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Netanyahu Backs Trump's Plan to Take Over Gaza; Newer Strain of Bird Flu Found in Nevada Dairy Cows; Unedited Video of Harris CBS Interview Refutes Trump's Claims;. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says President Trump's proposal for the U.S. to take over Gaza is a remarkable plan, and both he and the President say there would be no need to involve any U.S. troops to make it happen. Netanyahu is here in the U.S. meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. We have CNN Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond and CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju following the Prime Minister's visit.

Jeremy, first to you, tell us more about Netanyahu's endorsement of this plan that just seems incredibly unlikely to ever happen.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, when the President initially made that comment proposing that the U.S. take over Gaza, it seems like the Israeli Prime Minister had very little heads up about it. And so his initial reaction was to say, this is an interesting idea, something worth exploring.

But now he says that he is fully on board. Not only that this is something worth exploring, but something that should actually be done. That, of course, doesn't change the reality on the ground that this plan is being overwhelmingly rejected by Palestinians in Gaza and also being rejected by the countries that would receive those Palestinian refugees, Jordan and Egypt, for example.

But ultimately, what this may do is provide some kind of political cover for the Israeli Prime Minister to move forward with another plan to resettle Gazans. And we are already starting to see the wheels going into motion to explore that idea, with the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz now ordering the Israeli military to begin coming up with a plan to allow for the voluntary migration of Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip.

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This is the first time that we have seen the Israeli military order to come up with such a plan after more than 15 months of war.

So ultimately, it's not clear that this plan by the president to take over Gaza is going to be feasible in any way or become a reality. But it certainly has kind of changed and opened, enlarged, perhaps, the Overton window here in terms of what the Israeli government might actually be able to do on its own, perhaps with U.S. support -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy, thank you.

And now to our CNN chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, on the Hill. What are you hearing from lawmakers?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Republicans themselves are uncertain what to make of this. Some of them were surprised and many of them were surprised when they first heard this. Others rejected it out of hand, said this is completely unworkable.

And many of them want more details, especially as Donald Trump is talking about this more and more and suggesting this is not something, just something he was just spouting off at the press conference, but actually something that he actually wants to see accomplished. But even so, there are still Republicans who don't believe this is something that can actually be pulled off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): I'm just arguing, what is the logistical challenge of rebuilding Gaza, which I am told is not a brick standing upon a brick in a way which implies structural integrity?

RAJU: But do you think your constituents would want --?

CASSIDY: Ownership should remain with the people who own it.

RAJU: Do you think your constituents would want occupation?

CASSIDY: Again, I'm not considering that yet. I suspect my constituents would. But I'm not sure my concern is being considered in the way that you are considering occupation.

SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): I think in terms of occupying of Gaza, the only way we would ever, I think, if at all, want to do that would be at their invitation.

RAJU: So sending in U.S. troops?

CRAMER: Doesn't make sense. I mean, Gaza is secured, and it may be in upheaval, and it may have an uncertain future and all of those things, but it's really not our business right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): And we do know in Netanyahu's visits on Capitol Hill today that this has at least come up in at least one of those meetings. Senator John Barrasso, who is the number two Senate Republican, told reporters afterwards that Netanyahu has urged them not to dismiss this idea out of hand. It didn't seem like it was part of a significant discussion but at least was broached on to some extent in that Senate meeting.

And also, we expect though -- we had expected that Netanyahu would meet with Mike Johnson, someone who yesterday, the Speaker of the House, said he supported this idea. But Johnson and Netanyahu have yet to meet. In fact, this meeting was supposed to happen two hours ago, but Johnson's been at the White House all afternoon as they're trying to sort out their own plans to move the Trump agenda forward.

So it's unclear, Brianna, that Johnson, Netanyahu meeting will actually happen today on Capitol Hill.

KEILAR: All right, Manu Raju, live for us on the Hill. Thank you.

