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CNN International: Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu's Call; White House: Biden Demands Changes from Netanyahu; Netanyahu: Aid Workers' Deaths were Israel's Fault; Rescue Efforts Ongoing After Quake Kills at Least 10 in Taiwan; Testimony Shed Light on Chaotic Afghanistan Evacuations; U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen in China for Talks. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired April 05, 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)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There are too many civilians being killed. The risk to aid workers is unacceptable. Now we have certain aid organizations that are reconsidering whether they're even going to be able to continue operations in Gaza while famine looms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Biden administration's failure to plan for their withdrawal threatened the safety and security of U.S. personnel and country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Building a healthy economic relationship requires a level playing field for American workers and firms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world.

It is Friday, the 5th of April, 9 a.m. here in London, 11 a.m. in Tel Aviv, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is acknowledging the deaths of seven aid workers killed on Monday in Gaza, and it was Israel's fault. He's also pledging to implement measures to make sure such a mistake never happens again. Israel is also announcing plans to get more aid into Gaza.

It'll reopen the Erez border. That's the crossing between Israel and northern Gaza to allow for aid shipments. The Israeli security cabinet approved the decision and also agreed to the Israeli port of Ashdod being used to help transfer more aid.

Now, the move comes after a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House says Mr. Biden demanded specific, concrete and measurable steps to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza or the U.S. would reconsider its own policies. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Hopefully, you know, it won't come to that, that they'll be able to execute and implement on these things that we've asked for, these things that they've committed to doing, and we can make it safer for aid workers on the ground.

And frankly, we can help start to make life better for, for innocent Gazans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: A U.N. spokesperson calls Israel's decision to reopen the Erez border crossing positive news, but said a ceasefire and a massive influx of aid are necessary. And the White House praised the decision, but warned its policies on Gaza could still change based on Israel's immediate actions.

CNN's Paul Hancocks is following developments and joins me now from Abu Dhabi. Wondering if these two things are linked, the phone call and this new crossing into Gaza.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's certainly the assumption, Max, that just a few hours after there's this effective ultimatum given by the Biden administration, Israel in its security cabinet does approve the opening of a land crossing.

The humanitarian aid groups have been calling for to be opened for four months now. We've heard from the U.S. president. We've heard from world leaders that more land crossings needed to be opened.

And that was really the best way to get the humanitarian aid into where it's desperately needed. But it was just after this ultimatum that that was finally approved. So this is the Erez crossing in the northern parts of Gaza.

It was used as a passenger crossing. It's where we would always go when we were accessing Gaza over the years. And the trade and the aid came in through the southern part.

Now, it had been damaged during the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel. But we're hearing now that it will be opened once again. And the location of this crossing is key because it means that humanitarian aid can get to where it is desperately needed the most. And that is northern Gaza.

We've heard from Oxfam just recently, the U.K. humanitarian group NGO, saying that the average calorie intake of those in northern Gaza at the moment is 245 calories. Now, bear in mind, for a woman, it's supposed to be about 2,000 calories. For a man, 2,500 calories. So it just shows the acute necessity to get more humanitarian aid in.

Now, we don't have details at this point, Max. We don't know when it's going to be open. We don't know how much humanitarian aid will be allowed in.

[04:05:00]

But it does beg the question, if the security cabinet was able to approve this crossing to be opened just hours after a U.S. ultimatum, why was it not able to be opened when humanitarian aid groups were calling for more access -- Max?

FOSTER: We've heard tougher words, haven't we, from the U.S. about Israel's policy in Gaza and the war and how it's conducting the war. Do you think that's reached a tipping point because this call between Netanyahu and Biden does sound pretty contentious?

HANCOCKS: We're hearing from Biden administration officials that it was a very clear conversation. They say there was no animosity, but it was a very direct message from the U.S. president to the Israeli prime minister. And we saw a very different strategy being employed by the Biden administration.

In the past, when they have criticized what Israel is doing in Gaza, they have also, almost within the same sentence, said, but we will not stop or impede the military support and the support we have for Israel with what it is doing in Gaza. This is a departure from that.

Now, we've heard that the U.S. president said that they would look at the U.S. policy when it comes to Israel, what Israel is doing in Gaza, if what they wanted was not respected and was not notifiably shown to be changing.

Notably, the change in humanitarian aid getting in, that the safety of civilians in Gaza, the safety of aid workers, the Biden administration saying they want to see concrete steps and measurable steps, that this is changing. So it's certainly a departure from what we have heard from the Biden administration in the past. We've heard from the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who's been in Brussels, saying that if those changes are not seen to be done, then there will be a change in U.S. policy.

Again, begging the question, if this had been a change intact from the Biden administration earlier in this conflict, would it have changed the situation on the ground -- Max?

