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CNN This Morning

Soon: Funeral For Alexei Navalny Begins In Moscow; Today: Judge In Classified Docs Case To Set Trial Date; Biden And Trump Hold Dueling Appearances In Texas; Gaza Health Ministry: 100+ Killed While Waiting For Food; Wildfires in Texas Kill Two People, Torch 1M+ Acres. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 01, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:38]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, March 1st.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

A funeral for Alexei Navalny set to begin next hour. The Russian dissidents still rattling Vladimir Putin, even in death.

Plus, a critical hearing today in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Donald Trump's lawyers now saying they would accept a trial three months before the election.

And Congress doing what it seems to do best these days, kicking the can down the road, yet again to head off a government shutdown.

HUNT: All right. Five a.m. here in Washington, a live look down the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial behind it.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's great to be with you. Happy Friday. We made it.

All right. Even in death, Alexei Navalny is haunting Vladimir Putin. Just an hour from now, funeral services are scheduled to begin in Moscow for the late opposition leader. Hundreds of mourners and a heavy police presence are already in place. Navalny's allies fear the Kremlin will intervene.

It's not clear whether anyone beyond Navalny's family will be allowed to attend the services. And there are mounting concerns that the Russians may block the livestream of the funeral.

Making today's events a potential flashpoint for anti-Putin sentiment inside Russia.

The world is watching with vigils now underway across the globe.

CNN senior editor Nathan Hodge joins us now from London.

Nathan, good morning to you. What can you tell us?

NATHAN HODGE, CNN SENIOR ROW EDITOR: Well, Kasie, this is a two-week saga now that's been unfolding since the death of Alexei Navalny.

First, we had an incredible drama that unfolded just over whether or not the authorities would be handing over Navalny's body to his family. That was mother in the days after his death had gone up to the remote prison north of the Arctic Circle, where he died in an effort to retrieve the body. And there was a giant sort of behind the scenes tussle over, handing over the body with essentially Navalny supporters shaming Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is often cast himself as a defender of traditional values for not handing over the body of Alexei Navalny, so that he could have what his family wanted, which would be an orthodox Christian burial.

Now, in Moscow crowds have been assembling outside of the church in the southern Moscow suburban neighborhood, where Navalny's family had lived and they're gathering there with a very heavy police presence, as authorities are clearly concerned that the commemoration of Navalny, that this funeral could turn essentially into a political funeral.

And, of course, you know, it's been a longstanding practice of the Russian authorities to crack down on any kind of unauthorized political gathering. But that tendency has already gathered speed and is an intensified since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, with the authorities passing laws that essentially, you know, further restricted free speech and the authorities have dealt very harshly over the past couple of weeks with people who have been staging impromptu memorials to Navalny, laying flowers to him, and, you know, cities around Russia and many hundreds of people according to human rights observers, have been arrested for coming out and showing their support for Navalny's.

So the big concern around this is that this demonstration, all that we have not seen evidence of any kinds of arrests despite this heavy police presence around the church and where the funeral is supposed to take place, but we've just heard in sort of the past hour from Navalny's spokesperson that they are still waiting for the body to actually be handed over, thus causing another delay in potentially, you know, pushing the funeral. This memorial observance further to the right, Kasie.

HUNT: So, Nathan, I'm so sorry, I have to interrupt you there because we actually have gotten some new information in on that. They now are tweeting his spokesperson, Navalny spokesperson is tweeting that the body has been handed over to relatives. So I just want to make sure we make that clear.

She also tweeted a hearse well soon be headed over to the church. It, of course, had been initially reported that his team had been unable to secure hearse for transporting Navalny's body.

[05:05:05]

I also want to bring this to our viewers, too, this just crossing here at CNN, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN Friday today that he has nothing to say to the family of opposition politician Alexei Navalny on the day of his funeral. He was asked the very straightforward question, does he have anything to say to the family? He says, quote, no, we have nothing to say.

I think we should also note that according to the pictures that you're seeing, some of this on your screen here. We also know for this crowd has been continuing to grow and the police presence has been growing along with it. According to video, there are police officers on the roofs of buildings nearby the Mother of God Church where he has to be laid to rest.

Nathan, thank you very much for kicking us off this morning. I really appreciate your reporting.

Let's go now to this, a critical hearing today in Florida in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents. The judge is expected to set a trial date in a court filing on Thursday. Special counsel Jack Smith proposed July 8th for that. Trump's lawyers have claimed repeatedly that no fair trial can take place until after the November reelection. But last night, they proposed a new trial date of August 12th, three months before the election.

On Thursday, Trump and President Biden made dueling appearances in Texas to try and shine a spotlight on the border crisis. President Biden was in Brownsville pushing for bipartisan border policies, while Trump was 300 miles away in Eagle Pass.

Joining us now, is the White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, Akayla Gardner.

Akayla, good morning.

Let's start on this legal angle because obviously we know that former President Trump's campaign strategy and his legal strategy might as well be one in the same. This does -- this case in the classified documents situation interacts with the election subversion case that Jack Smith is also handling.

