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CNN International: Sec. Blinken Holds High-Stakes Talks With Israeli Leaders; Hezbollah Says Its Drones Targeted IDF Base In N. Israel; Israel Foreign Min.: Israel Claims Responsibility For Death Of Hezbollah Commander In Lebanon; NTSB: Preliminary Inspections Reveal Issues With Door Plug; Gabriel Attal Appointed New French Prime Minister; Pope Francis Calls For Universal Ban On Surrogacy; E.U. Report Confirms 2023 Hottest Year On Record. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

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MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Hello. Welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel in a new effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

Then France has a new prime minister. Why Gabriel Attal is already making history? And we'll be live in Washington, D.C., where Donald Trump is expected to appear in court if he argues that he's immune from criminal prosecution.

Israel's military says Monday was one of the deadliest days for its troops since its ground operations in Gaza began. The IDF says nine soldiers lost their lives, six in central Gaza, the other three in the south. In all, 185 soldiers have been killed in the war since October the 7th.

Meanwhile, the top U.S. diplomat is in Israel trying to stop the war between Israel and Hamas from becoming a regional war. Anthony Blinken met with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for the latest stop in a whirlwind tour of the Middle East. He outlined his priorities earlier after meeting with Israel's president.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Of course, we'll have an opportunity to sit with the families of some of the hostages and discuss our relentless efforts to bring everyone home and back with their families. And there's lots to talk about, in particular, about the way forward.

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FOSTER: Jeremy Diamond joins us from Tel Aviv with the details. It does suggest some of that conversation wasn't about Gaza, it was perhaps what's happening with other borders and in the rest of the region. JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are just so many issues on the agenda for Secretary Blinken as he holds a number of meeting with Israel's top leaders. As we speak, we believe that the secretary of state is currently meeting with Israel's war cabinet following a meeting with the Israeli prime minister. And that meeting will be followed by a meeting with Israel's defense minister.

On the agenda are -- is the current military campaign inside of Gaza. The United States, of course, for weeks now has been pressuring the Israeli government to transition to a lower intensity phase of the war. And while some Israeli officials have indicated that that lower intensity phase is already underway, the U.S. has yet to really see firm evidence of that other than in northern Gaza, where the fighting has really ramped down.

There's also going to be a lot of discussion today about what comes next after the war in terms of reconstruction in the Gaza Strip. The secretary of state has just returned from meetings throughout the region where that was also a key subject of discussion. Not only the current humanitarian situation in Gaza, but also how many of these countries in the region, other international partners, can be part of a broader coalition to look at governance and reconstruction in Gaza after the war.

But as you mentioned, there is also, of course, the looming threat of a broader escalation of this conflict, particularly between Israel and Hezbollah in the north. Israeli officials ahead of the secretary of state's arrival have been indicating that the situation there is untenable, where 80,000 Israeli civilians have been forced to leave their homes.

And the Israeli government indicating that one way or another, it will restore peace and security in that part of Israel, whether that is through diplomatic or military means and indicating that the diplomatic window is rapidly closing.

That is obviously not something that the United States wants to hear. They have been working throughout the last week, in particular, since the killing of that top Hamas official in the suburbs of Beirut to try and tamp down those tensions, to try and prevent a broader regional escalation.

That's also why the secretary of state has been meeting with other leaders in the region. And so he will be looking for ways to try and see if there is a way to reduce those tensions with Hezbollah and prevent a broader regional escalation.

Interestingly, what we've also heard from the secretary of state is talking about once again Israel's integration in the region. That was, of course, the focus of American diplomacy in the region before October 7th, seeing if a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia might be possible.

And yesterday, as the secretary of state was in Saudi Arabia meeting with the crown prince, he emerged from that saying that he believes that there are real opportunities to strengthen ties with Arab nations and that the crown prince himself indicated that Saudi Arabia still has a clear interest in normalizing relations with Israel.

