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Search and Rescue Underway for the Missing Titanic Submersible; Tropical Storm Bret May Become the First in the Hurricane Season; Judge Bars Trump Co-Defendant from Sharing Information in the Classified Documents Case; Russia launches a Massive Air Assault in Kyiv, Battlefield Now Focusing on the East; U.S. Secretary of State has No Takeaways After His China Visit; 100-Year Old Veteran Asking the Pentagon to Recognize Him with a Purple Heart. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired June 20, 2023 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo live from London.

Just ahead for you on "CNN Newsroom." A desperate search deep below the waves after a tourist submarine heading to the Titanic crash site disappeared during descent. What we know about the search and who was on board the craft.

Donald Trump facing new restrictions from the judge as his legal woes mount, were the voters paying attention to any of it? We'll have the latest from the campaign trail.

And a high-stakes meeting between the world's superpowers. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says progress was made in his talks with China. But have tensions really eased?

An urgent search and rescue mission is underway right now in the North Atlantic Ocean for a missing submersible carrying five people to see the wreckage of the Titanic. Three of the people on board have now been identified.

Hamish Harding is the founder and chair of Dubai-based Action Aviation. He wrote on Instagram that this mission would likely be the only manned mission to the Titanic this year. And Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Sulaiman, were also on board according to their family. The father is on the board of trustees of the SETI Institute in California. That's a non-profit research organization.

Now, the wreck of the Titanic is almost 400 nautical miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada. It sits in two parts on the ocean floor more than two miles or almost four kilometers below the surface. A U.S. Coast Guard official briefed reporters Monday on the search efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN MAUGER, COMMANDER, U.S. COAST GUARD FIRST DISTRICT: It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area, but we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: More now on the search from CNN's Paula Newton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. Coast Guard is taking the lead on this search and rescue mission and they confirm in fact that this is a very challenging mission.

The reason is that they say this area in the North Atlantic is very remote. If you can imagine, not only do they have to search such a large area and perhaps challenging weather, we do know now that fog has rolled in, but the fact that they have to search perhaps an area of the seabed as far as nearly two and a half miles down. That is where the Titanic wreck is.

And that is when presumably they lost contact with this submersible. It's only 21 feet long. And so, this will continue to be a challenge as the hours roll on here. I want you to listen now to the U.S. Coast Guard.

MAUGER: To make sure that we're looking on both the surface using aerial and surface vessels but then expanding into underwater search as well. Right now, our capability is limited to sonar buoys and listening for sounds but, you know, we're working very hard to increase the capability.

NEWTON: Now, the rear admiral there is confirming the fact that they are going on what they know from the company, Ocean Gate Expeditions, that they have 96 hours or thereabouts in total of emergency life support. That would include fuel and oxygen. They continue to ask for more resources to go to the region.

The Canadian Armed Forces tells me they will continue to cycle fixed wing aircraft through that area in order to help with the search, but they're also calling on commercial vessels to go to the area as they continue to try and locate the submersible really. When they lost contact with it on Sunday afternoon, they still have had zero communication. And therefore, it makes it much more difficult to even pinpoint a search location.

Paul Newton, CNN, Ottawa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: For more now on this story, I'm joined by Rick Armstrong, who was a master diver with the U.S. Navy, and he joins us now from San Diego, California. Thank you so much for being with us, Rick.

RICK ARMSTRONG, MASTER DIVER, U.S. ARMY: Good evening. How are you?

NOBILO: I'm doing well. Thank you. This is the story that everyone is talking about this morning. And a question that I keep being asked by people is, how this submersible was able to lose contact with ocean expeditions, given that it isn't sort of self-sufficient to put it crudely. So why was that? What sort of tracking software is available here?

[03:05:10]

ARMSTRONG: Well, they were using sonar from what I've read to track the vessel and the Titan is the name of the submersible, did not have a navigation system from what I've read about the machine itself.

So, they were guided in by sonar. From the surface, losing communications is a big deal, especially with this. A small vessel like that and those types of current that depth, losing communications is a major thing. They should immediately have surfaced upon losing communications that you would think that'd be one of their emergency procedures.

