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Biden Holds Meeting With Israeli Prime Minister; Security Team Warns Biden: Another Attack In Kabul Is Likely; Supreme Court Throws Out Biden Eviction Moratorium. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 27, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the question raised is, should it be shorter than eight months? It should it be as little as five months then? And that's being discussed. I spoke with Dr. Fauci this morning about that.

We're also going to discuss Israel's unwavering, unwavering commitment that we have in the United States to Israel's security. And I fully, fully, fully support replenishing Israel's Iron Dome system.

And we also are going to discuss the threat from Iran and our commitment to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon. And but we're putting diplomacy first and seeing where that takes us.

But if diplomacy fails, we're ready to turn to other options. We'll support Israel's developing deeper ties, as well, with the Arab and Muslim neighbors and globally. That's a trend that I think should be encouraged and not discouraged. And we're going to do all we can to be value added.

We also are going to discuss ways to advance peace and security and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians. And we're also going to direct our teams to work toward Israel fulfilling the requirements of the visa waiver program and get that done.

So, Mr. Prime Minister, I want to thank you again for coming. The U.S. will always be there for Israel. It's an unshakeable partnership between our two nations. And I've known every Israeli Prime Minister since Golda Meir, and gotten to know them fairly well. And I look forward to us establishing a strong, personal relationship.

So, welcome. Welcome.

NAFTALI BENNETT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, on behalf of the Israeli people, I want to extend our condolences and deep sadness for the loss of American lives in Kabul. The American servicemembers lost their lives while on a mission to save other people's lives, and that's the very definition of courage and sacrifice. May they rest in peace.

Especially on this day, I want to be crystal clear, Israel always stands together with the United States of America unequivocally. I also want to thank you for your warm words now and in our private meeting, which attests to your support of the State of Israel. But that's not new, it's been decades. And you've always stood up for us, especially during tough times, like a few months ago when thousands of rockets were being shot on Israeli towns and cities. And that's when friendship is really tested.

We trust in your support, Mr. President. And Israel knows that we have no better or more reliable ally in the world than the United States of America.

I come here from Jerusalem, our eternal capital. And I bring with me a new spirit, a spirit of goodwill, a spirit of hope, a spirit of decency and honesty, a spirit of unity and bipartisanship of folks who, as you suggested, harbor very different political opinions, even opposing. Yet, we all share the deep passion to work together to build a better future for Israel. And that's what Israel is about.

We're out to be good, to do good. But in our region, doing good is not enough. Israel has to be strong in order to do good. Be strong so we can do good.

And we cannot lose sight for even one moment that we're in the toughest neighborhood in the world. We've got ISIS on our southern border, Hezbollah on our northern border, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Iranian militias that surround us. And all of them want to kill us, kill Israelis. They all want to annihilate the Jewish State. And that's why Israel always has to be overwhelming strong -- overwhelmingly stronger than any of our enemies and, indeed, of all our enemies combined.

And that's why I want to thank you, Mr. President, for helping, yet again, to fortify Israel's strategic advantage.

[12:35:00]

Obviously, the main issue we're going to be talking about today here is Iran's race to a nuclear weapon. We talked about it inside the room, and I was happy to hear your clear words that Iran will never be able to acquire a nuclear weapon and that you emphasized that you'll try the diplomatic route, but there's other options if that doesn't work out.

So, you know, these very days illustrate what the world would look like. If a radical Islamic regime acquired a nuclear weapon, that marriage would be a nuclear nightmare for the entire world. Iran is the world's number-one exporter of terror, instability, and human rights violations.

And as we sit here right now, the Iranians are spinning their centrifuges in Natanz and Fordow, but we got to stop it. And we both agree.

So, we've developed a comprehensive strategy that we're going to be talking about with two goals. The first goal is to stop Iran on its regional aggression and start rolling it back into the box. And the second is to permanently keep Iran away from ever being able to break out their nuclear weapon.

As I told you, Mr. President, Israel never had and never will ask America to send troops to defend ourselves. That's our job. We will never outsource our security. It's our responsibility to take care of our fate.

But we do thank you for the tools and the back you've been giving us and you're giving us.

I said we're also going to be talking about COVID and the Delta variant, which is wreaking havoc across the world. You were the first to call the pandemic the pandemic of the unvaccinated, and that is could not be more true.

Just about a month ago, I took a very tough decision, a policy decision, that Israel would pioneer the booster shot, the third shot. I can report to you, Mr. President, and to everyone, that we've reached almost 3 million Israelis that have received the booster shot. And the bottom line is, it's safe and it works. The good news, finally, is that the tide is turning in Israel.

