Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Gaza Health Ministry: Shelling Kills 20 Waiting for Food; Top U.S. Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer Calls for Israeli Elections; Voting Underway as Putin Expected to Secure Fifth Term; Michigan School Shooter's Father Guilty of Manslaughter. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 15, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just happy Russia has accepted us, says this woman in Donetsk. And I love everyone who votes for Putin, she says.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Starship flew further and faster than it did during any of its previous two flight tests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo. Max has the day off today. It's Friday, March 15th, 8 a.m. here in London, 10 a.m. in Gaza, where the Palestinian Health Ministry again accused Israel of targeting civilians who were waiting for food aid.

At least 20 people are reported killed and more than 150 others wounded. Hospitals are struggling to deal with the volume and types of injuries coming through their doors. Witnesses say the distribution site for aid was hit by what sounded like tank or artillery fire.

Israel's military calls reports about the attack false and says it's assessing the situation. The incident happened in Gaza City in the northern part of the territory, where the humanitarian crisis is particularly severe due to Israel's chokehold on food and supplies.

The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate is criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and calling for new elections. Chuck Schumer says many Israelis have lost confidence in the vision and direction of the government and new elections are the only way to allow for healthy and open decisions about the country's future.

Schumer says Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way, allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of his country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHUMER: As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. The world has changed radically since then and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that has stuck in the past.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Mr. Netanyahu, as the Likud party responded: Israel is not a banana republic but an independent and proud democracy that elected Prime Minister Netanyahu. Contrary to Schumer's words, the Israeli public supports a total victory over Hamas and opposes the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

So let's bring in CNN's Scott McLean who is live this hour for us in Istanbul, Turkey. Scott, great to see you. What more are you learning about the attack on those who are waiting for food aid within Gaza?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this was a roundabout area in northern Gaza, a place where aid delivery trucks, the ones that are getting in, usually stop to unload what they have.

And obviously, given the circumstances in Gaza right now and the widespread hunger, in some cases famine, it attracts a crowd. And so there are typically queues of people there and that it seems is what we had there at this time when these potentially, at least according to witnesses who heard them, tank or artillery fire shells landed in that area killing scores of people. The latest numbers, 20 killed, more than 150 injured, but those numbers are expected to rise.

And we have some shots from inside of the hospital. And before we show them, I should warn you that they're pretty hard to look at. Shows a pretty chaotic situation, people being treated, bloody people being treated on the floor.

Frankly, the video that we have in from the scene is much, much more gruesome showing what looks to be bodies or severely injured people on the ground covered in blood and also caked in a layer of dust from the explosion as well.

Now, this is an area, this Kuwaiti roundabout, where IDF soldiers are typically stationed nearby. The IDF, as you mentioned, in this case denies any involvement, but they haven't actually commented on what is alleged to have taken place on Wednesday when they reportedly opened fire killing seven people.

Still no comment on that incident, but they did confirm striking a food distribution warehouse belonging to UNRWA on Wednesday.

[04:05:00]

They say that it killed the Hamas commander in that case. Five other people -- or five people in total, according to UNRWA were killed, including one employee. And it insists that, look, both Hamas and the Israelis have the coordinates of these distribution sites, including that incident on Wednesday as well.

So it's not like the Israelis didn't know exactly what they were hitting. And this has happened, UNRWA says, some 150 times since the war began months ago -- Bianca.

NOBILO: And Scott, just before the show, I was reading some of your new reporting about the Houthi government who are holding hostages on a hijacked ship in the Red Sea and have been since November. What more can you tell us about that?

MCLEAN: Yes, obviously there's been so much focused on the hostages in Gaza that it's easy to forget that there are other hostages that are directly related to this war being held inside Yemen. Of course, the Houthis have been striking commercial ships in the Red Sea, and they have also been holding hostage the crew members from the Galaxy leader since November, since they hijacked that ship in November. And they say that they are doing that to put pressure on Israel to end its war in Gaza.

And we heard from the top Filipino diplomat that is dealing with the negotiations with the Houthis. And frankly, he says that there is not much to discuss other than the fair, the decent treatment of those people who he says are being fed, are able to have some contact, brief weekly contact with their families, and are being held on board the ship. But he says that there is no indication that they will be handed over until this war ends.

In fact, he says that the Houthis, there are some indications, may insist on some kind of international recognition before those hostages are handed over. Now, we asked the Houthis this yesterday. It took them a while, but they did get back to us briefly yesterday.

And they gave us this statement. I'll read it.