What does it say to you that they now are willing to move that date before the election because I have to say my first thought was, well, maybe that's a tactic to try to delay the election subversion case until after the election.

AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I think you're exactly right. At the end of the day, Trumps lawyers have tried to delay these cases as much as possible because they know that if Donald Trump is elected, that he could simply ask the Justice Department to dismiss these cases. And at the end of the day, we've seen in Bloomberg News and Morning Consult's polling, that a conviction and any of these criminal trials could be a huge liability for Donald Trump, especially in swing states and if he faces prison time.

So this is certainly their strategy, may be a way to negotiate with the judge here. But as you said, Donald Trump's legal strategy has increasingly just merged with his campaign strategy. We've seen him take to truth, social, expressing his grievances with judges and with the process in genera. That has energized his base voters in many ways. I've talked to voters who believe that this was a corrupt system against him, that the Justice Department is against Donald Trump.

And for his base voters, that has worked, but there is evidenced that sort of fringe Republicans are uncomfortable of this.

HUNT: Well, I mean, I think independent voters as well have a potential actually big concern here in terms of the strategy being very different if you're trying to win a Republican primary than perhaps it will be in a general election.

Briefly on the border, I'm not sure if we can put up just a split screen of these two men, but they were both talking at different parts of the southern border. The Biden team announcing he was going to go down there after the Trump trip was already on the calendar, so he clearly wanted to put himself right in that frame, so that when we were sitting here doing this the day after, we have pictures of both of them here acknowledging, hey, this is a problem, but they talk about this very, very differently.

I mean, Trump was back on. I mean, I was there when he went down that golden escalator and he was talking about, you know, people coming across the border bringing drugs, bringing crime, demonizing migrants, President Biden was criticizing Republicans to saying, hey, like you killed this very conservative policy that I was willing to support, what -- what did you see as this played out yesterday?

GARDNER: Yes. I think split screen is exactly the right word we saw Biden in Brownsville, which is he got criticism essentially because its not really hotspot as compared to Eagle Pass, where Trump was. And immigration is just continued to increase as an issue, especially among swing state voters. We've seen that the unprecedented level of migration is just starting to trickle into some of these cities, places like Arizona, places like New York City, even Democrats that I talked to you sometimes raised this as an issue.

HUNT: The mayors of those cities have.

GARDNER: A hundred percent and that's put pressure on the president -- on President Biden, on the administration in general, we saw governors raising this as a huge issue just last week.

And I think Trump knows that this is a liability for President Biden. I ask the Biden campaign, do they see this as an issue among their core orders? And they said it's an issue nationally, which was a pretty big statement, especially because this seems to be more of a Republican issue here.

But President Biden pretty clearly asked Donald Trump, come alongside me, support this bill, and ask that seems very unlikely as we know that Trump has publicly and privately press Speaker Johnson not to take up any of these bills that have come out of the Senate.

[05:10:00]

Yeah. I mean, he killed it single-handedly, basically.

All right. Akayla Gardner -- Akayla, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

All right. Coming up next, negotiations between Israel and Hamas reaching a critical stage after a deadly attack on civilians in Gaza.

Plus, Trump and Biden, as we're just discussing, split screen at the border, delivering starkly different messages on how to solve the migrant crisis.

And an air national guardsman accused of posting classified documents online might be changing his plea.

What's up with that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Welcome back.

This morning, there are conflicting versions of events after that heart-wrenching scene in northern Gaza on Thursday.

[05:15:02]

According to Palestinian officials, more than 100 people were killed, hundreds more were injured amid Israeli gunfire. Witnesses say civilians were gathering around newly arrived aid trucks when gunfire erupted, triggering panic as a result, and many were run over by aid trucks and killed.

CNN is unable to independently confirm the death toll that President Biden is weighing in from the south lawn of the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you know what happened in Gaza City? More than a hundred civilians were killed.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're checking that out right now. There's two competing version of what happened. I don't have an answer yet.

REPORTER: Are you worried that that will complicate negotiations?

BIDEN: I know it will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Elliott Gotkine is joining us now from London.

Elliott, good morning.

So, the IDF is disputing the events and they're also disputing the death count. You heard the president of the United States say there, that there are competing versions, but also acknowledging the reality that this is going to really affect these ongoing negotiations to try to get a temporary ceasefire and a deal to release hostages. What do you know? ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Kasie, that is the concern, that with more than 100 killed according to the Hamas-run health ministry and hundreds injured, that this could derail those hostage talks, which is still ongoing. We heard what last week President Biden, while chomping on an ice cream, saying that he was hopeful that a truce, cease-fire with but Israeli hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and more aid going into the Gaza Strip could be achieved as early as Monday.

Well, it's already Friday, so Monday seems somewhat optimistic, especially on the unofficial deadline now is in time for Ramadan, which starts around March the 10th. But in terms of what actually happened yesterday in the early hours of the morning, between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. local time, we know that there were 30 aid trucks carrying Egyptian aid to the western part of Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

We know that there were crowds of people that surrounded these trucks are, of course, desperate for humanitarian aid. It's been very hard to get aid into that part of the Gaza Strip, that there was a stampede. And as you say, there were people that were trampled underfoot who are run over by trucks, as they tried to escape and the chaos and some trucks rammed into other trucks, which caused further fatalities.