But there are major conditions attached to that, including the end of the Israel's military campaign in Gaza and also concrete steps to establishing a Palestinian state. So what's really interesting here is there are a number of very short term objectives, but also longer term objectives. And talks about really longer term regional security at the forefront of the agenda for the secretary of state as he holds these crucial meetings today in Tel Aviv.

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FOSTER: OK. Jeremy, thank you so much for that update.

And as Jeremy was saying, the continued violence may complicate Antony Blinken's efforts. Israel's foreign minister says the country is responsible for the death of a senior Hezbollah commander on Monday. A Lebanese security source says the commander was killed by an Israeli drone strike on his car in southern Lebanon.

In response, Hezbollah drones attacked an IDF military base in northern Israel. The Israeli military says there were no injuries there.

Nada Bashir is in Beirut with the very latest on this story, because the question is, what happens next, I guess?

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Absolutely, Max. And there is concern, as Jeremy just mentioned, that this could trigger further escalations. We've certainly have seen those tensions ramping up over the last few days and weeks. And what we're beginning to see really on the Lebanese border is a broadening out of this conflict.

This strike carried out by Hezbollah this morning on a northern military base in northern Israel is perhaps the deepest strike carried out by Hezbollah since October 8th. They are growing more strategic with their targets, and we saw over the weekend 62 rockets fired towards northern Israel, targeting a key Israeli military observation post.

And we've heard those repeated warnings now from Hezbollah, including Secretary General Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah, that any action by the Israeli military on Lebanese territory will not go unpunished. The response from Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group in Lebanon, will be limitless.

Now, of course, we have continued to see that exchange of fire, and this has been escalating, as you mentioned just yesterday. We saw Wissam al-Tawil, a senior Hezbollah commander, killed in southern Lebanon by an Israeli drone strike, according to a Lebanese security source that was later confirmed by the Israeli foreign ministry.

That has certainly ramped up tensions on what he is the most senior Hezbollah leader to have been killed, or commander, rather, to have been killed since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. And, of course, this comes just a week after a senior Hamas leader, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in the southern suburbs of Beirut by an apparent Israeli drone strike.

Though important to note that Israel has neither claimed responsibility nor denied responsibility for that strike, but a U.S. official has told CNN that Israel was indeed behind the strike according to a U.S. assessment. So, of course, mounting concern. We are seeing Israel in turn carrying out strikes in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli officials on the military side and political front have been clear. They want to push Hezbollah back away from the border area. And officials in Israel have described what they're seeking to be a new security reality on the border. But, of course, that will not be received well by Hezbollah.

It is a somewhat different story, of course, when it comes to the Lebanese government. They have been clear that while they have condemned Israel for what they say to be pulling -- seeking to pull Lebanon into a new phase of confrontation, they do not want to see a war on their southern border. They do not want to see a war with Israel.

And we have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity. As Jeremy mentioned, we saw the E.U.'s Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell in Beirut just over the weekend. He met with Hezbollah officials there, and we are now seeing Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveling around the Middle East, meeting with officials, but also, of course, in Israel.

Crucially, Secretary Blinken has been clear, the U.S. does not believe a war would be in the interest of either Hezbollah or in the interest of Israel, but we are hearing warning signs from Israeli officials as well. They have been clear that they will continue to respond to any military threats they deem necessary along the Lebanese border.

And, in fact, we have heard now from Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, saying that while Israel is not necessarily seeking a war with Hezbollah. If deemed necessary, in his words, they will copy and paste their military actions in Gaza, in Beirut. Now that would, of course, certainly raise alarm bells.

Those diplomatic efforts to try to defuse the situation, still, of course, ongoing. Max?

FOSTER: OK. Nada in Beirut, thank you.

New details emerging following that horrific incident on Friday when a section of an Alaska Airlines jet blew out shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. Federal officials are now examining the detached piece of the Boeing 737 Max 9 to find out why the plane suffered an explosive decompression.

