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Palestinian Gunman Fired On Civilians Waiting For Aid; Israel To Attend Next Cease-Fire Talks; Some Russian Voters Stage Defiant Acts Of Protest; Russia Kills 20, Wounds 73 In Attack On Odessa; Former V.P. Pence Will Not Back Trump; China Braces For Second Trump Presidency; Chaos In Haiti; Donations To Texas Migrant Bus Program Seem Irregular; Royals Can't Escape Photo Controversy; Rare Horizontal Vortex Tornado In Ohio. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired March 16, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to you joining us here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Lynda Kinkade. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
There is cautious optimism as Israel and Hamas make plans to discuss a ceasefire and the release of hostages even as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he's signed off on plans for an operation in Rafah.
Also acts of civil disobedience directed against the Putin regime as Russians head to the polls for another day of voting.
Plus CNN is the first major news network in Port-au-Prince, the city in broiling gang violence. What a team is seeing on the ground in Haiti.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Lynda Kinkade.
KINKADE: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says he's approved a plan for action in Rafah. It includes evacuating people from Rafah before the offensive but no word on how that would be done.
The decision comes despite warnings from aid agencies that it could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Surrounded by rubble on Friday, these people took part in Ramadan prayers. There are 1.4 million Palestinians in Rafah.
Well, the IDF claims it did not open fire on civilians waiting for aid on Thursday as Gaza officials claimed. The IDF released video that it says shows Palestinian gunmen shooting at civilians waiting for aid. We're not showing it because CNN can't independently verify the video's content location or time. And we do have video from Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital showing the
wounded and a warning that the video does include some disturbing images.
The hospital says it received more than 60 injured people about an hour after that incident. One witness says the victims were waiting for aid to arrive when they were bombarded with shells. Gaza's health ministry says at least 20 people were killed. More than 150 wounded.
Israel's war cabinet is scheduled to meet today. They're planning to discuss guidelines for the negotiating team that will attend next week's ceasefire talks. One Israeli official says they expect very tough negotiations.
Hamas says one of its conditions is that all Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza. It's also calling for the release of up to 1,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Israel says the latest demands are ridiculous and absurd. But U.S. officials say they're cautiously optimistic about the next round of ceasefire talks.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We have conversations that are happening now as we as we speak here. and I am convinced they'll go on into the coming days.
Israel has sent back a negotiating team to pursue this and I think it reflects the sense both of possibility and of urgency to get an agreement, to get a ceasefire, to get the hostages back, to get even more humanitarian assistance in.
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KINKADE: Well, CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more from Jerusalem.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, just days ago, it seemed like those negotiations between Israel and Hamas were at an impasse. But now those talks appear to be back on track or at least moving forward.
Hamas has submitted its latest counterproposal demanding the release of some 700 to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, 100 of whom are currently serving life sentences in Israeli prisons.
That would be in exchange for some 40 Israeli hostages, women, children, the elderly and sick hostages in a first phase of this agreement. That ratio though, is still much higher than what Israel put on the table and what so far they've been willing to accept.
In fact, an Israeli government official calling this latest proposal from Hamas still absurd and extreme. And a U.S. official indicating that it will be very hard to get Israel to agree to this latest proposal. But there is still some cautious optimism in the air, perhaps even a
sense of momentum. The Israeli government did review this latest proposal on Friday in a meeting of the war cabinet.
And next week, the Israeli government intends to send a negotiating team to Doha, Qatar, to seek to advance at these latest negotiations.
And there's no question that a ceasefire in Gaza at this moment, humanitarian aid agencies, the United Nations, many countries in the world, saying that it is essential at this point because of how dire that humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has now become.
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About 0.5 million people in Gaza now on the brink of famine. Cases of malnutrition rapidly rising, particularly in northern Gaza. And that's where on Friday we saw this latest humanitarian aid convoy, this time arriving by sea, and an aid ship being carried out by the World Central Kitchen, arriving in northern Gaza.
It's set to provide some 0.5 million meals. Questions now about how exactly they will distribute that aid and how they will do so safely. As we've seen, crowds of desperate Palestinians have surrounded these convoys in the past, creating some very dangerous situations.
And so this remains a question. We also know, of course, that land convoys getting that aid in by land is the most effective way. And so still a lot of pressure on Israel to open up more land routes into northern Gaza. -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.
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KINKADE: Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza are expected to rally again in Tel Aviv in the coming hours. They're asking the Israeli government to do more to get their loved ones home. On Friday, they staged a protest outside Israel's war cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv.
The protesters are calling on Israel's government to close the deal that could bring the hostages home.
