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3 Alabama Clinics Pause IVF After Ruling on Embryos; Biden: New Sanctions to Target Putin for Navalny's Death; Netanyahu Reveals 'Day After' Plan for Postwar Gaza. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 23, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you very much, Andy.

[06:00:02]

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In the meantime, have a great weekend. Don't go anywhere. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York.

The controversy over IVF injecting a new political debate in the 2024 campaign. What President Biden is saying and what Donald Trump is not.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Also today, the Biden administration set to punish Vladimir Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny. New reporting ahead on the scope of a new sanctions package, including ones directly targeting the Russian president.

And we are so back. The U.S. touching down on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. How it all happened and what's next for the mission. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

HARLOW: Well, the impact of Alabama's unprecedented court ruling that frozen embryos are, indeed, children. That is reverberating across the country between this morning. And it is opening up a new front in the 2024 election and the battle over reproductive rights.

President Biden is seizing on the issue and blaming Donald Trump after at least three fertility clinics in the state have halted their IVF treatments. Biden telling voters, quote, "Make no mistake. This is because Donald Trump overturned Roe versus Wade."

MATTINGLY: Now, as for Trump, or the Trump campaign, he's been silent on the new Alabama decision, but one of his closest allies on Capitol Hill, Congressman Matt Gaetz, underscoring the political complexity here Republicans are facing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): The Alabama law needs to change, because the Republican Party cannot be the party against family formation.

Something is totally wrong. The people who want to have a family should have the government and the law on their side. And the notion that discarded embryos in an IVF somehow turn these people who want children and want families and want the American dream into criminals is -- is really wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And we have our outstanding political team standing by, but let's begin with Isabel Rosales in Birmingham, Alabama.

Isabel, you've been covering this every single day this week, medical experts warning this ruling could have ripple effects of beyond just Alabama.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Phil, Poppy, good morning to you.

Already, a religious group is using this Alabama ruling as precedent to target abortion rights in Florida.

Here in Alabama, this ruling has sent the fertility industry into a state of chaos and panic and fear. Gabby Goidel, she got the phone call yesterday from her provider, Alabama Fertility right here, telling her that she would not be able to complete her IVF journey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES (voice-over): Days after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos have the same rights as children under state law, more fertility centers in the state, now up to three, continue to announce they will halt most IVF treatments.

Alabama fertility specialists called the decision an impossible one, while the CEO of Infirmary Health said in a statement, "We understand the burden this places on deserving families who want to bring babies into this world and who have no alternative options for conceiving."

At least one facility in Alabama now planning to send frozen embryos out of state.

DR. ANDREW HARPER, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, HUNTSVILLE REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE: The ruling is quite the motivation to move embryos from in-house to an outside off-site storage facility.

ROSALES (voice-over): The legal fallout becoming a harsh reality for Gabby and Spencer Goidel.

GABBY GOIDEL, FERTILITY PATIENT: I think it was absolutely my worst fear.

ROSALES (voice-over): Hours ago, the couple received the news from their fertility clinic that they can no longer proceed with their planned IVF treatment.

GOIDEL: I've gone through through three miscarriages, and it -- it honestly felt like a very similar feeling.

ROSALES (voice-over): The couple has been trying to become parents for years, and they began the IVF process in Alabama.

GOIDEL: This is all my medication.

ROSALES (voice-over): A difficult process that doesn't always yield results, showing us the dozens of medications and daily injections required in the process.

Now the couple expects to go into debt to routinely fly to Texas, all in hopes of salvaging their shot at a successful pregnancy.

[06:05:00]

GOIDEL: So I will go and get my monitoring appointment done, and they will do the egg retrieval. And Texas will now store my embryos. It's -- doesn't feel very supported here. And now they're just going to make it less accessible, more expensive. They're taking away people's chances, women's chances to have children.

ROSALES (voice-over): The political implications of the Alabama decision now playing out on the campaign trail.

President Biden issuing a statement saying, "Make no mistake: This is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade."

Vice President Kamala Harris echoing that sentiment at a reproductive freedom forum in Michigan today, blaming former President Donald Trump.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you look at the fact that the previous president of the United States was clear in his intention to hand-pick three Supreme Court justices who would overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade; and he did it. And that's what got us to this point today.

