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Pre-Season Forecast Sees More Hurricanes Than It's Ever Predicted; Interviews Shed Light On U.S. Evacuations From Afghanistan; Israeli Official: IDF Has Concluded Its Initial Investigation Into Strike That Killed World Central Kitchen Aid Workers; Blinken Speaks After Call Between Biden and Netanyahu. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 04, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: But because we have more fish in the water, more hurricanes out there, there's now a 62 percent instead of a 42 present, 34 to 21 along the east coast and even for the Gulf of Mexico.

Obviously, we're already one or two degrees warmer here in the gulf. So there's an added risk of a major hurricane here compared to normal.

Now, El Nino warmed up the waters, warmed up water in the Pacific, warmed up the land. Obviously, the hottest year ever, water temperature, air temperature, and the like.

But the jet stream is about to shift to the north. The wind shear is about to decrease. And when that happens, we get more storms.

I talk about this that a hurricane is like my cat. All it says is don't touch me. The cat doesn't want to be touched, hurricanes don't want shear. When there's less shear, there are going to be more hurricanes -- Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Chad, it seems like you should maybe give some more treats to your cat. Maybe be friendly if he gets some catnip or something.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Chad Myers, live over at the Weather Center. That's someone's job.

Still to come, we have some exclusive new details on the chaotic final days for Americans in Afghanistan. Top State Department officials revealing how they were given little time to prepare, how some withdrawal plans were created from scratch. We're back and just moments.

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[13:35:45]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New exclusive CNN reporting on America's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Transcripts obtained by our Kylie Atwood reveal what three of the top State Department officials told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in closed-door testimony, how they were yanked from unrelated assignments, rushing to Afghanistan on no notice just hours after the Taliban had marched into Kabul.

And how they attempted to cobble together an evacuation plan from scratch. During the evacuation, a suicide bomber at one of Kabul's airport gates killed 13 U.S. servicemembers, and 170 Afghans.

Kylie Atwood is joining us now, along with CNN military analysts, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Kylie, you've got these documents, you've been sifting through them. What have you found?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hundreds of pages. And what's new about this, Brianna, is that these State Department officials are on the record in their own words describing how chaotic it was behind the scenes.

We were reporting on it in real time. We were seeing the images of these Afghans trying to get into the Kabul Airport. And these Americans tried to get into the Kabul Airport as the Biden administration it was carrying out that withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And what these State Department officials say is that they were rushed into the scene, into the heart of this chaos, with, one, very little time to prepare and, two, very little clear plan that they were following.

So we know that embassies are supposed to have non-combatant evacuation plans. That's a complicated term for essentially a plan for them to get out if they need to.

And what they said is that the situations on the round required them to essentially make up a plan as they were going along on the fly because of how dynamic, how violent, how challenging the situation they were facing was.

KEILAR: It really confirms what appearances were, which was it looked like they are just flying by the seat of their pants and improvising here.

I wonder though, and perhaps you know the answer to this, Colonel Leighton, should there have been an emergency evacuation plan for all those noncombatants?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Absolutely. Absolutely, Brianna. And I remember talking to Boris in July of 2021 and we were looking at how everybody was moving, how the Taliban was taking province by province even then.

So when that starts happening, they needed to think about what was -- what had happened in the past in places like Vietnam when the province by province, at that point, the north Vietnamese were moving into Vietnam.

Same thing was happening in Afghanistan, different contexts, different place, but the same type of events were going. And those dominoes were beginning to fall each those provinces.

And that's the kind of thing that, at the very latest, by July, they should have put something together. The problem is they should have really done this year's in advance.

KEILAR: Why are these interviews coming to light now, Kylie?

ATWOOD: Well, this is an investigation that's led by the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCall. So the Democrats partook in some of these interviews as well.

But it's very clear that there's a political motive for these transcripts to be coming out now and for the committee to be working on a report that compiles all the hot moments from these transcripts into one that'll come later this year. That's according to the committee.

And Biden administration officials, of course, still defend the fact that they withdrew from Afghanistan, saying that it gave them more time to focus on other foreign policy issues, like the Middle East and Ukraine.

But they are recognizing the fact that Republicans want to bring this up ahead of the election because it is one of the darkest marks on President Biden's foreign policy tenure.

KEILAR: No doubt about it. It is political, the timing. There are definitely legitimate questions that need to be answered about this.

And part of that has to do, Cedric, with -- we don't want to repeat history, right? So what is the takeaway for the State Department, but also for the military, who we have heard in their testimony on the Hill, top leaders, that they thought the State Department should have gotten their act together much sooner.

LEIGHTON: Yes, absolutely. And in this case, General Milley and the former commander of CENTCOM, they were all talking about what should have been done. But everybody needs to be proactive in situations like this.

And I think everybody got into this mode there was the State Department or the defense department where they said, Afghanistan can't fall. The government that were supporting can't fall. That was patently false.

Years ago, we should have taken into account the corruption of the Afghan government. We should have taken into account the way in which the Afghans were not fighting for themselves.

