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Biden Unveils Three Phase Israel Ceasefire Proposal; New Details On Jury Selection In Hunter Biden Case; Trump Awaits Sentencing After Conviction On 34 Counts. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired June 03, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Agree to the plan, but his office is now saying that is not true. President Biden announced the three-phase peace proposal on Friday, insisting that it's time for Israel's war with Hamas to end. The administration is still waiting for an official response from the terrorist group.

Joining us now is CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Army Major General James "Spider" Marks, and CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid. Barak, we've been hearing some contradictory responses from Israel since this ceasefire proposal was unveiled on Friday by President Biden. What do you know about these efforts to get this deal approved? What's the latest?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: So, Wolf, let's make one thing straight here. This is an Israeli proposal. The Israeli war cabinet approved this proposal. It was transferred to the U.S. to Egypt and to Qatar last week, and they transferred it to Hamas.

I will tell you one more thing. I'm now reading to you the headline of this document -- the headline of this document that was passed to Hamas and that President Biden based his speech on Israel's response on May -- on May 6, 2024, proposal. This is the headline. Israel's response. So, I think anybody who says that this is not an Israeli proposal is being inaccurate, to say the least.

BLITZER: Well, is the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Barak, denying that this is an Israeli proposal? Because when President Biden made the announcement at the White House on Friday, he made it clear this was Israel's latest proposal.

RAVID: So, Netanyahu is not denying it like that. But he says and he said today at the hearing of the Foreign Relations Security Committee at the Knesset that President Biden only referred to parts of the proposal when other parts of the proposal he did not mention in his speech. And Netanyahu is referring to one clause, specifically.

And this is the clause that says that on day 16 of the implementation of the deal, Israel and Hamas are supposed to start a negotiation over the next phase, and over what is called the cessation of hostilities. And in those negotiations, each side can bring his own positions and his own demands. And Netanyahu is saying I will demand in those negotiations that you know, the war will end only if Hamas's military capabilities are not there anymore, and only if Hamas will not rule the Gaza Strip on the day after the war.

BLITZER: Interesting point. General Marks, the White House sounds very confident that the Israelis have sufficiently degraded Hamas's capabilities. Here's what the National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said over the weekend. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: Militarily speaking, Hamas is in no position to conduct another attack like October 7. Now, we're also not saying that Hamas has been wiped off the face of the map. We've not said that Hamas has no military capabilities.

We've not said that they don't still represent a viable threat to the Israeli people. Of course, they do. But they don't have the military capabilities to do what they did on the seventh of October.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What do you think, General, is -- in realistic terms, how big of a threat is Hamas right now?

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hamas remains an ideology, and it's certainly a political arm that has some -- has a future. Let's be frank. So, there is a difference between not having the capability to conduct military operations and the destruction of Hamas. And that's where Netanyahu and his cabinet are viewing it visa vie what the -- our administration is viewing it.

I think it's significant that Israel and the United States have a really strong conversation about this. Look, Israel is not going to walk away from what has taken place in Gaza. They're going to be very much engaged in what this thing looks like going forward, and they want to have a military capability for the potential inevitability to launch operations very quickly, very precisely back into Gaza, post some form of a ceasefire and inevitable reconstruction.

BLITZER: You know, Barak, as you know, this deal calls for the release of all of the hostages held by Hamas. Indeed, of the 250 people captured or killed back on October 7, Israel says roughly a hundred are still being held in Gaza right now, along with the bodies of 30 more. Families of these hostages want this ceasefire plan implemented, but will their wishes influence Netanyahu? We've seen these huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel.

RAVID: Well, Wolf, I think that there's a lot of pressure on Netanyahu from the families of the hostages and from public opinion. I think more than 60 percent of Israelis, you see it in all the polls, think the number one priority should be the -- bring the hostages back home, even if it means that the war should end.

[11:35:12]

On the other hand, Netanyahu is under pressure from the radical right- wing members of his own coalition, ultra-nationalist ministers, Ben- Gvir and Smotrich who both already publicly threatened to leave the coalition and topple his government if he moves forward with this deal. So, the question is, which side Netanyahu chooses? And if we look at the record until today in almost every juncture, Netanyahu picked the -- his -- you know, the stability of his coalition over anything else.

