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CNN This Morning

Now, U.S. Defense Secretary in Israel for War Assessment; Trump Amps Up Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric; Storm Hits East Coast with Heavy Rain, High Winds. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 18, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: What does all this mean for folks that, you know, get so sick they have to go to the emergency room?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is a real concern about hospital capacity and E.R. capacity as we haven't even reached the peak yet. And we are even hearing anecdotes about people trying to seek care and perhaps not being able to get it because we know that those ICUs and ERs are full.

And so we really hate to think about that. We thought about that during the pandemic. But even now, we've got these two respiratory viruses, RSV and flu, which have been with us, but we're adding COVID on top of that. So, even as we return to pre-pandemic levels, it still can overwhelm our healthcare system.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Meg Tirrell, Thanks, pal.

HARLOW: Thank you.

CNN This Morning Continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world, they're coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, good morning everyone.

Former President Donald Trump is escalating his long-held anti- immigrant rhetoric as he hits the campaign trail. The comment he made in Nevada, the Anti-Defamation league is calling xenophobic and the White House is calling fascist.

HARLOW: Speaking of the White House, the White House and the Senate, their negotiators are racing to try to reach a deal on immigration and southern border policy with aid for Ukraine and Israel hanging in the balance.

MATTINGLY: And right now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in Israel as the Biden administration presses for the war to be scaled back to protect civilians.

CNN This Morning starts right now.

HARLOW: And here's where we begin this hour with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Israel this morning as a public divide continues to grow between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically over the number of casualties of civilians in Gaza.

Secretary Austin is visiting to try to get a much clearer sense from Israeli officials about their military operations, including how they are assessing the heavy bombing campaign in Gaza and the metrics they're using to try to transition to a more precise phase.

MATTINGLY: Also this morning, Israeli forces say they've discovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in Gaza. The IDF saying new video allegedly recorded by Hamas and obtained by Israel shows the tunnel being built. It spans two and a half miles, has electricity, ventilation and communication systems.

Israel is also testing flooding tunnels like these with seawater, but this tactic comes with potential risk to the hostages.

Let's get straight to CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv. Jeremy, the U.S. officials that have been on the ground in Israel consistently, particularly over the course of the last couple of weeks, do we have any sense whether they will have influence or leverage to change the direction of where this conflict has been headed?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Israeli officials know that they simply cannot ignore the pressure coming from the United States. They can't ignore the advice coming from the United States. And so they really have to work through what the next phase of this war is going to look like and how quickly it will come with their American partners.

The United States is Israel's top provider of security assistance, of weapons, of munitions, and therefore they have to listen to the United States as they prepare for the next phase of this war in Gaza and also for the possibility, again, that still exists of a widening war in the north with Lebanon, with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Today, the U.S. defense secretary is meeting with his defense counterpart, as well as Israel's war cabinet. He's also going to sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And what he's going to be looking for is for specific assurances and milestones of what kind of progress they feel like they still need to make in their war against Hamas before they can transition to a less intense phase of the campaign, one that is not going to look like what we see now, with extensive of Gaza, an all-out ground offensive, and instead transitioning to something that's much more special forces-oriented, intelligence- driven operations to go after senior Hamas commanders. It's interesting. The last time the Secretary of Defense was here was about two months ago, and I spoke with him on the tarmac of an air force base in Israel where he was actually overseeing the delivery of additional U.S. munitions to Israel.

And I asked him about what kinds of assurances he had received from Israel, especially amid the mounting toll of civilian casualties about how they would be used. At the time, he expressed confidence in Israel being a professionally led military, and he said he's confident that they would do the right thing. But now, amid that mounting -- continuing to mount civilian deaths toll, there's no question that the U.S. is looking for additional assurances from Israel as it prepares to provide additional support over the coming weeks.

HARLOW: Yes, that death toll according to the Hamas-run health ministry right around 20,000 now in Gaza.

Tell us about this new video. We showed a little bit of it, but show us more. The IDF says they've discovered a huge, one of the biggest Hamas tunnels yet.

[07:05:00]

DIAMOND: Yes, it is the biggest tunnel that Israel has discovered in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. Unlike other tunnels where you would have to walk single file, very narrow tunnels for people, this one can have vehicles go through it. The Israeli military said you could drive a large vehicle through it, and that may very well have been one of the purposes of this type of tunnel.

