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Navalny Team Says, Missing Putin Critic Found; Dozens Reportedly Killed As Israel Ramps Up Attacks On Hamas; Trump Urges Federal Appeals Court To Grant Him Immunity Against Election Subversion Charges. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 25, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:15]

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Right now, Israel's war on Hamas, intensifying in Gaza dozens of Palestinians reportedly killed overnight as the IDF says it is ramping up its attacks.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Found after disappearing for two weeks. Imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny no longer missing according to his team where they say Russia has moved him.

SIDNER: Dreaming of a white Christmas? Good luck with that. The Grinch has bring rain to millions of Americans and just in time for the holiday as a potential travel nightmare awaits.

I'm Sarah Sidner with Kate Bolduan. John Berman is once again off. We're going to have to go find our little elf. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: This morning, there's big news out of Russia. Opposition leader and chief Putin critic Alexey Navalny has been found after simply disappearing for two weeks.

Now, the head of his anti-corruption foundation now says this morning that Navalny is now in a penal colony in the far reaches of Northwestern Siberia, thousands of miles from the penal colony in jail where he was last known to be located.

He was moved from a detention center near Moscow, where he was serving a 19-year sentence.

CNN's Nada Bashir is following these developments for us. Nada, what is Navalny's team saying about this move, how he is, whatever they've been able to gather?

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: We are getting more details around the situation that Alexey Navalny is now facing. As you mentioned, he has been moved, according to his lawyer and, of course, colleagues, to that new penal colony, described as the Polar Wolf colony in Northwestern Siberia.

There has been mounting concern around the conditions faced by Navalny, his team unable to make contact with him for over two weeks now, raising concern for many.

We have had updates today from his lawyers, as well as the director of his anti-corruption foundation, who issued this statement just a short while ago, saying, Navalny is in colony IK-3 in Kharp called Polar Wolf, one of the northern most remote colonies. The conditions there are harsh with a special regime in the permafrost zone. It is very difficult to get there and there are no letter delivery systems.

And, of course, as we understand it from his lawyer, he has faced difficult health conditions over the last few months. There is concern that this could deteriorate in this new colony, where he has been moving. Of course, there are always concerns when those who are detained are moved between these colonies.

As you mentioned, Alexey Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison back in August for charges relating to extremism. And he had already been serving 11.5 years in prison for other charges, including fraud. These are charges that Alexey Navalny and his legal team, as well as his supporters, have consistently denied. They believe these charges are politically motivated.

Navalny is, of course, a key and fundamental critic of President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin overall, and has posed one of the largest challenges to Putin during his rule, and continues to pose a significant challenge. So, as you can imagine, there is significant concern over what Navalny may face in this new colony.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's exactly right. Nada, thank you so much for bringing us that update. We're going to be looking to see if we can gather more throughout the morning.

Let's turn now to Gaza, where Israel is promising to intensify its ground operations. This follows one of the enclave's deadliest nights in the 11-week-old battle between Israel and Hamas. The Hamas- controlled health ministry says at least 70 people were killed after what they say was an Israeli attack. This occurred at a refugee camp in Central Gaza. The IDF says they are reviewing the claim.

In the meantime, in the West Bank, there are subdued celebrations on this Christmas morning. Local leaders have canceled Christmas festivities in Bethlehem to show solidarity with the people of Gaza. And in place of the traditional Christmas tree in Bethlehem's major square, this year, an art installation depicting Mary and Jesus surrounded by a scene of a bombing.

Let's go to CNN's Will Ripley. He's in Tel Aviv following all of this. And, Will, 15 IDF soldiers were killed this weekend in operations in Gaza. There's a lot of developments here. What are you learning about the intensifying operation in Gaza right now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it was one of the deadliest weekends for IDF soldiers since the start of this war on October 7th, and also, just yesterday, one of the deadliest nights for Gazans, for people who are caught in the crossfire of these attacks. Although we don't know the breakdown yet of how many of the at least 70 killed are civilians versus suspected Hamas militants, the IDF has acknowledged that people, innocent people, are dying here, but they blame Hamas, not their military strategy.

