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Biden 'Increasingly Frustrated' Ahead of Today's Netanyahu Call; State Department Created Afghanistan Withdrawal Plans from Scratch; Potent Nor'easter Could Bring Snow. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

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KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, April 4. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:40]

Fallout from the Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza. President Biden set to call Benjamin Netanyahu to express his frustration. But one thing still remains unchanged.

A CNN exclusive on the collapse of Afghanistan amid the U.S. withdrawal. No time to prepare, no emergency plan in place, and no safe place to go.

And a judge rejecting Donald Trump's last-ditch effort to delay his hush-money trial an unprecedented moment leans -- looms over the campaign trail.

All right, 6 a.m. here in Washington and also in New York. The Statue of Liberty shining bright this morning.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

In just hours, the White House says President Biden will, quote, "express his frustrations to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The phone call will mark the first time the two leaders have spoken since the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

A senior administration official says Biden is increasingly frustrated and angry, but the White House also emphasizing that there's been no shift in U.S. policy supporting Israel's military operation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, No consequences thus far for any types of behavior that the president has been outraged at.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We've had -- we're having conversations with the Israeli government. We've been very clear about that. Those conversations have been tough. We've been very public about those conversations.

On this particular instant, there will be an investigation. There's an investigation currently happening. The president has said he wants it to be swift. He wants it to be comprehensive, and he wants there to see accountability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Our panel is here. David Frum, a staff writer for "The Atlantic"; CNN political commentator, former deputy chief of staff for HUD under Trump, Shermichael Singleton, is here. And CNN political commentator Kate Bedingfield. She, of course, is former communications director for the Biden White House.

Good morning, all.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

HUNT: Kate, it may be a little easier to be at this table today than communicating at the White House --

BEDINGFIELD: No question about it.

HUNT: -- on this issue. A couple of things.

One, there's new reporting in "The New York Times" that Jill Biden is pressing her husband to end the conflict in Gaza. You can see their -- their headline here.

And then this also stuck out to me. I woke up to this tweet from late yesterday. This is from John Favreau, who of course, was speech writer in the Obama White House.

He says the president doesn't get credit for being privately enraged while he still refuses to use leverage to stop the IDF from killing and starving innocent people. These stories only make him look weak.

I can't imagine that's being perceived terribly well among Biden colleagues. It's a little bit of a shot across the bow.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

HUNT: What do you see in this?

BEDINGFIELD: Well I mean, look, this is a protracted, incredibly difficult situation. I think it is complicated. Obviously, the -- the catastrophe with the WCK aid workers, I think, has further inflamed people's passions and anger, understandably.

You know, for President Biden, I think he needs to continue to lean into showing personal outrage when you saw the statement that they put out yesterday, the language was a lot more intense, I think than Biden as language has been around this in terms of his own personal outrage. He does need to continue to show it.

But look, this is an incredibly complicated and challenging situation. And adjusting American weapons assistance to Israel has significant consequences throughout the region.

I mean, Israel is our ally and signaling to those in the region who are not our allies that it's open season is a dangerous thing. It's complicated.

So no question, tensions are high. Emotions are high. They should be. What we witnessed, what we have been witnessing is horrific. It is complicated.

But you know, I think for Biden ultimately, is he going to have to -- is there going to have to be some policy adjustment here? I suspect that there probably is.

But I think that that has to happen in the larger context of what that is going to mean for the united states. What that's going to mean for the region. And even though it's hard in the moment, I don't think that can happen purely as an emotional reaction, even to an incredibly horrific thing like we saw earlier this week.

HUNT: Yes. David Frum, let me show you a little bit of what -- Jose Andres spoke to the media yesterday. He had had a phone call with Biden on Tuesday.

[06:05:06]

And of course, he's talked in very personal terms about these seven people who were killed, in one instance saying he wishes he hadn't even founded World Central Kitchen because if he hadn't, then this person that he cared so much about would still be here today. I'm here. He was getting emotional in an interview yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSE ANDRES, FOUNDER, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: But defending your people is not killing everybody else around.

