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Sources: U.S. Working Urgently On Plan To Deescalate Israel/Hezbollah Conflict; New Reports Shows Secret Service Failures In First Attempt On Trump's Life; American Woman Dies In First Use Of Controversial Suicide Pod. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 25, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:31:54]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Developing in the Middle East, Israel's military chief says his forces are preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon after an unprecedented attack by Hezbollah.

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(AIR RAID SIRENS)

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ACOSTA: That's the sound of sirens blaring as Israeli air defenses intercepted a Hezbollah missile near Tel Aviv. It's the first time a missile fired by the militant group reached that far into Israel.

Hezbollah says it was targeting the headquarters of Israel's intelligence service. The attack follows three consecutive days of Israeli strikes that Lebanon says have killed more than 600 people and forced close to 100 people to flee their homes.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Sources telling CNN that the U.S. is working urgently on a plan to de-escalate tensions between Hezbollah and Israel as fears of a wider conflict are growing.

Let's get more now on this with CNN global affairs analyst, Mark Esper. He's former defense secretary under President Trump. He does also serve on the board or as a strategic advisor for some aerospace and defense-related companies.

Sir, Israel's army chief just saying now that the military is preparing for a possible Lebanon ground incursion. He told troops that means you are military boots, you're maneuvering boots will enter enemy territory. Pretty clear there.

So how imminent is this? What could this look like?

MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, good afternoon, Brianna. Yes, it does appear somewhat imminent. It's reported that they called

up two reserve brigades of soldiers. So a brigade is anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers each.

And he made those comments about, you may be going into southern Lebanon. And I imagined their mission would be to obviously push back has Hezbollah to make sure they destroy whatever long-range missile launchers they have and whatever direct-fire, direct-attack missile launchers they have there that have been firing into northern Israel.

And its -- it's going to be tough. I mean, Hezbollah is bigger than Hamas, better trained, better prepared, many have experienced fighting in Syria.

So it would be a tough slog coming off the last time they thought in southern Lebanon in 2006 and where the conflict was basically fought to a stalemate.

So this is a very serious thing. It's a major escalation if it happens. And as Jim noted, the tee up, there are talks underway to possibly, hopefully, de-escalate things.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly.

Let's talk about what could avert this in a moment.

I do want to ask you, though, what your concerns are about the message that has was sending with this ballistic missile to Tel Aviv, saying it as a to target Massad headquarters. What are you worried that the signal is?

ESPER: Yes, it is a clear message. It's saying that we can reach you deeper than we have in the past and probably more accurately than we have in the past.

And when you combine that with the fact that they have upwards of 150,000 rockets and missiles and drones, if fired at once, depending on the number of launches they have her ability to synchronize, they could overwhelm Israel's air defense systems and impose costs on Israel.

And I imagine they'd probably go mostly for military sites. But inevitably civilian casualties are caused as well.

[13:35:03]

So overwhelming the air defense, if this escalates, would be my biggest concern.

KEILAR: So talking about what might avert this, an Israeli official just told CNN that Netanyahu has given the green light for his government to engage with U.S. efforts to mediate a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Biden similarly expressed some hope about this on "The view."

Let's listen to what he said.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An all-out war is possible. But I think there's also the opportunity or still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.

And I -- look, one of the things that I found is there's -- that Arab world very much wants to have a settlement because they know what it does for them.

They're willing to make arrangements with Israel and reliance -- if Israel changes some policies.

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KEILAR: He's sounding, obviously, some optimism or talking about possibility for broader arrangements to be made.

We look at Gaza right now, even though things seem very much stalled there. And he is sounding more optimistic publicly than we know the administration is privately.

What do you make of that? Is there really a possibility to avert this?

ESPER: I think there's a possibility to avert a major conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that looks like Israel going into southern Lebanon.

I think that is quite different though between a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, because I thin Yahya Sinwar, who's leading Hamas out of Gaza right now, the sides are too far apart.

But on this one, they're much closer. I mean, Hamas (sic) does not want a broader war, partly, mostly because Lebanese people don't want a broader war.

Because of how much they suffered last time and the destruction it caused to -- to the economy, to the infrastructure, the number of civilians killed. So they don't want that.

But you've got to keep in mind, Brianna, that, of course, this began the day after the attack, the brutal attack and murder by Hamas into Gaza.