That said, they could easily be tangled in the wreck. They could have had a hull breach. There's many things that could have happened. It's all speculative at this point. But the good news, it is a search and rescue mission. So they are looking for survivors, if you will. It's not a recovery operation at this point.

NOBILO: And given that this search and rescue mission is challenging for so many reasons, not least the fact that as I understand it, they'll need to simultaneously search the surface and also the depths, which go up to about 4,000 meters. So, how will they approach trying to locate this submersible?

ARMSTRONG: Well, the fastest way would be with remote-operated vehicles, site-scan sonar, unmanned underwater vehicles as well. An ROV would probably be the fastest method if they could get one out there in a rapid method.

The problem is they have to have a vessel to land it on. Getting it -- say they're bringing it from the states, they have to bring it out to the Newfoundland, find a vessel to bring it out, you know, how fast could get out there. They may be able to fly it out 400 miles with a helicopter, you know, refueling. There's a lot of logistics involved here.

And given the dire situation, I'm sure that everyone's trying to expedite, gear out to them in a rapid method. The ROVs are very capable. That's probably what they'll use for searching for this vessel.

As far as the surface, the Coast Guard's very good at doing this so as a Canadian Coast Guard. They're very capable. If it is on the surface, there's a good chance they can find it. But as far as going in the water, it's going to be nothing manned that deep. It'll probably be ROVs.

NOBILO: What agency, if any, do the passengers on board have here to help their situation?

ARMSTRONG: Well, you know, the Coast Guard is right now leading this search and recovery, search and rescue operation. There's commercial diving firms that have offered up their equipment and they're very capable. They've -- now, they do this on a routine basis on oil rigs and deep diving.

Like I said, their operators are some of the best in the world. The supervisor salvage with the U.S. Navy is capable of doing this as well if they're tasked to go out and do so. It's just here -- again, it's a matter of moving this equipment and it's rather large and getting it out to the site on time, you know, because you're talking about hours of gas left, of, you know, oxygen, if you will, for the survivors. I think they have 70 hours is what I read last.

So, time is of the essence, and it's a matter of getting them out there rapidly and get it on site, get it down on the wreck and start looking, because it's a big wreck field. That's a small vessel. It's only 20 feet. So, you know, finding that on a big wreck like that, that's gonna be, it's gonna be difficult.

NOBILO: And Rick, you touched on this briefly in one of your earlier answers and I'm not asking you to speculate, but what hypotheses or scenarios might the rescue teams be working on in an effort to try and find the submersible in terms of what might have happened?

ARMSTRONG: Well, besides the surface search, which is, you know, they've got ships and planes, the water portion of it is -- I mean, the vessel was submerged for almost an hour and 45 minutes. So, it may have been on the wreck.

And if that's the case, there's a lot of stuff in wrecks. There's netting, there's lines, there's all kinds of things you get entangled in. That may be the case that they're entangled and they can't communicate.

An ROV could help. They have articulating arms with various tools you can attach to it. They could go down, they have cameras, they could see, look inside the vessel, see if the survivors are still alive and possibly cut them away from the wreck if that be the case.

[03:10:05]

It's just located that's, you know, it's like I said, a 23 feet vessel on a wreck the size of the Titanic. That's a big search area.

NOBILO: Yeah, it certainly is. Rick Armstrong, thank you so much for joining us. Like you, we're all just waiting and hoping to hear something positive. Thanks for joining us.

ARMSTRONG: Well, our hopes and prayers for the families and the survivors.

NOBILO: In India, a blistering heat wave is scorching parts of the country. Officials in the state of Bihar say that at least 44 people have died in recent days due to the high temperatures. The Indian Meteorological Office issued a red alert after some

districts in that province recorded temperatures above 113 degrees Fahrenheit or 45 degrees Celsius. But temperatures are expected to cool in the coming days.

Storms have battered the U.S. South in some of the same places already devastated by tornadoes over the past few days. More than 90 storms are reported across the country Monday, and more than 25 million people across the South are under a severe weather threat Tuesday into Wednesday.

Take a look at this video of a possible tornado in Moss Point, Mississippi. The storm ripped through the area, levelling several homes and businesses in its path. And also in Mississippi, at least one person was killed and nearly two dozen injured when a powerful twister swept through the Mississippi town of Lewin Sunday night. The National Weather Service gave it a preliminary rating of EF3.

