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Israel Doesn't Send Delegation to Cairo; David Petraeus is Interviewed about the Israel-Hamas War; Firefighters Battle Wildfire in Texas; Haiti Declares State of Emergency; Lawmakers Unveil Funding Bill; Singapore Downplays Grant for Swift Concert. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 04, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:41]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this morning, sources tell CNN there are several sticking points remaining before Hamas will agree to a deal on releasing more hostages and a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. Now, talks are ongoing in Cairo, but an Israeli delegation is not there. Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz is expected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris later today. This after she specifically called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Let's get right to Jeremy Diamond, who is in Tel Aviv, on the status of these talks were Israel is not participating just now, Jeremy, why?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, an Israeli official telling us that there are two key reasons for that, and that's because they're waiting from -- for Hamas to provide a list of the hostages that it would release under this initial six-week pause in the fighting to see the release of perhaps some 40 Israeli hostages. They are also waiting for Hamas to provide its response to the ratio of Palestinian prisoners that it would demand be released in exchange for these Israeli hostages. And so, as a result of not getting that information, we're told that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to send an Israeli delegation to this latest round of talks.

That comes despite the fact that we've been hearing some optimism from U.S. officials in particular over the weekend about the possibility of actually reaching an agreement here.

[08:35:04]

And it's important to keep in mind that we are under a time crunch here. The Muslim holiday of Ramadan is less than a week away. And Israeli officials have indicated that if there is not a deal in place by then, that the Israeli military will instead move to escalate things in the Gaza Strip by moving to carry out a major military offensive in the southern city of Rafah were about 1.5 million Palestinians are currently living.

Hamas sees the sticking points in these negotiations another way. They are continuing to insist that Israel must agree to a permanent ceasefire, at least a pathway to a permanent ceasefire. They also say that there are still things to be worked out in terms of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza or from certain parts of Gaza, as well as the return of displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza to be able to return back to their homes.

But amid all of this, what is coming into clearer focus, John, is the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation inside of the Gaza Strip. We are getting more reports of the hunger and the malnutrition that is afflicting the most vulnerable in northern Gaza, in particular. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says that 15 children have now died of dehydration or malnutrition. Several of those coming in just the last few days.

And one of the hospitals in northern Gaza is worried that the lives of six more children could also be at risk due to severe malnutrition. Amid all of this, as humanitarian agencies sound the alarm bells, we're seeing multiple countries ramping up efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, including the United States over the weekend carrying out airdrops of much needed aid. More of those expected to continue this week.

But it's clear that those airdrops are not the ultimate solution to this. They are costly. They are inefficient in terms of getting the amount of aid in. And it's really a drop in the bucket. We've heard from U.S. officials saying what really needs to happen is Israel needs to open up more crossing points directly into Gaza, work to coordinate better with these humanitarian aid agencies to get that aid in. But in the meantime, there's no question that the people in northern Gaza are suffering and more needs to be done.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Jeremy Diamond, with the latest from Tel Aviv. Jeremy, thank you very much.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now is retired Army General David Petraeus. He's a former CIA director and commander of U.S. Central Command, of course. He's also the co-author of the book "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare From 1945 to Ukraine."

It's good to see you. Thank you so much for - for being here, General.

Let's first start with the negotiations as Jeremy Diamond was laying out kind of the latest of where it stands. What is your level of confidence at this point in these negotiations, considering I've heard you say and taken note when you - when you say that Hamas is the equivalent of the Islamic State?

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS (RET.), FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Well, its a very close call as to whether this will come through or not. There are a lot of reasons that the various parties would like to see this happen, a temporary ceasefire to be sure, maybe four to six weeks, something like that, for the period of Ramadan. But it will not be extended. Israel does need to destroy Hamas. Again,

that means render them incapable of accomplishing their mission without reconstitution. But clearly there also has to be enormous additional attention and resources devoted to taking care of the people, especially in the areas that have already been cleared.

And we saw with that episode with the convoy in which 100 or so people were killed in a stampede apparently threatening, these soldiers saw that as such, clearly there's got to be more attention also just to issues that might be described as law and order. Gangs are running around now rampant. Aid convoys find it very difficult to get in. That was actually organized by the Israelis, but clearly not secure and sufficiently.

So, more attention has to be given to the -- what happens in neighborhoods after they have been cleared, and also, how do you hold them, if you will? How do you secure the people and keep them from having Hamas reinfiltrate, which would be the reconstitution that we saw with the Islamic State, in fact. In Iraq, we destroyed it during the surge in Iraq, kept it down for three-and-a-half years. We withdrew. The Iraqis took their eyes off it. And then, a few years later, you have a califate.

