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Hurricane Helene Prompts Airport Closures, Cancellations & Delays; Netanyahu Dismisses Reports Of Imminent Ceasefire With Hezbollah; Biden To Meet With Ukrainian President Zelenskyy; Speaker Johnson Demands Ukrainian Ambassador To U.S. Be Fired; Rep. Christina Houlahan (D-FL) Discusses Hearing Revealing Multiple Mistakes By Secret Service In Butler, PA. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 26, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Tropical storm-force winds spanning nearly 500 miles.

Danny?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: Helene is also prompting airport closures, cancellations and, as you can imagine, delays, creating a travel nightmare.

For more on this, we have CNN aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean, with those details.

Pete, what's the latest when it comes to air travel?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Things changing by the minute in the travel space. Here's the latest from FlightAware. We've got about a whole 1,100 cancellations in the U.S., about 2,400 flights delayed.

The most impacted airline right now it's Southwest airlines because it operates the second-highest number of flights in Florida behind American Airlines when it comes to Miami.

Southwest has captured number one in every flight cancellation today. American, Delta, United and Spirit round out the top five.

There's so many airports in Florida that are closed right now. Tampa International Airport has been closed since 2:00 a.m. local time this morning. Tallahassee International Airport also closed. Same story at Clearwater International Airport.

In Tampa, they had a group of airport workers who will ride out the storm inside the terminal. The goal there is to have the airport back up and running by sometime tomorrow.

Now American, Delta, United and Southwest have all waived change fees for passengers who want to change their flights from, to or through airports that have been impacted by Helene. That includes most of the airports in Florida. Also in some cases,

Mexico and Cuba. But it depends on the airlines. You have to check with them.

The FAA tells me it is also getting ready for the impact form Helene. It's preparing air traffic control facilities right now. Holding a conference call at about 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.

At Atlanta airport right now, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the biggest airport in the world. Things, you can see, are getting a little bit more flooding there. The weather's no looking very good.

FREEMAN: Yes.

MUNTEAN: And it will also be impacted today as the storm goes on.

We're seeing more and more cancellations pop up in places that are not necessarily in the storm's immediate path but they will be potentially later on.

So Atlanta possibly one of the top spots for cancellations. It's the biggest hub for Delta Airlines.

FREEMAN: Yes, we going to see the impact for a couple of days at least.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

FREEMAN: Pete Muntean, thank you very much.

MUNTEAN: Thanks.

FREEMAN: Appreciate it.

All right, minutes from now, President Biden will host the Ukrainian president at the White House where Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make his case for how Ukraine can still win the war against Russia.

Stay with us.

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[13:36:49]

FREEMAN: A proposed ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remains up in the air. The U.S. and a host of other countries are all backing it.

But today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed reports of an imminent pause in the conflict across the border with Lebanon. Instead, calling on his troops to continue fighting with, quote, "full force."

Now earlier, the Israeli military says it carried out what it called precise strikes in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing a Hezbollah commander. According to Lebanese state-run media, though, the Israeli strikes

targeted a building near a busy intersection, killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen others.

For more on this, let's go straight to CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Haifa, Israel.

Jeremy, is this ceasefire proposal gaining any traction among Israeli officials?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, the Israeli prime minister and his office have been engaging with the United States over the course of the last days as the ceasefire proposal has been building up. That was a very clear message from the White House just moments ago.

But this morning, we saw the Israeli prime minister seriously distancing himself from this ceasefire proposal and saying that Israel is more focused on continuing to ratchet up the military pressure on Hezbollah.

And that those are the orders that he has given the Israeli military right now rather than moving towards a ceasefire agreement.

And he is making that statement amid a serious backlash here in Israel to reports of an imminent ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. And it's not only members of Netanyahu's right-wing government who made very clear that they're opposed to any potential ceasefire.

Including Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister here in Israel, who said that the enemy must not be given any time to recover from the blows it has suffered over the course of the last week. Referring, of course, to Hezbollah.

But we have also heard from members of the opposition, including Yair Lapid, who said that Israel should only accept a seven-day ceasefire, not the full 21 days that the United States has been talking about.

Benny Gantz, a former member of his emergency wartime government, who left and is now backing the opposition, he has also made clear that he believes diplomatic options to deal with Hezbollah have also been exhausted.

And so what we are left with right now are these threats from the Israeli military, including Israel's top general, , who said yesterday that Moshe Levy, who said yesterday that Israel is, indeed, preparing for a potential ground operation inside of Lebanon to go after Hezbollah.

Now, it's also clear that a decision has yet to be made about whether or not to move forward with a ground operation.

And we were told that part of the Israeli prime minister's visit to New York, where he is set to address the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow, is, indeed, designed to meet with world leaders and to meet with U.S. officials and to try and advance the potential ceasefire negotiations.