There are electronic systems, ventilation, communication systems throughout this tunnel. It's part of a network of about two and a half miles of tunnels, and it emerges about a quarter mile from the Erez crossing, which is one of the key crossing points between Israel and Gaza. It's also where Hamas militants attacked on October 7th to carry out their deadly attacks that day.

The Israeli military is systematically discovering more of these tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip. Hamas has said that they have hundreds of miles of these tunnels. They continue to present a significant threat to Israeli forces on the ground, where they have been ambushed by Hamas fighters using these tunnels. And so the Israeli military discovering and destroying these tunnels as they go on with this campaign.

HARLOW: Quite something to see in that video. Jeremy Diamond reporting for us in Tel Aviv, thanks very much.

MATTINGLY: Well, also this morning Donald Trump has been escalating his anti-immigrant rhetoric to dark new extremes on the campaign trail with just four weeks left until the Iowa caucuses. The Biden campaign quickly firing back saying Trump was flat-out parroting Adolf Hitler at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday when he told the crowd the immigrants were, quote, poisoning the blood of our country.

And last night in Nevada, Trump described the surge of migrants at the southern border as a, quote, invasion of criminals, gang members and terrorists.

HARLOW: Take a look at this. This was the scene in Eagle Pass, Texas, yesterday. It is just one of the areas where thousands of migrants have been crossing and really overwhelming border patrol. The agency has announced temporarily that it is shutting down a railway border crossing in Eagle Pass and El Paso so agents can be sent elsewhere to deal with the surge. Remember a couple weeks ago, we saw that happen in Arizona.

And on Capitol Hill, Senate negotiators will be back at the table today, trying to see if they can get a border deal by the end of the year.

We've got a team of correspondents all focused on this, this morning. Let's begin with Omar Jimenez, who is here with us in New York. Trump responding to some backlash over his remarks. What is his response this morning?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you can imagine, he is doubling down on the backlash that he's faced.

I mean, look, we're a month away from Iowa caucuses at this point, and I think what we saw this weekend really gave a clear indication of what his campaigning is going to look like in this final stretch, talking about migrants poisoning the blood of our country.

And Chris Christie, who, of course, is a no friend these days of Donald Trump, said what I think a lot of the critics have said is that Trump is essentially blowing a dog whistle to a lot of people blaming the troubles that you may have, the very real troubles with the economy or things that have been driven from other parts of the world on this group of people, demonizing them essentially.

And if you remember, this draws many similarities to what President Trump did in his 2016 campaign when build the wall was the focal point of his campaign, at least the immigration policy at that point. For some of the same reasons or claims that we are now seeing in this final stretch, he clearly thinks it's going to work. And I guess we're just going to have to see.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's neither subtle nor new, but your point, Omar. He clearly believes it's effective. It's also, Rosa, not happening in a vacuum when you look at what's actually happening right now on the border. What is happening? You were talking, you were reporting this morning last night of the closure of these railways and ports of entry. What are we seeing right now?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, here's the thing, the Biden administration is responding to the current surge by closing ports of entry and now even railway crossings. And what they're doing is they are reassigning those port of entry employees, railway employees, to process migrants. That's how overwhelmed they are.

But here's what's notable. This stops or interrupts legal trade and travel, but the illegal immigration continues, illegal crossing continues. You're looking at it on your screen right now. These are the scenes that we see all the time and it's hurting border communities, these closures of ports of entry.

Eagle Pass is a perfect example, according to the city, the revenue from the crossings, the legal crossings in that town make up about 50 percent of the city's budget. And so that closure in Eagle Pass started about three weeks ago.

Those leaders in that city, very frustrated with the Biden administration about that closure in Arizona. We're seeing the exact same thing. The Lukeville, Arizona crossing is closed there. And as you know, the Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, a Democrat has been expressing her frustration about the Biden administration's decision to close that port of entry. We were there last week and we saw that that port of entry is closed and it was actually being used as a waiting area for migrants that were being transported for processing.

[07:10:08]

Now, that governor is saying that this is hurting her state's economy, her trade in that state, and also the safety and security.

And here's the crux of the governor's frustration when it comes to border security. She says that this creates border security gaps. And let me explain what she means, because what this means is that while border patrol agents are busy processing these thousands of migrants that are crossing into the U.S. southern border every single day, they can't go out on patrol. They can't be out patrolling the areas where criminal organizations could be crossing individuals with criminal pasts or crossing drugs into the United States.

