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Israel's Military Expands Ground Operations into Gaza; COP28 President Draws Flak from the Scientists and the Delegates for his Controversial Remarks on Fossil Fuels; Trump Attacks His Opponents on His Re-Election Bid; Pope Francis' Health Improves but Unable to Lead the Angelus Message; 11 Climbers Died in Mount Merapi Eruption. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired December 04, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching "CNN Newsroom" and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, the Israeli military says it's expanding ground operations inside Gaza, including into areas where many Palestinians are already taking shelter.

Scientists sound the alarm at COP28 after the president of the climate summit made controversial comments about fossil fuels.

And counting down to the Iowa caucuses, the important first in the nation U.S. presidential contest. We will look at the latest push by Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. Well, Israel's war in Gaza is expanding and leaving devastation inside the enclave as Israeli forces pursue those who carried out the attacks on October 7th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, ISRAEL ARMY SPOKESPERSON (through translator): The IDF continues to extend its ground operation against Hamas centers in all of the Gaza Strip, in all of the Gaza Strip, where there is a Hamas center the IDF is operating. The forces are fighting face to face with terrorists and killing them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Israel Defense Forces now say that ground operations are expanding to include all of Gaza, including southern areas where many have taken shelter. The IDF says it hit approximately 200 targets inside Gaza today. It's warning civilians to evacuate large areas within the enclave, but it's unclear how many are receiving those warnings given there is limited electricity and internet services.

Meantime, the IDF says it has destroyed some 500 tunnel shafts inside Gaza since October 7th. Out of more than 800 shafts, it says it has located in the enclave. The head of the Israel Security Agency, the Shin Bet, vowed Sunday to eliminate Hamas all around the world, even if it takes years.

And Journalist Elliott Gotkine joins us now live from London. Good morning to you, Elliott. So what more are you learning about Israel's expanded or expanding ground operation across all of Gaza?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Rosemary, Israel's yet to finish the job in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. And we saw airstrikes there, including in the Jabalia refugee camp over the weekend. But as you say, it's already saying that it is expanding its operations, not just to the southern part of the Strip, but to all of the Gaza Strip. And according to Spokesman Jonathan Konrikos, the fighting won't be over anytime soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON: Until we get all of the Hamas battalion strongholds and until we work on them and take them off the battlefield, there will be active fighting. And we said from the beginning to Israeli civilians and to anybody listening in the world that this unfortunately will take time.

It won't be a quick and easy operation. It's a difficult operation in difficult combat terrain where we're fighting a very committed enemy that has no issue with sacrificing civilians for their military cause. We, on the other hand, are trying to limit our force in order to get the job done without exposing the civilians to that danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOTKINE: And to that end, Israel says that it's been giving out warnings to Palestinians in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, asking them to evacuate areas that have been marked out to be targeted. But either the message isn't always getting through or isn't being fully understood. And we are seeing rising civilian casualties there. I should also say that in the last few minutes, the IDF has said that it struck some 200 targets in the Gaza Strip, including a school from the roof of which it came under attack.

That's one of the strikes that Israel says it carried out, also targeting infrastructure and weapon storage facilities. Now, of course, before Israel expanded its ground operations inside the Gaza Strip, we heard from the likes of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel against large-scale civilian casualties, saying that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza cannot be repeated in the south.

And yet, at the same time, we've heard from, for example, the chief of the general staff of the IDF saying that the operations in the southern part of Gaza will, in his words, be no less powerful than the operation in the north. [03:05:04]

And at the same time as this fighting is ratcheting up, so too is the diplomatic effort to try to get a resumption of that truce that lasted a week and that saw Hamas releasing some of the hostages that it abducted on October the 7th during its rampage in Israel and also the release of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.

The U.S. is putting pressure on Hamas. We've also got the Qataris, of course, involved. We've even got the French president Emmanuel Macron heading to Qatar to, again, try to make some moves to try to encourage the parties to get this truce back on track to resume the release of those hostages. 136 still being held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. But as the fighting ratchets up it's hard to see that truce coming back into effect anytime soon, Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right, Elliot Gotkine with that live report from London. Many thanks.

