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Republican Candidate Nikki Haley Responds to Voters Questions at the CNN Town Hall; Israeli PM Dismisses U.S. Calls on Palestinian State; U.S. Justice Department Releases a Report on the Failures in the 2022 Uvalde School Mass shooting; Britons Concerned over the Health of Two Royal Family members; Philippines' Traditional Jeepneys to Phase Out Soon. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired January 19, 2024 - 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)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome to all you watching us here in the United States, Canada and all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

Nikki Haley's message to voters about Donald Trump ahead of the New Hampshire primary. No one is above the law.

The U.S. Department of Justice releases a scathing report on the police response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

And the Peregrine lunar lander fails to reach the moon. Why its developers decided it was best to send the spacecraft crashing back to earth.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: Just four days to go until New Hampshire's presidential primary, the second nominating contest of the 2024 race for the White House. Candidates and their teams are working to convince any undecided voters.

Nikki Haley made her case to New Hampshire voters at a CNN Town Hall Thursday night. She said her goal next week is to do better than she did in the Iowa caucuses where she placed third, she also slammed President Joe Biden's handling of the Houthis in Yemen. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That area of the Red Sea, that's a dramatic part of our global supply chain. And so now that they have started causing trouble there, you know, what we're seeing Biden do is now he's like, uh oh, we're going to go put the terrorist designation back on them. And now, even if you put the sanctions back on Iran, it's going to take a while to do that. And so our goal should always be how do you prevent war? That's the number one thing. How do you prevent war? And the best way you prevent war is to deter it in the first place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Haley was asked about Donald Trump's defense argument that being president gives him total immunity from prosecution. Here's her response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: Obviously, if a president is doing something and it's related to whether it's terrorist threats or something like that and people die, that's one thing. But do you get just total freedom to do whatever you want? No, that's never the way it was intended to be. There needs to be accountability. No one is above the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: CNN's Jeff Zeleny caught up with some New Hampshire voters to find out how they feel heading into Tuesday's primary.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NANCY PROTZMANN, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: I will do anything in my power to make sure that Trump does not become our next president.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Nancy Protzmann has long wanted to vote against Donald Trump, but after seeing Nikki Haley today, she said she finally found someone to vote for.

PROTZMANN: I liked what she said, and I don't want Biden either.

ZELENY (voice-over): Protzmann is a voter stuck in the middle, a critical piece of the New Hampshire electorate.

ZELENY: Have you voted in the past for Republicans and Democrats?

PROTZMANN: Yes. Yes, I have. I voted for both.

HALEY: Thanks for being here. So good to see you.

ZELENY (voice-over): To keep the Republican race alive, Haley is trying to stitch together a coalition of independents and moderates in New Hampshire, a state Trump lost in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

Danielle Brown has voted for candidates of both parties over the years. On Tuesday, she intends to back Haley to send a message to Republicans.

DANIELLE BROWN, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: They don't have to be fearful and just simply jump on the Trump bandwagon. He's a bully. But -- and some people feel that they have to go with him.

ZELENY (voice-over): Trump is trying to keep Republicans in line, hoping to blunt Haley's rise.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nikki Haley, in particular, is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary.

ZELENY (voice-over): His rallying cry is false. Democrats are not allowed to vote in the Republican primary. In New Hampshire, more than 343,000 voters are undeclared. Those voters make up nearly 40 percent of the electorate. More than registered Republicans or Democrats.

What Trump may not know is that Haley's rallies are filled with plenty of voters like Susan Rice, who once supported the former president.

SUSAN RICE, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: I will be upfront and honest with you. I supported Trump in 2016. I voted for him in 2020.

ZELENY (voice-over): Rice is exhausted by Trump and excited by Haley's potential to rebuild the Republican Party.

RICE: I don't necessarily worry about the court cases, but it's the baggage and honestly sometimes what comes out of his mouth.

BELINDA TOURANGEAU, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: Thank you for coming. Did you like what you heard?

Belinda Tourangeau is a lifelong Republican. She first saw Haley a year ago and has supported her ever since.

TOURANGEAU: I'm very glad I had someone else to choose from.