So, much more attention to this side of this particular - this war on Hamas.

BOLDUAN: Help me with this one on what we saw, U.S. -- the United States airdropping aid over Gaza this weekend for the first time. It was - what - the reports I've seen is 38,000 ready meals from C-130 cargo planes. I've seen the reaction to this shift and this move kind of ranging from much needed to this is only symbolic and insufficient. What do you think?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think it's all of the above, but the number clearly is woefully inadequate, but it's - it's very symbolic and I think it's probably also intended to nudge, to prod the Israelis to be doing more of this themselves on the ground. Again, airdrop is an inefficient way.

[08:40:02]

You're not sure exactly who's going to get to it. Thirty-eight thousand when you have a population of 2.1 million, again, obviously, is nowhere near sufficient.

But it is very symbolic and, again, the Israelis are going to have to spend more time and effort and resources on this kind of activity. Not airdrop but doing it from the ground. And ideally running in from different locations into northern Gaza and into those areas where there already is security, but making sure that they continue that security.

They - they -- remember old pottery house rules, Pottery Barn rules that were described in the early days in Iraq, you break it, you own it. And they have displaced the entity that was ruling Gaza, Hamas. That's another of their objectives is dismantle the political wing. And I agree with that as well. They can never be allowed to oversee the affairs in Gaza or you'll have another episode like we had on 10/7. But that means that they're going to have to do this, at least in the near term until there can be some alternative that's arrived at.

BOLDUAN: Do -- you've talked about a good counterinsurgency strategy for Israel to be employing here when looking at taking out Hamas, looking at Gaza. The way I've seen you sum it up is, clear, hold, build. Do you see Israel employing this strategy at this point?

PETRAEUS: Not sufficiently, frankly. And there has to be much more attention to the whole phase, both to take care of the people -- again, there should also be an explicit objective that is announced that we want to make life better for the Palestinians in Gaza, and then demonstrate that by what is done on the ground.

Again, I fully agree with the need to destroy Hamas, dismantle the political wing, get their hostages back, but there have to be additional objectives announced that have to do with the people and who's going to administer and oversee the distribution of humanitarian assistance, who's going to restore basic services, begin reconstruction. All of that can be done simultaneously, even as they are continuing the operations in central and southern Gaza.

And it should be done. That should be the approach taken. Yes, there will be those that say Hamas is an army, not an insurgency. Fair enough. But you still have to deal with it. And then you have to hold that area or they will reconstitute. That's the other big fear. There are signs of reconstitution in some of the areas of northern Gaza.

BOLDUAN: General David Petraeus, thank you for your time. It's good to see you.

PETRAEUS: Great to be with you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning in Texas, firefighters still battling to put out the biggest wildfire the state has ever seen. Its historic. The deadly Smokehouse Creek Fire is what it's called. It's just 15 percent contained at this point and it's claimed two lives. It has destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, damaged numerous crops and killed thousands of livestock.

CNN's Camila Bernal joins us live from

Can you give us a sense of what you're seeing there? I see that it's charred, but this thing is still powering through Texas.

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara, officials saying that fire activity did pick up over the weekend, but they were able to keep that fire from growing dramatically, thanks in part to aviation resources. Look, this fire has been devastating to property, to people's homes, but also to the landscape. It's miles and miles of charred land. And some of the most impacted are the area ranchers.

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SHANE PENNINGTON (ph), RANCH MANAGER: I'm guessing we may have found 50 dead so far. We're not finding many calves. So, I know they burned up.

BERNAL (voice over): Shane Pennington is the ranch manager at the Fields Mailer Ranch (Ph) in Canadian, Texas. This is also where he lives and raises his family. As the largest wildfire in the state's history began to encircle the ranch, Pennington was forced to evacuate.

PENNINGTON: I wasn't scared of it. I was -- I was more angry, I guess. Just 20 years of, you know, taking care of this. it's - and it could all be gone.

I wasn't really fearful for the house. I figured it would probably be OK. I was more worried about the cattle.

BERNAL: For you, the hard decision was actually leaving?

PENNINGTON: Yes. Yes. And - and feeling like I didn't do enough to get them.

BERNAL (voice over): Local officials estimate thousands of cattle among area ranches will be lost to the Smokehouse Creek Fire, which has already scorched more than a million acres. The state's agricultural commissioner, Sid Miller.

SID MILLER, TEXAS AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER: This fire was so intense, you couldn't get the fire trucks anywhere close to the fire.

