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Biden to Tour Hurricane Helene Devastation in North and South Carolinas; Iran's Missile Attack on Israel Fuels Fears of Wider War; Prosecutors Say Additional Charges Against New York City Mayor Possible. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 02, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:33:45]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Right now, President Biden is at Joint Base Andrews enroute to the Carolinas. He will take an aerial tour of all of the places devastated by Hurricane Helene in the places where he is going to go. He also just addressed the simmering situation in the Middle East. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: (Inaudible) today. We are working a joint statement all of us agree on, from Japan to France to Germany. What we are doing in that regard is making clear that things have to be done and (inaudible) joint statement hasn't been done yet. (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, do you have a (inaudible) worker's strikes (inaudible)?

BIDEN: (Inaudible) renegotiated a similar strike in the West Coast (inaudible) worked it out. (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, can I ask you what is your (inaudible) Israel?

[12:35:00]

BIDEN: The answer is no and I think (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, could I ask you what is your advice to Israel as far as how they should respond?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. So that was President Biden just speaking moments ago. Back with my friends and colleagues here. So that -- first of all, there are a couple of bits of news there. He said that the G7 has spoken and that there will be a statement at some point coming about what Iran did. Also saying that we believe the question, we are going to have to go back and confirm this. The question was about, we know it was about Iran's nuclear sites and whether or not Israel should go ahead and attack those as we were talking to Nancy Pelosi about. His answer was no, but we have to clarify exactly what that give and take was.

But then, he also said that the Israeli response should be proportional. We heard that. And Maureen Dowd, we have this. While you have Donald Trump and J.D. Vance on the debate stage making the argument that the world is on fire. None of this happened when Donald Trump was president. We didn't have the war in Ukraine. We didn't have the Middle East as hot as it is right now, and return him to power and everything will be fine.

Whether or not that's true, this is one of those moments. We are in October and maybe people don't say they're going to vote on foreign policy, but how much does the kind of thing we are seeing now affect people's votes? Whether it's sort of intentional or maybe it's in the backs of their minds.

MAUREEN DOWD, COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah. I mean, I think you want to have Donald Trump in charge when the world is on fire, but he is the emperor of chaos. And he thrives in this chaotic situation. Even though when he says that he could stop these wars or these wars never would have happened, that's nonsense.

BASH: And yet, the question is whether or not people are looking at this. I mean, this is really one of the key questions. If people aren't voting on the economy and on reproductive rights and all of the issues that they tell pollsters, democracy, that are the top issues, but are looking at what's going on globally and just have a sense of unease whether or not they think, well, Kamala Harris, if she's going to continue Joe Biden's policies, maybe that's better than Trump. Or maybe it's the madman theory that if you'd put Trump there, maybe people will be worried about what he is going to do.

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I mean, I think the people who see Trump as this strong man are going to go, oh, we have to have Trump. But there is an awful lot of people who are going to be just like what you just said. Let's not have a big disruption right now and a change in government. So, it is hard to tell how this actually plays out but it is definitely a factor. It is also an economic factor because you saw this morning, already oil prices which have been on the way down, on the way up. You've got this strike going on, so -- at the ports. So, does all of this sort of leak into the economy and be part of voters' calculation.

But obviously, a sensitive different cold spot for the Biden Administration, and as Nancy Pelosi was saying, their goal is not to have a wider war. You are going to have Republicans out there saying, now is the time. You already see it, now is the time to take care of Iran. So, that's where the tension is going to be.

BASH: Just to clarify, I was just told that the question was in fact to President Biden, would you support a strike on nuclear sites? And his answer was no.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Listen, I do think Trump is obviously running as the strong man. Part of that argument is that Biden is obviously week and that Kamala Harris is a woman, right? And that there's no way that she could gain this sort of respect and authority on the world stage because she is a woman. He said that I think in an interview to Laura Ingraham that world leaders would treat her like a play thing, was his language there.

And listen, I do think some of his voters, this resonates with some of his voters. I mean, it would help if he had some sort of solution other than himself, the idea that he could just step in there because he's a big strong man and the world would automatically just fall in place. One of his weaker moments in the debate, he doesn't seem to really think that Ukraine should be a sovereign democratic state, right? He doesn't seem to care that Russia may be on a roll if they take Ukraine. So listen, he doesn't really have any solutions other than himself, and this idea that he alone can fix it.

[12:40:00]

BASH: We've got to go to break, but I want to know what your thought what is about what Nia just said about the woman factor, Kamala Harris as commander in chief.

DOWD: Well, the question with women candidates for president is always, are they tough enough, except it wasn't the question with Hillary Clinton because everyone knew she was tough enough. So, I think Kamala comes across as very tough. But the amazing thing is that people think Trump -- you know, it often comes up in focus groups and stuff that he has balls. But basically, you know, Trump -- I mean, I think Trump would be happier if all these countries just built luxury hotels on their shorelines. He's not interested in war or that kind of thing. He's interested in business.

