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Protesters Gather in D.C. Ahead of Netanyahu Speech; FBI Director Testifies Before Congress. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 24, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:57]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: All right, welcome back. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We begin this hour up on Capitol Hill, where the FBI director, Christopher Wray, is testifying before a House subcommittee about the Trump shooting investigation. It's the third congressional hearing in as many days on the assassination attempt, lawmakers trying to determine what caused the massive security failure that allowed a gunman to open fire on a rooftop so close to the Pennsylvania rally stage.

Joining us now are CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez, retired FBI special agent Bobby Chacon, and retired FBI supervisory special agent Steve Moore.

Gentlemen, thanks so much.

In addition -- Evan, something to talk about here, in addition to what caused the security failure -- I mean, obviously that question is going to come up.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Correct.

ACOSTA: But the FBI director is really here to lay out what they have learned in the investigation so far. And we're getting some new information.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREZ: Right.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: And, remarkably, unlike a lot of these hearings, the FBI director came armed with information. He's trying to provide it.

ACOSTA: Unlike the Secret Service director. Yes.

PEREZ: Right. He's coming. He wants to provide answers. And you have members of Congress actually just mucking it up and getting in the way of him trying to answer some questions there. They're sort of interrupting him. A couple of things we have learned,

Jim, that we know now that the shooter had a drone in his car that was recovered. They now know that he flew it over like about 200 yards away from the site of the rally for about 11 minutes, again, about from 3:50 to 4.00 p.m., again, about two hours before the shooting.

And also, we also know that -- a little bit more about the explosives that were found, some in his vehicle and in the residence. They were viable, but he was wearing a device to try to trigger them. It appears that at least on the receiving end that the explosives themselves, they were not in an on position. So he couldn't have detonated them.

Again, they were viable and dangerous, of course. Here's a little bit more that we heard from the FBI director describing a little bit more about exactly the scene of the crime. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Crooks fire eight shots?

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have recovered eight cartridges on the roof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why was Crooks allowed to get off eight shots?

WRAY: Well, that I think is something we're still digging into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And, again, eight shots. This is an AR-15, so it doesn't take a lot of time for that. That's -- we're talking about seconds for that -- for those eight shots to go.

And we know that he was being pursued by law enforcement. They looked up on the roof. They saw him. That may have hurried him up and perhaps prevented him from carrying out an even larger mass killing at that rally.

ACOSTA: Yes, and, Steve, I do want to ask you about this because Evan is exactly right. We did get some new information. And one of the things that I just can't get over is the fact that this shooter was able to fly a drone over the rally site for 11 minutes.

I mean, I have covered a lot of rallies over the years, I mean, going back too long. And I just can't imagine that kind of thing being allowed to happen. It just strikes me as just being nuts.

STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Yes, it's -- first of all, you would wonder, well, how soon does security get there before the rally?

ACOSTA: Yes.

MOORE: I can't imagine them just showing up an hour before the rally. They want to see who's coming. Part of the security itself is seeing who's parked nearby, who's watching the place. The drone is about the most blatant version of scoping out a place

that I have seen. And I'm kind of frustrated that it didn't bump into a Secret Service drone that was checking the area at that time.

ACOSTA: Right.

MOORE: I just -- in many ways, Crooks was more prepared for the event than the Secret Service was, which I hate to say because I like the agency. But he seemed to be ahead of them.

[11:05:06]

And if you look at this, how long had he been preparing? I mean, you can't just go down to 7/Eleven and pick up a bomb. This guy had decided on the bombs. He had decided on a remote detonation, which means he had a specific plan not to be near that car and away.

And then he scoped, scouted out the place. He surveilled it. He had relatively high-tech equipment. And then he showed up on the day. I can't imagine why he wouldn't have bounced into their -- into the Secret Service's scope long before he did.

ACOSTA: Yes, you're absolutely right.

And, Bobby, I mean, I have seen the Secret Service flying drones. So they have drones up there as well. They should have been able to see this going on. And, Bobby, I want to ask you about some of this too. But in addition to that, we want to show this new video from the Trump rally day on July 13, this video released by Senator Chuck Grassley.

It shows law enforcement officials after the gunman was taken down. And you can see the local officers and Secret Service standing on the roof where the gunman was shot dead. Let's listen to a bit of what was said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the guy that our -- that the snipers saw?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Beaver County snipers seen and sent the pictures out. This is him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bike in the background over here, was he on that bike?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we're just treating that as suspicious device.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One second. I believe the sniper that seen these and sent the pictures is right inside his building.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes, Bobby, what are your thoughts on everything that we're learning?

