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CNN This Morning

Ukrainian Military's Offensive against Russian Forces Fails to Obtain Objectives; Biden Administration Officials to Meet Counterparts in Mexico to Discuss Migrant Crisis; Biden Administration Officials Meet with Close Confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump Shares Revenge, Dictatorship Word Cloud; "Parasite" Actor, Lee Sun-Kyun Found Dead in Car; Israel-Hamas War Amplifies New Year's Eve Security Concerns. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired December 27, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- but not really seeing very much. This mobilization, I think, right now is very important for the Ukrainians. They certainly now understand that this is going to be going on for a very long time.

If you look at things on the front line, the counteroffensive by the Ukrainians has been going very difficult. One of the things that Zaluzhnyi also talked about is the difficulty they are having in places like Mar'inka where there is really heavy fighting going on. I want to listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENERAL VALERY ZALUZHNYI, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES (through translator): The methodology is exactly the same as it was in Bakhmut. Street after street is destroyed, block after block our fighters are buried, and then we have what we have. So again, this is war. And the fact that we have now withdrawn to the outskirts of Mar'inka and in some places have already equipped positions behind Mar'inka, there is nothing in this that can cause any public outcry there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So attrition is, obviously, a big problem for the Ukrainians. Obviously, on the Russian side there's a lot of people who are being killed and wounded as well. But on the other hand, there's a lot of Ukrainians, guys, that have been fighting in this war since February of 2022, and a lot of them are very, very tired. So the Ukrainians looking to replenish some of their forces, guys.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Fred Pleitgen with the reporting. Thanks very much.

And CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR ROLANDO SALINAS, EAGLE PASS, TEXAS: This is unacceptable, and it's just an unfair, unethical situation what's going on here in Eagle Pass. We feel ignored by the federal government.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS, (D) NEW YORK CITY: The federal government said to New York City, we're not going to do our job. You do our job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Good morning, everyone. So glad you are with us. From Texas border towns to right here in New York City, mayors slamming the Biden administration over its handling of the migrant crisis. This as top White House officials head to Mexico today.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy halting TV ads spending just weeks before the first primary contest. Why he says it's only for candidates with, quote, low I.Q.

HARLOW: And new overnight, a star of the hit movie "Parasite" found dead in the middle of a drug investigation and claims that he was being blackmailed. Those details ahead.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

We do begin this morning with the crisis at the southern border where President Biden is sending some of his highest ranking officials to confront the surge. Right now, a caravan of at least 6,000 migrants, including thousands of children, moving from southern Mexico hoping to reach the United States. Its leader is carrying a banner reading "exodus from poverty."

MATTINGLY: Just hours from now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Homeland Security Adviser Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will meet with their counterparts in Mexico City to discuss ways to stem the tide. This comes after President Biden's conversation with Mexico's president last week where they agreed more enforcement at the border is needed.

HARLOW: Meanwhile, this is the situation at the border right now -- 11,000 migrants still waiting in shelters and camps in Mexico as U.S. Border Patrol officials say they are struggling to cope with thousands who are crossing already every day.

MATTINGLY: We begin with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez at the White House. Priscilla, you have been doing a ton of reporting on this, breaking a lot of news on this as well. What do we expect from U.S. officials as they head into these meetings today?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN REPORTER: They have specific requests to drive down the numbers at the U.S. southern border. And the urgency of the moment is being marked by this meeting of high-ranking officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Officials tell me that these asks include, for example, moving

migrants who are in the northern border of Mexico south. It also includes controlling railways, which are often used by migrants to more quickly get to the U.S. southern border, and providing incentives for migrants in Mexico to avoid that irregular migration to the U.S. southern border. And all of this an extension of that phone call between President Biden and the Mexican president just last week to provide some relief to these border towns which are growing increasingly restless.

