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Erin Burnett Outfront

4.0 Magnitude Aftershock In Northeast After Rare Earthquake; Sources: U.S. Preparing For "Significant" Attack by Iran; Former Russian Minister: Putin Will Harm Biden's Re-Election. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired April 05, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:40]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

Breaking news, new aftershocks rattling New York and New Jersey after a rare Northeast earthquake. Residents told to remain indoors. Entire region on edge at this hour.

And more breaking news, the U.S. is preparing for a significant attack by Iran, targeting American and Israeli assets.

Plus, only on OUTFRONT, a startling warning from a former Russian minister, saying Putin is so desperate to get Biden out of office that he's looking to do something in summer or early fall to harm Biden's reelection chances.

Let's go OUTFRONT

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, there are new aftershocks, just rocking the Northeast, the tremors following what was the strongest earthquake to hit New York in 140 years, buildings across Americas largest city were shaken by the quake. It was four 0.8.

The tremors, so powerful at one point that you can actually see the Statue of Liberty swaying. You could certainly feel them through your body, but just move that statue gives you a signal of the power. The epicenter of the quake was just west of the city, and that is where some of the most dramatic pictures are coming into CNN.

As up tonight, there have been 11 formal aftershocks prompting officials in New York city tonight to advise people to remain indoors, call 911 if injured. In New Jersey, some people have been forced to evacuate their homes over fears of structural damage.

Today's earthquake also disrupting transportation across the Northeast for hours, the flights were grounded, flame like circling in the air, unable to land, during a ground stop at Newark. And trains along Amtrak's busiest line were delayed while crews inspected the rails, to make sure there wasn't serious damage.

And tonight, officials are warning the aftershocks are not over. Our Jason Carroll is live in New York for us. Chad Myers is that the weather center tracking the aftershocks as we are feeling them.

And I want to begin first with you, Jason. We all did just experience a 4.0 aftershock where you are, where I am. What was that like where you're standing?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty much been business as usual here in Times Square, but that's not to say there haven't been a few rattled nerves you mentioned that aftershock, we heard from other mayor's office. There's spokesperson said that they felt the aftershock where they are aftershocks, something that's pretty common after an earthquake. Just not something that's commonly felt here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): It shook pictures off walls in this home in Middlesex, New Jersey, and had many dogs and at least one cat running for cover.

And had some East Coast residents like this one in Bridgewater, New Jersey, questioning exactly what had happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's that?

CARROLL: The magnitude 4.8 quake hit at 10:23 a.m. according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter near Lebanon, New Jersey, located about 50 miles west of New York City. It was the strongest to hit New Jersey since before it was even a state, 1783, the year the U.S. defeated Great Britain and won the revolutionary war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this an earthquake?

CARROLL: The quake felt as far north as Maine. Residents also reported feeling it in Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C.

The tremor temporarily caused a ground stop at all three major airports New York City. Three homes in Newark, New Jersey had to be evacuated due to structural damage, though no reports of major damage or injuries in the tri-state are.

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY: New Yorkers should go about their normal day first responders are working to make sure the city is safe.

CARROLL: The event, anything but business as usual, for people in a city and region of the country, not accustomed to the ground suddenly shifting beneath their feet.

NED TANNER, FELT EARTHQUAKE IN NEW YORK CITY: Me and my colleague were on the 83rd floor 30 Hudson Yards. And so we've got in a pretty good shape.

ARACHE PALACIOS, FELT EARTHQUAKE IN NEW YORK CITY: But they're trying because let me those very weird to feel an earthquake. CARROLL: Given the vast critical infrastructure of the region, New York's governor says structural engineering teams dispatched to inspect the city's bridges, tunnels, and subways.

[19:05:01]

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D), NEW YORK: We're going to be reviewing all potentially vulnerable infrastructure state sites throughout the state of New York that is critically important in the aftermath of an event like this.

CARROLL: And while the quake didn't last long, ten seconds or so by some accounts, it left an impression with those who felt it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (on camera): And, Erin, it should be noticed that so far there have been 11 aftershocks most of them too small to be felt like anyone. But again, it's another reminder that there are fault lines on the Eastern Seaboard and they do move -- Erin.

BURNETT: Thank you very much, Jason Carroll.

Chad Myers, as I mentioned, standing by a for us as well.