Meanwhile, technicians at both Alaska Airlines and United say they have found loose hardware on some of their Boeing aircraft. CNN's Pete Muntean joins us live from Washington. When we talk about hardware, we're talking about bolts, aren't we, effectively holding it together?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the bolts that keep this door in place. It is called a door plug, and that's where this investigation is focusing. That's a door on the Boeing 737 Max 9, only visible from the outside. Normal window, wall, and seats inside at Road 26.

Alaska Airlines has been prepping its planes to see if they comply with checks ordered by the FAA. And Alaska now says its mechanics have found hardware that was loose.

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The other airline that operates these planes is United Airlines and United announced yesterday that it found loose door plug bolts on some of its Max 9s. Now this is huge. These two announcements combined are a significant data point for investigators. The bolts are critical to the design of the Max 9 door plug.

Four bolts, 12 stops, and without the bolts, the door can wiggle free from its stops. Now the NTSB has recovered the door in question. They've now inspected it. They can tell that the door shot off and up like a rocket. But investigators say they're now looking for the bolts that would have hold this door in place. Listen.

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CLINT CROOKSHANKS, AEROSPACE ENGINEER, NTSB: The exam to date has shown that the door, in fact, did translate upward. All 12 stops became disengaged, allowing it to blow out of the fuselage. We'd have not yet recovered the four bolts that restrain it from its vertical movement, and we have not yet determined if they existed there. That will be determined when we take the plug to our lab in Washington, D.C.

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MUNTEAN: Now Max 9s are still grounded here in the United States. Overnight, Indonesia also grounded its Max 9s. There are 215 Boeing 737 Max 9s in service globally. Two thirds here in the U.S. Obviously, a huge hit for Boeing. And today, the company is holding a company- wide safety meeting hosted from its 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington. Max?

FOSTER: OK. Pete Muntean, thank you.

The U.S. citizen has been arrested in Russia on drug charges. A Moscow court says Robert Woodland will be kept in custody for two months. The U.S. has repeatedly warned the citizens to leave Russia, citing the risk of wrongful detention. According to a pro-Kremlin tabloid, Woodland is a U.S. citizen of Russian origin who was adopted by scientists from the U.S. and later returned to Russia.

France has a new Prime Minister. The country's current Education Minister, Gabriel Attal, has been tapped for the job. There he is, the 34-year-old, who will be the youngest person in modern French history to serve as PM, and the first openly gay man in the role as well. He replaces Elisabeth Borne, who resigned from her post on Monday after a rocky 20-month tenure. CNN's Senior International Correspondent, Melissa Bell, live in Paris. Obviously a minister that you know, but the wider world is looking at him thinking he looks very young but he's very qualified, of course.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's definitely very young, Max. But even here in France, he was completely unknown until 2017 when he first won his seat in Parliament, and his rise has been fairly meteoric since. He was named as a spokesman for the government, then as a minister for public works and public administration, and now, of -- and then education minister, which is what he was until this nomination.

Now, it had been widely anticipated that there would be a cabinet reshuffle, as you mentioned, Elisabeth Borne arrives at the end of a very tumultuous 20-month long tenure in the post as Prime Minister. There were, of course, those -- the trouble of pension reform, those many months of dustbins not being collected from the streets, of riots down the streets of Paris.

There were the riots over the killing of a young man of Algerian descent by the police. It's been a tricky time and yet she seemed to be a survivor. All of this she survived, including, by the way, also the loss of the government's majority in Parliament. Still, Emmanuel Macron had continued to back her, which seems to have been the difficulty too far was the immigration law introduced at the end of this year, of last year that has seen tremendous trouble.

It's still not through. It saw one minister resign from Emmanuel Macron's own side, and there had been rumors that her time may have come. That reshuffle had been widely tipped. The question of Gabriel Attal as a replacement had been something that there had been a lot of speculation around.