FOSTER: OK, Paula, thank you.

More now on President Biden's call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. My colleague Anna Coren spoke earlier with Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, and she asked for his take on the state of U.S.-Israel relations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GIDEON LEVY, FORMER ADVISER TO SHIMON PERES: It's always about condemnations and good advices and bad advices and never taking measures. And therefore, Israel learned to ignore all those advices and condemnations, because if you don't pay any price, why would you bother? The problem is that President Biden puts everything on the humanitarian aid.

And by the end of the world -- by the end of the day, there is no humanitarian aid that can save, really save the people of Gaza, because it's only about food and some medicines. Those people are homeless half a year. 1.3 million people in Rafah who have nowhere to go. And they are still in great danger.

And here I don't see Biden putting his weight on this. What we saw yesterday of the phone call just shows how big is the leverage of President Biden over Israel and how little it is used relative to what should have been used mainly to put an end to this war today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Also on their phone call, the White House said Netanyahu did admit directly to Mr. Biden that Israeli defense forces were responsible for the deaths of those seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza on Monday. The prime minister said Israel is improving how it tracks humanitarian workers inside Gaza. And in the coming hours, the Israeli military is expected to publicly release the finding of its initial investigation into those deadly strikes. The IDF says the relevant parties are being briefed.

Now, the Polish president has a message for Israel. One of the aid workers killed in the attack, Damian Sobol, was from a town in southeastern Poland. And now President Andrzej Duda says Israel owes Sobel's family whether his death was an accident or not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDRZEJ DUDA, POLISH PRESIDENT (through translator): I have no doubts that Israel should pay compensation to the family of our citizen killed in Gaza. The compensation should be appropriate. And I hope that such compensation will be paid in an honest and fair way because it's what it's owed to the family. Regardless of the cause of this event, whether it was an accident or any other situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Meanwhile, these four Palestinians, including one paramedic, are dead in northeastern Gaza after Israeli forces targeted an area near a school sheltering displaced civilians.

That's according to paramedics at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

[04:10:00]

A witness says they were in a field looking for food, anything to eat, when they were hit by Israeli artillery fire. As civilians and paramedics rushed to help, they were hit by more artillery rounds. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on that.

And in central Gaza, Palestinian health officials say at least two people were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a residential block in the al-Maghazi refugee camp.

When CNN asked for comment, Israeli forces didn't directly address the reason for the attack. Now to Iran's capital, Tehran, and images of a funeral earlier today

for those killed in an attack on the country's consulate building in Damascus, Syria, on Monday. Iran's foreign ministry says the strike killed at least seven officials, including a top commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, along with a senior commander.

Israel hasn't claimed responsibility, but a military spokesperson said Israel believes the target struck was a military building of Quds forces. Iran is vowing retaliation. Its supreme leader saying Israel will regret the attack.

Now, authorities in Taiwan say 25 people are missing more than two days after the island was hit by its strongest earthquake in decades. Dozens of people have been rescued from toppled buildings in remote areas cut off by landslides. Officials say four foreign nationals are amongst those thought to be missing in the mountains.

Taiwan authorities raised the death toll to 10 on Thursday. More than 1,000 people were injured in Wednesday's 7.4 magnitude quake. CNN's Ivan Watson reports on the rescue efforts from inside the quake zone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A daring mountain rescue. One day after Taiwan is pummeled by a powerful earthquake, emergency workers struggle climbing over treacherous landslides, trying to bring victims home. Among those initially stranded, dozens of miners in two remote quarries.

On Thursday, authorities announced their successful rescue. Some choppered to safety.

There were too many rocks falling like bullets from above, this miner says. We didn't know where to run.

The aftermath of some landslides visible from a moving train. Many paved roads to the disaster zone are still blocked. But on Thursday, the railways resumed service.

WATSON: It has only been a day since this powerful, deadly earthquake rocked Taiwan. And already this train to the epicenter is running on time.

WATSON (voice-over): In the small city of Hualien, residents still coming to grips with the earthquake's damage. Though there are some scenes of real destruction, it also feels like this earthquake-prone community is quickly bouncing back. The city government set up this temporary shelter in an elementary school.

WATSON: This is your home?

WANG MEIFEN, EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR: Living room.

WATSON: There's a hole in the wall.

WATSON (voice-over): Wang Meifen is camping out here with her husband and mother.

WATSON: Do you feel safe staying in Hualien?

MEIFEN: I'm not afraid. I was born here.

WATSON (voice-over): Among those here, the mayor of Hualien, who was injured in the quake.

WATSON: What happened?

WATSON (voice-over): A cabinet fell on me, he says. He attributes the relatively low death toll in his city to advanced preparation.

