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Israeli Ambassador Warned Not to Join Meeting; Shibley Telhami is Interviewed about the Israel-Hamas War; Airman Expected to Plead Guilty; Ex-Trump Org CFO to Plead Guilty; Clark Breaks NCAA Record. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 04, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Arlette Saenz, joining me now.

We've got this new information that the prime minister's office is telling the ambassador not to show up to meetings today. Where is this coming from? What does it all mean?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara Vice President Kamala Harris will meet a little bit later this afternoon with Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who also notably is one of Netanyahu's lead political rival in Israel. Now, typically in these types of meetings, the ambassador, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., might participate in these talks, but our colleague, Alex Marquardt, is reporting that Netanyahu's office has instructed the Israeli ambassador not to participate in any of these meetings that Benny Gantz will be having here in Washington this week, a sign of disapproval from Netanyahu about Gantz's visit to Washington.

Now, Gantz is scheduled to meet with Vice President Harris, also National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and tomorrow he will have a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It comes as the U.S. has really been prodding Israel to take more action, to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. That is something that Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about very bluntly just yesterday when she said that Israel needs to do everything they can to get additional aid into that region. She noted that people are starving there, that people are facing inhumane conditions.

It comes as President Biden has also said that Israel needs to open more routes, get more aid trucks into Gaza as people continue to suffer there.

But Harris also very forcefully spoke about the need for there to be an immediate ceasefire. Now, when she's talking about that, she's talking about it in temporary terms. The U.S. has been pushing for a six-week ceasefire to get hostages out and get more humanitarian aid in. Harris very forcefully, perhaps the most forcefully in recent weeks of administration officials, made that case yesterday in a speech in Alabama, saying that Hamas needs to agree to this deal that's on the table now. SIDNER: Arlette Saenz, thank you so much. We're looking at the video of that airdrop of aid that turned deadly at some point with people desperate to get the aid.

We will be waiting to see what happens in this meeting with Benny Gantz and Vice President Kamala Harris. I'm sure you will get all the details for us.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is Professor Shibley Telhami. He is the Anwar Sadat professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland.

Professor, thank you so much for being with us.

In a recent piece in "Foreign Affairs," you said it was essential that the United States and the White House call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris has explicitly. Why do you say that's so important?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI, PROFESSOR FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Well, first of all, two things. And sometimes they get conflated. There's the one thing about Hamas and Israel coming to terms, particularly about release of Israeli hostages and -- in exchange for prisoners that Hamas is demanding.

But there is the immediate need for a ceasefire that has nothing to do ultimately with the outcome of the war. It has to do with an immediate humanitarian crisis, famine, starvation, hundreds of thousands of people. Some are dying. And every aid organization says there's absolutely no way to deliver aid and distribute it at the level needed without a ceasefire.

And withholding aid from hungry, starving people is a war crime. And so the U.S. is obligated, at -- particularly if it doesn't want to be complicit in what is ultimately a war crime, to end -- to come to terms to make sure there is a ceasefire and a humanitarian delivery. This doesn't mean that that's going to solve the problem, but this is an urgent need and it shouldn't be conflated with the need for Israel and Hamas to come to terms in some way about the course of the war, the ending of the war.

BERMAN: No, you say it's an important, crucial step. But, obviously, you think more needs to happen as well. In those negotiations there are these reports that Hamas has not provided a list of Israeli hostages that would be released or even a full accounting of which hostages are dead. Why do you think that might be?

TELHAMI: Well, it's hard to know exactly what their calculus is, but obviously they're playing hardball. There is a whole different interpretation of how things are going on the ground. Hamas has been kind of projecting, at least in the Arab media, which I watch. I watch both the Arab media and the Israeli media regularly. And in the Arab media, Hamas is projecting that they're actually winning. Yes, there's all this devastation of innocent civilians, but that they're - the Israelis are not doing well.

They can sustain the war. They're not in a rush. They're not in a hurry. They're going to demand the end of the war. They're going to demand. And so they put conditions that seem to much of the world to be, you know, sort of outrageous, like complete withdrawal of Israeli forces before a ceasefire or, you know, end to the war, not just a timeline for a ceasefire.

[09:35:01]

So, it's hard to know how far they're going to push that. Obviously, the Israelis are pushing their own demands. And what you have there is, you know, there is this equation if you wish that for the week, if they don't lose, they're winning, and for the strong, if they don't win, they're losing. And, obviously, both are trying to project that they're winning in their own terms. And that's a problem. That's why we have to de-couple the issue of the immediate need for a humanitarian ceasefire to deliver the goods to prevent famine regardless of where the Israelis and the Palestinians - where the - where Israelis and Hamas are.