People in Gaza are as desperate as ever for humanitarian aid. A few have starved to death. But now 150 tons of much-needed food and water has been delivered by a barge, which docked at a hastily built jetty in Gaza.
The supplies were loaded onto 12 trucks to be distributed throughout northern Gaza. The relief was organized by the charity World Central Kitchen and coordinated with the Israeli military which inspected all of it first. The non-profit hopes to send a second aid ship to Gaza soon but is unable to confirm when that will happen.
Well, the White House says U.S. President Biden and Ireland's prime minister emphasized their shared view for a two-state solution in the Middle East. The two met Friday at the White House. Later, they both addressed the Friends of Ireland luncheon on Capitol Hill. Mr. Biden urged Congress to pass a bill to help Ukraine, Israel and,
in his words, maybe equally important, a humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we stand at an inflection point not only in American history but in world history, where the decisions we make now are going to determine what the next 3, 4, 5, 6 decades are going to look like. And I believe history is watching. Make history is watching.
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KINKADE: Well, the Irish leader told reporters that he restated to Mr. Biden. He's called for a ceasefire in Gaza. He also expressed concern about U.S. weapons in Gaza that he says are not being used in self-defense.
Well, the White House deflected questions about whether U.S. President Biden would like Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to leave power. The administration says president -- the president has been candid and forthright with Netanyahu about his handling of the war in Gaza.
A spokesman for the National Security Council concedes there've been obstacles. It says the president will continue to work with Mr. Netanyahu to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
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KINKADE: Joining me now is Jonah Blank, a senior political scientist at Rand Corporation, a non-profit global policy think tank, research institute and public sector consulting firm. He also advised then- senator Joe Biden on issues concerning South and Southeast Asia, as well as the Middle East.
Jonah, good to have you with us.
JONAH BLANK, SENIOR POLITICAL SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION: Thank you for having me.
KINKADE: The U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister seemed at odds over the situation in Gaza right now, Joe Biden, literally looking at ways to go around the prime minister to get aid into Gaza.
How would you describe this conundrum?
BLANK: Well, I think that the goals of President Biden and prime minister Netanyahu are fundamentally at odds. President Biden is trying to, at a bare minimum, make life better for the Palestinians in general; in particular, for the civilians in Gaza and trying to persuade Netanyahu to pull back from his harsh invasion.
Netanyahu, in my judgment, is really just looking to stay in power. And he is so beholden to his right-wing allies that he just has no way of moving out of the very harshest policies that he could possibly concoct.
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KINKADE: Our thanks to Jonah Blank. The full interview airs next hour. Be sure to watch for the rest of the conversation around U.S. and Israeli relations.
Well, voters across Russia are headed to the polls for a second straight day in a presidential election where the outcome is pretty much known. President Vladimir Putin is expected to secure a fifth term in the Kremlin. He's already Russia's longest-serving leader since dictator Joseph Stalin.
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And the victory will keep him in power until at least 2030. Many opposition leaders are either dead, jailed, exiled or banned from running. But the Kremlin still wants the optics, the images of voting going smoothly without much dissent. As Matthew Chance reports, some voters tried to deny that.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The reelection of Vladimir Putin may be underway, with Russians dutifully casting their votes across this vast country. But there are unexpected signs of public defiance.
In the Russian capital, a young woman pours dye into a ballot box before being detained by police.
In the city of Voronezh, an old lady is being held by election officials for doing the same thing. You can see the ruined votes, stained bright green. An act of defiance that could mean a lengthy term in a Russian penal colony.
On the eve of this vote, amid simmering opposition despair at the sudden death of Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent Kremlin critic, who was himself once infamously attacked with green antiseptic dye. Russian authorities have warned attempts at disruption would be treated as a serious offence.
CHANCE: For the Kremlin, this is meant to be a show of resounding national unity, with Russians coming together in support at the ballot box for Vladimir Putin.
The Russian opposition hasn't even been allowed to take part and the three candidates who are standing are neither anti-Putin, anti-Ukraine war or even popular with the Russian electorate. In other words, the Kremlin is taking absolutely no chances with the outcome of this vote.
CHANCE (voice-over): But in one Moscow polling station, a voting booth is set on fire. An onlooker tries to douse the flames with water, before police grab the suspect.
Outside a St. Petersburg polling station, a protester lobs a petrol bomb at the front door before being wrestled to the ground.