BERNAL (voice over): Pennington says he did not have time or a place to move the cattle.

PENNINGTON: A lot of them have been blinded by it. It burned their eyelashes, eyelids, everything and - and just burned all the hair off of them. Their feet are coming off, their hooves. They're bloody. It burned their udders. And, you know, even if they survive it, more than likely they're going to get pneumonia, they're going to get sick.

[08:45:00]

And we've already had to put some down. Better than letting them suffer and just die, you know?

This is one little calf here. I don't know if he's going to be all right. His feet are burned really bad.

It's extremely hard to see them suffering. I mean they're just -- like I say, I've raised some of them since they were babies, you know?

BERNAL (voice over): State officials called the impact to cattle and crops catastrophic. MILLER: We've lost over 3,000 head, which is a very small number. That

will double or triple easily. We've got cattle that we're going to have to euthanized because of the damage to their hooves, their udders.

BERNAL (voice over): The ranch's owner says his cows bring in anywhere from $1,800 to $2,400 each, much of it for beef sales.

PENNINGTON: It's going to hurt the business extremely bad. So - and it will take years to recover because it takes years to put a cow herd together before they're productive and producing like they should be. And the job is to keep them alive, it's not to destroy them. And it's - it's tough. It's really tough.

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BERNAL (on camera): Emotionally and financially difficult for a lot of people here, but everything I've heard is how grateful they are to the firefighters and specifically to the volunteer firefighters. We're seeing a community and really a country come together, donating hey, feed, water, fencing material. Just everybody doing everything they can for the people of the Texas panhandle.

Sara.

SIDNER: Camila, I've got to tell you, those pictures of those calves struggling there after being burned, awful, awful sight. Thank you so much for reporting on this huge fire.

John.

BERMAN: All right, a state of emergency in place. More than 3,000 prisoners escaped. An entire nation in upheaval.

And an international conflict brewing over, you guessed it, Taylor Swift. Countries facing off on pivotal issues arising from the Eras Tour.

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[08:51:43]

SIDNER: On our radar for you this morning, it is still snowing in parts of California, but the end is in sight after a monster blizzard slammed parts of the west coast. In California's Sierra Nevada there are some areas reporting more than seven feet of snowfall right now. The heaviest snowfall is expected to subside, but forecasts call for some lingering snow all the way into tomorrow.

All right, Oregon lawmakers are changing course in a big way this morning. They're criminalizing the possession of many hard drugs, including fentanyl, after decriminalizing it in 2020. Since then, fentanyl overdoses have skyrocketed there. It's gotten so bad in Portland that they've had to declare a state of emergency. A spokesperson for the governor tells CNN that the Democrat hasn't decided whether to approve or veto this new bill. And over the weekend, a volcano in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands erupted, sending lava and gas into the air. It is a beauty site but extremely destructive. Experts believe this is the largest eruption of Fernandinho Island in recent years. Since 2017, the volcano has erupted four times.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is scary, beautiful, wrap it all up into one, I guess, right, Sara?

There's also this. We're tracking a state of emergency in Haiti. Overnight, more than 3,000 inmates escape the national prison there as violence in the capital of Port-au-Prince spirals out of control. Protests against Haiti's government and deadly gang violence have exploded in recent weeks, with some saying they're ready to overthrow the government.

CNN's David Culver just returned from Haiti. He's joining us now.

David, what did you see? Talk to us about what's happening.

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate.

Yes, this is a country, as we know, that's been plagued by natural disaster, political turmoil in recent years. Now we're seeing it further fractured by this violence. And you've got gangs and other groups really just taking advantage of what's quickly a worsening situation.

Now, Haiti's government declaring that state of emergency that you mentioned. And this also comes with a curfew. And the surge in gang violence, it also includes two prison breaks over the weekend.

Now, here's what's concerning about that. You've got more than apparently 3,000, that's how many have been estimated to have escaped from Haiti prisons overnight. And this is in Port-au-Prince, the capital. A Haiti police union warned that if the attackers were successful in releasing this many prisoners, this is what they say, quote, "we are done. No one will be spared in the capital because there will be an extra 3,000 bandits out." That's how they see this.

Now, the U.S. embassy in Haiti has been urging its citizens to get out of the country amid this violence. U.S. airlines have suspended or canceled flights in and out of Port-au-Prince. And in the past 72 hours we have seen something, Kate, that's really quite striking. You're seeing gang, and there are dozens of them that have really broken up control over 80 percent. That's the estimate of Port-au- Prince, the capital city. And they were starting to coordinate with each other. And that shows a united front that's going to be a formidable force for police to try to combat.