ZELENY: Meaning someone other than Donald Trump.

TOURANGEAU: Exactly. He was a good president for the time, but this is not the time. We need unification.

ZELENY (voice-over): Haley is targeting undeclared voters from the suburbs to the seacoast, where Trump underperformed other Republicans like Governor Chris Sununu.

[03:05:04]

MARY HOELL, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: I was going to vote for her to try to knock out Trump. I don't know if that's a good strategy or not, but I do like her. I do.

ZELENY (voice-over): Mary Hoell and her friend Colleen Smead don't always agree on politics, but they found common ground in Haley.

COLLEEN SMEAD, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: Isn't that what democracy is?

ZELENY (voice-over): Hoell said Trump's criticism against Haley could backfire in New Hampshire, which she believes may be one of the last places to slow his rush to the nomination. HOELL: I don't think she's trying to infiltrate. Of course she's

trying to get votes, but that's what she's supposed to be doing. And we have a ton of independence in this state.

ZELENY: And for the next four days before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, Haley is aggressively targeting those undeclared voters, as well as some Republicans eager to turn a page from Donald Trump. Of course, the former president also returning here to New Hampshire. The outcome of the primary on Tuesday could well determine not only the fate of Haley's candidacy, but how long this primary goes on.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Manchester, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: And Natasha Linstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex and she joins us now from Colchester, England. Thanks so much for being here with us. So I want to go back to Nikki Haley's Town Hall. Just broadly, what stood out to you?

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROF. OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Well, again, she emphasized that the U.S. is not a racist country. I think this is to placate the MAGA movement. I mean, she did admit that growing up as a daughter of Indian immigrants, she has experienced racism.

But I think she was trying to cater to Trump's base by saying these types of things. She also catered to Trump's base by saying that she could possibly pardon him, if that was necessary. And then she also explained why he's attacking her at the moment. She says that this is because he's insecure. I think she tried to highlight her strengths that she would be stronger on foreign policy, comparing herself here to Joe Biden.

Ultimately, she always does fine in these situations in either the debates or the town halls that we've seen thus far. And she is more truthful than Trump, but sometimes inaccurate and she's trying to make the case that she will attract a wider range of moderate and Democratic voters which Trump was trying to say this is a weakness and she says this is actually a strength and this is how you win. So she had a good performance and she needed to have a good performance going into the Primary on Tuesday.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah you touched on this in talking about race, I mean her response to what some have characterized as racist dog whistles from Donald Trump in promoting a post that falsely said that she wasn't eligible to be president because her parents weren't U.S. citizens, which isn't true, and calling her Nikki Nimrada Haley. She did in there defend herself, but without really going after Trump all that much, right?

LINDSTAEDT: Right, she's afraid to really go after him as most of these candidates in the Republican primaries have been because she's worried that if she does so that she's not gonna win. And it's a shame because this would be an opportunity to really call out all of Trump's racist comments, particularly against her personally. But she's banking everything in New Hampshire because she absolutely

has to win in New Hampshire. If she doesn't win in New Hampshire, she really isn't going to have much of a chance here. There's never been a Republican candidate that has lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and then went to go on to win the nomination. And everything is really going for her here. She has a state that has a lot of libertarian and independent voters, and the independents can vote in the primary.

There's a lot of well-educated and affluent voters in New Hampshire, and that tends to be or has been her base. It's not a particularly religious state, and she doesn't do very well with evangelical voters. She's got the support of Governor Chris Sununu. And she's had a very aggressive ground game in New Hampshire, going to over 50 events putting in over 26 million in advertising.

And I know she said, well, I just want to do well. I want to do better than I did in Iowa, but her campaign really will be dead if she doesn't win here.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, it begs the question that I mean, I just want to ask about by CNN's count. She mentioned President Biden about 20 times, Trump about a dozen. You know, we'd been asking in the wake of Iowa, whether Haley would have to sharpen her attacks on Trump going into New Hampshire, given that there's so much on the line for here. I mean, did you hear anything different now and will that certainly have to change as we sort of head into the next primaries?

