Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Greece Hit by Second Severe Storm in a Month; Israeli Supreme Court Hearing Challenge to New Law; Nagorno- Karabakh will "Cease to Exist" on January 1; Today: House Republicans Hold Biden Impeachment Inquiry Hearing; Mexico to Host Meeting with Regional Governments. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead the American Army Private who crossed into North Korea in July is back in the U.S. after Pyongyang expelled him. President Joe Biden prepares to make a speech about democracy whilst Republican lawmakers hold the first hearing in their Biden impeachment investigation and more misery for Greece.

The country gets hit by the second severe storm this month. We'll have a live weather update. U.S. Army Private Travis King is back on American soil after being expelled from North Korea. He landed at a military base in San Antonio, Texas earlier Thursday morning. King is the soldier who made an unauthorized crossing into North Korea in July during a tour of the demilitarized zone.

The U.S. government says it took intense diplomacy involving several countries to get him back. Officials say he was handed over into a U.S. military custody at North Korea's border with China. Let's get the very latest from our Paula Hancocks joining us from Seoul.

I mean, often these, you know if someone's been detained, and they've been released back to the U.S. as a big celebration, not the case is signed, but you don't really know what happened. And there's a lot of information basically the authorities need to get from Travis.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. It was a very different homecoming than we have seen. As you say in the past Max, there's usually great celebration when someone is finally released from detention anywhere, but certainly in North Korea. This is a very different situation than the very fact that Private Travis King did run across the border, it appears voluntarily.

That's what U.S. officials assume; it's what North Korea assumed. And so there are a lot of questions that officials will want to have answered. In the coming hours though and days we are told the focus will be on King's health. Now in San Antonio, there's a medical center, the Brooke Army Medical Center, which is run by the Department of Defense. And it has a program that is specifically for this kind of occasion. It is where Americans go after they've been held in captivity to try and help them acclimatized back to normal life. It's where Trevor Reed went and Brittney Griner after they were released from Russia. So it really helps them try and get back to some sense of normality.

Now we have been told the focus will be on health. Now it will be physical health, it will obviously be checked by physicians but also emotional health. It's been two months and no one really knows what he would have gone through in North Korea. But what they will also want to do is debrief him extensively.

We've heard from North Korea through state run media, that they had an investigation into what happened. Now we know that that would entail extensive questioning on North Korea's behalf. He may just be a private but he's still a member of the U.S. military that was based in South Korea, and they would have questioned him extensively.

So what the U.S. side would want to do now is to find out exactly what questions he was asked, what he may have shared, although we've heard from many places that he's unlikely to have been in retention of any significant confidential knowledge, but that will be part of this rehabilitation, if you like.

So that's really what the next days and even potentially weeks would look like for Travis King. We haven't heard much from U.S. officials since he's actually touchdown in the United States. They did give a briefing, though, as he was in the air saying that he was in good spirits in good health, and he was very glad to be finally going home. Max.

FOSTER: OK, Paula Hancocks in Seoul. Thank you. It's the case that could have the most far reaching personal implications for the Israeli prime minister. Israel Supreme Court is hearing challenges to a new law that makes it harder to declare a prime minister unfit for office.

Critics say this law was passed specifically to benefit Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for multiple corruption charges, charges that he denies. CNN's Hadas Gold is following today's hearing for us in Jerusalem and joins us now. So what's going to be laid out today Hadas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max this building behind me; the Supreme Court has really been the center of so much of the political drama in Israel for the last nine months. And never before have the Supreme Court justices held so many challenges to amendments to basic laws passed by the Israeli parliament passed by the Israeli government, as they have in the last month or so.

And so much of this is connected to this massive judicial overhaul that Netanyahu's government is trying to push through. So what they're hearing as we speak in that building behind me is a challenge to that law that was passed very quickly in March actually that makes it much more difficult for a sitting Prime Minister to be declared unfit for office and therefore removed from office.

[08:05:00] Now, prior to this, there wasn't really any sort of major law on the books. It was mostly case law that determines that the Attorney General, who was a member of the government did not necessarily a political ally to the prime minister that the Attorney General could declare a prime minister unfit for office.

Now, the way it works, is a prime minister can only be declared unfit for office for physical or mental reasons. Either they themselves can do it or a majority supermajority in the cabinet then ratified by super majority in the Parliament could declare that. That makes it much more difficult to declare a prime minister unfit for office.

Now, the reason many people see that this was done was specifically to personally benefit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And that's because he is facing an ongoing corruption trial. And there has been a serious question whether he would be declared unfit for office because of the term surrounding this corruption trial by the Attorney General; she had not done so yet.

