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Netanyahu Confidant Meets With U.S. Secretary of State; Colorado Supreme Court Justices Facing Threats; U.S. Forces Strike Iranian Groups in Iraq. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 26, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The U.S. striking back, President Biden ordering airstrikes on Iranian-backed groups in Iraq after American troops are targeted and critically wounded. Ahead, how this impacts what is already an incredibly tense moment in the Middle East.

Plus, the FBI says it is working with law enforcement officials in Colorado to investigate threats made against state Supreme Court justices, those threats, of course, coming after the justices ruled last week that former President Trump should be removed from the state's 2024 presidential ballot.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And time-out. Apple says it's no longer selling the newest Apple Watch in the U.S., this after the White House declined to take emergency action to keep the smart watch on store shelves. We're going to have the reason behind the ban coming up.

We're following these major developing stories and many more. It's all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar here with Jessica Dean.

Hello. Great to have you.

Boris is off today.

And we begin with America hitting back, President Biden ordering military strikes on a militant group known as Kataib Hezbollah. It is backed by Iran, but the U.S. strikes taking place in Iraq on Monday night at 8.45 Eastern. This assault was in response to a drone attack hours before on U.S. forces at the Erbil Air Base in Northern Iraq, three service members there wounded, according to the defense secretary.

DEAN: He also noted one of them is in critical condition, U.S. Central Command saying the strikes likely killed a number of militants.

These images you're looking at show the funeral today of one Kataib Hezbollah member who died. Iraq's government is condemning the U.S. strikes, calling them -- quote -- "hostile acts" that are unacceptable. Let's turn now to CNN's Natasha Bertrand for the latest.

And, Natasha, the U.S. military targeted three facilities that were used by these militants.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, that's right, Jess.

And this is not the first time that the U.S. has actually struck facilities linked to Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq over the last month. This is a serious escalation, though, because while there have been over 100 attacks by these Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria over the last two-plus months or so, the injuries that they have caused to U.S. service members have typically been very minor, and they have largely returned to duty in a couple of days.

But this attack carried out yesterday by this group apparently caused at least one service member to suffer a critical injury, and that is very serious. And, clearly, it made the U.S. believe that they had to respond in a very serious way. And so they launched these airstrikes against these facilities, the ultimate goal being to try to degrade the infrastructure that they used, right, to launch the drones, launch the rockets that they are using to carry out these attacks.

And according to Central Command, a couple of those Hezbollah members are believed to have been killed. They say that at this point they don't believe any civilians were injured in this. But the Iraqi government, as you mentioned, there is not happy about this, especially because this is the second time in just over a month that the U.S. has launched these kinds of airstrikes in Iraq.

And they say it's a violation of their sovereignty. But, if you ask the Pentagon, they will say, look, we are going to do everything we can to protect service members. We are going to retaliate. We are not going to just let this slide. And it raises a lot of questions about what the Iraqi government is doing, whether they are doing enough to protect U.S. service members who are in the country right now.

Clearly, the Defense Department and the Pentagon don't believe so.

DEAN: All right, Natasha Bertrand with the latest there.

Thanks so much for that reporting.

Also, today, one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest advisers is expected to meet with Biden administration officials and also members of Congress.

KEILAR: That's right, a source telling CNN that Ron Dermer, who served for years as Israel's ambassador to the U.S. under Netanyahu, is in Washington to talk about the next phase of the war in Gaza.

So let's go now to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez at the White House for this.

Priscilla, what are you learning about today's meetings? PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, this

meeting comes at a critical time, as the U.S. looks to Israel to move away from its high-intensity war as the death toll grows in Gaza.

Now, Ron Dermer will be here in Washington meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan this afternoon. Now, he is a member of the war cabinet and a close confidant of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, again, a big part of this discussion is going to be what the next phase of the war looks like. U.S. officials have said that Israel has assured them that they are going to move to a lower-intensity war, more targeted, more precise, as they seek out Hamas leadership.