Quote: The ship and it's crew are in the hands of the brothers in the Hamas resistance movement and the Al-Qassam Brigades. We have no claims of our own regarding this vessel.

To clarify, Hamas is not physically in charge of this vessel or holding these hostages physically. But essentially, the Houthis, again, tying all of this to Gaza, have said, look, whatever happens to them, Hamas will get to decide. Clearly, that complicates an already complicated situation -- Bianca.

NOBILO: Scott McLean for us in Istanbul. Thank you very much.

A maritime tracking website shows that a ship carrying desperately needed food and other supplies is off the coast of Gaza right now. It was due to arrive Thursday night.

It's not clear if or when it will be allowed to deliver its cargo. The NGO World Central Kitchen says its ship, the Open Arms, is carrying 200 tons of aid for the people of Gaza. And it hopes to get even more on a second ship bound for the territory. Satellite images show where organizers have built a wharf on the coast of central Gaza. There you can see it's about five miles or eight kilometers from Wadi Gaza checkpoint, the Israeli checkpoint separating northern and southern Gaza.

On Thursday, the US and Jordanian militaries conducted their tenth airdrop of aid into northern Gaza, providing nearly 14,000 meals.

With the war now in its sixth month, the U.N. warns nearly 600,000 people in Gaza. One quarter of the population are on the brink of famine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAINA LOW, COMMUNICATION ADVISER, NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL: We've been warning for months that this would lead to a public health crisis, that people would begin dying from either malnutrition, dehydration, or the diseases that they're not able to fight off because their bodies are so weak from lack of food.

And now we're seeing after five months of warnings, all of this come to fruition, where we have over 25 people who've already been reported dead, the majority of whom are children, as a result of malnutrition, dehydration. What we're worried about is that the longer this goes on, and as aid has not been scaled up, that the numbers of dead could rise to more than the 31,000 killed in hostilities just by these either preventable diseases that people are too weak to fight off or directly from starvation and dehydration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: CNN has gathered a list of vetted organizations that are on the ground responding to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel. You can find details on how you can help at a special section of our website. That section is cnn.com/impact.

Russians are casting their ballots right now in a presidential election where the outcome is already a done deal. Voting is underway in Moscow and across Russia as polling stations gradually open across the country's 11 time zones.

President Vladimir Putin is considered a shoo-in to win, with many opposition leaders being either dead, jailed, exiled, or banned from running. He's already Russia's longest serving leader since Joseph Stalin.

[04:10:00]

And the victory will keep him in power for at least another six years.

But technically speaking, Mr. Putin is still facing three opponents who've been given the green light to run. As Matthew Chance reports, some of them don't even seem to be trying that hard to win.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In some areas, like annexed parts of Ukraine, voting in this Russian election has already begun. And the outcome, say observers, is inevitable.

I'm just happy. Russia has accepted us, says this woman in Donetsk. And I love everyone who votes for Putin, she says.

The Kremlin leader has barely campaigned for his fifth term in what observers say is the most vacuous, empty Russian election in memory. Putin's campaign ads simply ask voters who they trust. 86 percent, according to latest opinion polls, say it's him.

The Kremlin's crackdown on dissent makes a mockery of public surveys. And the sudden death in jail last month of Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin's most prominent critic, has left the Russian opposition even deeper in despair. And with no one they feel they can support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe if Alexei were in the election I will vote for him. But not for anybody now.

CHANCE: So if Alexei Navalny was on the ballot, you'd have voted for him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.

CHANCE: But now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not now. Maybe I write this name.

CHANCE (voice-over): Of course, officially, there's a choice, like voting for the Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov and his vision, which few Russians share, for a return to a glorious socialist past.

So we've all played the game of capitalism, he says. And now that's enough.

Leonard Slutsky was once at the center of sexual harassment allegations. He denied any wrongdoing, later apologizing for distress he may have caused. But he's now a presidential candidate and extremely reluctant to criticize the man currently in power.

CHANCE: Do you think you would be a better president than Putin? A better president than Vladimir Putin?

LEONID SLUTSKY, LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER: This is a decision of our population.

CHANCE: What do you think? You're standing against him. If you don't think you're going to be better, why would you stand against him?

SLUTSKY: For me, now, if you are a leader of a political party, it's necessary to check, to participate in elections.

CHANCE (voice-over): And participation without criticism of Putin is what this entire Russian election is all about.

Independent election observers describe Vladislav Davankov, the low- key final candidate, as trying not to attract undue attention, focusing on internal problems and development tasks.