Well more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. That death toll is expected to rise in the coming days, especially with renewed airstrikes by Israel. As the IDF says, they are continuing to target Hamas.

CNN's Ben Wedeman has more details now on how Gaza's hospitals are struggling to help those in need and how residents are responding to the attacks. But a warning, his report contains disturbing images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look around, this is Gaza City's Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Where the wounded are treated in the open on wooden pallets, the emergency ward is already jammed.

The courtyard is full of body bags. Dozens were killed in a series of Israeli strikes Saturday, many more still under the rubble.

Israel claims one of those strikes killed a senior Hamas commander who helped plan the 7th October attacks. He was, perhaps, one dead, among many, many others.

This woman lost her daughter and grandchildren and names them all.

UNKNOWN: Aya, Ghanim, Mus'ab, Ismail, Juri, Ayush, Adam, Mohammed.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): And may God judge those watching us die, she cries.

It's a similar scene in Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza. More wounded, many of them children, and more dead, many of them children.

They bombed an entire street, says Saad. He pulled his brother Mohammed from under the rubble. But his brother Mohammed was dead, says, Saad, let me say goodbye to him.

My father's been killed, cries this boy after a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp Sunday. The seven-day truce seems like the distant past.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Meantime, U.S. officials say they are still working to get truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas back on track after talks broke down over the weekend. The U.S. National Security Council's John Kirby told NBC that Hamas was unwilling to provide the names of additional women and children to release. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas did not hold up its part of the agreement which was to return all women and children hostages.

Well earlier, I spoke with Yarden Gonen. She is the sister of Romi Gonen who is one of multiple women still being held hostage by Hamas, and I asked her to describe her sister and what happened to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YARDEN GONEN, SISTER OF HAMAS HOSTAGE ROMI GONEN: She just came back last year from the trip of eight months in South America. She planned to be a flight attendant on the ground in Thailand. She's working as a waitress for the past year and a half. And she was planning to come back after Thailand and start studying. She wanted to study education. I have no idea why they are claiming that because it's absolutely not true.

[03:10:02]

Not she or another woman that are with her still held as hostage at Hamas ISIS hands. And we saw them lying about so many things like, for example, Hannah Katsir, they told us that she's dead and then she was released at the first time. So I feel like it's a big manipulation.

CHURCH: Yeah, I mean, it's so difficult. And so how much do you know about what happened to Romi on October 7th? And of course, about her injuries that you've been told are apparently getting worse because she got shot, didn't she?

GONEN: Yeah. So on October 7th, we knew everything that's going on with Romi because she was at the festival with her best friend and she immediately called my mother and afterwards me and for 4.5 hours we were on and off with her on the phone. So we knew everything that's going on over there.

The terrorists that are after them that on her head when she was hiding inside the bush or whether they were rescued with inside the car and during that rescue they attacked them on the road near Kibbutz Al-Umim and she was shot on her hand and she told us that her hand is not functioning well and she doesn't know what to do and she wanted to help Ophir that was with her and fortunately wasn't murdered on the first second of the terror attack on their car and she tried to bandage him with her, we assume her functioning hand and she told us that she's bleeding and she's wounded pretty badly.

And on Friday, unfortunately, after Ophir's funeral, we got a phone call from one of the families that told us that she, the families of the returned hostages, that told us that they saw Romi this week. And she's alive. And that was amazing news because we didn't know anything about her since October 7th.

But they told us that her injury is very neglected and infected. And she needs a proper care at a hospital, a proper hospital as soon as possible.

CHURCH: Absolutely. She does. I mean, clearly this is so distressing and unbearable. How is your family coping with this challenging time, wondering, and when, when Romy may be released?

GONEN: I can't tell you how it feels like to wake up every morning at the week of the ceasefire and the releases and hope I'll get the phone call that's saying Ohmi is the next one on the list. And we waited and waited and waited for a week and we know that we have remained 10 or 11 women that are fit to the first deal that we had about women and children.

And it was the worst morning. Friday morning was the worst morning I had in the past 60 days that not only I woke up to not getting a list, I woke up to resume of the war because Hamas broke the ceasefire.