ROSALES (voice-over): Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley continuing to toe a fine line in the abortion debate when she spoke to CNN.

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is incredibly personal to me, because I had both of my children with fertility. I personally believe an embryo is a baby. Not everybody's going to agree that an embryo is a baby.

But that's why parents need to be able to have the decision on how they're going to handle those embryos; and they need to know that they're going to be protected.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES (on camera): There is so much legal uncertainty swirling around. The fertility clinics, they don't have the answers. Patients certainly don't have the answers here.

So we reached out to the state attorney general's office, who told us they have not issued any guidance on this matter. And then they did not respond to specific questions we asked them about whether the state would charge someone who destroyed embryos with a crime -- Poppy, Phil.

HARLOW: Isabel, thank you. Your reporting on this has been exceptional. And now you're there on the ground.

That means, right, that the clinic behind you and those clinics don't even know legally what they're supposed to do with the embryos they're holding right now.

ROSALES: Right, and that's exactly why three of them, of seven clinics at least that we know of, have paused, right? So they can get their bearings and understand the legal repercussions here.

And I do also want to let you know that patients are holding out hope for this House bill, Alabama House Bill 225, that the Democrats introduced, declaring that fertilized human eggs or human embryos outside of a human uterus is not an unborn child.

That would offer them the protections that they need to continue on with IVF treatments. So they're keeping a very close eye here on the next steps.

HARLOW: Interesting. Thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: With us now, strategic communications expert and former Republican strategist and pollster Lee Carter; Basil Smikle, Democratic strategist and former executive director of the New York state Democratic Party; and CNN political commentator and Spectrum News political anchor, Errol Louis. Guys, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

Lee, I want to start with you, because oftentimes, in debates like this, particularly heading into an election season, people pull on the worst-case scenarios; and it seems very hyperbolic. And most of it is, well, it's probably not tethered to reality.

The post-Roe universe has proven a lot of the concerns, a lot of the fears, a lot of the warnings accurate. And I think this has driven it to a whole another level.

And I'm wondering, when you look at numbers to the extent we have in -- given this just happened, what kind of effect does this have for the slice of voters, for the slice of people that both campaigns know they need to win?

LEE CARTER, STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Well, I think it has a huge impact, because this has now become more personal. This is no longer just about abortion. This is about women and families who are trying to create families.

I mean, I don't often agree with Matt Gaetz, but there he was -- he's like we can't be the party that's -- that's against family formation. And Republicans can't afford that.

Now, there's some statistics here that are really important to understand. Eight in 10 Republicans actually support IVF and believe in it. And so now you've got something that they have to -- they're going to have to really wrestle to the ground.

And when you look at already, we had a big faction of voters who are going to say, I want to vote on women's rights. Seven in 10 independent women said one of the primary reason that they're going to go the polls is because of abortion. Nine in 10 Democratic women said that that's going to drive them to the polls.

I think you're going to see that even increase.

And there was a huge faction of younger Republican women who are saying that abortion was important to them, too. Now this is becoming even more personal, especially as there's more and more awareness of how many women, including myself, have gone through fertility and would not have families otherwise.

This is incredibly personal, and this is incredibly important. And I think it's going to be a big, big problem for Republicans.

And I think it was very notable that last night when Donald Trump was talking to the Christian broadcasters, he did not address this, because he knows it's that much of a lightning rod.

HARLOW: Errol, can you help explain to people the through line here to abortion in Roe versus Wade? Because what Isabelle said at the beginning there was really important, that one religion group in Florida is now using this Alabama Supreme Court decision as precedent to make their argument in an -- on an abortion issue.

Can you explain here -- and the tie that President Biden made directly to Roe?

[06:10:03]

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. Well, look, the -- the statute that was at issue in the Alabama case was a wrongful death statute.

HARLOW: Yes.

LOUIS: And so this was a question of --

HARLOW: Someone had dropped embryos.

LOUIS: -- somebody dropped embryos. And so, if you read the opinion, its unbelievably -- it's unbelievably -- it's startlingly stern, saying, you know, it doesn't matter whether there's been implantation. It doesn't matter whether there's cryogenic freezing. This -- they're all children. They're all going to be treated as humans, and everything follows from that.

