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Michigan Students on Biden and the Israel-Hamas War; FAA Investigates Orlando Runway Incident; Limits on Metals in Baby Food; Russia May Intensify Attacks. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 09, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:10]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New York protests against the war in Gaza popping up yet again at another university. A new protest encampment has emerged at The New School, which is a private research university in New York, but this time it's teachers, not students, at the university who set up tents. More than two dozen teachers taking part. Some professors are also saying they're going to do grade strikes and refuse to submit students final grades as the term ends.

Across the country, in California, at USC, protesters took to the streets as the university begins the process of individual school graduations. Their main campus commencement, you'll remember, was canceled over safety concerns from protests.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, President Biden spoke with Erin Burnett on the state of protests sweeping the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hear the message. Look, two things. First of all, there's a legitimate right to free speech and protests. There's a legitimate right to do that. And they have a right to do that. There's not a legitimate right to use hate speech. There's not a legitimate right to threaten Jewish students. There's not a legitimate right to block people access to class. That's against the law. That's against the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, you've heard that from the president. He hears the messages from young pro-Palestinian protesters. But how exactly are those protesters going to impact his re-election bid come November? CNN's John King traveled to Michigan, a critical battleground state, as you know, to speak with college students about their feelings now towards the president and the war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Protests amid the commencement celebration. A time-honored tradition on campus. But this one is complicated.

Jade Gray and Anushka Jalisatgi are new University of Michigan graduates and now former co-presidents of the college Democrats. Proud their school as part of a global statement.

JADE GRAY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CLASS OF 2024: It was in my application letter that this was a campus of like a history of protests.

ANUSHKA JALISATGI, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CLASS OF 2024: Right.

GRAY: A rich history of social justice movements.

JALISATGI: Yes.

KING (voice over): Worried, though, about months of war and death. Months if student anger at a president who can't afford to lose Michigan.

KING: How much is it going to hurt the president?

GRAY: However much he decides.

JALISATGI: Yes. That starts with calling for a ceasefire. For listening to his - the student voters across the country.

KING (voice over): This is from our first visit five months ago. Protests against Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict were just beginning.

KING: Is it fair to say you're glad the election's not tomorrow?

JALISATGI: Yes.

KING (voice over): The election was nearly a year away then. Six months away now.

GRAY: Michigan is up for grabs. And I did not think I'd be saying this right now. And I wish I wasn't saying this right now -

JALISATGI: Yes.

GRAY: But I am - I am genuinely concerned about which way Michigan will go.

KING (voice over): Both hope a summer away from campus protests helps younger voters see a bigger picture.

GRAY: I'm certainly not voting -

JALISATGI: No.

GRAY: For the guy who is in court right now -

JALISATGI: Yes.

GRAY: And who incited an insurrection.

JALISATGI: Yes.

GRAY: And put three extremists on the Supreme Court, who therefore took away rights for the first time in history, who's demonized the LGBTQ community -

JALISATGI: Yes.

GRAY: Of which I'm a part of.

KING (voice over): But right now things are raw. Some friends talk about staying home, or voting third party.

JALISATGI: Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza and in - across Palestine have been displaced, have been starved, have been killed. So, I think it really does come down to, you know, people's own judgments on the motivation of the president.

SUMMER MATKIN, MICHIGAN VOTER, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: Oh, what a cute boy.

KING (voice over): Summer Matkin is home in suburban Detroit, processing freshman year at Wayne State.

MATKIN: Can you talk about politics for me?

KING (voice over): Back in November, big reservations about the president's age, but zeroed doubt if the choice was Biden or Trump.

MATKIN: I'd go Biden.

KING (voice over): Now, not so sure.

MATKIN: No matter how many Taylor Swift references you make, you'll never understand us.

My thing is, I think he has handled everything with Israel and Palestine terribly.

KING (voice over): Still leaning Biden, but part of a consequential debate with friends.

