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Biden Allies Pushing Him To Fight Harder, Show More Fire In Public; Biden Allies Push Fiery State Of The Union Speech; Biden Tells Military To Set Up Gaza Humanitarian Aid Port; Hopes Dim For Gaza Ceasefire Deal By Ramadan. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 07, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden set to deliver the speech of his career tonight, his third State of the Union address. We're learning details about how he is expected to make his case for a second term tonight as some of his allies are begging him to fight harder.

Plus, developing now, President Biden will direct the U.S. military to create a temporary port in Gaza to deliver aid. How soon that relief could come as the U.N. says Israel blocked nearly half of its aid missions into Gaza just last month, and his hope is dwindling that a ceasefire deal will be done before Ramadan.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, researchers looking inside the brain of a killer. What they say it reveals about the main mass shooter who killed 18 people and then turned the gun on himself. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Tonight, President Biden will deliver a pivotal State of the Union address that will double as a sales pitch to convince an increasingly skeptical American electorate that he deserves four more years to carry out his agenda.

In a few hours, Biden is expected to detail some ambitious new plans on a range of issues, including a corporate tax hike and an emergency move to increase aid in Gaza.

But beyond policy, Biden's allies want him to start scrapping with Republicans frequently and aggressively to contrast his vision with that of the Trump led GOP. We're covering all angles starting at the White House with MJ Lee. MJ, tell us more about what we'll be hearing from Biden tonight.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, it's simply not an overstatement to say that this is going to be one of the most important speeches that President Biden will deliver as president. And we are told that he is going to be framing this by talking about his accomplishments from the last three years and also trying to paint an optimistic picture for a second term that he hopes to earn.

We know that there are many numerous issues and weighty issues at that, both abroad and here at home, that the President is going to talk about, including, of course, the war in Israel, the economy and reproductive rights and the situation at the border. And the White House does have teed up a number of announcements that are expected to come out as a part of this speech, including, for example, raising the corporate tax rate to 28%.

Now, if you also look visually at the guests that are sitting in the First Lady's box tonight inside that House chamber, that helps paint a picture and a narrative of both the political and policy priorities for this White House heading into tonight. For example, we know that Kate Cox, who was that woman who was denied an abortion in Texas, she is going to be sitting with the First Lady, Shawn Fain, the Head of the UAW, a woman named Jazmin Cazares, whose sister was killed at a school mass shooting, all of these people, again, helping to paint a picture of what this White House's priorities are.

And keep in mind, Brianna, we are going to be hearing from President Biden, but we're also very much hearing from candidate Biden. And what that means is that all throughout the speech, we very much expect the President to continue drawing contrast between his vision for the country and Republicans. And, of course, that means Donald Trump as well, whether or not he is named specifically or not, that is going to be a contrast that we see over and over again throughout the course of this speech.

KEILAR: And tonight, MJ, we'll be hearing about this new mission to ramp up aid to Gaza. What can you tell us about that?

LEE: That's right. We certainly expect in general that the issue of the Israel-Hamas war is going to be a significant and important part of this speech. Senior officials saying that he is going to address that issue in a very meaningful way, an issue that the President has really wrestled with and grappled with over the last few months.

Now, we know that the administration in this speech is going to be announcing that the U.S. military is going to be establishing a new port on the Mediterranean, on the Gaza coast, to allow additional humanitarian aid into Gaza.

[14:05:04]

The context here that is so important is that there was a point in time when administration officials had hoped that a ceasefire and hostages deal would have gotten done by tonight so that the President could tout it in this important speech. That, of course, is not going to happen.

So the tone that he uses and the way that he talks about this conflict is going to be incredibly important, given how much frustration and anger there has been across the country for his continued refusal still to call for a permanent ceasefire in that war. Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. MJ Lee at the White House, thank you. Boris? SANCHEZ: Let's get the take from Trump world now with CNN's Kristen

Holmes in Florida. Kristen, how does former President Donald Trump plan to inject himself into tonight's proceedings?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris, what is the best way to put it? Donald Trump, as we know, likes to inject himself into anything that is the attention off of him. And he will be doing so again tonight. He will be posting live to "Truth Social," essentially reacting in real time to President Biden's State of the Union.