And I feel like we got back to week number two. And that's frightened us so much. We have to do anything in our power to stop what's going on, to get another negotiation, to get our people back. We know that also the men are wounded. We know that Hamas is hitting them with their cables from testimonies that came back. We know about another women that are injured from the beginning and are not treated properly. And it's not. No one should live like that. No one. And we must stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: A nightmare for that family and so many others.

Well, the suspect in Saturday's Paris attack swore allegiance to the Islamic State in a video posted to social media, French officials say. Police arrested the 26-year-old after one person was killed and two others injured in the attack. Officials say the two people who were injured have left hospital following treatment. A French anti- terrorism prosecutor says an investigation is underway for murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist organization.

Well still to come, the President of the COP28 Climate Summit claims there's no science behind phasing out fossil fuels to fight global warming. And climate advocates are not happy. Back with that in just a moment.

[03:15:05]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHURCH: Climate scientists and advocates are alarmed after the president of the COP28 climate summit claimed there's no science behind phasing out fossil fuels to limit global warming. Sultan Al- Juber is the UAE's climate envoy and also heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

He made the comments November 21st at a climate panel event. He said phasing out fossil fuels was inevitable, but that the world needs to be pragmatic about it, suggesting the shift could negatively impact global economies. Some countries at COP28 are calling for a fossil fuel phase-out. Others want a phase-down, which has weaker language. The head of one climate advocacy group says Al Jaber's statements raise deep concerns over his ability to lead the U.N. climate talks.

And CNN's David McKenzie, joins me now from Dubai. So David, is there a bit of a trust deficit going on at COP28 right now?

[03:20:01]

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well certainly on some level people will see it as saying the quiet bit out loud, those comments from the COP president prior to the start of these meetings. There has been questions of trust, at least from many nations who feel it's problematic to have a leader of a petro-state and the leader of the state oil company running a conference that is committed to trying to solve the climate crisis that is caused in large part over the years by the extraction of fossil fuels.

For their part, the UAE says they need to be part of the conversation, that they are qualified to lead the conversation, and that it's important for all parties to be at the table to negotiate solutions. Today, much of the focus is on financing the climate transition, but we found in reporting in South Africa, it doesn't always take money to make a difference.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Tomokke Mokoka and his cart are on the move. His job goes by many names here. Reclaimer. Hustler. Even Urban Surfer.

It's dangerous work in a dangerous city.

There are thousands like Mokoka fanning out well before dawn. After an hour on the road. He's in a neighborhood south of the city.

TOMOKKE MOKOKA, RECLAIMER: I'm looking for the plastics.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): I'm looking for plastics, cardboard boxes, metals, and cans, he says.

MOKOKA: Metals.

MCKENZIE: And it's a dirty job, do you mind?

MOKOKA: I don't mind. MCKENZIE (voice-over): What they discard, he recycles, earning about

$150 a month. It's steadier than his old construction job, and Mokoka likes being his own boss.

There aren't any jobs here, he says, so we've made our own work, making their own work with a scale and impact that's hard to overstate.

Just look at this sorting zone near Joburg where thousands live. It's informal but hardly simple. Everything is carefully separated. Everything has value.

MCKENZIE: Towards the top of the pecking order are cans. Now, a bag of these will get reclaimers almost 40 U.S. dollars. As they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): I'm always surprised how rich people throw away so much rubbish, says Kakat Lakhang, but I'm happy they do.

This collection took them weeks.

I don't know much about climate change, he says. Of course I'm glad we can help, but what matters is to survive.

Today is payday and every bag is carefully weighed.

There's always trust amongst us, says middleman Watsama.

Though he seems a little skeptical.

I have to double check they didn't put any water in the bottles to make them heavier, he says. It must just be the plastic bottles.

What reclaimers don't find end up in a nearby landfill. Even here, the desperate salvage what they can.

Back in the neighborhoods, Mokoka's in a race against the dump trucks.

MOKOKA: Done, we have done, done.

MCKENZIE: Are you done?

MOKOKA: Yeah.

MCKENZIE: Just in time.

MOKOKA: Yeah.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Today, they arrived a bit late.

MOKOKA: I have more stuff today, man.

