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CNN International: U.S. Speaker Nominee Very Confident He'll Win House Vote; ABC Report: Mark Meadows Gets Immunity in Federal Election Case; Tensions Hight in West Bank Amid Violence in Gaza. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 25, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's also a huge question for his future as the House tries to move past this ugly period.
Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Like Manu mentioned, Representative Mike Johnson still faces an uphill battle as a nominee, and even possibly as a speaker.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Johnson's ability to win the speakership and lead effectively, not to mention his tenure, will hinge -- excuse me -- on his ability to court his party's influential conservative faction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: If you ask very conservative Republican voters, they are the folks who have been the hardest, you know, on Tom Emmer. They were the hardest on Kevin McCarthy and they are of the belief that they want to stand firm. They want their congressional GOP to stand firm. They don't want compromise. They don't like that word compromise. We see that in the polling, 52 percent among very conservative Republicans basically say, these representatives should stand firm, don't compromise, even if nothing gets done. And that they think is the group that needs to be appeased the most. Johnson at this point looks like he has those very conservative Republicans, but we have to wait and see.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And how much leash will they give him?
ENTEN: Yes, there you go.
JENNINGS: because the funding deadline for government comes up in mid November And he is going to have to deal with the other party on this and on the aid for Ukraine and Israel and even if you throw border in there. So we'll see if these conservatives who may be happy with him today, will they give him the latitude to operate and move the institution forward or are they going to keep him on it very shortly line?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: That was CNN senior data analyst Harry Enten and senior political commentator Scott Jennings with their insights.
FOSTER: Donald Trump's former chief of staff has reportedly made the first publicly known deal in the special counsel's federal election subversion case. According to ABC News, Mark Meadows was granted immunity from prosecution. He has met with federal prosecutors at least three times this year.
NOBILO: ABC reports Meadows told special counsel Jack Smith's investigators that he did not believe the election was stolen and that Trump was being dishonest in claiming victory. The former U.S. President has pleaded not guilty to several charges related to his efforts to overturn the election results.
FOSTER: ABC News also reports that during the meetings between Meadows and Jack Smith's team, prosecutors were focused on his conversations with Trump after his election loss.
NOBILO: Political and legal experts believe the Meadow's immunity deal may be a turning point in the prosecution's case against Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Prosecutors do not hand out immunity agreements like candy. You are very careful because you're giving away a lot. What you're saying as a prosecutor is, we're going to give you a free pass here essentially. But two things. One, we believe this testimony, we think it's correct, true, credible. And two, we need it.
Now DOJ believes that they can use Mark Meadows testimony -- and Mark Meadows was Donald Trump's right hand, at his side literally, throughout the key weeks, days and months leading up to and during January 6th as well.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This feels a little different in terms of the some of the specifics of what he is said to have said. And this really drills down on him -- according to ABC -- saying bluntly, this wasn't stolen. He supposedly told Trump that they weren't proving this and that he had questions about it. That was the first time I had heard anything like that.
So I think that we're going to hear more, right? About what he may or may not have said. But there is no question, as Elie said, Mark Meadows was at the center of so much of this. He was talking to so many people and he could speak to Trump's mindset in a very specific way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: ABC also reports that Meadows has corroborated accounts that Trump was reluctant to call on his supporters to stop the violence during the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021.
FOSTER: Still to come, the U.S. Secretary of State is calling on UN Security Council members to help stop the Israel Hamas war from expanding. More on what else he's saying, ahead.
[04:35:00]
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FOSTER: New satellite images appear to show Egypt is sealing off the Gaza border between aid convoys. These images, taken by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday show an unbroken shadow of a cement slab war, which Egypt constructed after Israeli strikes bombed the roadway on the Gaza side.
NOBILO: Images come as eight aid trucks out of the expected 20 entered Gaza on Tuesday. And the United Nations is once again warning that the enclave needs more aid, especially fuel. The UN Relief and Works Agency is also warning it will be forced to halt operations in Gaza by Wednesday night if no fuel is delivered. Israel has ruled out any fuel being allowed to enter Gaza because it claims that Hamas may steal it for its operational infrastructure.
Tensions flared even more after comments made by the UN Secretary- General, who said the Hamas attacks, quote, did not happen in a vacuum. It comes as the U.S. Secretary of State chose his words carefully, calling for opportunities to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the details.
