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CNN This Morning
IDF Rescues Four Israeli Hostages; Trump Slams Border Action; Deadline Nears for Hunter Biden to Testify; Burgum on Trump's VP Short List. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired June 10, 2024 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:32:06]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: How do we end the death of civilians in Gaza?
There is only one way. It is to get to a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage deal. That's what President Biden laid out.
Hamas accepting that deal would bring an into the tragedy in Gaza.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan continuing to try to put pressure on Hamas to end the war in Gaza.
On Saturday, Israeli Defense Forces executed an operation in Gaza that freed four hostages from Hamas custody. However, at least 274 people were killed according to Gazan health officials. The IDF disputes those numbers. They put the number of casualties under 100. And CNN can't independently verify the death toll. Sullivan saying the U.S. was not involved in the operation but supports Israeli efforts to free the hostages.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We didn't have any U.S. forces on the ground.
The United States will support Israel in taking steps to try to rescue hostages who are currently being held in - in harm, held by Hamas. And we will continue to work with Israel to do that. We will also continue to reinforce the point that all of their military operations, including hostage rescue operation, should take every precaution to minimize the amount of civilian harm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: CNN's Oren Liebermann joins me now, live from Tel Aviv. Oren, good morning.
We're learning new details this morning about just how this Israeli raid unfolded and how the U.S. provided support. What's the latest?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kasie, this is an operation that took weeks of planning according to the Israeli military, including hundreds of personnel. That includes military, intelligence, as well as a special police unit for the training that went into this, including the building of mock apartment buildings in which the Israeli military believed these four hostages were held in Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, a densely populated area.
The operation itself carried out in midday. Israel believing that would give it an element of surprise, that Hamas wouldn't believe that Israel would do such an operation in midday when the streets were busy. The Israeli forces moved in just before noon on Saturday again to two apartment buildings that were fairly close to each other, pulling out these four hostages. A celebration for Israel. There was celebration and joy on the streets. Of course, politicians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrating a major and very difficult operation.
But, of course, that operation came at a steep cost. As Israeli forces extracted the hostages, there were both gun fights and Israeli strikes to try to get those hostages out of central Gaza. And in that, the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza says more than 270 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed as part of those Israeli operations, and hundreds more wounded. Israel disputes those numbers, saying there were less than 100 casualties. It's impossible for CNN to be able to verify those. But either one of those numbers or anything in between, frankly, makes it one of the deadliest days in Gaza we have seen in months.
[06:35:01]
Meanwhile, witnesses on the ground say Israeli forces moved in, in disguise, effectively trying to dress as Hamas militants, or as displaced Palestinians, to try to get closer to those apartment buildings where the IDF says the hostages were held before the operation itself, the extraction effort, unfolded here.
Now, after the operation here, the U.S. says that - or rather U.S. officials say they helped with intelligence. They haven't been too specific here. We simply know that ever since the beginning of the war, there has been a U.S. cell here that has worked hand-in-hand with the Israelis to try to share whatever intel is out there, to try to push forward a hostage rescue effort.
However, as the U.S. has acknowledged the success of the operation, U.S. officials, including you heard Jake Sullivan there, warning that the right move now is to go to a ceasefire, as well as a hostage deal, putting pressure on both Israel and saying now it's up to Hamas to act.
HUNT: All right, Oren Liebermann for us in Tel Aviv. Oren, thank you very much.
All right, let's turn now to 2024 and how immigration policy is shaping the presidential race. New reporting this morning indicates that as he tries to court swing state Latino voters, President Biden is considering a second executive action focused on providing legal status for long term undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens.
Donald Trump was in the key swing state of Nevada over the weekend, and he used, shall we say, creative language to criticize Biden's first executive order.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's week, it's ineffective, it's bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED) what he signed.
CROWD: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
TRUMP: Wow, this word seems to be catching on a little bit, but in a much more positive way than deplorable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I had - sorry, I had to take my earpiece out, the bleeping.
LULU GARCIA NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
HUNT: The bleeping.
NAVARRO: And also, wonderful that this is now introduced to the political lexicon. I mean another - another triumph for the Trump campaign.
HUNT: You know, I have to say, I - when I first started doing this, I feel like - I guess I was covering Mitt Romney. Everything was a little more polite. But that was not - that was not the chant.