MCKENZIE: More stuff?

MOKOKA: More stuff than other days.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Mokoka is proud of his work, proud of his effort.

MOKOKA: Yeah, I feel so heavy.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): I feel so happy, I feel so happy, he says, because I'm going to put bread on the table.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (on-camera): As you can see there, we barely kept up with Makoka during his daily work and he's there every day, well several days a week, trying to make ends meet, as he put it. But it shows you that it doesn't necessarily take sophisticated solutions. South Africa is one of the top recycling nations on earth because of the need and because of the lack of opportunity for people in that country.

You know, here at COP they're trying to find solutions. Sometimes it's right there in front of us trying to avoid the excesses of the modern world, there is a sense that there are now intense negotiations going on to try and have concrete decisions by the end of this COP. I just spoke to one of the delegates here. He said that it's like this, going up and down. They don't know where it's going to end, but they hope the pressure will mount to actually make concrete action. Rosemary?

CHURCH: All right. I appreciate that report. David McKenzie in Dubai.

And while leaders debate how best to tackle climate change at COP28, CNN's Elisa Raffa has more on how rising sea levels could impact cities like Dubai over the next 30 years.

[03:25:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: COP continues this week in Dubai as global leaders try to put climate goals into climate action. This is a climate central simulation on what inaction can look like. At 3 degrees C of warming, that host city of Dubai just gets inundated by sea level rise. Now our sea levels have already risen about 3 centimeters on average per decade over the last century. So in the last 100 years we've added 30 centimeters of ocean rise.

Now going forward, we could add that same 30 centimeters, but just in the next three decades. So rising just as much in the next 30 years as we did in the previous 100. That rise can amount to about a foot as much as a foot or that 30-centimeter mark. More profound coastal flood events from tides and storm surge could be an issue. Moderate flooding could occur 10 times as often.

Major cities are already vulnerable to sea level rise like Boston, New York, Charleston, Miami, New Orleans. They all deal with something called sunny day flooding. Sometimes it doesn't even take a storm anymore to get that water to go inland. Just a regular high tide that's higher now than it was before.

Here's a look at another simulation, three degrees C of warming, water coming into the National Mall there at D.C., Lady Liberty standing around even more water if that warming continues to rise.

But like I mentioned, COP is all about action, right? So if we look at a place like New York City. If that carbon pollution continues, future generations like Gen Z and Gen Alpha could see six to seven degrees of warming if we keep these emissions as business as usual as they are right now. But if we cut them, look at how significantly the warming could be cut too. Closer to two degrees of warming, which is much closer to that Paris Climate Agreement goal of 1.5.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: All right. Our Thanks for that. Coming up, Palestinians in Gaza fled south to avoid Israeli airstrikes. But now the south is a target too. The latest on the Israel Hamas conflict, next.

Plus, Ukraine has launched an investigation after the wife of a top military official apparently is poisoned. Why Russian agents are suspected. That's next on CNN.

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[03:30:00]

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Israel Defense Forces are carrying out military operations throughout Gaza right now. On Monday, Israeli airstrikes hit some 200 targets inside the enclave, including what they say was terror infrastructure located inside a school. The IDF is urging Palestinian civilians to evacuate more areas in southern Gaza, though it's unclear where they will go.

The United Nations estimates that 1.8 million residents of Gaza, that's nearly 80 percent of its population, are now internally displaced by the war. And the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, using data from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, says 316 people have been killed in the last day of the war alone.

The Israel Defense Forces says three soldiers were slightly injured by mortar fire across the border from Lebanon Monday night. It follows an incident Sunday when the IDF said several soldiers were injured in a missile attack near the border. CNN's Ivan Watson has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The hills here in this border region of southern Lebanon were echoing with the thud of incoming artillery from Israel this afternoon. Now, this is just a continuation of basically more than a month of fighting a cross border artillery duel, if you will, between the Israeli military in northern Israel and Hezbollah militants based here in the south of Lebanon. The Israeli military say they also used warplanes on Sunday to strike suspected Hezbollah targets. The Israeli military says that an anti-tank missile hit one of its

vehicles on Sunday lightly wounding some of its soldiers and damaging that vehicle. Now, this conflict has not been as intense as the fighting and the extreme civilian death toll in that Palestinian enclave of Gaza, but it has been deadly here. More than 100 people killed thus far, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but also more than a dozen civilians, as well as several journalists.