Meanwhile, around 35 million people are under heat alerts from Texas to New Mexico, and hundreds of thousands are without power in the blistering temperatures.

Meantime, the third tropical depression of this year's hurricane season has intensified over the Central Atlantic Ocean. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says it is now a tropical storm known as Bret and it will likely become a hurricane on Wednesday. It's currently churning east of the southern Windward Islands, packing maximum sustained winds of 40 miles or 64 kilometers per hour. If it becomes a hurricane, it will be the first one of the 2023 season.

U.S. President Joe Biden is touting his record on fighting climate change as he makes his case for reelection. Mr. Biden visited a nature preserve in California on Monday, less than a week after four major environmental groups endorsed him. The president says he has taken the most aggressive climate change action ever while Republicans have tried to block it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: When I think of climate, I think of jobs. When I think of climate, I think of innovation. When I think of jobs -- climate, I think that's turning peril into progress. That's why I'm so optimistic about the future. I really am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: The president also announced funding to modernize California's electrical grid and to host the first-ever White House Climate Resilience Summit. He's also appearing at several fundraisers during this three-day trip.

Still ahead on the program, new polling shows a very close race for the White House in 2024, how President Biden is faring in a head-to- head matchup with Donald Trump.

And later, America's top diplomat meets with China's leader during his high-stakes trip to Beijing. What Anthony Blinken is saying about the progress made during this visit.

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[03:15:00]

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NOBILO: A U.S. magistrate is barring Donald Trump and his co-defendant from disclosing any information handed over to their attorneys in the classified documents case.

Special Counsel Jack Smith asked for the ban. Trump went on Fox News Monday and offered his latest explanation for not handing over boxes of documents to government investigators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I've got a lot of things in there. I will go through those boxes. I have to go through those boxes. I take out personal things. As far as the levels and all, everything was declassified because I had the right to declassify.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Why not just hand them over then?

TRUMP: Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARI (ph) yet. And I was very busy, as you've sort of seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Pictures from the special counsel's indictment show boxes of materials stalled in a ballroom and a bathroom at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. He has pleaded not guilty to 37 counts of illegally retaining national defense information and obstructing the Justice Department investigation.

New polling shows Donald Trump's two indictments are not making a dent in his support with Republican voters. CNN's Jessica Dean reports.

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As former President Donald Trump sorts through all of his legal battles, we're getting some fresh insight thanks to recent polling by Quinnipiac University as to how this is all playing out politically for the former president.

And if you take a look at the Republican field for the 2024 nomination, you can see his support really has not eroded away at all in the wake of this recent indictment, the second, of course, this year, and a potential third one on the way out of Georgia. You see him there with 53 percent of support from Republican voters or those who lean Republican 23 percent for Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis. That's the next closest competitor there. Everybody else in the single digits.

Couple things to keep in mind, it is, of course, very early still, and this is a national poll. This is not done in the states that will really determine so much of the outcome, those early voting states, at the beginning part of 2024.

Quinnipiac also doing a potential and hypothetical head-to-head matchup between the current president, Joe Biden, and then former President Trump. Biden leading there with 48 percent to Trump's 44 percent.

And while all of the actual voting in the 2024 race continues to be pretty far away, that does not mean that we're not seeing the candidates out on the trail. We're seeing President Biden in Northern California where he's doing some fundraising and also talking about one of the key issues that we are told will be central to his campaign and that's climate change.

[03:20:05]

He's talking about climate resiliency, talking about money that will be going to a lot of these coastal areas to put climate resiliency practices into place. That's part of the Inflation Reduction Act, some of his signature legislation that passed with Democrat-only support out of Congress last August.

On the other side, we see Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis there. He's also doing some fundraising but talking about very different messaging where he's really seeking to contrast himself to blue states led by Democrats and he's really seeking that contrast between himself and California's governor, Gavin Newsom. We saw his team putting out a video today really slamming Newsom and his policies there in California.

We also know that he was fundraising in small to those smaller donors off of text messages, that sort of thing, on being in California and really taking on these democratically-led states. And then, of course, the ultimate Democrat, President Joe Biden, who he continues to try to laser focus in on when he's on the stump, when he's off the stump, that's when we see him take on his chief rival in the GOP contest. That's the former president, Donald Trump.