Look, and I talked to the U.S. Border Patrol chief, Jason Owens, about a week ago about this, and he expressed his frustration about this. He said his agency is overwhelmed, and he says that criminal organizations take advantage of border surges like this to cross drugs into the United States. And so, like you said, none of this is happening in a vacuum.

And I'll just mention one last thing. Here in the state of Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is aligning with the hard line immigration policies of President Donald Trump. Today, he's expected to sign SB-4. This is Senate Bill 4. The ACLU has dubbed this bill one of the most anti-immigrant bills ever passed in any state. And what this bill does, Phil and Poppy, is it creates a new state crime for the illegal entry into the state of Texas.

Democrats here in the state have warned that this is going to lead to the racial profiling of Latinos in the state, which make up about 40 percent of the population in the state.

So, again, it's not happening in a vacuum, and a lot is transpiring as the federal government doesn't solve this. States like Texas and Governor Greg Abbott capitalizing on that and trying to do something at the state level.

HARLOW: Taking their own steps. Rosa, thank you for the reporting.

And speaking of the federal government, let's get to Lauren Fox who's on Capitol Hill. If you ask Lindsey Graham you can't get it done this year but is all hope lost for a deal?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think two things are true. One, negotiators did make significant progress in repeated meetings over and throughout the weekend. On the other hand, this is really complicated. And the lead negotiator, Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, both underscored that point last night when I was on Capitol Hill, and they had broken from about a three-hour meeting.

And, you know, reporters were repeatedly asking, are you going to have a framework tonight? Do you have any announcement to make? And they both said, we don't have any special announcement. We are making progress, but this is really hard to do.

And despite the fact that they believe that they can continue having these conversations, they're going to be back at the negotiating table today, the chances that they have a deal, that they can write legislative texts, that they can communicate this with their members and be ready to vote by the end of the week, I think that's a really high bar. And at this point, it may even be an unrealistic one to meet.

And there are a lot of Republican senators who are sounding the alarm that this is something that they should pause on and come back in January to deal with, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): This is a catastrophe, and it's a result of the Biden open border policies.

SEN. LIDNSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): The bottom line here is we feel like we're being jammed. We're not anywhere close to a deal. It will go into next year.

The policy choices of the Biden administration has made the border a dangerous place to come to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And a revealing moment yesterday, there were about 15 Republican senators that sent a letter to leadership saying that they wanted to have a special Republican conference meeting when they return in January. And last night, Senator Lankford said that he thought it was realistic to have that conference meeting in January, because he's signaling this probably isn't going to be done before then. Poppy, Phil?

MATTINGLY: All right, Omar, Rosa, Lauren, thanks, guys.

HARLOW: New this morning Southwest Airlines has just been hit with a record fine for last year's holiday travel meltdown. How much they owe and will you see any of that money ahead?

MATTINGLY: And right now, millions of people across the northeast are under severe storm threat. The area is the biggest risk of flooding, that's next.

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[07:15:00]

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, a storm traveling up the eastern seaboard will reach peak strength. Right now the system is bringing nor'easter-like conditions minus the snow. The heaviest rain and strongest winds will likely center on New England and New York City is under a flood watch until at least 5:00 P.M. today.

Right now, flooding is affecting commuters in New Jersey. New video showing heavy traffic and cars left stranded on the turnpike. You can see it right there, at least 200,000 people are without power.

Polo Sandoval is live now in Rockaway Beach, New York. Polo, you look wet. It has been raining and windy throughout the course of the morning. In terms of flooding, what do people need to know about where it's actually happening right now?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And the thing is, Phil, we were dry just a moment ago. It's just an indication of how fast things can change. And, look, this storm is really proving to be everything that forecasters expected, a combination of rain, the threat of localized flooding, and, of course, what is perhaps the main event, those heavy winds, those winds that we've been experiencing during the overnight hours.

I will say that they were perhaps most intense during the overnight hours, but they really have picked up just in the last few moments or so. You're able to really see it in the American flag off in the distance.

I will say, though, we are seeing the school buses running. We are seeing the subway, New York City subway line, at least most of it, running as normal. However, those heavy winds prompting the closure of the Verrazano Bridge, which links the Brooklyn and the Staten Island boroughs for a few temporarily, while those winds were really gusting.

Now, there is hope that those winds, the rain will begin to diminish throughout the morning, since, according to meteorologists, this was mainly an overnight event. But I tell you what, Phil, for the morning commute, for many on this Monday morning, it is going to be just absolutely treacherous travel.