Now, he did this last year. He had his viewers, his base watching him. But this year, obviously, it takes on more significance and more importance because he is the Republican nominee or the presumptive Republican nominee, and they are expected to have a rematch in November.

Now, he did give somewhat of a preview of what he is going to say and what a general election rematch would look like in his pre-battle to State of the Union, which he recorded as Mar-a-Lago home. Take a listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have no idea from where they come. We have no idea who they are. They have no identification. Many come from mental institutions. Many come from prisons. They're terrorists. We have a calamity the likes of which we've never seen before.

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HOLMES: Now, unsurprisingly, he is talking about immigration, one of the policies or issues that will be at the center of his 2024 campaign against Joe Biden, and also in that pre-battle, talking a lot about the economy. We know Biden will be talking about the economy as well, but Donald Trump still believes that this is an issue that he can win at, at least at this point in time, heading into November.

One thing I want to point out, it's not just Donald Trump that's reacting. It's also his allies, his advisers. We did see the State of -- the Super PAC that is aligned with Donald Trump, MAGA, Inc., they put out an ad starting today, it's only going to run through tomorrow morning, that hits Biden in a scathing way, going after him for his age, his mental acuity, showing pictures of him stumbling on a staircase.

It even asks, at one point, could Biden even survive another presidency? This, of course, coming, as we know, age and mental acuity, mental fitness, will be a huge factor in that November election.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, live for us in West Palm Beach. Thanks so much, Kristen.

Let's get to some new CNN reporting about Biden allies urging him to take a more aggressive stance in tonight's speech. CNN's Isaac Dovere broke that story. Isaac, tell us about the approach here, that they want the President to be more like he is in closed doors in situations out in public, right?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, look, it's a lot of top Democrats I'm talking to who have said to me we hear about Biden cursing about Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors or saying things at fundraisers when the cameras are not there that really rip into Republicans.

They want more of that. Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, said to me, people have to -- are asking, is Joe Biden tough enough? And Walz said he is, he's got to show it. Phil Murphy, the Governor of New Jersey, saying a very similar thing to me, that, yes, Joe Biden's a fighter, but he needs to be there, first of all, to answer questions about his age, but also to the larger question of enthusiasm that he wants to drum up for Democrats going into this election year.

KEILAR: I mean, tough to do without maybe ticking some people off. So there's a calculation. It's a fine line. But also contrast that with, hey, we want more of that. Folks are saying to Biden, and you have Speaker Johnson saying to his GOP, we want less of that from you guys.

DOVERE: Well, look, that moment last year during the State of the Union when, if you remember, Joe Biden said that Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare, and the Republicans started jeering him, saying, irony. He said, oh, you don't want to. I enjoy -- I always enjoy conversion. That was not a planned moment.

And -- but it was the best thing that could have happened to the Biden White House in their minds. They felt like that contrast is exactly what they want. Joe Biden seeming like he's the one out making a common sense, middle-of-the-road argument. Republicans who are lashing out against him in this very raucous way, and then them getting on the team with him.

My sources tell me that for this year's speech, they looked for a couple of moments that could lure the Republicans into a trap like that. But certainly, the Republicans, this is a campaign event, ultimately, tonight's speech. And the Republicans know that they don't want to give Joe Biden another good moment like that. We'll see if they can keep themselves in check.

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SANCHEZ: We'll watch to see what kind of bait the President puts out to the idea that this is a campaign event. Because it's competing with so many other things, the State of the Union doesn't quite have as much of an impact as it did in years past. So what are the White House's expectations for its ability to sort of penetrate the culture in that way?

DOVERE: Look, the viewership goes down. It's diversified attention, all that stuff. But it is the biggest moment that any president ever has all year long. And in this case, every State of the Union is about theatrics. This one is especially about theatrics. It is going to be about him showing that he's up to the job, that he's got the vigor and the energy and all that stuff. And talking to not an agenda that he expects to pass through Congress, of course.