It is said that in the French press, Max, that there had been resistance from other of the heavy hitters within Emmanuel Macron's government, many of his ministers to that nomination. He's very young. He's seen as a staunch Macronist. There's a lot of opposition to his name also amongst the opposition benches.

Still, he -- that position of powers, they call it here in France, the actual handing over the post will happen within the next half hour at Matignon, where the Prime Minister traditionally works. And Gabriel Attal takes over. He will then be heading to the north of France for his first move away from Paris, his first trip to the field.

And then we expect that he will announce the rest of his cabinet as Emmanuel Macron looks ahead these next few months to European elections that are expected to be quite difficult for his side and then of course beyond to the end of his term.

But yes, big news in so far as Gabriel Attal is the youngest in the fifth Republic that is since 1958 and also the first, as you said, openly gay minister. Very fresh faced young man to come into a post that has seen such difficulty these last few months. Max?

[08:15:02] FOSTER: Of course. Melissa, thank you so much.

Pope Francis is calling for a universal ban on surrogacy, calling the practice deplorable. At the Vatican on Monday, the pontiff described surrogate motherhood as a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and of the child.

The Catholic Church has long opposed surrogacy and in vitro fertilization in part because some embryos are disposed of, but surrogacy has enabled many couples who weren't able to conceive on their own to become parents.

CNN's Vatican Correspondent, Christopher Lamb, live for us in London. Hi, Christopher. Just explain the thinking that goes into decisions like this, because there are many people, as I say, who have really benefited from surrogacy.

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Max. Yes, this is a very strong remarks from Pope Francis, particularly his call for a ban on surrogacy. But as you said, it is in line with the Catholic Church's teaching on the topic.

And also Pope Francis has in the past spoken against surrogacy and raised ethical concerns. It seems that his main problem with surrogacy is that it can exploit poorer women who may feel they have to go down this path for financial reasons. And he has, you know, been very clear that the church should stand against this practice.

And now he made his speech within a longer speech to ambassadors in the Vatican. And he was linking the need for peace, the path to peace, with the need to protect all human life. Now it's also interesting that his remarks on this topic come very soon after he authorized the blessings of same sex couples and a Vatican declaration that said that the children of same sex couples, including those who are from surrogacy, can receive baptism, can become members of the church.

So I think what we see with Francis is a pope who, on the one hand, is very open, wants the church to be merciful, compassionate, and pastoral, but he will, and often in very vivid terms, and in strong terms, defend Catholic teaching on beginning of life matters such as abortion and surrogacy. So it's a balancing act for Francis, but he has often received opposition for his open and pastoral stances on things.

He's welcome, but he is also willing to show that he upholds Catholic teaching.

FOSTER: OK. Christopher Lamb, thank you so much for that.

LAMB: Thanks.

FOSTER: Still to come, one of the most significant arguments in the special prosecutor's case against Donald Trump comes before an appeals court today. We'll have the details when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) FOSTER: Former U.S. President Donald Trump preparing to head to Washington, D.C. court today. He is planning to attend an appeals court hearing next hour over his claim that he should be immune to prosecution for any crimes committed whilst he was president.

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CNN's Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz is at the courthouse in D.C. and we await Trump to arrive any moment now, Katelyn. But, I mean, what a huge topic for this court to consider.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Really, Max. His lawyers are already assembling and the courtroom is filling up. This is a very crucial hearing, not just for Donald Trump and whether his case is going to go forward, whether he will sit for trial in March as scheduled, but also for the Constitution and the presidency.

There is a question being asked today the three judges on the Court of Appeals here at the D.C. Circuit. So that's the federal appeals court that is overseeing D.C. And the trial courts here below the Supreme Court. This court is going to be asking questions about presidential immunity.

Is there a bubble that protects the U.S. president whenever he's in office and around the presidency generally to make it so it's very difficult or even impossible to bring criminal charges or to have a person who is a former president sit for trial? So it really is a crucial day.