WEI CHIA-YAN, MAYOR OF HUALIEN, TAIWAN (through translator): Here in Hualien, we grew up with earthquakes. Our teachers and relatives always taught us how to react when earthquakes strike. So we've known about this since we were kids.

WATSON: This ruined building is a terrifying example of the power of Wednesday morning 7.4 magnitude earthquake. But look down the road here and you see that most of Hualien is not damaged. It is lit up, intact and very active.

WATSON (voice-over): Amid these scars, an impressive display of community resilience.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Hualien, Taiwan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now, Wall Street takes a hit. We'll see what's been dragging down the markets and where the futures stand as well.

And the U.S. evacuated from Afghanistan with no preparation and no plan. What CNN has uncovered from hours of closed-door testimony from top State Department officials.

At a big meeting between the U.S. Treasury Secretary and the Chinese Vice Premier about risks to the global economy. Those details in a live report for you from Hong Kong.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: We're getting word of a Ukrainian drone attack in southwest Russia. The governor of Rostov says air defenses have shot down more than 40 targets over the region which borders Ukraine. His latest statement didn't spell out what the targets were. But earlier he called it a massive drone attack.

The governor says an electrical substation was damaged and crews are working to fix it. Meanwhile, a Russian strike on Ukraine's second largest city has turned into a heartbreaking family tragedy.

This is video of a firefighter in Kharkiv after he found out his father was killed in the attack on Thursday. Ukraine says they both worked in the fire service responding to the first wave of drone attacks. But a second wave then followed, hitting the area where the father was working. The son immediately rushed there, only to discover his dad was already gone. Officials say five people were killed in Kharkiv, including three rescuers.

NATO countries will dig deeper into their stockpiles to try to find more air defenses that can be sent to Ukraine. The announcement was made after NATO and Ukrainian foreign ministers met in Brussels on Thursday. That's when Ukraine called for an urgent delivery of air defenses, including the U.S.-made Patriot missiles.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin now says that NATO is directly involved in the war on Ukraine and that NATO's current relations with Russia have reached the level of direct confrontation. The alliance's chief reacted this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: NATO is not party to the conflict and NATO will not be party to the conflict. But NATO is providing support to Ukraine to help them defend themselves.

We don't have any plans of having any NATO combat troops inside Ukraine. There have been no requests for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Chaos, violence, desperation and no plan how to deal with any of that. That's what played out during the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021, according to testimony exclusively obtained by CNN.

U.S. officials scrambled to pull out tens of thousands of civilians after the capital Kabul fell to the Taliban. But the testimony suggests there was no clear game plan on the table and many decisions had to be made on the fly as the situation sometimes changed minute by minute.

CNN's Kylie Atwood has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New transcripts exclusively obtained by CNN show the chaos on the ground as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan mirrored the chaos behind the scenes at the State Department.

The department had no working emergency evacuation plan. That is the stark testimony from three State Department officials to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And those three officials were rushed into Kabul in the days surrounding the Taliban takeover with virtually no time to prepare.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): The Biden administration's failure to plan for their withdrawal threatened the safety and security of U.S. personnel and country.

ATWOOD (voice-over): The interviews are part of an ongoing investigation led by the Committee's Republican Chairman Mike McCaul into the chaotic evacuation that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a terrorist attack outside of the Kabul airport.

[04:20:00]

One official testifying, quote: We had to create from scratch tactical operations that would get our priority people into the airport.

He added: We were roughly as effective as we could be under the circumstances.

Another saying he was never briefed on an established evacuation plan because quote: We were already in the midst of executing an evacuation that substantially exceeded the scope and scale of what had been contemplated.

The top U.S. military generals suggested that the damage could have been mitigated if the State Department had called for an earlier noncombatant evacuation.

GEN. MARK MILEY (RET.), FORMER JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: It is my assessment that that decision came too late.

GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We struggled to gain access to that plan and work with them over the months of July until we finally got a decision to execute.

ATWOOD (voice-over): Those accusations have been disputed by the State Department.

VEDANT PATEL, DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: The U.S. did not want to publicly announce planning for or the start of a NEO so as to not weaken the position of the then-Afghan government, potentially signaling a potential lack of faith.

ATWOOD (voice-over): Another state official testified to the setbacks on the ground due to a bleak reality. The Taliban were largely in control.

Quote: It was what will the Taliban allow? Will they let people move through? And how will they do it? And as someone who's worked in Afghanistan for 19 years, it's a little bit wild to tell people that you can trust the Taliban, hold up your American passport. But it did kind of work.

Those descriptions a far cry from what the department said at the time.

NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: My understanding is that things are moving quite efficiently at this hour at the airport at the airport now.