MATKIN: A lot of our generation is also considering going third party, but I kind of fear it's going to split up the votes and end up having it fall back on Trump, which I wouldn't want to happen.

KING (voice over): Maya Siegmann began the school year likely Biden, ends it, definitely Biden, happy with her grades, even more happy it is over.

MAYA SIEGMANN, MICHIGAN VOTER, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: It was terrifying. It was terrifying. The escalation of other campuses has made me fear for my campus.

KING (voice over): Siegmann offers nuance often missing when politicians discuss the campus protests. No problem with calls to end the killing or to speed up humanitarian aid, but fear when she sees banners like this, the intifada was a violent armed uprising targeting Jews.

KING: You're wearing your Star of David. You ever think of taking it off?

SIGMANN: I did. I took it off actually for about a week or two. And then I put it on four or five months ago and never took it off.

KING (voice over): A fierce supporter of Israel, but a fierce critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

[08:35:05]

SIGMANN: I personally don't agree with how he is operating. I think that he is trying to prolong the war.

KING (voice over): Ibrahim Ghazal also speaks with nuance. He is no fan of Hamas and acknowledges Israel's right to respond to terrorism.

IBRAHIM GHAZAL, MICHIGAN VOTER, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL STUDENT: We don't want human rights violations. If you're going to conduct war, conduct it within the rule of law. International law. Now, that's all people are asking for. Nothing more.

KING (voice over): Ghazal is in two groups critical to Biden's Michigan math, a younger voter, and an Arab American. He just wrapped his first year at Wayne State Law School.

GHAZAL: It's been stressful just seeing people that look like me, and just human beings, seeing human beings on my - on my phone screen being killed day in, day out. And what's worse, as an American, I have to see my government funding it. So, stressful.

KING (voice over): A Biden voter in 2020 who says the president is in deep trouble in Detroit, Dearborn, and other Michigan communities where Arab and Muslim Americans number in the tens of thousands.

GHAZAL: With older people, I would definitely say they're not voting for Biden. For younger voters, we're stuck in the sense that, you know, it's Biden or Trump.

The only reason I haven't closed the door is because I think he still has an ability to change course and set a precedent for the future.

KING (voice over): Ghazal's summer goals, take a break, then starting the third party candidates and watch to see if the president truly does change course or if the encampments are still a thing when classes resume in the fall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Our John King is joining us now.

You did these interviews, very nuanced interviews, with all these different perspectives before we just got this exclusive with Erin Burnett and the president of the United States, who does seem to be changing course. I want people to listen to what he said about what he was going to do if Israel does a full incursion into Rafah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers. And I made it clear that if they go into Rafah, they haven't gone into Rafah yet, but if they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, so this is a shift. He's making very, very clear that they're going to remove their munitions, giving those to Israel. Is this enough for the pro-Palestinian protesters or will it further anger those on the other side of this debate?

KING: That's great question because this issue is so complicated.

SIDNER: Yes.

KING: And the younger voters, they just stunned me with their poise and the nuance and their thoughtfulness. I was not that way when I was 20, 21 years old. But will it get their attention? Yes. Will they want more? Those - the pro-Palestinians? Yes. The people - when the president said, you know, more humanitarian aid, when the president said the United States would build that peer that now apparently is about ready to be, there's a ship on the way to use that peer.

SIDNER: Yes.

KING: They've said, that's a positive step. It's not enough. This, I think, will be welcomed as a, OK, that's more significant. You're telling Netanyahu, I'm not going to give you the weapons.

But they want to see it all the way through. They want to see a ceasefire. They believe - and this might be overstated somewhat in their belief - they believe that Joe Biden can say stop and that Netanyahu will stop. Netanyahu has made clear, he listens to the United States, but he's not going to follow leader (ph). So, it's a fascinating progression.