LINDSTAEDT: She definitely has criticized him a little bit more recently than she has in the past. She's been incredibly careful to not criticize him and to highlight the fact that he had always lauded her and talked about her strengths when she was in his administration as U.N. ambassador.

[03:10:08]

But she's going to have to go after them a little bit more because there is some appetite for that. I think the issue is as she moves out of New Hampshire, she's going to South Carolina where she should win. She's from South Carolina and he has a 30-point lead there. And some of these other states that will follow with their primaries, they just have a very strong evangelical base.

Trump has support of 74 percent of evangelical voters according to a very recent ABC News-Ipsos poll. And she's lacking favorability amongst Republicans. According to this same poll, she only has a 49 percent favorability rating compared to Trump's at 72 percent. So this is polling all Republicans. That's a real problem for her.

So I could see her doing better in the general election when she has more moderate and Democrat voters supporting her. But I think the big problem is in this primaries, she's only gonna see states with more of the extreme voters coming out vote and they're likely to vote for Donald Trump.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, interesting and very different dynamics there in New Hampshire. We'll see what happens. Natasha Lindstaedt in Colchester, England. Thanks so much for speaking with us.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

BRUNHUBER: Donald Trump is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a ruling from Colorado's Supreme Court which removed him from the state's ballot. His legal team filed a brief on Thursday, sending out their arguments for why the state court's decision is wrong.

CNN's Paula Reed has details from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA REED, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The Trump legal team expanding its arguments about why Trump cannot be removed from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, the so-called insurrectionist ban. At a high level, the team is arguing that this would disenfranchise voters, potentially unleashing chaos and bedlam if other states and state officials follow this pattern.

Now, I will note that chaos and bedlam, those are words that Trump has used in the past that have in part incited violence. The Trump legal team's constitutional arguments are extensive. They argue that this particular section of the Constitution does not apply to presidents because it does not specifically say that it applies to presidents and that presidents are not officers of the United States.

Now, they also insist that Trump did not engage in an insurrection. That's interesting because it is highly unlikely that the high court is going to want to take up that question of whether what Trump did in and around January 6 was an insurrection. Instead, it is expected that they are going to focus on constitutional interpretation and providing clarity to the states.

Now, they also insist, the Trump legal team, that this section requires Congress to enforce it, not state officials. They also say that it only prevents you from holding office, not running for office. At this point, though, it's unclear exactly how the Supreme Court is going to approach this case. They have not laid out a set of questions they intend to answer, but it is expected that this will probably be a narrow ruling, that the Chief Justice will try to build consensus, especially at a time that the High Court is under such scrutiny for politicization.

Paula Reed, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Ahead, a new round of attacks on Houthi targets, we'll have details on the latest U.S. strikes and the militants' response.

Plus, Israeli Prime Minister's talks about a future Palestinian state and ends up at odds with Washington. That's coming up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: For the fifth time in a week, the U.S. has struck Houthi targets inside Yemen in hopes of stopping their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. U.S. Central Command says its forces destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles aimed at the critical waterway that were prepared to launch.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson says the ongoing strikes are, quote, taking away capability from the Iran-backed militants. A Houthi spokesperson said the group will not stop going after vessels they believe are a link to Israel. He called the attacks by the U.S. and U.K. a persistent act of aggression. The U.S. president admitted Thursday that the Houthis remain undeterred. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Gaza has been under a near total communications blackout for more than a week. It's happening as Israel presses ahead with its military offensive there. Most phone and data connections are down, which aid workers say make its job nearly impossible.

Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again pushed back on U.S. calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian state once the war with Hamas is over. A plan which Netanyahu has long opposed. And during a news conference Thursday, he argued Palestinian sovereignty would pose a serious risk to Israel's security. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Any agreement, with or without agreement, the state of Israel must control security between the Jordan River to the sea. And the clashes of the sovereignty idea, I'm telling our American friends, I stopped at a reality which would have hurt the security of Israel. The Prime Minister of Israel should have the ability to say no, even to our greatest friends, when he has to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: While the U.S. State Department is arguing the exact opposite, saying a Palestinian state is a must for Israel's long-term security. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEW MILLER, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: There is no way to solve their long-term challenges, to provide lasting security, and there is no way to solve the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza and establishing governance in Gaza and providing security for Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Scott McLean is monitoring those developments and he joins us now from Istanbul. So Scott, even though Netanyahu's comments are consistent with what he said before, they're still causing quite a stir given the context and the timing here.