BOBBY CHACON, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: It's confusion.

I mean, the fact that they don't know all this and he's on that roof getting it just firsthand, there should have been a command post set up. Steve and I worked together in Los Angeles. We did security and events like the Rose Bowl Parade and the Grammys and the Oscars. We even traveled to Greece and helped with the Olympics in 2004. So we know these events.

We -- there should be better planning and coordination. He shouldn't be on that roof asking for confirmation. That should have all been fed into essential command posts, these million dollar R.V.s that we have, set up with the locals and with the Secret Service. It all should have been fed in there.

ACOSTA: Right.

CHACON: It's confusion and it's just looks all sloppy to me. This video shows it. He's up there. They sent a guy up there to kind of confirm stuff that all should be known. There should be a command post with all that information being fed into it. And that's what this video shows me, that there was no coordination.

ACOSTA: Yes, Evan, I mean, and I wonder if -- who knows what led the Secret Service director to step down. But as this new information is coming in, it's just devastating.

PEREZ: It is.

I mean, look at -- you look at that video again, for the first time, we can have a little bit of a vantage point of where that building was where they had a couple of local ESU, the local SWAT team, that was that were supposed to be there.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: They had a sight line of that rooftop. If they had not left their post, it's possible that they would have seen him and been able to take action a lot earlier.

We're talking about a matter of minutes that he was up on that roof, according to the testimony yesterday, about two to three minutes.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: Again, big series of overlapping failures, including that we -- one of the things we learned on that video, by the way, is you hear someone say, do we have a drone that we can fly over the scene?

ACOSTA: Right.

PEREZ: This is after the fact.

ACOSTA: After the fact. It's too late.

PEREZ: Right. I mean, yes, the shooter, again, he started casing this rally a day before the Secret Service went there to do their own walk- through, and he had a drone two hours before the shooting that was going around 200 yards away from the rally itself, and seemed a lot more prepared than the security people there.

ACOSTA: Yes, just devastating the new information that's coming in.

Evan, Bobby and Steve, thank you very much for all of your thoughts this morning. We really appreciate it.

Moving on to what's taking place in just hours from now here in the nation's capital, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress for the first time in nearly a decade. But right now, hundreds of protesters are on Capitol Hill for the second day in a row, as they call for a cease-fire and the war that has left an estimated 39,000 Palestinians dead in Gaza.

Let's go to CNN's Brian Todd, who is among those protesters outside of the Capitol.

Brian, what do you see? What can you tell us?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim, if you can hear me...

ACOSTA: Yes.

TODD: ... we're here at the base of the Capitol on Third Street, just at the base of the Capitol.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered here. There's several coalitions of protesters, different messages, different movements here. As you can see, they're giving speeches over here on the stage to my right, to your left. And, again, we will just kind of walk this way. Photojournalist Jonathan O'Beirne and I will kind of take you through the crowd here.

[11:10:01]

What they want to do is send messages to Benjamin Netanyahu that they don't appreciate him being here, that one of the groups, CODEPINK, is issuing what they call kind of a symbolic notice of citizen's arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the basic message is, they don't want him here. They're not pleased that he was invited here. We expected several thousand here. It's just kind of coalescing here at the base of the Capitol. And we hope to talk to an organizer shortly. But what we can also tell you is that security has really been ramped

up here. You have got police blocking the streets all over this area, kind of confining these protesters to one area here. And we don't know of any real plans to march around. If they want to march around, they may not be able to do it much because of the heavy security presence.

The fencing all around the Capitol is pretty much unscalable. The Capitol Police have said that they have increased their contingent of officers. They have even recruited officers from New York City to be here.

So we're going to see how all of this plays out. You have got speeches here, a lot of people coming here to again send this message that they believe Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. That's one of the signs up there. And, again, we hope to talk to an organizer pretty soon, Jim.

We will give you the lay of the land as more people start to gather here.

ACOSTA: All right, Brian. Yes, thank you very much. And if anything happens, please let us know. It looks like everything is going peacefully so far.

Let's go to Miguel Marquez on the other side of the protest.

Miguel, what are you seeing?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're on the Senate side of the Capitol and you have Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans who are for Israel, but anti-Netanyahu. I'm going to show you what they have set up sort of here.

You can say that they don't want Netanyahu. They want him out. They're doing morning prayers over on that side. Lots of Israeli flags and yellow flags, yellow flags to bring the hostages home.

Ophir (ph) is one of the organizers here. This is -- part of this is -- you're live on CNN, by the way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MARQUEZ: Part of this is a rally for Biden, but also anti-Netanyahu.