And the president has moved, if you look at the last three or four months, he has moved, not enough for them so far, but that's what's so striking. If the election were tomorrow, a lot of these younger voters would vote third party or they would stay home. But they say, you know, on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, climate change, they're with Biden or the Democrats on the issues.

SIDNER: Right.

KING: But this - this is their single issue right now and they want to see movement. SIDNER: Single, polarizing issue.

I do want to talk about the fact that this isn't the first time that a president has done this. Actually, in 1982, you had President Ronald Reagan doing the same thing as Israel, saying we're not giving you munitions because of the war between Israel and Lebanon. So, is this a policy change, or is this a one-off? And how will voters see this? Or will they even remember the history?

KING: I think you have framed it just right. And I think what they will remember depends on where we are a week, a month, and six months from now. Does the conflict continue? Does the United States do more? Are these ceasefire negotiations, they've been off and on, off and on, do they finally actually get a ceasefire? And is it temporary or is it permanent?

I think you raised the key question, Joe Biden, for 40 plus years, has been a staunch friend of Israel, often facing criticism within his own party for standing with Israel.

Here is a moment where he has drawn a line.

SIDNER: Has shifted.

KING: The question is, is it a - you framed it just right, is it a one-off? We're going to learn that. We're going to see Netanyahu's reaction in the next few days. Then we're going to see the president's next move. But the fact that he decided, in a national interview, which he does very rarely, to make that clear, not just that he did it, but how he did it tells you the president's trying to do something different here. We'll see where it goes.

SIDNER: And surely the Republicans have already seized on this. We've heard from Speaker Mike Johnson saying he had a senior moment on this very issue.

KING: Right.

SIDNER: I do want to lastly ask you about the economy because that always plays a role in every election that has ever happened.

KING: Right.

[08:40:04]

SIDNER: Here's what President Biden said. And he was - he was pretty defensive as Erin Burnett was asking him questions about where we are and how people feel about their economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: With less than six months to go to Election Day, are you worried that you're running out of time to turn that around?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've already turned it around. Look - look at the - the Michigan survey where 65 percent of the American people think they're in good shape economically. They think the nation's not in good shape, but they're personally in good shape. The polling data has been wrong all along.

We have the strongest economy in the world. Let me say it again, in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: He's right, we do have the strongest economy in the world. But poll after poll also shows that the way people are feeling is that they're underwater because of inflation.

KING: I can tell you from my travels, eight months now, nine states now, he has to be careful with that. In the sense - he's right. When he cites the statistics, he is right. When he says the Michigan consumer confidence survey, 65 percent say they're doing better off. Guess what? The 35 percent who don't, a lot of those are his voters. They should be his voters. When you travel -- the cost of living. In Michigan we met with those younger voters. We also are starting to put together a group of auto workers. Their union has endorsed Biden. Most of them are going to vote for Biden. But you ask them what life is like, and they can't buy a bigger house because of mortgage rates. They still, huh, when you talk about grocery prices.

SIDNER: Right.

KING: And so the president has to be careful here. That sounds like somebody in Washington telling people you're wrong and whatever your party is voters don't process it that way. They don't like that.

SIDNER: Definitely don't like being told they're wrong because it's how they are actually experiencing the economy personally.

KING: Yes. Right. Yes. The inflation drag, the cost of living drag is still giant out in America and they don't like people in Washington telling them they're wrong.

SIDNER: John King, will you come back every day? OK, don't answer that question This was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for that piece.

KING: Thank you.

SIDNER: A very nuanced, interesting look at how students feel.

KING: Thank you very much.

SIDNER: Thank you. Appreciate it.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, that non-answer, that glaring non- answer -

SIDNER: I mean, it hurt my feelings. BERMAN: Notwithstanding, it is great to have John King here on the morning of a big Celtics game tonight.

So, this morning, the FAA is investigating an incident at the Orlando airport. They're trying to learn why an air traffic controller cleared a Frontier Airlines flight to taxi across a runway that was already in use by an American Airlines flight that was taking off.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is here.

