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Japanese Prime Minister's Support for Ukraine Aid from U.S. Examined; Some House Republicans Prevent Vote to Reauthorize Section 702 of Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act; Witnesses State Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in Ruins after IDF Departure; NTSB: Boeing Records May Reveal Other Door Plug Removals. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 11, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

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MICHELLE YE HEE LEE, TOKYO BUREAU CHIEF, "THE WASHINGTON POST": In terms of the trilateral cooperation that the three leaders will discuss, it's definitely going to be a maritime security, to really ramp up the security around the Philippines, to protect and help the Philippines in case of even more overtures from the Chinese. And also beyond maritime security, they will discuss economic cooperation, technological cooperation to show that it's really more than just maritime, but that the three leaders are working in lockstep to protect against China.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: What are you expecting Prime Minister Kishida to say? He's going to be addressing Congress. What are you expecting him to highlight?

LEE: Prime Minister Kishida has been a very vocal advocate when it comes to the role of the Russian invasion in Ukraine and what it could mean to other countries, specifically in East Asia. Prime Minister Kishida has really coined the phrase, Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow. And by that he means that if there is not a strong response from western countries to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, then countries like China could take away the message that perhaps they could take aggressive actions and take over other countries or other territories like Taiwan.

So Prime Minister Kishida is really going to try to send that message. The underlying message there is that he hopes Congress will pass but the U.S. aid package to Ukraine, and that he really hopes to see that come through. And secondly, Prime Minister Kishida is going to really stress the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance. It's been on a really strong point, and Prime Minister Kishida has been key in leading his country to that point. And he's going to want to celebrate the growth of the strength of the alliance.

SIDNER: Michelle Ye Hee Lee, that was really interesting, the idea of Ukraine that could be Asia next and watching what the United States is doing there. Thank you so much for your analysis, really appreciate it.

The next hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Jesus himself could not manage this

conference. That is what one House Republican is saying as a revolt threatens Speaker Mike Johnson's short tenure. Could a trip to Mar-a- Lago and a meeting with Donald Trump help?

Backlash in Tennessee after lawmakers pass a law that would allow teachers to carry concealed guns in their classrooms.

And bad weather forces a delay in Augusta. When will they be able to tee off at the Masters?

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

SIDNER: We are standing by for a grave warning on Capitol Hill as Donald Trump's latest attempt to push his agenda intensifies. Chaos and confusion in Congress and beyond. This morning, hard-right Republicans are blocking a foreign surveillance tool that FBI director Christopher Wray said is critical in securing our nation. Why? Donald Trump told them to. Wray will soon appear on the Hill to tell lawmakers he needs this tool to keep Americans safe.

And what is Trump telling House Speaker Mike Johnson as a Republican revolt to oust him? Johnson now heading to Mar-a-Lago for a lifeline. CNN's Lauren Cohen (ph) has more on Johnson's fight and what is happening today on the Hill. Lauren Fox, a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos, and Trump in the middle of it.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, welcome back to Congress being in session. It has been a couple of days. House lawmakers already thrust into this chaos, as you noted, Sara. And one thing to keep an eye on here is what happens next with FISA. There is an April 19th deadline. This is exactly why Republican leaders were hoping they could clear the deck on this issue this first week, because it's going to take the Senate a little bit of time to process this on their end as well.

But already hiccups over this procedural vote yesterday, what you saw, 19 Republicans voting against even advancing this legislation because they are unhappy. They argue with the way that leadership went about trying to get this bill passed on the floor. They're arguing, hardliners are, that this was a predetermined outcome, that Speaker Mike Johnson mismanaged this. This is an episode we have seen in repeatedly on this issue of trying to reauthorize Section 702 of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has become a problem once again.

And what you're hearing from Republican leaders is they are still trying to find a path forward. They are expected to have a series of votes later today, but not on this issue because they are still trying to iron out what they are going to do. They had an emergency conference meeting yesterday at 4:00.

Meanwhile, members of the intelligence community are making clear that this is an invaluable tool.

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Christopher Wray, the FBI director, expected to testify on Capitol Hill later this morning and say, I'd be hard pressed to think of a time when so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once. We need all the tools, all the people, all the resources required to tackle these threats and to keep Americans safe.

Meanwhile, there is this looming question. What is Mike Johnson going to in order to keep his job. There is still a lot of pressure on him to do something when it comes to Ukraine aid. Obviously, he has to get through this FISA fight before moving on to that next issue. Sara?

