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Intense Heat, Wildfires and Tropical Storm Batter U.S.; Putin Holds Talks With Kim Jong-un in North Korea; Biden Envoy Told Netanyahu His Comments About U.S.-Supplied Weapons were Unproductive and Completely Untrue. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 19, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

This morning, millions of Americans are in the grip of extreme weather, deadly wildfires, a record-breaking heat wave, and the first alert of a much feared Atlantic hurricane season. Buckle up, everybody. In New Mexico, thousands of people are racing to escape two wildfires. At least one person has died, and the number of destroyed buildings has tripled in just a few hours. A short time ago on CNN, we heard from a man who made the gut-wrenching decision to evacuate with his wife and their three-year-old daughter.

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ERIC MORO, FLED NEW MEXICO HOME TO ESCAPE WILDFIRE: We don't know what's going to happen with our home. My daughter was crying when I was packing stuff up. She thought we were leaving the home. She thought we were never coming back. And I said, no, we're not leaving. We're not giving up the house. It's just dangerous right now. And we have to -- in case, the fire comes, we have to be prepared.

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ACOSTA: We can't stay here. Red flags fly on the coast of South Texas as a system in the Gulf could become the first named storm of this young hurricane season. Texans could see up to ten inches of rain and a storm surge of up to three feet is already pushing ashore.

And pre-summer swelter, we're also feeling that as well. 80 million people are under heat alerts today as dangerously high temperatures bake the northeast and Midwest. More than 20 daily records could be broken just today. For perspective, consider this National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine, has issued its first ever excessive heat warning for that area. Caribou could hit a record of 96 degrees today and a heat index of, get this, 104 degrees. That's in Maine. If people in Caribou want to escape the heat, they could go to Miami, where it's about 10 degrees cooler. It's a lot of wild weather right now.

Let's begin with the wildfire. CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Ruidoso, New Mexico, with the latest.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The city of Ruidoso, New Mexico, is essentially a ghost town, it feels like at this point, less than 48 hours after these fires started in this mountainous region of New Mexico. More than 8,000 people have evacuated. As I mentioned, there's two different fires that are considered consumed so far about 20,000 acres. Almost none of it has been contained here at this point. And the visibility because of the smoke from this fires is just really cut down dramatically. The smoke is intense.

This is a roadway that leads out to the northern edge of town. This is an area where people were scrambling Monday night to get to get out of this area. As you know, one resident described us, ash was falling from the sky. And as you look at it, everywhere you look here, visibility is cut down dramatically, very difficult to breathe and it really kind of gets into your eyes as well. You can imagine what the firefighters on the front lines are battling in this canyonous, mountainous area, fighting these fires are extremely difficult.

As I mentioned, about 1,400 structures have been destroyed or lost so far in these fires. More than 8,000 people have evacuated. And one resident says they're lucky to get out alive.

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MICHAEL SCOTT, RUIDOSO, NEW MEXICO RESIDENT: We reached a point where it was just a solid blackout. I've never seen anything like it. But the thing that kind of startled me more than anything, my truck was being hit with chunks of ash. I could feel him hitting the hood and the gray. It was almost like big gray rain hitting my truck.

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LAVANDERA: Now, there is a sliver of good news and there could be some relief on the way. And that is weather forecasts are showing that later this afternoon and into Thursday as well, rain is expected in this area. And that would obviously help dramatically for the firefighters on the ground here battling these massive wildfires that have consumed the areas around Ruidoso, New Mexico. So, that relief can't come soon enough because there are thousands of people who have evacuated this area.

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They've scattered to other communities around here in New Mexico, and they are desperately awaiting word to find out if their homes have made it through the worst of these wildfires. Back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. Our Ed Lavender, thank you joining me now former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. Craig, thanks a lot for joining us good to talk to you again I mean, what do you think as you're looking into what's happening right now across the country? Do you find it worrisome that we're seeing this many weather disasters unfolding and summer hasn't even officially started?

CRAIG FUGATE, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, FEMA: Yes, and this is one of the things that I think the federal agencies and a lot of researchers are working this idea of what they're calling a flash drought. We're seeing areas that weren't in a really severe drought, but with the high temperatures, low humidities, and then we get wind, we're getting explosive wildfires in areas that traditionally wouldn't be in that condition. From California across the southwest, as you were reporting on in New Mexico, but even other parts of the country where these extremely high temperatures, low humidities, things dry very quickly and we go from several weeks without rain and we get explosive fire conditions.