[13:40:07]

It's completely different than, let's say, Ukraine where the people are fighting for themselves. It's a completely different thing. And you have to draw the right lessons from history.

And in this case, they failed to act. They failed to be proactive. They failed to see what could happen in terms of possibilities. And they failed to worst-case -- do a worst-case scenario.

And that's what you need to do in a case like this, because when a worst-case scenario happens, it's going to be bad.

KEILAR: Yes, it's easy I think to Monday morning quarterback. And yet it's so imperative when it comes to the future and figuring this out.

Kylie, great reporting. Thank you so much.

Colonel, really appreciate it.

And well be right back.

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[13:45:03]

SANCHEZ: Breaking news into CNN. An Israeli official tells CNN the Israeli Defense Forces have concluded their initial investigation into the deadly strikes on the World Central Kitchen convoy.

KEILAR: CNN's Melissa Bell is joining us now.

Melissa, I think a lot of people are going they say, well, that was quite fast.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That was quite fast. Equally, Brianna, I would suggest that there was a lot of pressure on Israeli officials to make public their findings and quick.

Remember that it was on the day itself that we heard from the chief of the general staff of the IDF about the conclusions of that preliminary report where he said that it had been a question or an issue with misidentification, promising that the results of the full investigation would come out very quickly.

And remember that, ever since, Israeli officials have been under a great deal of pressure, not just from President Biden himself speaking directly to Benjamin Netanyahu tonight but --

KEILAR: Melissa, I'm so sorry to interrupt you.

We need to go to Secretary of State Blinken. He is in Brussels. Let's listen in and we'll come back to that.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: And I made clear then the commitment of the United States to Israels security and to ensuring that October 7th could never happen again.

I also underscored Israel's moral, strategic and legal requirements to protect civilians and provide humanitarian assistance to those who needed it. Now of course, what happened after October 7th could have ended

immediately if Hamas had stopped hiding behind civilians, released the hostages and put down its weapons.

But Israel is not Hamas. Israel is a democracy. Hamas, a terrorist organization. And democracies place the highest value on human life, every human life. As has been said, whoever saves a life saves the entire world.

That's our strength. It's what distinguishes us from terrorists, like Hamas. If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.

Here's the current reality in Gaza. Despite important steps that Israel has taken to allow assistance into Gaza, the results on the ground are woefully insufficient and unacceptable.

And 100 percent of the population in Gaza knows acute levels of food insecurity. And 100 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance.

And those working heroically to provide that assistance are doing so in great peril to their own lives.

This week's horrific attack on the World Central Kitchen was not the first such incident. It must be the last.

President Biden spoke a short while ago with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The leaders discussed the situation in Gaza. The president emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable.

He made clear the need for Israel to announce a series of specific concrete and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers.

He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israels immediate action on these steps. He underscored as well an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians.

And he urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to empower negotiators to conclude a deal without delay, to bring the hostages home.

The two leaders also discussed public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people. President Biden reaffirmed the United States' strong support for Israel in the face of these threats and our commitment to Israel's security.

Right now, there is no higher priority in Gaza than protecting civilians, surging humanitarian assistance and ensuring the security of those who provide it. Israel must meet this moment.

Now here in Brussels, we marked 75 years to the day since the founding of the NATO alliance. We had our first ministerial meeting with Sweden at the table, a full ally. There are now 32 members of the NATO alliance.

[13:50:08]

And that alliance has continued to adapt to meet challenges, to meet threats as they've emerged. So while we focused on celebrating the fact that we've hit the 75-year mark, we're intensely focused on the future.

SANCHEZ: We've been listening to Secretary of State Antony Blinken at NATO headquarters on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the organization. He's live in Brussels, Belgium.

Some significant remarks when it comes to the conflict in Gaza. The secretary of state saying that he has communicated to Israeli officials not only the U.S.'s commitment to Israel and its war against Hamas, but also the moral obligation that Israel has to protect civilians and aid workers in the Gaza Strip.

He specifically said, and I quote, "If we lose reverence for human life, we become indistinguishable from them, from Hamas terrorists."

He described the efforts so far by Israel since October 7th to protect civilians and humanitarian aid workers as woefully inadequate.

And he laid out what we just got a readout from the call that President Biden had with the prime minister that the United States would consider its approach to Israel based on concrete steps to change the way that Israel has handled civilians and aid workers.

KEILAR: That's right. They're expecting data from Israel, which is clear. He said that they need to have concrete, measurable steps to address harm to civilians, civilian suffering, and also to aid workers.

And he said that U.S. aid to Gaza may be determined by those steps. That's essentially what he said.

And this is really significant because it comes on the heel of a very close Biden ally, Senator Coons, talking this morning about being open to putting conditions on aid to Israel, which is really the first time that we have heard the administration goes so far.

And this is even as we're hearing from a senior administration official that the policy hasn't changed, that the president is frustrated that policy hasn't changed. This is signaling a potential policy change.

So nonetheless, this is -- this is big.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely. Notably, the timing the apparent accidental strike coming almost a day after the U.S. announced this enormous deal, $18 billion to sell F-15 fighter jets to Israel.

