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UCLA Cancels Classes After Overnight Clashes Between Protesters; NYPD: 300 Protesters Arrested At Columbia And City College Of NY; Trump Praises Law Enforcement Amid Pro-Palestinian Protests; VP Harris Blames Trump As Six-Week Abortion Ban Begins In Florida. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 01, 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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[15:00:44]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Universities on edge. We are following the clashes on campus as pro-Palestinian protesters dig in and schools are forced to adjust their plans for the end of the semester.

Plus, the Biden-Harris campaign back in former President Trump's backyard as the vice president rallies for reproductive rights in Florida where a strict new six-week abortion ban is now in effect.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And Secretary of State Antony Blinken puts new pressure on Hamas to accept a proposed hostage deal with Israel as we learn more about the brutal impact that the war is having on civilians in the Gaza Strip.

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

KEILAR: Today, classes at UCLA are canceled after violent hours-long clashes broke out overnight on campus between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and counter-protesters.

MARQUARDT: And it comes as California governor, Gavin Newsom, is demanding answers on why it took so long for people to respond. CNN's Stephanie Elam is live on campus in L.A.

So, Stephanie, it was a violent night. We saw those clashes, some of the most violent that we've seen so far, certainly, I think, between protesters and counter-protesters. What's the situation right now?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's changed, but definitely there's more people out here. In fact, they're yelling right now from the pro-Palestinian side. They've had a reconfiguring of what they were doing out here because their barricade completely fell down once the winds kicked up as daylight came here. So they just reinforced that here from the pro-Palestinian side and you can see they're still working on that here.

For one thing, this is - where we're standing now is where we saw these clashes happening overnight. And the question that the Governor has is the question that a lot of people here have is why did it take so long for law enforcement to be called in? We know that they got here after midnight, after things had been escalating, where you see that footage where it looks like people are using the barricades, pulling them down, throwing things that way and some things coming from the other side as well during last night, what we saw - I can tell - still tell you, there's some blood out here still.

And I talked to one woman who did just feel compelled. She's just a native of Los Angeles. She saw what was happening on the news. She just felt compelled to come out here, doesn't have students here or anything. And this is what she says she saw when she got out here. Take a listen.

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FELICIA FORD, WITNESSED VIOLENCE ON UCLA CAMPUS: But I just saw that these are young students going to school. They're protesting for a cause, but the people that I saw and that I understood were the people that didn't go to school here that were causing the blood violence that they were committing here. Pipes, mace, there's - a couple of people had knives.

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ELAM: And I have to tell you, when we got out here overnight, she was actively pulling people apart, pushing people apart who were getting in each other's faces. She was just out here by herself doing that. There has been a restoration of calm here. But there's still plenty of police presence.

If you look out in the distance that way, you can see that they're still there. And there's still a lot of questions. And some of the student journalists from the Daily Bruin pointing out that some of the blame should fall to the administration of UCLA, which they say should have acted more quickly to get the response out here. When Mayor Karen Bass called for it, after around one o'clock in the morning, that's when the police presence started to move here.

We did see that the chancellor said that this was unlawful, but it does not seem that they're breaking this down at any point at this time. What they did do was cancel classes today, Alex.

KEILAR: All right. Stephanie Elam, thank you for that report live for us from UCLA, where so much happened overnight.

And let's talk now with someone who was actually injured in that chaos at UCLA. Catherine Hamilton, who is news editor at UCLA's independent student paper, the Daily Bruin.

You, Catherine, right, you were covering the protests. Obviously, you're okay enough that you're able to speak with us. But this looked quite chaotic. Tell us what happened.

[15:05:01]

CATHERINE HAMILTON, NEWS EDITOR, UCLA'S DAILY BRUIN: Yes, so I was scheduled to be on shift covering anything that happened around the encampment from 8 PM to midnight. Around 9 PM is when things started to really heat up. A lot of counter protesters were arriving, many of them and most of them adults and then violence just was incited. The counter protesters broke down the first layer of barriers to get into the encampment and then started throwing those barriers at the people they knew were standing inside the encampment directly behind the line.

They threw things such as electric scooters and there was also a lot of pepper spray and mace throughout the air. Counter protesters also launched fireworks at the encampment repeatedly.

MARQUARDT: Catherine, what do we know about those counter protesters? I'm looking at your website. You call them pro-Israel counter protesters. What evidence is there of their positions of them being pro-Israel? And to the point made by someone that Stephanie Elam just spoke, to what extent do we know if they were outsiders or not?

HAMILTON: Yes. So I think our biggest indication in both speaking with them and just watching the counter protesters mobilize is that they are using a lot of language that deems the pro-Palestinian movement as anti-Semitic. And they wave many Israeli flags. There are many set up.

