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Speaker Johnson Visits Border With GOP Lawmakers; Texas Gov. Has Bused 92,000 Plus Migrants To Other Cities; U.S.: "No Reason to Believe" Israel Behind Deadly Iran Blast; Fears Of Wider Conflict After Top Hamas Leader Killed In Beirut. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 03, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Congress has started 2024 right where 2023 left off, gridlocked on immigration. In the wake of an unprecedented surge in border crossings last month, a bipartisan group of senators is scrambling to reach a border deal that would also free up key aid for Israel and Ukraine. House Republicans, though, could be standing in the way.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: And right now, dozens of those Republican House lawmakers, led by the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, they're visiting the border to see the crisis firsthand. So will this visit and those talks in Washington result in Congress' first meaningful action on immigration in decades? Let's check in with all of our reporters from Washington to the border to see where those - where everything stands.

First to you, Ed Lavandera, who is in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Ed, so what are this large group of Republicans led by Speaker Johnson, what are they going to see today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they have been out here at the border and are beginning to make their way over to the area where the press conference with the Speaker and several other members will take place. But they've been here getting a briefing from the State Department of Public Safety, the state officers that have really been enforcing what Gov. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, has been pushing here in their fight with the Biden administration over the last few years.

And you see a lot here, the razor wire that runs several miles up and down the Rio Grande here, several miles of these steel containers that are used to block the edge of the Rio Grande. All of this is in place by state authorities and they're getting an up-close look at all of that.

Of course, Eagle Pass has been one of the major focal points of the migration crisis on the southern border where thousands of people have crossed. But incidentally, as these lawmakers are visiting Eagle Pass today, there, in recent days, has been a dramatic drop in the number of people crossing illegally here in Eagle Pass.

Just before the Christmas holiday, there were several thousand crossing per day just here in this location. But now we're seeing far fewer numbers and there are a number of reasons. So there's an obvious natural ebb and flow of migration that happens. But we're also told anecdotally from officials on the Mexican side of the border that at various checkpoints in the interior part of Mexico, just several miles that way, more robust checkpoints where Mexican immigration officials are cracking down on the movement of migrants making their way north as well.

That could be the product and the result of negotiations and talks that the Biden administration, high-level members of the administration, had with the Mexican president just after Christmas. But we're expecting to hear a lot more here from Republican lawmakers who are clearly making this visit to the border here as negotiations continue in Washington. And I think clearly the effort here is to ratchet up pressure on the Biden administration to get more of what they want in these negotiations as they press ahead on the Senate side.

SANCHEZ: Ed Lavandera, thanks so much for the update. Let's pivot now to Capitol Hill where these discussions are ongoing.

Lauren Fox is there for us.

Lauren, are you hearing about any movement on the border talks in the Senate?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, the group of bipartisan negotiators in the United States Senate, they're meeting as we speak, but they have been short of progress so far. They have not reached a deal. They are not approaching a deal. A deal is not imminent, but they continue to say that they're making progress, that these talks are productive.

[15:05:03]

Obviously, though, they are facing increasing pressure to get an agreement sooner than later, in part because things are starting to get harder and harder to imagine that a deal could actually pass out of the House of Representatives.

The dynamics right now are that even if Senate negotiators could come to an agreement, even if that bill could pass on the floor of the Senate, it remains to be seen if new Speaker, Mike Johnson, would actually put it on the House floor, given the fact that he has so many conservative members who are calling for nothing short of the House- passed immigration bill known as H.R. 2.

So right now, it remains to be seen what would even happen in the House. And the other piece of this dynamic happened when we learned this morning that House Republicans are planning to move forward next week with the beginning of impeachment hearings against Secretary Mayorkas. That, again, sets a really difficult dynamic to imagine how you can get an agreement that potentially could be reached in the Senate that Mayorkas has been part of how that agreement could get put on the floor of the House and passed, given the fact that Mayorkas is coming under more conservative scrutiny in the weeks ahead.

MARQUARDT: All right. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill, thanks very much.

And then down Pennsylvania Avenue, we have MJ Lee at the White House.

