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CNN This Morning

Biden Administration Warns Israel against Pending Invasion of Rafah; Kremlin Refusing to Provide Alexei Navalny's Body to His Mother; Alexei Navalny's Wife's X Account Suspended; Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban Endorses Donald Trump for U.S. Presidency; Interview with Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY); Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 20, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

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VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Capital One does not want to mess with that Discover base who really loves everything that Discover has to offer. But if there are changes, customers need 45 days heads up in order to decide if they want to keep their cart or not.

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YURKEVICH: A warning.

BERMAN: Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much.

And CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. AHMAD MOGHRABI, HEAD OF PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY, NASSER HOSPITAL: Where is the humanity? Why is this happening to us? Why? I don't know for how long this will continue, for how long, for how long, for how long? I don't know how many of us have to die, how many of us have to die just to listen to us, to stop these crimes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And good morning, everyone. A plea for help from the war zone. Also this morning, the U.S. is calling for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza and a new draft resolution at the United Nations. The U.S. warns an offensive in Rafah could jeopardize regional peace and security.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Russia refuses to hand over the body of Alexei Navalny as his family searches for answers to why he died in prison.

Plus, just in, social media platform X has suspended the account of Navalny's widow. The details ahead.

BERMAN: What's going on there?

And new developments in the detention of U.S. journalists Evan Gershkovich. He appears in a Russian court this morning. How much longer will he have to stay in jail?

CORNISH: And the state of the campaign -- Nikki Haley tries to keep hope alive four days before the South Carolina primary.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

BERMAN: A critical moment for U.S.-Israeli relations. For the first time, the U.S. is calling for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza in a U.N. draft resolution which CNN has seen. The U.S. calls for a temporary ceasefire, but only as soon as practicable. It comes as the Security Council will vote today on Algeria's resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. But the U.S. is threatening a veto the same way it has with the first two ceasefire resolutions.

CORNISH: Now, the U.S. draft also calls for the release of all remaining Israeli hostages. It will be privately discussed today, but it's unclear when it will be put to a vote.

Meanwhile, President Biden is ramping up pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden is urging him not to proceed with a controversial planned ground operation in the southern Gaza town of Rafah without a plan of safety for the more than 1 million people living there. But Israel, it's raising the stakes and moving up the deadline for the offensive to the start of Ramadan. It's around March 10th. They say they'll do this unless all hostages are freed.

BERMAN: Let's get right to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is live in Tel Aviv with the latest. Nic, what are you learning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think there were two takeaways here. One is that at a diplomatic level, the United States comes to the rescue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That's certainly how he'll read the situation despite the very clear pressure being put on him by the White House with the wording of this resolution.

Why do I say this? Because in essence, the United States is heading off or providing an alternative resolution to the one that Algeria is putting forward which has wide international support for an immediate ceasefire. The prime minister here hasn't responded, publicly, yet, at least, to the U.S. version. But the U.S. version is still very, very clear. It says the conditions right now for a military incursion into Rafah would quite literally result in more civilian deaths, potentially push people across the border, weaken international security and peace, certainly in the region around here.

So it's with very high levels of caution and guidance for the Israeli government, but the prime minister here is likely to read this as he is being given more time, because the wording from the United States is not a permanent ceasefire, and it says, when it is practicably possible.

CORNISH: Also, there's been some reporting about a new video released by the Israeli Defense Force. Can you talk about what has been released and what we've heard in terms of reaction? ROBERTSON: The reaction from the family involved is absolutely

heartrending. The video that was released by the IDF is from October the 7th, and it shows Shiri, the mother, with her 10-month-old child Kfir and her four month a four-year-old daughter, Ariel, being taken out of one vehicle, Hamas vehicle, at what the IDF describes as a Hamas point, and bundling them into another vehicle.

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It's the first video we've seen of them since video emerged of them actually being abducted. But a lot of people remember back in November, their father, Yarden, who was also taken hostage separately by Hamas was in a video saying that Hamas had told him that his wife and children had been killed. It was a very emotional video against the government here. There's been no evidence so far that that that the mother, Shiri, and the two children were killed.

But the family today had an absolutely heartrending press conference, saying that their hearts were torn, and appealing for people to return their loved ones.

CORNISH: Nic Robertson reporting to us from Tel Aviv, thank you.

New this morning, Alexei Navalny's mother pleading with Vladimir Putin to immediately hand over her son's body. She released a video standing outside this Siberian prison where Navalny died, asking Putin directly to let her finally see her son and bury him.

BERMAN: Navalny seems as the Russian government is refusing to release his body for at least a couple of weeks to conduct some sort of chemical examination. Navalny's wife is speculating her husband may have been poisoned again with nerve agent. This morning, the Kremlin is firing back and calling her accusations absolutely unfounded.

