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>> any moment now, president biden will be speaking at the state department. he's going to address his legacy after four years in the white house. he leaves office with two wars on the global stage and a new president who sees the world very differently than he does and bracing for the worst. >> firefighters raced to contain the fires that have burned through l.a. neighborhoods, as new winds now threaten to make it even harder to contain them. we're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here. the cnn news center. >> it is the top of the hour. i'm brianna keilar in washington, and omar jimenez is in for boris. great to have you. always good to see you. always good to have you. any moment now, president biden will be delivering one of the final speeches of his presidency from the state department, where he's expected to tout his foreign

policy legacy. >> now, at the same time, there could be signs of progress when it comes to one of president biden's biggest foreign policy challenges. white house officials are signaling a ceasefire and hostage deal in gaza could be finalized before the president leaves office. i want to bring in cnn's mj lee, who joins us now from the white house. so can you just tell us a little bit more on what we should expect from the president's speech here yeah. >> no question that we are about to hear a major joe biden legacy speech as the president is preparing to leave office in exactly one week. you know, at the end of donald trump's first administration and term in office, there were a lot of questions from global leaders about america's place in the world. and when president biden came into office. keep in mind that he really made this big promise that he was going to change the way that america was perceived, and america's role on the global stage. and when he takes that podium in just a few minutes or so at the state

department, we do expect that he is going to try to make the case that he has sort of lived up to that promise, that he has done everything he can to try to restore america's leadership on the global stage. of course, pointing to pointing to things like supporting israel as it has come under attack from hamas following october 7th. protecting ukraine and doing everything it can to support ukraine's fight against russia, and also just the rebuilding of america's many alliances across the world, whether they are western alliances or alliances in the indo-pacific. pointing to all of these things as having kept the word that he made, the promise that he made when he was first coming into office. u.s. officials previewing the speech. they are also saying that he'll make the simple case that the incoming administration, in other words, incoming president donald trump, thanks to president biden, is going to be inheriting a much better hand than what president biden inherited

four years ago. we should also just point out that in just two days on wednesday, president biden is going to be delivering a big farewell speech to the nation. so it is notable that he is taking time and making space to deliver a whole separate foreign policy focused speech. and this should come as no surprise if you have been following sort of the arc of joe biden's career. foreign policy has played such an important role for so many decades. so it is not surprising that he would want to make a separate speech altogether. that is just focused on what he wants to cement as his foreign policy legacy. >> and if you could just stand by for a moment, mj, we are getting news of hamas expected to release 33 hostages in the first phase of an emerging deal. this is according to an israeli official. this is according to two israeli officials. actually, this is during the first phase of an emerging cease fire agreement

that is being finalized right now in qatar. israel believes that most of those 33 hostages are alive, according to one senior israeli official. but the bodies of deceased hostages are also expected to be among those 33 released during an initial 42 day ceasefire, some of the contours being described here by israeli officials is they are on the brink of an agreement as they are describing it, that israeli forces would maintain a presence along the philadelphia, philadelphi courier corridor, i should say, which is obviously been something of contention in these discussions, and that israel would maintain a buffer zone inside gaza along the border with israel. there would also be unspecified security arrangements in place in certainly at least part of gaza, as residents of northern gaza would be allowed.

>> going to be returned. not all of them are going to be hostages that are alive that we are talking about. the return, potentially, of bodies of hostages that have been killed. and among those, of course, are hopefully americans. there are a handful of american israeli hostages whose bodies have yet to be returned. a couple of them, of course, have been declared deceased. there are american families that have been waiting for so long for the return of the bodies of their loved ones, and then hopefully we are waiting to learn if any american hostages are alive and will be returned to their families alive. so this, as we were talking about before about the president's