Throwing that into the extreme rainfall events we're getting, it seems we're just bouncing around in this country from one extreme weather disaster to another.

ACOSTA: Yes, it's like extreme weather whack-a-mole right now. And, Craig, I did want to ask you about FEMA because FEMA has warned that its disaster relief funds could run out by August at the height of the Atlanta hurricane season. What does that mean for disaster response? I mean, I can't imagine something like that occurring when a Katrina hits or something like that.

FUGATE: Well, FEMA will conserve their money to make sure they can respond to the disasters. But what they'll have to look at is rebuilding after disasters, including ones that have already occurred until Congress appropriates more funds. And so this is one of the key things that FEMA has to watch is that they're going into a more active hurricane season and existing disasters is conserving their funds to make sure they can respond to the next disaster. That may mean slowing down or stopping the rebuilding from older disasters that have already occurred.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Craig, you're an expert on all this. I mean, what do you make of these calls on FEMA to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke as major disasters? I mean, you were just talking about these, this issue of flash droughts. What's your reaction to all that?

FUGATE: Well, I think it's coming down to where, where a governor can request from the president, the assistance. It's demonstrating that these are exceeding local and state capabilities. And as we're seeing, when you start getting heat waves in areas where a lot of people don't even have air conditioning, what are those impacts the state needs assistance on? And I think that's some of the stuff that, again, we're looking at. What does it mean that we're going to have to provide more assistance to state and local governments in extreme weather events that historically were managed at the local and state level?

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, when we're talking about Caribou, Maine, getting up into the high 90s, that's bizarre. I mean, you've been in this business for such a long time, Craig. Do you see any other reason than climate change as being a major factor behind all of this?

FUGATE: No, it's climate change. And, again, I think the thing that people need to understand is the climate has already changed. We're in a phase of having to adapt to these changes. And people say, well, extreme weather has always occurred, and People agree, except that it's occurring at a frequency we've never seen. And the other thing is, these are always being termed record-setting events, meaning we have no data of this occurring in the United States since probably the mid 1800s, earlier when we have good weather data. So, this is not something we've experienced before, especially the frequency and the fact that we're not getting many breaks between these events.

ACOSTA: Yes, no question about it. All right, Craig Fugate, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for the expertise. I appreciate it.

FUGATE: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Taking authoritarian ties to a new level will break down the agreement between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un next.

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ACOSTA: Today, pageantry in Pyongyang as North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, welcoming the Russian autocrat for his first visit to the country in more than two decades. The hero's welcome included a lavish ceremony complete with a ride in an open limo. Check out the size of that red carpet. The two leaders signed what they called a strategic breakthrough partnership treaty, deepening a staunch anti-west alliance that Washington is closely watching.

Joining me now is CNN Global Affairs Analyst and former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper. He also serves on the board as a strategic advisor for a handful of aerospace and defense-related companies. Secretary Esper, good to see you, as always.

What do you think about this? I mean, obviously, when we see the pictures, it's alarming to see Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un in a giant limo going down a red carpet and so on. But what do you make of this mutual defense pact if either country is attacked? What does that mean? I mean, does that mean that the North Koreans will come to the defense of Russia if Ukraine were to attack? I mean, what does all that mean?

MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good questions, Jim. And first of all, this is important for a number of reasons. First of all, there's the theater of Putin traveling to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-un.

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It's the first time he's done it in 24 years. It may signal a sense of desperation in many ways with regard to the tactical needs he has on the Ukrainian battlefield, when it comes to arms and ammunition. And we know that North Korea has provided 250,000-plus metric tons of ammunition to Russia, everything from the artillery shells to ballistic missiles.

And so I think on one hand, it reflects Moscow's continuing need to sustain the fight in Ukraine. And then, of course, the strategic matter that you just mentioned. Today, they signed this strategic partnership agreement. It's unclear right now exactly what it calls for beyond the words providing military assistance to one another. What we'll probably find out in due course is, does it harken back to the 1961 mutual defense treaty that they had and that went away with the end of the Cold War?