And there was an indication she wasn't necessarily going to do so, this law was seen as specifically to protect the prime minister. And that's why these petitioners brought this to the Supreme Court saying that it was inappropriately passed for personal benefit.

Now, what's interesting, what we've heard so far is that the lawyer representing the parliament conceded that this did benefit the Prime Minister personally, but he says this is a democratically elected parliament and the Supreme Court should not be able to strike it down.

Now the Attorney General is not representing the government here. And she argues that this should not stand. She says a basic law cannot be used as a kind of private resource that removes personal problems from the field of morality and criminal law.

Max, we should be getting a decision on this though much faster than other cases which are in front of the Supreme Court possibly within the next few weeks, Max.

FOSTER: OK, back with you when we get more. Hadas, thank you. Armenia's Prime Minister says there will soon be no ethnic Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh after what it called ethnic cleansing. A massive exodus is underway right now. Armenia says nearly 70,000 people; more than half the population of Nagorno-Karabakh has entered Armenia since Azerbaijan took control of the enclave last week.

Meanwhile, the president of the self-declared Republic has publicly decreed that it'll cease to exist on January the first of next year and all state institutions will be dissolved. Scott, its extraordinary how quickly this happened.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm struggling to think of another event in recent memory where this many people have left such a small area in such a hurry, this volume of people and the Armenian say that look, it's not slowing down. We're talking about almost 70,000 who have left already, that leaves about 50,000 still left and it seems like many of them are coming as you said. The Prime Minister says that there aren't going to be any more left. We spoke to one woman on Tuesday who abandoned her efforts to get out of the territory. She couldn't get 50 yards from her front door. She tried again yesterday morning. And just today, she managed to finally cross the border took her 35 hours.

What's also interesting as the Americans say that look Azerbaijan is going to welcome international observers. But they say they'll need a few days to talk to their allies to figure out what that effort might actually look like. But as the Armenian Prime Minister will point out there may be hardly anyone left by the time they actually get there. Here's exactly what the Prime Minister said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKOL PASHINYAN, ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER: The exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing policy continues. Analysis of the situation shows that in the coming days, there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh. This is an act of ethnic cleansing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: And Max, look, the local government in the Nagorno-Karabakh, this breakaway territory, they're essentially throwing in the towel, they say that Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh they call it, ceases to exist. They're winding down all of the institutions by the end of the year, but they've also made clear that this isn't exactly voluntary.

This is necessity because in the words of the President of that territory due to the current difficult military political situation, and because the priority is to make sure that people can actually leave even those who took up arms against Azerbaijan. And so that is the priority.

They have to make nice, they don't want to do anything that may jeopardize those efforts. One other thing to mention quickly, and that is that we're getting a little bit more detail about the former state minister, this wealthy businessman named Ruben Vardanyan, who was arrested yesterday.

According to state media, he's accused of financing terrorism participating in the activities of illegal armed groups and crossing the border illegally. But let's also remember that what Azerbaijan thinks is an illegal military force. Armenians and people in Nagorno- Karabakh they would just call it their army.

FOSTER: OK, Scott, thank you. Now for the second time this might be severe storm has hit Greece. Several months' worth of rain has fallen in the space of just 24 hours. The fire service says it moved more than 3000 people out of harm's way all this comes just weeks after 17 people were killed in severe weather.

[08:10:00]

It's not over yet either the storms are expected to continue for the rest of Thursday. Derek can take us through that path -- expecting Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Max it's heartbreaking to think that we are just 20 days since the last devastating flooding rain that impacted this part of Greece. But here we are once again talking about Volos. And you can see during the height of this precipitation event, the flooded rains and then of course, the aftermath.

Now the residents, they're dealing with their second natural disaster in less than three weeks. This is known locally as Storm Elias. And that is what people have been referencing this name of the storm to that there's also been flooding and power outages that we are well aware of.

Clearly you've seen the flooding, but it's the power outages that are going to be so impactful there and just the amount of rain that has fallen in such a short period of time. When we start doing the math, you're talking about several months of rain. And look at this, 342 millimeters in a 14 hour period.

That's the shortest duration of time that we saw the rainfall. But if you expand that to an entire day, a 24 hour period, some locations, just north of their received over 400 millimeters of rain. So you look at the average. This is the climatological period for Volos.

And you can see September really roughly about 30 to 40 millimeters of rain on average for the entire month. Then you go back three weeks, and you look at the devastation that was brought on the intense and very heavy rainfall across the region that unfortunately left that destruction in its path. And it looks as if this has been on an unfortunate repeat.