The question now being, is this rhetoric that actually moves the needle or do there have to be conditions on arms in order to get Prime Minister Netanyahu and some of the other Israeli officials to carry out significant change in the way that they've been conducting the war?

We have with us retired Colonel Cedric Leighton to give us some perspective.

Colonel Leighton, from what you heard from the secretary of state there, it is a noticeable shift, saying that the policy toward Israel will change determined on the way that Israel conducts its operations in Gaza.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely. In essence, what we're talking about, Boris, here is conditioning the aid on Israeli conduct going forward.

I and I guess, in this case, you can kind of say past is prologue because the past conduct of Israeli operations has not met U.S. standards.

And at this point in time, it appears as if, it appears as if the Department of Defense and the administration are looking at changing the policy potentially where they actually say, look, you cannot use these weapons against civilian targets. You cannot use these weapons against aid workers.

And that's the kind of thing that I think might be happening here. Whether or not it does, of course, is going to be borne out in the next few days probably.

But you mentioned the F-15 sale to Israel. That's something that's going to take place over the next four or five years in order to actually get those weapons to the Israelis.

But the other part of this is they have already delivered -- in the process of delivering more 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. That's a much more immediate thing. It's going to be interesting to see whether or not that delivery is stopped before they actually are put into Israeli airplanes for potential use.

And that's -- that's going to be a significant thing. There are two things that the Israelis -- that the U.S. is worried about with Israel. One of them is the immediate conduct in Gaza. The second thing is using Israel as a buffer against Iran.

And that is going to be the balancing act that the administration has to deal with at this point.

KEILAR: Yes, and the administration has to deal with Netanyahu, who obviously has his own considerations, and how he might be responding to this as well.

Let's go back to Melissa Bell, who is in Jerusalem.

Melissa, we'd interrupted your live shot there to go to Secretary Blinken.

But I wonder what you think about this -- this the secretary of state saying that Israel needs to have these concrete, measurable steps to address civilian suffering harm. And also to aid workers as well. And how that might be received there by the prime minister.

[13:55:03]

BELL: Well, bear in mind that Benjamin Netanyahu is under a great deal of pressure at home. We've seen these protests that we've been talking about, Brianna, these last few nights here in Jerusalem.

We've also heard Benny Gantz, one of his potential opponents in any election that might be held and a clear favorite here in Israel, potentially to be the next prime minister, announce that he was in favor of early parliamentary elections in September.

The political pressure has been mounting on Benjamin Netanyahu. And I think what we just heard there was a culmination of a growing sense that the pressure from outside, even from that into fatigable ally, the United States, was growing untenable, louder and louder.

It had been building for some time. Remember the speech we'd had from Chuck Schumer a couple of weeks ago. Remember the growing rift, the fact that the United States allowed that ceasefire resolution to go in, in the United Nations, the ruffled feathers in Benjamin Netanyahu's camp as a result of that, and clearer and clearer language.

I think by the time you have at that virtual meeting between American and Israeli officials on Monday to talk about Rafah, we'd heard then that the American officials -- American officials had been very forthright with their Israeli counterparts about the need to protect civilians, a much sharper tone it seemed to have been used.

And then the attack against World Central Kitchen. I think with hindsight, this will appear the clear turning points beyond which the American allies simply couldn't stand and stuck as closely, as blindly as perhaps it had so far.

And I think Secretary Blinken's words just now that Israel is not Hamas and cannot behave with -- conducting indiscriminate killing targeting civilians and aid workers was very striking. And I think something we might not have imagined hearing before.

The repercussions here are likely to be the emboldening of those forces who are clearly calling for Benjamin Netanyahu to think about calling it a day. And they come at a very interesting time for the prime minister here, politically.

Militarily, of course, he continues to say that any threat to his power would be a threat both to the military campaign in Gaza and to the ongoing hostage conversations -- Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Yes, those calls for early elections coming from members of his war cabinet.

We should go to the White House now with CNN's Kayla Tausche.

Kayla, we heard from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken. We are soon to hear from officials there at the White House in the press room after we got this readout of the call between Biden and Netanyahu.

What are you hearing from sources at the White House about the call?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, were just getting the readout, Boris, from the call in which President Biden is said to have said it was it's unacceptable, the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation. Making clear that Israel needs to take measurable steps to address civilian harm.

But perhaps most notably from the statement is that the president underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians.

And so that is certainly a very fine point that the White House is putting on the president's views of what should happen next and what Prime Minister Netanyahu should do now.

We're expecting to hear in just a few moments from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, as well as John Kirby, the NSC spokesman, with more details about what transpired on this call, which we had expected to see President Biden express anger, frustration, and demand accountability from the Israelis.

KEILAR: All right. Kayla, thank you so much.

This is a warning, obviously, that he made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by America's assessment of Israel's immediate action on these steps.

It's a warning. But what does it mean? How serious is it? Will Israel take it seriously? We're going to discuss this further. A whole lot happening.

We'll be right back.

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