Not everyone, it seems, is willing to let this Putin reappointment go unchallenged -- Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
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KINKADE: More acts of defiance could be on the cards Sunday. That's when the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is urging voters to show up collectively at the polls and send a message to the Kremlin. Earlier, CNN's Michael Holmes spoke about that with Jill Dougherty, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Take a listen.
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JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It will be interesting to see what happens, especially on Sunday, when the Navalny people are suggesting that people go to the polls almost like a flash mob and vote, just go to the polls, vote for anybody other than Putin.
And it's unclear how many people would do that. Remember, not so long ago, just a few weeks ago, when Navalny died and they had the funeral, a lot of people who showed up, especially really all over the country but in Moscow particularly.
But it's unclear right now whether you would get large numbers of people trying to do this, go to the polls. And also, I think the government knows that this is planned and is obviously preparing for some type of response.
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KINKADE: Russia's military is claiming a significant attack on Ukrainian forces. Russia's deputy army chief said just a few hours ago in a defense meeting that a single airstrike killed up to 300 Ukrainian soldiers. He didn't say when or where that attack happened and CNN cannot independently verify that claim.
But Ukraine is condemning a devastating Russian missile strike on Odessa. It happened Friday, killing at least 20 people, wounding more than 70. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports from Berlin Ukrainian leaders described the attack in blunt terms.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he called this a despicable act of cowardice on the part of Russia and the Russian military, this the deadliest attack on the port town of Odessa since Russia's full-on invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
And the Ukrainians are saying that this particular strike was exceptionally deadly for one main reason and that is it was a so- called double-tap attack. That means there was an initial missile strike that then first responders moved onto the scene, emergency medical personnel, doctors and the like.
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Then there was a second missile strike that took place and the Ukrainians are already saying that there were medical personnel among the killed. Dozens have been confirmed to be killed and wounded in this attack.
And the port town of Odessa has been getting those Russian missile and drone attacks frequently over the past couple of weeks and months. In fact, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself was on hand when a missile strike took place last week when he was showing the Greek prime minister the port of Odessa.
A source within the Greek delegation was saying that the attack took place only about 500 yards away from where these two leaders were. Odessa, of course, is an important port town for the Ukrainians also in terms of getting grain out of the country -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
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KINKADE: G7 leaders are warning Iran not to send ballistic missiles to Russia. The joint statement said that the international community's response would include new and significant measures against Iran.
The leaders of France, Germany and Poland put on a united front for Ukraine in Berlin on Friday after weeks of friction. Germany's chancellor and the French president had been at odds over how to support Ukraine.
France's president Emmanuel Macron has taken a tougher stance toward Russia in recent weeks, even raising the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine. Here's Mr. Macron on Friday.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): We will do everything necessary for as long as it takes to prevent Russia from winning this war. We will continue to support Ukraine and its people for as long as necessary. And we will continue as we have done from day one never to prompt any escalation.
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KINKADE: Still ahead why former U.S. vice president Mike Pence says he can't endorse his former running mate, Donald Trump.
And how China is reacting to a possible second term. That's next, stay with us.
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KINKADE: Welcome back. Former U.S. vice president Mike Pence says he won't endorse Donald
Trump in the upcoming presidential election. He didn't say who he would vote for now that Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. CNN's Kristen Holmes has the latest from Washington.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Former vice president Mike Pence unequivocally not endorsing his former boss, former president Donald Trump. Here's what he had to say during an interview with FOX News.
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MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESDIENT: It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.
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And that's why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.
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HOLMES: Now both surprising and unsurprising. One, Mike Pence was probably the most loyal soldier to former president Donald Trump but the two had a fractured relationship after January 6th.
Former president Trump blamed Mike Pence for not overturning the election after they had launched a pressure campaign against the former vice president to try and not certify the election, to overturn the results in 2020, which Pence did not agree to do.
Once the two are running for office, former president Donald Trump saying that Pence was weak, that he didn't have the courage to do what he needed to do on January 6th. Pence had started to push back before having to drop out of the race.
We will note, when he dropped out, Donald Trump said that Pence should endorse him -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, Washington.
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KINKADE: I want to turn now to Donald Trump's Georgia election subversion case. The Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has accepted her lead prosecutor's resignation while praising his courage for accepting the case.
Nathan Wade's departure comes after the presiding judge ruled that either Willis or Wade must exit the trial, despite Wade agreeing to step down. Biden opponent Donald Trump wasted no time weighing in. In a post on truth social, the former president says it was the equivalent of a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, getting canned. Parties face a March 25 deadline to appeal the judge's ruling. Well, in the New York case, the judge and Mr. Trump's hush money criminal case is delaying that trial. A new date is yet to be determined but it's not likely to occur before mid April. A hearing will be held March 25th.