NAVARRO: That was not the chant.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
HUNT: Let's talk a little bit about - and we were continuing to talk about this in the break earlier in the show. Let's just kind of bring our viewers in on that, the way that Nevada is changing, Latino voters in particular, an opportunity for Donald Trump in a way that, you know, some people may not have wrapped their heads around. But, Lulu, it does seem like, I'll be honest, at this point it feels like Nevada's going to land in Trump's column. Why?
NABARRO: If Nevada lands in Trump's column, it's going to be because of the economy. I mean, frankly, Nevada is a place where you have a lot of working class service workers. They are very impacted by high prices. They have been hurt during the pandemic. And they are looking for improvements in the economy. And as we know, people are nostalgic about the Trump economy pre-pandemic. They think that they did better then. And they believe that he would be able to turn the economy around for them now. And so that, I think, is the main appeal.
The mistake, I think, people make with Latinos is that they think that immigration is the main issue for them. And, in fact, that's not true. What really is important is education, is crime, is the economy, and those are issues in which Donald Trump is polling better right now.
HUNT: Yes, so does that - I mean, if that's the case, Jonah, does that mean that this is a mistake for Biden to consider the second executive action that would welcome some people that are here with undocumented status?
GOLDBERG: Look, I think it might be. I mean they poll a lot. So, maybe they've got some data that we don't know about. But, you know, to Lulu's point, it has always been true that Hispanic voters, as they move up the socioeconomic ladder, become indistinguishable from the median voter. You know, people think the longtime (INAUDIBLE) Republican though, oh, Hispanics just always vote Democrat. No, poor people tended to vote Democrat. And as Hispanic moved up, the socioeconomic ladder, they tended to look indistinguishable from other voters. That's changing a little bit because now we're seeing the electorate sort along working class lines, non-college educated versus college educated, really bizarre gender gaps, stuff that's really sort of solidifying, and blacks and Latinos are just following a little slower behind what's been happening with the white working class. The old FDR coalition has fallen apart and it's moving right, and the sort of college-educated boudoir parents who want to send their kids to college has been moving left.
NAVARRO: There is a caveat here though, which is that even though immigration is not the most important thing for Latinos, most Latinos have family members who were - who came to this country, you know, might be undocumented, and so it is an issue that matters. So, I do think that actually Biden, if he is going to do this, which is - I think the plan is to give a path to citizenship, or at least legality for those who are married to U.S. citizens, I think that that actually might have an impact.
[06:40:05]
At least it will distinguish him from Trump's stand on this.
HUNT: All right.
GOLDBERG: Also, just don't call people who look like you vermin if you want to get their vote, right? There's - there's something there too.
HUNT: Yes.
NAVARRO: Just a little.
HUNT: I mean and when you talk to Democrats about this, they're like, that's the distinguishing thing, right? Like we're not going to use dehumanizing language to talk about people. That that is the thing that, you know, Donald Trump does here that they really, you know, feel they're -
NAVARRO: And it helps his base.
HUNT: Right.
NAVARRO: I mean, you know, the progressive base actually wants a path to legalization. When they talk about comprehensive immigration reform, they mean that, yes, there should be border enforcement, but also their needs to be a path for - to citizenship for those who are in this country legally.
HUNT: Yes. And the governor of Nevada puts it this way in "The New York Times" this morning. He writes, quote, "as the 2024 election inches closer, candidates would be wise to consider the effective their actions on voters' everyday lives. If recent polling on Democratic candidates in Nevada is any indication, I think it is, Mr. Biden has a big problem to overcome. Nevadans are losing confidence in him to do something meaningful about inflation and housing and they're left feeling that he just doesn't get it."
ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": And we're talking here about broadening out beyond Latino Nevadan voters. This is just about the state and why it is so essential to this election.
Recall first that it was a nail-biter in 2020 when Joe Biden won. So, this was never a shoe-in for him. But, Lulu, it struck me when you said how these voters, correctly, they yearn for a pre-pandemic economy under Trump. But I think what Biden's challenge is going to be is to remind voters that 2020 was in fact a year that Donald Trump was president.
And I think when I was just in Reno for a panel talking to a lot of voters at the university's campus there, a lot of people were upset still about the closures that they thought harmed the economy, but they were attributing those to Biden, which I found interesting, as if 2020 has been sort of erased from the national memory as having been indeed a part of Trump's presidency.