Jessica Dean, CNN, Washington

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex and she joins me now live from Colchester in England. Wonderful to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us.

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Thanks for having me.

NOBILO: So we now have this court order which bars the disclosure of information in the documents case and yet President Trump has gone on Fox News and given the latest explanation as to why he retained those documents. What do you make of that? Is that particularly unusual?

LINDSTAEDT: Everything about this is unusual that we have an ex- president being federally indicted for stealing documents. And even after being subpoenaed, he refused to comply with that and tried to hide and do this cover up. And now he's making some sort of defense on TV that he was basically too disorganized and too busy to return the documents.

And so, what we're seeing is special counsel Jack Smith trying to get something in place so that he can't disclose information about these classified, you know, documents, which contain highly sensitive information that really should only be seen by people who go through very high-level security clearances.

I think what they're trying to say here is they can't trust Trump with very important information, that he's not going to go on social media or do interviews where he talks about this information freely without really thinking about the consequences. He's been really loose with his lips. He's -- had no problem sharing information to people who didn't have security clearance, which is what led to the probe in the first place.

And we're seeing that, though, the wording of the case that they had put forward to bar him from this is not particularly special. What is special is that they can't trust Trump with this information.

NOBILO: Are you surprised that so far the former president's popularity hasn't been dented by this case, especially when we consider that obviously Republicans are known to care about issues pertaining to defense and national security, which, of course, this case directly corresponds to? And why do you think that is?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, it's really interesting, but we've seen that the Republican Party has been completely remolded as the party of Trump. It has lost a lot of its values, you know, caring about the police, caring about security institutions like the FBI. And you see all of even Trump's contenders in the primaries, with the exception of Chris Christie, basically saying that, you know, they support him in this documents case, that they don't want to go after him.

And he has a really strong hold on the Republican Party with the public as well, that you have incredibly high approval ratings. And these indictments, not the state indictment -- excuse me -- in New York, or this federal indictment have done much to put a dent.

But we're seeing other Republicans, like ex-Attorney General Bill Barr, who at one point was vigorously defending him in the Mueller probe and put out his own, hired his own special counsel to investigate the 2016 investigation of Trump and FBI's conduct of that now saying that Trump's acted like a 9-year-old, that he can't really be trusted with these types of things, and this is a problem of his own making.

We're seeing former Defense Secretary Mark Esper saying similar things, that, essentially, if the allegations are proven true, Trump cannot be trusted with classified information. And his former chief of staff, John Kelly, has said that he's the most flawed individual he's ever met. So there are Republicans that have worked with him closely that are coming out to critique him. But thus far, no one who really is contending him, like Ron DeSantis is willing to put their neck out there and say, you know, what Trump did was wrong and we need to break away from him.

[03:25:05]

NOBILO: This is exactly what I was going to ask you about how the GOP candidates tackle this because the silence other than from Chris Christie is conspicuous. But it's so challenging because they want to retain the support of President Trump's base so they can't criticize him too much. But then it's so unusual to have presidential candidates not expressing a defense of institutions and certain standards about presidential behavior. How do they negotiate that?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, they're in real trouble because the Republican Party has become an authoritarian party. As I study dictatorships and authoritarian politics, the party itself has shifted.

It no longer has a lot of the elements of what you would see in a democracy, the way that parties work, where there's checks and balances within the party, that there's checks on the leader of the party, that you're not blindly obeying what the leader of the party says and going along with it no matter what, even if it comes to breaking the rule of law and disintegrating our own democratic institutions.

So, for the Republican Party to break free from this, they have to agree to break free from Trump. And they think this is too bitter pill to swallow, that if they do that then that means that they're not gonna win the election.

But what they don't understand, if they could just recall back to the midterms in 2022, Trump candidates were mostly losing. He is not helpful to this party, and they don't seem to understand that. They cannot win a national election with him.

NOBILO: Professor Natasha Linstaedt, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

NOBILO: We'll be right back. Stay with us.