I don't particularly know if they're still set up, currently, because I have not been back to campus after the events of last night, but they have been around. People have been holding them and they have been shouting things that express their support for Israel and some support for Israel's military occupation of the Gaza Strip.

And as to that previous point made, it does seem that most of these counter protesters are not students and that they are adults. Their affiliation with the university is unclear to us and they are not always the most willing to speak on what their affiliation would be, but they are not of the typical student age. And many of them have said that they come from surrounding areas such as Beverly Hills.

KEILAR: Okay. So I have a question about something that we have heard, Catherine, from multiple people, which - and this included a Jewish student who is not happy with the encampment, does not feel particularly safe on campus, but witnessed some of what was happening and said that police just didn't respond as these folks targeted the pro-Palestinian encampment. Do you have any sense of why that happened or to tell us about as well what you saw when you were there?

HAMILTON: Yes. Truthfully, I wish that I could give an answer on why I think that happened. But what we did see was police cars moving around campus throughout the night, starting past 1 AM when the official call was made for their presence on campus. And we saw mobilization very early on, but they didn't actively start attempting to clear the area until around 3:15 AM, even though we knew that they had been dispatched and that they had been on campus for at least an hour to two hours before they began to engage in the plaza.

MARQUARDT: Catherine, your newspaper's editorial board has issued some pretty stark warnings saying to the chancellor of the university there, if someone's killed that he will have blood on his hands. The ed board has also said that UCLA is failing its students by not taking action to prevent the kind of violence that we saw last night. So what more do you want to see from UCLA administrators?

HAMILTON: I think it's been a really difficult and interesting thing for the UCLA administration to balance having such a large organized protest, especially on a public university. But I think that the university has done a very interesting job of engaging with the encampment from the people who we've spoken to inside. They have said that the university has not attempted to meet with anyone within the encampment to even hear out their demands.

And honestly, while four Daily Bruin reporters were being assaulted yesterday on campus outside of the plaza by counter protesters, there were police nearby. And I would be unable to understand how they would have not witnessed that but still, they did not come to intervene.

[15:10:04]

And they did not intervene in any of the aggression that was seen prior to their mobilization despite the fact that they were standing watching.

KEILAR: And I think one of the things, Catherine, that's interesting about UCLA compared to a lot of other campuses that we're keeping our eyes on, you don't wrap things up here in a couple of weeks, commencement isn't May 11th or 14th, you're on the quarter system, it's not going to end until the middle of June. Are you expecting disruptions for the rest of the year and how does that make UCLA different than some of the other campuses?

HAMILTON: Yes, I think that if the encampment is to stay until the end of our spring quarter and until commencement, which is in the middle of June, that it will be a much longer display of this solidarity movement than other campus communities have been able to achieve. And I think the interesting facet is that we were expecting the university to allow the encampment to stay until the end of this quarter unless there were there were altercations that they deem to be violent than yesterday's that necessitated the removal of this encampment.

However, yesterday they also released a statement saying that the encampment was a lawful and that it was unauthorized. And that if students and faculty do not leave, that they should expect to be faced with potential disciplinary actions, including sanctions, expulsion and suspension. So as of right now, we're prepared for it to be until the end of June, but that could change at any day.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching UCLA.

Catherine Hamilton, thank you so much. We're glad that you're feeling better, but obviously you've been through a lot, so thanks for taking time with us.

HAMILTON: Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

KEILAR: At Columbia University in New York, the NYPD says it may need to deploy up to 20 officers on campus through graduation. MARQUARDT: And that comes after around 300 people were arrested last night after police were called in to help clear out those protesters who occupied an academic building that they had broken into.

CNN's Polo Sandoval joins us now from Columbia, so Polo, what's the latest from there?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Brianna and Alex, it was just yesterday that I was observing one of the occupiers of Hamilton Hall on top of the roof waving a Palestinian flag at the time where the students that was actively - had been previously engaged in those negotiations with the university was calling on those failed negotiations to again restart. Well, little did anybody know that the wheels were already set in motion, that the president of the university yesterday, Minouche Shafik, had already submitted a letter to the New York Police Department, calling on officers to once again make their way onto campus to - not only to clear out what's left of the encampment, but also to regain control of the situation.

The president of the university saying that the reason why that happened was because the university had been pushed to the brink. And so today, for the first time in two weeks now, any member of the Columbia University campus who wishes to participate in any sort of demonstration now presumably would have to do it on the sidewalks.