So, MJ, the White House has been lashing out at House Republicans over their stance on immigration. The Biden administration now also engaged with a - in a legal battle with the state of Texas.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Let's talk about that legal battle. This is essentially the Biden administration asking the Supreme Court now to allow for Border Patrol agents to be able to cut razor wire that's seen across the U.S. southern border, some of the kind that we saw just a few minutes ago in Ed's live shot.

What the administration is saying is that this razor wire that was put in place by the state of Texas needs to be removed in some cases, for example, because these patrol agents may need to provide medical assistance to some of the migrants that are coming across or, in some cases, apprehend some of the people that are crossing over the southern border.

And this is, of course, just one of many issues, one of many examples we have seen where the issue has become contentious between the federal government and the state of Texas and essentially pitting, in a lot of cases, President Biden with Texas governor, Greg Abbott. And we are seeing, of course, here in Washington, D.C., as Lauren just laid out, how this border issue has become so politically contentious on Capitol Hill with this issue getting caught up in the issue of funding for Israel and Ukraine.

I was just coming out of the first White House press briefing of the year. And again, they were talking about the urgency behind this issue. But there's really not a lot of signs right now, as Lauren was saying, of how this actually gets resolved. And as she was saying, lawmakers left town before the holidays, before a deal was struck. And now we are in the new year, but it also means that we are now squarely in the middle of an election year. And that means that on both sides of the aisle, this is going to be an increasingly politically sensitive issue, both for Democrats and Republicans to navigate, guys?

MARQUARDT: Yes, it will certainly be a lot more politically charged.

MJ Lee at the White House, thanks very much for that report.

Of course, part of this immigration crisis is the fallout beyond the border. Republican governors, like Texas' Greg Abbott, have transported 10s of thousands of migrants to so-called blue cities like New York City. And now some of those cities are being overwhelmed by that influx of new migrant arrivals.

We're joined now by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

Mark, thanks so much for being with us. MARK LEVINE, MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT: Thank you, Alex.

MARQUARDT: You told The New York Times back in August that New York "is at the desperation stage." That was August. That was six months ago. So how would you describe it now?

LEVINE: Look, I'm actually really proud of New Yorkers for welcoming these arrivals with open arms. They've been through very difficult journeys, fleeing difficult conditions in their home countries. But we've done this with almost no support from the federal government. And yes, it's getting harder and harder. The number of arrivals has increased in recent weeks. We're seeing about 500 per day.

And it just remains crazy that we've outsourced the national refugee resettlement plan to a xenophobic governor from Texas who's deciding where to send these buses based on his own, political agenda. We really need a national plan. We need more support here in New York and in the other cities.

MARQUARDT: Let's talk about that support you need because when the buses show up, it appears that the biggest problem that your city is facing right now is shelter for those migrants. Now, New York has what's called a right-to-shelter policy that the city has to provide for anyone who applies for it. So what policy are you - what policy changes, rather, are you looking for from the Biden administration, from the federal government to help relieve the pressure on your city?

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LEVINE: Well, the fact that New York has a right-to-shelter law is one of the reasons why our homeless crisis is very different than some of the other cities around the country where you see thousands of people out in the street. But we are facing real pressure right now with over 168,000 arrivals over the past year and a half with very little financial assistance from the federal government, no national plan to settle refugees based on where there is local capacity. There should be a survey of every town and county and state around the country to look at capacity. And finally, we need more work permits for the migrants.

I talked to so many of them and the first question I'm asked invariably is how can I work. These families want to work, they want to pay taxes, they want to pay their own way, but they need to be given those work permits. So there's many ways we need more support from the federal government. If we get that, I'm confident we can manage this.

MARQUARDT: And that is important to remember. So many of the people, what's driving them is a desire to work here in the United States and the belief that there are those opportunities. But on the right to shelter policy, the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, he has decided to limit that policy to 60 days on those accommodations. So the first families who were affected by that 60 day limit were supposed to be evicted just last week, right after Christmas, but they did receive an extension through this month, we understand. So how worried are you that some of these families, many of these families, will end up on the streets of Manhattan in the middle of winter, these cold temperatures?

LEVINE: So we have different policies for single adults and for families, and the 60-day rule for families is problematic and that it could disrupt the school year for these kids. I don't think any kid who's enrolled in a New York City public school should be sent to another part of the city mid school year.