To give you a sense of the numbers here, in the seven-day average for December was 9,600 encounters. Compare that to the month prior, and it was about 6,800. So clearly, the numbers have continued to grow. And it remains a pressing challenge for President Biden who started the year in Mexico talking about migration and how best to handle it with his Mexican counterpart. We are now at end of the year, and they are having the same conversation as they try to grapple with this record migration across the western hemisphere.

HARLOW: How much can actually be done quickly without Congress acting? You've covered the border so extensively and the White House. If they make agreements today, what can actually be done?

ALVAREZ: So these agreements, if they make them today, could be done pretty quickly, and we could start to see the results soon thereafter.

[08:05:00]

But the question is, how long with the results hold when there is limited capacity in Mexico to begin with? They are also stretched with their resources. So ultimately, and this is what the White House continues to say is that there needs to be reform in Congress, because at the end of the day, despite whatever policies they put in place, this an immigration system that is decades old and just cannot absorb or handle the migration that we are seeing today.

HARLOW: Priscilla Alvarez at the White House, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Also this morning, we are waiting to see what may come from an hours-long meeting last night between senior Biden administration officials and a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ron Dermer, a member of Israel's war cabinet, met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. A White House official tells CNN they discussed the need for Israel to focus on high value Hamas targets, ways to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, and the future of Gaza after the war. This comes as Israel says it's intensifying operations in Gaza despite the growing international pressure to change its tactics.

Joining us now, former spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, a former director of the White House National Security Council, Hagar Chemali. I appreciate your time this morning. To start with, when you heard Ron Dermer was going to be physically in Washington meeting with the top two deputies for President Biden, what did you think? HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR THE U.S. MISSION TO THE U.N.:

Well, first, it was a blast from the past, because when I was at the White House we used to be on the phone with Ron Dermer almost daily.

MATTINGLY: When he was the ambassador to the United States?

CHEMALI: This was actually right before that. He was senior advisor to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the time. And so this is the years 2010 to 2011, and he was our main interlocutor. The reason was that he had a direct line to Netanyahu. He was Netanyahu's closest confidant. And he was very adept at the White House system, the Washington, D.C., circuit, and we had this very close relationship with him.

So when I heard that, my first thought was, wow, nostalgia right there. But also, it's important because, while they are probably talking to him daily as it is, for the meetings to actually happen in person means that these are going to be working meetings where they are going to sit down and strategize, and the U.S. is going to press Ron Dermer very hard on what it sees as its national security interests. So transition to low intensity operations, expediting humanitarian said, making sure that the body that controls Gaza after is the Palestinian Authority itself or that the Palestinian Authority has a role and not some newly fabricated body.

MATTINGLY: You make an important point about Ron Dermer in terms of somebody who really knows Washington, really knows the U.S., really knows how to operate, knows all the players, too, in spite some disagreements perhaps in the past, in the last Democratic administration. To that point, though, everything you just listed off in terms of shifting the types of operations into a lower intensity, what comes after, even on humanitarian aid, that there has been some give there. It seems like Israel and the U.S. are in very different places, at least publicly. Is there something different behind the scenes here?

CHEMALI: Well, so first, Israel is a non-NATO ally of the United States, has been since 1987. And that's not going to change. That doesn't mean that they're always going to be on the same page. And I was at the White House when we had numerous disagreements about other conflicts, about other general issues, about the peace process at the time. And the issue is that we have a close enough relationship where we can press them. That doesn't necessarily mean they will always do what the U.S. says, and they are not very receptive when being ordered. But they are receptive to the U.S. perspective. They pay attention to the U.S. perspective in general. And we have an ability to shift it.

Now, Ron Dermer specifically is quite stubborn and difficult, and, yes, has gone against wishes of the U.S. government, particularly under the Obama administration when I was there. He was the one who orchestrated Netanyahu's address to Congress against the Iran deal at the time. So there is a little bit of bad blood there. But not entirely. At the same time, we work with everyone. He is somebody that the United States works with very closely. But I would say that those meetings, it is the greatest chance to influence decisions because Dermer has the greatest influence on Netanyahu's decision-making. But it doesn't mean it's a slam dunk all the time.

