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Antony Blinken Delivers Address at State Department; Israel Delays Cabinet Vote on Gaza Deal. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 16, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Walter Cronkite once said, freedom of the press is not just important to democracy. It is democracy.

I want to take a moment to show you something. A woman sent me this sign eight years ago. She carried it here at a march in Washington. She wrote on the back of the sign to me and the press here in D.C.: :You have our support."

To Norah, wherever you are, right back at you.

Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta.

The next hour of NEWSROOM starts right now.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Good morning. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

And we begin this hour with breaking news. At any moment, we're expecting to hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. With only a few full days left in the Biden administration, he will face growing concerns over a signature foreign policy accomplishment, a new deal between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Also this morning, officials in Los Angeles will give an update as firefighters are still contending with extreme hazards and the potential for fire growth, though they are making some progress. So we will get an update from them.

But back to our top story. At any moment, we are expecting to hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, where he will talk about this new deal between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza. It would begin freeing the hostages who have been held for more than 460 days.

But, this morning, Israel says it has delayed a Cabinet vote on the deal, accusing Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement by -- quote -- "attempting to extort last-minute concessions," and, this morning, new opposition within Israel. A key party in the Netanyahu government coalition is now threatening to quit if Israel doesn't return to war after a temporary cease-fire.

Hamas, it's worth noting, says it remains committed to the terms of the truce announced yesterday. So we're going to take you to Secretary Blinken when he begins speaking.

We have a lot to cover this morning.

Joining us to break it all down, CNN's Alex Marquardt here in Washington and CNN chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance in London.

Alex, bottom line, is the deal in jeopardy or is this just a minor hiccup along the way?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That is going to be the first question, I would guess, that goes to Secretary Blinken when he steps up to that podium.

Right now, from what we're hearing from top White House officials, is that the deal is still very much on track. And what they're arguing is that this is an implementation issue. And what I believe that means is, it really speaks to all the moving parts of this. This is a hugely complex deal.

You have the hostages who are supposed to come out starting on Sunday. I was told by a U.S. official today that they believe it will be three female hostages in this first group. And then you have got Palestinian prisoners who are going to get released, questions about where do they go, questions about how and where the aid starts to flow into the Gaza Strip.

So there are all kinds of questions that are still being worked out. So, for the time being, it still looks like a hiccup. Obviously, this is not going as smoothly as the Biden and incoming Trump administrations would have liked it to. Of course, we saw the crowing yesterday, the claiming of victory from both Donald Trump, from President Biden, from the Qataris.

They were all saying yesterday that this was a done deal. Clearly, it is not yet a done deal, whether things are actually in jeopardy, to what extent Prime Minister Netanyahu is playing to the far right members of his Cabinet or his base in Israel, I think those are questions.

But what is very clear at this point, putting aside the question of credit and who deserves the most credit, is that this was very much a joint collaboration, historically tight coordination, I would say, between an outgoing and an incoming administration.

What we're going to see go into effect hopefully on Sunday is the result of an extraordinary amount of work from the Biden administration, a framework that was put in place by President Biden at the end of last May. But in the preceding -- in the following eight months, they were not able to get it across the line.

Now, a lot changed that really upped the pressure on both Hamas and Israel to agree to this deal. But I don't think anyone can deny the fact that President Trump's election really changed a lot. It put a ticking clock on the Biden administration, so they wanted to step up things and get it done. But we also heard the emphasis from the incoming Trump officials and

the incoming president himself that he really wanted to get this done before he took office. So, if this goes into effect, as we expect it to on Sunday, it will be the last full day of the Biden administration.

But it will, of course, then fall to President Trump and his officials to oversee it, to implement it. And as we're seeing right now, it is hugely complicated, and that's just phase one, Pam. We have not started talking about phase two yet, which is arguably even more difficult.

BROWN: Yes, that's a really good point. And, as you just laid out, everything's still very delicate and tenuous, right? And a lot of people are on edge right now.

I want to bring you in, Matthew, because President Biden said in his farewell address that this deal would bring an end to the war. Israel, as we know, has vowed that it wants total destruction of Hamas to end the war.

[11:05:04]

But Secretary Blinken, we know, said recently that Hamas has replenished its ranks with new militants. So is this really the beginning of the end to this war?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I think it potentially is, yes, but, I mean, there are those issues about what happens when hostilities end.