And still ahead, a new variant of bird flu has been detected in dairy cows in Nevada and fears are growing that this strain could become a serious threat to humans.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Because of recent developments, there are real concerns that the bird flu could become a serious threat to humans. After a new strain was detected in six herds of dairy cows in Nevada, signaling the variant has made the jump from birds to cows. And this strain, D1.1, has been linked to severe infections in humans. Experts are currently studying the new restraint to figure out how it is spreading so aggressively.

Joining us now is Dr. Michael Osterholm. He's director for the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm, thank you so much for being with us.

The National Institutes of Health has called this one mutation easier -- or rather, this makes it easier for this virus to get into humans. Should we be worried about this latest outbreak?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: Well, let me just put this into perspective, Boris, because people have been hearing about bird flu literally for the last year, wondering what is this all about? Is something really dangerous happening?

We know that the natural location or reservoir for this virus is in waterfowl in North America. There's about 40 million of them. And only in the last several years with this new strain of bird flu, H5N1, has we really been concerned about this nationwide presence of the infection? And to even understand what's just happened in the dairy cattle, just note that since the 1st of January, there have been 96 different flocks of poultry and 23 million birds in 20 states plus Puerto Rico have all become infected, largely from this exposure to these waterfowl.

But what happened a year ago was we actually saw the spillover in Texas of this bird flu virus into dairy cattle. And then when they moved the cattle north with the spring season, we spread it to 16 different states, including major activity in California.

But what happened was the bird flu virus in the birds is a slightly different strain than the virus we saw in the cattle. What's happened is in the last week, we've now confirmed that the original bird flu virus, the one affecting birds, has now also got into cattle. And so there's now a new introduction of it. And what we don't know is what that means in terms of human health.

You know, we've been talking about this as a challenge to human health for a year, and we've yet to see really any evidence of it becoming a routinely transmitted virus in people.

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But it could happen tomorrow.

SANCHEZ: What would it take for it to happen?

OSTERHOLM: Well, it's going to take a series of changes genetically, what we call mutations or a thing called reassortment, where two viruses of different types get into the same lung cell and swap out genes and create basically a new virus.

But let me just say, we don't know exactly what the ingredients are for that. And I liken to think of it as opening a bank safe, where you basically take the tumbler and you roll it over to the right number, and you stop there, and you roll it back to the left number, and you roll it back to the right number before you can actually open the bank safe.

That's what this virus is going to require, is that the changes are going to have to happen in sequence, and they're going to have to happen exactly the right way. But when that happens, it opens the floodgate for then what could surely be another influenza pandemic with human-to-human transmission. But we don't know how close we are to that at all. We just don't know.

SANCHEZ: Dr. Michael Osterholm, we have to leave the conversation there. A story we will continue watching. Thanks so much.

OSTERHOLM: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, the FCC releases the full, unedited 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris after a lawsuit by President Trump claiming that it was deceptively edited. What the full version reveals, and what President Trump is now saying when we come back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We're getting some new details today on a legal battle between President Trump and CBS News. The Federal Communications Commission has published unedited video of this 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris which aired in October in the heat of election season. Trump is accusing CBS News of election interference, claiming in a lawsuit, the network deceptively doctored the interview to help Harris in the 2024 presidential race.

The evidence released, though, shows otherwise.

KEILAR: CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, is with us now on this. Brian, you say this is all based on a faulty premise. BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Right, because CBS is not guilty of what's being charged here. CBS did not commit so-called news distortion, didn't commit election interference. It conducted some arguably funky editing, which exposed itself to criticism.

But there's nothing illegal about editing all television networks do it, including the president's favorite network, Fox News.

But we in the media find ourselves in this impossible position now, where we're reacting to unreality. We have to react to things that aren't real because they are expressed by Trump and his allies.

Trump's complaints about CBS, they are unreal, but they're being taken seriously by his Federal Communications Commission, by the agency that regulates CBS. And thus, we have to take it seriously too.