And one last word, Mr. President, I'll take this off for this part, if I may. You're a man of faith, as am I. In the synagogues across the world, we read a biblical portion, beyond the Parsha, it's called the Haftarah.

And tomorrow, we're going to be reading words of the prophet Isaiah Yesha?yahu. In Hebrew, the words are (Speaking in Foreign Language).

What this means, I can saying anything now, right? What this means is, the sons and daughters of the Jewish people are going to come back to our land, are going to nurse our ancient land and rebuild it. And this ancient Jewish prophecy is today's Israel reality. And it's a miracle that you've been so central and so part of it for so many years.

So, Mr. President, today, you and I and you've been so generous with your time in these difficult days. You and I are going to write yet another chapter in the beautiful story of the friendship between our two nations, the United States of America and the Jewish and democratic State of Israel. Both of us who seek to do good and need to be strong, both of us who are a lighthouse in a very, very stormy world.

Thank you, Mr. President. I look forward to working with you now and for many years forward. Thank you.

BIDEN: Well, thank you. And you give me credit, much of which should go to Barack Obama, for making sure that we committed to a qualitative edge you would have relative to your friends in the region. So, he's the one that deserves the credit.

BENNETT: Thank him as well.

BIDEN: Thank you very much, folks.

[12:40:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Thank you, let's go. Thank you. Thank you, you guys, let's go. Thank you. Thank you, let's go. Thank you guys, let's go. Thank you.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: President Biden not taking questions about Afghanistan. He made some brief remarks about the situation there. The reporting earlier today was that his national security team had told him this morning too, that another terror attack would be likely, or at least an attempt at another terror attack would be likely in the coming days is this mission as the President continues to insist that this mission will wind down by August 31st. Meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, they spoke on some of the issues that they'll be discussing today. We're going to take a short break and our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:37]

COOPER: This just in, President Biden's national security team just warning him another terror attack in Kabul is likely as their mission enters its most dangerous period. Former National Security Adviser under President Trump Ambassador John Bolton joins me now. Ambassador, your reaction to that, do you believe another terror attack is likely?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR UNDER PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I think the intelligence points in that direction. I wouldn't be so sure that it's going to be ISIS-K this time. I think you've got terrorists wheels within terrorist wheels here. Terrorist enemies one day can be terrorist friends and other among them and our people are in grave danger not just from ISIS-K but from the Haqqani network from Taliban, however you want to slice it up, it's a very dangerous environment.

COOPER: It's certainly a sort of the situation has made rather bizarre bedfellows where the Taliban is now being given intelligence by U.S. forces to a limited degree to inform them about what sort of threats they are, the U.S. is hearing about so that they can kind of adjust the checkpoints that they have, if you can really call them checkpoints.

BOLTON: Well, look, I think this is reflective of the overall error of judgment to withdraw at all. I mean, right now, we're in a tactically impossible situation. So we're doing things that otherwise would not even be comprehensible or justifiable. The execution of this withdraw has been bungled. And it's one reason we're in such jeopardy now. But it still points to the fundamental aspect of the error of withdrawing at all. The notion that we're now relying on Taliban will come back to haunt us.

COOPER: Were you surprised that the Biden ministration continued to follow the policy which President Trump put into place and the deal that President Trump made directly with the Taliban?

BOLTON: No, I think Biden has been very clear for a long time he and Trump actually see this exactly the same way. They both wanted to get out. Now, there's finger pointing Biden saying we're stuck with the Trump deal, Trump's saying, well, they could have done it differently. Look, the basic mistake that's playing out here is the Trump negotiated this deal only with the Taliban. There are a lot of mistakes in the deal itself.

But the fundamental problem of dealing with this terrorist organization is that the Trump negotiators delegitimize the Afghan government, the government we set up, the government with which all its many, many flaws, had at least some democratic legitimacy of which Taliban had none. And by delegitimizing the government, derecognizing it in effect, we shattered the morale of the Afghan army, the army saying, well, if the Americans won't even protect that government, why are we going to end up protecting it, which is why honestly, nobody should have been surprised that the army collapse so quickly when Biden announced the final withdrawal.

COOPER: Do you think that we will see American forces back in Afghanistan at some point in the near future?

BOLTON: Well, I'm very worried that's where it's going to end up. This is what happened when we withdrew from Iraq in 2011. You'll recall we had to go back because of the emergence of ISIS. And the differences among these terrorist groups really are a lot less than meet the eye. In fact, ISIS's criticism of Taliban is that it's not hard a lot enough. I think we've got to look as well at the supporters of the terrorist including particularly Pakistan and others who have been subsidizing Taliban and other terrorist groups.