And against the backdrop of a costly war in Ukraine, which Russia calls its special military operation, neither the Kremlin nor the candidates allowed to stand in this presidential election seem interested in genuine debate. Criticism in Russian politics, it seems, has become a thing of the past.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Clare Sebastian has been monitoring all of these developments in the lead-up to the election. And Clare, I'm asking you to sort of gaze into the future a little bit, but what might we expect from a fifth term for President Putin? Because is he likely to be emboldened when he's already been fairly unchallenged or entirely unchallenged in power over the last few years?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, I think this gets into the question of why the election matters, right? If you're going to change the constitution to give yourself another two terms, beyond this one and then possibly another six-year term after that, why not just get rid of elections altogether and stay in power indefinitely? I think because the elections are a legitimizing exercise.

It will allow the Kremlin to show at least the optics of a new mandate, particularly when it comes to continuing the war in Ukraine, especially important now that we're deep into the third year, it's heavily costly. And of course, this will raise questions for the Russian people once he's reelected of whether there'll be another wave of mobilization. This is something that people are watching very closely.

[04:15:00]

I think on the other hand, internally, what people are worried about, especially in the wake of the death of Alexei Navalny, is that that really shows that the Kremlin will stop at nothing to stay in power, to consolidate Putin's power. We're now seeing signs that it's not just about people being arrested for criticizing the war, these wartime censorship laws, those arrests do continue, but there's crackdowns on literature, the arts, culture.

The LGBT movement has been labeled as an extremist group. Education is now finally part of the propaganda machine. The economy is heavily militarized. Everything else is sort of subjugated to that.

So I think this, for many people, the sort of fifth act of Putin will look like this sort of militarization, along with the very much more puritan society that he has been pushing. And of course, we've seen this throughout the last 24 years of Putin, but that steady uptick in repression, the gradual erosion of democratic values, seems to be accelerating.

NOBILO: So that's the internal potential. If we look externally and what another five years of Putin in power might mean for this continued shift of geopolitical tectonic plates and realignment of world order.

SEBASTIAN: So obviously the war in Ukraine has led to this superpower struggle in a way that we haven't seen since perhaps the Cold War.

I think for the US, whoever ends up being the next president, they'll have to deal with the fact that the overarching Russian foreign policy under Putin, even though it's not explicitly stated, because this is confrontation with the U.S. The U.S. is blamed for the war in Ukraine, publicly scapegoated in the propaganda. They say that it's a proxy war and the U.S. is just using Ukraine. So there will be more of that.

It will make the nuclear deterrent newly relevant, given the uptick that we see regularly, but especially now from Putin in terms of nuclear rhetoric. And China -- look, I mean, China and Russia are united in their opposition to U.S. global dominance.

That's where we see this superpower struggle. It may be the case for China that having Putin in power is helpful, carrying on because they've built this relationship with him, there's regular meetings and all of that. But then also you do see some Chinese discomfort with the war in Ukraine, especially when it comes to that nuclear rhetoric.

And they want to present themselves as this peacemaker. So China will continue, I think, to try and benefit as they can, as much as they can from this war and from Putin's tenure, without obviously getting their hands dirty.

NOBILO: Clare Sebastian, thank you very much.

Still to come, in another legal setback for Donald Trump, a judge denies the former president's motion in the classified documents case. Find out why after the break.

Plus, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hitting battleground states to tackle hot-button issues such as Biden's stance on the Israel-Hamas war and reproductive rights. Details coming up shortly.

And later, holding parents accountable. A verdict in the trial of a Michigan man whose son shot and killed four of his high school classmates.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:20:00]

NOBILO: U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are campaigning in the U.S. Midwest for the first time since he clinched the Democratic nomination this week. Mr. Biden was in the important battleground state of Michigan on Thursday, where he's trying to rebuild the support he had four years ago. This after some Democrats in Michigan's primary election last week voted for uncommitted instead of Biden to protest his handling of Israel's war in Gaza.

Meantime, the Vice President was in Minnesota where she stopped at a Planned Parenthood clinic. This is the first time a sitting president or vice president has visited a clinic that provides abortion services. And Harris called out Donald Trump and Republicans for creating what she called a healthcare crisis after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Here's the vice president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: In this environment, these attacks against an individual's right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and in many instances just plain old immoral. How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest. We have to be a nation that trusts women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Biden and Harris's trips were backed up by a planned meeting between senior White House officials and Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian American community leaders in Chicago. Some activists said there was no point in meeting, reiterating that they want a ceasefire in Gaza.

