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Biden Holds Oval Office Meeting With Israeli PM Netanyahu; Harris: We Are In Fight For Basic Freedoms, "Bring It On"; Trump To Supporters: "I'm Not Going To Be Nice". Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 25, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A decades-long relationship put to the test. Right now, President Biden will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as tensions over the war in Gaza boil over into the nation's capital. Now, sources say the President will approach this critical meeting at his forceful push for a ceasefire.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Plus, Vice President Kamala Harris out on the trail and vowing to fight. Her message, bring it on. In the meantime, former President Donald Trump testing out some new attack lines. His message, I'm not going to be nice.

And changes in the air, Southwest Airlines is ditching its scramble for your seat boarding strategy. What's driving this huge change for the airline? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

SANCHEZ: Any moment at the White House, President Joe Biden will sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two leaders coming face to face for the first time since Biden ended his 2024 reelection campaign. And one day after Netanyahu's fiery speech to Congress, where he defended actions taken in the war against Hamas. The ceasefire agreement is expected to be at the top of the agenda for these two leaders.

And then later this afternoon, the two will meet with families of American hostages being held currently in Gaza. Let's get the latest from the White House with CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee. And MJ, you have some new reporting about what we should expect to come from this meeting.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and Boris, I should note that just seconds ago we saw the car that is carrying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu roll through into the White House where, of course, he is now expected to have this bilateral meeting with President Biden. What sources tell me is that we do expect that President Biden might be as forceful as he has ever been in a private setting with the Prime Minister in urging him to accept the ceasefire deal that is currently on the table that would put an end to this war that has been ongoing, of course, since last October. As one senior official put it to me, Boris, we're closer than we've ever been and it is up to the Israelis to accept it. And it's not only just this bilateral meeting where the President will have the occasion to exert some pressure on the Prime Minister. As soon as that meeting has wrapped up, the two leaders are going to go into another private meeting with the families of American hostages that are still in Gaza. And that, of course, would be another setting where the Prime Minister might get a hard push from everyone in the room to accept that deal to end the war.

Of course, we should remind everyone there are eight American hostages that are still believed to be in Gaza. And just looming over this day of meetings, Boris, is, of course, the fact that it's only been a couple of days since the President announced his decision to end his reelection campaign. And now the question of how this war exactly comes to an end is really poised to play a big factor in the legacy of the President's one term presidency.

And of course, as we have talked about so much, this is a war that has taken up so much of the President's time and his effort. And this is a ceasefire deal that the president has made such a hard push, unsuccessfully so far, of course, over the course of many months, to bring this deal across the finish line. I will also say one senior official for now is insisting that the U.S. does not believe the Prime Minister is sort of purposefully delaying a deal from coming together for political reasons of his own.

They did tell us yesterday, however, that if the deal remains stalled a month from now, then they may come to a different conclusion. Boris?

SANCHEZ: MJ Lee live from the White House, where we should point out, we're getting live images not far from where you are on the North Lawn. That vehicle set to pull up in a doorway at any moment. We want to get the view now from Jerusalem with CNN's Jeremy Diamond, who's live there for us. And Jeremy, how is this visit and this push from the Biden administration for Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire deal being received there?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, there's no question that the majority of Israelis want to see a deal that would release the hostages. And a majority of Israelis are also dissatisfied with the Israeli Prime Minister's leadership. And so there's no question that many of them will be looking to President Biden, hoping that he will be able to convince the Israeli Prime Minister that it is worth taking the political risk facing the potential political blowback from his right wing governing allies in order to reach out and take this leap of faith towards a ceasefire deal.

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We have heard over the course of the last week from a number officials from multiple countries that it's now effectively up to Israel, it's up to the Israeli Prime Minister and whether or not he actually wants a deal to -- to actually go ahead and make this happen. I've also been told that the Israeli delegation that was set to leave today to meet with the mediators has been delayed until early next week. But when they deliver those demands, and this is exactly what the Israeli Prime Minister is going to lay out for President Biden today, that Israeli response is going to include several of those 11th hour demands that Netanyahu has been making regarding preventing armed men from returning to northern Gaza during the ceasefire and also maintaining an Israeli troop presence along the Gaza-Egypt border.

So we'll see. Will President Biden try and convince Netanyahu to drop those demands in order to make it more simple and easier for Hamas to go ahead and accept this deal and for a ceasefire to actually be able to be put in place? You know, how will President Biden kind of push and prod Netanyahu?

One thing is clear. Netanyahu won't just be looking to President Biden for how he makes his decision here. He's also going to be meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, later today and tomorrow morning with former President Trump, the Republican nominee. And there's no question that Netanyahu, a very, very keen observer of U.S. politics, is also going to be looking at what comes next. What comes next after President Biden? How will that potentially shape U.S. policy towards Israel, whether the next president is Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Boris?