What happens to Hamas? Are they still left in place as a de facto power inside the Gaza Strip? And I think that that's one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, that the right-wing parties inside Israel that provide the coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu with its support are objecting so much to the terms of this deal, the second phase of it.

Everybody in Israel wants the hostages out. But there is some controversy and division about the right way to do that and whether the war should come to an end before Hamas has been totally annihilated as a political and a military force.

And it's not entirely clear that the second phase of this peace deal would achieve that. And that's why those right-wing groups aren't altogether satisfied. There's also -- as we're hearing, there's some concern or there's some reports coming out about Hamas and the other Palestinian militant groups sort of putting obstacles in the way of the implementation of this deal as well.

We don't know exactly what that's about, but it could be about last- minute negotiations as to which Palestinian prisoners are going to be on the list to be released, because, remember, this is a two-way street. There's going to be hostages set free, but also there's going to be hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli jails. And the names on that list of Palestinians includes people who have been convicted of murder in Israel, of killing Israelis. And, inherently, that's incredibly controversial and there's a lot of objections to that amongst the right-wing and amongst ordinary Israelis, of course, to people like that being set free, Pam.

BROWN: Right. That's clearly a sticking point.

All right, stand by. We are waiting to hear from Secretary Blinken. But the bottom line is, if the current version of the cease-fire moves forward, 33 Israeli hostages will be released in this first phase both living and deceased.

Now, the first release expected on Sunday if the deal stands will be three female Israeli hostages. So, if that is the case, many hostages such as 20-year-old Nimrod Cohen you see right here, will not be part of that initial release. He is a member of the IDF and was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.

His father, Yehuda Cohen, says that he knows the road ahead is long and will not be easy. Yehuda joins us now.

You said the cease-fire agreement is just the beginning. What do you mean by that?

YEHUDA COHEN, FATHER OF HAMAS HOSTAGE: Well, first of all, we see that we didn't get to the beginning. There's still disputes mainly in our government between the one edge, Netanyahu, and the other edge, Smotrich.

Smotrich doesn't want the cease-fire. Smotrich wants more war, more blood. And, as you said before, Hamas is recruiting. So it will never end. And probably that's what Smotrich wants.

But as for the deal, we're looking for the point zero, which will be on Sunday, 12:15 noon, Israel time. And for us, well, let's say nothing changed, because we have to keep on fighting, first of all, that this phase one will go through. In parallel, counting 16 days, we need to see that details on the second phase are starting to be built, starting to be negotiated, and then, of course, the more difficult thing, as you said, getting the second phase going through, going out.

My son Nimrod, soldier, young, healthy, will be probably one of the last ones in the second phase. So we're looking at least three months of continuing to fight to make sure our government will be focused on one thing, getting the deal through, making sure they won't look left or right finding excuses to sabotage the deal.

We know the government did it in the past. It's officially been announced by Ben-Gvir that all these efforts were to make sure the deal won't come. Yes, it's a political issue, as you said. So we are there to make sure on the other side that the deal will go through.

We are for saving lives. We are for saying life is the most important thing. We want to end the war. We want to end suffrage. You want to end the killing on both sides. BROWN: This must be such an emotional roller coaster for you, to have been without your son for so long now and all the back-and-forth over the last 24 hours and knowing he likely won't be in this first phase.

[11:10:06]

And this is a difficult question, but I have to ask it. How confident are you Nimrod is still alive?

COHEN: We know Nimrod is still alive.

First of all, we know he got in alive. Hostages returned in the last deal more than a year ago...

BROWN: So, what did they tell you? The hostages that have been released before, what did they tell you about your son?

Oh, I think we lost him, unfortunately. Yehuda, I believe we have lost you.

All right. OK, well, we are still waiting to hear from Secretary Blinken.

And as we await for that press conference to happen, I want to go back to Alex here.

Hearing from the father, his son still held hostage by Hamas, and just the agony, it's a reminder of how many families really have a direct stake in this deal.

MARQUARDT: Someone said the word trauma. And I think, as we see scenes of celebration in Gaza and celebration, although a bit more muted in Tel Aviv, because I think there's still so much uncertainty in Israel, I think we have to remember what these two people have been through in the past 15 months and the amount of relief that is going to come as a result of this deal that will hopefully continue into the following phases.

You know, in Israel, you have 30 families, 33 families, hopefully who will get either their loved ones or the remains of their loved ones back home. And we don't know the exact numbers in either of those categories.