And that one, it acted more like Russia would come to North Korea's military assistance, would intervene if attacked. That was replaced by a friendship agreement in 2000. So, it's unclear how far back toward the Cold War era agreement this new one goes.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Secretary Esper, I mean, I guess it could be tempting to say, okay, is this sort of a new axis of evil, ala George W. Bush? But at the same time, you see Putin sending warships to Havana. He does this trip to North Korea. There's a little bit of a smell of desperation there, is there not?

ESPER: Yes, I was just mentioning, there is a, there is a sense of desperation. I mean, he has increased his country's economy to 7 percent of GDP being spent on defense, I would argue it's a war economy, something that that we in the west are not doing to keep up with the fight in Ukraine. But you're right. He's conducting a lot of demonstrations and exhibitions around the world, the visit to Cuba with the Russian Navy and other things to signal that Russia is on the world stage. But at the same time, his economy is struggling.

And, of course, Jim, he goes next to Vietnam. These two visits come just on the hills of an important G7 meeting last week in Europe, which he's been excluded from in terms of the G8 and other bodies. And, of course, there was the peace summit in Switzerland for Ukraine.

So, you can see that this block is forming up the block led by China. Russia comes in number two, and then there's Iran and North Korea, and then Venezuela and Mali and others. But you can see this block, this axis forming up on the other side, the autocracies of the world, as I call them.

ACOSTA: All right, very interesting. All right, Secretary Mark Esper, thanks as always, I really appreciate it.

ESPER: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, in the meantime new signs of a dust up between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I want to go straight to CNN's Arlette Saenz, who is in Delaware, where the president is today.

Arlette, what's going on here? The administration not happy about some recent comments from Netanyahu, what can you tell us?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, there is mounting frustration from Biden administration officials towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after yesterday in a video, he suggested that the U.S. was withholding military aid for his country. That is something that the White House publicly pushed back on yesterday, saying they have no idea what Netanyahu was talking about there. And we are learning that officials have also relayed their frustration directly to the prime minister himself.

CNN has learned that Amos Hochstein, who has been traveling in the region, met with Netanyahu yesterday. And in that meeting, he told Netanyahu that his comments were unproductive and more importantly completely untrue. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, also reiterated similar comments saying that what Netanyahu said was incorrect. And another senior administration official told CNN these comments were perplexing and wrong.

Now, it's unclear what exactly Netanyahu was talking about with these comments. In early May, the administration had put a pause on the shipment of heavy bombs for Israel as there were concerns about their possible ground operation into Rafah. But yesterday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that that is still under review and that there have been no changes otherwise. Take a listen to what he had to say.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2,000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area, like Rafah, that remains other under review. But everything else is moving as it normally would move.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We generally do not know what he's talking about. We just don't.

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SAENZ: Now, one official said that the U.S. postponed a high level meeting to discuss Iran with Israel in part due to these comments, while others have pushed back saying that there were simply some scheduling conflicts.

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But this clearly comes at a very tense time, as there have been frustrations from the administration towards Israel on a number of fronts, as there's concern not just about the war in Gaza but potentially this conflict widening out even more.

ACOSTA: All right. Arlette Saenz, thanks for that.

And joining me now is CNN's Fareed Zakaria to respond to all this. Fareed, I want to get your reaction to what we just heard from Arlette. I mean, what do you think of Netanyahu putting out videos and saying things and then the White House saying, we have no idea what he's talking about?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: It's shocking, but it's not entirely surprising. Bibi Netanyahu is playing a partisan political game that is more about his survival than about anything else. Remember, this is the guy who did this once before when Obama tried to push him on certain issues. He did an end run around Obama, got the Republicans to invite him to give a joint address Congress and essentially snubbed Obama that way. This is a replay of that tactic.

What he's essentially trying to do is to give the Republicans talking points to beat up on Biden, to say, you're withholding aid to one of our closest allies at a time of war. He's also trying to preserve his own political survival, where he wants to show that he's tough and he's battling even pressure from the Americans, which helps him with the hard right at home. Bibi Netanyahu is not acting these days like a statesman or a war statesman in any sense. He's acting like a besieged political figure scrambling to ensure his own survival and do whatever it takes, however partisan, however unethical it may be. It's sad that he's doing it, particularly with the Biden administration, which has really provided the most unqualified support to Israel that any administration has offered in recent memory added that the most critical time that it needed it.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Fareed, that that is the question I was going to ask you because I remember I was covering the Obama administration when Netanyahu gave that address to Congress. And I often tell people that is the most angry I've ever heard the Obama White House when I was covering them is when Netanyahu gave that that speech in front of Congress. It's a different situation this time around. I mean, Netanyahu is getting almost everything he wants out of the Biden White House when it comes to prosecuting this war in Gaza.