There is more rain as you mentioned Max just really starting to wind down though for the day today, which is the good news. We should start to clear things out by the week end, so people can get back to the recovery effort.

FOSTER: OK, Derek, thank you. We have some sad news just into us the beloved Irish actor Michael Gambon has died. Gambon's career began on stage where he won numerous awards, but he really rose to fame when he took over the role of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter films. Gammons family say he died after a bout of pneumonia. He was 82.

Still to come, U.S. President Biden landing in Arizona where he said to give a major speech in the coming hours, but back in Washington, it's a different picture for the president. We'll tell you what's happening next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Some but not all of the Republicans trying to unseat Joe Biden from the presidency gathered for a debate on Wednesday night. The seven candidates on stage repeatedly called out Biden, his handling of the border, the economy and anything else they could blame him for.

But there are a few shots also being aimed at the dominant Republican front runner of course Donald Trump, who didn't even bother to show up for the debate. Here's a look at some of the highlights.

[08:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Polls don't elect presidents, voters elect president. And we're going to take the case of the people in these early states, we're going to do it in a state by state direction and why because as Reagan said, in his day, this is our time for choosing.

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA: This is where President Trump went wrong. He focused on trade with China. He didn't focus on the fact that they were buying up our farmland, he didn't focus on the fact that they were killing Americans. He didn't focus on the fact that they were stealing $600 billion in intellectual property. He didn't focus on the fact that they put a Spy Based off our shores in Cuba.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When every other CEO expanded into the Chinese market, you know what I did with my first company; we opened a subsidiary in China. But you know what I did that was different than every other company. We got the hell out of there. And when I started my next company, he ran strive, that's years ago.

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to stand up for the rights of parents, and we're going to pass a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical surgery anywhere in the country. We've got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology agenda.

CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: If we give him any of Ukraine, next will be Poland. This is a guy who said, once said this, a guy in 1991, who said that was the darkest moment world's history when the Soviet Union fell. Listen, everybody. He wants to put the old band back together, and only America can stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, as we mentioned, Republican front runner Donald Trump skipped last night's debate. He was in Michigan instead speaking to auto workers. Trump criticized Joe Biden's policies on electric vehicles saying they threaten industry jobs. He claims union rank and file workers.

No, he is the better candidate. This speech came in the wake of Biden's visit to a UAW picket line, which was earlier this week. Only a few days remain before the U.S. government will be forced to shut down meanwhile, again due to a stalemate in Congress over how to keep the lights on.

Unless Congress acts decisively very soon, federal agencies are set to run out of money at midnight on Saturday night, but many Republicans are wary of the political costs they could incur for a lengthy shutdown. For more on why a shutdown now seems more likely than ever, here is CNN's John Laurence. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN LAURENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This October might be a little more spooky than usual in the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, do you think a government shutdown is inevitable at this point?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I really don't know. I apologize.

LAURENCE (voice-over): Funding for the government expires on Sunday, the first of October. And right now there's no plan in place to prevent that.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Every day I walk in this place. I have confidence. You know why? Because we're America, we will solve the problems before us and every day will be better than the day before. Some days you stumble and some days you get better.

LAURENCE (voice-over): The White House is calling on House Republicans to back the Senate's bipartisan stopgap bill that would temporarily keep the government running with a continuing resolution.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Speaker McCarthy needs to stop letting the Maga radicals drive his decisions, and do the obvious and sensible thing. Follow the Senate's lead and pass a bipartisan CR to prevent this reckless shutdown.

LAURENCE (voice-over): But some members of the House GOP aren't showing signs of compromise.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): If the folks in my district want somebody who was just going to come here and vote for continuing resolutions and omnibus bills. They've had other choices and other elections, but they chose to send me and I'm here to fight.

LAURENCE (voice-over): Among the potential impacts of a shutdown, active military members and border patrol agents will go without pay. I'm John Laurence reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: A split screen for U.S. President Joe Biden this Thursday, he'll be delivering a major speech in Arizona centered on the theme of democracy. We're told he'll issue blunt warnings about Donald Trump who he's accused of trying to destroy American institutions. That's in sharp contrast to what's happening on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans will hold their first hearing on their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, all of it playing out despite looming government shutdown. And we're just three days left until the U.S. government literally runs out of money. White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond has all the details for us. Jeremy, just take us through the impeachment hearing. JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, certainly, the impeachment hearing today is obviously going to be the first opportunity for House Republicans to try and start building this case that they believe they have to make against Joe Biden.