But they don't have a timeline to share of when that would happen. Previously, U.S. officials have said that localized operation could happen by January. But, again, in terms of publicly sharing what the timeline is, it's still unclear.

Now, up until this point, the U.S. and Israel have described their conversations as good. A senior Israeli official saying that, while they may have their differences, they're on the same side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK REGEV, SENIOR ADVISER TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We can have different discussions on this tactical issue or that tactical issue. We listen very attentively to whatever Washington says, and I believe they listen very carefully to whatever we say to them.

But, ultimately, we're on the same side of this. We want to see Hamas destroyed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, President Biden has warned that Israel -- or support of Israel could wane if they do not contain the casualties that they have seen in Gaza.

There are back-channel communications to try to make sure that the results of their military operation don't grow the death toll in Gaza. But this is a complicated landscape for President Biden to navigate, as pressure grows domestically and on the international stage, so all of this going to be a big part of the discussion, in addition, of course, Brianna and Jessica, to the release of hostages as those talks remain stalled.

KEILAR: All right, Priscilla Alvarez live for us at the White House.

We're joined now by Christopher O'Leary. He served as the U.S. government's director for hostage rescue and recovery. He spent over two decades with the FBI on counterterrorism investigations and operations. Christopher, as Priscilla reported there, Netanyahu's confidant Ron

Dermer meeting today with White House officials. And let's set the scene for this, because there's a chasm. Even as these two parties try to stress that they are united, you have, as Priscilla mentioned there, the U.S. saying Israel's promised they're going to move to lower-intensity fighting.

But over the weekend, you have Bibi talking about a long fight, some time until the end, in intensifying the fight in Gaza over the weekend. Tell us about what they need to get past here this divide.

CHRISTOPHER O'LEARY, FORMER U.S. GOVERNMENT DIRECTOR OF HOSTAGE RECOVERY: Well, the White House is in a very difficult position. They want to be supportive of Israel, one of our closest allies in the Middle East, who were the recipients of a horrific terrorist attack on October 7.

But at the same time, the way they have prosecuted this war is not effective at countering terrorism. For anybody who's worked these matters before, we're perplexed and frustrated. It's also not effective at finding and recovering hostages.

So, the White House has got to wrestle with that, but also with the families. The American families have been very supported by the White House. And this administration and previous administrations hear those families all of the time. But at a certain point, they want action, and these families are seeing the way this war is being prosecuted, and they're being frustrated as well.

DEAN: And, Christopher, I want to talk a little bit about the drone attack and then the U.S. response to that that Natasha was just reporting on.

Obviously, there's been such an effort by the Biden administration to keep this conflict from spreading throughout the Middle East. But we have seen things happening in the region around where the key conflict is going on between Israel and Hamas.

In your opinion, is it the Israel-Hamas war that motivated this attack on the troops in Iraq? Is this something greater than that? What are you saying?

O'LEARY: Well, the Israel-Hamas war is part of the grander scheme from the axis of resistance, the Iran-controlled strategy to get regional influence and power through groups, surrogate groups like Hamas, like Palestinian, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

So, although there has been sustained attacks, they have been measured, to a point, including the Houthi attacks in ships on the Red Sea. But these are warnings what could possibly come. If Iran actually takes the gloves off and turns loose the surrogate forces with all of their might, we have a real regional problem, yes, against the U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Syria.

That is a real concern. I have been on ground there quite a bit myself, and I know the threat is real. But, also, if you look at the regional impact, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, yes, the USS Carney and other ships can protect U.S. interests, but a third of all container ships transit that waterway.

And if you go back to some other historical global crises, the 1956 Suez crisis, it actually took Western allies, the British and the French, parachuting troops in to take back the canal. So, it's important to global stability to maintain regional stability there.

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KEILAR: Does it change anything, Chris, that there's a U.S. service member seriously injured? Should it change things more?

O'LEARY: It does.

Listen, I have had friends and teammates wounded and worse. I will tell you, the CENTCOM, General Kurilla, who I served with in Afghanistan, the number one priority that he has is the protection of his soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who are deployed out there.