When Hezbollah carries out strikes against Israeli military targets, it says it is, quote, "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance." Neither the Israeli military nor Hezbollah are using their most powerful weapons. Yet the fear is -- is that this could escalate and become a much more dangerous conflagration.

Ivan Watson, CNN, on the southern Lebanese border with Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Turning to the war in Ukraine now, Russia's continuous bombardment of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine killed another three people on Sunday. Authorities say a 78-year-old man lost his life when a village was attacked by Russian forces occupying the opposite bank of the Dnipro River. And military officials say Kherson city was under heavy fire when a multi-story building was hit. Two people died there and seven others were injured.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (through translator): The daughter was standing here. Such a terrible explosion. She started screaming. I've never heard anything like that. I didn't understand anything of what was happening. So I came here and then I understood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities have banned large events and gatherings in the capital on Christmas and New Year's Eve. They say any private party should be held in a closed location and follow all safety precautions. Military officials also warn people to pay attention to any air raid alerts during the holidays.

Well, as the fighting continues, Ukraine says the wife of a top military intelligence official has been poisoned. The Ukrainian foreign minister told CNN it's highly likely that Russia is behind it. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has the latest on Ukraine's investigation.

[03:34:55]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ukraine's military intelligence wages war in the shadows, but it is hitting the Russians hard. Orchestrating cruise missile attacks on Vladimir Putin's black sea fleet ousting Moscow's forces from oil and gas drilling platforms off the coast of occupied Crimea in a daring amphibious assault and attacking the Russian capital with long distance combat drones while maintaining deniability.

The man leading the intelligence service GUR is Kyrgyzstan Budanov, one of Russia's most feared enemies.

I appeal to Russian soldiers, to those who got lucky enough to survive in destroyed trenches, he recently said. It will be even worse. You have a choice. Die or save your life.

But now Ukraine believes the Russians may have struck back. Kyiv saying Budanov's wife, Mariana Budanova has been poisoned by what they say is, quote, "a heavy metal." A Ukrainian source telling CNN, Budanova tested positive for both arsenic and mercury poisoning. Ukrainian officials believe the Kremlin could be behind it, like the foreign minister in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett.

DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Definitely our intelligence chief is the enemy of Russia as all of us are, all those who are fighting against Russia. So it's highly likely that Russia is behind it.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Kremlin-controlled media are already in a feeding frenzy, rejoicing in the news while seemingly brushing off the allegation.

OLGA SKABEEVA, RUSSIAN NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Maybe she just broke a thermometer during one of the parties with her husband's colleagues. Not very sensational, but Ukrainians and their Western owners literally screamed from such news and began to blame Putin.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): But in a different episode, they brought in a Russian parliamentarian accused of poisoning and killing a former Russian agent in London in 2006 to explain how it would be done.

SKABEEVA (through translator): Well, something slipped in her tea and she drank it.

ANDREI LUGOVOI, FORMER KGB SPY (through translator): There's no other way to poison food and drink other than to pour it in and slip it in somehow.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): In the past, the U.S. and others have accused Vladimir Putin of ordering poison attacks on his opponents and few groups have enraged the Russian leader more than Ukraine's military intelligence led by Budanov, the former head of Ukraine's foreign intelligence, says.

VALERIY KONDRATYUK, FORMER HEAD OF UKRAINE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE (through translator): I believe that this was a personal revenge from Putin, personal revenge for all the shame that the defense intelligence under the leadership of Budanov have inflicted on him, shame that supersedes what Prigozhin has done to him.

PLEITGEN: The Kremlin hasn't issued a direct denial of these allegations, but they do seem to be trying to brush them off. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came out and said, quote, "Ukraine blames Russia for everything." All this says Kirill Abudanov's wife battles the effects of that poisoning.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Former President Donald Trump, who's facing criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, insists President Biden is the real threat to democracy. Toxic talk on the campaign trail just ahead, here on CNN.