It's expected to address events around documents turned over this month as well as the former president's motions to have the case dismissed.
China is bracing for the possibility of another Trump presidency amid a tense relationship with the United States. People in China are closely watching the race with some mocking both Trump and Biden on social media. CNN's Will Ripley reports.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Chinese capital, Beijing, no shortage of people sounding off about Donald Trump.
WANG FENG, COFFEE SHOP OWNER (through translator): I think Trump will probably get elected because he's pretty good.
MR. YANG, PROPERTY AGENT (through translator): If Trump were to be elected, he will undermine us even more through economic blockades or tariffs. Or he could instigate waters.
RIPLEY: Publicly, the Chinese government is playing neutral, criticizing the U.S.-China policies of former President Trump and current President Joe Biden. State media mocking the messiness of American democracy, political chaos, deep division.
On Chinese social media, comments like these, are these two old guys all they've got left old against old. They both are tough on China. We need to speed up our preparation for battle. And this prediction, Trump is going to be back.
Remember six years ago when then President Trump traveled to Beijing, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pulled out all the stops, the lavish state banquet inside the forbidden city, a first for any U.S. president since 1949, the founding of communist China.
China's rulers have historically preferred leaders they can manipulate through personal relationships and flattery. Trump's ego-driven diplomacy seemed at the time like a perfect match.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think were going to do tremendous things for both China and for the United States.
RIPLEY: Then came the trade war. Trump's tariffs and trade barriers sense bolstered by President Biden still battering Beijing's economy. Now Trump says U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will skyrocket to 60 percent or higher if he wins a second term.
China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, voicing concerns over those U.S. trade and tech controls, warning of bewildering levels of unfathomable absurdity. But experts say some aspects of Trump's foreign policy actually benefit China's strategic interests. His doubts about traditional American alliances, like NATO, admiration for strongmen, like Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
WEI-TING YEN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, FRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE: If I were a Chinese leader or in the Chinese leadership, I won't be worried about Trump's presidency, simply because Trump is just less predictable.
RIPLEY: That unpredictability on display this week, Trump abruptly reversed his hardline stance on TikTok, opposing a bipartisan bill that would essentially banned the Chinese-owned app in the U.S.
TRUMP: There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Trump himself tried to ban TikTok in 2020.
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Citing a national security threat. U-turns like this could inject even more instability in a fraught U.S.-China relationship.
RIPLEY: The bottom line, China sees Trump as transactional, which could be good for China, could be bad for China. They've been on both ends of it; whereas Biden is seen as more stable, predictable.
President Biden has said four times that he would defend Taiwan if China were to try to enforce its territorial claims. And it has over this self-governing democracy. President Trump has never once said if American troops would defend Taiwan militarily.
He has criticized Taiwan for its chips business here. So even though they're very diplomatic in public, saying that they're going to have a good relationship regardless of who wins the election, under the surface, there was a bit of nervousness about what lies ahead -- Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
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KINKADE: North Korea is showing off its military power again, this time using paratroopers. Kim Jong-un guided an exercise that simulated an airborne attack on enemy positions. State media says, one of the goals was to test paratroopers' readiness to mobilize on short notice.
North Korea has been repeatedly flexing its military muscle in recent weeks. The move coinciding with the Freedom Shield, military drills by the U.S. and South Korea, which ended on Thursday.
A spike in violence in Haiti, as police search for a powerful gang leader. And the U.N. warns of a hunger crisis. CNN is on the ground in Haiti. We'll have a report from Port-au-Prince.
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KINKADE: Welcome back to viewers around the world, I'm Lynda Kinkade and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
There's a major police operation underway in Haiti to find a gang leader known as Barbecue (ph). He's the most prominent figure behind the violence that has pushed Haiti into a political and humanitarian crisis.
On Friday, the U.N. World Food Programme says that more than 4 million people, about a third of Haitians, are suffering from acute hunger. The U.N. is calling for urgent action to save the children there. CNN is the first major news network in Port-au-Prince since the recent gang uprising began. Here is CNN's David Culver.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's a tense, really quiet at times feeling here on the ground in Port-au- Prince, though that is often interrupted by rounds of gunfire.
It gives you a sense of just how unpredictable things are here in Haiti's capital. Comes amid just what is a worsening crisis and one the Haitian people have been struggling to deal with amid government dysfunction and increasing gang control.
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And many communities have actually started to barricade themselves in. Some have even taken on self-harming brigades to defend themselves and their neighborhoods from encroaching gang activity.