MATTINGLY: It's such an important point in terms of influence and the value of in-person. But to your point. To a person outside who is saying the U.S. is the number one ally to Israel. The U.S. provides more in military hardware and assistance than anybody else. Without the U.S., Israel's in big trouble in terms of capacity, capabilities, allies in the region, to which they don't have a ton. Why doesn't the U.S. have more leverage here?

CHEMALI: So I would take issue a little bit with the idea that Israel what be nowhere without us, because while we give a lot of aid, we give $3.8 billion a year in aid, in military aid, it amounts to 16 percent of Israel's defense budget. Now, 16 percent is a big chunk, but it's not the majority at all. So it's not a military that is created by the U.S. or shaped by the United States. They are very strong in their own right. And in fact, that's how they became an ally in 1980s, it was because Israel showed its own strength that it did, not because we created it.

[08:10:01]

So that said, Israel and the psyche, the Jewish psyche, the psyche of the Israeli government, is one that views itself as very independent, that they cannot rely on other countries. And that's why the argument to them when President Biden, for example, said you need to really stop bombarding indiscriminately because you are going to lose the support of the international community, it's not a very compelling argument to them because they view themselves as being on their own in the wilderness, in a place where everybody is very hostile to them to begin with and they've survived and succeeded thus far.

So while the relationship is very successful and we should have a lot of leverage, and I would say that, by the way, of any country we give a lot of aid to, you see it all over the world. We give a lot of aid to Egypt and Jordan, and they are not taking refugees from Gaza. They refuse. So it helps, but it's not always perfect. It's just kind of how diplomacy works.

MATTINGLY: It's a really good point, and it's good nuance and insight into things. Thanks so much. We appreciate it.

CHEMALI: Thanks.

HARLOW: Yes, really interesting conversation.

All right, "revenge," "power," "dictatorship," those are some of the words that voters are using to describe a potential second Donald Trump presidency, and Trump himself is amplifying them on social media.

MATTINGLY: And new overnight, Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign stopping TV ad spending just a few weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire. His explanation -- he has one -- ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:09]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Donald Trump leaning into concerns that voters have and critics have about him retaking the White House. The former president sharing a word cloud that features the words like revenge, economy, power and dictatorship. The word cloud is from a survey of a British newspaper. It shows some of the most common words that people use to describe what they think a second Trump term would be like.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Trump has repeatedly promised supporters to be his -- to be his supporters' retribution if elected. He has said he would appoint a special prosecutor to go after President Biden and his family and he suggested that he would weaponize the Department of Justice against his enemies. Here's what else he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

TRUMP: Except for day one. He says, you're not going to be a dictator are you? I said, no, no, no, other than day one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Back with us now, CNN national correspondent, Kristen Holmes and CNN political commentator and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings.

You informed us with your reporting on this, Kristen, a couple of hours ago. There was no strategy behind Trump putting this up, right? I mean, this word cloud was, you know, about how people feel about him and how he is running his campaign.

What your thoughts on this?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Poppy. I mean, I think this is threefold.

You know, one of those is that the main word here is "revenge."

HARLOW: Yes.

HOLMES: And Donald Trump, as you just showed in various clips, has made it clear that part of his campaign messaging is revenge. So that is part of posting this. The other part of this is, he is trolling his critics. There has been

a lot of talk in the media, and he has gotten more attention, since he said those dictator comments, that he would only be a dictator on day one. This is his way of trolling his critics, trolling the media, any of his rivals, just putting it out there without any context.

The last part of this is that some of the other words on there -- power, economy -- those are words that he believes his Republican base wants to see, that he believes that his voters want someone who is strong. So he's looking at those words as well.

But overall, say, this is more of a trolling strategy than an actual political strategy.