The judge presiding over Donald Trump's classified documents case has rejected one of the former president's motions as his team tries to get the charges thrown out. Here is CNN's Katelyn Polantz with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Five hours in a courtroom in his classified documents case on Thursday, Donald Trump's team made two different arguments trying to get his case dismissed and has already lost one of those arguments.

The judge here, Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, she has rejected Donald Trump's attempt to have his case dismissed because his team were trying to claim that the law was too vague. But Judge Cannon very shortly after the hearing said that's not going to be the case, that's going to be a question and an argument that perhaps he could talk to her and to the jurors about at a later time. But it's not enough of an argument that the national defense laws are so vague that he wouldn't have known what he was doing and could be charged with a crime like this in this classified document mishandling case.

Now there's another argument still out there that Judge Cannon has not yet ruled on. That's Donald Trump's argument that the papers that he had kept at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency, things about weapons, military plans, military responses in the case of an attack, foreign powers, all of those things Donald Trump wants to say were his personal papers and he had the ability to keep them because he could have chosen to do so as president.

That's something that Judge Cannon was also skeptical about, but she hasn't yet said exactly what she's going to do with that request from his team. It's only a small portion of what his team has been arguing to this judge to have his case dismissed.

And so there is a lot more to do both in court and then to await as the judge proceeds toward trial here in this case against Donald Trump in South Florida.

Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Fort Pierce, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: And in Mr. Trump's Georgia election subversion case, the judge will decide in the coming hours on the ethics allegations against DA Fani Willis. Judge Scott McAfee says that his decision on whether to remove Willis from prosecuting Trump and the remaining co-defendants will not be based on politics.

The former president and others in the case are seeking to disqualify Willis. They say she is accused of financially benefiting from hiring her special prosecutor in the case with whom she had a romantic relationship.

In Michigan, a jury has found the father of school shooter Ethan Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter. James Crumbley now faces a maximum of 15 years in prison. CNN's Whitney Wild has this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: This is an historic moment. James Crumbley convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter and taken together with the case of his wife. This represents a major moment for prosecutors.

It is the first time that prosecutors have been able to hold the parents of children who kill directly responsible for those murders. The prosecutors really drilled in on two major concepts and the first was that James Crumbley should have seen, should have known that Ethan Crumbley had declining mental health, but instead he ignored all of these warning signs.

Meanwhile, he purchased him a firearm. He took him to the gun range and further, he did not act in a way that was responsible with this firearm.

[04:25:00]

Specifically, he failed to secure it properly. So those were some major pieces of evidence the prosecutors brought forward.

The defense, meanwhile, argued that James Crumbley had no knowledge of his son's severe declining mental health, had no knowledge that he was posing a risk to himself or others. The defense in their closing argument said over and over he simply did not know that James Crumbley had this potential to be so violent.

James Crumbley faces 15 years for each manslaughter charge, but the way the Michigan law is set up is that those sentences are to run concurrently, so the maximum time he faces in prison is 15 years.

His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, convicted on the same charges. She also faces a maximum of 15 years in prison. She is set to be sentenced April 9th. Meanwhile, their son, Ethan, has been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

We don't yet know what piece of evidence it was that pushed jurors in the direction of a conviction, but it is hard to overstate the significance here. This is a major moment and it is the end of an awful two-year saga that began November 30th, 2021, when Ethan Crumbley opened fire at his high school and killed those four students and injured several others.

Whitney Wild, CNN, Pontiac, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Severe storms across the U.S., including tornadoes, have been threatening millions of Americans from Texas to Ohio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh, that's a -- there's one coming right at us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: That is one of seven reported tornadoes in Ohio and Indiana. Officials in Ohio say there are reports that a building has collapsed and people may be trapped under it. The Storm Prediction Center says over 300 storms were reported from Texas to Pennsylvania on Thursday.

And have you ever seen hail this big? The so-called Gorilla Hail, the size of baseballs, has battered Shawnee, Kansas. The large hail that hit the state smashed car windows as severe thunderstorms and multiple tornadoes were reported late on Wednesday.

Denver residents are also battling extreme weather conditions. More than 100,000 homes and businesses are without power as more than a meter of snow fell in some areas west of Denver. A winter blast hitting the Rockies is expected to ease later on today. Parts of Denver received almost a third of a meter of snow.

Still to come, Haiti extends a curfew and bans protests in part of the country as gang violence and the political crisis get worse. Details after the break.

And we also go to Zambia to see how the country's fish industry is helping to feed Africa's rapidly growing population.

END