[10:05:08]

They say that the extremist organization, the terrorist organization, is deliberately embedding themselves underneath the civilian population in this sophisticated network of tunnels, essentially trying to put themselves in places where civilians are sheltering so that if and when Israel decides to launch an airstrike, even after giving warnings to people that this is going to happen, because people sometimes get a warning either hours or even a day or two before an attack, but sometimes people just simply can't move or they're taking a risk for a variety of reasons, whether they're starving, whether they're exhausted, whether they're elderly and unable to make the move fast enough, or they simply feel they don't have anywhere else to go.

The number of people, innocent people who are dying is sky high. You're talking about an overall death toll. Now that is well over 20,000 people, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. The IDF says more than 2,000 of those since the ceasefire. The last ceasefire ended when there was a hostage exchange. Still, they say some 2,000 Hamas militants have been killed, but a lot more civilians, and that number growing every single day.

Now, the IDF says it has dismantled and destroyed a sophisticated underground tunnel network by Hamas, at least in one part of the Gaza Strip. This is an area, and we actually might have video of this. I'm not sure if it's queued up or not, but there was a massive explosion that you could see of this tunnel complex that was believed to house senior leadership of Hamas. Their living quarters, which would include apartments, also offices, command bunkers, and areas where they might actually stage and launch attacks, in addition to tunnels that they say were used for weapons smuggling in and out of the Gaza Strip.

And it was in this one particular tunnel network, the IDF says that they recovered the bodies of five Israeli hostages previously reported by CNN in mid-December. Three of them soldiers, two of them civilians. Those five hostages, their bodies were found inside these tunnels where they were being held. They were taken back to Israel, and then those tunnels were destroyed.

But, really, Hamas is still operating, Kate, and that is the big challenge facing Israel on the heels of Prime Minister Netanyahu's conversation with President Biden. How can they continue to go after Hamas leadership when they continue to get weapons, they continue to launch attacks, and civilians continue dying in the Israeli military strategy, which is leading to growing condemnation from around the world, even though that latest U.N. resolution, a lot of critics say, is pretty watered down and unable to certainly compel Israel to slow down the fighting? Again, the fighting has intensified in one of the deadliest days we've seen so far in this conflict, just yesterday.

BOLDUAN: Yes, as well as at the same time, they're talking about moving out of the high intensity phase into a lower intensity, intel- driven phase, not seeing that at this moment, that's for sure. Will, thank you. Good to see you.

SIDNER: Let's bring in Washington Post Columnist Josh Rogin. First, let's talk about Israel. We just heard a report from Will Ripley about the toll that it's taking on the civilians there. The Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, 20,000-plus people, they say, have been killed in this conflict.

I guess the question is, if Israel is ramping up its war right now, what is the endgame here? How does this come to a close when you are looking at a situation where Israel is trying to rid itself of Hamas and the P.A. doesn't have the power in Gaza? I mean, who runs Gaza at the end of this?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, Sara, I think as Kate just pointed out, there's first the immediate problem of how to switch from the high intensity bombing campaigns that we're seeing now down to a lower intensity, more targeted, intel-driven campaign.

I think the big break right now is between the Biden administration, which wants that switch to happen soon in a matter of days or weeks, and the Netanyahu government, which is saying now that might not happen for weeks or months. And that's a pretty big difference. In other words, we can't really know what happens next until we figure out what happens in the immediate near term.

And I think that there's a lot of pressure on the Netanyahu government to speed this up. And that's partially why they're actually increasing the level of bombing rather than decreasing it, because they feel that time is not on their side and that actually, in a way, makes their strategic goals harder to achieve. As Lloyd Austin, our defense secretary, has said publicly, the more suffering that they perpetrate on Palestinians, the more devastating the long-term effects on Israel's reputation and its strategic position.