And the health care system, the food supply and food security in particular are certainly threatened. If you look at the healthcare, the healthcare system itself, you've got some 80 percent of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince, according to one local hospital executive, that are now shuttered.
They've been ransacked, looted. Medical workers themselves have been targeted. And three of the hospitals that operate in the poorest of areas here in Port-au-Prince are among those that are closed.
So it shows you that some of those who are in most need aren't going to get that treatment. Food security is a huge concern here, especially with U.N. officials trying to figure out how to ramp up food security -- food supply lines, rather, and try to get as much in to this capital city as possible.
Gangs have obviously made getting around increasingly difficult; 90 percent of the food consumed in Haiti is imported. So it shows you how much of a crisis this could become if it's not resolved immediately.
In fact, the U.N. estimates that about 1 million people are a step away from famine. Getting into Port-au-Prince is in of itself a huge challenge, particularly from outside the country. We spent six days in the Dominican Republic trying to figure out logistics, how to get on the ground here.
And it, of course, involves some bureaucratic red tape. But beyond that, just the logistics of making sure that where you were flying into and the landing zone that you were going to choose were secure enough. That could change by the hour.
In fact, helicopter pilots that we spoke with just a couple of days prior had a landing zone that they felt they were confident going in at today. Security officials had declared that to be gang-controlled.
Shows you again, just how unpredictable these situations can be. Here's a sampling of our journey into Haiti's capital.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to be flying to Haiti. It's going to take us one hour to get there.
CULVER: The logistics of this trip alone have been incredibly challenging, to say the least.
They're confirming with us something that we've been working on the entire day and that is the landing zone, trying to figure out where we'll touch down amidst a very dire situation in Port-au-Prince.
Gunshots.
Do you hear that?
There it is.
Already hearing gunshots just a few seconds into stepping out of the car after arriving here at Port-au-Prince.
Our pilot said they had been shot at at previous trips and yet they still intend to continue to make these missions as often as they can, not just to bring people in, who like us want to cover this and bring this story to the world, but more importantly, to bring those who are desperate to get out.
It's been a lot of diplomats in particular that have left. But others are on the list. In fact, some of the pilots that we've spoken with say they have lists that are hundreds of people desperate to get out.
Of course that is a luxury. Many of the Haitians don't have that opportunity, nor can they even consider it.
So for them, it's about having to deal with what is a worsening situation with each passing day and hoping that the U.N. or other foreign forces that might be able to bring aid can do that as strategically and quickly as possible -- David Culver, CNN, Port-au- Prince, Haiti.
(END VIDEOTAPE) KINKADE: As the violence and chaos in Haiti gets worse, U.S. officials are bracing for surge of boats carrying migrants along the Florida coastline. Law enforcement agencies are on alert. A Marine and aviation units are increasing patrols in the area.
A local sheriff's department says it's receiving daily intelligence bulletins that Haitian migrants are waiting for opportunities to enter the U.S. by sea.
New York City is no longer legally required to provide long-term housing to adult migrants. The decision was announced Friday after the city reached a settlement with homeless advocacy groups.
The mayor says the change will not impact families and adult migrants will still be able to get short-term shelter. New York is struggling to house an estimated 183,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022, including tens of thousands sent by bus from Texas.
When Texas governor Greg Abbott started that controversial busing program, he boasted that donors would pay for all of it. But CNN has obtained a list of donations and the numbers don't add up. In fact, the state has recouped less than 1 percent of the cost. Here's CNN's Kyung Lah.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Did you give this program $2,000?
HENDRIK VOSS, PROGRESSIVE ACTIVIST: Hell no, for sure not. I wouldn't give a cent to any hostile, racist policies that he is standing for.
LAH (voice-over): He's referring to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott's office has bused more than 100,000 migrants and climbing to Democratic cities across the country, saying those cities should share Texas'' immigration influx.
One of the arrival cities, Washington, dc, where progressive activist Hendrik Voss lives.
VOSS: I think it's very cruel and racist to use migrants as pawns use them as political stunt. Basically, yes, that's nothing. I want to be connected to.
LAH: So imagine his surprise.
So this is, this giant spreadsheets.
When we found Voss'' name, on a list of donors to bus migrants out of Texas.
And there you are.
VOSS: Huh, well. LAH: Two thousand .
That's your cell phone number, right?
VOSS: Yes.
LAH: That's definitely you, right?
VOSS: That's absolutely me. That's my name. That's my phone number. But I definitely didn't give $2,000 to Greg Abbott's campaign of busing people to D.C.