BLITZER: Interesting. General Marks, more than a hundred hostages as you know, were free during a release deal back in November. So, if all of the parties agreed to this latest proposal, will officials use the same playbook they did back then to get the hostages home?

MARKS: I would imagine they would. I mean, it was a success last time. We would anticipate a similar activity going forward. The challenge is, and I think we have to be very wide-eyed about this, what is the state of those hostages that remain behind now? Are we going to get live bodies being returned or will the preponderance of those be messages and or remains coming back to the families?

BLITZER: Interesting. Barak, the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the U.S. is monitoring the situation in Rafah. Israel has had some operations in Rafah, but that huge major operation apparently has not yet started. What are you learning about what's actually happening right now on the ground in and around Rafah?

RAVID: So, Wolf, what I hear from Israeli officials is that the main objective of the Rafah operation has already ended. The most important part of this operation was the capture of the Philadelphi Corridor, this 12-kilometer corridor on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, which under it, there are apparently from what the IDF says at least two dozen Hamas tunnels for smuggling weapons. And this was the main objective of the operation.

This has been already achieved. And yesterday, Israeli, Egyptian, and U.S. officials met in Cairo to discuss exactly that. How do you close this border so that Hamas cannot rearm?

BLITZER: One quick question before I let you go, Barak. The latest Israeli polls, do they continue to show if there were early elections in Israel, Netanyahu would be defeated.

RAVID: So, I think there are two trends. A., if there -- if elections were held today, Netanyahu would still lose the elections. But he is bit by bit managing to you know, close this gap from his political opponents.

We see that Benny Gantz, his main political rival is going down in the polls. Netanyahu is slightly going up. So, the trend right now is more positive for Netanyahu in the polls, and it's been let's say, a month ago.

BLITZER: Interesting. All right. Barak Ravid, General Spider Marks, to both of you, thank you very, very much. Still ahead this hour, former President Trump says he'd be OK with serving prison time, but not without a veiled threat on behalf of his supporters.

I'll speak live with a former attorney for Trump. That's coming up. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[11:43:14]

BLITZER: We're getting some interesting breaking news out of the Hunter Biden trial over in Wilmington, Delaware. Our Correspondent Evan Perez is watching all of this unfold. Evan, I understand some interesting developments involving questioning for potential members of the jury.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Look, as part of this process, jurors are asked whether they can set aside their political beliefs or asked about their political beliefs and whether they can set them aside to judge this case fairly. And we just had an interesting development where Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden's lawyers, signaled that he's going to seek to strike one particular potential juror who told the court that he believes that Donald Trump but not Democrats are victims of political persecution.

He said that the Trump trial in New York last week or in the last few weeks and other things, including the Trump Russia investigation led him to believe that prosecutors pursue cases for political reasons. And when Abbe Lowell asked him whether Democrats had ever suffered the same fate, and -- he says not that he was aware of. Again, he's a former Wilmington police officer who is one of the 250 people called to the courthouse today to serve potentially on this jury.

We expect that this process is going to continue through the day day, perhaps into tomorrow, Wolf. They're going through these people very, very quickly. I'll tell you another -- about another potential juror being asked very personal questions about drug addiction both personally and also in their families. One potential juror said that her parents struggled with alcoholism. And she believes that that would make it easier for her to adjudicate a case like this.

[11:45:04]

We've also saw a man whose voice broke when he talked about family members who have struggled with addiction. Again, this case is going to be a lot about the personal activities of Hunter Biden who has struggled with addiction. And the reason why he's on trial is because he was allegedly addicted to drugs, something he admitted in a -- in his own memoir during the time when he bought this firearm.

He bought this firearm in 2018, Wolf. He owned it for about 11 days. And that's the reason why we are here for this trial. Again, we expect that this proceeding to continue through the course of this day, Wolf.

BLITZER: Remind our viewers, Evan, it was not that long ago when there was the so-called plea agreement that Hunter Biden would plead guilty in exchange for some sort of reduced sentence. That was agreed by both sides but then it died -- it died. What happened?