Why is it so important to come out here and be present here today so far from where the protests are? Because they're several blocks away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are several blocks away.

It was important for us to be here today mostly to make sure that the lawmakers and everyone knows that Netanyahu is not representing Israel. And he's doing everything he can to sabotage the deal for his own political survival.

MARQUEZ: There are families of hostages that will be here that want to make that same message that all Israelis don't speak the same, that this is not -- that Israel is not of one voice on the war in Gaza.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Israel is not Netanyahu. Our families that are coming here that are protesting every day, are going out the street, which is crazy that they need to actually fight their own government to bring our own people back home.

So they will come here and they will stand on -- in the rally and they will make sure that -- they will make sure that their voice is being heard.

MARQUEZ: We're near Union Station, between Union Station and the Mall, where the protests are occurring. You have all the flags out here, the Israeli flags. There was a small number of pro-Palestinian protesters that came through.

They see you as the enemy. But, I mean, you're on the same side. How difficult is it to make that point?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are on the same side with those who believe in the two-state solution. Many of the people that walk here doesn't necessarily understand that some of the calls here is just to free Palestine "From the river to the sea," which means like eliminating Israel.

So we are the only nonbinary option that says that we are pro-Israeli, but we are also for two-state solution, because we know our main mission of our organization, UnXeptable, is to save Israeli democracy. And there is no way to save Israeli democracy without a solution.

MARQUEZ: Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters grabbed your flags. I can hear more coming now because they're moving from the train station to the protest area.

I mean, how concerned are you for your own safety out here today and how this is going to get?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we were really in touch with all the Capitol Police and D.C. police, and we trust them that they will -- they will make sure that it's safe here. This is why we took this space that is far away from the Capitol, but still on Capitol ground. So we feel like we are safe.

MARQUEZ: And those families that are out here, the families of hostages that are out here, they have come from Israel to be here at this protest.

Other hostage families will be inside at the remarks of the prime minister, but why so important for them to be out here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So there is a couple of things happening on parallel.

There are the people who came on with the with the prime minister and they will be inside. There are people who came without the prime minister, and they will be inside speaking to member of Congress before the speech, but they will not sit in the speech. And there are families who will come here and speak at the rally.

And it's important because everyone wants the same thing, to bring the hostages back home and seal the deal. Some think that it makes more sense to speak up politically. And some know that the only person that we are seeing is sabotaging the deal is Netanyahu.

MARQUEZ: It really gives one a sense of just how intricate and difficult this whole situation is, and there's no -- there's going to be no clear resolution to it, no quick resolution, it sounds like.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounds like there is no clear resolution, but it sounds like someone is delaying the resolution on his own behalf.

MARQUEZ: And you put that on Netanyahu's shoulders...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We put it -- we can only come into a -- we can only complain to whoever we can influence, which is Netanyahu.

[11:15:06]

MARQUEZ: Thank you very much and good luck today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you so much.

MARQUEZ: They're going to be out here for several hours and they hope that everything goes peacefully, but you can see that they are starting to gather and we will see how it goes. There are dozens and dozens, about hundreds of protesters we have already seen coming by here to go to the Mall to protest for the Palestinians in Gaza -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Miguel Marquez, very interesting interview there. Thank you very much.

Let's go back to Brian Todd, who is also speaking with one of the demonstrators.

And it seems like this crowd is building. It's growing. It really is, Jim.

TODD: It really is, Jim.

More and more people kind of gathering down here on Pennsylvania Avenue.

I'm with Kaleem Hawa. He is one of the organizers from the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Kaleem, thanks for joining us here.

What is the central message that you and your group want to get across here today?

KALEEM HAWA, PALESTINIAN YOUTH MOVEMENT: Yes, we're here today because Congress has issued a bipartisan invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal who has presided over more than nine months of genocide in Gaza, obliterated every red line in international humanitarian law and otherwise, with the targeting of schools, civilian tent camps, and hospitals.

And that this Congress has decided to allow this man to speak is fundamentally unacceptable to the millions of people that have poured out into the streets in support of Palestine in these last 10 months.

TODD: Is there any other action you can think of taking other than protesting to kind of get that message across and to let members of Congress and others know that you're displeased with this?

HAWA: I think there has been a diversity of tactics used in this moment, not just street mobilization, but, just two days ago, six major U.S. unions representing seven million American workers put out a statement jointly in support of this mobilization demanding that the U.S. government stop arming Israel.