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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: At the UN Security Council today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the world to help stop the expansion of the war between Israel and Hamas. He urged countries to pressure Iran and its proxies from opening up new fronts. And warned that if Iran or other proxies strike U.S. targets, he said, quote, we will defend our security swiftly and decisively.
Interestingly, when Blinken talked about the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza, he said that humanitarian pauses must be considered to allow that aid to reach civilians. He didn't use the word ceasefire, which the U.S. refuses to say, and Israel says that they won't do. But how a pause is different than a ceasefire is unclear.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, also created a firestorm with comments that he made about what he called Israel's suffocating occupation. Take a listen.
ANTONIO GUTERRES, UN SECRETARY-GENERAL: It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
MARQUARDT: Israel's ambassador to the UN responded furiously, saying in a tweet: That it's truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after
the Holocaust holds such horrible views.
He called on Guterres to resign immediately.
[04:40:00]
Some family members of hostages being held by Hamas, who were visiting the UN, refused to meet with the Secretary-General following his comments, while others called on the world to help free their loved ones. Take a listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel it. I want to say thanks to the countries that support us in bringing our families back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was born in Manhattan, raised on Long Island within the Jewish community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Women being held hostage. We feel and believe and wish all of you to think that these are crimes against humanity.
MARQUARDT: One mother of a son who was kidnapped said that nothing seems to be moving on freeing the hostages. She said that this is a world crisis, not just a personal crisis.
Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Even before the war with Hamas, tensions have been high between Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli settlers in the area. But now Palestinians are fearful of a new wave of violence from the nearly 700,000 Israelis in the region. CNN's Sara Sidner is in the West Bank with more. And a warning, some of the images are disturbing.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Armed and on high alert, Yossi Daban oversees 40 Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Since Hamas's terror attack on Israel, he considers them Nazis.
YOSSI DAGAN, SHOMRON REGION GOVERNOR (through translator): We are standing against a Nazi enemy, as cruel as the cavemen from 3,000 years ago that carried out a massacre on our brothers in the South.
SIDNER (voice-over): Jewish settler presence here has always been fraught, deemed illegal by international law. The events of October 7th have put these settlements on a war footing.
CNN gained rare access to one of the hundreds of settlements dotted throughout the Palestinian territories. Armed patrols are now every day occurrences in Kiryat Netafim. Fortified perimeters segregate the Jewish communities from Palestinian.
Local husbands, fathers, and son volunteers keep the unwanted out at all times. Natan Douek has stopped going to work and called his local draft office in the days after the attack.
NATAN DOUEK, KIRYAT NETAFIM PATROL SQUAD: We need to protect ourselves, because we're surrounded by people who don't necessarily like us. I didn't feel like I have to go fight, but definitely defend my home.
He's had enough.
SIDNER (voice-over): And the situation is no child's play. He says their world was turned upside-down on October 7th.
DOUEK: That day, October the 7th, was shabbat. At the end of shabbat we say a prayer and -- sorry.
SIDNER: It's OK.
DOUEK: Some of it is --
SIDNER: Just a prayer.
DOUEK: You know, asking God to help us and -- and to keep our children safe and to keep our soldiers safe. And some of these words I just cannot say them because, you know, we weren't safe on October 7th.
SIDNER (voice-over): Palestinians say they weren't safe from some settlers long before October 7th, and it's only gotten more violent since.
Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian activist and a former Palestinian Liberation Organization official in the West Bank.
HANAN ASHRAWI, FORMER PALESTINIAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION OFFICIAL: They tell you they're afraid. Why are you committing a war crime? Why are you living on Palestinian land illegally? Just because Israel tells you can? This is occupied territory.
SIDNER (voice-over): She says the Palestinian territories are shrinking beyond recognition because of all the illegal settlements.
And then, there is the growing settler Palestinian violence. Much of the violence has been caught on camera. Here, Jewish settlers throw rocks and fire guns at Palestinian homes.
In another incident, after a confrontation, a Jewish settler shoots an apparently unarmed Palestinian in the stomach. We asked Yossi Dagan about this incident.
SIDNER: How do you defend the Palestinians who have been killed by settlers?
DAGAN (through translator): Am I supposed to explain to CNN why terrorists that tried to killed civilians or soldiers were shot by security forces, the police, or the army? With all due respect, I don't really understand the question.
SIDNER (voice-over): But we clarified in English and Hebrew, showing him the video.