And we, frankly, don't know specifically how many people are still alive, how many hostages are still alive in Gaza. There's still so much uncertainty. But that will certainly be a relief for those families in Israel.

And then, in Gaza, you look at the latest estimates that have now grown to 60,000, 70,000 people who have been killed, and many, many more, multiples of that, injured, I mean, we're talking about 3 percent of the entire Gaza population that has been killed. I mean, that's as if 10-plus million Americans were killed.

So the trauma that the Palestinians and the Israelis are going to be feeling as a result of October 7 and the war that has followed is going to last for years, if not generations. So that's why there's so much hope that this deal will actually come to fruition.

BROWN: I believe Secretary Blinken is speaking right now, so let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This has been quite an eventful final week for this administration, making good on the president's commitment to use every minute, every day, of every week that we had to get results.

When I came down here on my first full day in office, back when I had a little bit less gray hair, as my daughter likes to point out, I spoke about how the work that we do to keep the American people and the world informed through you, with you, could not be more important.

Most of us have traveled well more than a million miles now together. We have done it with a remarkable press corps, people that I have gotten to know as colleagues. If I said friends, that might actually create problems for you, but let me simply say how much I appreciate the partnership, the professionalism, the work that we have done.

I have even greater respect, even greater appreciation for you asking the tough questions, for you holding us to account. Being on the receiving end, sometimes that's not always the most comfortable thing, not always the most enjoyable thing, but it is the most necessary thing in our democracy.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs. Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal?

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: I'm happy to address questions.

QUESTION: You long knew we had a deal. Everyone in this room knows we had a deal, Tony, and you kept the bombs flowing.

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: I'm happy to address questions when we get a chance. Thank you.

QUESTION: Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of (CROSSTALK)

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Why did you allow my friends to be massacred?

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: I'm happy to address your questions when we get to questions. Thank you. Thank you. QUESTION: You helped destroy our religion...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you want to finish?

BLINKEN: Yes, I have a statement to make. I have a statement to make. Thank you.

QUESTION: You waved the white flag before Netanyahu. You waved the white flag before Israeli fascism.

BLINKEN: I look forward to taking questions when I get a chance to finish my statement. Thank you.

QUESTION: Your father-in-law is an Israel lobbyist. Your grandfather was an Israel lobbyist. Are you compromised by Israel?

Why did you allow the holocaust of our time to happen? How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide? How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide? You too, Matt. You smirk through the whole thing every day. You smirk through the genocide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

BLINKEN: Thank you. And thank you, Matt.

Now, I have got a few more things to say, and I'm happy to take any question about anything, as we have done these past four years. And, indeed, I will talk a little bit about the developments the last few days as well.

[11:15:06]

But I first really wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you. And also thank you to...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, maybe not everyone.

BLINKEN: Well, OK, I was -- there's an asterisk. And, yes, thank you, Matt Lee, but also to a remarkable press team here led by Matt Miller, who do the work every day of trying to make sure that you're informed, the American people are informed.

Let me also just take a step back before diving into the developments of this week, these last days, just to consider how far we have come over these past four years, and also to think a little bit about where we might be going from here.

When President Biden took office, the United States faced the worst public health crisis in more than a century. It faced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and unprecedented breaches with allies and partners around the world.

Our adversaries saw a historic opportunity to work together to challenge our interests, to challenge our global standard, to challenge the international system of rules and principles on which our security and prosperity depend.

First time I had an opportunity to speak at length in this role, I laid out how we would work to leverage American diplomacy to safeguard and accelerate America's renewal, how we would reimagine and revitalize our greatest strategic asset, our unmatched network of allies and partners to deliver on issues that actually matter in the lives of our fellow citizens, matter in their livelihoods, matter in their futures, and to defend against increasingly assertive and aggressive revisionist authoritarian powers, and also how we would modernize our own diplomacy to try to deliver on these priorities to ensure that this department is ready to meet the tests of a more contested, more complicated, a more combustible world.

As President Biden emphasized when he was here on Monday, thanks to historic investments at home and around the world, the United States can now operate from a position of greater strength to tackle all of these challenges.

Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. Our strategy of renewal is to set the stage for America to win the fierce competition, to shape a new era of international affairs, to the benefit of our people, to the benefit of people around the world.

And I think this week was another reminder both of the power and the purpose of American leadership and American diplomacy. Over 15 months of devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas, we have worked to broke a deal that would bring hostages home, that would stop the fighting, that would surge humanitarian aid to people who so desperately need it, that would create the space to conclude a permanent fire.