So, Chad, 4.8 magnitude after shock is coming, eight hours after the initial 4.8, which was felt as many of us felt it right throughout the Northeast. So could more aftershocks be coming and could they be big?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think 4-0 is probably as big as were going to get the rest will be likely smaller, but it's not out of the question that we could go to 4.5. And then if we go higher than that, then this doesn't become an aftershock, it becomes the foreshock here because obviously now it could be larger than this. We get 4.8, but it was only three miles deep. I mean, that earth really shook.

This felt like, if you weren't there, it felt like riding an old wooden roller coaster. It was just a violent little shaking and not that rolling thing where buildings are really swaying.

BURNETT: Yeah.

MYERS: This was truly a shaking like dry grabbing you by the back of the neck and just giving you a big shake, but tell you what worldwide we get so many thousands of earthquakes that are this large every single year, like 13,000 even on this map. There are 700 between 4.0 and 5.0 on my map right now in the past 30 days.

But look where they are, the Ring of Fire, and then all of a sudden, there is one little guy there in New York City. So that's a rare, rare event, even though we get thousands of these a year, not here in this area and it was the largest for a very long time, the third largest, although I'm not sure back in the 1700s, what kind of equipment they truly had.

BURNETT: Fair. MYERS: A lot of people felt some shaking, you know?

BURNETT: Right, right, an important and important point to make, Chad.

All right. Thank you. And I liked the roller coaster analogy from Chad. I described the chat is sort of to me it felt like its sitting on top of a washing machine when it was on spin.

MYERS: Yeah.

BURNETT: All right.

MYERS: One rug in it, right?

BURNETT: Yeah. Right. Exactly.

All right. Chad, thank you very much.

I want to go down to Maureen Long, a seismologist.

And, Maureen, you know, as Chad was pointing out, it appears at this point that he was like you could get an aftershock up to four or five, mostly they'll get smaller and that if something really comes along bigger than what we experienced today would have been a four-shot which makes people watching pause I would think.

What the possibility of something like that?

MAUREEN LONG, SEISMOLOGIST: Yes. So the U.S. Geological Survey put out a forecast of aftershocks this morning shortly after the magnitude 4.8 at the time they were predicting there was about a 50 percent chance of an aftershock of magnitude three or larger. And as we saw about an hour ago, we did indeed see a magnitude 4.0 aftershock.

The most likely scenario is that we will see some aftershocks continuing in the days, maybe even weeks to come. The most likely scenario is that that 4.0 aftershock that we felt just recently will be the largest one. However, there is a small chance that there will indeed be a larger earthquake, an earthquake larger than that 4.8. That is not the most likely scenario. The chance of that happening is less than 1 percent, but it is something that folks in the area should be aware of and we should all know but what to do if we feel strong earthquake shaking.

BURNETT: So let me ask you that something else that stands out about this because when you say there's less than 1 percent chance people look at that map of the Ring of Fire and then there's one random dot and they say, okay, well something really unexpected that really shouldn't be happening like this just happened. So what, what should I think?

I mean, obviously, by global standards, as Chad pointed out, this is not a big earthquake, right? It's nothing compared to what they just went through in Taiwan as another example. But, you know, you also have one today, there was a midst all this. People may not have noticed in Tonga, in the Pacific, there was a 5.6 earthquake.

Some people are linking all of this together. Is there any reason to believe there's any connection between any of it?

LONG: Well, it's certainly a good question and a very natural question to ask, but the answer really is no. You know, as you've noted already, there, the earth experiences a lot of earthquakes and this was not the biggest earthquake in the worlds today, not -- not by a long shot. It is, of course, unusual for this region, which is why for those of us who live in the greater New York area, and I felt the earthquake myself in New Haven, Connecticut --

[19:10:06]

BURNETT: Yeah.

LONG: It feels very unusual because it is unusual for us.

But on a global perspective, you know, magnitude 4.8 earthquake is not unusual and certainly in places like California or Taiwan, as we saw with the magnitude 7.4 earthquake earlier -- earlier this week, those are places that are used to more earthquakes than we see here at eastern North America.