Now, to answer your question quite directly, nobody knows. I think recently in the last few days, we've heard signals from the Israeli government that they would be okay with the Palestinian Authority, which now somewhat rules in the West Bank, has some authority in the West Bank to take over such responsibility in Hamas, but Palestinian authority hasn't agreed to that. The Gazans certainly haven't agreed to that. And so I think it's a huge unanswered question and one that everybody knows will need to be answered after we figure out first how we end the violence.

[10:10:06]

SIDNER: Yes, getting through the enormous amount of bombing first. I do want to switch gears here, because earlier we were talking about Alexey Navalny, and that he has resurfaced that he is okay but he is out in the Siberian prison far out in the far reaches of Russia. I want to ask you about something that we are hearing from Vladimir Putin, where he's sort of quietly signaling he's open to a ceasefire with Ukraine. What else do you know about this?

ROGIN: Right. Well, I think the two events are tied in the sense that we see Vladimir Putin entering what you could call election season. And in Moscow, that doesn't mean the same things it means in other places. It means that Putin takes the opportunity before re-coronating himself as president to crack down on political dissent and to put out some sort of message that makes him look domestically like he's a responsible leader wants to end the war, but it's a ruse.

In other words, this is a common Putin tactic to put out that he wants to ceasefire. It has the effect of modifying his domestic opposition but it also has the effect of dividing us, of playing upon the divisions inside western societies in exacerbating the feeling among some of the west that maybe Ukraine is the problem, that maybe Putin is the peacemaker. It's not true.

And the way that we know it's not true is that Putin is actually increasing his aggression, attacking Ukrainian infrastructure, advancing his war in Ukraine's east. And this is such a common Putin tactic that I would actually be surprised if he didn't try to sort of offer a ceasefire on terrible terms that he knew the Ukrainians except at the right time.

And I don't think Ukraine is going to fall for it. I don't think the Biden administration is going to fall for it either.

SIDNER: Yes. And the Ukrainians are often told like Russia says, we'll keep the bits of your country that we've taken from you, and then a ceasefire is not something that Ukraine is going to agree to, no country want.

ROGIN: Exactly.

SIDNER: Josh Rogin, thank you so much for coming on and being with us here on a holiday. I appreciate you.

ROGIN: Anytime. Happy holidays.

SIDNER: Coming up Donald Trump trying to get his federal election subversion case thrown out of court. Could the former president's claim of absolute immunity work?

Inflation, by the way, is easing amid a year of promising job gains and now a new report says Americans are feeling more optimistic finally about the economy's future. Will this sentiment hold up for 2024?

And a storm is on the move this Christmas Day, I am sorry to tell you, blizzard conditions to some part of the United States and heavy rains to others. We have your holiday forecast ahead.

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[10:16:34]

SIDNER: This morning, Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to grant him immunity from being prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Over the weekend, Trump's lawyers filed a motion asking the court to toss Special Counsel Jack Smith's election interference case, arguing Trump cannot be held accountable for things he did while in the office of the presidency.

While the former president waits on the appeals court to weigh in, he is taking his immunity plea directly to his supporters.

CNN's Alayna Treene is joining us now from right here in the studio, not from Washington, D.C. What a treat.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: I know. I'm very happy to be here.

SIDNER: What are you hearing from Donald Trump and his team?

TREENE: Well, look, the former president has been very busy on social media this week. And yesterday on Christmas Eve, he sent a flurry of social media posts railing against this latest legal battle and also reiterating his team's claims that he is immune from these charges because they stem from his actions while he was still in the White House.

Now, in one social media post in particular, Trump denied any wrongdoing, and he also argued that it was his duty as president to look into and investigate potential claims of fraud.

Now, I'm going to read you some of that he wrote. Quote, I was doing my duty as president to expose and further investigate a rigged and stolen election. It was my obligation to do so. The post continues, of course, I am entitled to immunity. Additionally, I did nothing wrong. Stop the witch hunt now.