I've been in Gaza myself. I met -- some of the people that die were -- were my friends. And I said, with them -- show me (ph) is the nicest thing that you will ever make.

This was a good soul.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's just really hard, hard to watch. And I think it's part of what has crystallized this as just potentially a major turning point.

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, Chef Jose Andres is a noble and compassionate man. The World Central Kitchen does amazing work, and people are looking for charity to support that does work all over the world, you can't do better than World Central Kitchen.

Israel faces an enemy that uses ambulances to move terrorists. Many of the people kidnapped on October 7 who have emerged have reported being transported in ambulances. Israeli faces an enemy that has recruited international organizations

as allies in all but name. At least a dozen U.N. employees were actively involved in the October 7 attack. Hundreds are complicit. Thousands of families in Gaza that are terrorist families, that have a terrorist as a breadwinner, are employed by the United Nations.

And so Israel faces a problem where how -- the enemy also has obligations to laws of war. It has obligations not to use hospitals as -- as headquarters, but it does. It has obligations not to use ambulances to move its troops or to move kidnap people. But it does.

So in this very treacherous environment, against this unscrupulous enemy, people are going -- trying to prevent friendly fire incidents, to protect Israel's own troops. Israel is going to make mistakes from time to time.

And this one looks like an absolutely harrowing one.

It's really important for people as they consume the news fast to remember how many of the stories we've heard since October 7 have turned out to be very different from what you first hear.

You hear that Israel bombed a hospital and that hundreds are dead. Well, then it turns out it was a Hamas rocket that fell on the hospital and not hundreds, but dozens or dead.

You hear stories that the U.N. denies any of its employees were working for Hamas. Well, maybe one or two. OK, Maybe a dozen. OK, Maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of families.

So this is a harrowing situation. It's a terrible war and the -- it achieves nothing. And the only way out is for Hamas to be defeated and to go away.

And if Hamas had never done this thing on October 7, then all the people -- Palestinian, Israeli, and the heroic workers for World Central Kitchen -- they would all be alive.

HUNT: Shermichael, one aspect of this, of course, is the U.S.'s ability to influence Benjamin Netanyahu, who has honestly played in U.S. politics. Some would argue he's waiting for, potentially, Donald Trump to get re-elected.

What does the waning influence that the U.S. has -- seems to have right now -- I'm going to hang this on David Sanger, who said -- said this yesterday on our show, that the U.S. government seems to have less impact right now in terms of getting Netanyahu to do what they want, than they did at the beginning of the conflict.

How is that going to impact what happens next here?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think its substantial, as most Americans want to continue to support Israel. I think there should be substantial pressure on Hamas to release the hostages. We're not hearing enough of that from the administration, in my opinion. HUNT: They're working behind the scenes on that.

SINGLETON: They have, but we're hearing and seeing reports about the president being frustrated, about the first lady being frustrated. I completely understand that. I think most Americans want to preserve the life of innocent Palestinians. We should want that.

But we should also desire complete defeat of Hamas, which wants the annihilation of the Jewish state, which is why Benjamin Netanyahu is relentless in wanting to destroy them.

I would love to see a President Biden behind the scenes also showcasing frustration about that. We're not seeing it.

You know, I have Jewish friends, many of them in this country, that have reached out to me and said, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of my kids on college campuses. I'm afraid when I'm going out in public, if someone may attack me because of my faith. I would love to see the president speak out more forthright about that, as well, and he's not doing it.

So in terms of the politics, if he can --

HUNT: Let me give Kate a brief word on that.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, I don't -- I don't know. I don't know if that's fair. I think the president has been very direct about the rise of antisemitism. I mean, remember, this was actually a motivating reason for him to run in 2019 was what we saw in Charlottesville.

And he speaks about the dangers of rising antisemitism all the time.