Hezbollah the next day, on October 8th, said that they we're going to support their brothers in -- in Hamas and continue the conflict from the north until a ceasefire deal is reached.

Now, that's been going on for 11 months. And during that time, over 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their home.

And just a few weeks ago now, after 10- plus months, the Israeli government said, look, we're going to add as a war objective that Israeli civilians in northern Israel have to be returned to their homes. And that's why what's happening now is happening, is Israel's finally

putting pressure.

So what does the deal look like? Israel has long said we want Hezbollah to withdraw to the Litani River, which is about 18 miles north of the frontline. And that would get them out of direct attack, direct fire, and out of a number of missile and other ranges.

And then that would allow Israeli civilians to return to their homes in northern Israel. To me, that looks like the deal.

And I think Hezbollah would -- I think there's more likelihood that Hezbollah would take that depending on what is thrown in there as well.

But you've got to get both sides to sign down. I think Hezbollah needs to unhinge itself from the commitment they made to Hamas 11 months ago to keep fighting until a ceasefire deal is -- is there in the south.

Because I don't think there's much chance of a ceasefire deal in the south.

KEILAR: All right, Secretary Esper, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

ESPER: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: And we'll be right back.

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[13:43:06]

KEILAR: A new Senate report identifies sweeping failures by the Secret Service ahead of the first assassination attempt against former President Trump.

Failures related to everything from planning for the event to communications and crucial decision-making for security at that Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

We have CNN senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez, here with us.

These are some pretty scathing details.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's pretty astonishing. That's what Senator Gary Peters, who oversaw this report, this investigation, that's one of the words he was using in describing just one of the basic things.

Which was, of all the people who we're supposed to be in charge, nobody seemed to want to take responsibility for the many, many failures that are shown in this report.

I mean, one of the things that we learned here is that there was a discussion of having some visual barriers that may, may have been able to prevent someone from being on that roof and having a line of sight at the former president when he was speaking on stage.

And it turns out nobody actually made a decision. There was a discussion about putting up some equipment, some farm equipment. Obviously, the Trump team doesn't really like some of those things because it looks it looks bad on television.

But in the end, no one actually made the call to not deploy that -- that equipment, which, again, may have made a difference.

Another thing that happened was nobody actually took responsibility for securing the building, the building where the shooter took a position on that roof, which is something that is still astonishing at this point.

We know that key resources we're denied the team on the scene there, Brianna.

And we also know that the Iran threat, which was known to people around the Secret Service, was not told to the people actually there securing the rally on that day.

KEILAR: Wow, that's astonishing. That is, indeed. Now I know and understand --

PEREZ: Yes.

KEILAR: -- why he called it astonishing.

Evan Perez, thank you so much.

[13:45:00]

Jim?

ACOSTA: Thanks so much, Brianna.

Let's talk more about this with former Secret Service agent, Jonathan Wackrow.

Jonathan, I mean, what do you make of these glaring failures? I mean, it does not get as, I mean, more glaring than this, I guess you could say,

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I think the only way to categorize this is "reading this report was painful."

Even though a lot of the elements that are contained within the report, such as, you know, the lack of clarity around roles and responsibility, the interaction with local police, the challenges with communication, those are things that we highlighted very early on, almost immediately in the aftermath of the shooting.

But reading the details and the lack of responsibility that people are taking and the lack of clarity of who was in charge on that day is really stunning. And as a former Secret Service agent, and as I said, it's painful to

read because I know that is not what the Secret Service is about. It's not the mission model that I was part of.

And this is -- the result of this report are really important for the acting director to take back to his leadership team and really figure you're out, what is that pathway forward?

The report starts to outline, you know, clearly where those failures were. But the challenge here, moving forward, Jim, is, how do you resolve that? Because there are real challenges to the mission model today.

And when you think about the backdrop of where we are, the U.N. General Assembly is going on, we're in the middle of a presidential election, the Secret Service is challenged, but they have to solve this problem.

ACOSTA: Yes, they've got to get it together. I mean, there's no question about it.

And this bipartisan report says many of these security failures have not been addressed yet. So, Jonathan, I mean, the question I have is, does this indicate that what happened in Butler was a one-off? Or is there a systemic problem here?