BASH: Just made me think of Madeleine Albright at the U.N. talking about cahoonas when you said that.

DOWD: Yeah, exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: All right. Thanks, everybody.

Coming up, President Biden, as you just heard saying, he does not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites. So what is going to happen next? We'll discuss.

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[12:45:28]

BASH: Moments ago, President Biden spoke to reporters about how Israel might retaliate against Iran for its missile strikes yesterday. The president was asked whether he would support Israel striking Iranian nuclear sites, his answer was no. He said the U.S. would be just discussing with the Israelis how they might respond to Iran's missile attack.

Here to discuss is Retired Air Force and CNN Military Analyst, Colonel Cedric Leighton and CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Kimberly Dozier. Hello to both of you. Let's start there. I thought it was really noteworthy that President Biden just flatly closed the door on that. So the question is, there a lot of questions there, first of all, the decision to do that and then what if Israel does it anyway?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Dana, I think the key thing here is that President Biden is trying to pre-empt a nuclear attack. In other words, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

BASH: And a nuclear attack.

LEIGHTON: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

LEIGHTON: Attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and the reason for that is multifaceted, but basically, that would be such an escalation of not only the conflict in the Middle East, but it would have global implications. And President Biden, along with the G7 nations are clearly looking at trying to minimize the fallout from what has happened over the last few days, and keeping it from spreading throughout the country.

BASH: And it was noteworthy, yeah, that the president said that the G7 had a conversation and they will be putting out a joint statement later. It's not so -- to make it clear, it's not just the U.S. putting pressure or making a decision about guidance, it's more broad.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah, everyone is worried that if there's a strike on an Iranian nuclear site, Iran will take that as permission to weaponize. Iran has been weeks to months from putting together a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence, European intelligence, all think they can. They haven't decided to go ahead with it though. And if they do, that could launch a nuclear arms race across the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia possibly next, but there are other options.

There are -- possibly, they could do strikes on some of the nuclear energy facilities that are under construction, so that they don't actually hit nuclear material, but they do a symbolic strike, and combine that with hits on ballistic missile sites from where the ballistic missiles were launched. Those ballistic missiles are expensive. So if they know where they're stored, they could take a whole bunch of them out.

BASH: (Inaudible) oil fields.

DOZIER: Oil fields, yeah.

LEIGHTON: That's a difficult target. What would be more likely to be targeted would be something like oil refineries, or any of the areas where the oil comes together, places where the oil pipelines converge. Those are the kinds of things that you would probably target in a case like this.

BASH: I always think it's important when you're talking about anything with the Middle East to bring in context because we didn't just arrive here, we didn't just fall out of a coconut tree as Kamala Harris would say. You have really important context. I mean, you've obviously done a lot of reporting in this region for a very long time. But most recently about why now, why when Israel has been so focused on Gaza to its west, why now? Separate from the fact that Hezbollah has been raining down thousands of rockets since October 8th.

DOZIER: Yeah.

BASH: It's more than that.

DOZIER: Yes. Separate from the fact that Israel just made it part of its war goals to make the north safe for Israelis to return to, the IDF briefed reporters in the past couple of days that they've actually been rating inside Lebanon ever since October 7th and what they uncovered was something like 3,000 Hezbollah fighters were ready to attack Israel just after the October 7th attacks. This is what the claim is, and that these smaller raids uncovered weapons caches, stored munitions that were supposed to be used in some sort of revived version of that attack.

They weren't able to destroy some of -- much of it in the secret raids with special operations forces. So this invasion ahead of the October 7th anniversary, is designed to go in and take out ballistic missile sites and all or many of the tunnel networks that Hezbollah has dug into the mountains there, so that they can't be used to do some sort of October 7th style attack again in future.

[12:50:00]

BASH: Well, that was -- you just took the words out of my mouth. I mean, that's -- could there have been another October 7th from the north?

LEIGHTON: Absolutely. And one of the key things that the Israelis are looking at is not only pre-emption as Kim mentioned, but the big thing is this, Iran was trying to contain Israel. Basically, they were encircling Israel on at least three sides and what Israel is doing is they are breaking out of that by going after Hamas, Hezbollah, and now, of course Iran. So, that's why they are doing what they are doing.

BASH: Thank you, both. Appreciate your insight and your expertise. We have more breaking news on New York City Mayor Adams and the charges against him. Don't go anywhere. We'll bring it to you next.

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[12:55:00]

BASH: Now to some news out of New York City. Prosecutors say additional charges against Mayor Eric Adams are possible. They are also indicating there are likely going to be more defendants charged as part of the alleged scheme in his federal corruption case. The U.S. attorney's office also says there's evidence that Mayor Adams may have attempted to tamper with at least one witness in the investigation. Adams says he is innocent of all bribery and corruption charges against him.

Thank you so much for being here on another very busy "Inside Politics". "CNN News Central" will pick it up after the break.

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