[03:19:59]

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and we've just heard from the Palestinian Authority yesterday saying that essentially there is not going to be peace in the region without a Palestinian state. And the P.A. is also blaming the Americans for the deteriorating security situation, saying that it's their, quote, "blind support for Israeli occupation that has led us to this place."

Netanyahu's position is directly at odds with the American position, as you know, President Biden, the American officials, they are increasingly frustrated that Israel is very happy to take America's support, but less willing lately to take its advice.

Netanyahu, though, is also under his own unique set of pressures, and some of them stem from the fact that his governing coalition is made up with far-right hardliners, many of whom never wanted or supported a two-state solution in the first place.

One former Israeli diplomat to the United States, said that look, Netanyahu's comments are catering to a domestic audience, to his core supporters at home. Obviously, President Biden has some options as to how he could respond.

He could call Netanyahu out, he could put conditions on American aid to Israel, but so far it seems like American officials are more content just to brush this off and to say that look, Netanyahu has made these kind of comments in the past and he's walked them back to a more neutral position later on and so they don't expect that this is going to be the final word on this issue.

We also heard yesterday from the chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ben Cardin, who had a closed-door meeting with the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and he said that, look, he is well aware, he does not deny that there are serious challenges when it comes to the prime minister's position on this, but he thinks that when the dust settles, when the war is over, that there will be more of a clear path to get some kind of a peace.

And Kim, I should also mention that Netanyahu, when he made those comments, was responding to a question about NBC News reporting that Israel had rejected a Saudi deal that would have normalized relations in exchange for a path to the Palestinian state. And yesterday, the Saudi ambassador to the United States spoke with my colleague, Becky Anderson, and said this about achieving peace in the region. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCESS REEMA BINT BANDAR AL-SAUD, SAUDI ARABIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: Peace means we have, as I said, the Kingdom's policy. It's a finite, irrevocable path that is today for the Palestinian people. That is how we get security. We carry peace, we carry prosperity, we carry safety, and we deliver it through the Palestinian statehood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: A very different message came coming from then you know who yesterday he said that he will not stop until there's complete victory in Gaza that includes Israeli control over Gaza and over what goes in and what comes out.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks so much, Scott McLean in Istanbul. I appreciate it.

Officials say there are six Israeli-Americans still believed to be hostages of Hamas. The family members of those hostages met with several of President Biden's top advisers at the White House on Thursday. It's been more than 100 days since their loved ones were taken captive, and the families worry for them grows by the day.

CNN's Brian Todd reports from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For more than 100 days, they faced the crushing anxiety of not knowing their loved one's fate at the hands of Hamas. Now, the families of American hostages held in Gaza have come to Washington to press for answers, meeting with President Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House.

JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN, FATHER OF AMERICAN HOSTAGE SAGUI DEKEL-CHEN: We're painfully aware that every hour, every day that passes, all the hostages are in increasing danger.

TODD (voice-over): We asked Jonathan Dekel-Chen and Gillian Kay, the parents of 35-year-old American hostage Segui Dekel-Chen. A father of three, including a five-week-old daughter he's never seen, if they'd heard anything about his current condition. They said the last they had heard about six weeks ago was that he was alive.

DEKEL-CHEN: Of course, that was six weeks ago. And in the hellhole that's the Hamas tunnels, with the neglect, the lack of nutrition, medicine, air, it's impossible to know what their condition is. And of course, an ongoing war above their heads.

TODD (voice-over): More than a hundred hostages were released during a seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas late last year. Now the White House is saying there's no new progress to announce, only that there are serious discussions ongoing about trying to get the six Americans released.

One positive sign? This week a deal between Hamas and Israel to deliver medication for hostages in Gaza, in return for humanitarian aid to also be supplied to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. But for family members, that is painfully little progress.

[03:25:02]

JON POLIN, SON HELD BY HAMAS: It's clear we are failing. The hostages are running out of time.

