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State Dept.: Israeli Govt. Has Informed U.S. About "A Number Of Operations," Including Ground Operations In Lebanon; Supreme Court Justices Meet Behind Closed Doors To Review Appeals. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 30, 2024 - 14:30   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: In the Middle East, Israel's war on Hezbollah is intensifying. Today, President Biden said that Israel should stop its raids in Lebanon. Israel Defense Forces have begun small operations into Lebanese territory to prepare for a ground incursion against Hezbollah, according to several sources. The incursion into Lebanon will be more limited than what was initially planned, according to U.S. officials. And here was President Biden's response.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Israel may be now launching a limited operation into Lebanon. Are you aware of that? Are you comfortable with their plans?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm more aware than you might know, and I'm comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Also today, Israel fired into Beirut. This follows a strike on Friday that killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah. He's one of at least three senior commanders in the terror group that have been killed. With us now, CNN's Alex Marquardt, CNN's Ben Wedeman in Beirut. And Alex, you've been learning about this looming ground incursion into Lebanon. The State Department just announcing that Israel has informed the U.S. about a number of operations. What's the latest?

[14:35:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A number of operations, including ground operations, the State Department and the rest of the administration are being sured -- assured by the Israelis that they will be relatively limited in nature focused on Hezbollah infrastructure right across the border, inside southern Lebanon, that they argue -- that the Israelis argue are threatening those northern Israeli communities.

So this incursion, we are told by the administration, could come at any moment now. They do believe it's imminent. This could happen in a matter of hours. This could easily happen today. And this really comes against the -- the -- the Biden administration's wishes. You heard the President there saying that he would be comfortable with them stopping these raids.

So that really highlights the fact that the Biden administration is either unable or unwilling to -- to prevent Israel from carrying out this incursion into -- into Lebanon, which could, of course, threaten the broader region and really lead to significant escalation. I have been told that this that we saw -- we've seen the raids earlier today there. They're going to be expanding into a -- a broader but limited campaign.

And -- and this comes, a U.S. official told me, after weekend discussions in which essentially the U.S. managed to talk Israel back and -- and -- and encourage them to do something that's more limited in scope. So what we should expect to see, according to the White House, is Israeli troops going across the border, taking out this Hezbollah infrastructure, and then coming back across the border in -- into Israel. The U.S. has really been seek -- seeking assurances that this would not look like the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was much bigger. It lasted for -- for more than 30 days.

But American officials are quite clear right about this, afraid that it could ex -- it -- it could broaden out, both in terms of scale and time. And that's something they say that they continue to talk to the Israelis about.

SANCHEZ: Ben, where you are, what has been the reaction on the ground to this potential ground incursion?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of fear. Actually, many people are afraid that, despite what the Israelis are telling the Americans that this could be the beginning of a much broader invasion. To go back in history a little bit, back in 1982 then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon told the Israeli cabinet, which -- which told the Americans, that Israel would launch a limited incursion into Lebanon.

They ended up besieging Western Beirut. So people here remember what has happened in the past, and the fear is that the kind of destruction and massive displayment -- displacement, with over a million people being having to flee from their homes as a result of the bombing could really just be the beginning. The fear is that there -- if the Israelis make a sizable incursion, really push into the south, that you could have even more people heading elsewhere, similar to what we saw in 2006.

This country is bankrupt. It simply is not capable of handling those kind of numbers. Now, as far as how is Hezbollah going to react, we don't know at this point. We did hear Naim Qassem, who is the, what, a senior deputy to the late Hassan Nasrallah, saying that -- that the Hezbollah has not collapsed, de -- despite the pain and the sacrifices, he said that they would continue to confront the Israelis in support of the Palestinian people and the people of Lebanon.

And what we've seen in the past is that the forte of Hezbollah is guerrilla warfare in those very same mountains of Southern Lebanon, where they fought the Israelis until May of 2000 dry -- essentially driving them out of the country, and then again in 2006.

So if the Israelis go beyond anything more than a limited incursion, it could become much more dangerous indeed. Boris, Brianna?

KEILAR: Ben did we get a -- did we get a sense of who may replace Nasrallah?

WEDEMAN: No, we didn't. And Qassem made the point that they would appoint somebody as soon as possible. In his words, there are sort of two names that are coming up, either Naim Qassem, because he was so close to Hassan Nasrallah, or somebody by the name of Hashem Safieddine, who also a senior member of the organization, very close to Nasrallah as well, somebody who has military experience, as opposed to Naim Qassem, who's just essentially a cleric.

But they said -- he said that they would find somebody eventually. Clearly, it's not the sort of job that too many people might be eager to take, given the fact that almost the entire military leadership of Hezbollah has been eliminated. Brianna?

[14:40:03]

SANCHEZ: And Alex, these details about Israel entering Lebanon, they come after the Biden administration and called for a cease fire last week that Israel quickly rejected it, and you getting more details about how that transpired.

MARQUARDT: Yes. This really wasn't an embarrassing episode for the Biden administration, because they spent days hammering out this ceasefire deal that they announced on Wednesday. They said this will be a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah so they could start diplomatic conversations to -- to get to a -- a more permanent peace.

And then very quickly, we heard Netanyahu coming out and saying that the IDF will continue fighting with its -- with its full might. What we're being told now from the U.S. side is that Israel had worked with the Israelis on this tech -- Israel had worked with the Americans on this text. They had -- they had agreed to it. They had, in fact, greenlit its announcement on Wednesday.

And then overnight, the U.S. says they changed their mind because they saw this opportunity to go after Nasrallah, and so they essentially reneged on this ceasefire and continue with the military operation. That's not the case according to the Israelis. They say that this was an honest misunderstanding, that they had no intention of implementing this imminent ceasefire.