He also, I think, has been incredibly aggressive in trying to pursue an end to this conflict that brings the hostages home and that degrades Hamas. I mean, that is in part why he's facing some of this political backlash, because the -- the sort of easier thing to do would be to say, you know, no, we're not going to keep doing the hard work behind closed doors that's required in a situation like this.

[06:10:10]

We're going to put forward a strategy that's entirely intended to be public. And that's -- would be easier from a press perspective, from a communications perspective.

But at the end of the day, that would not get to the ultimate outcome that the president wants, that I think everybody wants, is you know, to see Hamas defeated, to see the hostages released, and to put in place a post-conflict plan that provides some path forward in the region.

SINGLETON: What is that?

HUNT: Quick, last word.

SINGLETON: What is that plan? There appears to be a capitulation from the president. We saw what happened in Michigan. We saw what just recently happened in Wisconsin.

I think he's more concerned about the electoral impact than what's really going on in that part of the world.

BEDINGFIELD: When you have people on the left who are publicly criticizing the president for not doing enough to distance himself from Israel, I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure that really makes --

SINGLETON: Criticism is a part of that job, though.

BEDINGFIELD: -- question that really makes sense.

SINGLETON: And I don't want to see the president --

BEDINGFIELD: That flies --

SINGLETON: I don't want to see the president --

BEDINGFIELD: That flies in the face of what Biden has actually said.

SINGLETON: But I don't want to see the president adopt some of the more radical, progressive positions on this particular issue, about posturing to that leftist base.

BEDINGFIELD: Well --

SINGLETON: I don't think he should.

HUNT: Let's just say that we are in this moment where the president is saying one thing about his personal feelings. But he still has a policy that is supporting Israel to the hilt. And that is something that is what progressives are focused on here.

All right, up next, a judge blocks Donald Trump's hail-Mary attempts to delay his hush-money trial. What happens next?

Plus the race to save lives in the earthquake -- earthquake disaster zone in Taiwan.

And a CNN exclusive reveals why the evacuation from Afghanistan turned so chaotic.

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[06:16:10]

HUNT: All right. Now to a CNN exclusive. State Department officials told a House committee investigating the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan that they came up with the withdrawal plans on the fly from scratch.

CNN obtained hours of transcripts from closed-door testimony that sheds new light on the unprecedented final days in Afghanistan. Joining us now, CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood.

Kylie, good morning. This is some great reporting. Walk us through what you learned.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So what we learned is that these State Department officials were thrust into the situation of the Afghanistan withdrawal into very high roles on the ground in a dramatic way.

This wasn't just dramatic on the ground. We all saw those Afghans trying to get out, those Americans who were trying to get out. But also, the officials themselves really didn't know, some of them hours before they were leaving Washington, D.C., that they were heading into Afghanistan to be part of this evacuation effort.

They had incredibly important roles. And they talk about the situation on the ground, according to one of those State Department officials, changing minute by minute.

They also talk about the fact that they weren't really following any actual plan here. There was a NEO that was created. That's a non- evacuation -- noncombat evacuation plan. Officials said that was created in, you know, April or May.

But they said when they got on the ground, there effectively wasn't one of those in operation. They were creating that plan on the fly by themselves, trying to figure out how to get these Americans and these Afghans who had worked with the U.S. for the last two decades, out of the country, while we saw that tumult, that chaos around the actual Kabul airport.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, David Frum, you could argue that this debacle -- let's call it what it was -- was a real turning point for the Biden administration. I mean, what does this new reporting tell you?

FRUM: Well, the three major foreign policy decisions the Biden administration, you see the same pattern appearing -- in Afghanistan, in Israel and in Ukraine -- where they want two contradictory things and refuse to choose.

So they want out of Afghanistan, and they want out of Afghanistan fast. But they want to protect allies and friends and Afghanistan and have an orderly withdrawal.

In Ukraine, they want to help Ukraine survive, but they don't want Ukraine to hit Russia too hard. They don't want to expand the war.

In Israel, they want to support Israel against Hamas, but they don't want to have bad things appear on television.