BERMAN: We will see what happens in the next few days. There are many millions of people who would like to see something happen before Ramadan, which is just a few days from now.

Professor Shibley Telhami, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So he's charged with leaking highly classified military secrets. And now an Air National guards member is expected to change his plea today. We'll be back.

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[09:40:40]

SIDNER: In about 90 minutes an Air National guardsman accused of posting a trove of classified information online is expected to appear in federal court and to plead guilty. Jack Teixeira was arrested nearly a year ago in dramatic fashion -- we all watched it live -- after prosecutors say he put highly classified military documents on a social media platform for gamers.

CNN's Jason Carroll is outside the courthouse in Boston for us.

Jason, what can you tell us about what's going to happen in this hearing?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, in just about an hour for now there's going to be something that's called a rule 11 hearing. And typically during this type of hearing, it's when a defendant can change his or her plea. And in this case, we're expecting Teixeira to share his not guilty plea to guilty. I mean apparently what's happening here, his attorneys are seeing the

writing on the wall. I mean he's looking at a great number of years behind bars if convicted on all counts. He's facing six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information. And if he had been convicted on all six of those counts, he would have been looking at 60 years behind bars.

Add that to the overwhelming amount of evidence that he was facing. Prosecutors alleging that he accessed -- repeatedly accessed classified information and shared it on that online chat room called Discord where a lot of gamers conduct their business, shared information about the war in Ukraine, including troop movements, also including information about equipment.

And then prosecutors also say that at one point when he suspects that - that investigators were on to him, then he tried to cover it up, that he destroyed a laptop, that he destroyed a tablet, got a new phone and then told the people that he was conversing with on Discord, hey, if anyone contacts you about what I was saying, don't talk to them and delete all of the messages. So, there was a lot of evidence that they were facing.

And so, since his attorneys were looking at all that, reasonably, they say, OK, let's enter a plea of guilty with the hope of getting some sort of reduced sentence. So, that's what we're trying to see, what will happen during this hearing that's about to get underway just about an hour from now. We'll get some more details about whether or not there was a plea agreement, whether or not there's going to be some sort of reduced sentence. These are some of the outstanding questions that we're waiting to get answers to.

Sara.

SIDNER: Jason Carroll, I know you're all over it -- thank you so much -- this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Any moment now Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, is expected to plead guilty to perjury charges. It's related to testimony that he gave in a civil investigation into the real estate company's finances.

But let's get over to CNN's Kara Scannell. She's outside the courthouse in Manhattan now for some more details.

Kara, what does this mean for Weisselberg? What's going to happen? What does it mean for Donald Trump?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. So, Allen Weisselberg arrived earlier this morning at the Manhattan district attorney's office to surrender, where he will face these new criminal charges. Now, sources tell us that he's going to plead guilty to perjury related charges that all relate to testimony he gave as part of the New York attorney general's civil fraud investigation against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and Weisselberg himself. So, these charges that he will plead guilty to today involve the testimony for the civil case.

Now, Weisselberg is a long-time confident of Donald Trump, was with the Trump Organization for decades. This will be the second guilty plea for him. You'll remember he pled guilty to tax fraud and testified against the Trump Organization at their trial in 2022. The company was convicted, but Weisselberg was credited with giving truthful testimony then, but it didn't at all in any way factor into the former president.

Now, at this moment Allen Weisselberg is a central figure in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into Donald Trump and those hush money payments and the reimbursements that were made to Michael Cohen to cover them up. But Allen Weisselberg is not going to be cooperating with the district attorney's office. He will not be testifying against Donald Trump. This is just a straight plea that Weisselberg will make to perjury, but it will not in any way, sources tell us, impact the criminal investigation that will start later this month against the former president.

[09:45:01]

Now, Weisselberg will be pleading guilty. That will make him a convicted liar. So, it will make it harder for anyone to change their mind and call him as a witness because he will have admitted to just having lied in another investigation. But certainly this is bad for Allen Weisselberg. The second time he will be pleading guilty. In that case he was sentenced to five months and he served about 100 days at Rikers Island in New York. That's the notorious jail. It's possible that will be how this plays out again today.

Now, we do know that prosecutors and his attorneys have just entered the courtroom. We will expect Allen Weisselberg to appear sometime this morning. Then he will - he will plead guilty in what they call allocate (ph), that is to say what he did that was wrong. It is then that we will learn more details about the charges that he is facing today.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, much more to come.

Good to see you. Thanks so much, Kara.

BERMAN: That is curious. One wonders what he is lying for.