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[03:30:00]

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BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Ukrainian officials say Russia launched a massive air assault on the capital, Kyiv, overnight, firing waves of drones from all different directions. Those officials also say air defenses were able to intercept most of the attacks, but that Moscow targeted other cities across the country as well, from Lviv in the West to Zaporizhzhya in the East. Meanwhile --

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Ukraine says Russia's major battlefield focus right now is in the east with dozens of combat engagements on Monday alone. Ukrainian military officials say Russia is throwing everything at them, infantry units, air units and assault units made up of Russian convicts. But despite the pressure, Ukraine's president is painting a hopeful picture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): In some sectors our forces are moving forward. In others, they are defending positions or resisting assaults and intensified attacks from the occupiers. We have no lost positions, only liberated ones. They only have losses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Salma Abdelaziz joins me now. Salma, the pressure really is on. Ukraine needs momentum. It also needs to convey to allies that it can make huge gains this year before, you know, manpower becomes an issue before the American election and plenty of other things. What is the state of play right now on the battlefield?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is absolutely what they need. They need a major breakthrough. We've been weeks into this offensive, this push to retake territory in the east, and we've seen very small, modest gains from Ukraine, but no major breakthrough again. And you have to remember that they're coping with, as you mentioned, also attacks across the country.

This morning, a new wave of drones, Iranian-made Shahid drones, targeting Kyiv, the first in 18 days. There's been a period of quiet there. But this morning, families dealing with three hours of air raid sirens in the capital. We don't know of any casualties yet, but you can imagine how much that terrorizes communities so far from those front lines.

And as you mentioned, Russia continues, according to Ukrainian officials, to focus on the east, particularly in the Bakhmut region. We know that's been a flashpoint for very many months now, but they say, according to Ukrainian officials, that Russian troops are reallocating resources to the south, to the south of Zaporizhzhya, which appears for right now to be Ukraine's major focus, rather, in their attempt to push through this land bridge that connects Crimea to the rest of those Russian-occupied positions.

Absolutely, Russia has been preparing for this for months, just as Ukraine has. That means that landmines are dug in. That means there's anti-tank equipment laid out. That means there are more and more soldiers prepared to provide that stiff resistance that Kremlin wants to see.

But part of the reason military analysts say why you're seeing this very slow movement from Ukraine is because they're poking, they're prodding, they're trying to find that area of weakness. And then that might be when we see that major shift on the ground.

NOBILO: Salma, thank you.

The U.S. Secretary of State is now here in London after wrapping up his high stakes trip to Beijing. Antony Blinken is set to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference to help mobilize international support for the war-torn country. He also plans to meet with his counterparts from the U.K., Ukraine, and other partners and allies as well.

Taiwan's foreign ministry is reacting to Blinken's visit to Beijing, saying it welcomes the United States' firm stance on maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

[03:35:01]

The issue of Taiwan was just one topic discussed during two days of talks between America's top diplomat and Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping. The visit aimed at easing tensions between the two nations, but key issues remain unresolved.

CNN's Kylie Atwood has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Secretary of State Antony Blinken casting U.S.-China relations as a work in progress at the end of his two-day visit to Beijing, coming when tensions between the competing nations have never been greater.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It was clear coming in that the relationship was at a point of instability, and both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it.

ATWOOD (voice-over): After about 10 hours with the country's top foreign policy officials, Blinken capped his visit by sitting down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Chinese leader saying the two sides had made progress. But on one major objective that Biden administration officials set out to accomplish, standing up military-to-military channels of communication between the superpowers, Blinken left empty-handed.

BLINKEN: China has not agreed to move forward with that. I think that's an issue that we have to keep working on.

ATWOOD (voice-over): The vital need for these channels, evident in just the last few weeks, when aggressive Chinese maneuvers resulted in two military incidents between the U.S. and China in international waters and airspace of the South China Sea.

But Blinken did walk away with a significant Chinese commitment, standing up a working group on Fentanyl, with the majority of precursor chemicals from the deadly synthetic opioids flowing into the U.S. coming from China.

BLINKEN: My hope and expectation is we will have better communications, better engagement going forward.

ATWOOD (voice-over): The meetings marked with polite smiles. The tone, a stark contrast to the first time Blinken sat down with his Chinese counterpart in Alaska in 2021, when both sides traded barbs in front of cameras.