BURNETT: Absolutely. And I wanted to play something for you that the seismologist, Marco Brenna, he's from the University of Otago in New Zealand before this happened, but recently in the past couple of months. He did an interview with NPR and he was talking about whether the severe weather events that have become, you know, what you're going to have severe weather out west. You had severe weather this week, in the east, whether there's any relationship between that and some of these other events. And here's what he told NPR.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MARCO BRENNA, SEISMOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO IN NEW ZEALAND: The increasing recurrence sorties weather events the subconsciously increasing natural disasters like those earthquakes and volcanoes, but it's totally different systems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: What do you think, Maureen?

LONG: Well, this is a question that scientists certainly are studying but as yet, we do not have strong evidence are really much evidence that whether directly affects tectonics. And this really, this -- this event was a tectonic event. And we would, we expect there's really no indication that that weather affects that.

There are some mechanisms where weather and climate can affect earthquakes, for example, in places where we are pumping groundwater out of the earth very, very quickly, say that can sometimes change the stress state and trigger small earthquakes. However, for this particular earthquake that we saw today, there's every indication that this was a tectonic earthquake and was not affected by the weather or climate.

BURNETT: All right. Well, Maureen, thank you very much. Really fascinating and learn a lot just having the conversation. So thank you

LONG: Of course. Good to be with you.

BURNETT: All right

And next, we have more breaking news. Trump's legal team has just come out with a new filing, trying to remove the judge in his New York hush money case, which is set to go to trial and just days. There's specific reason he's trying to do it. We're going to explain.

And also breaking this hour, we have new reporting that the United States is preparing for what they calling a, quote, significant, that's their word, and also their word inevitable attack by Iran, and attack that they say could come within days. We have new reporting on that.

And another major setback in efforts to free hostages being held in Gaza. Hamas now rejecting Israel's latest proposal, the parents of an American who is still being held by Hamas in Gaza tonight will be OUTFRONT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:17:22]

BURNETT: Breaking news, a new court filing by former President Trump just made public. Trump's team arguing the judge in Trump's criminal hush money case should be recused, among the reasons Judge Juan Marshawn daughter, who Trump has been focused on for more than a year now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have a Trump-hating judge with the Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign and a lot of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Now, Marshawn's daughter has been employed by a company that did work for Democratic political candidates. It is unclear what role she played.

OUTFRONT now, Ryan Goodman, our legal analyst, Basil Smikle, former executive director of the New York state Democratic Party, and David Urban, Trump's 2020 senior campaign adviser.

All right, thanks to all of you.

So, Ryan, let me just start with you because you've had a chance to go through the exact allegations that are being made by Trump as to why Juan Marshawn should be recused because of his daughter. What do you make of it?

RYAN GOODMAN, CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, JUST SECURITY: I think the motion is on a road to nowhere part of the reason is that the core of the motion is the idea that its not -- that she directly financially benefits or is even unrelated to a party to the case, but rather her company's clients sent out solicitations for money that refer to the case. So it's not even her company, but their clients --

BURNETT: So, her company's client.

GOODMAN: Correct.

BURNETT: Just to make state the obvious, that's something her company does not control what they do.

GOODMAN: Yes, there's no direct link in motion. Second is all of those almost all of their solicitations occurred way back in 2023 the lawyers actually in mid already tried to get the judge to recuse, and they said in that very motion, oh, the clients of the company could refer to the case. So they've made the argument.

The idea that there would now make the argument on the eve of the trial about to start again, I think the judge would refuse it out of hand almost. In fact, I have to make arguments as to what's changed. What are the circumstances that have changed, and they don't refer to the fact that the solicitations are new or their discovery is new because they can't.

BURNETT: So, all right. So you're saying it just simply doesn't add up and it doesn't add up under New York law or near precedent.

Nonetheless, David, Trump is making a play, right, that this will -- his effort to do this will matter, at least in the court of public opinion.

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Listen, I think, you know, Ryan's probably perhaps correct on the legal aspects here, but let's not forget that what Judge Marshawn did do in the past that he should probably recuse himself for it, there's three donations that he made and I just want to make sure I get them correct because they're important. One to the progressive Turnout Project, two, Biden for president, and then three to an organization, Stop Republicans, which describes its purposes resisting the Republican Party, and Donald Trump's right-wing legacy, right?

So he did make those three he did now --

BURNETT: Hold on one point, David. Let me just -- let me just add just for the full thing is in there. I believe they were $10 each for progressive voters and Stop Republicans.