I just think it was very easy to say, let's end the endless wars as if you could just take one step and nothing else would happen, there would be no further strategic consequences. It was never true. And sadly, I fear we're going to pay the price for that ignorance.

COOPER: It's so interesting. I mean, history shows us that we never really know or can predict the ripple effects of an action we think we know. You know if we do X, you know, Y will happen. But there are often ripple effects that one can't really even foresee.

[12:50:14]

BOLTON: Well, as Donald Rumsfeld said, there are known knowns and known unknowns, and I think it was a known known here, that by cancelling the insurance policy of having American and NATO forces fighting the terrorist or alert to the terrorist watching the terrorist in Afghanistan, made it less likely we'd have to fight them in the streets and skies over America. Now, I hope my prediction is wrong on this.

But this is seen what has happened here is seen as a Taliban victory over the United States. And I don't mean just the botched execution for which there is no excuse. But simply the fact that after 20 years, the Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan. It's given terrorists all over the Middle East, a huge psychological boost.

And there are many reports of foreign terrorist fighters already coming into Afghanistan, I think, looking to reestablish the kind of sanctuary that al-Qaeda had there before 9/11. And the most likely outcome is now we are moving to going right back to the pre 9/11 environment.

COOPER: John Bolton, I appreciate you being on, thank you.

We're expecting the White House briefing on Afghanistan. In a moment we'll bring that to you live. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:56:14]

COOPER: We are expecting a briefing at the White House on the continued security threat in Afghanistan. We're going to bring that to you live, it should be in just a few minutes. Right now I want to get an update on some of the other stories we are following today. Millions of renters are now in danger of losing their homes in the coming months or sooner. The Supreme Court just threw out the Biden administration's pandemic related eviction moratorium. CNN's Supreme Court analysts, Joan Biskupic joins me now. Joan, earlier this summer, the justice is allowed the moratorium to stay in place. What changed?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good afternoon, Anderson. Well, you know, it's amazing what's changed in just the last couple months. And most of it has been a change in terms of the surge of the Delta variant. This is a real loss for 11 million renters who have been behind in their payments loss for the Biden administration and for the liberals on the court.

You probably remember back on June 29th, the Supreme Court said that they would allow the moratorium to continue but just for one more month, because if it's going to be renewed, it really has to be Congress that renews it, not the CDC and the Biden administration. So the Biden administration really had an uphill battle here with its contention that the renewal that it put in place earlier in August, and that was supposed to expire in October, was valid under an old 1944 public health law.

Supreme Court said late last night no, the conservative majority said that that law really was for things like fumigation, pest extermination, not for any sweeping eviction moratorium order. The three liberal justices who dissented said that the majority was misconstruing the law, and most importantly, that it was not taking into account the surge in cases from the COVID Delta variant that have just, you know, caused so many more hospitalizations and deaths. Jen Psaki, the press secretary for the Biden administration said last night, as a result of this ruling, families will face the painful impact of evictions and communities across the country will face greater risk of exposure to COVID-19. Anderson?

COOPER: Joan, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Obviously we'll continue to follow suit with the next step is. Tropical Storm Aida is strengthening heading straight for the U.S. Aida is expected to become a major hurricane by the time it approaches the Gulf Coast this weekend. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking this. So Chad, what's the latest on the storm? CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, the word major that you've used is a real technical term as category three or higher. And this storm is going to get into a very warm Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane watches are already posted for parts of Louisiana and Mississippi and hurricane warnings for the western edge there of Cuba. This storm is eventually going to make its way into the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures there are 85, 87, and almost 90 degrees along the coast.

So a 65-mile per hour storm is going to turn into 120 mile per hour storm and make a run at the northern Gulf Coast. Now that cone is still a little bit wide here. It could be Alabama, Mississippi. It could be probably all the way over to Cameron, Louisiana. But we're focusing in now. We're getting closer. And as we do that storm is really looking like it's setting itself right around Grand Isle Louisiana, a plus or minus 50 miles one way or the other. But you get the idea.

All the areas you see here in purple that's 100 or 10 mile per hour wind gusts are higher. Everywhere you see purple here, 7 to 10 foot storm surge, even 11 feet in some spots. That's what we're really worried about. Plus it's going to rain a lot. And you know all about this. When it rains on top of wet ground, the ground is going to saturate and then run off and we're going to get freshwater flash flooding too. Anderson, serious storm.

[13:00:01]

COOPER: Yes. We're going to follow that one closely. Thanks very much, Chad. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York in for Ana Cabrera. We're going to have more, let's take a quick pause.