And that is the logic, and that has always been the logic of trying to overturn Roe versus Wade. This is a social movement. It's lasted for decades. 4

And what happens to social movements when they succeed, I think, is what we're seeing play out here. That's, you know, a different way of what President Biden was talking about.

When a movement succeeds, it either goes out of business or the extremists, which is what I think we see in this case, they continue with the logic. They want to relive the victory. They want to sort of move things forward.

And you take the very next step, and you get this sort of chamber of horrors where all of a sudden, things that really were not entirely meant as actual policy to be played out are the logical extension of doing away with abortion.

If you -- if you can't -- if you're saying that, from the moment of fertilization, this is an entity that now has all of the rights of a child, all kinds of absurdities are going to flow from it. And this won't be the last one.

HARLOW: Yes. Because Roe said viability could be a game-changer all the way to fertilization.

MATTINGLY: Basil, when you talk to other Democrats, and they kind of look at how this has all played out. I think politically, all of them say A, it's exactly what we told you was going to happen. And B, they see an advantage here.

But given the personal nature of this, the stories that you can hear. Every family knows somebody or has somebody inside the family. How do you navigate this in terms of the message, the politics here, knowing how deeply personal this is?

BASIL SMIKEL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, I think to Errol's point, as he talks about social movements, my mentor used to tell me every movement becomes an institution, meaning that at some point, right, all of this does -- to your point, it's not hyperbole, and it's not hypothetical. There are real policies that emanate from this; real people and families that are impacted. It certainly cuts along race and class.

And I think over time, right after Wade -- as we started -- right after the overturn of Wade, we started to see all these draconian measures in different states start to pop up.

What happened? We start to see a lot of Republicans start reducing the amount of conversation they had around this issue. They were running away from it.

You saw that even in New York 3 with Tom Suozzi. It wasn't about reproductive rights and reproductive health news. It was about immigration. They've pivoted to that now.

So the point being that, if you're a Democrat, you talk about and hit -- hit on the fact that all of these policies that you think are siloed will become nationalized if Republicans take back the House, if Republicans take back the Senate, if you've got Donald Trump back in the White House; that all of these things that you think you can move from state to state to run away from, guess what? It becomes national. And there is no running away from it.

HARLOW: And the only way to change it, as Isabel was mentioning, that House bill, Lee, is to change the law in the state.

I mean, Nikki Haley in her interview with Jake yesterday was essentially saying, like, I think the court correctly followed the law of the state. The law of the state, in its reading of this might have to change.

I'm so struck by the eight in 10 number that you point out.

CARTER: Yes.

HARLOW: That's different than Republicans on abortion.

CARTER: It's very different than Republicans on abortion. Now, Republicans on abortion have become more moderate over time.

HARLOW: Yes.

CARTER: It is. Especially if you look at the younger voters, you look at female voters that are out there, you see more 40 -- you know, it's almost split now. It's not quite as the slam dunk, except that the people who vote that way are strong voters. They're enthusiastic, and they're likely to go out there. And they're very, very vocal; and they're very, very loud.

And so we think that that's a huge part of the Republican Party, but it's actually just about half.

MATTINGLY: We've got a lot more to get to this morning, but there are difficulties sometimes with Democrats talking about abortion, given some areas of the party want to go further. Some just want to codify Roe. The president is somebody who has difficulty talking about this issue, given his faith.

This changes the game, and your numbers back that up.

CARTER: Yes.

MATTINGLY: This is an issue that they are very, very comfortable making very, very clear --

CARTER: And they should be.

MATTINGLY: -- is hugely problematic. So certainly a lot more come on that.

Guys, stay with us. Lots more to discuss with our panel.

New this morning, as well, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just unveiled a plan for the future of Gaza. What it actually calls for, that's next.

HARLOW: And President Biden says he will impose sanctions directly on Vladmir Putin for Alexei Navalny's death. What those sanctions could look like, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:18]

MATTINGLY: CIA Director Bill Burns heads to Paris this morning to meet with negotiators from Egypt and Qatar for hostage talks and a potential Gaza ceasefire.

Israel has agreed to send a team, as well. This as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 23 people in central Gaza last night, that according to the Hamas-led Palestinian Health Authority.

HARLOW: And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also revealing his new plans for a post-war Gaza. CNN has obtained a copy of those plans. They include a, quote, "complete demilitarization," as well as, quote, "operational freedom" for the IDF there.