[07:20:03]

MATTINGLY: Yes, important for everybody to stay safe, including yourself. Polo, I will say the windswept hair, it does look good, and I will grant you that.

Polo Sandoval, thanks, buddy. I appreciate it.

SANDOVAL: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: Phil is slightly envious of that this morning. New this morning, Southwest Airlines getting hit with a $140 million fine. Remember that was for last holidays, last year's historic ten- day meltdown. It is the Department of Transportation's biggest civil penalty ever.

This comes about a year after these issues began for Southwest. The debacle resulted in 17,000 flight cancelations that left more than 2 million travelers stranded. The agency says Southwest is being fined for numerous violations of consumer protection laws, including not communicating with passengers, failing to provide adequate customer service and not refunding passengers fast enough. But the CEO promises it will not happen again this holiday season.

MATTINGLY: Well, the chairman of Florida's Republican Party has just been stripped of all of his authority and his salary is now just $1. The disturbing details surrounding that censure, next.

And right now, a manhunt is underway in Texas. Officials say 39-year- old Robert Yancy Jr. managed to escape a prison in Brazoria, Texas yesterday afternoon.

HARLOW: He is serving a life sentence without parole for continuous sexual abuse of a child. He was last seen with his mother in a 2021 white niece on Versa with the license plate number DNR9145. Officials say if you see him, do not approach. Just contact law enforcement right away.

We'll be right back.

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[07:25:00]

HARLOW: Well, this morning, the Florida Republican Party has voted to censure its chair, Christian Ziegler, who has been accused of rape. They had an emergency meeting on Sunday, where a member stopped just short of removing Ziegler. But they did strip him of nearly all his authority. He has not been charged yet with a crime. He does maintain his innocence.

Our Carlos Suarez is tracking everything for us. What can you tell us about this incident?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, good morning. So, we know that state party officials are going to meet in early January to officially remove Ziegler from his chairmanship.

Now, over the weekend, party officials told me, look, at this point, there was nothing that Christian Ziegler can tell them that is going to change their minds. They believe that he has to go. As you noted at an emergency meeting here in Orlando on Sunday, the party stripped Ziegler of his duties and his salaries in a meeting where we're told that Ziegler tried to apologize to board members as well as defend himself. But those were remarks that were told were not welcomed by party officials. Now, over the weekend, there had been some talk that Ziegler was trying to score a buyout, but that is something that Christian Ziegler told me was 100 percent a lie. And it is something that party officials said at this point, it is not going to take place. They want Christian Ziegler out on his own.

Ziegler himself has been under investigation since October when a woman told the Sarasota Police Department that Christian raped her after a planned sexual encounter between Christian Ziegler, the woman and Christian's wife, Bridget Ziegler, fell through. The woman told police that she canceled on that encounter after learning that Bridget could not attend, but Christian still showed up at her home in Sarasota where the alleged assault took place.

As you noted, Ziegler has not been charged and he says that the sex was consensual.

Here now is the vice chair of the Florida Republican Party describing why everyone in Florida, from Governor DeSantis to both senators here in Florida, as well as county level officials, believe that Ziegler has to go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVAN POWER, VICE CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FLORIDA: You cannot lead the Republican Party with the charges that are standing in front of him and the admissions he's made in the affidavits. You cannot morally lead the Republican Party forward.

And that's, I think, the end of the day, we wish Christian well in his legal endeavors if he did not do it. We feel for the victim if he did do it or in what she's gone through. But he needs to handle the legal problem on his own time and we need to move the party forward in its own legal -- in its political process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUAREZ: As for Bridget Ziegler, she too has refused calls to step down from the Sarasota County School Board. The Moms for Liberty co- founder was asked by fellow board members last week to resign her seat, but she's given no indication that she is going to do just that.

Poppy and Phil, one final note on Bridget Ziegler, she has not been accused of anything criminally in this investigation, though she did admit to the Sarasota County -- the Sarasota Police Department, rather, that she did have one sexual encounter with her husband, Christian, and this woman over a year ago.

HARLOW: Carlos Suarez, we appreciate the reporting this morning. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: A mistake and malfunction, how the IDF is responding after three Israeli hostages were shot and killed by the Israeli military. Still ahead, we'll be joined by a woman whose uncles are still being held by Hamas in the Gaza war zone.

Stay with us.

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