We now have that, and we expect implementation of the agreement to begin on Sunday. As President Biden said yesterday, after more than 400 days of struggle, a day of success has arrived.

I want to thank our fellow mediators, Qatar and Egypt, for their extraordinary partnership. And I want to thank my colleagues, in particular, Jake Sullivan, Bill Burns, Brett McGurk, for their remarkable skill, tireless dedication over these many months of negotiation.

QUESTION: Will you recognize that the Geneva Conventions apply to the Palestinians?

BLINKEN: And, again, I'm happy to address questions when we have a chance. I'm happy to address questions in a moment. Thank you.

This is a moment of tremendous relief for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The daughter of one hostage spoke for many when she said: "I can't wait to see them come back to their families. I'm so desperate to see them."

A mother of five displaced from Gaza City said simply: "We are being reborn."

It's also a moment of historic possibility for the region and well beyond. It's going to take tremendous effort, political courage, compromise to realize that possibility to try to ensure that the gains that have been achieved over the past 15 months at enormous excruciating costs are actually enduring, to manage the still-profound risks, to deliver on the promise of a more integrated Middle East.

And, simply put, to forge this reality, there are two immediate imperatives, first, to fully implement the cease-fire deal, and then, second, to finalize a plan, an effective plan, as I spelled out earlier this week, that provides for Gaza's transitional governance, its security, its reconstruction, and that can make the halt in fighting endure.

Delivering on these two priorities will in turn create the conditions for Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations between them, which will require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. On each of these imperatives, we have delivered concrete progress and we have laid a foundation for success, which we will hand over to the incoming administration.

[11:20:05]

Together, they represent a historic opportunity to advance the long- term interests of the United States, our partners in the region, and around the Middle East.

In Ukraine as well, we have seen the results of steadfast American leadership. We rallied and kept together some 50 countries to help Ukraine defend itself from Putin's war of aggression. Through Ukrainian courage and also Western resolve and firepower, Ukraine repelled Russia's invasion and took back half the territory it originally seized.

We marshaled commitments from countries around the world that will help Ukraine deter and defend against future attacks and stand on its own feet militarily, economically, democratically.

We have also imposed the most ambitious sanctions and export controls ever on Russia, cutting off its biggest banks, reducing dramatically Europe's reliance on Russian energy, oil and gas, almost to zero at this point.

As a result of some of our latest sanctions, Russian oil tankers are piling up along the Chinese coast unable to off-load. Ukraine will continue to stand as an independent democratic nation anchored in the West with the freedom to choose its own future.

If we sustain our support for Ukraine, if we continue to exacerbate Putin's growing manpower and economic dilemmas, we can continue to help Ukrainians gain leverage to negotiate, adjust, and secure peace.

Now, I got back from what was my 21st trip to the Indo-Pacific in this job just a short while ago, a region where the United States is now competing from a position of strength. We brought our regional allies together, our partners together around a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, where goods and ideas and people flow freely, where rules are applied fairly and transparently, where countries are free to choose both their own path and their own partners.

We enhanced bilateral relationships with our core treaty allies, with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines. We forged a new era of trilateral cooperation with Japan and Korea, with Japan and the Philippines as well. We reenergized the Quad with Japan, India, Australia, strengthened our relationships with ASEAN, the Pacific Island countries, elevated partnerships with Vietnam and Indonesia.

As the DPRK and the PRC continue to fuel Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine, underscoring how European and Asian security are indivisible, we have also built enduring bridges between our Pacific and Atlantic allies and partners. Australia, Japan and South Korea provided important support to Ukraine.

In 2021, European allies were on the verge of signing a massive trade agreement with China. Now they're coordinating with us on everything from investment screening mechanisms to supply chain resilience to pushing back on China's overcapacity and unfair trade practices.

At the same time, we have managed our competition with China responsibly so it doesn't veer into conflict, while also cooperating on challenges where the world expects great powers to lead and where it's clearly in the interest of the American people, from climate change to fentanyl.

We have also demonstrated that other countries can rely on the United States to tackle some of our biggest share of challenges and deliver on some of our own national aspirations, preventing disease outbreaks, enhancing food security, accelerating the clean energy transition, bringing together a global coalition of more than 160 countries to address the synthetic opioid crisis.

As we celebrate the return of hostages in Gaza, including Americans, as we look to relief for the people of Gaza, I'm also thinking of all those U.S. citizens who are held wrongfully, who are hostage in countries around the world.