SIDNER: There's so much going on and so much chaos. Lauren Fox, you are watching it all. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. In this case, Juliette, you need to be our human glossary. Section 702 of FISA is what?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. OK, so Section 702 of FISA gives the federal agencies and intelligence agencies the capacity to have, and I'll be clear here, a warrantless search of a non-U.S. citizen not in the United States. So this is someone abroad, we're worried about them. We want surveillance, we want basically a wiretap on it, on them, and we're collecting information.

In the past, there have been concerns that United States citizens have been captured in this communication. So let's say a foreign person calls me. We're talking, and the FBI then is capturing my conversation without any court approval. Because of that, 702 was reformed to make sure that there's disclosures to a specialized court.

So this process has worked pretty well and has gotten tighter over the years, in particular, after September 11th. This reauthorization should have been yawner. Honestly, this is the kind of thing where, like, can we not do even the easy things anymore? And has now become another political lightning rod because of course, Donald Trump is sort of, you know, has, has his opinions out or down south.

BERMAN: I don't think there's any dispute over how much it is used and how useful it is in collecting intelligence on potential terrorists, among other things. A huge number of the stings and stuff are using that. The criticism, as you say, is the idea that people on U.S. soil are somehow swept up to it, in it. And there are people who say, well, we should require warrants, then, to access the information about the Americans on American soil. Why is that something that the intelligence community doesn't want?

KAYYEM: So they address that issue through two means. OK, so one is what's called a required -- a minimization requirement. That means if they're calling me, that they've collected it, they have to either hide who I am or get rid of the information because it may be unrelated to any investigation or concerns. People are calling people abroad for lots of reasons. They don't know what that person is doing. So the first is what's called minimization. That is in the statute. It's a requirement.

The second is, of course, disclosure to a court, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court. Every year, the FBI and the intelligence community is required to certify that they are only focused on non-U.S. citizens.

The third, and this is, I guess there is a third, it's the most important. It is unlawful, unlawful for the federal agencies to utilize FISA, the FISA regime, to target us citizens as a root. So there's lots and lots of oversight in this regard, as we know, because a lot of this has been disclosed by bye FBI Director Wray in his attempts to keep to keep this moving.

This is something that Republican administrations and Democrat administrations have utilized. It is something that civil liberties groups have worked with the federal government to minimize the potential privacy concerns. And there is an established protocol. And the only thing I have to say is if this thing does not get recertified, every enemy is now going to know this, right? So they're going to know that they are free to call whomever they want without fear of surveillance.

BERMAN: Juliette Kayyem, thank you for explaining it so well. Really appreciate it.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

BERMAN: Al-Shifa Hospital is unrecognizable, that is how some people inside Gaza are describing the situation as they sift through the ruins after the siege there.

Health officials warning that fake Botox is making people sick. Now people in at least two states are in the hospital.

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BERMAN: New this morning, UNICEF says that one of its aid vehicles was hit with live ammunition. The convoy was stopped at a checkpoint as it was waiting to enter northern Gaza from the south. This happening as Gaza health workers say the Al-Shifa Hospital complex has become a graveyard after is Israel's two-week long siege there. CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Jerusalem. Nic, what is the latest from Al-Shifa?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The Palestinian authorities are still going through the grounds of the hospital and uncovering the bodies and remains of people who were killed during Israel's two weeks big presence inside the hospital. The IDF reported heavy fighting in the area.

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What the medical workers say that they are recovering are bodies, pieces of bodies; some bodies, they are unable to recognize because they say that they were run over by IDF tanks. That period of two weeks while the IDF was in Al-Shifa Hospital was a period of intense fighting.

The IDF said that they arrested hundreds of terror suspects, but this is not something that has been able to independently confirm. But the recovery of the bodies at this hospital and also another hospital in Khan Younis is an indication of the hasty way that people were buried literally where and around they fell.

It is a large area that is being excavated. The video of the people and bodies being extracted is very, very gruesome to watch, and it is Palestinians who are now trying to identify all of the individuals who were killed and it is a range of people -- men, women, children -- and give them a proper burial.

BERMAN: Nic, Israel continues to say that it does allow aid into Gaza and that a new checkpoint is opening that will allow much more to come in.

What is the reality on the ground?

ROBERTSON: TBD on that new checkpoint. The IDF is saying they are ramping up aid supplies. It is a priority for them to help get it into Gaza.

Over last weekend, the prime minister said that a new border crossing in the north of Gaza, vital of course, because that is where three hundred to four hundred thousand Palestinians are and the UN says, some of them are close to starvation.

The prime minister said that crossing would be Erez. Come the start of this week, the COGAT, which is the Israeli body that oversees humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza said that they were still working on the logistics of it.