This does not sound good, Pete.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Pretty alarming, John. The backdrop of this, two close calls last month involving commercial flights on the runways of major airports in the U.S. The incidents were at Reagan National Airport, just outside D.C., at JFK in New York, both in the same week. Now, add this incident at Orlando International Airport to the list. It happened on Monday evening around 6:00 p.m. local time. And it's just coming to light now after being posted on YouTube by account You can see ATC. Air traffic control audio, details that the air traffic controller in the tower in Orlando cleared an American Airlines flight to take off, then told a Frontier Airlines flight to taxi across the same runway in front of the American flight. The American flight had already started accelerating for takeoff.

I want you to listen to the air traffic control audio here. You can hear luckily the air traffic controller caught what was about to unfold and told the American pilots to abort their takeoff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOWER: American 2743, cancel takeoff clearance.

CREW: We just had someone cross while we were trying to take off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: So, you can hear the crew there telling the controller, there was somebody trying to cross in front of us. The FAA saying it's investigating.

Here is the statement from the FAA. "An air traffic controller instructed Frontier Flight 1734 to cross runway 18-Left at Orlando International Airport while American Airlines Flight 2473 was starting to takeoff roll from the same runway."

So, the FAA admits a bit of the error here. It's not saying how close these planes were to one another, but the early data from flight radar 24 says these flights came as close as a mile apart. Not the closest we have seen, but this is an incident - the type of incident that keeps happening over and over again. Remember, air traffic controllers are fatigued, overworked, understaffed, and the current FAA reauthorization bill going through Congress calls for maximum air traffic control hiring, but Congress stopped short of passing that this week, instead passing a one-week extension of the current plan. Clearly, these controllers need a little bit of help, all they can get from Congress right now.

BERMAN: That's an important point.

Pete Muntean, thank you very much.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, Congress is stepping in now to try and make baby food safer. Tandem legislation being introduced in the House and Senate aimed at limiting the amount of harmful heavy metals, like mercury and arsenic, found in baby food. Yes, the fact that it is in there at all, I would say, is noteworthy. This comes after several recent reports detailing concerning levels of these contaminants in baby food.

CNN's Meg Tirrell has more on this, what they're trying to do and what is - what is going on here?

[08:45:04]

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, this is always really scary when we hear these reports.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TIRRELL: And this specifically concerns really four of these major heavy metals. They're lead, cadmium, arsenic, and mercury. When you hear about those things in your foods, obviously, it's pretty scary. These can have health impacts on especially small children and babies.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TIRRELL: If you have regular exposure to them. I mean this can cause learning delays, cognitive issues, behavioral issues over time. We hear about these things with lead in particular, of course. And so these four congresspeople, two senators, two representatives, all Democrats, have introduced this bill. It's led by Senator Amy Klobuchar. They've been trying to do this for a while to really give the FDA more authority to set maximum levels of these heavy metals in baby foods and also to enforce those levels.

Also, they're going to be trying to increase the transparency around the inspections of these plants and inspecting the finished food lots and things like that.

And, of course, this comes after, if you remember at the end of last year, those horrible reports of tainted cinnamon apple sauce that babies were consuming.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TIRRELL: The FDA tracked about 90 cases of this. The CDC tracked even more. More than 500 reported cases. And so there's a hope that this would limit instances of things like that happening. But often the presence of these metals in food is because they're in the soil. And so it can be a little more difficult. That situation with the cinnamon apple sauce was thought to be somebody actually nefariously trying to weight the cinnamon with lead.

BOLDUAN: Right.

So, in - sorry, legislation as we know, it can take quite a long time to go through. And then what the - what the FDA would do after that. I'm just saying, it all adds up to taking more time.

TIRRELL: Yes.

BOLDUAN: What should families, parents do in the meantime?