In Beijing, Chinese officials again told Blinken that the Chinese government would not provide lethal support to Russia for the war in Ukraine.

BLINKEN: This is something that China has said in recent weeks and has repeatedly said, not only to us but to many other countries that have raised this concern.

ATWOOD (voice-over): Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang accepted Blinken's invitation to visit the U.S. And President Biden indicated that he's gearing up to meet with Xi in the coming months.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm hoping that over the next several months, I'll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how those areas we can get along.

ATWOOD (on-camera): It does appear that Blinken's visit here to Beijing is serving as somewhat of a springboard further dialogue, face-to-face conversations between U.S. and Chinese officials. He said that senior administration officials are expected to visit Beijing in the coming weeks. We know that the Biden administration had been looking at visits to Beijing for their Commerce Secretary, for their Treasury Secretary, for their climate envoy. So we'll watch to see when those get scheduled.

And it's important to note that China has a vested interest in engaging with the U.S. on economic and trade issues, particularly because there's been a slowdown in their economy recently after their post-COVID economic boost. And just last month, there was an all-time record high rate of youth unemployment in the country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: That was CNN's Kylie Atwood reporting from Beijing.

A ferocious 11-hour firefight in the West Bank. We'll take you to Jerusalem to find out what set it off and what the U.S. is now insisting Israelis and Palestinians do.

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[03:40:00]

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NOBILO: A massive firefight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants erupted Monday in the West Bank, leaving at least six Palestinians dead and dozens wounded.

(VIDEO PLAYING) It happened as Israeli forces arrested two suspects in the city of Jenin. Here, an IED explodes under an Israeli truck, wounding some of the eight Israeli troops hurt in the battle. Israel opened fire with attack helicopters to provide cover as the IDF evacuated its wounded soldiers, the first time it's done that since the early 2000s.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 90 Palestinians were wounded in the fighting that went on for some 11 hours and at least five Israeli vehicles were damaged. You can hear the rattle of gunfire even as they moved out of the city. And as a Palestinian ambulance siren blaring raced away in the other direction.

Journalist Elliot Gokin has been following this major confrontation live for us from Jerusalem. Elliot, what triggered this incursion from the Israeli forces to begin with and what reaction has that being?

ELLIOT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Bianca, what triggered this incursion is what triggers pretty much all of these incursions that we've seen increasingly commonly during the daytime, which is Israel's desire to arrest militants that it had on its wanted list. So it went in there around 5:30 a.m. local time on Monday morning. It arrested a militant from Hamas and another one from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

But the gunfight, the battle that erupted after that, was really something extraordinary and not something that usually happens. Yes, there are usually casualties, but nothing on the scale that we saw on Monday.

[03:45:05]

And as you say, one thing which the Israeli Defense Forces will find particularly alarming is the strength of this improvised explosive device, which damaged at least one of those vehicles and injured many of those eight Israeli soldiers that were injured in that firefight that erupted on Monday. This is something that the IDF says was pretty advanced, and no doubt it will now be looking into perhaps where it came from, where it was made, and what ramifications that may have for future attacks.

At the same time, as you mentioned in the introduction, this use of an Apache helicopter to give cover to the Israeli soldiers who had become stuck and bogged down in Jenin, this is something we haven't seen in some two decades either, so really quite a ferocious battle.

As you say now, six Palestinians dead as a result, three of them have been claimed by the Jenin Brigades, which is a militant group associated with Islamic Jihad, and scores injured as well.

On the Israeli side, eight soldiers injured, some of them receiving a visit from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, who reiterated Israel's determination to arrest militants that it deems as a threat to Israel, or militants that are on its wanted list, and also to show really, that he is in control, given the political backdrop and the controversy over his judicial overhaul plans, and to make sure to show that he is giving support to Israeli forces.

Now, we've also heard from the U.S. State Department, a spokesperson there, calling for a de-escalation, saying that we call on both sides to refrain from actions that escalate tensions. But given what we saw on Monday, Bianca, Israel, in future plans or future incursions, will perhaps be reassessing how it goes into places like Jenin, given what happened on Monday.

NOBILO: Elliot Gotkine, thank you so much for that live report. We'll be speaking to you next hour as well.