For the single adults, it's actually - it's a 30 day rule and I think that we do need more flexibility in the case of singles because of how tight accommodation is. We're just faced with tougher and tougher choices as the number of people arriving continues to increase, and we have no financial support and other support from the federal government. It's getting harder and harder here. We need help.

MARQUARDT: So what are the chances that many of these thousands of migrants will end up literally on the streets?

LEVINE: I hope it doesn't come to that, but I'm getting more worried that as the winter months approach, our accommodations are overflowing. It doesn't help that we get no coordination from Texas who sends buses sometimes arriving in the middle of the night with no advance warning. Last night, there were families with young kids who arrived at the main entry point in Midtown Manhattan at 3 AM. It was very, very cold out.

If Gov. Abbott cared at all about the humanity of these migrants, he would at least coordinate with New York. They don't. It makes it much harder. If we had cooperation nationally, I think we could manage this so no one wound up in the street so that everyone had humane treatment, but we're going to need help to pull that off.

MARQUARDT: All right. Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine, we know that you are a very busy man with lots on your plate. Thank you so much for your time today.

LEVINE: Thank you, Alex.

MARQUARDT: Iran's leaders are promising a harsh response after two explosions near the burial site of a former military commander, those explosions killing at least 100 people.

And CNN now has new reporting on that fiery plane collision in Tokyo. What air traffic control transcripts say about the moments right before the crash.

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MARQUARDT: Just a short time ago, the State Department stressed that the United States has not been involved in today's double bombing in Iran, which killed more than a hundred people. Iranian state media is calling the explosions a terror attack. And an Iranian broadcast captured audio of one of those explosive devices going off. Take a listen.

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CROWD: (Inaudible) --

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MARQUARDT: Terrifying scenes there in Kerman. The bombs exploding about 20 minutes apart in that city near the burial site of the former Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani. He was the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq exactly four years ago today.

SANCHEZ: So more than a hundred people killed. The bombings also wounded more than 180. They also come as tensions are escalating in the Middle East over the Israel Hamas war. The State Department said this about any Israeli involvement in the attack on Iran, listen.

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MATTHEW MILLER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We have no reason to believe that Israel was involved in this explosion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?

MILLER: We just do not have any information to believe that that's the case.

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MARQUARDT: Now, we're going to be learning more from CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, and CNN Anchor and Chief National Security Analyst, Jim Sciutto.

Nic, I want to go to you first.

What more details do you know about what happened in Iran?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: A few details. The first bomb is believed to have been in a suitcase and was remotely detonated. So not a suicide bomber, because there was speculation about that earlier, and that perhaps spoke to Sunni extremists targeting Shias, but this was remote controlled, so a little more sophisticated, perhaps.

And the - one of the - and that bomb went off about 700 meters away from the site, the grave site where people were gathering. And the other one that came, as you said, 20 minutes later, was about a kilometer, about 0.6 of a mile away. We don't have details from the Iranian media on that. The Iranian media now reporting, by the way, that casualty toll climbing up from 180, the casualty toll now 211 people.

SANCHEZ: Jim, why is it so important that the U.S. get out in front of this and make the claim that this was not Israel involved in the attack?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Well, the U.S. doesn't want a regional war, right?

SANCHEZ: Right.

SCIUTTO: A direct war between Israel and Iran or any mistaking that that's what either the U.S. or Israel wants here. And we should be clear that this Iranian government has a lot of enemies other than the U.S. and Israel.

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They have groups such as ISIS, which have carried out attacks inside Iran, including in the Iranian capital, Tehran, before targeting civilians. They have domestic separatist groups that oppose this regime, such as Mujahadin-e Khalq, who have carried out terror attacks inside the country before. On a trip to Iran, I've been taken by Iranian authorities to the site of an alleged MeK attack. So there are other potential groups behind this kind of thing.

We should also note that this kind of attack does not fit the MO of, say, Israel. Israel has struck inside Iranian territory before, typically going after military sites ...

SANCHEZ: Not civilians.

SCIUTTO: ... going after nuclear scientists, et cetera, not civilians.

This has the characteristics and this is not a clear-cut answer to the question as to who's responsible for this, but it does have the characteristics of a terror attack, in particular because it was a double-tap strike. In other words, you had one small explosion, a lot of people respond, then you have a secondary explosion with the express intention of getting some of those first responders. And as I understand it, the bulk of the casualties were from that second explosion.