And they are so -- there -- this is an administration where the foreign policy is run by very, very smart people, often too smart for their own good. Because the less smart people would say, we can't have two things. One thing will be hard enough. Why don't we do one thing? That's difficult enough. Two things that are contradictory, that's impossible.

HUNT: Very briefly.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, I'm not sure I would --

HUNT: I'm sorry, Kate, we're putting you on the spot this morning.

BEDINGFIELD: I'm not sure I entirely agree with that assessment, but I do think -- I mean, remember, the situation in Afghanistan was such; the Trump administration had entered into an agreement with the Taliban.

The timeline was not the Biden administration's to set here. They were working with constraints that had been laid out by the Trump administration.

Also on this question of a NEO, you know, announcing a NEO three months before you leave signals to the entirety of the world that you have no confidence in the Afghan government. So it was -- it was a chicken and an egg situation that was challenging.

We, you know, certainly didn't want to be in a situation like we wound up in, with people crashing the gates and crashing the planes. But you also can't, three months ahead of the departure, signal to the world, we're rushing people out of the country, because we have no faith that the government is going to stand when we go.

So, you know, these were really complicated and difficult situations. And I can tell you that the administration was very focused on trying to get people out safely, get them out quickly. It was a very challenging situation.

HUNT: Kylie, great reporting. Thank you very much for being here this morning. I really appreciate it.

Coming up next here, rocked by the earthquake. New video shows the danger drivers faced in Taiwan. I mean, this is out of an action movie.

Plus a new battleground state emerges in the presidential race: Nebraska. Why Donald Trump and the GOP are focused on the Cornhusker state.

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[06:24:20]

HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you've got to see this morning.

A giant boulder slamming into a car during Wednesday's earthquake in Taiwan. Unclear if anyone was injured, and CNN has not yet independently verified this video.

At least five people are dead after multiple drone strikes hit the Northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Three of the people killed were emergency workers responding to the initial strike.

New surveillance video shows a compilation of short scenes from the federal raid at the home of Sean "Diddy" Combs. Diddy's ex-girlfriend says officers used excessive force against her son and Diddy's other son.

One of the biggest cash heists in L.A. history. "The L.A. Times" reporting burglars store [SIC] as much as $30 million from a San Fernando money storage facility on Easter Sunday. I didn't even know that was a thing.

[06:25:08]

And take a look at this. X user Dan Martiland captured these stunning photos of lightning striking the torch held by the statue of liberty amid thunderstorms across New York City. Majestic, I have to say.

That, of course, takes us straight to our meteorologist, Elisa Raffa, who is tracking the storms that generated that lightning and can tell us where they are now.

Elisa, that was an incredible picture. What are we going to see going on today?

ELISSA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Majestic was the perfect way to describe that. Just incredible to see that lightning strike.

And that same storm has parts of Maine looking like a winter wonderland this morning. Definitely doesn't look like April.

Now we have winds with this storm that are so powerful. We've got power outages that are climbing so fast we can't update our graphics fast enough. This number is now almost 450,000 people without power. A lot of them, or most of them in Maine, because we're looking at gusts upwards of 65 miles per hour from Boston down through Cape Cod.

Warnings continue as we go through the day today.

Here's a look at that storm. We've got even some thunder snow there, just off the coast of Boston. The snow pumping through Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and upstate New York.

We've got warnings in place as we go through the day today for an additional five to 12 inches of snow. And in a lot of these places, they already have about six to 12 inches down, especially in the highest elevations their of the Adirondacks and the Appalachian mountains.

So we'll continue with the threat for some heavy blowing snow, localized blizzard conditions, and power outages today.

HUNT: All right. Elisa Raffa for us. Elisa, thank you very much.

All right. Coming up no time to delay. Donald Trump's hush-money trial set to move forward after a judge rebukes another Trump request.

Plus, rocketing toward the eclipse. NASA's mission to study the phenomenon coming up next week.

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