And this just in, Russian media is reporting that the Kremlin has opened a criminal case against Navalny's brother. It did not say what crime had been committed.

CNN's Melissa Bell is with us now. What are we hearing specifically from Navalny's mother in this message to Putin?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a remarkable video, and you have to bear in mind the extraordinary lengths that this nearly 70- year-old woman has been to to be able to get this message out to the world directly challenging Russian authorities. She's standing some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow in the frigid cold surrounds that penal colony, one of the harshest in Russia, where Alexei Navalny took his last breaths. And it was released a short while ago. This is what she had to say.

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LUDMILA IVANOVNA NAVALNAYA, ALEXEI NAVALNY'S MOTHER (through translator): Behind me is the IK-3 Polar Wolf colony where my son, Alexei Navalny, died on February 16th. I haven't been able to see him for five days. They won't give me his body. They don't even tell me where he is. I'm addressing you, Vladimir Putin. The solution to the issue depends only on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei's body be immediately handed over so that I can bury him humanely.

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BELL: Ludmila Navalnaya standing there defiantly in a climate that has been increasingly repressive. Remember that over the course of the weekend, John and Audie, what we saw was hundreds of people who had come out to try and deposit flowers, lay their tributes to Alexei Navalny being arrested, rounded up, and not allowed to openly grief him. So her words, all the more remarkably defiant and courageous.

And I think what we've heard from her, but also from Alexei Navalny's widow this morning on X before her account was apparently disactivated, we're waiting to hear more on that. We've reached out to X to try and figure out what's going on there. But before that happened, we'd heard her again urging the Kremlin to release her husband's body after we'd heard Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, deny that there was anything untoward and suggested they hadn't seen, neither he nor the Russian president, the video that Yulia Navalnaya had released yesterday, looking for more than she had before determined to take center stage and continue this fight to try and get her husband's body back and more answers than have been forthcoming from the Kremlin, John and Audie.

BERMAN: All right, Melissa Bell, thank you. And you did hear Melissa correctly there. The wife of Alexei Navalny just had her Twitter account or X account, whatever we like to call it now, suspended, which is peculiar to say the least, right?

CORNISH: Right. And those videos or messages have been distributed through lots of social media platform. So it's a significant development.

BERMAN: She's been speaking out against the death of her husband, speaking out again repression inside Russia. And for some reason, X has now suspended her account.

It has been four days since Alexei Navalny's death, and Donald Trump has yet to condemn Russia or its president Vladimir Putin. Instead, Trump has compared Navalny's death to his own legal problems.

CORNISH: Now the Republican frontrunner has also landed a new endorsement from one of Putin's closest allies in Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, something Trump touted on Truth Social yesterday.

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VIKTOR ORBAN, HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We can't interfere in the elections of other countries. But we really want President Donald Trump to return to the White House and make peace here in Eastern Europe.

(APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP)

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CORNISH: Joining us now to talk more about this, CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin. So Alyssa, just help us understand what the ongoing sort of warm embrace of Orban in particular, why is that? Why have we been seeing that the last couple of months, not just by Trump, but within the party?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Donald Trump has always had sympathy for strongmen. Weve seen him praise Putin. He's had this affection for Viktor Orban, which goes beyond Trump. There's this fascination in part of the American right. CPAC has hosted Viktor Orban. They see him as sort of this Christian nationalist who is taking Hungary that direction.

The reality is this -- this is a man who has tried to block aid from the E.U. to Ukraine, finally had to give in on that, tried to block Sweden's membership. I think the fascination probably comes much more from a place of siding with Russia against Ukraine in this war effort.

This, this is -- Donald Trump is very much cut from the same cloth as Viktor Orban. It's this strongman type way of leading, the way the rhetoric that he uses, the way that he appeals to his audience is very similar. And I'm not surprised in any way that both this endorsement came and he was proud to tout it.

BERMAN: So we just had John Bolton on last hour, and one of the things that Ambassador Bolton says is that, in his mind, Donald Trump doesn't have any views per se, except that I'm going to do what's good for Donald Trump. So when it comes to his reluctance to say anything about Alexei Navalny's death, why is that good for Donald Trump?

GRIFFIN: Well, it's not good for him. I slightly disagree with John Bolton here. I do think he doesn't have core policy viewpoints. I don't know that I think he has a strong moral compass and in any manner really, but he is drawn to personalities. And he's drawn to people who he likes the way they speak. He likes the way they lead and they present. And again, that is why he liked strongmen. He praises Xi. He praises Kim Jong-un. He sees them as strong leaders who challenge their people and try to rule with an iron fist. That does resonate with him.