URBAN: OK --

BURNETT: I understand your point, I just want to point the numbers out there. Go ahead. Go ahead URBAN: Okay. So under the ABA model rules for judicial conduct, as

well as in New York state ethics rules, any political activity is forbidden and requires recusal. Any, it doesn't say $10, it doesn't say $100. It doesn't say a thousand. It says any.

And as Ryan knows and as Basil knows because he's a smart guy, when these things are written, they're written purposefully and that word any was in there. It didn't say there wasn't $1 threshold. So he should recuse himself because it gives -- if it's not facially a conflict, it gives the appearance of a conflict. And I'm sure there's another judge in Manhattan. They could try this case without presenting such a blatant appearance of a conflict, right.

BURNETT: Hold, Ryan, I'm going to give you a chance to respond. What do you make of that?

GOODMAN: So some of these arguments have already been made before. There maybe -- there's something of a good argument on either side, but the New York state committee on judicial ethics weighed in and they actually said, you've got to green line here. You do not need to recuse yourself, including for the company and for the judge's daughter.

So the judge cited that before in August of 2023, so it needs to be something new here and the brief trying to make something new says, oh, well, something news that the judge just recently gave an interview, but the quotes out of the interview or the judge saying things like I will try to abide by the law. Ive really prepared myself for the case.

BURNETT: All right. So, Basil, all right.

URBAN: What about the appearance portion? The appearance portion?

GOODMAN: That's not an appearance. So if the Committee for Judicial Ethics, which is made up of --

URBAN: No, I'm saying the appearance of a conflict, Ryan.

GOODMAN: Right. But if the Committee for the Judicial Ethics says that these things don't create a conflict and its hard for you to come around and say, well, the appearance of them might create a conflict, if they actually, if the relationships were true --

BURNETT: But, I guess, Basil, I want to give you a chance to weigh in here. I am maybe David, you correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're back to the court of public opinion, right?

URBAN: Yes, absolutely.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Basil, is there a point to be made there, separate from the fact that there's not a conflict and that the ethics of waiting and all of everything, if the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted, Basil, the perception in the public eye. BASIL SMIKLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think I -- listen, I understand the argument that you don't want any political activity. But to me, this, all of this is about accountability, right? So if you, if you're saying -- and as Ryan said that there's a committee that looked at this and said, you know what, there's not a problem. I've been a government worker. I've had committees of ethics look over my work and the things that I may be involved with outside of that specific job. If they look at it, see there's a problem. I get reprimanded or removed.

And I think that level of accountability is really what we're talking about at the heart of all of Donald Trump's -- Donald Trump's cases, right? It's always been accountability. I don't think that this rises to the level of recusal. In fact, I think it just really goes into Donald Trump's constant tactic, which is delay, and in part intimidate.

And as we said before, this trial was about to go forward so this is seems to be a last ditch effort to try to extend them at time

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: Erin, what you want, listen, this is such a high profile case, right? What -- you're telling me you cant find a judge in Manhattan that doesn't have a daughter who is a partisan political activist, and who has it made political donations. There's got to be one, right? And so I would think that your, Basil, or something the other side of the eye and say, listen, let's find somebody. So these guys can complain about anything.

Let's find somebody with a stainless reputation who has no political activity. Maybe it's impossible, man, I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

GOODMAN: I kind of think the opposite. Go ahead.

SMIKLE: Go ahead --

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Go ahead, Ryan. I give you the final word, Basil.

GOODMAN: Very quickly. I think that's actually what the committee on judicial ethics is worried about. There would be worried about the idea that we would even think that judges are political because of what their family members do. That's part of the bright line.

They actually say what a family member wants to do, they can be involved in politics, and that shouldn't impugn our courts. It's wrong to impugn our courts, even to suggest that is an appearance of impropriety or politics. It's not, the judges doing his job.

BURNETT: And a quick final word as promised, Basil.

SMIKLE: No, it's actually that -- it's exactly the point I was going to make that what were doing here is digging into the judge's family. This is really not just about the judge. This is more of a dig into the judge's family and that to me is where this territory gets really dangerous, really shady, really problematic.

[19:25:03]

And that's why I feel like, you know, even if you want to say, is there another judge out there that we can look at, I'm fine with this, judge. What I'm not fine with is going after the judge's family. That's the -- that's the bright line that I don't think we should cross.