SANCHEZ: Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much for that reporting.

KEILAR: And there's a lot at stake, obviously. And there is a burning question. What is it going to take to get a deal across the finish line here? So let's discuss this now with Alex Marquardt, our CNN chief national security correspondent, and David Sanger, our CNN political and national security analyst. He's a New York Times White House and national security correspondent.

Alex, just to you first, what is the reaction been to Netanyahu's address to Congress here in D.C. and around the world?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, I think if we're speaking globally and certainly among Democrats here in town, there was disappointment that he didn't stand up there and talk about how -- that -- that the war was ending or talking about, you know, how to -- that the ceasefire was -- was imminent and -- and going into place. We heard hostage families say that they had hoped that he would stand up and -- and announce that the ceasefire had been accepted.

And as you just heard Jeremy say, it is believed that the ball is in Israel's court. I mean, listen, anybody who has been listening to Netanyahu for a long time could have written this speech in the days ahead of time. I mean, this was -- this was Netanyahu through and through. There were very few surprises. There was a lot of red meat in there for his supporters, many of the lawmakers, primarily Republicans, standing up and applauding.

There were Democrats in there as well. But he hit on the subjects that we expected him to. And among those subjects, there was room for a lot of pushback and a lot of fact checking. Whether you're talking about the amount of aid that needs to get into Gaza, which the U.S. says is complicated by Israel's military operation, whether you're talking about the civilian death toll, what's happening in Rafah, and the list goes on and on. You know, he talked about these protesters being useful idiots for Iran.

There were some pretty nasty scenes out there among the protesters yesterday, some -- some pro Hamas language. He certainly looked to paint all of the protesters that we've seen in the past few months in this country with this broad sort of pro Hamas brush tools of -- of Iran.

And then when talking about the future for Gaza, I think there was a lot of disappointment in that. He was -- he was talking about the -- the efforts would continue until it's deradicalized and demilitarized. And that's -- that's -- that's code language for, you know, this is going to take a very long time, and Israel is going to maintain a presence in Gaza for quite some time, which he did say.

So he wasn't, he didn't talk about, you know, acquiescing to a two- state solution. He didn't talk about his vision for peace. So I think certainly globally speaking and those who want to see this conflict come to an end, there was a fair bit of disappointment.

SANCHEZ: We should quickly note for our viewers that CNN has a reporter just outside of Lafayette Park, which has been shut down outside of the White House because we're anticipating protests there as the prime minister is arriving at the White House will, of course, keep an eye on that.

David, I wanted to go to you because notably, and I believe these are -- are live images from just outside of -- of Lafayette Park. David, when you hear Netanyahu's speech yesterday, the -- the reporting that Alex just outlined, it -- it appears that there have been some slight but discernible shifts in the way that Netanyahu has talked about this war, one of them being that he's not explicitly calling for the end of Hamas altogether, something that he had described as a necessity for this war to come to a conclusion. How do you read those slight shifts and the potential for this ceasefire deal to actually take hold?

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DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's a really great question, Boris. And it was just on Friday that we heard Secretary of State Antony Blinken say that this negotiation was on the 10-yard line. Now, he was quick to add, there are lots of people who get to the 10-yard line and don't get over the goal. And I think one of the key issues that we were listening for from the Prime Minister was whether he was calling still for the complete destruction of Hamas, which was one of their strategic objectives from the beginning. We did not hear that wording.

And so that made you think that he may be moving toward the American position, which is degrade Hamas to the point that they could never conduct another terror attack like the one that we saw on October 7th. Where he didn't give ground, though, was who runs Gaza. Now, he did not suggest an alternative kind of governance for it, some reformed way for the Palestinian authority to do it. Instead, he's still talking about Israeli troops there for an unspecified period of time. Something Mr. Blinken and the President have said is -- is unacceptable.

I think something to look for this afternoon is whether or not Prime Minister Netanyahu tweaks President Biden, with whom his relationship has been pretty poisonous in recent times, as a lame duck, or whether Biden believes that now that he's not running, he is free to make the kind of demands on Israel that he wants to, including the threat that if they don't sign up to this, it will affect the kind of aid they get from the United States. That would be a pretty -- pretty extreme option.

KEILAR: Also, David, you have the now presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, expected to meet with Netanyahu later today. How do you expect her approach to him to be different than Biden's, and how do you expect her apparent entry into the race to change Netanyahu's calculus on how he's approaching the U.S.?

SANGER: Well, this is a really fascinating new element to it. In her public statement so far, before she was a candidate for president, she had differences of emphasis and nuance with President Biden, but no real differences of substance. In her famous speech in Selma, she talked a lot about the suffering of the Palestinian people, but did not suggest in any way that she would pull back on the arms aid to Israel, Israel using a lot of U.S. weaponry for its attacks.