BOLDUAN: Uh-huh.

BERMAN: So, we have never seen a woman play like this, ESPN said of Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark. Well, ESPN, we have never seen a man play like this either. How she made basketball history.

And any moment now the Supreme Court could release one of its most controversial decisions ahead of the 2024 election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:54]

BERMAN: This morning, Caitlin Clark stands alone. The Iowa Hawkeyes superstar has now scored more points than any woman or man in division one basketball history, passing the late great Pete Maravich Sunday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd.

CNN's Coy Wire is with us. There was never any doubt, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: This is just such a feel-good story. The kid who grew up in Iowa, playing against the boys teams because there was no girls program. And then so good that some of the opposing parents were saying, hey, she shouldn't be allowed to play with the boys.

Clark signing autographs for the next generation ahead of her final regular season home game, 18 points shy of breaking Pete Maravich's all-time mark. And she put on a show. She's known for those circus- like three-pointers. But the moment came just before half, and almost fittingly, she was all alone. All eyes seeing her push past Pistol Pete's marked with a pair of free throws. The sell-out crowd knew it. Everyone seemed to know it. But did Caitlin know she'd done it?

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAITLIN CLARK, IOWA HAWKEYES GUARD: Not really. But then when they announce it, and everybody screams, that's when I knew. But, pretty cool. A good half for us. I think we can do a little better job on defense and clean it up a little bit. But, I'm proud of our girls. We're fighting. And they're a really good team. They're going to give us everything that got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Look at that, switching it right back. All about the team. Clark finishing with 35 points as their number six Hawkeyes pulled off the upset over number two Ohio State, 93-83. Clark cementing her status as a legend. And afterwards, that selfless attitude was on full display.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARK: Everything that's gone on the past couple weeks and even the past couple of months, I feel like I'm so focused on helping his team win and be so great that it's like hard for me to wrap my head around everything that's going on. I think I'm just trying to soak in the moment. A record is a record. I don't want that to be the reason people remember me. I hope people remember me for the way I played with a smile on my face, my competitive fire. Sure, they can remember the wins, but also just like the fun me and my teammates had together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: LeBron James, who just became the first NBA player to hit 40,000 career points, posted a bunch of buckets, gave his congrats. President Joe Biden calling her the GOAT in his post, greatest of all time. We had Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan there. We had rapper Travis Scott in the stands. Everyone wanting to see it. It was about $430 just to get in. Standing room only. She has shattered viewership records all throughout her career. Lines down the street to watch her play. Thirty of Iowa's games this year either set attendance records or broke viewership records, all home and away games. She's an absolute phenom. Can't wait to watch her in the WNBA. The Indiana Fever have the number one overall pick. So, I think it's a strong bet she'll be playing there.

BERMAN: Yes, they won't have to - you won't have to wait the full 15 minutes to get that pick. This is going to be some tournament coming up, Coy. Great to see you. Thank you very much.

WIRE: You too.

SIDNER: Can I just quickly say, Michael Jordan averaged like 17 points a game when he was in college. She's at 32 this season per game.

BERMAN: She's (INAUDIBLE).

SIDNER: Man, she's good.

All right, we are just moments away from the Supreme Court releasing what could be a key ruling with major implications in the 2024 presidential election.

Stay with us. We'll have details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:58:38]

BOLDUAN: Also on our radar this hour, JetBlue just announced that its pulling away from its multibillion dollar bid to buy Spirit Airlines. This is after a federal court ruled the deal violated antitrust laws. The Justice Department said airfares could go up if Spirit was no longer an independent airline. And while Spirit and JetBlue had appealed the ruling, both companies now say they wouldn't be able to overcome the legal obstacles to complete the merger.

California's Sierra Nevada Mountains still getting hammered with snow this morning, but the end is in sight. Some areas were buried in more than seven feet of snow from that monster blizzard. Blizzard warnings have been lifted for that region and Lake Tahoe, even though snow is expected to keep falling into tomorrow. It's all relative because it's not just as bad (ph).

"Dune: Part Two" dominated the box office in its opening weekend, pulling in more than 81 million in the United States and more than $178 million worldwide. That is far more than the first chapter of the Dune - of this Dune installment, which earned just $41 million domestically when it opened in October of 2021. Warner Brothers Pictures, which distributed the film, along with CNN, are owned by Warner Brothers Discovery.

BERMAN: We all like sand worms. BOLDUAN: We do. They're just so cute.

SIDNER: You guys are weird.

Thank you so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[09:59:59]

"CNN NEWSROOM" with Jim Acosta, up next.