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"Dune: Part Two" Hits Theaters; Civilians Killed in Gaza City; Trump's Potential Legal Calendar; Biden and Trump Visit Border. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 29, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Discovery is also the parent company of CNN.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You will never lose me as long as you stay who you are.

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The onscreen spectacle of "Dune: Part Two," delayed by the offscreen drama of two Hollywood strikes.

How does it feel to finally be able to unveil "Dune" two to the world?

TIMOTHEE CHALAMET, ACTOR, "DUNE: PART TWO": A relief that we're finally here. This is it.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): With the strikes resolved, stars Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya are now free to talk about the anticipated sequel to the 2021 film,

CHALAMET: The truth is, we barely worked together on the first movie. I think we worked maybe four or five days. And ever since we built our friendship offscreen. So then when it came time to actually work together again, it felt like we already had that -- that shorthand.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): Zendaya has a much larger role in part two, directed, once again, by Denis Villeneuve.

ZENDAYA, ACTOR, "DUNE: PART TWO": He allows for these female characters, not just to be strong female characters, but fully complicated female characters and new wants. And at some moments we agree with them. Sometimes we disagree. Sometimes we love them. Sometimes we hate them. We admire them. We fear them.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): The film from Warner Brothers, which shares CNN's parent company, follows Chalamet's Paul Atreides as he teams with Zendaya's Chani on a quest to avenge the destruction of his family.

New to the sequel are Christopher Walken, Florence Pugh -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's psychotic.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): And Austin Butler as the villain, unrecognizable, from his Oscar-nominated role in Elvis.

WAGMEISTER: What was your reaction the first time that you see Austin walk out in that whole look?

CHALAMET: Crazy.

ZENDAYA: It's like, well, this is one way to, like, get to know someone, you know? Once you get to know Austin, you see that he's obviously very warm and very -

CHALAMET: Yes, and kind.

ZENDAYA: Very kind.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): Anya Taylor-Joy has a surprise role as a major character from the classic book series.

"Dune: Part Two" explodes in IMAX this weekend for action fans.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe I'll show you the way.

WAGMEISTER (voice over): And burns with love, if that's more your thing.

WAGMEISTER: What is it like having Zendaya play your love interests?

ZENDAYA: Yes. What is it like?

CHALAMET: It was - oh, man, yes, teaming up here.

ZENDAYA: No pressure.

WAGMEISTER: Putting your on the spot.

CHALAMET: Teaming up.

And I'm proudest of the love story in this movie, not in the moments where they're affectionate or in love, but in everything else that's like earned.

ZENDAYA: In between.

CHALAMET: My favorite scene I think of ours in the movie is when Paul's waking up from a nightmare and Chani's sort of comforting. They're like very adult expressions of love.

ZENDAYA: (INAUDIBLE). No, OK.

WAGMEISTER: She's like, you did it. That was good.

(END VIDEOTAPE) JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking news. Reports of dozens, maybe 100 people killed in Gaza while waiting for food. The revealing drone footage.

BOLDUAN: Everything's bigger in Texas. And today that even includes the political clash headed to the border. Joe Biden, Donald Trump, both making visits.

BERMAN: Out-of-control wildfires scorch more than a million acres in Texas. They have now turned deadly.

Sara is out. I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, we do have breaking news out of Gaza. Eyewitness reports and the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health say more than 100 people were killed in a chaotic incident after IDF soldiers open fire as people were trying to get food from aid trucks.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is gathering new details in Tel Aviv. CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour standing by in London.

Jeremy, let's just start with you and explain as best as we understand it now exactly what happened.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I actually just got off the phone with Hather (ph), one of our journalists, local journalists, who was on the ground when this incident happened. And this is kind of the TikTok as he saw it on the ground.

These -- this convoy of aid trucks apparently passed an Israeli military post. About 70 meters after they had passed that point, thousands of people began to swarm around these aid trucks. And then it was only minutes after that, that we're told by witnesses on the grounds, including our local journalists, that the Israeli military opened fire on some of those Palestinians who were surrounding those trucks.

Now, the Israeli military says that it opened fire on individuals who had approached its military of forces, its position there. But what we know ensued after that, after the Israeli military opened fire, according to people on the ground, there was a totally chaotic situation. Many of those drivers, amid the gunfire, began to drive away out of -- out of fear for - for the gunfire that was happening there. We understand that as a result, people were killed there.