A courageous World War II Marine Corps veteran celebrates his 100th birthday, but he still waits for the one recognition that he wants from the Pentagon. We'll bring you his remarkable story.

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[03:50:00]

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NOBILO: Welcome back. Lee Newby Jr. was one of the first black Marines in the U.S. military. He fought both the enemy and discrimination during World War II and he's the recipient of a congressional gold medal. On his 100th birthday there's only one thing Newby is asking for, a medal that the Pentagon says he does not deserve.

CNN's Jason Carroll has Newby's incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 1923, the year of the Charleston, time before televisions, FM radio, before scientists had discovered penicillin. The year Lee Vernon Newby Jr. was born in Jackson, Tennessee, 100 years ago.

LEE NEWBY JR., WORLD WAR II VETERAN: Generally, I've live a quiet life. Hey, hey, how you doing?

CARROLL (voice-over): Not so quiet. In 1942, at the onset of America's entry into World War II, Newby made history. He was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps when he was 18 years old, making him one of the first African American Marines.

NEWBY JR.: I was nervous.

CARROLL (on camera): Yeah. Yeah.

NEWBY JR.: I didn't know what I was getting into. But I wanted to save my country.

CARROLL (on-camera): Did you feel extra pressure because you were one of a few?

NEWBY JR.: Yes, it did. But I was thankful, you know, for the opportunity. CARROLL (voice-over): Newby was assigned to the Montford Point

Marines, a segregated Negro unit in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Not long after, he headed to the South Pacific to the Battle of Guadalcanal.

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To fight an enemy overseas while still coping with racial barriers from home.

NEWBY JR.: The blacks over here and the white was over there.

CARROLL (on-camera): So they kept you segregated.

NEWBY JR.: It was segregated. Yep.

CARROLL (voice-over): It was that mission in the Solomon Islands where Newby was badly injured during an accident when gasoline exploded in a hole.

NEWBY JR.: All of a sudden something hit me right in my chest. When I hit the deck and got up you know all the skin just laying out you know down. I prayed I said Lord I want to come back but I want a family.

CARROLL (voice-over): Burns covered more than sixty percent of Newby's body. He was hospitalized for several weeks. Then his family says the Marines sent him back into action.

ELLENA D. NEWBY-BANNETTE, DAUGHTER OF LEE NEWBY JR.: He was ordered to go back into the war. He wasn't a hundred percent healed.

NEWBY JR.: Well that's as me when I was getting married and so forth.

CARROLL (on-camera): I don't want to ask you what year that was.

(voice-over): Newby received an honorable discharge in 1946, but was not treated as a war veteran back home, where he struggled dealing with racism and Jim Crow (ph) laws. He eventually found work as a janitor and chauffeur and raised a family. Years later, he received recognition for his service and longevity.

Local news covered his birthday in April. He took us to his room at a senior living facility outside Detroit where he showed us his medals, including the Congressional Gold Medal.

(on-camera): And this is presented by President Obama.

NEWBY JR.: Yeah.

CARROLL (voice-over): And a framed birthday letter from President Joe Biden. He says he's grateful for all of it. But it is this letter that's causing him so much pain these days.

It came last month informing Newby he's not eligible to receive the Purple Heart, something he had been hoping for. The letter concluded, since you were not wounded at the hands of the enemy, you are not entitled to the Purple Heart.

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NEWBY JR.: It makes me feel not good because the government, the United States government, you know, we are in the years that the year has been passed by. With the Black we've been getting a short deal.

CARROLL (voice-over): His family heartbroken but planning to appeal the decision.

JANNISSE M. NEWBY, DAUGHTER OF LEE NEWBY JR.: He's a hundred years old and he should have that, what he's still fighting for and hoping for.

UNKNOWN: What I always for the Pentagon to really recognize is just to respect you know his sacrifices.

CARROLL (voice-over): Purple Heart or not Newby has already earned his place in history.

NEWBY JR.: I still love America. I still say America, maybe someday I hope that it will be better for my race as a whole.

CARROLL (voice-over): Jason Carroll, CNN, Detroit.

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NOBILO: Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Bianca Nobilo, and do stay with us. My colleague Max Foster will join me for more "CNN Newsroom" after a very quick break.

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