BURNETT: All right. Well, it's a thought-provoking conversation, was thinking. Thank you all very much.

And next, the breaking news on Iran. CNN is learning that the United States is preparing for what they are calling a significant attack by Iran in the coming days.

Plus, only on OUTFRONT, a former Russian minister warning tonight that Putin is so desperate to have Biden lose that he's looking to harm his reelection this summer or early fall with specific action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: We have breaking news. The United States is bracing for a, quote, significant. That word is the quote from the government also inevitable. They say attack by Iran as soon as within the next week. The source on this as a senior administration official telling our own MJ Lee.

Officials believe both us and Israeli personnel and assets in the Middle East will be targeted. Iranians have been promising retaliation for that strike in Syria, in which two of its top commanders were killed, including one who replaced the one that was killed in the strike authorized by former President Trump.

[19:30:09]

MJ Lee broke this story as I said, and she is OUTFRONT at the White House.

MJ, these are very sobering words to talk about, but this is inevitable that it is perhaps imminent. What more are you learning?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Erin, we are alerting tonight that the U.S. is on high alert for what could be the significant attack by Iran, and that it could come as soon as within the next week. Now, this attack, as you said, would be in response to that Israeli airstrike that killed -- in Damascus that killed a number of top commanders, Iranian commanders. And of course, U.S. and Israeli officials that we are talking to say that they are fully preparing for what might be coming, but that they don't know exactly at this moment in time what form that attack would take place.

Now, as of Friday, we are told that officials don't know exactly what is to come, but that it could come in a number of different forms and that it is both us and Israeli assets and personnel in the region that are potentially at risk.

Now, a direct strike on Israel would, of course, be incredibly worrisome for the U.S., especially because it would have the effect of escalation leading a situation in the Middle East that is already so tumultuous. And what the U.S. has, of course, wanted to avoid for so many months. Now is a situation where the Israel-Hamas war ends up broadening out into a bigger regional conflict.

Now, the U.S., we are also told has directly warned Iran that it should not come after us assets in the region -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, MJ Lee.

Also tonight, the context here is more questions than answers still about the Israeli military strike in which seven humanitarian aid workers were killed in Gaza.

There are still questions even after the release of an internal report by Israel that tried to explain what happened.

Nic Robertson is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): The IDF's timeline, a catalog of arrows unfolding over 45 minutes, misidentification of the vehicles, misclassification of the event, culminating in the deadly strikes at 11:09 p.m. 11:11, and 11:13 Monday night.

REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, IDF SPOKESMAN: These operational misidentification and misclassification was the result of internal failures.

ROBERTSON: This, the IDF's first public report explaining why they killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers admitting a grave mistake.

HAGARI: The soldiers conducted the strike without any awareness that these were in fact WCK vehicles. At the time, they were certain that they were targeting Hamas.

ROBERTSON: The investigation found that the forces identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman after the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid had been unloaded, one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles.

In a separate briefing, adding more detail and specificity to the public report, the IDF told journalists that they had missed something slung over the shoulder of one of the passengers mistakenly thinking it was a weapon. On closer examination, they discovered it was a bag.

They also destroyed and harrowing detail how the aid workers have fled from the first vehicle when it was hit to another vehicle, only to be killed seconds later.

World Central Kitchen have described the report as cold comfort for the outrageous killing of their staff, whom they say the IDF acknowledges followed all proper communications procedures., Adding video the IDF showed them fails to show any cause to fire on our personnel.

The United States withholding judgment on the report.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're reviewing it very carefully. We'll be discussing as conclusions with Israeli officials and with humanitarian organizations in the days to come. It's very important that Israel is taking full responsibility for this incident.

ROBERTSON: Two commanders fired a major and a reserve colonel, three others disciplined, triggering pushback from hard line ministers and pushback from the U.N. secretary general.

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: Essential problem is not who made the mistakes, fixing those failures requires independent investigations, and meaningful and measurable changes on the grounds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Well, I don't think there's any expectation here that there's going to be an independent investigation.

[19:35:05]

But their sense of growing international pressure does seem to be taking root. The prime ministers office is saying that this is just a preliminary investigation, that there will be more details to come and they're saying this won't be in a few months time. They saying this should happen really over the next few days, perhaps weeks -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Next, thank you very much in Israel tonight.