We understand that altogether 104 people were killed according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 760 people were injured.

[09:05:02]

According to our journalists on the ground, the majority of the people who were killed were apparently killed in the ensuing chaos as those trucks drove away. But this journalist says that it was the gunfire that set off that stampede, that set off the trucks driving away in fear.

Now, the Israeli military isn't providing many details about why their forces open fire. They say that they are reviewing the incident, but for now all they are telling us is that -- that the forces felt like there was a threat on the ground that they were responding to.

Now, we should note that this comes in the context of the, you know, hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza being really on the brink of famine right now. So few aid trucks have been able to get into northern Gaza. And that has largely been due to a lack of coordination with the Israeli military with these aid groups to be able to safely get those convoys in. And we know that in addition to that, the Israeli military has also been targeting Palestinian police forces in the area, resulting in no security for many of these convoys.

So, you put all of those together, the desperate humanitarian situation, the lack of security for these trucks, and the Israeli military apparently opening fire on some of these individuals around this truck, and you have a very, very deadly incident. More than 100 people killed, 700 plus injured, according to officials on the ground.

John.

BERMAN: And, Christiane, I keep finding myself staring at those pictures, those drone images of the hundreds of people there. Jeremy just described what he called the devastating humanitarian situation in Gaza. So, what does this now put a spotlight on?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Look, just listening to Jeremy talk about what's happened and what the IDF is saying, it's obviously clear that the fire is what caused the panic and the stampede. Obviously, the truck drivers tried to get out of that location. Clearly desperate people were in the way. We understand from the IDF that they did shoot at -- they said themselves, at some of these people in the legs. Well, maybe then they fell over. They were trampled.

But the bottom line is that it speaks to a broader context that we've been warning about, reporting about, getting the expert witnesses, if you like, to talk about and explain to us over the last few months and certainly this week. Jan Egeland, who is of the Norwegian Refugee Council, spoke to me in detail on Monday about the risks of this looming famine in the north. They have been able to get no trucks there. And it's not because of lack of coordination. It's because there are checkpoints on the road. They say they aren't allowed to move past a certain position but by Israeli checkpoints. And they have not been able to do their job of getting aid to the nearly half a million who apparently are on the brink of a looming famine.

He spoke to me about the dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of aid trucks that are waiting outside Rafah and trying to get in from Kerem Shalom, which is the Israeli southern Gaza checkpoint. And they just don't get there in time. They're constantly being picked over, you know, by the people who are checking them, and they're not able to get in. In terms of the quote/unquote looting that Israel is talking about. I specifically asked Jan Egeland how he would describe what he told me about voluntarily. Their latest convoy got in and yet it was so rare that, of course, people started to run after it and try to get what they could off it because they have had no aid. Officially, aid into Gaza has halved according to the U.N., in the last month alone. Halved. It hasn't increased, it's decreased by half, which means there are people who are starving there.

So, I asked him, is this looting? He said it is not looting us. It is not looting each other. It is people, as we witnessed them, rushing to the trucks, trying to get whatever they can for their hungry mother, grandmother, niece, nephew, children. You get the picture. They are desperate.

On top of that, according to the Israeli government and the Israeli armed forces, the only people responsible for security inside Gaza are the Israeli IDF. They have taken over Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu says this all the time. Nobody else should be in there, just the IDF. They are in charge of security.

And I have witnessed enough food distributions from Somalia to Sarajevo under siege and all over the world to know that when you do this you have to -- you have to have proper coordination and security. The only people in charge of security inside Gaza are the IDF. And again, we've been warning about this in our interviews for the last several days.

BERMAN: And we are hearing that most of the deaths came from when people were trampled trying to flee the scene. But again, if the situation started with firing and started from the chaos there, it does just shine the spotlight on the desperate situation.

[09:10:05]

Christiane, our thanks so much to you. Jeremy Diamond as well. We're going to follow this throughout the morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also this, just when you maybe thought that Donald Trump's chaotic, legal, political campaign meets court calendar could not get more chaotic, you can cue the Supreme Court game changer now with another big deal ruling still hanging out there. Overnight, the Supreme Court agreed to hear argument on the immunity claim that was already resoundingly rejected by lower courts in late April. That means Trump's federal election subversion trial that was supposed to start next month will be delayed.