ZAKARIA: Absolutely. But don't forget, Jim, as you well know, and you reported the Obama administration provided Israel under Netanyahu with a huge aid package and military aid as a way to offset any concerns they had about the Iran nuclear deal.

So, Bibi has played this game before. He pockets all the military aid. He pockets all the assistance and support, resists all the pressure. He has not moderated his strategy very much and then plays this very partisan game and the legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, among other things, is going to be that he has turned support for Israel, which used to be a non-partisan issue or a bipartisan issue in America into a deeply partisan issue. He is turning it into a wedge issue in American politics, which is not going to be good for Israel.

ACOSTA: Fascinating. And, Fareed, speaking of all the great reporting you do, you have a new special coming out about how Mexico could have a big impact on who wins the Oval Office. Tell us a bit more about that. There's been a lot of change underway in Mexico in recent weeks.

ZAKARIA: Yes, you know, this struck us, you know, as an important story to do a kind of an hour on Mexico because it's the country that is right next to us. It's our biggest trading partner. We have this huge engagement with it. And most people don't know much about it. And so, for example, most people don't know that Trump is now proposing that we bomb Mexico as part of his strategy. You know, the Republican congressman latching onto this idea,tThere is the reality of the fentanyl crisis, what to do about it?

So, we decided to just go deep for now and let people understand, you know, get to know the country that is closest to them in some way, in both, you know, geographically, politically, economically, and what's going on there. ACOSTA: Well, let's play a clip from that and talk about it on the other side.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A breaking point at the U.S. Mexico border.

ZAKARIA (voice over): Year after year, records at the border are shattered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A major surge of border crossings.

ZAKARIA: Over 2.4 million migrants were apprehended last year, an all-time high.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those numbers have been staggering.

ZAKARIA: Breaking the record set just one year earlier, which stopped the record set the year before that.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are at the point of no turn.

ZAKARIA: People have been coming --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everywhere from Haiti to Venezuela.

ZAKARIA: -- from all over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: India, Vietnam, Afghanistan. But one country that's actually not driving the surge is Mexico.

At the start of the century, Mexicans made up 98 percent of the migrants at the southern border. Last year, only 29 percent were from Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Yes, Fareed. I mean, a big question is why doesn't Mexico try to do more to control this flow of migration when if Trump gets into office, that obviously might not bode well for relation relations between U.S. and Mexico?

ZAKARIA: Well, to be fair to them, they're trying very hard to begin with. To complete that thought, it's not Mexicans who are coming. It's mostly Central Americans, Venezuelans and such over the last 20 years in net terms, in other words, if you count the number of Mexicans going back to Mexico from the U.S., there has been no net increase in Mexicans entering the United States.

So, this is a case where Mexico is being used as the corridor through which a lot of Central Americans, Venezuelans are coming. One of the problems they have is they're overwhelmed. The Mexican state, as we know, is not that capable. And, by the way, this overwhelms even the U.S. border controls. Part of it is that there is no process. I mean, this is where I think everybody understands the problem is the whole asylum system has broken down. What used to be a process used by a few tens of thousands of people is now being used by millions of people who come in and they don't run away from law authorities. They run toward law authorities and say to them, I have a credible fear of persecution, bam. That makes you an asylum seeker. That means you've got a court hearing, a second court hearing. It could take seven years. So, the whole system has broken down and Mexico is just one piece of that.

ACOSTA: Well, it's going to be a fascinating special. All of the specials that you do, Fareed, are terrific. We'll be watching this one as well. Fareed Zakaria, live from London for you, he's always going around the world, just trotting around the world, Fareed does, doing his amazing reporting.

Fareed will explore more in the documentary, America's Mess with Mexico. It's this Sunday at 8:00 P.M. right here on CNN.

In the meantime, Donald Trump out on the campaign trail in Wisconsin days after we learned he called Milwaukee a, quote, horrible city. Hear what he had to say to voters yesterday. That's next.

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