But to be a professional in this business, you have to understand that this is a dangerous space you're working in. So if you're going to deploy to Erbil, if you're going to go into Syria, you have to expect some level of violence and take the best measures to protect yourself and your troops.

DEAN: What kind of response do you think the U.S. should expect for this strike on Kataib Hezbollah?

O'LEARY: My assessment is, I don't think it's going to -- I mean, this is -- escalate well beyond what's happening right now. This is within the rules of the game right now, this level of violence.

If the U.S. was to strike Iranian interests in Iran or ships in the Gulf, that might escalate things, for sure. But I think limited-scale strikes calculated by the U.S. leadership onto specific targets in Syria and Iraq, I think that's within, again, the rules of the game.

DEAN: All right, Christopher O'Leary, thanks so much for walking us through that. We appreciate it.

Still to come: the FBI now launching an investigation after multiple threats are made against the Colorado judges who ruled Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on that state's primary ballot.

Plus, former President Trump spending the Christmas holiday unleashing a barrage of fury and bitterness online, largely over his many legal cases. What he said and how this type of messaging could impact the upcoming election year.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:16:38] KEILAR: We're following some new and very real concerns today about disturbing and violent threats that are being made against Colorado state Supreme Court justices who ruled last week to remove Donald Trump from the state's 2024 primary ballot.

DEAN: The FBI saying it has now joined with local law enforcement in the investigation. Federal and local officials have also been monitoring rhetoric on online extremist forums in the wake of that ruling.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is joining us now.

Katelyn, tell us more about what you're learning about these threats, what the FBI is saying. This is really chilling stuff.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: It is, and it's been going on for some time.

But then, in this situation in Colorado, it really arose after that ruling one week ago. So, it was a hotly contested question of whether Donald Trump is an insurrectionist under the law and can be on the ballot in the 2024 election. Four of the seven justices in Colorado ruled against Trump.

And then, within two days, the Denver police had to respond to what they said was a hoax report, but a threat towards one of the justices, going to that justice's home in response there as law enforcement. And then we also are learning that law enforcement are picking up just a lot of discussion in extremist forums, pro-Trump forums online, talking about these justices by name.

Those threats at this time are nonspecific, not saying: I have plans to kill X.

But, instead, they are more generally very violent language. And that is something that we have seen across the country, especially in response to political cases like this. It's something that law enforcement has watched very closely. There have been threats against many judges involved in cases related to Donald Trump, including someone who was arrested for a threat to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's overseeing his criminal case.

There's Supreme Court justices receiving threats. In this situation in Colorado, the FBI gets involved. And they say now they're aware of the situation and working with law enforcement. "We will vigorously pursue investigations of any threat or use of violence committed by someone who uses extremist views to justify their actions, regardless of motivation."

But there are thousands of threats a year that are coming into public officials. It's something very much on law enforcement's top of mind right now.

KEILAR: Yes, it's so significant.

Katelyn, thank you for taking us through that. We appreciate it. And let's bring in Juliette Kayyem now. She's a CNN senior national

security analyst. She's also a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

I guess the good news here, Juliette, is that this is on the radar of law enforcement. But what worries you here?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I mean, it is, one, the sort of threats themselves against the judges, so that part of what the goal here is, is to make people in authority feel nervous about how they're going to rule, how they're going to prosecute, what decisions they're going to make, and the extent to which they themselves and, of course, their family and children might be exposed to violence or even the threat of violence.

So that's the first, which is these particular justices and, of course, an entire legal system that is viewed as sort of fair game in terms of either threats or real violence, as we have seen.

I think the second is, we are -- it's about to be 2024. We are leading -- we are running into an election period in which violence and the threat of violence are sort of viewed as an extension of our normal democratic differences. I mean, this is one of the successes of what Donald Trump has been able to do, is to sort of -- sort of to be kind of casual about violence.

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And that's sort of the bigger fear there.