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[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Weeks ahead of the all-important Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump was back in the state over the weekend. He spent much of his time there trying to turn the tables on opponents who say his re-election would threaten democracy.

At one event, Trump said his campaign is, quote, "a righteous crusade to liberate our republic from Biden and the criminals." The former president, who's facing criminal charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, accused President Joe Biden of being the biggest threat to U.S. democracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our opponents, and we have a lot of opponents, but we've been waging an all-out war in American democracy. You look at what they've been doing and becoming more and more extreme and repressive. They have just waged an all-out war with each passing day.

You should go into Detroit and you should go into Philadelphia and you should go into some of these places, Atlanta, and you should go into some of these places and we got to watch those votes when they come in.

Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is accusing Trump of not acting decisively enough, saying the former president failed to keep his campaign promises, including a major one from 2016 to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

DeSantis has also been touring Iowa, trying to shore up support in the state ahead of next month's caucuses. The Florida governor says if he's elected president, he will replace the Affordable Care Act with, quote, "a better plan." But he has no specifics yet, only saying his campaign would roll out a big proposal sometime in the spring. In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," DeSantis said he will keep his promises.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's important to point out he's running on a lot of the things he campaigned on in 2016 and didn't deliver it on, whether it's repeal and replace Obamacare, whether it's building the border wall, whether it's draining the swamp. Remember, he said he would do a special counsel against Hillary Clinton, then two weeks after the election said no, now he says he's going to do one against Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Erin Murphy is the Des Moines Bureau Chief for "The Gazette." He joins me now from Ankeny in Iowa. Thank you so much for talking with us.

ERIN MURPHY, DES MOINES BUREAU CHIEF, "THE GAZETTE": Glad to be here.

CHURCH: So we are seeing an accelerated campaign effort ahead of the Iowa caucuses on January 15th, the first GOP nominating contest of 2024. The two top polling GOP candidates attacking one another, both looking for last minute support in Iowa. before this critical caucus. But former President Donald Trump is way out in front of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley and all the other candidates. So why is Trump desperately rallying his supporters? What is going on and what do the numbers look like right now?

MURPHY: Yeah, well, there's two main reasons for that. One is that, you know, polls are great and support at crowds, at rallies. is great, but ultimately those people have to show up on January 15th at a specific time. A caucus is not like a primary. You can't just vote anytime that day or even early if you want to.

[03:45:03]

So it's a little bit different beast. So nothing is locked in until January 15th. So that's why the former president has to keep coming back here. His campaign has to keep working at those rallies and make sure that they're committed to coming out and caucusing for him on January 15th.

And it's also important because, you know, for Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Haley, they have some ground to make up. And if they're going to come out of Iowa and make this a competitive race moving forward into New Hampshire and South Carolina, et cetera, et cetera, then they have to make, you know, a little bit of a climb here in these last few weeks and that can be done. Iowans are notoriously late deciders in these things and so there is time still for one of those other candidates to make a move.

But they have to do that work now and make those connections and hopefully coalesce some support so they can mount a challenge to the former president.

CHURCH: So how is it possible that Trump's support seems to increase even as his legal problems get worse and more complicated. What's that about? And does it guarantee he will eventually be the GOP nominee for president?

MURPHY: I don't know if it guarantees, but it certainly doesn't hurt. When you go to his events and you talk to his supporters, what you hear constantly is that those things don't bother them because they just don't believe there's any validity to them.

When the former president makes the claims that it's all just a witch hunt and it's all politically motivated and it's all about the Democrats and Joe Biden just out to get him and take him down. His supporters believe that and there's obviously a lot of evidence out there that proves there's far more to these things than just that.

CHURCH: So what might the sudden shift of big donor money to Nikki Haley signal and could it impact DeSantis' political future even after he tore around the state visiting all 99 Iowa counties to rally support and did that help him at all?

MURPHY: Yeah, but that's, I think, the key question, and we won't have the answer to yet. Look, Iowans value that. They like seeing candidates face to face. They like being able to look them in the eye, and they're used to that. They've gotten accustomed to that, and they expect that now.