And then another major development this hour, we're learning Hamas is rejecting Israel's latest counterproposal to free the remaining hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for nearly six months. The latest setback comes after protests have erupted in Israel, anger over the inability to free the hostages has been reaching a boiling point.

OUTFRONT now, Israeli-American Jonathan Dekel-Chen and his wife Gillian Kaye.

Jonathan's on Sagui, who also has dual citizenship, has been held captive by Hamas for 182 days.

So, it's six months on Sunday since Sagui was ripped from his home, from his young family. He's had a baby born since then, life has continued and here we are.

Could you ever have imagined six months later that he would not be home? JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN, FATHER OF ISRAELI-AMERICAN HELD HOSTAGER BY HAMAS: No, it would have been impossible to imagine I think we try not if possible, not to think in those terms, but to take every day as a new challenge and perhaps the day that we can move the needle just enough to get the hostages home.

BURNETT: And, Gillian, the protests I mentioned. We've seen the largest protests so far. I mean, there have been all the way along, but it has gotten more and more intense in Israel in recent weeks. It's frustration that Prime Minister Netanyahu, because he has not been able to secure the release of hostages some of the protesters outside, the prime minister's home in Jerusalem were physically confronted, overpowered by police.

What do you think when you see these images, the protests, when you see other protesters are being treated -- how do you even process that?

GILLIAN KAYE, STEPMOTHER OF ISRAEL-AMERICAN HELD HOSTAGE BY HAMAS: I think it's inevitable. It's inevitable that the anger, the fear, it's impossible. It's 183 days today?

DEKEL-CHEN: Yeah.

KAYE: Three days today. And I think it's inevitable that it would happen. I think we understand it has to happen that the pressure needs to continue to ramp up and ramp up.

And there's no waiting anymore, right? There's -- it has to happen. I do think there's been a confluence as, you know, in Israel of somewhat of the anti-government protesting and the protesting around the hostages and the hostage families and you're just seeing rage.

BURNETT: Rage.

And, Jonathan, the tragedy here when we talk about what happened with the aid workers and these horrible things that are happening. It all -- the situation inside Gaza where Sagui is, where people are being killed is unfathomably horrible. There is -- there are -- people are starving. There's an aid worker, Mahmoud Shalabi. He'd been sending us dispatches from Gaza, and honestly, we hadn't heard from in a little while and we didn't know and we're worried.

We actually got a voice note from him today first one in a little while. I just wanted to share it with you. This is what he's actually saw today and sent us. Here it is.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MAHMOUD SHALABI, AID WORKER IN NORTHERN GAZA: It's really difficult. We are struggling to secure food. We are struggling to secure water. There is no power, there is no infrastructure. The health system has collapsed, officially has collapsed after the destruction of Shifa.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BURNETT: What goes to your mind when you hear that? I mean, just the suffering of people. Sagui being there.

DEKEL-CHEN: I don't think any decent minded person in Israel or anywhere else can be anything but horrified by the conditions that the people of Gaza have had to endure these many months. I completely understand why they are so full of fear for themselves, for their children but here's the other truth -- we've gotten here after six months because of a massacre on October 7, in which 1,400 Israelis, men, women, and children from my kibbutz alone, from our kibbutz community alone, 40 people were murdered. From two years old to mid 70s.

It's that massacre by Hamas that set off a horrific chain of events, horrific, where no one benefits and the people of Gaza are being held as captive by Hamas as my son, and the other 134 Israeli hostages. And the sad truth is that until they come home we hope alive, but we really don't know, until they come home, there is no way to move forward towards -- towards any peaceful, rational resolution and to relieve this horror that the people of Gaza have to live through every day.

[19:40:14]

BURNETT: Gillian, are you hearing anything from the Israeli government, from the U.S. government, anything specific about where this is about Sagui or about that makes you believe that there really could possibly be a deal at any point to get the hostages home.

KAYE: I don't think that -- I don't think were hearing anything different than we've heard all along. I really, you know, we've done this countless times. I have to underscore the commitment of the Biden administration has been real and true from the very beginning of all of this. You know that, our engagement with them, the transparency, the kind of fortitude to really keep the hostages front and center. I don't think that that's changed.

I do think that it's become more complicated now, but of course we need action, we need something to happen. We want -- that's what we want whatever it takes, we need it to happen, but I don't think that that's changed.