KEILAR: Well, yes, to that point, with so many jurists involved in Trump cases facing threats, where is there an issue where there's not a specific threat and yet they could still be in danger? How do you address that?

KAYYEM: Yes, so I mean -- yes.

So, what -- partially -- so, the judiciary is obviously -- that would be a federal crime. The U.S. Marshals sort of protect the judiciary. I know this personally. I'm married to a judge. And so you sort of have a sense of sort of what that security apparatus is.

And they take any threats, even if they're vague, pretty seriously at this stage, partially because the sanctity of the courtroom actually has to be protected when you think about all the cases that are going on right now.

But these generic threats are very hard to not only find out who's doing them or who might be responsible for them, but they're very hard to prosecute. People have a First Amendment right to say, we don't like these judges, these judges shouldn't be judges anymore. It's when it gets to sort of specific violence against named individuals or even against just the Supreme Court itself in Colorado that an investigation can be started.

But part of this also, I have to say, is what -- is incitement for others. So, when you see all this sort of stuff on social media that we have been seeing, partially, the fear for law enforcement is, who else is getting radicalized by this, right?

So it's not the people that you're following. It's someone who's reading it, right? So, a politician or someone in a leadership position is sort of throwing out sort of -- as I say, just being very casual about violence, which we shouldn't be,and then someone who might be more inclined to take to arms or violence or threats. That's their -- that's the bigger fear there.

KEILAR: What do you worry about when it comes to the noise actually becoming more than that, especially, I would say, in the context of -- you saw these Donald Trump rants on Christmas Eve and Christmas.

He spent so much time on TRUTH Social, all caps going after the Colorado decision, going after the agencies who would protect against this kind of violence as well.

KAYYEM: Yes, there's two things.

I mean, I don't know how to say it louder, just like, everyone needs to brace for this year. 2024 is going to be a year in which elections and the threat of -- the threat of violence overhangs this election, right, for two reasons. One is, Trump isn't hiding it. And I don't need to pretend both sides here, right?

I mean, there's the potentially the lead candidate for the GOP who's going to get the nomination is utilizing language and violence and the threat of violence as a way to rally his people, get support, and his party is sort of ignoring it. They're not sort of condemning it.

And I think that then creates an atmosphere in which violence becomes more permissive. That's what's happening here is this permissive structure. The second is, if he gets the nomination, he could win. And then if there's a win at the end of 2024, that's when I don't know how to -- I tend not to have my hair on fire.

I don't know how to explain or curb how the violence unfolds if Donald Trump does become president. And that's what I have been writing about, is just sort of there's -- there'd be no check on it. And so, in both cases, we need to monitor it. We need to call it out in the media.

And, hopefully, people, members of the voting public will see the potential and condemn it in the way that the public can, which is through their votes.

KEILAR: All right, Juliette, thank you so much for that. We appreciate it.

A huge explosion in Crimea, the Ukrainian military saying it has destroyed a Russian navy ship. We're going to have some new details on why this particular ship, which you see here, was targeted.

Plus, after two weeks of no contact, Alexey Navalny's team says they have made contact with him and that he is in a Russian prison 2,000 miles away from Moscow. And now the Kremlin critic is speaking out for the first time since his arrival there.

We will tell you what he's saying -- next.

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KEILAR: The Ukrainian air force says that it has destroyed a Russian warship carrying attack drones in Crimea.

This is video, apparently, of the blast that was shared by the Ukrainian air force commander, but CNN, mind you, cannot independently verify its authenticity.

DEAN: State media reporting Russia's Defense Ministry says its navy ship has been damaged in that strike.

So, let's bring in CNN reporter Nada Bashir, who's been monitoring that situation for us.

Nada, what do you know right now?

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, this is certainly being taken and welcomed as a sign of progress in Ukraine's counteroffensive.

This vessel, this Russian vessel, was said to have been carrying Iranian-made Shahed attack drones at the time of the reported strike. Now, these drones have been heavily relied upon by the Russian armed forces throughout the war in Ukraine. Of course, this is one of the key driving factors behind Ukraine's continued.