This has never happened before in the history of the American labor movement. It's clear that the Democrats and the Republicans are totally out of touch with the popular base, which has said very clearly that this genocide is unacceptable and that it needs to end, that the level of complicity and impunity that we have allowed Israel to obtain with our money and our weapons is unacceptable.

TODD: There is some optimism that there's going to be a cease-fire soon. U.S. and Israeli officials are optimistic about that. They say it's within reach, a deal, a cease-fire and hostages deal.

If a deal is reached in the next few days, does it change your thinking at all about this movement?

HAWA: I think fundamentally what the media and America and American leaders need to understand is that the ruse of negotiations has been used as a cudgel as Israel pursues one very specific policy in Gaza, which is a campaign of extermination.

They have not been able to achieve any of their political objectives, whether it's releasing the hostages or dismantling the infrastructure of Palestinian resistance.

TODD: Let me get you to clarify. Do you believe that this is all a stalling tactic by the Israelis, a ruse? You're saying it's a ruse of negotiations. You don't believe they're sincere about making a deal?

HAWA: Fundamentally, this is political theater. Netanyahu knows how to play the audience in Congress. He's here to make reassurances to them that everything is under control.

One -- and the people around the world have seen very clearly that things are not under control. They have been unable to achieve their objectives. What they have done instead is indiscriminately targeted civilians to try and break the spirit of Palestinians. That's what everyone is out here in the streets to say, that, fundamentally, you should not be taking these people at their word. They're proven liars. Ultimately, what their objective is, is to

ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land and to continue the process of settlement expansion that has been seen -- that has been declared illegal under international law for decades.

TODD: I want to ask you also, you're conducting this demonstration at a time of very high political tension in the U.S., with an attempted assassination of Donald Trump a week-and-a-half ago. This past Sunday, President Biden announced he's leaving the race.

How do you feel about all of that and doing this at a time of such fraught political tension in the United States?

HAWA: Yes. I think fundamentally the lesson is that the reason Joe Biden is not running for reelection is fundamentally because his coalition was obliterated by his position on the genocide in Gaza.

He is perceived by the majority of American people in progressive spaces and Muslim and Arab spaces and Jewish anti-Zionist spaces as the butcher of Gaza. And they're not going to vote for him. And that imploded his chances for reelection. That's fundamentally at the heart of the current political crisis.

So, of course, we're going to continue to exert pressure, because that's what we're here to do. We want an end to this policy of mass death in Gaza. We want an end to billions of dollars of weapons being sent to Israel every year, when we know the outcome has been this violent ethnic cleansing project for decades.

So I think really what we're seeing is total complicity across the board within the Biden administration and otherwise.

[11:20:06]

TODD: All right, Kaleem, thank you very much for talking to us. We appreciate you taking the time, and we will see how this builds from here. Thank you very much.

All right, guys, again, more and more people kind of starting to gather here. There were people in an adjacent park that have been gathered. Now they have all kind of rushed up to the forefront here. Not clear if there's any plans to actually march anywhere because, again, the movement around the streets is very, but the crowd here growing in size, Jim, and we're going to see where it goes from here.

ACOSTA: Yes, Brian, I mean, we were just showing just a few moments ago a wide shot, I think, from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue closer towards the White House, sort of looking down Pennsylvania Avenue to where you are on Third Street, and it looks like a massive demonstration is building there on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Can you kind of give an educated guess as to how many people we're seeing right now? Because it seems just the last several minutes since we have been speaking with you that it's been building there TODD: I would agree with that, Jim. It's hard to give an estimate here. I can say it's in the thousands. I was just going to ask Jonathan, and he's read my mind, to see if he can elevate his camera, to see if he can point down Pennsylvania Avenue the opposite direction of where you were seeing.

So you can get a better look actually than I could get of just how big this crowd is and how much it's building down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. I can tell you that, again, these protests can really grow in size very quickly.

I covered a protest in front of the White House on June 8. It was a Saturday. And that grew very, very quickly and got very, very spirited. Luckily, it was peaceful. And, luckily, this has been peaceful so far, but these things can really kind of coalesce and grow at a moment's notice.

And when word of mouth gets around, more and more people -- and, actually, there's an interesting display over there, if Jonathan can pan to his right, of a -- looks like a Donald Trump effigy there or something. I can't really quite tell, but, again, people getting very creative with floats and flags and signs here, Jim.

So this is kind of the way it unfolds usually.

ACOSTA: Yes, and that may be Netanyahu right there that we're looking at, an effigy of Netanyahu.

TODD: Yes.

ACOSTA: But, Brian, I mean, I think what you were saying a few moments ago with that demonstrator is exactly right, that this protest is happening in a pretty charged political environment in this country right now.