LAH: Voss'' financial records show he did not send Texas money. He has no idea how his name ended up on this list of people who donated to the migrant busing program.
In fact, CNN found a number of issues with donations collected by the site promoted by the Texas governor.
ABBOTT: But as soon as the announcement was made, we were overwhelmed with phone calls, with letters, with requests about people providing buses, people driving buses, people paying for buses. And I want to tell American where are you can go to help. Go to borderbus.texas.job.
But it likely will mean that it will be no cost to the state of Texas for providing these buses.
LAH: But a CNN analysis shows, the donations didn't come close. Abbott has collected only a tiny fraction of his goal and at least a couple of the donations are suspicious, besides the mystery of Voss' name appearing on the list, the largest donation, $900,000 mysteriously vanished. It appears to be a mistake or a hoax.
The donation website show the tally going from $1.3 million to just over $400,000.
When we look through all of the information, it appears that the largest donor, a woman from Texas, we could not find her. And she had donated $900,000. So that discrepancy is just been quietly corrected by Texas.
NOAH BOOKBINDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CREW: It definitely matters. It is unusual to have private donors to a government function. So there aren't always a lot of rules around it.
LAH: Noah Bookbinder is president of a left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
BOOKBINDER: Whether it's a mistake or whether it's intentional, that is potentially misleading the public.
LAH: CNN attempted to reach those supposed $900,000 donor. But the phone number entered into the Texas donor site was disconnected and CNN could not find anyone with that name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person you're calling cannot accept calls at this time.
LAH: It's ironic that you're on here.
VOSS: Yes. So yes, I definitely would want to know how that happened and how many ended up on that list.
LAH: We did reach out to Governor Abbott's office to find out exactly how Voss'' name ended up on that lists.
The spokesperson did not have a specific response to some of the anomalies that CNN found but we did learn that just because we were given this list with, a list of donors and those cell phone numbers, it doesn't mean that that money actually went through -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
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KINKADE: Well, the royal photo controversy doesn't seem to be going away. Ahead, how the issue seems to be overshadowing efforts by the U.K. royals to get on with their duties.
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KINKADE: Public scrutiny has now dying down after an edited photo of the Princess of Wales and her three children was released last week. The royal family is trying to get back to business but the issue keeps grabbing the headlines. CNN's Isa Soares is in London with more.
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ISA SOARES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new business venture and a social media comeback for the Duchess of Sussex.
After a six-year absence from Instagram, Meghan has launched American Riviera Orchard. Little is known about the brand but the timing of the announcement is raising eyebrows here in the U.K.
Across the Atlantic, on the very same day, Prince William honored the legacy of his mother, Princess Diana, at an awards ceremony. His brother and Meghan's husband, Prince Harry, joined live via video link and thanked those working for keeping her memory alive.
Despite the warm messages, the event was overshadowed by the relentless saga surrounding the Princess of Wales.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the question that has taken over the internet. Where is Kate Middleton?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone is still talking about this picture. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wherever you stand on Katespiracy, there's no doubting its impact on the reputation of the British royal family.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They really, really messed up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They really have messed up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have messed up, yes.
SOARES (voice-over): Which has been swirling in the media and amid the public for nearly a week. It all started with this photo to mark Mother's Day in the U.K. meant to calm fevered speculation over her health but in the end, only made things worse.
The image, put out by Kensington Palace, is the first glimpse of Princess Catherine since her last public appearance on Christmas Day. The only problem, it had been edited.
By the end of the day, major international news agencies had withdrawn the image, citing manipulation concerns, including the French-based AFP, where Eric Baradat is a photo director.
ERIC BARADAT, AFP PHOTO DIRECTOR: Everybody started at, you know, enlarging, zooming in the picture and noticing straight away that something was wrong. And after a few hours, all agencies in London decided to pull the pictures together.
SOARES (voice-over): With the palace in damage control, the princess issued an apology on social media saying, "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."
She was spotted briefly on Monday alongside her husband, William, in the car leaving Windsor for a private appointment. But AFP's photo director, says her doctor photo raises serious questions about trust and transparency.
SOARES: You thought you were tricked. Did you feel you were tricked?
BARADAT: Yes. Our position now will be that every image still image coming out of Kensington Palace will clearly be scrutinized very thoroughly before we decide to put it out to our subscribers around the world.
SOARES: It's often said that the royal family has to be seen to be believed. But when you don't believe what you see, then a whole host of conspiracy theories start swirling online.
I did a search for Kate Middleton photos you can see here and there are so many just circling right now on social media from the insensitive to the outright outlandish.