Our Jeremy Diamond joins us live from Tel Aviv with more.

You know, he's talked about what that would have to look like. But he has never explicitly put it in a document. So now that we have this, what does it look like?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right, Poppy. And really, this proposal that we are seeing him lay out here is in line with many of the principles that we have heard him talk about before. But this is the first time that he has submitted this formally to the cabinet for its review.

The prime minister's office says that these principles are being submitted as a basis for discussion. But it really -- it envisions Israel maintaining full security control over the Gaza Strip in what the prime minister's office is describing as the medium-term.

It agrees to allow the rebuilding of Gaza only after the Gaza Strip has been demilitarized.

But let's get into the details in that middle period, which has really where I think think we should zone in here. It talks about maintaining operational freedom of action in Gaza, maintaining a Southern closure, which effectively means control over the Egypt-Gaza border.

It also talks about maintaining what we have seen Israel building over the last several weeks, which is a buffer zone, effectively, between the Gaza Strip and Israel on the Gaza side of the border, about a kilometer into the Gaza Strip; maintaining that buffer zone as long as that is necessary. And also maintaining this full security control.

[06:20:15]

It also envisions demilitarizing Gaza during that period.

Now, in terms of who would actually run day-to-day operations inside of Gaza, the Israeli prime minister here not envisioning that happening on the civilian side from Israel. Instead, talking about empowering local Palestinian officials, ideally, those who he says would have administrative experience. But he's not providing any details about exactly who that would be.

And look, it's notable that the Israeli prime minister is putting this forward, in particular, because the U.S. government has been pressuring Israel for so long now to actually start thinking about the day after the war, start putting its plans on paper.

And also because Netanyahu so far has avoided doing so, in part because this could divide his government. Far-right members of his government want to see Israel having full control over Gaza, including security, civilian control, including settlements in Gaza.

So it is notable that he is starting to have this discussion, but so much, of course, still remains to be seen. And this is going to be a long discussion process in Israel.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about that. Jeremy Diamond, great reporting. Thank you.

HARLOW: President Biden says there will be consequences for Vladmir Putin after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage, and it's amazing how his wife and daughter are -- are emulating that.

We're going to be announcing the sanctions against Putin, who was responsible for his death.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: Those sanctions will be rolled out today. The Biden

administration expected to impose sanctions on some 500 Russian targets.

Yesterday, President Biden met with Navalny's widow, Juila [SIC] -- Yulia, and daughter, Dasha, in California. The White House says he told them, quote, "Alexei's legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world."

Joining us now, former spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, Hagar Chemali. Thanks so much for joining us. As a fellow sanctions nerd, very exciting to talk about this stuff.

HARLOW: I'm just going to let you guys go on. So --

MATTINGLY: This is important, because people see a big number, 500. People also know that two years ago, President Biden said this was going to be the most devastating sanctions regime in the history of sanctions regimes, which is accurate.

However, Russia's still producing things. Russia is still fighting. What -- what are sanctions and what are they not in this case, right?

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER SPOKESPERSON, U.S. MISSION TO THE U.N.: Right. There's still producing bread as -- and have fancy metros, as Tucker Carlson likes to note.

Listen, the way sanctions work in generally is that they're meant to work over a long period of time. And they are degrading Russia's ability to finance its war machine.

We know that they've lost thousands of pieces of equipment, military equipment, due directly to sanctions. And it appears -- and we don't know the full package yet -- but what -- what President Biden has said and what the deputy secretary, Wally Adeyemo said was that these sanctions are going to target Russia's military industrial complex.

And these front companies and other outlets, they've placed in third -- third countries to facilitate the import of technology and equipment for that military.

What that means is when you sanction a target, they always look for ways to evade sanctions. And they all do. They all do it. And so it's a little bit of a game of whack-a-mole. And Treasury's always following up to make sure they close those loopholes.

And it looks like that's a lot of the targets today, are going to be how they circumvent those sanctions to import goods through third countries that aren't part of the international sanctions regime. So you've got that. And probably more companies that produce military equipment for them and things of that kind.