TODD (voice-over): One hostage still believed held in captivity is a toddler, Kfir Bibas, who turned one year old on Thursday. His family marked his birthday with a bittersweet gathering.

YOSHI SHNAIDER, RELATIVE OF ONE-YEAR-OLD HOSTAGE KFIR BIBAS: He's not to be able to start walking, to start crawling, to do things that he's supposed to do as a kid.

TODD (voice-over): It's not clear if Kfir Bibas is still alive. The Israeli military said in November it was assessing a claim made without evidence by Hamas's military wing that the child was killed in an Israeli airstrike. As protests continue in Israel demanding Israel secure their release, analyst Peter Bergen says right now negotiations for hostages would be at an especially hard stage.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Hamas understands that the hostages they have continue to hold are, you know, quote, unquote, "higher value than perhaps the previous set of hostages," in particular, military-age males, in particular, I think, actually, unfortunately, American citizens or dual nationals, they're going to drive a very hard bargain for.

TODD: Following the hostage releases and one rescue, the latest information from the Israeli Prime Minister's office is that it believes 132 hostages remain in Gaza. Of those, it says, 105 are alive and 27 are dead.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

After the break, the latest on the new damning report on the Uvalde, Texas school shooting and the law enforcement response.

And an outpouring of concern over the Princess of Wales health. We'll have the latest since her surgery just ahead. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

[03:30:00]

A scathing new report from the Justice Department calls law enforcement's response to the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, Texas quote, "a failure." The Uvalde County Sheriff tells CNN the criticism leveled against him is, in his words, all false.

We have more now from CNN senior crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SR. CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The Justice Department releasing a damning new report about law enforcement's failures responding to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The law enforcement response at Robb Elementary School on May 24th, 2022 and in the hours and days after was a failure that should not have happened.

KIMBERLY MATA-RUBIO, MOTHER OF UVALDE VICTIM: I hope that the failures end today and the local officials. Do what wasn't done that day. Do right by the victims and survivors of Robb Elementary.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Bursts of gunfire --

GARLAND: The victims trapped in classroom 111 and 112 were waiting to be rescued at 11:44 A.M., approximately 10 minutes after officers first arrived, when the subject fired another shot inside the classrooms.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): -- reports a teacher was shot.

GARLAND: There was still waiting at 11:56 A.M. when an officer on the scene told law enforcement leaders that his wife, a teacher, was inside room 111 and 112 and had been shot.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): A desperate 911 call from a trapped student.

GARLAND: The student was in a room full of victims. That student stayed on the phone with 911 for 16 minutes.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Major events that should have prompted police to step in immediately. Instead, police waited 77 minutes to stop the gunman.

GARLAND: 49 minutes after officers arrived on the scene. And they were still waiting for another 27 minutes after that until finally officers entered the classroom and killed the subject.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): During those 77 minutes, 19 children and two teachers were killed. The long-awaited 575-page report is the fullest accounting of what happened, highlighting the serious failures in the law enforcement response.

JOSHUA KOSKOFF, LAWYER, KOSKOFF, KOSKOFF, AND BIEDER: These families didn't need a 400 or 500-page government report to learn that law enforcement failed them in a historic way.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): While quick to arrive to the scene, their report found law enforcement stopped outside the classroom where the gunman was on a killing spree inside.

GARLAND: I think, the report concludes that had the law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Countless other issues identified in the report after the gunman was killed, from the emergency medical response to how bereaved parents were told their children were dead.

GARLAND: Some families were told that their family members had survived when they had not.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Many family members of the victims and survivors thankful for the federal report detailing what went wrong that horrific day. But they are still frustrated by the lack of accountability.

VERONICA MATA, MOTHER OF UVALDE VICTIM: We're grateful that we got what we have right now because it's probably the most updated information that any of us have gotten.

JAZMIN CAZARES, SISTER OF UVALDE VICTIM: What else does she possibly need to prosecute or to remove these people from their positions of power when they can't even do their jobs?

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): The federal assessment does not make any recommendations for punitive steps for law enforcement. But in an exclusive interview with CNN, Attorney General Merrick Garland says the report provides a basis for accountability.