ATWOOD: Now, the committee investigators say that their goal is to get a report done on all of the interviews that they have conducted by the end of the year. And as important as the voices of these State Department officials are, Biden administration officials are highly cognizant of the fact that there is a political motive here.

This investigation, of course, is run by the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And it's clear that Republicans want this to become an issue front and center around the time of the November elections so that when folks are heading to the polls, they remember what it was like, this catastrophic, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred during the Biden administration.

Kylie Atwood, CNN, the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: But a CNN military analyst believes none of the chaos you just saw had to happen. Earlier, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton spoke with our Anna Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So Anna, one of the big things that I think that is part of this is the fact that this was something that should have been foreseeable and should have been planned for. One should always go with a worst-case scenario when it comes to planning for things like noncombatant evacuations, which is the type of evacuation planning that should have been used in this particular case.

And when you look at the different agencies involved, the U.S. State Department, the Defense Department, and some of the other agencies, it was very clear that they needed to work together not only at the tactical level but at the more strategic level to plan this type of an event regardless of what we might have thought was the viability of the Afghan government. \

And it was pretty clear to anybody who was paying attention in Afghanistan that this government in Afghanistan, the one that existed at that particular moment in time, was not going to last a very long time. And that became really clear by July of 2021 and certainly was clear to me before that.

But that's the kind of thing that should have really led to some very clear planning and realization that there was a need for a noncombatant evacuation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: The Treasury Secretary expected to attend a dinner hosted by China's Vice Premier in the coming hours. They began trade talks a short time ago. This is Janet Yellen's second visit to China with the Biden administration. The U.S. is looking to press Beijing on what it calls unfair trade practices whilst working to improve relations between the world's two largest economies.

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout following live from Hong Kong. Lots of differences, but they also agree on the fact that they need each other, frankly -- Kristie.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, and that these direct conversations must go on. The U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is back in China to further stabilize this critical relationship and also to press Chinese leaders on the threat posed by overcapacity.

Yellen has been saying that China is overproducing exports like lithium batteries, like solar panels, like EVs, which she says distorts global markets and harms workers.

Now, Yellen is making two stops in this latest visit, Guangzhou and Beijing. Today, she's in Guangzhou. And earlier, she met with members of the business community, as well as Chinese leaders, including the Chinese Vice Premier, He Lifeng. We saw a photo of them earlier, that meeting that took place.

Now, this visit comes just days after that phone call that happened between the U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday.

[04:25:00]

That was their first direct talks that they had in months since the APEC summit back in November. And Xi criticized Biden's moves to, quote, suppress China's trade and tech development. Trade and tech development is in focus today in Guangzhou. Here's Janet Yellen ahead of her meeting that she had earlier today with the governor of Guangdong. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: Building a healthy economic relationship requires a level playing field for American workers and firms. This includes the issue of China's industrial overcapacity, which the United States and other countries are concerned can cause global spillovers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Overcapacity, that has been the key word. The Biden administration is concerned that Chinese subsidies will spark a flood of low-priced exports. Now, Chinese state-run Xinhua has slammed that concern, a so-called hype.

But we have to keep in mind that just last month, the Chinese Premier, Li Qiang, acknowledged that overcapacity is a problem. Now, Yellen's current trip is a follow-up to the meetings that she had last July in Beijing when she had those, quote, direct and productive talks with China's economic leadership.

And, Max, during her latest trip underway right now, Yellen has been praised by Chinese state media for mastering the use of chopsticks. She was observed while eating at a famous local restaurant in Guangzhou and praised for her use of the chopsticks. Back to you.

FOSTER: OK, Kristie, thank you so much. The new trading day gets underway in the U.S. in a little less than five hours. Here's where stock futures stand right now. They are more positive on the open, it seems, than yesterday.

Meanwhile, European markets are up and running and they're all pretty grim, very much picking up from some bad news on Wall Street yesterday, really concerned about how interest rates are moving in the U.S., but they're all down quite significantly here in Europe. And here's a look at how markets across Asia fared. It was a bit of a domino effect, as you can see.

Now, Wall Street coming off a pretty rough ride, actually. Stocks initially went south after the Minneapolis Federal Reserve president said interest rates may not be cut at all this year if inflation remains high. Many investors are expecting the rate cuts to begin as early as June, but inflation remains so tough to crack.

The Dow dropped more than 500 points yesterday, closing below 39,000 for the first time since mid-March. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 also lost more than 1 percent each.

Still ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, a new report says the Israeli military is using artificial intelligence to pick bombing targets in Gaza. We'll see how that's working out.

And new challenges for Donald Trump as two judges reject the former president's efforts to have legal cases against him dropped. Details next.