I think that this comes down to the fact he's always hesitated to criticize the Kremlin. He's always hesitated to criticize Putin. And this goes bit deeper. There is a brain rot and a moral rot on some of the American right, right now. When you see someone like Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, somebody who would have been a huge NATO proponent, basically comparing Alexei Navalny's death to the persecution of Donald Trump, we are very far gone.

CORNISH: Who are the voters that they're appealing to? Because you talked about rhetoric. A lot of these strongmen, as you say, they go after their opposition, as we see with Putin, with deadly consequences. There's also shutting down their borders. There's like policy things that somehow seem to appeal.

GRIFFIN: Theres the sort of non-interventionist, America first, we don't want to be getting into these global conflicts.

CORNISH: I was thinking of Tucker Carlson talking about the clean subways, right?

GRIFFIN: He was fascinated to know that you could pay for a shopping cart. I prefer not to pay for my shopping cart.

CORNISH: But this kind of preoccupation with order and that they think order comes from a different place.

GRIFFIN: I think it's a mixture of that, and I think it's this non- interventionist, we shouldn't be engaging in world affairs. But let's keep in mind, too, we know the Russian playbook. For decades, Russia has been sowing misinformation in the U.S. political discourse. They've been weaponizing social media in the digital space. We live in the democratization of media. And there is a significant portion of the American right who is falling for Putin's propaganda every day. And in the Trump era, he's amplified it. He's made it stronger. And there is, to quote Liz Cheney, there is the Kremlin wing, the Putin wing of the Republican Party.

And we have to have our eyes open to it when Ukraine's heading into the spring counteroffensive. The fact that we might not be able to get aid package through, this should be a five-alarm fire moment for both the U.S., but the Republican Party.

BERMAN: How about the fact that Alexei Navalny's widow just had her account suspended by Twitter? We don't know what's going on here, but man, it's weird.

GRIFFIN: Incredibly curious, because Elon Musk has at times shown some sympathy to some more pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine position.

CORNISH: And touted himself as a free speech advocate.

GRIFFIN: And that tends to be the most bizarre part of all of this.

BERMAN: That doesn't -- if you're free speech, would you be suspending this account? Maybe there's a disconnect in his own thinking. There's logical inconsistencies there, is that what you're suggesting?

CORNISH: We'll have more details. I think it's interesting thinking about how the party has reached this place, and where does that leave a Nikki Haley, right. Who if you had some camps, the Liz Cheney, the John Bolton, I feel like they're the ghost of neocons past. What does it mean for them and what voter do they have left to appeal to?

GRIFFIN: Well, listen, its Donald Trump's party, but there is a part of the American middle on that feels completely politically displaced. I think there's a lot of folks -- there's a probably over 25 percent of the American right that would have a very hard time being with Donald Trump. I think Nikki Haley is going to stay as long as she can. She's announced dates and Michigan going forward, so thinking beyond South Carolina, thinking ahead to Super Tuesday and beyond. And I think it's to say Donald Trump cannot win. So long as she can hold onto that 25 percent who can't be with him, she is trying to sound a five-alarm fire to the party that this is a man who was not a majority party candidate.

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This is not somebody who is going to win a general election, but we also have to realize, we have an election system that comes down to seven swing states, so in fact he can win even if he loses the popular vote by the biggest margin in history.

CORNISH: All right, Alyssa, thanks so much. You always bring great detail. Appreciate it.

Now Congress this week is on recess, of course, as funding for Ukraine hangs in the balance. International leaders ramp up their pressure on the House Speaker Mike Johnson to push the package through.

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BERMAN: This morning, funding for Ukraine faces an uncertain future in the US Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson, he is facing international pressure to act.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is urging the US to follow through on its promises to help defend Ukraine. As of now, Speaker Johnson refuses to take up the $95 billion foreign aid bill that passed the Senate in bipartisan fashion and does include aid for Ukraine. CORNISH: Joining us now is New York Democratic Congressman Adriano

Espaillat. He's on the Appropriations and Budget Committees. He is also the deputy chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Welcome to the program.

REP. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT (D-NY): Thank you. Thank you.

CORNISH: So I know it must be hard to enjoy this recess while everyone is pointing out that you shouldn't be on it. What kind of pressure is there for the Congress to act?

ESPAILLAT: Well, I really wish we were back there tackling this. I mean, this is truly a five-alarm fire and getting close to the second anniversary of this conflict, Ukraine really needs this. But Europe needs this. I think that the world needs this.

So much rides on this. The European economy, our economy, and the future of NATO, of course.

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CORNISH: Was it a mistake to put Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan all in one package?

ESPAILLAT: I thought it was a mistake to settle it with immigration.

CORNISH: Right, which Republicans have called for.