So, Sara, this is a very typical post from Donald Trump. He's saying he did nothing wrong. He's continuing to rail against these charges, claim that he is immune from them because he was president at the time, and also paint himself as a victim of a political witch hunt and political persecution.

But I think big picture here, what I find really interesting about this appeal is it's very strategic. Donald Trump and his team, regardless of the outcome in this case and whether it could have a very significant impact on the viability of this case, but also if it's delayed or postponed further into the height of election season or potentially if Trump gets his way until after the 2024 election. And at that point, Donald Trump could say, drop the charges, I'm president now.

SIDNER: Right. It's moot. I am now president. You can't do this. It will be fascinating to watch because it has such a much wider effect on the United States depending on what the court decides. It really talks about the power of the presidency in the end. We will see.

Thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: We're exactly three weeks away now from the Iowa caucuses and now seven days until 2024. How do these campaigns hit the ground running in the New Year? Donald Trump's rivals hoping -- holding out hope that they can close in on his lead, and President Biden ready for a rematch battle. Joining us now to talk about this, Washington Correspondent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Tia Mitchell, and Senior Staff Editor for The New York Times Opinion David Swerdlick. Thanks for being here, guys.

David, let me start with you. President Biden's campaign is pushing into the New Year with a strategy that has worked for him in the past. Campaign memo last week said that they plan to make the threat to democracy posed by Trump a central focus, similar, obviously, to the central focus of his 2020 campaign.

But some things are different since 2020, Trump is now facing 90 plus criminal charges. Trump's rhetoric suggests he hasn't moderated at all, yet Republican support for Trump isn't lessening at all, and Biden's approval is struggling.

So, going into the New Year, is the threat to democracy argument harder or easier to make this time around?

[10:20:01]

DAVID SWERDLICK, SENIOR STAFF EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES OPINION: Good morning, Kate, Merry Christmas. I think it's harder to make this time around. And I think the real problem for the Biden campaign is that they have a story to tell and they're not telling it.

Yes, it's good to point out the threats to democracy from a former president who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election. But you also have to weave that into a broader message of here's where we've been as a country, here's where we are now, and here's where we're going, both in terms of the opponent, in terms of foreign policy, in terms of domestic successes and domestic losses, and they're not doing that. Biden has struggled with that.

Presidents Clinton, Obama, Bush and Trump, love them or hate them all, had a way of messaging to the people they wanted to message to but Biden hasn't found that step yet.

BOLDUAN: Tia, let's talk more about President Biden right now of kind of the trouble areas in the polling. I'll list out just a few. We see things like his handling of the economy. He's struggling there amongst the view from voters, concerns about his age continue to be an issue, they continue to pop up as chief amongst voters, and declining approval ratings amongst independents and also young voters, Latinos and even black voters.

With all of that said, which do you think the Biden campaign is most concerned about or maybe most focused on turning around in the New Year?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: I mean, I would probably think they're concerned about it all, but I think --

BOLDUAN: Yes, Option D, all of the above.

MITCHELL: Yes, all of the above.

But I think as far as what they're really centering their messaging around, we've seen, quite frankly, is a lot around the economy, which you could argue kind of can speak to all of those concerns, quite frankly. But that is where Biden feels like the message is the strongest. That's where he feels like he's got a lot to celebrate from his first four years in office but that's what isn't necessarily paying off for him in the polls.

So, that's a place where they're really trying to find a message that resonates again with all segments of his coalition, especially as a lot of those economic indicators look really good for the Biden administration. We're talking about gas prices going down, grocery prices stabilizing, the Fed even considering in 2024 cutting interest rates because inflation is cooling down. All of that should bode well for President Biden, but he's not seeing it yet in the polls. I think that's something that they're really going to try to drive home.

BOLDUAN: I think it gets to what you were talking about, David, being able to tell that story, craft that narrative, not just use data to say the economic indicators are good, but this is why it feels good and you should feel good about where the economy is right now.