HUNT: Yes, I mean I think there's sort of a collective desire to erase 2020 from our memories in general regardless of who was president of the United States.
CALABRO: Just in general. Yes. (INAUDIBLE) state.
HUNT: But, anyway, up next here, a potential new frontrunner in the mad dash to be Donald Trump's running mate.
Plus, Splash Mountain is out at the Magic Kingdom. The right that will replace it, ahead.
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[06:46:46]
HUNT: All right, 46 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Take a look at the damage done to an Austrian Airlines plane that hit
a thunderstorms cell on a flight from Spain on Sunday and got pelted with hail. One hundred and seventy-three passengers, six crew members were onboard. The plane eventually landed safely in Vienna. Yikes.
Apple kicks off its worldwide developers conference today by unveiling its new AI features. It comes as a new OpenAI deal giving access to hundreds of millions of users is set to be announced this week.
And take a look at Tiana's Bayou Adventure. That is the new ride replacing Splash Mountain at Disney World's Magic Kingdom. It opens June 28th. It's being described as an enchanting musical adventure inspired by the Disney animated film "The Princess and the Frog." I just want to know if you can still, you know, fall.
And rookie phenom Caitlin Clark says she's not upset about being left off the U.S. Olympic team. The WNBA star says she had no expectations and she'll be rooting for the team.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAITLIN CLARK, INDIANA FEVER: Honestly, no disappointment. Like, I think it just gives you something - something to work for. You know, that's a dream. You know, hopefully one day I can be there. And I think it's just a little more motivation. I mean you remember that. And, you know, hopefully in four years, when four years comes back around, you know, I can be there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Lulu, I feel like she's got awhile, right?
NAVARRO: I think she's got awhile. But I also am like, why isn't she on the team? I mean to me it's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy.
HUNT: It does seem like a missed opportunity, I will just say.
NAVARRO: Just a little. Just a little. Yes.
HUNT: I feel like there would be all the people watching -
CALABRO: Can we just say, though, her poise, when she answers questions like that, I mean, I always forget that she is just out of college because he carries herself, I think, with such dignity.
HUNT: For 22 years old, it's really impressive.
CALABRO: It's crazy.
HUNT: It's really impressive.
CALABRO: Yes.
HUNT: All right, now this, Hunter Biden's federal gun trial resumes in Delaware in just a few hours. The big question, whether the president's son will take the stand. Today is the deadline for the defense attorney's to decide whether Hunter will testify.
The president's son facing three counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018, which, of course, prosecutors say violated federal law because he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time.
On Friday, Hunter's daughter, Naomi, testified about her father's struggles with drug use.
Joining me now from Wilmington, Delaware, is Alex Thompson, national political reporter for "Axios."
Alex, great to see you here again.
Can you bring us up to speed on what we saw from Naomi on Friday and what we might expect to see today?
ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "AXIOS": Yes, it was an incredibly emotional testimony with, you know, Hunter Biden's daughter. The, you know, the first granddaughter who, you know, just a few years ago got married at the White House, basically taking the stand. Was a little bit nervous. Was really trying to vouch for her father and say that she believed that he was, you know, in a really good place with his sobriety to crack cocaine in - around the time when he was buying the gun.
But, you know, she was really subject to a really sort of, you know, emotionally gutting cross-examination when the prosecution brought up text messages that Hunter had sent between them, the two of them, in just the days after he bought the gun.
[06:50:02]
He was, you know, sort of erratic, texting at all times of night, at midnight, at 2:00 a.m., looking to - you know, asking if her husband could bring a car to 57th Street in Manhattan where she was going to law school. And then, you know, basically reading out this text message where she said, so, no, see you. She only saw him one time when he was there for a few days and then said, you know, I just - the text message said, I just can't take this, dad. I just want to hang out with you.
And, you know, for a 23-year-old girl to just text her dad saying, I just want to hang out with you, and then him saying, I'm sorry, I can't, you know, it really was this very emotional moment. And I can tell you, when they were all coming out of the courtroom, the first family, the first lady, Jill Biden's sister Val, Val Biden, they all look a little bit - a little bit shaken. They all - you know, it was a very emotional sort of testimony. When Naomi came out of the courtroom, I was right there and she - she sort of wiped one of her - you know, wiped to tear from her eye. And when she came out of the witness room, you know, it was indoors, but she was - she had put on these its very dark black, huge glasses to - to shield her eyes.