So still quite a bit of disagreement, there still quite a bit of embarrassment, but American officials insist they're still very much focused on getting to a ceasefire so you can get to some quiet on that border.

KEILAR: Really interesting. Alex, thank you so much. Our thanks to Ben Wedeman as well in Lebanon, we appreciate the report.

Still ahead, the death toll has risen to at least 119 after Hurricane Helene. And communities across the southeast are reeling, but we're keeping an eye on even more activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. We'll have details on that next.

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[14:46:13]

KEILAR: We're keeping an eye on the weather. There's new rainfall from Helene's remnants expected today, and that could mean some new problems for some hard hit communities. Our meteorologist, Chad Myers, is tracking the forecast live from the CNN weather center. Chad, tell us which areas could be impacted here.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I mean, certainly not a single extra drop of rain is hopeful, I mean is -- is helpful. Really, Virginia and West Virginia is the area today. This is a picture here behind me of Lake Lure. I just -- I just can't stop watching it and looking at, you know, it looks like there are trees, but there's parts of homes. Just talk to a guy from Hendersonville. He had a seafood restaurant, and it doesn't exist anymore. It's completely gone.

Fifty employees don't even have a building to go back to. And we're going to hear stories about this all the way through, all the way the Blue Ridge Parkway, all the way down even into parts of South Carolina and even into Georgia. When you get the numbers like this, 20 to 30 inches over just three days, that's the area that really got hit so hard. Now the water is trying to get down into the ocean. That's going to be another kind of a problem for the people that are down river from all of this water.

Then here's the rainfall right now into parts of Virginia, into Maryland, some of the heaviest rainfall really will be one to two inches. We're not talking about a major rain event today, but when it's already falling on saturated ground, you don't need any more whatsoever.

So we have three more storms out in the ocean, I, J, K, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, and we have one more that we're watching here that could get into the Gulf of Mexico. That would be the L, the Leslie storm. Right now, the computers are not impressed, and that's good news, because when it gets in the Gulf of Mexico, the water's so warm, anything can happen, at least for right now, we don't see that type of development. But there's the next storm. It would be Leslie, let's hope not. Yes.

KEILAR: Yes. Let's try to remain unimpressed. That would be great. All right, Chad, thank you for taking us through that. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour, lawyers for New York City Mayor Eric Adams today asked the judge to throw out a bribery charge against him, arguing that the allegations described in the federal indictment, quote, do not amount to federal crime at all. Adams is pleading not guilty to the five count indictment, which includes bribery, wire fraud and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals. Meantime, CNN has learned that New York Governor Kathy Hochul told Mayor Adams to clean house during a private phone call this past week, according to multiple sources familiar with that call.

Meantime, this morning, thousands of Verizon customers across the country report problems using their phones. Verizon is confirming the outage, saying that its engineers are working to identify and solve the issue.

And today, Britain becomes the first G7 country to end burning coal for electricity with the closure of its last coal fired plant. More than half of Britain's electricity now comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

[14:49:16]

Still to come on CNN News Central, Supreme Court justices are meeting today, one week before the start of their new term. We're going to tell you what they're discussing and what major cases they'll take up in this next term, next.

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SANCHEZ: Today, the Supreme Court is back to work after their summer recess with plenty to do. Hundreds of appeals have piled up during their break, but we may not know which cases they're going to take up until later this week. CNN's Chief Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic, is here. Joan, first arguments are just one week away, so this is kind of a pregame before the argument start?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Right. This is the first time all nine will be together since July 1st when they handed down their Trump immunity case.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

BISKUPIC: And we had -- we saw bitter divisions. So they're all now back from their summer recess meeting around a table in a chamber off the -- the Office of Chief Justice John Roberts. Only the nine, no law clerks, no assistance, and they're going through literally hundreds of appeals that came in over the summer. But they're actually not discussing those, they've already -- they have a special list of about two dozen cases of, you know, cases that they decided they wanted to discuss and to decide what to add to their calendar for oral arguments and resolution.

All the other cases that came in will just be denied and the lower court rulings and those cases will stand. Now, let me just tell you about three cases that are major and already on the calendar. They added them toward the end of last session, and all three of them touch on some of the toughest decisions and issues of the day. First having to do with transgender adolescents.

[14:55:14]

Many states, more than 20 states, have passed laws banning pu -- puberty block -- blockers, hor -- hormone treatments and other gender affirming care for transgender adolescents. And the case that the justices have already agreed to hear comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, and they're going to decide whether states can actually prohibit those kinds of treatments without violating the Constitution.

Another one involves guns. You know, the Second Amendment has been very hot up there. But this case involves actually, the authority of the federal ATF to regulate what firearms that are created out of weapons kits, you know, ghost guns, whether they have to be have background checks and other requirements for anyone who would sell them or buy them.

And then finally, a really important death penalty case that's been kicking around the courts for more than two decades, Boris, it involves a man by the name of Richard Glossip, who says that he's -- he's saying in it, he's innocent, but he's also saying, look, the state of Oklahoma has admitted that it aired in the prosecution of this case. And indeed, Oklahoma is up here with Richard Glossip saying that his conviction and death sentence should be reversed. And we'll have to see what the Supreme Court does with that one. All of those are already on the calendar and scheduled, and then in upcoming weeks, they'll add more.

SANCHEZ: We look forward to seeing what they add. And please come back and break it down for us. And also, Joan, you can pregame with us before the show anytime you'd like, good pregame helps us all out. Thank you so much, Joan Biskupic.

Parts of western North Carolina are unrecognizable after devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene. Still ahead, we're going to speak to the fire chief of Asheville, where neighborhoods are cut off and communications have been down. Stay with us.

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