It's not like much is going to pass at this point. In fact, we know a lot of things are stalled. But things that he wants to say, this is my plan, as a White House official said to me a couple weeks ago, a plan for this year, but also a plan for the next five years.

KEILAR: It's an opportunity to make a memorable moment. And he has to seize it when you look at the polls as they are right now. Isaac, thank you so much for the report.

DOVERE: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still ahead, President Biden expecting to announce that he's directing the military to set up a temporary port in Gaza. So how is the U.S. going to get this humanitarian aid into the war-torn region? How quickly can it do that, with hopes for a ceasefire fading?

SANCHEZ: Plus, the City of Uvalde, Texas, releasing its investigation into the police response to the Robb Elementary School shooting. We're hearing from the father of one of the children killed about what he wants to see when it comes to accountability.

And the NTSB is slamming Boeing, saying it's absurd that the company hasn't provided records it asked for relating to that terrifying mid- air blowout. Details in just a moment.

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SANCHEZ: Tonight at his State of the Union speech, President Biden is expected to say that he will lead the U.S. military and setting up a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid. This comes after the U.N. says that Israel only let in a quarter of planned U.N. aid missions into northern Gaza last month.

Meantime, hopes are fading for a ceasefire deal. People familiar with negotiations tell CNN that talks have stalled for a ceasefire by Ramadan, the most sacred month for Muslims, which begins on Sunday.

CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt is with us now. First, Alex, break down this plan for us for a port into Gaza?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, this is pretty remarkable. And this means that aid is going to be delivered to Gaza by land, sea and air. And, Boris, as you know, this comes after days of the U.S. really stepping up pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. We've heard from both the President and the Vice President saying no excuses.

So far, Israel has been resistant to opening up more land crossings to allow aid in, particularly in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. That's why you're seeing the U.S. and Jordan dropping aid from the sky.

Now, this incredible announcement from the Biden administration that they're going to build a port, a pier, essentially, to establish a maritime corridor. Now, once established, these ships that would go to this port essentially have the capacity of hundreds of trucks per day to get that desperately needed aid in.

But, Boris, I really think it does underscore the fact that despite the extraordinary amount of U.S. pressure on Israel and U.S. support for Israel, Israel so far has refused to open up more border crossings. That is something we could see in the coming weeks, as senior administration officials said today, without indicating what crossing that could be. But that is something that the U.S. wants to see, still has not seen. And, as a result, they're trying to figure out other ways to do it, to get more aid in. And now the latest idea is this port.

SANCHEZ: Update us on ceasefire talks, because as of last week, President Biden said that he'd wanted it done by this Monday. It doesn't look like we're closer.

MARQUARDT: Yeah, remember that extraordinary optimism from the President, who said that by this past Monday, a couple days ago, we could have seen a ceasefire. He then walked that back a little bit. But the administration had clearly said that they wanted a deal in place by Ramadan because of all the sensitivities around the Muslim holy month. They'd really set that as a deadline.

And what I'm told by multiple sources who are familiar with these talks is that that's not going to happen. This is not something that the President is going to be able to announce tonight in the State of the Union.

I spoke with a U.S. official who said that hope is fading. We have seen talks throughout the week in Cairo that have now ended. Hamas came to these talks with proposals that I'm told by a diplomat actually frustrated the other parties.

And so they -- the Israelis have said that they require a list of the hostages from Hamas. Israel didn't attend these talks. So the talks are not dead. But it does not look like this ceasefire is going to be in place by the start of Ramadan, which starts early next week.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Hamas says it doesn't know which hostages are alive or dead. Israel says they don't believe that.

MARQUARDT: Right.

SANCHEZ: A tense back and forth. Alex Marquardt, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Let's talk more about this with retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Cedric, a Senior Administration Official, saying that the port here will include a temporary pier to provide hundreds of truckloads, more of assistance each day. What kind of undertaking will this be by the U.S. military? How long will it take?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This is going to be a major undertaking, Brianna. And one of the key things to note about this is that there's going to have to be a lot of security around this port facility because we don't want to get U.S. troops involved in anything like this.