WACKROW: I think that what you start seeing is, as you read this report and then you go back to the mission assurance review that the Secret Service is undertaking internally, you're starting to move the needle that there is a problem with the mission model, specifically against the current threat environment.

And I think that the acting director has done a good job recently of addressing that and saying here the action steps, whether they're a near horizon action step that we're going to take to mitigate some of those concerns.

Or thinking even long-term around, what are we going to do to change our engagement in protection around our protective methodologies to ensure that these types of failures, in whole or part, never happen again.

ACOSTA: And the report also says, "Secret Service advance agents did not request a surveillance team" -- maybe you can shed some light on that -- "which could have helped patrol the rally with approximately 15,000 attendees while first lady, Jill Biden, had one assigned to her event roughly an hour away for about 400 individuals."

How does that even happen?

WACKROW: Yes, that the application of counter-surveillance teams -- and Jim, when you think about the protective methodologies, it's concentric rings of protection that radiate out from the protectee.

One of those outer rings is really undercover agents that are there to identify and mitigate threats before they even actually materialized. That is a basic tenant. It's a basic rudiment of the protective methodology.

And for that not to have been applied at a site of this size and scale, especially against the backdrop of what, you know, what we're reading was credible threat intelligence, is really stunning to -- stunning to read.

And again, those types of failures need to be addressed and changed immediately. Because every single day -- we're in the middle of a campaign stop with the former president right now.

Every single moment from now through November, there is a political event and we have to make sure that all of the candidates are safe moving forward.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, it six weeks to go. They've got to have it right each and every day.

Jonathan Wackrow, thank you so much. Always good to talk to you. Really appreciate it.

[13:49:14]

In the meantime, an American woman is dead after using a controversial device to take her own life. The death now sparking a criminal investigation. That story right after this.

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ACOSTA: A 64-year-old American woman is dead after using what's been called a Suicide Pod in Switzerland. It's the first time anyone had used the capsule, we're told, designed by a non-profit known as "The Last Resort."

KEILAR: The co-president of that group said the woman's death was, quote, "peaceful, fast and dignified."

Melissa Bell is with us now.

Melissa, Switzerland is a haven for advocates of assisted suicide. But in this case, four people were actually arrested. What happened here?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This -- this pod has been described, Brianna and Jim, as the Tesla of euthanasia, very futuristic-looking.

It was taken up to the woods in the northern part of Switzerland by the German border to help this 64-year-old American woman to take her life. That happened on Monday.

That pod, transported there, of course, has attracted a great deal of attention because I think of the nature of the way it works.

Still, what we've been hearing from the organization behind its use -- again, the first time it's been used, as you say -- is that her death happened in a fast, dignified and peaceful way.

[13:54:59]

And that as far as this organization was concerned, the use of this pod, called the Sarco, or which is short for sarcophagus, was in line with Swiss assisted-dying legislation.

Because it explains on its Web site, the person was found to be in sound mind when they take the decision. It is they that ultimately press on the button or take the substance in other cases when it's not the pod that takes their lives, that allows them to die.

And that the people helping them to achieve that are doing so altruistically and that all of those conditions, believed this organization, had been met. And yet, they have fallen foul of Swiss laws.

Now, how does it work? Essentially, you get inside the pod. And rather chilling, the last words you'll hear are, "If you want to die, press this button."

Which is what this American woman then did. Nitrogen is introduced into the pod. Oxygen is then to leave. And over the course of 10 minutes, the person apparently dies with little or no suffering as they lose consciousness and slip euphorically, it says, into unconsciousness.

Now, they have still fallen foul of these remarkably liberal Swiss laws because, what we're hearing from Swiss authorities, the pod itself ran afoul of products legislation. And the nitrogen used was also found to be not in line with Swiss laws.

So even if, in a country, as you mentioned, Brianna, where the laws are remarkably liberal in that sense, assisted dying is permitted, even if highly regulated, the use of this particular pod seems to there have been a step too far -- Brianna and Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Yes, I can see why authorities are investigating. I think a lot of viewers out there are going to find that troubling.

Melissa Bell, thank you.

And if you or anyone you know, is struggling with thoughts of suicide, counselors at the 988 Lifeline are always available to talk.

Just ahead, mandatory evacuation orders in Florida as Hurricane Helene prepares to make landfall. One mayor warns it could be the worst storm in his city's history. We'll have the latest on the track just ahead.

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