Now she's got to basically walk the line that President Biden has been walking until now, which is to say she can't anger the very pro-Israel groups who believe that Biden has been too hard on Netanyahu. And yet on the other side, she doesn't want to give any ground that would suggest that the progressives would abandon her. And that's, of course, going to be a key base for her as she heads into the election. And the progressive view has been very much to put much more blame on Israel for its response than to focus instead on the original terror attack.

SANCHEZ: Alex, notably, Donald Trump is also going to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister. He recently said, I believe it was yesterday that Israel has a PR problem and that he would, quote, make sure that it gets over with fast. You have to end this fast. It can't continue to go on like this. It's too long. It's too much. Do we have a sense of which candidate Netanyahu would prefer win in November?

MARQUARDT: Yes. I -- I think without question it would be Donald Trump. I mean, Trump was seen as one of the most pro-Israel presidents, if not the most pro-Israel president in -- in modern American history. He moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He -- je recognized the Golan Heights as being Israeli territory. He strike the -- struck the Abraham Accords between Israel and other Arab countries.

It was only really after the Trump administration that the two men were -- were really at odds because Netanyahu congratulated Biden, in Trumps view, prematurely. And so now we see Netanyahu trying to get back into Trump's good graces. Netanyahu is essentially hedging his bets with this meeting tomorrow. And he's not unique in that sense. We see plenty of foreign leaders during the U.S. election going and meeting with Trump and his team because simply we don't know who is -- is going to win.

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Now, it is interesting to look at Trump's language there. He's talking about it being a PR problem. He's really looking at it through that framing. And -- and he talks about the need to get it done as quickly as possible. And this is something we have heard from Trump in -- in the past few months. What is getting it done as quickly as possible? I mean, Netanyahu could have stood up there yesterday saying, I'm ending Israeli military operations. We are engaging in a ceasefire. Is it going -- continuing the military operation to -- to try to take out Hamas, which will inevitably result in more death and destruction? Trump's language there, very interesting that he is looking at it through that -- that PR framing.

But we will, of course, be paying close attention to that meeting at Mar-a-Lago because Netanyahu does have some work to do to get back to that kind of relationship that they had during the Trump term.

KEILAR: Yes, that's such an important point. Alex, thank you so much. David, thank you to you as well.

And ahead on CNN News Central, she's not afraid of a fight. Vice President Harris unleashing some fresh attacks and a new campaign ad as she buys for the Democratic presidential nomination. And in the meantime, former President Trump is hitting the trail with a message of his own. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

SANCHEZ: Plus, the longest layover ever. We just got an update on the Starliner crew that's been delayed in space for weeks and weeks. They're not stuck, though. Very important to point out, they are not stuck. How close are they actually to a return flight? We have details in just moments.

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SANCHEZ: Four days after she won Joe Biden's endorsement to become the next president, Vice President Kamala Harris released the first video of her 2024 campaign featuring a song from Beyonce.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body. We choose a future --

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SANCHEZ: A source says that Beyonce's team approved the use of that song. The Freedom theme played big at Harris event today, which just wrapped up in Houston. She was the keynote speaker at the American Federation of Teachers Convention, the first union to endorse Harris for president. We're joined now by CNN's Eva McKend with the details. So, Eva, walk us through the message from the Vice President.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: So, Boris, she retooled her stump speech a bit today to appeal to these educators, to appeal to the union. She thanked the union. She also talked about how her first grade teacher was so instrumental in her own life that that teacher even went on to attend her law school graduation. But ultimately, she's framing this contest around this notion of freedom, reproductive choice, the -- the freedom to be safe from gun violence. Let's take a listen.

SANCHEZ: Actually, Eva, we're going to pause and show our viewers what we got just moments ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu visiting President Joe Biden at the White House. Let's listen in.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everybody in?

Hello. Welcome back. Mr. Prime Minister, we got a lot to talk about. I think we should get to it, but the floor is yours.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Mr. President, we've known each other for 40 years and you've known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years, from Golda Meir. So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. And I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us.

BIDEN: I look forward to as well. By the way, that first meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir, and she had an assistant sitting next to me, a guy named Rabin. That's how far back it goes. I was only 12 then. Anyway, thank you all for being here.

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SANCHEZ: President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu not answering reporters shouted questions, a -- a chorus of reporters trying to get answers from the two men. President Biden saying that the two have lots to talk about. He then opened the floor for Netanyahu, who said that Biden had spent four decades building their relationship. He described the President as a proud Zionist and thanked him for 50 years of support for the Israeli people.

