two were allies. They gained power during the bloody conflict in Darfur nearly two decades ago. Some 300,000 people were killed in that conflict. Nearly 2.5 million people were displaced in the violence.

In 2019, they worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He was behind a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the country's Darfur region. And just two years ago they played a pivotal role in a military coup. That's where things began to get complicated. The coup ended with what was supposed to be a power sharing agreement, a deal between military and civilian groups. But tensions began to rise over who would be the subordinate in that new hierarchy. Sources tell CNN that these hostilities led to the fighting that you're seeing on the ground today.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Sara.

President Biden set to announce his campaign for re-election tomorrow. And this morning we have new details on the president's thoughts over the weekend as he works to finalize that announcement.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is at the White House this morning.

OK, Arlette, spill. What are we expecting?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, President Biden spent the weekend at Camp David. A weekend intended for him to go through some of the final details before launching this campaign. Now, his advisories have been working towards release a video likely tomorrow, rolling out that campaign, timed to the four-year anniversary of when he entered the race back in 2019.

But the president has also been working through some of the other operational and staffing details related to this campaign. One of those key items is who exactly would be running the day-to-day operation. And Democratic sources have told us that the president is expected to name Julie Chavez Rodriguez as the campaign manager. Rodriguez is one of the most senior aides here at the White House, serving as the director of the White House's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. That means she coordinates and works with state and local officials in trying to implement the president's agenda. She's also -- had been promoted to a senior advisor just last summer and she's long been known in Democratic political operative circles and is also the granddaughter of the labor icon Cesar Chavez.

Now, Rodriguez would be expected one named, and once this campaign rolls out, she'd expect to be working hand in hand with so many of those senior advisers here at the White House who have been sketching out what this campaign would look like. But currently all eyes still remain on tomorrow for President Biden to possibly launch this campaign.

BERMAN: What is the political environment that the White House and the fledgling Biden campaign see as he plans to announce for tomorrow?

SAENZ: Yes, John, some of the challenges President Biden would face in a re-election are starting to come into view. So much of this centers around recent polling that has shown the majority of Americans do not believe President Biden should run for a second term. And within his own Democratic Party he is also facing headwinds. A little over half of Americans believe that the president shouldn't seek re-election this time around.

Now, if you break down those voters who do not think that the president should run for re-election, for nearly half of them, 48 percent, they say his age is a major issue. President Biden is 80 years old. He would be 82 at inauguration and 86 at the end of a second term if he were to win in 2024.

Now, the president's advisers don't believe that this will have much impact in the long run. And you've heard from his allies arguing that he has a strong record to run on and that they believe viewers would ultimately side with him when they take a look at the alternatives being presented on the Republican side. But this will be one of the challenges that President Biden will face heading into that re- election when he announces. BERMAN: Arlette Saenz for us at the White House. I expect we'll get

more details dribbling out today before this video releases. So great to have you there. Thanks, Arlette.

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Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, more than four years after the deadliest anti- Semitic attack in U.S. history, jury selection begins today in the trial of a man accused of killing 11 people at that Pittsburgh synagogue.

Plus, a dragon at Disneyland bursts into flames. It is not part of any show. The details on what happened there, also coming up.

And, Bed Bath & Beyond in bankruptcy. What happens now and what it means for your 20 percent off coupons that are about to become worthless. That's coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SIDNER: Really scary moments in the sky and now the FAA is investigating an engine on an American Airlines flight, look at that, burst into flames after a possible bird strike. That is not what you want to see out of your window. The plane turned around but did manage to land safely in Columbus.

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GREG CARFAGNA, PASSENGER: There was a lot of, you know, hand holding.

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You know, a lot of people closing their eyes and trying to text their loved ones and so forth like that. So, it was scary. I mean, you know, you know, it's not something you deal with.

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SIDNER: CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean joins us now.