What we do not know yet is delayed by how much. And we also don't know how the Supreme Court is feeling right now about Donald Trump's name being on the Colorado primary ballot. A big question before them. Illinois just became the third state to pull him from the ballot.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is in Washington. She's following all this.

Katelyn, walk us through this mess of a calendar, please?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, Kate, let's start with the Supreme Court in presidential immunity, now saying they're going to look at that question in Donald Trump's criminal case related to the 2020 election, the allegations of obstruction and conspiracy there. That case cannot go to trial in federal court until the Supreme Court figures out if Donald Trump has some sort of presidential immunity. If a president can be charged with a crime for something that they were doing while in office.

The calendar there puts that case on hold, very likely until the end of the Supreme Court term, or sometime between April and June when they would decide. And then we have learned through the court that if they greenlight the case, if they say Trump isn't immune, and that he can be charged and tried for these allegations in federal court related to the 2020 election, the judge, Tanya Chutkin, has said that she would give them basically seven months from indictment to trial. So that would put us at her giving them as much as three months to prepare to go to trial.

He does have one criminal case on the calendar already. It looks like its going to hold, at the end of March in New York related to falsification of business records, hush money payments to Stormy Daniels in 2016, and then there's a musical chairs of other cases, his Georgia case, and the classified documents case in Florida. A lot comes down to the supreme court there. Of course they're also looking at if states can decide what to do with this insurrectionist ban. The 14th Amendment, if Trump can be on the ballot, and if states can remove them, now it's going to be impacting three states as of last night, Illinois, Colorado, and Maine, which have all said they don't want Donald Trump's votes to count in their primary elections.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: I mean, Katelyn, the overarching like headline from all of this is just like, but wait, there's more. I mean there's so - once the calendar is set, but wait, there's more, it's going to change. And now we've got more going to the Supreme Court, more for the Supreme Court to consider and so on and so forth.

Thank you so much for running through it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with me now, former federal prosecutor and defense attorney Shan Wu.

Shan, I just want to ask the question that I think is number one on people's minds. If the Supreme Court does decide this case can go forward at all, can it get done, or even started, before Election Day in November?

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I think it's theoretically possible. And most people are agreeing. But it's really hard. If you want to use a football analogy, it's like we hit the two minute warning and they just took a ten yard penalty. So, I think it makes it much more difficult to do.

There are some things that the prosecution, Jack Smith, could do to try and streamline the case even more. The judge could give a shorter kind of trial prep time. So, it's theoretically possible, but it makes it very, very difficult.

BERMAN: Now, there are people in Trump world who say, oh, there are Justice Department regulations that you can't hold a trial within 60 or 90 days before an election. They are -- they are misreporting what the actual regulations or recommendations are. And, by the way, this is a case where there are already charges here. It says nothing about a judge. But - but who would get to decide whether and when this goes to trial?

WU: Well, theoretically Merrick Garland would be giving Jack Smith a lot of discretion here. But the attorney general does have the oversight over Jack Smith because he's still working within DOJ guidelines and such. Garland, obviously, has been very reluctant to take any kind of steps. I think he's been a little bit too timid about things.

However, I will say, I wouldn't be surprised were he to have a meeting and they're that close to the election that he might actually put his finger on the scale, thumb on the scale at that point and say, this is too close, it looks to partisan. You're right, it does not actually run afoul of that DOJ policy because the charges are already started. But I wouldn't be surprised to see Garland sort of like wake up and actually do something there.

[09:15:06]

BERMAN: Isn't it Judge Tanya Chutkan, though, who really has almost complete control over the timing of the trial?

WU: It is. And Garland's said that before, that it's kind of out of DOJ's hands. It's up to her.

However, obviously, were the prosecution to file a motion with the judge and say, we want to pause this until after the election, the judge would certainly take that into consideration. But the majority of the timing is very much up to her.

BERMAN: And I also just want to say, the Supreme Court, which has now decided to hear this case, granted cert for the end of April, could they have done this before if, ultimately, they wanted to take this case up and hear arguments about it? Didn't Jack Smith ask them to do this a month ago, a couple of months ago?

WU: That's exactly right. They could have taken it. And it's very frustrating to see them not having done that.