So, it was an emotional day for the entire family.
HUNT: Yes. Really remarkable. Alex, there is, of course, this question about whether or not Hunter
is going to testify. We've talked at length in recent weeks about, you know, because of a different defendant, whether or not it's a good idea for people to take the stand in their own defense. Generally speaking, it seems like it typically isn't. It is their right, of course, to do so.
What are you expecting?
THOMPSON: I think, at the end of the day, he's not going to do it. But I can tell you that I feel very confident that he really wants to do it. I mean a lot of defendants want to take the - you know, take it. But I can tell you, you know, going back years, you know, Hunter has always tried - has - has really favored a much more aggressive approach and at times has been very frustrated when his father's aides have just basically encouraged him to just keep his head down. That's actually part of the reason why, you know, he hired Abbe Lowell, his current lawyer in this case, was because he was tired of sort of being quiet. And you saw that earlier this year, you know, when he - how he dealt with the House Republicans' investigations when, you know, he started going out publicly, he, you know, was just being much more publicly aggressive.
You know, and Hunter has, you know, I've spent time with him. I interviewed him earlier this year. Hunter has charm. You know, the - as we've seen from the many girlfriends he was juggling that testified in his trial.
So he, you know, he has like an ability to really make, you know, make his own case and be very, very compelling. And so I'm sure he wants to. But just given the amount of material the prosecutors would be able to introduce in this trial if he were to testify, that could then have repercussions, not just in professional investigations, but other legal cases. I'd be surprised if he does.
HUNT: Alex, big picture here. This isn't the only problem that Hunter Biden is facing. He's got another trial set for the fall. How are people around - in the Biden family, around the president, thinking about the difference between those two things, because the other one, it might seem has a higher potential for doing damage to the president from a political perspective. What are you hearing?
THOMPSON: Absolutely. Well, because the other trial is more problematic for two reasons. One is it starts September 5th, so we're talking just two months before the election. The other reason is it's - it's just messier. This one is a little bit more - is a little bit simpler. He bought a gun while - you know, in the midst of when he was addicted before and when he was addicted after. You know, the trial, you know, as we've seen, the trial is going to last just a little over a week. The other one is about his finances and not paying taxes in 2017 and 2018 when he made over $2 million each of those years. And the finances, you know, they're sprawling. I mean in that indictment they - they name, you know, his ex-wife in this civil case when he was not paying, you know, millions of dollars in alimony. They talk about the other civil case with, you know, in Arkansas with a woman he had a child - that Hunter had a child with. And just all the different pieces of the finances of where he was making that money I think is going to be messier.
HUNT: All right, Alex Thompson for us. Alex, very grateful to have had you on the program on this. Come back soon. Thank you.
THOMPSON: Thanks.
HUNT: All right, he is a businessman who self-funded his political career and was first elected to office in 2016. Does that sound familiar? That's basically where the similarities end between Donald Trump and North Dakota's governor, Doug Burgum. But he, Burgum, is the man who has climbed the former vice president - the former president's vice presidential short list.
[06:55:02]
As "The New York Times" reports, he's emerged as perhaps Trump's safest option. Also the biggest wildcard.
Burgum has reportedly received vetting materials from the Trump campaign and has spent months supporting Trump on the campaign trail and in court, while also walking back comments that he made in this NBC interview last summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you ever do business with Donald Trump?
GO. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): I don't think so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?
BURGUM: I would - I just think that it's important that you're judged by the company you keep. And I -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just wouldn't do business with him?
BURGUM: No, I wouldn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The panel's back.
Jonah -
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HUNT: He says he wouldn't do business with him back then. Tune has changed. But what do you think? I mean Burgum, in many ways, is probably what Donald Trump would have conceived of as like, you know, if vice presidents had baseball cards.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HUNT: Like, this guy would go well on one. What's your view?
GOLDBERG: Yes, so, I mean, I've long thought that Trump, if he was sure he was going to win, wants the scariest vice president that doesn't hurt his election chances because that makes him hard to impeach when he's president, right, because, like, you can keep me or you're going to have this medusa head, right, and pull out, you know, you know, Kari Lake or something.
HUNT: OK, I had not thought about it that way.
GOLDBERG: Kari Lake or something. But I don't think he's that confident he's going to win.