I carry with me...

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: Again, I'm happy to address questions in just a few more minutes. I look forward to answering questions in a few more minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... lots of speeches. Let's answer some questions.

BLINKEN: I look forward to answering questions. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... making another speech every day. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, you would like to be escorted out?

QUESTION: No way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (OFF-MIKE)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) questions.

BLINKEN: Thank you. I look forward to answering questions in a minute. Thank you.

QUESTION: I'm a journalist. I'm a not a potted plant.

BLINKEN: Everyone will have an opportunity to ask questions in just a minute. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Miller has explicitly told me he will not answer my questions. I'm justified in what I'm doing.

BLINKEN: So, I have no greater pleasure in this job than crossing off a list I carry in my pocket, the names of those who had been arbitrarily detained and unfairly held hostage, unjustly held hostage, and bringing them home, returning them to their families, returning them to their loved ones.

Finally, I just wanted to share this morning...

QUESTION: Get your hands off me. Get your hands off me. Get your hands off me. Get your hands off me.

Answer a damn question.

BLINKEN: I look forward to answering questions in a few minutes.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... about Israel's nuclear weapons, everybody from the ICJ.

I was sitting here quietly, and now I'm being manhandled by two or three people. You pontificate about a free press? You pontificate about a free press?

[11:25:10]

You are hurting me. You are hurting me. You are hurting me.

I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions until I ask...

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: Please sir, respect the process. We will have an opportunity to take questions in a few minutes.

QUESTION: Wasn't the point of the May 31 statement to block the ICJ orders? You blocked the ICJ orders.

BLINKEN: Please, sir, respect the process. Thank you.

QUESTION: Oh, respect the process. Respect this process while everybody from the -- from Amnesty International, from Amnesty International to the ICJ saying that Israel is doing genocide and extermination. And you're telling me to respect of process.

Criminals. Why aren't you in The Hague? Why aren't you in The Hague? Why aren't you in The Hague?

BLINKEN: Finally, we have worked to modernize our diplomacy, so that we're more agile, we're more effective, we're more prepared for the challenges of a new era.

We have reorganized this department to lead on issues that increasingly animate our diplomacy, whether it's emerging technology, public health, strategic competition, economic statecraft. We have embraced new tools and approaches from integrating data and A.I. into the work that we do, strengthening our capacity to anticipate, to plan for risks, as well as opportunities in this more volatile world.

Maybe most important, we have invested in our people, improving our hiring and retention practices, diversifying our work force, strengthening our training, providing more support to employees throughout their careers.

We have hired the largest Foreign Service officer class in more than a decade, and we have grown our civil service corps at the fastest rate in more than 20 years. It was gratifying to me and I think to everyone in this department that among the first and last stops President Biden made in his tenure was right here at the State Department.

I think that is powerful evidence of the trust that he placed in us to carry out this country's foreign policy. Our diplomats represent this country with exceptional skill, with professionalism, with heart. They often do so at great personal sacrifice, little fanfare, in some of the world's most challenging environments.

It has been, simply put, the greatest of honors to be able to work shoulder to shoulder with them. These past four years, there have also been moments of disappointment, of hardship, of heartbreak.

But I leave this job knowing that we spent every day thinking about and working toward what we believe is best for our people, the citizens we have the immense privilege of representing. And I'm confident we leave office with our country and with this department in a much stronger position than we found it.

And now, with that, one last time, I look forward to taking some questions.

Mr. Miller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Matt, want to start us off? QUESTION: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and thank you for your

very opening comments about the work, the cooperation with us, the press corps.

Even when we haven't always been satisfied or -- with the answers, we do certainly appreciate the -- your willingness to engage with us. And so thank you for that.

I want to start -- I actually only have one question. Exactly 16 years ago today, January 16, 2009, former outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had her final press briefing here. And all of the questions she got were about Israel and Gaza, every single one of them

And she said, we were working on an enduring cease-fire. She was about to sign an agreement with then Foreign Minister Livni that would move toward that way. She was working with international partners. Names have changed, but countries pretty much the same, Egypt, the Europeans, the Gulf Arab states.

And so, 16 years ago, we were in the same situation that we're in now, particularly because the cease-fire, the current one, still seems to be in limbo. And I'm wondering if you can point to any progress that has been made over the course of those -- the Bush administration, the Obama administration.

Has there been anything that has changed or given you hope?