But at this stage, there is no indication that that is something that the Israeli government, that the Israeli prime minister are actually going to go for.

It's also possible, of course, that these threats and these talks of a ground offensive is designed to put more pressure on Hezbollah to create more favorable conditions for Israeli should a ceasefire agreement actually be reached.

[13:40:01]

But so much unknown right now. And for now, of course, the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah very much continuing indefinitely - Danny?

FREEMAN: Jeremy Diamond, in Haifa, stay safe. Thank you very much for that report.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Happening now, President Biden is about to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House as he unveils his plan for victory in the war against Russia.

Earlier today, Zelenskyy had a private meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and he urged them to keep supporting Ukraine and to allow his forces to use American-supplied weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

Evelyn Farkas is with us now to discuss. She is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. She currently serves as the executive director of the McCain Institute.

Evelyn, the U.S. just announced a $375 million aid package to Ukraine, may commit many billions more before the end of the month. What does that do? And what can it do if the U.S. doesn't grant this request for Ukraine to use long-range weapons inside of Russia?

EVELYN FARKAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MCCAIN INSTITUTE & FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE & EURASIA: Yes, I mean, Brianna, this aid package is really important because, right now, what we see is that the elections are coming up.

And so President Biden, President Zelenskyy, they want to make sure that they, I guess, Trump proof support for Ukraine and get as much as possible out to Ukraine right now.

But the other part of this, of course, is Congress. And so even if you have a Harris administration, the president -- both presidents want to make sure that Ukraine has as much assistance as possible.

And then there's the reality that they're really tired in Ukraine right now and the Europeans are really worried about the war spreading. So the assistance package will let Ukraine continue to fight. I'll hopefully provide better air defense. I understand there are Patriots in this package.

But I'm not really sure exactly what is going to be a game changer here.

KEILAR: What are the risk, rewards of allowing Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia? And do you think the U.S. should allow it?

FARKAS: I think the risk is, of course, some kind of escalation by Vladimir Putin whereby he takes direct action against NATO allies. I think that risk is -- you can't dismiss it entirely.

But it's pretty small because he just does not want war with the United States and our NATO allies. Russia can barely win the war right now with Ukraine.

So that is a risk. People talk about the nuclear escalation. And of course, I believe it was yesterday, Vladimir Putin made nuclear threats again. They have a doctrine that calls for a use of nuclear weapons if the existence of the state is in danger.

And of course, that interpretation of whether the existence of the state is in danger is up to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

But again, I see that risk as not -- not something we can dismiss entirely but also not very high.

The -- on the plus side of the ledger, you know, if the Russians -- if the Ukrainians, rather, have this permission to use these long-range missiles and they can take out some strategic targets inside of Russia, for example, military depots.

We saw recently, just a couple of days ago, the Ukrainians took out a depot in Russia that caused them to lose a significant amount out of military hardware.

Some of these can be certainly at least game changing in the short term, maybe even in the long term.

KEILAR: House Speaker Johnson is calling for the firing of the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. for her hand in planning this visit that Zelenskyy took to a factory in Pennsylvania that makes Howitzer shells, which, of course, Ukraine uses in the war.

He went there with Democratic elected officials this weekend. Now Johnson is calling it election interference. What do you think about this? Do you think that Zelenskyy may have miscalculated here?

FARKAS: It probably wasn't the wisest decision, to be honest. But if you're going to look for weapons -- you know, factories in the United States that are manufacturing equipment that is going to Ukraine, a lot of them are actually in swing states.

Arizona is another one, Ohio. Yes, that's not a swing state this time. But -- but there are quite a few swing states or red states or maybe even swing districts.

And so I can see that maybe they fell into this without thinking about it clearly. It's unfortunate there were no Republicans there. I mean, that's just something you should make sure that you cast your net wide enough that you get some Republican members of Congress.

So it seems like a misstep on the part of the Ukrainian government in this particularly tense time.

KEILAR: He took a U.S. military plane. Republicans really taking issue with that. Is that unusual?

FARKAS: That, Brianna, is not unusual. And I haven't done research on this particular case.

[13:44:59]

But I know, from my time in the Defense Department, that when you had a defense ministry official visiting the United States, that the United States would provide transportation and security while those officials were in the country.

That's something that's also afforded to Americans when we go to other countries. I'm surmising -- I don't know exactly, but the same -- that same treatment is given to heads of state.

And in the case of transportation, air transport, the State Department doesn't really have an air fleet, so they would have to use the military aircraft. So that -- that part of it is not unusual.

The part that's unusual is, frankly, that they picked a state that's a swing state and they didn't ensure that there were Republicans there as well.

KEILAR: Well, you are certainly the person to ask on this. We know you know this well.