So that would point, at least the evidence we have so far, would point away from the U.S. and Israel.

MARQUARDT: And, Jim, as you say, Israel often much more surgical in their strikes in Iran. Surgical also, we believe, in Beirut yesterday, taking out a leading Hamas commander. Israel not claiming responsibility, though, even though the U.S. is telling us that Israel was indeed behind that. Why do you think Israel is being so coy when they've made it clear that they are going to go after Hamas leaders around the world?

SCIUTTO: Listen, it's in their interest probably to maintain some plausible deniability here. And, yes, to your point, even when I was there, we heard discussion of Israeli officials saying, without embarrassment, that Hamas leaders will not be safe anywhere in the world, whether that be in Turkey or in Lebanon, where some of them have taken refuge before and also Qatar. And there's been some reporting since then that, in fact, Hamas leaders no longer feel safe there and have been leaving there expressly for that reason. So I think that's a piece of it.

Also, all the parties here, there was deep concern about expanding this war. And it's not clear that any of these parties necessarily want that today. Does Israel want it at some point? Perhaps. There are certainly members of the government that talk about going into southern Lebanon at some point that does not appear to be the position of the war cabinet, the unity government at this point. Are there members of Hezbollah who would like to go to war with Israel? Possibly. Are there members of the Iranian government?

But at this point, based on the level of military action, for instance, at that border between Israel and Lebanon, it seems that both sides are trying to keep it below a threshold of a broader conflict. Now, the trouble is, those thresholds are movable. And my perception of the threshold might be different from yours and my perception of what is breaking that threshold might be different from yours.

And we do, to that point, those concerns, we have Hezbollah saying today they're going to strike back and they're going to strike back hard.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And with so much activity in the region to that point, one miscalculation could seriously create even more problems and lead to a further (inaudible) ...

SCIUTTO: No question. And I had a U.S. military official mention to me today that they are noticing that there is that Iranian warship ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SCIUTTO: ... now in the Red Sea operating relatively close to U.S. warships. And any time you have forces in close proximity, the danger of miscalculation rises.

SANCHEZ: And, Nic, back to you in Tel Aviv, it's obvious that there is an increased threat of escalation, given that there is activity in Lebanon, there's activity in Iran, there's stuff going on in Gaza and in the Red Sea as well. What have you been hearing from officials in Israel on the threat of a broader conflict?

ROBERTSON: They're very aware of it. We've heard from the defense minister saying that they face a threat of a multi-front threat from seven different countries. So the perception of being on a threat from many fronts is very real. And I think Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who spoke today, again with his characteristic cautiousness, again characteristically walking that tightrope of saying we have action, but we're not going to - but we're not getting heavily involved in action, but threatening war, not afraid of war.

And I think that that line was important because I think that speaks to perhaps some of the Hezbollah base who would say, well, hold on, you threatened if - even if a Hamas leader got taken out in Beirut, there would be a reaction. So he's sort of speaking to perhaps some of that upward - some upward pressure from some of his more hard-line base who would say, where's our action. And I think in terms of those sort of misunderstandings and the things that will concern Israel as they view what comes out of Iran, what machinations happen within the leadership there, particularly within the IRGC, which has a habit of acting by itself. One of whose leaders they killed Christmas Day, Israel killed Christmas Day or believed to be, they haven't certainly not taken responsibility for it. But the IRGC does believe Israel was responsible for that.

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These hard-line elements are going to look to their leadership for a response for the explosions today, for the killing of one of their leaders, senior leaders in Syria, just in the past week or so. All of this creates that upward pressure, which then allows or generates an atmosphere where it is much easier to have, as Jim says, these misinterpretations of the situation, other people's intense misunderstandings and then missteps.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Nic Robertson, Jim Sciutto, appreciate the perspective as always.

SCIUTTO: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: So Donald Trump has another written request to be shielded from prosecution for election interference. The appeals court decision could have major Implications on the 2024 presidential race. We have much more details ...

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MARQUARDT: A federal appeals court here in Washington will soon decide if Donald Trump should have immunity for alleged crimes that he committed during his presidency. Trump's attorneys and special counsel, Jack Smith, are scheduled to present oral arguments in that case next Tuesday.