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But the Navy, with the Seabees, their engineering corps, they're going to go in there and they're going to make this a reality. What they'll have to do is they'll have to clear an area that will be -- that will enable them to bring ships in to that port. They will probably be doing a lot of staging offshore. My understanding is that they will also be using Larnaca, Cyprus as a major staging area for this event.

So this is going to take some time to realize. It might take some weeks for it to even get operational. But it can move very quickly once they have all the ships in place and all of the raw materials, basically, to build that port and create that pier. That's going to be the key thing that they'll have to get over there. And they've got some assets pre-positioned in Europe for this kind of thing. But that's the kind of thing that they'll need to do. So I would expect this to take a couple of weeks before it's real.

KEILAR: What will the security coordination look like here between the U.S., Israel, the U.N. and NGOs?

LEIGHTON: So for the most part, the U.S. is going to try to keep its forces out of Gaza. So they will not be setting foot, at least the plan seems to be that they will not be setting foot in Gaza itself. What they will do, though, is they will coordinate with the U.N. and with NGOs and other organizations that are providing food to Gaza civilians. And they will then basically transfer the food and other goods, medical supplies, for example, to them basically offshore. They will effect that transfer offshore. And they will bring them -- bring these goods, these materials, into Gaza at this pier that they're building there.

So it's going to be a very big logistical operation, especially if they're going to be supporting over a million and a half or so Gaza civilians with this and other efforts. It's going to, I think, take some time to make this happen. But the key thing, Brianna, is that there will be a lot of security coordination not only with the NGOs, but also with Gaza police forces and with Hamas, as well as with the Israelis.

KEILAR: And can this be pulled off for sure without the U.S. military stepping foot on Palestinian soil?

LEIGHTON: Well, it's possible for it to be done that way. We have to have people that we can work with on the ground in Gaza. The idea will be that they basically effect these transfers offshore and that they don't have to set foot, at least, you know, for the most part, on Palestinian soil.

I think that's going to be the key intent. They're going to work with as many NGOs in the U.N. as possible to ensure that there's very little military footprint, if any, on Palestinian soil. So they'll make every effort to do that. They may have Egyptians help with this and perhaps other nationalities. But the key would be to have a very minimal U.S. military presence in Gaza, but provide maximum humanitarian relief.

KEILAR: Yeah. And that relief cannot come soon enough. Colonel Leighton, thank you so much.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Brianna.

KEILAR: Nearly two years after the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, parents are still searching for answers and demanding accountability.

In this afternoon, the Uvalde City Council is expected to release the findings of its investigation into the police response. We'll talk to a father who lost his son in the massacre about what he hopes to hear from officials.

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SANCHEZ: Next hour, the Uvalde, Texas City Council will hold a special meeting regarding the deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary School. They were expected to release a report on how police responded to the massacre. It's been nearly two years since a gunman killed 19 kids and two teachers there. But for the community, the pain is fresh and many answers are still -- rather, many questions are still unanswered about why law enforcement waited more than an hour before confronting the shooter.

Brett Cross is going to be at today's meeting. And he joins us now live. His son Uzi Garcia was killed in the shooting.

Bread, thank you so much for being with us and sharing part of your afternoon with us. CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is reporting that city officials have not yet sat down with the families. They haven't given you any advance information of the report's release, that's been your experience?

BRETT CROSS, SON KILLED IN UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING: Yeah, sometimes we will get information beforehand, like with the DOJ, but when it comes to the city, we really don't. And it's a little bit infuriating.

SANCHEZ: So, if this report finds that local law enforcement inadequately responded to the shooting the way that the DOJ one did, do you think that this is a step closer to accountability?

CROSS: I think it's a step closer for us. I do fear that the City won't do anything about these officers. You know, it's -- it's been two years and there's been countless information out there that, you know, we have learned and we have seen that they have not acted upon.