And much of the afternoon, we saw these sort of roving pro-Palestinian protests, which have gone silent for now, but it certainly is possible that they will once again return. We also heard from not only New York City mayor, Eric Adams, today, but also members of the New York Police Department describing, going into great detail about the planning that went into place. Eric Adams saying that there was, as he described it, outside agitators that, as he said, influenced some of those demonstrators and had also seen signs and traces that there was a coordinated effort to certainly disrupt operations on campus.

And then finally, there is also an important voice in all this, Brianna and Alex, that is some of those Columbia students, a majority of the students who were not actively participating in these demonstrations, one of them, Sulaiman Ahmed (ph), graduating hopefully next month, he says, that he was looking forward to any sort of normalcy.

And now he, like so many other students, are concerned that an NYPD campus - an NYPD presence, I should say, on campus for the next several weeks, is uncalled for and unnecessary, as they - as he put it.

MARQUARDT: Yes. A very controversial presence. Polo Sandoval at Columbia, thanks very much for all your reporting.

Now to what's at the heart of these campus protests all across the country. That is the Israel-Hamas war that has been going on for almost seven months now. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has now left Israel after meeting earlier today with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Blinken said that they discussed the current ceasefire and hostage deal that is on the table, that they are waiting for a response to - from Hamas on. He added that it is now Hamas' choice on whether or not that deal moves forward.

KEILAR: Yes, the secretary has also said that there has been meaningful progress in getting aid into Gaza, but a new report by Doctors Without Borders warns that 10s of thousands are at risk of dying, and not just from Israel's bombardments, but from a lack of health care and, of course, a lack of food and water.

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CNN's Paula Hancocks is in Abu Dhabi with the latest.

Paula, tell us about the situation in Gaza right now.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we have seen more aid trucks getting into the Gaza Strip. There's no doubt about that. In fact, UNRWA has said that just last month, that was the month where more trucks got in than at any time since October. But the fact is, UNRWA still says in the same breadth, as does Secretary Blinken, that it is still woefully inadequate. There is simply not enough being able to get through.

Now, humanitarian aid groups are still blaming Israel saying that there are too many restrictions to get things into the Gaza Strip, the security is too slow, there are arbitrary decisions being made, at the same time as Israel is saying that it is doing everything it can to allow more food and aid into the Gaza Strip. But this was really a focus today with Secretary Blinken's trip and his meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister as well, talking about how to secure this ceasefire so that that they can swamp Gaza with aid. This is what humanitarian aid groups want to do. They want the ceasefire and then they say they can avert the famine.

Now, as you have mentioned, they have said - Secretary Blinken says the ball is now in Hamas' court. He has said that this is the best proposal, the best deal that will be on offer, saying that Israel has been extraordinarily generous in this deal. We haven't heard officially from Hamas through the Egyptian and Qatari mediators at this point. We did hear from one senior Hamas official saying that what Israel hasn't managed to achieve during war, it will not achieve during negotiations and pressure, so trying to downplay the likelihood somewhat.

But we haven't had an official response at this point, and certainly there are hopes on many sides that there will be a decision to carry out a ceasefire. At this point, it looks potentially as the first phase would be up to 33 hostages for several weeks of ceasefire and Palestinian prisoner releases. Back to you.

KEILAR: Yes, it would be amazing, so many families we've been hearing from, who have been waiting for so long.

Paula Hancocks, thank you for that report. Ahead, former President Trump taking advantage of a day off from his trial in the hush money case. He's on the campaign trail. He's got two rallies in two key swing states. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning in Trump's backyard in Florida. The White House seizing on the fact that the state's strict new six-week abortion ban goes into effect today.

KEILAR: And the federal government is taking steps to reschedule marijuana, giving it the same classification as types of Tylenol. The impact that this will have, that's coming up.

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MARQUARDT: Donald Trump is in Wisconsin today, making his first campaign appearance since the start of his criminal hush money trial in New York City. Right now, the president - the former president, is speaking to supporters in the key swing state, and later on, he's due to make a stop in Michigan. And during his speak just moments ago, he took the time to praise the law enforcement officers who arrested pro- Palestinian demonstrators last night at Columbia University. Take a listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: New York was under siege last night. And these people - first there were tents and the person that heads up Columbia University was a great school, it's been badly damaged, I think, reputationally. But the person that heads it up, a woman, she waited so long. She was so weak, she was so afraid, she was so bad, they could have done this with the tents, and it would have gone quickly and no problem. But they did an incredible job. They went into one of the big buildings, a beautiful landmark building. Boy, they got the hell beat out of it last night.

You're supposed to take care of those buildings. It took a beating. But the police came in at exactly two hours, everything was over. It was a beautiful thing to watch. New York's finest.