GARLAND: The community now has kind of report necessary to make sure accountability occurs.

PROKUPECZ (voice-over): The Uvalde District Attorney says she's continuing to investigate, but families say they want charges brought against the officers.

MATA: We're going to continue fighting that some type of change is made in honor of our kids.

PROKUPECZ: The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, released a statement thanking the Department of Justice for their report. He said that he's already taken some of their recommendations and put them in place. And he says that the most important thing that he's done is try to keep schools safe.

We also heard from other officials like from the Texas Department of Public Safety. They too have thanked the Department of Justice for their report. And they say also that they have already implemented some of their recommendations.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, in Uvalde

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: A string of winter storms left a deadly trail across the U.S. At least 55 people have been killed in 10 states.

[03:35:04]

Oregon has been one of the hardest hit states. Back-to-back ice storms knocked down trees and power lines, and now a third storm is impacting the area. Right now, more than 100 million people, nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population, are under winter weather alerts. Freezing rain, snow, and ice have made travel very treacherous in parts of Arkansas and Mississippi.

Now have a look here, this is what happened when a town's water tower overflowed. Now parts of western New York State are measuring the snow in feet and in New York City the National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today.

Lawmakers in Washington have avoided a partial government shutdown by passing a short-term funding extension. Now both the U.S. and Senate overwhelmingly approved the so-called stop gap measure, which will give them more time to negotiate full-year appropriations bills. The first of two deadlines was today. The new funding deadlines are March 1st and 8th. And the stop gap bill is now headed to President Biden's desk for his signature.

In Britain, Queen Camilla says King Charles is fine as he awaits treatment for an enlarged prostate next week and there's plenty of questions and concerns as the Princess of Wales recovers in hospital from abdominal surgery. CNN's Max Foster has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Loved and admired, a royal health scare has caught the nation by surprise when on Wednesday Kensington Palace shared that Catherine, the Princess of Wales, needed medical treatment. It's circulated questions about the condition of one of the most senior royals health, who aside from having morning sickness during a pregnancy, has never had any known health problems while she's been a royal.

Now she's forced to stay out of the public eye for up to three months, until doctors give her the all clear. Last seen over Christmas with her family at Sandringham, the Princess of Wales lives an active lifestyle by having a regular royal schedule of engagements, some 120 last year, and by being a hands-on mum, looking after her three children.

She still finds time to enjoy the outdoors and keeping up her favorite hobbies like skiing and working out, all to keep the princess fit and healthy.

Her relatability to the public has made her a role model amongst adoring fans, who might try to catch a glimpse of her at Wimbledon, where she's regularly seen every summer watching the games. A patron of the all-England lawn tennis club, the Princess' interest in the sport extends beyond the annual championships. Known to enjoy cooking for the Prince of Wales and her children,

Catherine has even been spotted stocking up at a British supermarket, showing that she doesn't like to rely on staff for shopping, and trying to maintain a normal lifestyle.

But now all the appearances slow down as Catherine recovers and with Prince William juggling childcare at home. The couple have canceled all travel plans for the foreseeable future. With King Charles and two other senior royals taking a backseat, heads turn to Queen Camilla and other members of the family to step up as the public faces of the royal household. To reassure Britons that all is fine and that it's business as usual.

Max Foster, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: After a failed attempt at a moon landing, a US lunar lander burns up as it returns to Earth. Find out what's next in the US mission to reach the moon. And that's coming up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: The Peregrine lunar lander has likely burned up over a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean after a failed mission to land on the moon.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

It launched just over a week ago from Cape Canaveral, Florida, but hours after liftoff it developed a fuel leak. It's the first U.S. spacecraft to attempt a lunar landing in decades. It's been a setback for NASA and astrobotic technology whose goal was to eventually transport a crew to the moon.

Astrobotic posted the last images captured by Peregrine showing a stunning view of Earth with a sliver of sunlight around it. A number of countries have attempted to land on the moon since 2000 with mixed success as you can see there.

Joining us now is Sian Cleaver, Orion European Service Module Industrial Manager for Airbus Defense and Space. And her company helped to design and manufacture the legs for the lander. Thanks so much for joining us here. So it never got to use those legs in the end. Take us through what we know about what went wrong.