Obviously, this -- the two leaders first meeting since over the weekend, President Biden, announced that he was stepping aside as the 2024 presumptive nominee for the White House on the Democratic side. Well, of course, keep an eye on the meeting and what comes out of it. We want to get back to the conversation with Eva McKend.

And, Eva, you were just tossing to a soundbite from Vice President Harris speaking to teachers in Houston. You want to walk us through what she said? MCKEND: Yes. Ultimately, she is framing this contest around freedom, reproductive choice, the freedom to be free from gun violence in respective communities. She's detailing the conservative policy plan if the former president was -- is to be reelected. And that is so central to her election argument. Let's take a listen.

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HARRIS: In this moment, we are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms. And to this room of leaders, I say bring it on. Bring it on. Bring it on.

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What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or a country of chaos, fear and hate?

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MCKEND: And Boris, I can tell you that from being on the campaign trail with her the last few days, this is a message that is really resonating with voters. They think that she is the best person in this moment to make this argument against the former president. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Boris. And to tie everything together, she's actually set to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu soon after she gets back to Washington, D.C., after he's done meeting with Biden and with the families of American hostages still being held in Gaza. Eva McKend, thanks so much for the reporting. Brianna?

KEILAR: And on the Republican front, former President Trump is telling his supporters he is not going to be nice. That is despite the fact that he's called for unity just a week ago at the Republican National Convention. During his rally in North Carolina yesterday, he went after Harris in multiple ways.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): Kamala Harris is the most liberal elected politician in American history. Did you know that? She's an ultra liberal politician.

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KEILAR: We're going to turn now to CNN's Alayna Treene and Daniel Dale. Alayna, tell us more about how Trump is trying to define Harris.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, it's really interesting because this, of course, was his first rally since Biden stepped aside over the weekend and also since Kamala Harris seems like his most likely opponent come this fall. And he really did waste no time going after. He actually spent most of his very lengthy speech last night attacking her. And as you just heard in that soundbite, he tried to paint her as a radical liberal. He nicknamed her line Kamala, although he mispronounced her name throughout the entire speech. He's really trying to go after on specific policies, mainly abortion, immigration, and even at times claimed that she was somewhat of a mastermind behind some of Biden's policies. But look, he actually spent, I think, the majority of his attacks focusing on her handling of the border. I want you to take a listen to what he said.

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TRUMP: So she was the border czar, but she never went to the border, right?

Kamala threw open our borders and allowed 20 million illegal aliens to stampede into our country from all over the world.

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TREENE: OK. So clearly, there are some falsities in there, and that's why we have Daniel here to fact check that in a moment. But I do want to point out a couple things. One is that when I talk to Donald Trump's advisors. They really are trying to figure out, as you mentioned, how are they going to define her? And obviously, for the last year or so, they have had an entire playbook built and designed around going after an unpopular 81-year-old. And so now they're trying to figure out exactly the best ways to define Kamala Harris and to attack her. And we really did see that on display last night.

And I do think when I talk to his team, they really do want to focus on policy, particularly the areas where Donald Trump, in their eyes, polls better, things like immigration, as you just heard, and the border, but also inflation and crime. And that's really what they're going to continue trying to do. And he did talk about policy last night. But as we all know, Donald Trump is the only man who actually sets the tone for this. And I am very curious to see how some of this messaging changes in the weeks ahead.

KEILAR: All right, fact check away, Daniel. So --

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: In -- in those short clips, there were three separate false claims. He said that Vice President Harris has never visited the border. She did go. She went in mid-2021 in Texas. Many Republicans complained before that she had not gone. Then they stopped because she went. But Trump has continued three years later.

He said she was Joe Biden's border czar. She wasn't. She was never put in charge of the border. She was given a much more limited assignment to lead a so called root causes diplomatic effort trying to address the reasons in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that people choose to migrate. Now, many Republicans scoff at this kind of fact check. They're like, there were a bunch of articles back in 2021 that called her border czar. Frankly, those articles were wrong.

And if you look at CNN's own coverage, not toot her own horn, but you'll see that the White House and Harris office consistently, as early 21, pushed back on that framing. And then Trump also said Harris has allowed 20 million people to stampede in. Aside from the question of her own responsibility, that number is way too high. There have been about 10 million so called border encounters at the southern border under Biden. And not all of those are individual people.

Many of them are attempted repeat crossers. Many of them are immediately expelled. So even if you add in so called gotaways, people who evaded the Border Patrol, House Republicans say there are a couple million. That doesn't add up to 20 million. It just doesn't.

KEILAR: No, it doesn't. All right. I also wonder sometimes, why not just stick with the facts? If you're dealing with millions, you got to, that's a big number, maybe that just do that effectively. All right, let's listen now. This is more from former President Trump talking about Harris.