So, historically, that has worked. So, those resources, you mentioned the financial backing, that helps because that helps candidates run that kind of campaign. They can book all around the state and get to every corner and talk to as many people as they can. They can build up their campaign staff to make voter contacts.

And like I said, ensure that those people come out on caucus day on January 15th. But at the end of the day, the candidate has to have a message that resonates with the people. And right now, Governor DeSantis and Ambassador Haley, they've had some little moments in polling, but still, like I said, stuck a good 20 points behind the former president.

CHURCH: Right. And Iowa's Governor Kim Reynolds endorsed DeSantis, not Trump, triggering a pretty nasty feud with the state's popular governor. What impact might that have on the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, do you think?

MURPHY: Yeah, I mean, that could help Governor DeSantis, and it's not necessarily the endorsement itself. It's that Governor Reynolds is also now going out and actively campaigning with Governor DeSantis. She has been on the campaign trail with him. pretty consistently since she delivered that endorsement and I expect that to continue. So that could help, not necessarily endorsement itself, but Governor Reynolds going to all these communities. She is very popular, but I could see that helping Governor DeSantis a little bit.

CHURCH: All right, we'll see what happens. Erin Murphy, many thanks for joining us, I appreciate it.

MURPHY: Thank you for having me. CHURCH: As the Republican-led House of Representatives returns to work

this week, they will do so with a now three-vote margin after New York Congressman George Santos was expelled from the House on Friday. Still Speaker Mike Johnson says he believes his party has the votes it needs to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. And Johnson says that unlike the two impeachments of Donald Trump, the inquiry against Joe Biden will not be used as a partisan political tool.

We'll be right back.

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[03:50:00]

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CHURCH: Pope Francis says he is getting better but was unable to read his Sunday reflection this weekend. The pontiff, who turns 87 this month, has been suffering from what he describes as severe bronchitis and is avoiding being exposed to the cold weather. Christopher Lamb has more from Rome.

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CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Pope Francis said he was feeling better but was unable to give his traditional Sunday reflection and prayer, which he does every Sunday from the Vatican at noon. The reflection was read by an aide and took place in the Casa Santa Marta, the Pope's home, rather than from the window of the Apostolic Palace, which the Pope normally gives the reflection from.

Francis has been suffering from severe bronchitis, something that he was hospitalized with earlier in the year. But we noticed that the Pope is gradually improving. The cannula that was used to intravenously administer the antibiotics has been taken out.

Francis did not travel to the COP28 summit, as he had planned to do on doctors orders but he did give a strong message to the COP through his senior aide Cardinal Pietro Parolin who emphasized the Pope's call to end fossil fuels, to get agreements from countries to tackle climate change.

[03:54:54]

Francis will be 87 later this month. He keeps up a punishing schedule but he is continuing to implement reforms within the church and to engage in all sorts of diplomatic efforts when it comes to trying to bring peace in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Christopher Lamb, CNN, Rome.

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CHURCH: At least 11 climbers have died in Indonesia after the eruption of Mount Merapi in West Sumatra on Sunday. 12 are still missing and dozens more were evacuated. Officials say the eruption sent volcanic ash as high as three kilometers into the air, covering nearby towns. Experts say the eruption is ongoing and they are warning people to avoid the area.

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AHMAD RIFANDI, MOUNT MERAPI OBSERVATORY POST (through translator): The wind is blowing to the north and the safe radius is three kilometers. We hope that people can stay outside of the radius but if you have to do activities around the volcano you're advised to wear hat, protective mask and eyeglasses.

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CHURCH: Mount Merapi is the most active volcano on Sumatra. living up to its name, which means mountain of fire.

And on a much lighter note, Santa Claus has come to town in Liverpool, England, maybe not the jolly old fellow we know, but thousands of his lookalikes, taking part in the U.K.'s biggest Santa Dash. The participants jogged for five kilometers, dressed in red and blue outfits, to raise funds for a children's hospital. In 2005, the run earned the Guinness World Record for the largest Santa gathering. Runners say it is a lot of fun and a healthier way for Santa to get around town rather than riding in a sleigh.

Thanks so much for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day. "CNN Newsroom" continues with Bianca Nobilo, next.

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