DAGAN (through translator): What you are showing me now is an edited, tendentious video of attempts at terrorists to hurt and kill Jews that are protecting themselves. This happens a lot, and unfortunately, there aren't two equal sides.
SIDNER (voice-over): The video you're seeing is not edited. But Palestinians agree with one thing, he says. The sides are not equal. They are the overwhelming victims in this, they say.
ASHRAWI: They're on the rampage. They gave them weapons, and they encouraged them. And they gave them support and protection by the Israeli occupation army.
[04:45:00]
SIDNER (voice-over): Ashrawi is referring to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's hardline national security minister. Days after Hamas's attack, he announced the purchase of 10,000 guns to arm civilian security teams. He himself began passing them out.
Gun ownership used to be heavily restricted in Israel, but those laws have changed, and now settlers are getting a huge amount of weapons.
Back in settlement Kiryat Netafim, Liat Har-Tov takes us to the home where she raised her five children. She says here they have had a peaceful coexistence with their Palestinian neighbors.
LIAT HAR-TOV, WEST BANK RESIDENT: I lived here for 24 years. I never feared.
SIDNER: And now?
HAR-TOV: Something is cracked. I think every mother in Israel these days feels the same. Something is not the same anymore.
SIDNER (voice-over): Har-Tov says she moved here in part, because land was cheap, but most settlers also come because of religious reasons.
Jews consider the settlement part of their biblical homeland and refer them by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria. But international law says settlers are illegally occupying Palestinian land meant for a Palestinian state one day.
ASHRAWI: We've said, we are the people of the land. We will stay here. We are the indigenous people, and we're going to stay here, no matter what Israel tries to do.
SIDNER (voice-over): In this moment in the decades long conflict, no one here can see how anyone will be able to live in peace anytime soon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: CNN's Sara Sidner, reporting for us.
NOBILO: Still to come, a 13 year old Palestinian girl's account of what the violence has done to her home and her neighborhood.
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NOBILO: A 13 year old Palestinian girl is expressing her grief and anger about the situation in Gaza.
[04:50:00]
FOSTER: Nadine Abdul Latif says her home in Gaza was struck recently and she sent CNN video showing the extent of the damage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NADINE ABDULLATIF, PALESTINIAN TEEN: Look how it turns out. The olive trees, the olive trees of our land, they are still getting out people. The whole place was smoke last night when we are trying to escape. This is where we were sleeping.
This is where we are sleeping, the door, everything, everything is rock. This is where I was sleeping. And here was where my little brother was sleeping. Everything is destroyed, everything, the chair.
We were sleeping on those pillows. I don't understand how we can live like this anymore. We're children. I want to live. I cannot live like this anymore, I can't.
They're looking for people. They are still looking for people themselves. This is our house. This is our house -- it's not there. My room. My clothes, all of my clothes. My closet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: A potentially catastrophic hurricane has made landfall near the Mexican resort city of Acapulco. The outer bands of Hurricane Otis have been drenching the city's famed beaches for hours with rain and powerful winds.
FOSTER: Maximum wind speeds right now are around 270 kilometers per hour. That's about 165 miles an hour. This is a Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful rating, and is the first ever CAT5 to make landfall in the Eastern Pacific.
Now the actor best known for portraying 1970s action hero John Shaft, has passed away. We're remembering Richard Roundtree after the break.
[04:55:00]
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (SINGING): He's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John Shaft.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: That was Richard Roundtree playing John Shaft, a tough talking private eye in the 1971 movie "Shaft." Roundtree died on Tuesday after a short fight with pancreatic cancer, according to several reports..
NOBILO: Shaft propelled Roundtree into the cultural limelight. The former stage actor went on to earn more than 150 screen credits, including roles in TV's, Roots, Desperate Housewives and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Richard Roundtree was 81 years old.
FOSTER: That's where I remember him from Fresh Prince.
Finally this hour, the Arizona Diamondbacks are headed to the World Series for the first time in more than 20 years. They beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4/2 on Tuesday to win the National League.
NOBILO: This will be the first trip back to the World Series for the Diamondbacks since 2001, when they defeated the New York Yankees. Arizona will now take on this year's American League champions, the Texas Rangers. Game one in the best of seven series, is set for Friday in Arlington, Texas.
FOSTER: Thank you for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.
NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" is up next right here on CNN. We'll see you tomorrow.
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