BURNETT: Well, at least is that's something. It's not -- it's not much, but it's something important.

KAYE: That we have.

BURNETT: Thank you both very much.

KAYE: Thank you, Erin.

DEKEL-CHEN: Thank you for keeping this front and center. Thank you very much.

BURNETT: So there'll be a time we will talk in a very different circumstance.

DEKEL-CHEN: We have -- BURNETT: And next, a former Russian minister tells OUTFRONT that

Putin is desperate for Trump to win, and Biden to lose. Here's what he thinks Putin will do. We're going to tell you the specificity of what he thinks Putin will do to make that happen this summer.

And breaking news out of Baltimore tonight where another body has just been found after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:46:00]

BURNETT: Tonight, a major warning from a former Russian official under Vladimir Putin. He says Putin is so determined to stop President Biden from winning reelection that he's plotting various ways to sabotage him in summer or early fall. The very specific warning coming from Vladimir Milov, a former Russian energy minister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR MILOV, RUSSIA'S FORMER DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY: I certainly believe like 100 percent that Putin will be doing things in summer or early autumn to actually harm Biden's position ahead of the elections, be it, I don't know some impacting the international loyal market with supply disruptions so that the prices go up, U.S. gasoline becomes more expensive.

There is a spike in inflation, whatever, or certain acts of sabotage using his allies like Iran or Iranian proxies in the Middle East to disturb security situation there. It can be anything. Also the attacks in Russia's neighbor covered sabotage attacks that I've just mentioned. But I really think this is actually the signal that I'm getting from my sources in Moscow that Putin is so eager to get Biden out so that he will really do something to complicate his reelection and to complicate his political standing. So that's really worth expecting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All right. OUTFRONT now, Steve Hall, the former CIA chief of Russia operations.

So, Steve, I had that conversation with Vladimir last night. How seriously do you take his warning?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think it's -- I think it's a great warning and I think its pretty commonsensical. I mean, there is really no strong calculation of difficult calculation for Vladimir Putin here when he has to choose between who he would rather be the next U.S. president.

So the question then simply becomes, okay how is he going to do it? I thought there was a couple of interesting points in a raising the oil prices, thereby raising the political pressure and the United States for low gas prices, using proxies like Iran and others, those are all interesting things. But the bottom line, Erin, is, we know Putin in Russia can do this.

They've done it in the past and in other American and non-American elections in the West. So, yeah, there's in my mind, there's no doubt he's going to give it a shot.

BURNETT: And, you know, to -- he has already done some of what Milov worried about, right? He interfered in U.S. elections. He's actually backed oil production cuts that raise prices for American consumers, right? There are some ways that this has done sort of out in the open when it comes to the oil price in that instance. Do you think Putin even cares of east caught this time because, because if he doesn't, does that just mean he can go further, right? That there's any restraints are off.

HALL: Yeah. That was another interesting comment that Milov made, and I think it's a good one. I -- when we were looking at the elections previously that Russia tried to try to influence and may have had some success in, they're using their, their intelligence services to do it covertly. This is what we've referred to in the United States as covert action. These are active measures but they tried to have some deniability. No, no, it wasn't Russia that was doing these things.

I think Putin doesn't really care anymore, and it's not only because of who he is and where he feels he is in the world right now. But its also he understands that it doesn't really matter perhaps that much in the American political system because of both sides of the aisle just pointing fingers at each other. Oh, it was Russia, no, it wasn't Russia. So, yeah, I think he might be a lot more brazen this time around. What's he got to lose?

BURNETT: It's pretty terrifying when you think about it, when you think about how disruptive it was, when it was not brazen. Obviously, it makes sense of who Putin would prefer in the Trump-Biden rematch. Certainly when you hear about Trumps view, for example, on Ukraine, I mean, this is very simple on it, just a basic policy point of view. Its very, very clear.

But its interesting to just also take some time to look back at how Trump and Biden talk about Putin, right? Just as a basic gauge and let me play some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's active brutally. He -- I think he's committed war crimes.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Putin was a total gentleman.

[19:50:01]

INTERVIEWER: You know Vladimir Putin. You think he's a killer?

BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.

TRUMP: It's a great honor to be with President Putin. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: So, Steve, what does Putin actually think? It would do for him?

And then maybe, maybe this is a simple as Ukraine, but what does he think it would actually do if Trump is president again for Putin?