SIAN CLEAVER,INDUSTRIAL MANAGER, AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE: Yeah, thanks, Kim. And yeah, it was a bit of a disappointment that we didn't get to see whether our landing system was pretty functional as we expect it to be. But nevertheless, we will fly again on the next astrobotics mission, which is coming later this year, with the same landing system. So at the moment, it's still not 100 percent clear what went wrong on the Peregrine mission, although the engineers seem to think that it was a valve that leaked and caused an over pressurization of the tanks which ultimately led to the mission having to be changed in some way, let's say they, I mean, they weren't able to land on the moon, but I understand that a number of their scientific instruments on board were able to collect data. So there were some small successes from this mission.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. Nevertheless, it would have been, you know, the first American mission in some 50 years to land on the moon, a huge disappointment for, especially younger generations who've never seen an American moon landing of any kind in their lifetimes.

CLEAVER: Yeah, absolutely. But don't forget, there's so much going on in the world of lunar exploration at the moment. I mean, this year alone, there's a number of these smaller private missions going to the moon under the umbrella of the Artemis program. And then of course, in the coming years, we'll also see those crewed missions to the moon. So we will see in our lifetimes, astronauts walking on the moon again. So things are getting really exciting at the moment. We're just at the beginning of something.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, you mentioned private. I mean, this would have been the first ever private company to reach the moon. So far, all of these successful efforts have been undertaken by nations. So what does this mean for the future of private commercial space exploration, do you think?

CLEAVER: I think it's still promising. This is something new that we're doing. The last time we went to the moon, it was very much, as you say, nations on their own. But I think we've all recognized now that going to the moon, lunar exploration, going into space in general is huge and it takes more than just institutions to do that. We need to collaborate. We need to collaborate between industry, private and public industries to make this possible.

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So yes, this mission didn't quite go to plan, but there are many more coming. The field is growing and we will just see more and more in the coming years. And I do genuinely think it's an exciting time as there's a lot to come.

BRUNHUBER: A lot to come. I mean, we've seen what a few months ago, of course, we saw the Indian lunar lander Chandrayaan 3 land on the moon, but a spacecraft from Russia and one from a Japanese company also crashed this year. I mean, and we put on a list before you came on of some of those unsuccessful missions there. Does all of that raise the questions? Do you think about the U.S. aims to put actual humans back on the moon this decade?

CLEAVER: Absolutely not. I mean, we know that space exploration is difficult. It's a really challenging environment. And if you talk about going to the moon, especially landing on the moon, I mean, the moon's gravity is about a sixth of what we have here on earth. It's a harsh environment. It's difficult to land. It's a little bit different to Mars where we can use parachutes to slow our spacecraft down. We have to rely on engines when we're landing on the moon.

So it's difficult. It's not easy. And yes, you're right. I think the statistics are just over 50 percent of the missions that have gone to the moon have been successful. But don't forget of those six attempted crewed missions to the moon, all of those were successful. And I guess it's a little bit different in that respect.

I mean, we're talking here about an uncrewed mission. It was a spacecraft that went to the moon with scientific instruments on board. And it's a little bit different when you're designing and building those. Yes, you have redundancy in your systems, but you don't have quite the level of redundancy that you do have when you're sending a crewed mission, for example, like the Orion spacecraft to the moon. There we have really, really stringent requirements and that's why these things take so long. Safety is our number one priority.

BRUNHUBER: Finally, going back to the Peregrine Mission, I mean, they knew sort of hours into it right away, basically that they had a problem, yet they were able to still sort of help to, they kind of jury rigged some solutions and were able to do a few things. Do you think that experience will have taught us anything? Do you think we learned something from the ability to sort of read and react, to adapt in real time like that?

CLEAVER: Oh, absolutely. I think it's a real testament to the ingenuity of the engineers and the scientists who were involved in that mission that they managed to sort of salvage it as best they could. They managed to redirect it towards Earth and safely dispose of it in the Earth's atmosphere. I think that's pretty impressive.