TIRRELL: Yes, so the advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics, first and foremost, is very the diet that you're feeding your kids. I mean this has been something that, as a parent, I've had trouble with. You just want to give them the oatmeal, the rice cereal, whatever it is that they really enjoy.

BOLDUAN: Yes, exactly. Accepting a variety of foods is challenge enough. Yes.

TIRRELL: Yes. I know it's like, (INAUDIBLE), what's the advice.

Read the labels, because sometimes you may think you're giving them a variety, but it turns out a lot of the same ingredients are in the same things.

BOLDUAN: OK.

TIRRELL: Vary up grains, in particular, especially with rice.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TIRRELL: And we've heard about rice and arsenic. And avoid too much fruit juice, which is probably a good nutritional piece of advice anyway.

BOLDUAN: Yes, much to the chagrin of my - of my six-year-old.

TIRRELL: Yes.

BOLDUAN: That's for sure.

It's good to see you, Meg. Thank you so much.

TIRRELL: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate. Thank you, Meg.

New CNN reporting this morning, the delay in getting U.S. aid to Ukraine. Russia, trying to seize on that, creating an opportunity for it to expand its attacks. We will talk about that.

Plus, coming up, track star, convicted killer, and now parolee. The story of Oscar Pistorius has captivated the world for years. A new episode of the CNN original series, "How It Happened" followed the shocking shooting death of Reeva Steenkamp at the hands of Pistorius, who, at the time, was her boyfriend.

Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The main investigating officer testified that the neighbors had heard terrible screams before the gunshots.

MICHELLE BURGER, OSCAR PISTORIUS' NEIGHBOR (via translator): I woke up from a woman's terrible screams. It was bloodcurdling screams. It leaves you cold.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: The state believed that that meant that Oscar Pistorius would have known that Reeva Steenkamp was there, possibly hiding in that bathroom cubicle, and that there was some type of heated argument going on just before the shooting occurred.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say that Oscar had picked up his gun, he had walked about seven meters to a bathroom, where his girlfriend was locked inside, and he had shot four bullets through there as she was hit three times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oscar denied the charges that this was murder of any kind.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The defense provided an extremely thorough affidavit from Mr. Pistorius explaining his version of what happened that night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: "How It Really Happened: Oscar Pistorius, The Blade Runner," airs Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Pacific, right here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:53:31]

SIDNER: Right now the U.S. is trying to end aid to Ukraine, but it could arrive too late. New intelligence suggests Russia may try to explore the so-called window of opportunity, and doubled down on its Ukraine onslaught. This comes as the Russian military unleashed a massive missile and drone attack on Ukraine Wednesday.

CNN's Jim Sciutto is joining us now from Washington, D.C.

What are - what are you hearing from intelligence experts as they monitor this and, watch, it took a very long time for the United States Congress to get it together - to put this aid package together so that Ukraine could have more munitions. JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sara, it shows you that there are lingering consequences from that long delay that, yes, the aid has been approved, but it's not all going arrive there or arrive there in numbers on day one. It's going to take some time. And Russia sees, as one senior U.S. military official told me, a window of opportunity during that time lag to step up what were already significant attack, but step them up, particularly missile and drone attacks, like the attacks we saw overnight on Wednesday. Dozens of missiles, dozens of drones again, targeting energy infrastructure, which is a favorite target of theirs. They see this as an opportunity now before much of that aid comes in.

We should also note that during that delay, Ukraine already suffered consequences. It lost ground on the battlefield. And senior Ukrainian commanders have told me they've lost soldiers as a result of that aid delay.

[08:55:02]

SIDNER: One of the big questions here is, if - you know, if and when this gets to Ukraine, is it going to make a big difference because they've already lost ground. Is it just retaking the ground that they have already lost in sort of a stalemate again?

SCIUTTO: Yes, maybe. But as one senior official told me, the real goal now for this year is to hold the line, that they do not expect a major counter offensive this year, for instance, Ukrainians attempting to take back large pieces of territory, that this is important, right, because without the aid they might very well have lost the war this year, but that the best they can expect this year is to hold the line.