Now, the difference differentiating versions here seem to be that the Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses say that it was Israeli fire on the people surrounding this convoy, that prompted the stampede that led to all of these deaths and injuries. The IDF, for its part, saying that it did fire warning shots to disperse the stampede, and that the only live fire at fire was at a group of Palestinians that approached one of its tanks. And it hasn't actually given us any details as to how many Palestinians were killed in that incident, but says that it wasn't that many, of course, any innocent civilians is too many.

So that's the situation. Yes, you're right now. Investigation is being called for. Investigations underway, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Elliot Gotkine for us in London -- Elliot, thank you very much.

Coming up here. A judge holds a TV reporter in contempt for refusing to reveal her sources.

Plus, talk about pumped up. The 500 percent gas price hike happen today in Cuba.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:20:31]

HUNT: All right. We're going now to this developing story.

Funeral services scheduled to begin next hour in Moscow for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Hundreds of mourners, a heavy police presence already in place.

And we have CNN's Matthew Chance on the scene. He is live in Moscow, outside the church where this funeral is set to be held.

Matthew, what can you tell us?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, it's a scene of many thousands of people that have come out already today to pay their last respects to Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader. It's quite a big security operation.

We just tilt the camera around. You can see there are riot police that have been deployed to the gates of this church. The Quench My Sorrows Church on the one of the suburbs of Moscow, the same suburb where Alexei Navalny lived. And they're sort of attempting to control the crowds here who have come to pay their respects.

As I said, many thousands of people have turned out. We can't really give you a good picture of that, but look, as far as the eye can see down this road, the people who have lined up with flowers --

(VIDEO GAP)

HUNT: All right. We're going to keep trying to get Matthew Chance has shot back up as you can see, its a little bit dicey there, but some really great reporting from him on the scene. We'll come back to him as we get him back up.

All right. It is now 21 minutes past the hour here. Time for the morning roundup.

Air national guardsman Jack Teixeira expected to enter a guilty plea on Monday. He's accused of leaking classified government documents online. He could face decades behind bars.

A federal judge holding journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to reveal her sources in a series of Fox News reports from 2017. She's also facing a fine of $800 a day. Herridge is expected to appeal.

Gas prices go up 500 percent in Cuba today. The government says its part of a series of measures to try to cut their national deficit. Adding insult to injury, Cubans are also getting hit with a 25 percent rate hike for electricity.

All right. Now, time for weather because right now a massive storm is pounding California. Record setting snow and rare blizzard conditions are expected, making travel impossible and leaving people stranded inside their homes. And, of course, in Texas, where wildfires have burned more than a million acres and killed two people, gusting winds could worsen conditions this weekend.

Our weatherman, Derek Van Dam, joins us now.

Derek, good morning to you.

Tough -- tough sledding, I guess, no pun intended.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, right. Exactly. I think its important that we try to draw while these two big stories

together, because one is impacting the other and I'll explain how. First and foremost, the major winter storm/blizzard that is impacting the state of California, particularly across the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the National Weather Service reserves particular wording for moments like this, using the words extremes, using the words significant, and that is all within their discussions.

This is an extreme event. It is a rare event. And the reason for that is because of the amount of snow, the amount of wind that is going to batter this region. And that currently is and the reduced visibilities.

This is going to make travel nearly too impossible. There have been wind gusts over 100 miles per hour, already near Lake Tahoe, in the higher elevations across Palisades, and into that particular region, this radar loops shows a constant barrage of heavy snow. The potential exists here for up to 10 feet of snow or more and some of those higher elevations. The interstates like I-80 will be virtually impassable. It will be disorienting for people if you do choose to travel, which we do not advise.

The potential exists for cars to be buried in this snow as well as first story level homes being buried by snow drifts with the amount of when that's expected. Look at this, this is actually topping our charts on our forecast snow accumulation. You see those little red dots there. We haven't had time to tweak our color table here yet.

But that just gives you the idea of how much snow we're talking about. It is literally off the scales. Wind is going to make it that much more difficult.

Mammoth Lakes look at that as a forecast. Wind gusts 75 miles per hour. That's equivalent to a category one hurricane at the minimum. And that will reduced visibilities.

And by the way, that wind heading east towards the Texas panhandle, that's where the fires are still raging out of control -- Kasie.

HUNT: Wow, that is literally off our charts in terms of snow, Derek. That's wild.

VAN DAM: Yeah.

HUNT: All right. Our weatherman Derek Van Dam -- Derek, thank you very much.

VAN DAM: Okay.

HUNT: Coming up next here, the funeral for Alexei Navalny, about to begin in moments.

Plus, the transcript of Hunter Biden's deposition released to the public. What the president's son told Republicans about his father.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. We've got a live look at the White House just before 5:30 a.m. here on the East Coast.

As you can see --