SOARES (voice-over): Still, some in the British public believe Kate has a right to privacy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot bigger issues to worry about in the world, really but people just leave her alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's blown out of all proportion. She did a little couple of tweaks at home. End of story.
SOARES (voice-over): Blown out of proportion or not, one thing is clear. With King Charles' ongoing cancer treatment and the mystery around Kate's health.
[04:45:00]
The royal family is dealing with a PR battle on several fronts -- Isa Soares, CNN, London.
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KINKADE: We've more perspective on history. CNN royal historian Kate Williams is in London.
Good to see you. So I find it kind of surprising the number of people who keep asking me if I have any inside knowledge about the status of Kate Middleton.
Are you surprised by the hype and do you have any inside intel?
KATE WILLIAMS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've seen just as Isa was saying, was this whirlwind of conspiracy theories.
Essentially, as soon as we were told in early January, that Kate was going into hospital that she will be in hospital for two weeks and wouldn't be seen until after Easter.
What the palace needed then to do was issue a few updates, a little message, perhaps some Kate saying thank you for the lovely get well soon cards, maybe perhaps a photo and a card as we saw as damage limit, which I completely think the car photo on Monday was a set-up, a little bit of damage limitation.
Instead, there was nothing, radio silence, which was a complete contrast to what we saw with the king. There was messages from the king, even though he's undergoing cancer treatment.
And into that radio silence, into that vacuum rushed all these conspiracy theories. I mean, some of them, I've never seen anything so extreme in terms of what these conspiracy theories were. And it became an international story.
And then the photo, well, royals always Photoshop their pictures. Henry VIII, he Photoshopped all his pictures. One of my favorite Henry VIII pictures, portraits, has Henry the VIII aged 40 next to his daughter, who -- he died -- he died when she was 12 but she's in the pictures. He's 55. And I love that picture.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: And even in the Christmas photo, Louis had a missing finder and there was a spare foot. But this photo was very doctored. And then it comes at a time when everyone's panicking that Kate's disappeared, that may be something bad has gone on. A Spanish journalist said she was in a coma. There've been all kinds of drama.
And the drama has just increased and really I think this is crisis time to the royal family. People are saying they can't be trusted. Their photos can't be trusted and we still haven't really heard from Kate. We've heard this, what she said about editing the photo but that was it.
And I think it's really worrying. I think they are going to have to come out and do a photo of her (INAUDIBLE) clearly going to very hard times. Surgery is brutal on the body. She's clearly having a tough time. But I think that the PR strategy has not protected her. It's made things very much worse for people wanting to know what's going on.
Because they want it.
KINKADE: And it's interesting that you think the only photo that we've allegedly seen of her in that car with her face turned away from the camera was staged as well. But the monarchy of course, has such a tightly controlled image.
You must wonder who agreed to not only post this Photoshopped image of Kate and her children but then to send it out to the media outlets to scrutinize it.
Does the royal family have a trust problem now?
WILLIAMS: Well, this is what people are saying. I mean, AFP, they were very concerned about the photo and they said -- they said the only time we put up these kinds of kill notices is for the agencies from Iran and North Korea.
That, he said, is the level of lack of trust that we're talking about here. And that's extremely worrying for Kensington Palace to be compared to the agencies from these countries. So there really is a trust problem here.
And I think that people are just so concerned. And what we've seen is Kensington Palace in damage limitation. So we saw William out there doing a little engagement with a youth project in London.
And he made a statement, saying, oh, my wife's the arty one. Now that's what -- the fact is. William was silent as well. We didn't see him. He moved from a memorial service for his godfather, the king of Greece.
And William and how he -- doing the Diana legacy service on Thursday evening, that's very important as well. So they are going to be in damage limitation. I think they are going to have to think about putting out some kind of extra statement from Kate. And I think a lot of people feel so sorry for Kate. She is clearly going through a lot. It's tough.
And I think a lot of people don't believe she edited that photo and she's taking the blame for someone else. (CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: It's that talk that -- you know, she's distressed and it's hard for her.
KINKADE: Yes, it certainly does seem that way. But meanwhile, in the midst of all this, you've got Meghan Markle reappearing on Instagram years after she left the platform. Interestingly, she signed off the page, the Duchess of Sussex. I thought the couple agreed not to use those terms after resigning from their royal duties.
WILLIAMS: Well, the simple fact is that Charles has made the decision not to remove the titles. There were all kinds of people, say, oh, they shouldn't have their titles, they shouldn't have their titles. And obviously they're not necessarily going to use HRH but they are going to keep the Sussex titles.