MATTINGLY: And it's effective because Scott is sitting there begging us to talk about this every single day.

Scott, can I ask, and I mean this in all seriousness, Kristen Soltis Anderson has just a really great piece in "The New York Times." She is a pollster. She's a friend of the show, friend of everybody at CNN, who goes through kind of the dynamics of the race talking about chaos versus non-chaos candidate and comparing kind of why Biden won in 2020 and why he is having difficulty in the polling in 2024 thru-line kind of from Afghanistan to now.

If this becomes a contrast election where Trump is trolling and Trump has chaos, and Trump has all the things that he is using to great effect in the primary, how does that benefit him in a general election?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the way he's going to run the race is just to try to have a referendum on Joe Biden, and to the op-ed's point, if we have a referendum on Biden and hold him to his own promises, I'm going to calm everything down. I'm going to have a boring presidency. I'm going to be an adult. I'm going to eliminate the chaos of the Trump years.

So if you're really just thinking about did you fulfill your promises? That's how Trump would want to win the -- run the race.

Now, if I'm Joe Biden to try to get people to remember that the Trump years weren't all that calm, and that they were chaotic as well. The problem is right now, if you look at the polling, a lot of people are having nostalgia for the Trump years, particularly on the economy.

And so that's Biden's challenge is to try to get people to remember that, hey, this wasn't as good. This wasn't as good as you think it was or that you remember it being.

On the word cloud, by the way. The word that jumps out to me, frankly, is power. Because I think one of the Republican arguments this year is that Biden is too weak. He is too weak to control the border. He's too weak to manage these international crises situations that we have popping up everywhere. He is too weak to control inflation, you know, so it's really less about here's my policy prescription and more about, you know, you're just too weak to do anything about any of these problems, and we have to eliminate that. So it sort of absolves you of having a policy platform if you just project strength over weakness.

HARLOW: Vivek Ramaswamy who is not critical of Trump, but still running against him to be president just replied to a tweet about him stopping all TV ad spend a month out -- less than a month out from Iowa and New Hampshire.

And Kristen, let me read you what he said because he said basically it's not smart to spend money that way and he also called candidates that do basically people who have a low IQ.

[08:20:08]

Is this strategic in terms of not having enough money to spend on TV left? But also, I would like a position in a Trump Cabinet should he win?

HOLMES: Well, first of all, Vivek Ramaswamy promised he would spend far more money on television than he has and he has spent quite a bit. He spent over $4 million, but I'm fairly certain he said at some point, he was going to spend 10 digits, so the double digit millions there.

Now, in terms of whether or not this is low return on interest, you know, yes, low ROI. That's probably an accurate statement. And there are a lot of people who believe that this way of reaching voters is antiquated.

Donald Trump himself, if you'll remember, in 2016, almost released zero ads. He relied completely on earned media, now they know that's not an option this time around.

But when it comes to Ramaswamy and potential Cabinet positions, it's much too early to talk about that. However, we can note that senior advisers on both campaigns are in communication, the two of them Ramaswamy and Trump have sat down on multiple occasions. And Trump, I am told really likes them. He enjoys being around him.

So that could be a down the road conversation, but he certainly of all, the Republican candidate has been the most careful not to step on Donald Trump in any way.

MATTINGLY: Scott, as somebody who has been involved in a number of campaigns in the past, if you pledge that you're going to spend $10 million, spend a little bit over two, and then pull all your ad spend down, and then say the reason why is because you found a new way to do things and everybody who buys TV ads is an idiot.

Do you feel like he's found a new way to do things, or he doesn't have any money?

JENNINGS: Well, he's doing a lot of self-funding, so I guess he has all the money that he wants to spend. What I suspect is happening is that they found out that his campaign is dead. He has no chance to win, and so he doesn't want to spend his own money on these TV ads that he claimed he was going to do just a few weeks ago.