HALL: Oh, it checks a whole lot of boxes for him, Erin. I mean, you start with Ukraine. You know, what's Biden position more money tried to convince Congress to keep it going, rally the -- rally NATO, and other allies.

So that box is easy because Trump says, yeah, we don't need any more money to go to Ukraine. You look at NATO. You know, Biden is very supportive of NATO. Trump has said they're not paying their dues. It's very transactional, wider among the allies. Again, very transactional on Trump's part. Biden is continues to work to try to preserve the post-World War II security structure, which Russia very much doesn't like along with its, with its axis of evil allies. So, yeah, there's really, this is a no-brainer for Putin.

He would much rather have done Donald Trump than Joe Biden is an ex- president

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Steve Hall.

And next, we do have some breaking news coming in. Crews in Baltimore have just discovered another body after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.

And a town of 1,000 people that is about to quadruple in size because of the eclipse. And were going to take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:03]

BURNETT: Breaking news crews, just discovering another body where the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed. The victim, 38 year-old Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval. He was working on the key bridge when the massive cargo ship plowed into it a week ago, killing six people. The bodies of three workers are still missing tonight.

And finally tonight, OUTFRONT, a tiny Texas town will soon transform into a solar eclipse, central hotspot.

Bandera, Texas is in the middle of the path of totality with millions of people getting on the road to see the eclipse for themselves. This tiny the town is about to see an epic change.

Rosa Flores is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to Bandera, you guys. ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the cowboy capital of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lots of western bands and good dancing .

FLORES: Bandera, Texas, is in the path of totality for Monday solar eclipse. The town is expected to experience more than four minutes of darkness

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rosa, I know you're over there, but I can't see you.

FLORES: I can't see you.

Eclipse-mania has taken hold of Bandera. Horses and dinosaurs are donning eclipse glasses even eyewear for a giant cowboy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One monster eclipse party.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are downtown Bandera, Texas. Behind this here is the court house.

FLORES: Banderas population of under 1,000.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody knows everybody.

FLORES: It is expected to quadruple Monday says the mayor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were some folks from China in 11th street last night, all over the place.

FLORES: At 11th Street cowboy bar, the meat --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Medium rare.

FLORES: -- and greet is about the eclipse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We drove 1,700 miles.

FLORES: Seventeen hundred miles to see the eclipse?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

FLORES: These two friends caravan from Pennsylvania.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been preparing. I bought a camper. I bought a Jeep. I did everything.

FLORES: You bought a camper for the eclipse?

I hear that it might storm in Bandera.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, it's going to be a beautiful day.

FLORES: Are we doing positive thinking about this? Positive thinking. It's not just Bandera's cowgirls praying for good weather. Millions are expected to flock to Texas and more than a dozen U.S. states in the celestial path of totality. Some officials are worried about traffic jams.

And who's this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Wooster.

FLORES: In Bandera, cowgirls solved that problem

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to jump on booster and I'm going to ride by everybody. And I do my little princess wave even.

FLORES: Eclipse mania, expected to add $6 billion to the U.S. economy in one estimate. Texas, a slice of the astronomical pie, $1.4 billion. The eclipse merchandise in Bandera --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They sold like that.

FLORES: -- is practically sold out.

Well, this is beautiful country, Alec,

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am.

FLORES: So our venues like the historic Dixie Dude Ranch.

And when did you start getting calls about the eclipse?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our first reservation for the eclipse was in 2017. I think we sold out completely about four years ago.

FLORES: What never runs out here are the good people --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And moon pie.

FLORES: Moon pie?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the eclipse.

FLORES: For the eclipse, thank you.

And the good times.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (on camera): I'm in the cowboy capital of the world. A lot of that good time. A lot of that fund happens with a hat.

Some people are worried about the weather, Erin, perhaps some cloud cover. Not here In Bandera, people are committed to have a good time. And if I can give you my tin hat theory, I think it's good to be a good day.

Erin, back to you. BURNETT: All right. Rosa, thank you very much.

It's going to be really incredible, incredible day, and maybe uplifting in a way that so many in this country need.

We will have special coverage of the solar eclipse on Monday. It'll be another two decades before you can see one in the United States. So tune in starting at 1:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday to watch it live here on CNN, also streaming on Max.

And have a good weekend. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

"AC360" begins now.