PEREZ: Right. It failed. It collapsed spectacularly in this very courthouse just last July -- in July of 2023. This is a six-year investigation that began in 2018 looking into Hunter Biden's business dealings, his tax issues, and we finally -- in June of 2023, there was a plea agreement with the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was held -- kept on in office by Joe Biden when he became president.

The judge asked some very key questions during that hearing last July, Wolf, where she was asking questions about some of the terms -- the details of that plea agreement, and in the end, it collapsed. So, that's the reason why now we have Hunter Biden on trial here for these three gun charges. And we expect him to be on trial again as soon as September on those attacks-related charges in Los Angeles, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, lots going on. All right. Evan, thank you very much. Evan Perez in Wilmington, Delaware for us. And we'll be right back with more news.

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[11:51:30]

BLITZER: As a convicted felon, Donald Trump now awaits sentencing after a jury found him guilty on all 34 felony counts in his criminal hush money trial. His fate, which could include potentially prison, is now in the hands of Judge Juan Merchan, whom he attacked throughout the proceedings. But there's still a chance Trump potentially may not serve any prison sentence. His legal team is moving to appeal the verdict in the New York Appellate Division. And if a five-judge panel in that court upholds the decision, the state's highest court will then weigh in.

Let's discuss this with criminal defense attorney and former Trump impeachment Attorney Michael Van Der Veen. Michael, thanks for joining us. The appeals process, as you know better than I do, is likely to drag on potentially for many months. Could Trump avoid a prison sentence by delaying the process through the election?

MICHAEL VAN DER VEEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, sure. The appellate process going all the way to the highest court in New York would take longer than to conclude before November. But, Wolf, I don't think he's likely to go to prison. I think he's likely to get a probationary sentence.

BLITZER: A lot of people agree with you on that. Trump's fate as you know, Michael, is in the hands of Judge Merchan whom he has repeatedly attacked throughout the trial and continues to attack. Do you think he might impose jail time? What do you think? How's the judge going to react to that, and Trump's refusal to apologize or say anything at all about the conviction?

VAN DER VEEN: You know, it's a -- it's a good question. It's interesting because, you know, the concern is his conduct during trial, and then also his contempt findings. Well, either one of those impacted sentencing.

I don't think so, you know. With respect to his conduct during the trial, it wasn't all that bad. He pretty much followed the line and Judge Juan Merchan has seen a lot more active defendants in his criminal courts over the years than what we've seen here.

And with respect to the criminal contempt findings, I don't think they're going to weigh into the decision of the sentencing because he's already been punished for the criminal contempt finding. He was fined $1,000 per violation that the court found him guilty of after a hearing. It wouldn't be appropriate, nor do I think Judge Merchan would be allowed to consider that in giving a sentence. There are specific factors to be considered during sentencing and that isn't one of them. You're not going to double punish him for it.

BLITZER: If you're still his lawyer, would you advise him to at least show some remorse as he awaits sentencing?

VAN DER VEEN: I really wouldn't. My advice to him -- and would be very clearly, please keep this case out of the public dialogue, focus on your campaign, and let us get to the sentencing on July 11. There's nothing that he's going to say that's going to help him on that day of sentencing. So, it's best that he's not saying anything, and it's best that he just be prepared for the sentencing on July 11.

BLITZER: And if you say not saying anything, including not showing any remorse at all, is that what you're saying?

VAN DER VEEN: Well, you know, he's going to appeal. So, he maintains his innocence. And if he's maintaining his innocence, you know, remorse wouldn't be in that equation. It's -- you know, it's counterintuitive to show remorse when you're saying that you're in this --

[11:55:15]

BLITZER: That's a good point as well.

VAN DER VEEN: And he professes his innocence very strongly.

BLITZER: All right. Michael Van Der Veen, thanks very much for joining us.

VAN DER VEEN: Thanks for having me, Wolf.

BLITZER: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining me here on the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Wolf Blitzer. I'll be back later tonight 6:00 p.m. Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Right back here tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Eastern for more in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS" with Dana Bash starts right after a short break.

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