SANCHEZ: And Brian, FCC Chair Brendan Carr decided to extend the case for another six weeks and to open it up for public comment. How does that play into the unreality that you're talking about?

STELTER: Right, instead of saying case closed, he's saying the case is still open. This is going to remain looming over the network's head. I basically view it as prolonging the pain for CBS.

Look, I interviewed Carr earlier this week. He said what he's trying to do is, quote, reinvigorate the public interest standard at the FCC. In other words, make sure that local radio and TV stations are serving the public interest.

That sounds great in theory, but his own Democratic commissioners, his own colleagues who are Democrats on the commission, are saying that he's weaponizing the agency. And this is what we're watching for and covering throughout Trump's government now. How are these agencies being used to serve Trump's purposes?

We know that Trump wants the media to suffer. He wants CBS to suffer. And it seems like Brendan Carr's target list is the same as Trump's target list.

Carr is probing NPR, he's probing PBS, he wrote a letter to Disney right before Christmas, and now this CBS case will linger at least for a few more months.

KEILAR: And Brian, turning to another topic, but a really interesting one. The White House says that it's going to cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions in response to a false right-wing conspiracy theory. Tell us about this.

STELTER: Right, this is the best example, I think, in the last 24 hours of that unreality that I'm describing. Again, a totally faulty premise here. This right-wing conspiracy theory claimed that USAID was secretly bankrolling news websites like Politico.

The reality is actually boring. The reality is that lots of agencies in the government and lots of lawmakers on Capitol Hill pay for subscriptions to really high-quality premium Politico websites. That's normal, it's been going on for years.

But so MAGA, DOGE, Internet sleuths treated this like it was a brand- new discovery of something really appalling. And as a result, the White House came out and said, hey, we're going to look at this, we're going to cancel this. Well, you can't cancel subscriptions they already paid for years ago.

But this is unreality. Another example just came up here on your program. $50 million in condoms to Gaza or $50 million in condoms to the Taliban. This stuff is unreal. But we are in a position where we have to take it seriously because it's coming out of the mouths of elected officials. I guess we should say to the viewers at home, if you're feeling loopy about all this, if you're feeling crazy, it's not you. You're not crazy. But some of these news cycles kind of are.

KEILAR: Bummer for those folks who have to go without their Politico pro that they so relied on, though, kind of shooting yourself in the foot there. Brian Stelter, thank you, as always.

And up next, a homeowner down under gets a slithering surprise -- there's a lot of them there, you know -- after calling for help to deal with some garden pests.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: You've heard the phrase, not in my backyard. Well, wait till you see what was lurking in one backyard in Sydney, Australia. 102 snakes removed from a homeowner's garden. And we're not talking about harmless little, you know, snakes that some people might think are cute. These are venomous, red-bellied black snakes.

SANCHEZ: These are kind of cute, though.

KEILAR: OK.

SANCHEZ: They've got big eyes.

The reptile catcher may just ask for a raise after this. He was called out to remove what the owners thought were six snakes. What he didn't know was that several were pregnant, and as they looked around, there was baby after baby after adorable baby. He says the timing was actually quite lucky, because if it had been later, those young snakes would have slithered all around the neighborhood.

They are now set to be released to a national park.

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Look deep in their eyes and tell me that they're not sweet.

KEILAR: They're so sweet if they go way over there. I wonder if it could have been my uncle's backyard. I think I would have heard about that. Right? I feel like this is commonplace in Australia. It's just no big deal. SANCHEZ: Just like the weirdest animals. Everything can kill you over there.

KEILAR: Everything can kill you, but she'll be right, as they say. She'll be right.

SANCHEZ: Not the least of which the breakdancers.

KEILAR: So will Jake Tapper.

SANCHEZ: Shout out to Ray Gunn.

We always have room for Ray Gunn.

KEILAR: "THE LEAD" starts now.

END