And I should note, Sara, that there's an enormous amount of anticipation that Russia is going to attempt a much larger offensive in the coming months, particularly following Putin's reinvigoration, if you want to call it that, as effectively as leader for life, the possibility of a partial mobilization, all these celebrations we saw in Moscow yesterday. They're expecting a big Russian push. So, the best hope, most of these officials tell me, is for Ukraine to be able to push it back, right, as opposed to gain back a lot of the lost territory.

SIDNER: Yes, that's a real dire situation there in Ukraine. Thank you so much, Jim Sciutto, for your reporting there.

SCIUTTO: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: John's got a whole lot more on this.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, with us now is CNN military analysts Colonel Cedric Leighten.

Colonel, look, Jim was just talking about Ukraine hoping to hold the line. This is roughly the line. And that's been the line for the last year, year-and-a-half or so. And I can just erase this. You can see where Ukraine retook a little bit of ground in the so-called counteroffensive, but Russia has taken a little bit of that back.

How does Ukraine hold the line through the summer?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, John, that's going to be a really tough thing for the Ukrainians to do. And as Jim pointed out in his reporting, one of the key things that has to happen is a lot of the munitions, weapon systems, material that has been promised in this aid package that the U.S. Congress finally passed, that has to get to the front lines. And if the Ukrainians are going to do something to keep the territory that they've got, they've basically got stop the Russians in their tracks. And that's going to be really difficult to do given the fact that the Ukrainians are being outgunned by the Russians depending on which specific area you look at. Anywhere from four to one to ten to one in terms of the ratio of mutations that are being fired at Ukrainian positions versus what the Ukrainians are firing at the Russian positions.

So, this is a tall order for the Ukrainians to do. They can hold the line because the Russians haven't exploited a lot of the things that they could have exploited in the areas around Avdiivka (ph), for example. But it's still going to be tough for the Ukrainians to hold this.

BERMAN: Colonel, let me focus very briefly on what President Biden told Erin Burnett last night. And I'm just putting the quote up so people can see it. "I made it clear that if they," the Israelis, "go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically. We're not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells," he said, "that have been used."

The reason I'm highlighting artillery shells is because we know there had been paused shipments of bombs, which can obviously be used for planes. Artillery shells, you're talking about things that are used on the ground. I just am curious, as you analyze the situation on the ground in Israel, what the impact would be of not just those bombs being withheld, but some artillery as well?

LEIGHTON: Yes, John, that's going to be a pretty significant impact on what the Israeli forces can do in and around Rafah. We know that their goal is to basically take Rafah and, in essence, eliminate Hamas. But they're going to have to use some of the stockpiles that they already have and they're going to have to be able to, in essence, use more specific, more targeted aspects of their operations. In other words, special operations forces, things like that are going to come into play, as opposed to just lobbing artillery shells or using bombs from air platforms, such as the Israeli air force does. So, the 2,000-pound bombs are out because of the fact that they can hit a large area even though they are precise weapons. They can still have a major effect on a populated area. And that is something that the Biden administration has found to be unacceptable.

BERMAN: Look, we can close in a little bit on Rafah right now. This is some of the map of the evacuation zone. You can see right here. And this is the area where Israel has said the civilians need to leave from. But if the United States did pause artillery deliveries to the Israelis, could they still go into population centers in Rafah? Does Israel need that artillery now for a full-scale ground incursion into those population centers?

LEIGHTON: To do it the way they want to do it, the answer would be, yes, they would need that kind of artillery capability to go into these areas and to basically soften them up, as we would say in the military. But they can mount certain, specific operations without artillery shells, as long as they have the precise intelligence that they would need to go after specific targets, like let's say Hamas' leadership, and specific tunnel areas, things like that.

[09:00:08]