We're not going to be getting an opinion today. We're just going to be hearing questions from these judges and the answers from both the Justice Department and from Donald Trump's team. The judges on this panel today are going to be really fascinating to listen to.

There are two female judges appointed by Joe Biden, current President Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, both very experienced experience, had served as appeals court judges on courts before coming to this particular court.

And then Karen Henderson, who has been in this court for a very long time, she's a George H.W. Bush appointee. And she asks a lot of questions at arguments like this, and in past cases about the executive branch, about the American presidency and the type of protections around it that there should be.

And so we are watching to see how they're going to lean based on the questions that they're asking, but it is a really crucial day. Donald Trump is not going to be asking -- it's not going to be answering any questions himself. It's just going to be his lawyers speaking, but he -- we do expect him to be here in person. Max?

FOSTER: Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much. We'll be watching closely.

Stick with CNN for special live coverage of the appeals court hearing beginning in about 40 minutes from now. Coming up, though, it's official and the numbers are alarming. 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history and not just by a little either.

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FOSTER: A new report is out confirming what we already knew. 2023 was the hottest year on record. Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service just released the details, showing an alarming leap in global temperatures, bringing the world dangerously close to a critical climate change threshold.

Journalist Simon Cullen looks at what we can expect in 2024.

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SIMON CULLEN, CNN JOURNALIST (voice-over): Record breaking wildfires in Canada, deadly floods across large parts of Africa and polar ice caps in long term decline.

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ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL: We are living through climate collapse in real time, and the impact is devastating.

CULLEN (voice-over): Even before the year was out, scientists had declared with certainty that 2023 would go down as the hottest recorded year in human history.

DR. SAM BURGESS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, COPERNICUS CLIMATE CHANGE SERVICE: The year has been quite extraordinary and myself and many climate scientists have really run out of adjectives to describe the sheer volume of records broken and how they've been broken.

CULLEN (voice-over): In November, the earth's average temperature briefly rose more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. A crucial threshold that scientists say could have irreversible consequences.

BURGESS: The evidence is very, very clear. The warmer our world is, the more likely we are to have extreme events, and those extreme events are likely to be more intense and more frequent.

CULLEN (voice-over): With the El Nino system warming water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, 2024 could be even hotter. Given the scale of the challenge, many countries were hoping that global climate talks in Dubai would deliver the bold action needed to limit further warming.

In the end, the agreement did put a sharper focus on the future of fossil fuels.

CULLEN: For the first time in the history of U.N.-led climate talks, the words fossil fuels appeared in the final text of an agreement, but it only referred to transitioning away, not phasing them out. SIMON EVANS, CARBON BRIEF: The tricky thing is that it's an agreement between basically nearly 200 countries by consensus. So there's always compromises at the end and that's what leads to disappointment. But I think it's nevertheless a significant moment.

CULLEN (voice-over): And some countries that claim to take the climate threat seriously are still looking to approve new fossil fuel projects.

BILL HARE, CEO, CLIMATE ANALYTICS: There's a lot of hypocrisy to share around. The U.K. has actually backtracked on its policies. Australia has begun to move forward with its policies to reduce emissions, not succeeding yet. So that's a concern, but it's also proposing and has supported very large expansion to gas export projects and to coal export projects.

CULLEN (voice-over): However, there are some glimmers of hope. Carbon Brief analysis shows that while China's coal infrastructure has grown, the country has invested so much in renewable energy over recent years that its emissions could actually begin to fall in the year ahead, marking a dramatic turnaround for the world's biggest polluter.

EVANS: There have been moments in the past where it's looked like China's emissions are coming to a peak. I think there's probably more confidence this time around that we really are seeing, you know, a structural shift in their economy.

CULLEN (voice-over): Analysts say that could be a game changer, not just for China's domestic emissions. It could also give the Chinese leadership extra incentive to push for even stronger global action.

Simon Cullen, CNN, London.

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FOSTER: Thanks for joining me here on CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. World Sport with Patrick is up next.

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