Now, late last week Haiti's prime minister, Ariel Henry, was in Kenya and he signed this - an agreement to deploy 1,000 Kenyan security forces to Haiti. Kate, this is part of a multinational security support mission. The U.S. is helping to fund some of this. The concern here though, from the Haitians that we spoke with on the ground, is that you've got foreign forces that will be coming in, they will be intervening in their country, and they're really concerned that it's going to strip them from any voice going forward.

[08:55:11]

And they are desperate to have elections, which now, according to the prime minister, won't be happening until August of next year.

Kate, I got to tell you, it is a rapidly worsening situation that even in the time that we've been back has gotten worse.

BOLDUAN: Wow. David, thank you so much for bringing us that.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, top lawmakers on Capitol Hill have unveiled a package of six government funding bills they hope will fend off a shutdown at the end of the week. The package is backed by top Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. The federal government has been operating off a series of short-term spending extensions since October of last year.

CNN's Lauren Fox is in Washington.

Everyone claims they hate the short-term extensions, yet that's what they've fallen into. But maybe this time it will be different?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're five months into the fiscal year, which means now Congress has decided it is time to act. This first tranche of bills, these were probably the easier bills to try and negotiate. So, they are expected to pass by the Friday midnight deadline. The House is going to move forward on Wednesday. And while there are some conservatives who are arguing that there aren't enough conservative policy wins, that these spending numbers are too high, the reality is many people acknowledge that Speaker Johnson was on a trajectory set by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy that was going to be very difficult to get off of.

So, last week I heard a lot of grumbling about where this was headed, but very few members threatening that this was going to end Speaker Johnson's time in the speakership.

Now, there is a question, what happens to the next six bills, because those bills traditionally have been harder to negotiate. Things like negotiating spending and policies at the Labor Department, at HHS, at DHS. Though agencies can be a little bit trickier for lawmakers on the Republican and Democratic side to come to an agreement on. They have until March 22nd to get an agreement on that second tranche of bills.

But here's why everyone is so motivated. At the end of April, if you don't have agreement on these full-year spending packages, what you get is automatic cuts across the board. That was part of the debt ceiling deal that was passed in the end of last May. The reason for that was to really get everyone to the negotiating table, to avoid a situation where you were just doing these constant short term CRs to get them through the fiscal year.

So, John, after they're all done with this, they have to put their eyes toward getting agreement on funding for the next fiscal year. So, that's right around the corner.

BERMAN: Else they all turn into pumpkins at the end of April. Got it.

Lauren Fox, thank you very much for that. We know you'll keep us posted.

Sara.

SIDNER: John, the battle of the bands? No, the battle of countries over one woman's economic jogger nut, known as Taylor Swift. This morning, Singapore, having to clarify that it didn't pay as much as people thought for Taylor Swift's concerts. Fans there are excited about her six shows that began on Saturday. But neighboring countries disappointed, annoyed, perhaps angry that they were not included in the Eras Tour.

CNN's Will Ripley is joining us live from Taipei.

You know, countries fighting over you because they want you in their country, I mean, that's the kind of publicity you kind of want, right?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's - it's a good time to be Taylor Swift, Sara, but Singapore's culture minister saying that he's bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Nonetheless, he is moving swiftly to deny rumors that there's this exclusive love story, $3 million per show according to some rumors. Singapore saying the actual figure, not as high as sparks fly. But Singapore was fearless in luring Swift, and they went into this with their eyes open looking at Taylor's huge fanbase. Flights to Singapore reportedly packed with Swifties this week. It's like welcome to New York in the skies.

And this is not exactly the great war between nations, but there is some bad blood between especially Singapore's neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines, both of them saying to Taylor, you belong with me. But Singapore saying, shake it off, guys. This likely won't be Taylor's last kiss in southeast Asia. Not a blank space in the house at those six sold-out shows this week in Singapore. If you do have tickets, you are the lucky one. Swifties say they're ready to party like its 1989, screaming long live there queen. One friend who was at the concert over the weekend said they were screaming a little too loud. A 12-year-old girl screaming the lyrics of every song in a non- musical way. But I told him, hey, this is what you came for.

SIDNER: Will Ripley, I don't know how much time you spent putting all of those song titles into your live shot, but that was incredible. There will be no bad blood -

RIPLEY: Fifteen - 15 Taylor Swift puns.

[09:00:00] SIDNER: I - I heard every single one of them. There will be no bad blood from Swifties everywhere. You, my friend, did the work. You understood the assignment this morning.