But it is important to note that the backdrop to all of this is the fact that they simply have not yet proved or provided any concrete evidence for any of these allegations that they are making about Joe Biden in terms of abuse of power, or bribery.

So far, all of the documents that they have put up, none of them include any kind of direct evidence that Joe Biden profited from any of his son Hunter Biden's business dealings. But and today's impeachment inquiry is certainly not expected to go any further in terms of providing concrete evidence.

That's because this is going to feature a panel of three conservative legal experts who are going to opine effectively on some of the claims that these House Republicans are making.

[08:20:00]

But none of these witnesses are going to be direct fact witnesses to any of the allegations that House Republicans are making. And so, the White House really is using this as an opportunity to try and sharpen the contrast between what House Republicans are focused on. And what the White House is focused on, especially as the president today delivers this speech on democracy.

And the White House is also saying that House Republicans instead of focusing on what they call partisan political attacks, that they should be focused on trying to keep the government funded just a couple of days before the government runs out of money.

FOSTER: It does feel like a lack of urgency around that issue doesn't it to many people looking in. Because they haven't got along to sort this out and not be able to sort it out, at least the people involved in the hearing when they're caught up in that.

DIAMOND: Yes, no, that's exactly right. And as of now, all indications are that the government is more likely than not to actually shut down. The White House for its part says, look, this is on House Republicans. They believe that they reached a deal with Republicans in the Senate and the House this summer to avoid a fiscal cliff that also set up parameters for how the government should be funded over the coming years setting budget limits, budget caps.

Based on that deal with Republicans, they now say that House Republicans are backtracking on that deal and trying to get more significant government funding cuts, and effectively calling that irresponsible and an abdication of responsibility. We know that the Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a deal that deal though, is dead on arrival in the house.

And the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, so far sticking to his guns, of course, largely because far right members of his party will not vote for a kind of straight government funding deal. And so, he is faced with this choice between either potentially losing his speakership or allowing the government to shut down.

And so far, it seems that he is willing to let the government go ahead and shut down. We will see what kind of deal they can eventually work out. But meantime, there are thousands of government workers who could soon go without pay, many government institutions across the country that will shut down that people need and use.

The question now really more than whether or not the government shutdown will shut down will be how long will that actually last? Max.

FOSTER: Yes. OK. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us from there. Now, still ahead, the U.S. border crisis, CNN -- with migrants in Mexico as they search for a better life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Interestingly enough, the reason we're walking right now with them, and some of them are trying to hurry up is because they're trying to go around a migration checkpoint.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Just a few weeks after New York's mayor said the city could be destroyed by its migrant crisis. The governor of Texas visited Manhattan, making similar claims. Greg Abbott called this situation unsustainable and chaotic and said it must stop since last year.

Abbott has buzzed -- more than 15,000 migrants to New York, but he says the city is only experiencing a fraction of what Texas has injured for years. Mexico's president says he wants to address the movement of migrants and will invite representatives from about 10 countries to a meeting to discuss what to do.

CNN's David Culver is in Mexico and gives us a glimpse of the difficult journey that some migrants are making in the hope of eventually getting to the United States.

[08:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER: We're here in southern Mexico and we're walking with a group of migrants, we actually met this group in Guatemala. And they have been making the trek for about 18 days. They're originally from Venezuela. A couple of families, and some other stragglers who have come together and they've gotten to know each other along the way.

Interestingly enough, the reason we're walking right now with them, and some of them are trying to hurry up is because they're trying to go around a migration checkpoint. They were picked up on the riverbank on the Mexico side. And they were taken in a van.

They of course, had to pay and brought to just before the checkpoint, that's when they were all unloaded. And you can see that's where these folks are walking behind high grass. And they're finding their way to catch up with that same van, but on the other side of the checkpoint.

We should point out; we're able to go around it because we can choose any route we're here illegally. They are not in Mexico legally, that they have not entered any of the countries since leaving Venezuela legally. Their hope is of course like everyone else to get to the U.S.

But this just shows you how extensive even what is normally an hour drive and what's going to be a whole day for them turns out to be.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Merriam-Webster is adding new words to the dictionary to prove it this year. The company has added nearly 700 words, acronyms, and phrases to the dictionary. They include the phrase chef's kiss, meaning a gesture of satisfaction or approval is also rizz, a slang word for romantic appeal or charm like the abbreviation of charisma.

Other notable entries include -- and thirst trap, don't know what they are. I can't help you. Thanks for joining us here on CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. "World Sports" with Amanda is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]