HARLOW: What we haven't seen yet is what is getting a bit more attention now, is directly seizing the 300 billion in frozen Russian assets that the U.S. has. That's something Bill Browder supports a lot. He was telling Phil about -- about it earlier. There's a question of does it exceed American law? Like does it exceed

what we can do? There's a question about does it encourage sort of a flight from dollar assets?

But do you agree that would be the most effective deterrent for Russia here?

CHEMALI: It would be another level, but it is unprecedented.

HARLOW: Totally.

CHEMALI: And it would be -- it would be a huge step. And a lot of -- me having worked in sanctions --

HARLOW: Yes.

CHEMALI: -- I'm not so sure that it's -- it's controversial. It would be very controversial, because again, you could end up having all these other ramifications where countries don't invest in the dollar, they don't store their federal -- their funds here. That is the thing that --

HARLOW: A big risk.

CHEMALI: -- strengthens our dollar.

And by the way, when our dollar is that strong, it's what makes our sanctions so strong, as well. So we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot. I mean, we don't want to cut our nose to spite our face. Am I getting that right?

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Definitely.

CHEMALI: Because yes. Thank you. Because if we -- if we end up doing something that that's strong and undermines faith in the dollar and people stop investing in it, then they start -- they start investing in the euro or other -- other currencies.

And then our sanctions, whenever we impose them in general, it makes them weaker.

[06:25:00]

So I wouldn't advise going that strong, because -- and I also think that there will be some legal issues there with that. It depends.

If you have a new state, a new leader -- and that's usually the beauty of when you freeze those assets, when you have a new leader in the country. And I don't think -- I'm not trying to say that Putin is going to fall soon.

But when you have a new leader in the country, then you can use those assets and say here. Ghere they are. And by the way, we think that you should repatriate some to Ukraine and so on, right? And you can negotiate that.

But I don't think it's seizing them completely now, is --

MATTINGLY: I want to talk so much for so much more about this, but I do want to ask you about what Jeremy was reporting in terms of Prime Minister Netanyahu kind of laying out a plan for the first time. Huge unanswered questions tied to that plan.

But also coming as Barak Ravid, a CNN analyst who works for Axios, was reporting that he was meeting with his far-right ministers about new settlements, as well. I don't understand the game here.

CHEMALI: You know, I was -- when I was listening, it's disappointing to hear, because when he says something like pursuing -- having IDF operations across Gaza, that's occupation. And that's something that President Biden and the U.S. administration has been very loud, that they would be against Israeli occupation of Gaza, re-occupation of Gaza.

But that is what -- when you say that the IDF has to have operational control there, that's what you're saying, is occupation.

But at the same time, it's not that different from what Bibi has been saying for a while now. I mean, he's been saying -- he said it just a few weeks ago -- that Israel needs full security control from the river to the sea, right? He's -- he could not have been clearer with that.

So it's disappointing, but he's kind of following through on what he's been laying out there publicly. The question is, how much can the U.S. influence that decision making?

And while Israel pays attention to the U.S. perspective, and we can -- we are able to change a few things, the Israeli government has always, even when I was working with them, they go ahead with their plans.

HARLOW: Well, and Netanyahu has not condemned what those far-right ministers have said so far, as well.

CHEMALI: That's right.

HARLOW: What we understand from this reporting, from Barak's reporting, is that this does not rule out some sort of role for the P.A., for the Palestinian Authority.

What could that look like, in a way that you think would actually be effective? And that, you know, Bibi would be on board with?

CHEMALI: Well, so until now, Bibi keeps saying that a new authority --

HARLOW: Yes.

CHEMALI: Should be created. And the problem with that is it would have zero legitimacy, because the Palestinians aren't the ones creating this authority. The only one that has any legitimacy is the Palestinian Authority. And I don't see why they couldn't seize control. I mean, it would be -- it would be difficult. I don't want to pretend. I don't want to sugarcoat it. They'd have to really start from the beginning and rebuild ministries and fire a bunch of people and put -- you know, put new people there.

But -- but it would be feasible, even if the land is physically separate, as it is. The P.A. cooperates very closely with the Israeli government. So you already have that relationship, and that would bode well for them.

HARLOW: Hagar Chemali, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thanks.

HARLOW: Great to have you.

MATTINGLY: Well, it's been more than a half century, but we're back.

Odysseus has become the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the Moon since Richard Nixon was president. How this mission became a success. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)