[04:50:00]
The thing is just Meghan isn't a duchess; she's a princess because Prince Harry cannot be deprived of the title prince. He is prince. And as she is married to him, she would be princess. So she's not a duchess. She would be Princess Meghan.
And I think that the royal family would prefer her to be to be using the title of Duchess of Sussex so Kate would be seen as the Princess of Wales. So they still do have the title. So though they said they wouldn't necessarily use them all the time.
But simply I think actually the royal family are going to -- actually going to welcome this Meghan's --
(CROSSTALK)
KINKADE: -- a distraction, if you like.
WILLIAMS: -- I mean we don't know quite -- begin -- the lifestyle brand has launched. We don't know, I mean this is obviously a time when lifestyle brands tend to launch spring, pre the summer sales. It's a very good time.
We understand she could be setting everything from homeware to cookbooks, to pet care, to jams, all kinds of items. So I think we are looking forward to see what she's going to be selling. It does sound like it's going to be a big Martha Stewart operation.
And certainly I think it could be very profitable. It could be very profitable. They have a pared down aesthetic, this pared down California aesthetic. I presume that's going to be a look. So it is, I think, something that the royal family probably actually are welcoming at the moment because the heat has been on them.
It's not like Charles can go out there and do and engagements. He's still -- he's sheltering for quite some time with cancer treatment. The royal family is having a really, really tough time, just one year after the coronation. It was all wonderful picture, beautiful coronation this time last
year. Now it's getting tough. And I think that there's going to be some that has to be damage limitation from Kensington Palace in the next few weeks. Otherwise, all those conspiracy theories are just going to start up again.
KINKADE: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So finally, Meghan Markle, welcome to structure that the royal family is welcoming at least at this point in time. We'll stay tuned to see what comes of that venture. But certainly there's already a lot of people following that page. So we'll see how it goes. Kate Williams, good to have you with us. Thank you.
WILLIAMS: Good to see you.
KINKADE: Still ahead, missing parts and hazardous switches, more issues for the airline industry amid a spate of recent incidents. We will have much more on that when we come back.
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KINKADE: Search and rescue efforts are underway after a series of damaging storms and tornadoes tore through Ohio and Indiana. At least three people are dead, more than 20 people injured in Ohio. And one lifelong resident describes the moment the storm made its way through her town.
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NANCY BRENTLINGER, TORNADO SURVIVOR: It's unbelievable. I've never seen anything this bad. It just sounded like a freight train was coming through outside. And there was so much noise and it just sound like everything was just coming apart.
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KINKADE: And a rare and natural phenomenon was inadvertently recorded Thursday when an Ohio resident, Chad Steenkay (ph), decided to film the presumed tornado barreling near his home.
Our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam, noted the funnel cloud's unusual horizon, horizontal vortices, explaining them as small horizontal tornadoes getting sucked into a larger parent tornado.
[04:55:00]
A United Airlines flight with 145 people on board landed safely in Oregon Friday, even though the plane was missing an external panel. The airline said the missing part was on the bottom of the fuselage under the wing.
United says it discovered that only after the plane landed. The crew never declared an emergency and there was no indication of damage during the flight. An investigation is underway.
And the company says the aircraft was a Boeing 737-800. It's an older plane, not the 737 MAX planes that have been in the news lately.
United has had a string of recent incidents, including one flight that was forced to return to Sydney, Australia, after a maintenance issue. And in another, an engine caught fire midair after it ingested bubble wrap while a different flight lost a tire during take-off.
Trouble with Boeing planes impacted American Airlines too. The airline told its pilots it's identified a potential hazard with switches that control the movement of pilots' seats in the Boeing 787.
The warning comes off to Boeing sent out its own alert to airlines informing them of, quote, "unintended seat movement." One pilot spoke to CNN about the switches and their position in the cockpit.
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CAPT. THOMAS STEVENS, RETIRED BOEING 787 PILOT: Well, in all the times I've used that switch, it's entering the cockpit, it's to gain access to the seat more easily, it's placed where one can activate it, move the seat backward.
And then that allows for enough room to get in the seat. And then that's the last time that that switch is used. After that, there are switches down closer to one seat that moves the switch forward.
And since it's a guarded switch one all need do is lift the switch and activate it and it moves the seat back and then the cover closes. And then after, that it's no longer in use and at no time did it ever seem like it would be a problem for us. And it would be very difficult to accidentally raise that guard and activate the switch.
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KINKADE: The Federal Aviation Administration says its safety experts will review Boeing's alert and the switches in pilot seats.
Well, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade. We've much more news in just a minute. Stay with us.