Pete, there was this incident, I think, on Sunday. And then, days earlier, another American Airlines flight had an issue. What is going on here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the latest incident here, Sara, the good news is, nobody was injured in either of those incidents. But this latest one, American Flight 1958, it just took off from Port Columbus John Glenn International Airport in Ohio, on its way to Phoenix, when passengers said they pretty quickly realized something was amiss on climb out. They heard this pulsing noise and then they looked out the window to see flames coming from the right engine. Apparently a bird strike according to the flight crew. I want you to listen now to the ATC audio, the air traffic control

audio, we obtained from liveatc.net, in which the crew says they had to return to the airport for a bird strike, calm, cool and collected. They were able to do that pretty easily, declared an emergency.

Listen.

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STEPHEN DIAL, FLIGHT CREW MEMBER: Mayday, mayday, mayday. American 1958, we had a bird strike and an engine failure.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: American 1958, roger. Can you make it left traffic back to the runway?

DIAL: Uh, we need to say no for now.

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MUNTEAN: Pilots clear they're needing to fly straight for a little bit to work through the issue. One engine on a 737, really no big deal. There are two engines. The plane flies just fine on one, although the best possible solution is to just simply come back in and land. Bird strikes are going up a little bit. There was a bit of a dip in 2020 when there weren't as many flights, although there are more flights now, a lot of things going into this. Airplanes are getting quieter. It's easier for pilots to report these bird strikes because simply there's no mountain of paperwork anymore. They can report these online now. It's a really big issue during migratory periods. Of course, we're in the late spring, so a lot of birds flying around. Eight-five percent of bird strikes involve commercial airliners. Although the good news here, Sara, is that so few of them result in injuries. We're talking about 0.1 percent over the last 30 years, although typically bad news for the bird, Sara.

SIDNER: I'm pretty sure, Pete, I heard you say no big deal because it was just one engine. Because you're a pilot, it's no big deal to you. Scary. Thank you, Pete Muntean.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, Sara.

So, jury selection is now underway in the trial of the man accused of carrying out the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue back in 2018. That attack was the deadliest attack on Jewish people in U.S. history. The massacre killed 11 members of three different Jewish congregations.

CNN's Danny Freeman is in Pittsburgh for us. He's joining us now.

Danny, what are you hearing about what could happen today in court and also what this trial is going to look like?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Kate. Well, as you said, this trial just got underway earlier this morning, just before 9:00 a.m. Jury selection is happening right now. I was actually in the courthouse watching that on video feed when the judge talked to all of the potential jurors. And also notably in that courtroom was Robert Bowers, the defendant in this case. I can describe him. He was sitting doing in the front row wearing a green-grayish sweater with a collared shirt, looking down as the judge read out some of the instructions to these potential jurors, which includes if they find guilty - if they go through an eligibility phase as well, the jurors, the judge said, might have to determine if they sentence Robert Bowers to either life in prison or to death in this high-profile case.

But, Kate, let me back up for a second and give folks and viewers a little bit of a reminder as to how this case all unfolded from the beginning.

October 27, 2018, it was a Saturday morning, that's when prosecutors said Mr. Robert BOWERS arrived at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, about five miles away from where we are right now, with multiple guns. As you said, there were members of three Jewish congregations who were there worshipping at the time. And prosecutors said at that point Bowers fired at the synagogue and then went in and fired indiscriminately at members in there who were, again, just worshipping. Prosecutors say Bowers said during that attack that he wanted to still Jews, and then later they found multiple social media posts that said anti-Semitic things as well.

Now, I will say, 11 people were killed, as you said, others were injured. And Bowers was also charged with multiple hate crimes at this federal level. That's why we're talking about a death penalty case right here.

Now, Kate, one of the interesting things is that Bowers has on his defense team defense attorney Judy Clark. She has represented other high-profile federal death penalty case defendants, like one of the brothers in the Boston Marathon bombings, also the Unabomber. The defense team has tried to throw out that death penalty cases aspect right now. That has not happened so far. But again, as of now, jurors will have to find that, and that jury selection is underway right now.

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Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, much more to come. Danny, thank you very much, from Pittsburgh for us.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Kevin McCarthy and the make-or-break test he is now facing as House speaker. The vote that McCarthy desperately wants Republicans to get behind.

And, amazing and terrifying all at once. Mostly terrifying. The moment a skier falls into a huge crevasse in the Alps, and it's all on camera.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: So, some news just in. We've learned that Ambassador Susan Rice, who is the White House domestic policy adviser, is stepping down.

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