On the other hand, it does make sense to me that they wanted to have the benefit of the D.C. Circuit taking a look at it, looking at the circuit's analysis, and they got that benefit. It was a very solid opinion, excellent analysis by the D.C. Circuit. And, frankly, they could have - they, the Supreme Court, could have, at that point, declined to hear it. They could have just let that decision stand. It's not ruling on the merits. It just lets the decision stand.

But, as I feared, they really couldn't really keep their hands off of it.

BERMAN: So we will hear from them in a month and a half.

Shan Wu, thank you very much.

WU: OK.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joe Biden and Donald Trump, both heading to the southern border today, as close to a face-to-face they've come this election cycle. What is this going to look like?

Moments from now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, he will be testifying on Capitol Hill. He's going to be facing questions from Republicans about why he did not notify the president, Congress, and the public sooner of his hospitalization.

Wayne Newton is an icon and one of the entertainers also who helped transform Las Vegas from desert town to worldwide destination. Now Wayne Newton is taking his show on the road.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE NEWTON: I was just in Hawaii doing a show and about halfway through the show this lady decided to take off her underwear and toss it to the stage.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. It has now moved to Honolulu.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[09:21:53]

BOLDUAN: So, it's a battle at the border today between the current president and the former. President Biden and Donald Trump are heading to separate border cities in Texas today, each to make the case that they are the best leader to fix the migrant crisis the country is facing. Now, Biden is going to Brownsville as the White House continues to put the blame for the current mess at the feet of Republicans. White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was on with John just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have done the work to make sure we're dealing with a broken immigration system. The Republicans have gotten in the way. They have gotten in the way. And that's what we continue to see over and over and over again.

And so, look, this is a serious -- this is a serious matter. That's why the president is going to the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Donald Trump is headed to Eagle Pass, just as he is vowing to conduct the, quote, largest domestic deportation operation in American history if elected.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Eagle Pass for us this hour.

Rosa, why is Donald Trump headed there? What's he going to see?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, what he's going to see are military vehicles, Texas National Guard soldiers with long guns, razor wire, shipping containers that line the Rio Grande and build a border wall.

Look, Kate, what he's going to see is a militarized zone. That zone is what you see behind me. It's a - it's a public park that was taken over by the state of Texas.

And really what former President Donald Trump is going to be entering is the biggest stage on the U.S. southern border when it comes to the border battle between the state of Texas and the federal government. This is where all of the bells and whistles have been ringing on the U.S. southern border for months now. This is where the border buoys are. This is where the controversial razor wire is and also the takeover of that public park that I was just talking about. This is the public park that was taken over by the state of Texas. The state of Texas has not allowed border patrol to enter that area.

And this is where a lot of Republican elected officials have come to the state of Texas to draw the line in the sand and say that they are with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and not with President Joe Biden when it comes to border security. And you've seen a lot of fanfare here. What president - what former President Donald Trump will be able to see and do is a lot of photo ops showing border security being enforced by the state of Texas and not by the federal government.

Now, this has brought a lot of attention to the city of Eagle Pass. Some of the residents here don't agree with all of this. Some of them do. But here's what they all agree on, is that there has been a lot of attention and some of it not great attention. Some of the - some of the outspoken members of this community have been threatened, and that is something that everyone in this community is concerned about.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMERIKA GARCIA, ACTIVIST AND EAGLE PASS, TEXAS, RESIDENT: Members of our community have had surprise visitors show up on their doorstep. Yes. They are bringing their hate into Eagle Pass. We're being invaded from the north. The people who are coming across the river, they're seeking asylum. That people who are coming to us from the north, they're bringing guns and they're bringing hate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:25:05]

FLORES: And, Kate, as you mentioned, President Biden will be downriver in the Rio Grande Valley. That area has a lot of infrastructure by the federal government, not the type of infrastructure that you see behind me set up by the state government.

And, Kate, just to share, a lot of people in Eagle Pass are describing what's going on right now as a zoo in their town because it has been taken over by outsiders.

Kate, back to you.

BOLDUAN: Yes, the zoo or the circus, you might be able to say, is definitely headed to those border cities today.

It's great to see you, Rosa. Thank you very much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, a new federal investigation launched just this morning into Boeing. Could they be held criminally liable for the door plug that blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight.

And an extremely potent winter storm bearing down. Some areas could see feet, yes, feet of snow.

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