And then of course, like any of these missions, there will be an extensive review phase, looking into all the data, trying to work out exactly what went wrong. And then of course, corrective measures. This is always, this is standard practice in the space industry.

We do a thorough lessons learned campaign after or during and after every single mission. And no doubt there'll be a number of changes made, particularly to their next lunar lander, which is due by the end of the year. There'll be significant changes there to make sure that this problem never happens again.

BRUNHUBER: Well, we'll be looking forward to that. I appreciate your time, Sian Cleaver in Germany. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

CLEAVER: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: And Japan could be hours away from making its mark on the moon. Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM spacecraft, is expected to touch down on the moon's surface just over six hours from now. The mission of the moon snipers, it's also known, is to help scientists uncover the origins of the moon. If successful, SLIM will mark Japan's first time putting a robotic explorer on the moon's surface, making it the third country to achieve such a feat in the 21st century. Alright, still to come. Could the reign of the Philippines' King of

the Roads come to an end? We'll have that story after the break. Please stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: What was once a staple on Philippines roadways is soon to be a treasure of the past. The iconic jeepneys have navigated the streets since the 1940s. Now the government wants to park them for good. Kristie Lu Stout reports on why some Filipinos are upset over the phase out.

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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jeepneys, an unofficial national symbol of the Philippines, are known for their loud, honking and even louder designs. The vehicles are a staple of the country's transport system, converted from abandoned U.S. jeeps after World War II when bombs destroyed cable cars in the Philippine capital of Manila, many having made jeepney driving their livelihood, and roughly 40 percent of commuters using them to get around.

But almost 80 years after the birth of this now iconic ornament of Filipino life, the government plans to phase out the vehicles that it says are worn out and highly polluting.

RESTITUTO ROCAFORT, JEEPNEY DRIVER (through translator): If the Jeepney phase out is implemented, many will starve. Not only my family, but a lot will starve if the phase out program pushes through on January 31st. That's why we're fighting. Until now, we're fighting, hoping that our government listens to us.

LU STOUT (voice-over): Hundreds of protesters and a convoy of over 150 jeepneys drove through Manila on Tuesday, protesting the phase-out plan, which aims to replace the vehicles with modern mini-busses. The phase-out has continually been put on hold since its original launch in 2017 due to protests and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, drivers must join cooperatives that will have two to three years to replace their jeepney fleet with the more modern version, a pricey reality that, although the government plans to subsidize and allow bank financing, many drivers say will drive them deep into debt.

ROCAFORT (through translator): Replacing my jeep with a modernized one is very expensive. I would be in a huge debt. I already have my own jeepney that's almost paid off. I've almost paid off my debt and now I would be in a huge debt again.

LU STOUT (voice-over): Under the new cooperatives, drivers used to working as long and often as they'd like will have to work on a fixed schedule. Some drivers, like Rocafort, say they will need to meet contribution requirements of more than 10 times what they make now, and older workers fear that because of their age, they'll be forced out of the driver's seat.

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ARTEMIO CINCO, JEEPNEY DRIVER (through translator): Honestly, I sometimes cannot sleep because I keep thinking about the nearing deadline. It's only a few days from now. I would always think about it at home. I would cry sometimes. I would hide inside my room so my children wouldn't see me crying. Because I know they would cry too if they saw me tearing up.

LU STOUT (voice-over): Filipino jeepney drivers had until the end of 2023 to join a cooperative and more than three quarters have, according to official data. Those who missed that deadline can continue operating until the end of January, and then, it's cooperate or pump the brakes.

Kristie Lu Stout, CNN.

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BRUNHUBER: All right, before we go, what's considered to be one of the finest private collections of memorabilia of Winston Churchill is up for sale at the annual Winter Show in New York. So starting today, a rare bookshop in London is showcasing the collection, which belongs to "Forbes" magazine chairman Steve Forbes.

It features a painting commissioned by Clementine, the late British Prime Minister's wife, during World War II, a desk from his home and 25 rare books he inscribed. The Peter Harrington shop says the item will be on display until January 28th and proceeds will go to the community-based organization Eastside House.

All right, I'm Kim Brunhuber. "CNN Newsroom" continues with Bianca Nobilo in London, right after this break.

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