Evelyn Farkas, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

FARKAS: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: On Capitol Hill today, local law enforcement officials from Butler, Pennsylvania, are testifying about the first assassination attempt to former President Donald Trump. We're going to speak to a lawmaker on the bipartisan task force investigating it, next.

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[13:50:45]

FREEMAN: Secret Service mistakes exposed at length during the first public hearing today by the House task force investigating the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Local law enforcement from Butler, Pennsylvania, testified detailing how the Secret Service failed to set up some basic functions on July 13th, like making sure all agencies on site could communicate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHRISTINA HOULAHAN (D-PA): Can you briefly talk a little bit about the Secret Service and whether or not you think they could hear you?

SGT EDWARD LENZ, ADAMS TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT: I do not believe they could hear us at all. They did not have a radio from us and we did not have a radio from them.

So, you know, in the local command posts, there was no way for us to hear any of the Secret Service radio traffic.

It's not feasible to have everybody to communicate on the same channel just because the amount of radio traffic. A unified command post solves that issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Joining me now is one of the members of that task force. You just heard her right there, Democratic Representative Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

Congresswoman, thank you very much for joining me, especially after this hearing.

Just tell me, what we're your major takeaways from this morning's hearing with local law enforcement?

HOULAHAN: So to me, there were kind of two major buckets of takeaways.

One was that there were clearly technological communications issues that were going on, whether with radio or with the fact that there was literally texting going on or signal chats going on, or emails in some cases. That's kind of a big red flag.

Also, another bucket that I would put it into is just kind of a haphazard op structure where we had to command centers and, in some cases, not everybody even knew that there we're two command centers.

I think local law enforcement was clear on what it was that they we're supposed to do, but not necessarily this is certainly read into the whole program.

And I think that those kinds of things left me with a real anxiety about the organizational structure of the Secret Service, but also the culture of the Secret Service as well.

So I think it was a good hearing, a good bipartisan conversation with lots of action items due out as a result of it.

FREEMAN: Well, again, it's also fascinating to hear specifically from some of these local law officers because, again, they knew and recognized that something was going wrong. But again, that message, it seems, did not get to the Secret Service. Congresswoman, I'm curious though, on this new Protect Our Presidents

Act that was just passed guaranteeing the same level of Secret Service protection for - whether it's for President Trump, President Biden or Vice President Harris.

Some members, though, have said that the Secret Service doesn't have a resource problem as much as a threat assessment problem. What's your take on that?

HOULAHAN: Again, I think that it's its nuanced, it's complicated, and it can be all of the above. I think that we can recognize that there were issues that money wouldn't necessarily solve, or people wouldn't necessarily solve, and we need to solve for that.

And I think we can also recognize that maybe there was information that we should be passing along to the Secret Service or to local law enforcement agencies that wasn't potentially passed along.

Again, there are lots of different places to point your finger. Our issue -- our solute -- we need to make sure that we're finding all those issues and we need to make sure we're solving for them so that they never happen again.

FREEMAN: Congresswoman, one thing that stood out to me during this particular hearing was GOP Representative Cory Mills, he testified before the committee as an expert sniper.

He called for the presidents inner core to be protected by a, quote, "private security detail, who does not have any political agenda or affiliation until the issues with the Secret Service can be resolved."

What was your reaction to that particular recommendation?

HOULAHAN: So I'm not going to comment on that particular piece of advice that Representative Mills has.

I think that the task force itself, the bipartisan task force of six Democrats and seven Republicans, have a clear mandate and we are responsible and charged with making sure we put out a report in the December timeframe with recommendations.

I appreciate the comment coming from Representative Mills. And we'll take it under consideration, along with all of the other people that we've asked for information from.

FREEMAN: Congresswoman, former President Trump is scheduled to return to Butler on October 5th for a rally in that exact same location where he was shot back in July.

[13:55:59]

I was at the farm show, in fact, when your task force surveyed the site last month. Do you have any concerns about the former president going back?

HOULAHAN: My guess is that the former president will be more safe than he ever has been as he returns to that particular site.

There was, however, some conversation about what sorts of sites were most -- were most appropriate for a former president or a current president and candidates to go to.

There may need to be a conversation as well -- as well on whether or not that particular site was the right one to go to in the first place and whether or not the campaign had too much pushback or too much say in how that particular event unfolded.

And those are also questions that we need to make sure that we continue to ask for and get answers from as the committee goes on with our investigation.

FREEMAN: Representative Houlahan, thank you so much for your time again from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Appreciate it.

HOULAHAN: Thank you for having me.

FREEMAN: All right, we have some new video right here. Moments ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving at the White House for his meeting with President Biden. We'll bring you that meeting as soon as it happens.

You can see right there the Ukrainian flag and I believe we're about to see Volodymyr Zelenskyy walk out his vehicle for, again, this all- important meeting at this crucial moment between the war with Ukraine and Russia.

CNN NEWS CENTRAL will continue after this short break.

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