ESPAILLAT: It requires a separate discussion. But, you know, we see a bill now that has $60 billion for Ukraine, 14 for Israel, some help, just under $10 billion for Gaza. So this is what we need to do. It is about $95 billion, and it was bipartisan Senate, which is difficult to do to begin with, but to reject it before you even read it I think is malpractice.

BERMAN: You know, we've heard from, you know, people in Europe, using the phrase "discharge petition," like they understand what it means when most Americans don't understand what it means.

But basically, if you get enough signatures, you can get this bill on the floor. Do you have Republicans who are willing to sign up?

ESPAILLAT: They got a call from their political boss, and he told him not to do it, and this is where we are. This is the state --

BERMAN: Be specific.

ESPAILLAT: This is the state of politics. They got a call from Trump, and he is their political boss, and he is running the equivalent of a Tammany Hall in Washington.

So we're very concerned that he is dictating to them what to do. The American people see right through this. They saw this in New York when we had the recent election and saw Suozzi win, and we'll continue to win those seats because the American people want some level of resolution to these conflicts.

CORNISH: Should Democrats, though, be concerned about the conversation around immigration? Is that gaining steam with voters? We found that President Biden is actually leading Democrats who embrace kind of tougher policies, right, that he originally in a way campaigned on? How are you thinking about this now?

ESPAILLAT: Look, everyone agrees that immigration is broken. Everyone agrees that the border needs fixing. President Biden has done all he could. He put forward a parole program, a family reunification program very early on, and we saw the numbers tame down a little bit.

And now he agreed on a piece of legislation that includes some of the toughest border security measures promoted by the Republicans who then went ahead and voted against it.

So he's done all he could. The Republicans were involved in this bogus impeachment process of Mayorkas trying to play out a perception of immigration, that it is now in fact, immigration has been around since the Reagan years. Reagan did things on it. George Bush and his son, George W. Bush did legislation on it.

So it has been dragging for decades, and they try to place it on the doorstep of Mayorkas during a bogus impeachment process, which first they had no votes, and then they barely passed it by one vote. So this is where they're at. They're weaponizing immigration. They

want to see if they can get votes for it. But what we saw in Long Island a couple of weeks ago is that the American people don't want the politics of division. They want a resolution to the problem. That's correct.

BERMAN: Do you think there's any executive action that President Biden can take prior to the State of the Union on immigration? There is some reporting that is being considered.

ESPAILLAT: I would like to see some balanced approach to immigration, maybe something on DREAMers and border security. I'm a part of the Dignity Act, which is a bipartisan legislation with Republicans and Democrats that has immigration reform components to it and border security component. Things that I may not agree with.

But you can't have it all in this discussion. You've got to reach a consensus. The Dignity Act is a good step forward.

CORNISH: One more thing, there are now 67,000 migrants under New York City's care. More than 173,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since spring in 2022. That's according to a City Hall spokesperson.

What are you actually hearing from voters in your district who are frustrated by this?

ESPAILLAT: First, the work permit, I think is the solution to that. People want to work. That's the bottom line. Immigrants want to work and the economy needs them.

But I think that we should step up and give cities across the country $3 billion. They need that to offset.

CORNISH: But the mayor has been pretty harsh on the administration.

ESPAILLAT: Well, the mayor has asked for what the city needs, which is funding to avert a budget crisis. We need money for housing, we need money for food. I think it is more around $300 billion, as opposed to $1.4 billion, which is what the White House is advocating for.

BERMAN: I want to ask you before we let you go here, Rashida Tlaib, member of Congress from Michigan, is urging voters there to vote uncommitted in the Democratic primary, which President Biden is running in to show opposition to President Biden over his handling of the Israeli war with Hamas.

How do you feel about it?

ESPAILLAT: I disagree. I think the option is a very dark option. That's Donald Trump. So what do you tell voters? Vote against Biden? And as a result, elect Trump who implemented a Muslim ban as his first piece of action when he first got elected.

I think it is misguided and it's a mistake.

BERMAN: Congressman, thank you very much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

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CORNISH: On the Republican side, Nikki Haley is keeping hope alive heading into the South Carolina primary, but poll numbers tell a different story.

We're going to talk about the state of her campaign with former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.

BERMAN: And Jimmy Kimmel being sued by former Congressman George Santos for allegedly deceiving him into creating Cameo videos. Santos joined Cameo shortly after being expelled from the House in December.

Kimmel requested Cameos from Santos under fake names, aired them on his late night show and posted them on social media. The lawsuit claims Kimmel misrepresented himself and his motives.

Santos is requesting a jury trial and at least $150,000.00 in damages for each video. So far Kimmel has not commented.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: On Saturday, we head to the polls. And when we head to the polls, let's look at what everybody is saying.

Everybody is telling me, why don't you just get out?

(PEOPLE ANSWERING NO.)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... don't give up.

HALEY: I will never give up.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

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