You know, Mike Pence was equally boring to Doug Burgum, but he also, back then, brought evangelical Christians, social conservatives.
HUNT: And Trump needed that then. He needed (INAUDIBLE).
GOLDBERG: And Trump needed it then.
Trump does not have a transactional relation - need with any constituent on the right the way he did in 2016. And so the two things he's looking for most are loyalty and money. Burgum, I think, has the money. JD Vance has more of the loyalty. And I - just - I have no idea what Trump -
NAVARRO: And a good head of hair. A good head of hair.
GOLDBERG: And a good head of hair. And, very important, eyebrows.
NAVARRO: Yes.
GOLDBERG: Just - (INAUDIBLE) eyebrows.
HUNT: Very - I mean, look, that's a - it's an enviable head of hair, really.
NAVARRO: Yes. Yes.
HUNT: Many would kill for it.
What do you think?
CALABRO: What I have continued to hear from my sources in the Trump campaign is that the internal effort to convince Donald Trump to choose JD Vance is much more aggressive than it is for Governor Burgum.
At the end of the day, obviously, Trump makes his own decisions and, you know, at the very last minute you could have an intense lobbying effort from every single person around him. It still might not result in that person. But, yes, that - that line I'm hearing is unchanged from people around him, that JD Vance is still -
NAVARRO: I mean you've heard - you've heard Kristi Noem saying he needs to choose a woman. You also have Marco Rubio of Florida talking about how he might help with Latinos. There are lots of different reasons to choose different people. And, ultimately, it is up to Donald Trump. And what is interesting to me is that he is waiting until the very last minute. Apparently he's going to make this announcement at the convention. It is like "The Apprentice" style, you know, the unveiling of, you know, we're getting -
CALABRO: I just going to say -
HUNT: That's the Trumpiest possible way to do that, I have to say.
NAVARRO: Yes, it is.
HUNT: I mean the drama.
GOLDBERG: Well, yes, it's very smart because it gets all these people to be just unbelievably sycophantic surrogates on Sunday shows and everywhere else for months on end, right? So, the -
CALABRO: Well, conversations about whether Marco Rubio would be willing to move out of Florida -
HUNT: Right.
CALABRO: You know, if he were to be the pick.
GOLDBERG: You mean Marco Rubio of Waukesha, Wisconsin.
NAVARRO: Right.
CALABRO: That's exactly who I meant, yes.
HUNT: Yes. Well, I mean, and then there also is this sort of like, he requires some certain degree it seems of humiliation from these people as well.
GOLDBERG: Right. Right.
HUNT: All right, I'll leave you with this, and this is a little bit of a point of personal privilege today. I got to spend some time with a very special group of heroes over the week at the annual D.C. Fire and EMS Awards Dinner, which honors all of the first responders who answered the call in 2023. That year, one of those calls was mine, or I guess technically my husbands, after I rather abruptly went into labor at home last March. The labor lasted 13 minutes. My daughter, Grey, was born on my bathroom floor. My husband had to deliver her himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The baby was delivered, through no fault of anyone who works here, before you could arrive, only because it was so fast we didn't actually have time to call 911. So, that happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Once we did have a chance to make the call, they did, at D.C. Fire and EMS, arrive in force. We had a ladder fire truck and all. They made sure that Gray and I both came out happy and healthy. And while I certainly hope that this was a once in a lifetime
situation for me, for the people that came to help, it was really just all in a day's work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Situations like this really show everyone and certainly showed us in this instance just how much all of us out in the world depend on all of you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And again, I want to thank the crew from Medic 24, Firefighter Hayden Campbell (Ph), Firefighter/Paramedic Adam Iq (ph), and Fire Inspector/Paramedic Kimberly Booser (ph), who helped bring Gray into the world. I got to be reunited with them over the weekend.
And I also learned when I spoke to Adam and his crew, they were just as happy as I was to have a friendly female face on that crew.
[07:00:06]
Thank you to Kim for taking charge because, man, she did.
We also do want to just take a moment to thank all of the first responders here in the District of Columbia, but across the country that all of us trust with our lives every day because you really have no idea when you might need to make that call, and having those people on the other end of the line makes all the difference in the world. They are truly lifesavers. So, thank you to all of them.
Thanks to our panel. Thanks to all of you for joining us.
I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.