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MARQUARDT: CNN's Alayna Treene is live at that campaign stop. So, Alayna, has the former president talked at all about his criminal trial that's going on?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: He is not and apologies if I'm speaking a little more quietly. He's still talking behind me, Alex and Brianna. But no, we are more than 40 minutes into this speech, and not once has he brought his criminal trial up, which is interesting, because in the past rallies right before the trial, he railed against this repeatedly. We've seen him criticize this, of course, every time he's gone to the cameras on the sidelines of being in court, but he has not talked about it once today.

Now, the other thing that's significant about that that I just want to mention is that Donald Trump, this is really his first political campaign rally since his trial kicked off more than two weeks ago. And even though Donald Trump and his team had insisted that he planned to aggressively hit the trail while still in trial, we haven't seen that yet and now part of that isn't entirely his fault. One of his rallies was postponed due to weather.

But for the most part, he's been slow to come and campaign on the sidelines of this trial. And so that's pretty significant. And I think part of that is also where we are today. I'm in Waukesha right now, Wisconsin. Later, he will be in Michigan. These are two very critical battleground states for his campaign.

His advisors have told me that they consider them as must win in November. Now, a big part of his focus and his messaging today has been about inflation and the economy.

[15:25:04]

And these are two of the issues they think are very effective here in Wisconsin, as well as in Michigan, where really, they're trying to court those blue collar working class voters that helped him get victory in these states in 2016, even though he lost them to Joe Biden in 2020.

Take a listen to some of what he told the crowd here.

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TRUMP: The Biden inflation disaster is a direct result of Crooked Joe's trillions in wild spending and that's what's happened. The Biden price hike is a gigantic tax on the likes of which this country, we have never seen anything like it before. Biden has run the government like Robin Hood, essentially in reverse, stealing from the poor and giving it to the rich. That's actually what he does. You know, they talk the game. Oh, Trump, Trump, Trump. It's the opposite.

Chicken, I love chicken, is up 24 percent, baby food is up 30 percent, eggs are up 59 percent, gasoline is up 50 percent, but it's going way higher. Crooked Joe likes to talk about junk fees. They say the rich people are with Democrats. It's changed. We've become the party of the worker. We've become the party of the middle income. It's done a whole flip.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Alex and Brianna, I do want to just point out there's a flurry of inaccuracies in those comments that we had just heard. And part of that is also - I should point out that Donald Trump spent millions, actually billions, and raised the national debt by over a billion dollars while he was in office. So that's just one thing I want to note.

But look, I think what he said there at the end about how the Republican party has become the party of the working class, that is what Donald Trump wants. And it's something that his team has very aggressively been trying to do, especially in some of the Rust Belt states like here in Wisconsin and in Michigan. And that's why you saw him really stick to his script today and focus on the economy, an issue that they think is very core to what voters care about here in these states. Back to you.

MARQUARDT: Yes. These two stops underscoring the importance of those two states, not just to that campaign, but to the Democratic ticket as well.

Alayna Treene in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Thanks very much.

KEILAR: Vice President Kamala Harris says there's only one person to blame for the extreme abortion bans across the U.S., and she says it's former President Trump. Harris spoke last hour at a campaign event in Florida just as the state's restrictive new abortion ban, a six-week ban, takes effect.

MARQUARDT: And the law now makes nearly all abortions illegal in the state after that six-week period. But most women don't even know that they're pregnant by that time. Live now to senior White House correspondent, MJ Lee, who is in Florida traveling with the vice president.

So, MJ this is part of a larger campaign push by the Biden campaign. They've really seized on this issue of reproductive rights. What exactly did the Vice President have to say?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We really did just see a clear blueprint of how the Biden campaign intends to put the issue of abortion rights front and center in the 2024 election. Democrats here described today as a solemn day in Florida after a six- week abortion ban went into effect last night at the stroke of midnight. And Vice President Kamala Harris, who of course has been a leading voice on this issue, both for the Biden and the campaign, said that we are witnessing a full-on assault on reproductive freedom and she squarely pointed the finger at former President Donald Trump. Take a listen.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, present day, because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans, more than 20 Trump abortion bans. And today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night.

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LEE: And by our count, the vice president mentioned Donald Trump 21 times in the course of this speech, which, according to a campaign official, is the most number of times that she has mentioned the word Trump in a single speech. This cycle, which just goes to show how much the Biden campaign is really set on trying to blame the former president for not only the overreaction of Roe v. Wade in 2022, but the other sort of abortion bans and restrictions that we have seen come up across the country. One other line that I noticed got a strong reaction from the crowd here was when the vice president said a government - the government should not stand between a woman and her doctor. She also warned that a second Trump presidency term would be even worse than the first term. We should also note just this about Florida, because that's where we are.

[15:30:03]

Today, it was Jacksonville for the vice president.