The IDF now says that they are working on a new location. We have an idea of where it may be. The IDF says this is still work in progress, but COGAT, that body that gets -- helps get the aid into Gaza, said over three hundred, three hundred and sixty-eight aid trucks went in yesterday, reaching very high figures earlier in the week, highest figure since the start of the war.

But what the White House is saying is look, it is not just a matter of getting the aid in, it is a matter of getting it to the people and to that point, we heard from UNICEF.

A UNICEF official today who was in Gaza, at an IDF checkpoint separating the south and the north of Gaza. They had aid that they wanted to get to a hospital for dying children in the north of Gaza, they got caught up in crossfire.

Listen to how their spokesman explained it.

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TESS INGRAM, UNICEF SPOKESPERSON: It was shocking that this was happening to us on a coordinated mission in a designated holding area. We had colleagues outside the vehicle who very easily could have been injured or killed.

I think this underscores that it really remains unsafe for humanitarian workers, and also, it prevents us from doing our jobs because that mission didn't go ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So this is the situation, trying to get that distributed in Gaza.

The IDF is saying the UN isn't doing enough inside Gaza to move that aid around. The UN says the conditions aren't right and safe in places. They don't have the wherewithal to move this amount of aid, but the IDF, and indeed the defense minister said the plan is to flood Gaza with aid.

There is clearly still a lot to be done to achieve that.

BERMAN: Nic Robertson for us in Jerusalem.

Nic, thank you very much.

So records do not exist that should exist. That is the message from the NTSB as it investigates Boeing.

And a failing grade for some of America's most prestigious universities. How the ADL says that colleges are failing when it comes to antisemitism.

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SIDNER: All right, this morning, federal investigators say they now have key records from Boeing that may shed light on why employees did not document certain steps while installing door plugs on a 737 Max.

You will recall that that door plug fell out during an Alaska Airlines flight leaving a refrigerator-size hole in the plane back in January.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is following the latest from Washington.

When this first happened, investigators ripped into Boeing because the company said it couldn't find these key records when it comes to opening and closing the door plug.

So what happens now that they have some of these documents?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, hopefully they can piece together a little bit more about the quality control problem that federal investigators think Boeing may have on its assembly lines and in its factories.

I think it would be helpful to flashback a month, you referenced it, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, who is investigating that a door plug incident from back in January was on Capitol Hill, and really ripped Boeing for not cooperating with their investigation, saying that the company hadn't provided any records indicating why that door plug was removed, and then put back on the plane without being properly secured, which ultimately caused it to fly out midflight. Then it was revealed that Boeing doesn't have any record of that repair.

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And so now this update from the NTSB chair saying that they have now gathered all kinds of documents, records on other repairs, other instances where door plugs may have been removed and put back on to figure out if Boeing is keeping any record of this type of work as federal regulators expect them to.

Basically, they are trying to figure out if Boeing's safety system, their quality control is up to snuff or have they been performing undocumented repairs and doing a really shoddy job tracking their work, which of course could have more of these disastrous consequences like what we saw in January or even some of the maintenance issues that we have seen on Boeing aircraft in the months since.

One striking change though, Sara, over the past month, the tone of the NTSB chair while talking about Boeing's level of cooperation. Take a listen to the difference between when she spoke a month ago versus yesterday.

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JENNIFER HOMENDY, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD CHAIR (MARCH 6): Boeing has not provided us with the documents and information that we have requested numerous times.

Its absurd that two months later, we don't have that.

HOMENDY (WEDNESDAY): They are equally concerned about the process here and the escape and we are all working gather to figure out what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Jennifer Homendy clearly sounding a little less frustrated with the company yesterday and now federal investigators are expanding their safety probe interviewing more Boeing employees.

They may survey a larger portion of those workers to figure out if there is a bigger, more alarming divide here, Sara, between the safety messaging from Boeing executives versus the practice on the assembly lines.

SIDNER: And you certainly saw that the issues with safety in several incidents and the CEO stepping down, Boeing facing a lot of criticism and investigations at this point.

Gabe Cohen, thank you so much for that. All right, here is where futures stand this morning: Markets took a

hit yesterday after the release of new inflation numbers. You can see, not so great. Dow futures, Nasdaq futures down, down, down. We are going to get another look though at PPI, that is coming up in the next 10 or so minutes. We will bring that to you as soon as it comes in.

Plus, it is a tradition, unlike any other, but golf fans are going to have to wait just a little bit longer. When we can expect the weather to let up at the Masters, that is next.

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