And I just wonder if you have a sense as to the tone and the mood of the crowd. I mean, obviously, so many of these demonstrations have been totally peaceful, but there have been efforts in certain cities and so on to shut down intersections and that sort of thing.

Are you getting any sense as to what these demonstrators may ultimately want to do and the overall mood?

TODD: The overall mood is very peaceful, Jim. They want to be vociferous. They want their voices to be heard very loudly. The people on the stage are very, very passionate. And we're going to see those probably all day long, at least until Prime Minister Netanyahu is finished speaking.

He's supposed to speak at about 2:00. We expect the crowd to grow here. But as far as the tone, I can say that it's maybe even a little -- it's a little bit more subdued than the one that we covered in June at the White House, because there was just kind of a different mood then.

There wasn't -- the political tension had not been ramped up then like it has now. There is kind of a sense here that let's just kind of keep this a little bit more subdued, a little bit more -- maybe a little less marching around. But we're going to actually see how it unfolds because they -- you do get a sense from the crowd here.

They do have a very keen sense of the events that have unfolded over the last week-and-a-half. And we know that the police and other security services have that sense, because they have basically cordoned off this entire area.

And we were up at a synagogue in Northwest Washington about two hours ago when Prime Minister Netanyahu went to a service for Senator Joe Lieberman. And the tension up there was pretty palpable. They had cordoned off streets all over that area. Basically, it was choked off and you could not move.

It's not too different here. They just want to keep -- the security services, the police, they just want to keep these people confined in a certain area. And the people here do seem to have a very keen sense of, that they don't want to necessarily push their luck with the police at this point.

ACOSTA: All right, Brian Todd, thank you very much. Keep us posted on how things are going on your end.

Let's go to Jeremy Diamond, our correspondent in Tel Aviv, to talk about the status of these cease-fire talks, the stakes that are involved right now, the hostage negotiations.

I mean, Jeremy, a lot of questions have been raised as to the wisdom of having the prime minister of Israel coming to Washington during an election season. And now he's coming in, in a very charged political environment. We just saw an attempted assassination on Donald Trump, seeing Joe Biden exiting the race for the White House, Kamala Harris stepping in.

Tensions are high here in Washington. And I just have to wonder, is the prime minister -- and I know you can't maybe speak to this exactly. Is he planning to deliver some kind of news on these cease- fire talks and hostage negotiations, or is he simply coming to lay out the stakes as he sees them at this point?

[11:25:10]

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think it's probably the latter, Jim.

And part of that is because Prime Minister Netanyahu is not only delivering this address to Congress today. He's meeting tomorrow with President Biden, and it's only after that meeting ends, I'm told, that the Israeli negotiating team will be dispatched to meet with the negotiators, most likely in Doha, Qatar, to submit the latest Israeli response to this current round of negotiations.

And that delegation was actually supposed to leave tomorrow, but that trip has now been delayed because Netanyahu's meeting with President Biden was postponed from earlier this week to tomorrow. But, certainly, this speech this evening will be an opportunity for

Prime Minister Netanyahu to make his case for why Israel has been fighting this war in Gaza, why he views this war as essential to talk about October 7, to talk about the fate of the hostages, and effectively to try and provide some counterprogramming to what you're seeing on your screens right now, which is these protesters who are very much upset with the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza, people who argue against the Israeli government, people who view what's happening in Gaza as a genocide even.

And so, without a doubt, the Israeli prime minister will be looking to see if he can kind of revive bipartisan support for Israel, but we're already seeing what a challenge that is going to be for him, as dozens of Democratic lawmakers have said that they will not attend his speech, effectively boycotting it, some of them in protest for the way that the Israeli government is carrying out its military campaign in Gaza.

And so we're already watching that historically bipartisan support for Israel very much eroding, very much becoming a central issue in the 2024 campaign, which we know, of course, until dropping out, President Biden was very much contending with the difficulties of that, as a large number of the Democratic progressive base has been really upset at President Biden for his stalwart support of Israel, which we should note in recent months has frayed to a certain extent, not his support for Israel necessarily.

But, of course, he has taken steps to withhold certain munitions from Israel and has been very much increasingly critical of the way the Israeli military has been conducting itself in Gaza.

ACOSTA: Yes, and we can already detect perhaps a different tone and approach from Vice President Kamala Harris as she is taking the mantle of the Democratic Party in that race for the White House.

Jeremy Diamond, excellent coverage, as always, from Israel. We appreciate it. Thanks so much.

We will be right back.

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