Let's talk quick about Donald Trump. Senator Lindsey Graham, he was on the Sunday shows and he warned that he thinks Donald Trump is in trouble if he continues to focus on the past, like the 2020 past. Listen to Lindsey Graham.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If President Trump puts a vision out improving security and prosperity for Americans, he will win. If he looks back, I think he will lose. So, at the end of the day, the 2020 election is over for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: David, do you see Donald Trump and his campaign showing that they see that same urgency, that Lindsey Graham seems to think about, the forward-leaning, focused campaign message?

SWERDLICK: Yes, Senator Graham has a point there. I think Americans, like Tia was saying, are concerned about the economy. They want to know where we're headed into the next four years, whether it's a Trump presidency or a Biden presidency. So, if President Trump -- former President Trump looks back with all of his grievances, that doesn't mean he can't win, but I think he'll have a more of an uphill climb versus if he says, look, folks, you've had four years of Biden. Don't you remember the Donald Trump years and how great they were until the pandemic came along, whether or not that's true, I do think Senator Graham is right, that that will be a more effective message going into next year's election.

BOLDUAN: And speaking of Lindsey Graham, I want to get your take on Lindsey Graham's war having to do with Chick-fil-A that has now popped up. You have a New York State representative who introduced a bill to force some Chick-fil-A restaurants in New York to be opened on Sundays. Lindsey Graham, not a senator from New York as we well know, he is now declaring war against this, posting on Twitter the following the founders of Chick-fil-A made a decision early on to close on Sunday, consistent with their faith. For any government to try to reverse this decision flies in the face of who we are as Americans.

Now, Senator Lindsey Graham may love Chick-fil-A, but he clearly knows and thinks that he is hitting on something bigger here in taking this on. Tia, what is it and why now?

MITCHELL: Well, I mean, he's taking advantage of a viral moment that that was started by this one Democratic senator who introduced the bill.

[10:25:03]

You and I both know bill introductions are a far cry from something becoming law, but I think the lawmaker who introduced the legislation was creating a moment about something that's a little bit controversial with the Chick-fil-A's founders and their kind of conservative leanings. And I think a lot of people kind of on the surface do think it's absurd for a state to go after one restaurant in this way because you disagree with its owners and their political leanings.

And so now Lindsey Graham is jumping on that, but I think he runs the risk now, again, just like there's a lot of criticism of that lawmaker in New York for filing the bill, there will be criticism of Senator Graham to say, aren't there bigger fish for you to fry, such as the government shutdown in January, such as all the things that are on Congress's plate, and you're worried about legislation that may or may not ever see the light of day in a state you don't represent.

BOLDUAN: And, David, it's kind of, to me, I was wondering what it -- it made me think of kind of culture wars and what role it has played or not played in terms of in the presidential election. I mean, Ron DeSantis seemed to base a lot of the early part of his campaign around this, and it has not worked and has since transitioned out of it. I just thought it was kind of an interesting thing to think about going to the New Year.

SWERDLICK: Yes. No, Senator Graham, Kate, is definitely making political hay out of this, playing the culture war card. But in this case, he's right, do less, New York Democrats. I personally am more of a Cook Out and Bojangles guy anyway, but if Chick-fil-A wants to be closed on Sunday, let Chick-fil-A be closed on Sunday. There are things to focus on in this country. That's not one of them.

BOLDUAN: David, Tia, it's great to see you guys. Thank you so much.

SWERDLICK: Thanks, Kate.

MITCHEL: Thanks. Merry Christmas.

BOLDUAN: Merry Christmas.

SIDNER: I think we can kind of agree with that one. Do you know what I mean?

BOLDUAN: I hope. David Swerdlick sometimes just say like it is.

SIDNER: Say it like you mean it.

The last month of 2023 bringing some welcome news for U.S. consumers for the first time since April of 2020, yes, that long ago. Prices fell in November on a monthly basis. What that might mean for the wider economy and for your pocketbook.

We'll be back.

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