It is true that what they're talking about, this targeting of ads, using addressable advertising mediums, social media, digital spending, campaigns do that, but they usually do it in conjunction with TV ad spending.

I suspect what he's doing right now is planning an exit strategy, trying to save as much of his own money as he can and figuring out the exact right time to get out of the race and endorse Donald Trump to please Donald Trump the most.

He has essentially functioned as a Trump surrogate or a Trump stand-in on the debate stage and throughout this campaign, so I have no reason to believe it won't continue.

HARLOW: Kristen Holmes, thank you; Scott Jennings with the perfect 10 if we still had Room Raider. Your Christmas decor --

MATTINGLY: It's solid.

HARLOW: It is very solid.

MATTINGLY: It's Elite.

HARLOW: We know you put that up yourself.

JENNINGS: Yes. I thank my wife. She gets this all set up for every holiday. It is amazing.

HARLOW: Obviously. Thanks, Scott.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it.

Well, new details surrounding the death of a star of the movie, "Parasite" including a 19-hour long interrogation over potential drug use and his claims that he was being blackmailed, that's ahead.

HARLOW: Also New York City ramping up security ahead of the New Year's Eve festivities. How tension over the Israel-Hamas war is impacting all of this preparation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:12]

MATTINGLY: New overnight: A South Korean actor from the Oscar-winning film, "Parasite," Lee Sun-Kyun was found dead in his car in Seoul.

Police say the cause of death is "presumed to be a suicide."

HARLOW: Now Lee was questioned as recently as last week about a drug investigation. He told police he was being blackmailed.

CNN's Hanako Montgomery live again for us in Hong Kong this morning.

Very sad news, obviously, a big star. What else do we know? HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy. Good morning.

Of course, this news about Lee Sun-Kyun's sudden death is very tragic for his fans within South Korea and of course, globally.

What South Korean Police have told CNN is that they presume his death is a suicide. We also know that around the time of his death, Lee was being questioned over alleged illegal drug use. This is since October of this year.

Now most recently, he was brought into question by the police on December 23rd when he was held for 19 hours, and he was released on Christmas Eve.

Now, it's important to note that throughout this investigation, Lee's drug tests have all come back negative and he has denied ever knowingly taking drugs. He says that instead, he was tricked and blackmailed into this.

Now, he has filed a lawsuit against his alleged blackmailer.

MATTINGLY: For people who are trying to figure out a 19-hour interrogation what actually was going on here about the potential blackmail, how strict are drug laws in South Korea?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, South Korea has some of the strictest drug laws. Citizens can be charged for taking drugs abroad, for using and distributing drugs. The sentences can be from a minimum of six months to a maximum of 14 years.

In the past, stars have had to retreat from stardom because they've been caught using drugs. They've had their releases of movies, of TV shows stalled because also they were involved with drugs.

Now, it's also important to know that the government is currently trying to crack down on how many people are using drugs within the country.

The president, Yoon Suk Yeol has declared a war on drugs, so to speak within his own country in terms of trying to kind of take back and try to steer down the number of cases here.

MATTINGLY: A tragic story. Hanako Montgomery, thank you.

HARLOW: Right now, New York City authorities are increasing security and preparing for New Year's Eve celebrations.

Mayor Eric Adams says they're set to employ several new strategies including limiting the number of officers who stay at incidents so that they aren't pulled from their posts for prolonged periods of time.

MATTINGLY: This year, tensions are heightened in New York and across the country due to protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

Joining us now, CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe. Andrew, we appreciate your time.

Just start with what should -- what are law enforcement officials looking at right now given some of the increased concerns?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Phil, it's a really broad threat picture right now that law enforcement folks are looking at. And I think nothing sums that up better than the joint intelligence bulletin or JIB as they are referred to in the business. It was just released by the FBI, NCTC and DHS, and that bulletin if you read it, it is very broad. The language is open-ended. It reflects the fact that our counterterrorism experts believe that the threat could come from any number of directions.

[08:30:37]