speech, is going to be a huge part of what he talks about, sort of that commitment that he made so long ago to try to do everything he can to get these americans back and, of course, end this war that really has cost him so much politically, guys. >> and we are continuing to monitor when president biden steps up and makes some of those significant comments again in the last week of his tenure as president. m.j. lee, really appreciate the reporting. we'll bring you those remarks as soon as the president steps up and starts speaking. but we want to get to our other breaking news that we're following as well. and the battle to contain the devastating wildfires raging across l.a. county. now, strong winds have returned to southern california today as firefighters enter really a critical stage in their week long battle against these fast moving blazes. >> at this hour, there are three wildfires continuing to burn. you see them there on your screen. they've already scorched more than 60mi÷. this is an area larger than paris that they have taken out. nearly 100,000 people are under evacuation orders, and county

officials are now warning residents who have not yet been impacted that they need to get their evacuation plan ready now. and this is happening as the death toll continues to rise, at least 24 people now have been killed. we have learned, and officials warn, that that number is likely to climb. >> after the altadena area we are in the third day of grid searching. it is a very grim task and we unfortunately, every day we're doing this, we're running across the remains of individual community members. that is not easy work. very sad to report. i believe will continue to find remains. so please be patient with us. people are saying, i just want to go look at my house and i want to see what's left. we know that, but we have people literally looking for the remains of your neighbors. >> let's go now to stephanie elam, who is live in malibu.

stephanie, tell us about what you're seeing there. >> yeah, brianna, we are along the pacific coast highway. now that the sun is up, you can actually see more of the devastation. this is a wine bar that really popular live music they would have here. and and people would come out here and enjoy being next to the ocean. and i was walking up behind it and i didn't even recognize it because it is so demolished until i got to the front and i saw these blue chairs and this big yellow chair. look at these former barrels. all that's left are the metal casings around the barrels just completely burned out. and this is up and down this stretch of the pacific coast highway, where you can see the devastation of these smaller businesses here, as well as some homes up in the hills. think about how hard those flames had to be burning, how high they had to be burning for this kind of destruction here. and if you look through palisades, if you look through altadena, it's the same story where you see businesses that

are lost, big corporations lost, where you also see homes and infrastructure like post offices, all of that destroyed in these blazes. and this is what they're trying to stop further progression of. and we saw some great work over the weekend. they were fighting this fire from the sky. but these winds expected to pick back up that could impact their ability to get to the sky again. so they've been pre-positioning resources to be out here to help stop these blazes as they move forward. and keep in mind, it may not just be these blazes that we know about. another fire could be started during this time. and so they're out here now with daylight hours coming in. we see a little few hotspots around. and this is one of the things that they want to do is to tamp those down, stop those fires because they don't want it to blow up as the winds start to pick up here, now that the sun is up. but when you look around and you see this kind of devastation, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. and it's it's widespread. it's i've never seen any devastation as widespread as what we're seeing here now.

>> and, stephanie, i know you've been out there from the beginning. and, you know, one of the things from last week, we saw wind gusts up to 100mph, not expecting that severe of wind gusts this time around, but still very, very severe. i just wonder what your sense is from people there, from. be the elements ahead are not going to be working in their favor.

>> way around it for people and for a lot of people. they want to get back into these evacuation zones. the good news, the evacuation numbers are now back below 100,000, but they're expecting that they could go back up. as we see these winds pick up. so people want to get back into these areas. but really there's a lot of things that they have to make sure that they're safe. you know, there's toxic ash when fires burn through buildings. there's all kinds of chemicals. there's the metals, and you can smell it in the air. and that's just not good for families to be in. so that's part of the reason why they don't want to rush people back to these areas until they're sure that they are safe, so that no one is impacted by that. and then also keep in mind the infrastructure. a lot of these

fires burn down. and so piping underneath the ground is all destroyed. so even if your house is standing in one of these fire zones, will you have the the the resources around you to keep living there? it's not something that's going to be an easy or quick fix. and that is devastating for so many people. >> stephanie elam, really appreciate all the reporting on what has been a very active and ongoing situation there. thank you for being here. as we've been talking about, we are standing by for the president of the united states and what we are expecting to be a foreign policy focused speech in the final days of his presidency leading up to, of course, the inauguration of president elect donald trump. we've gotten many clues over what he could potentially focus on, but he has had.

>> is going forward. today, i can report to the.

frankly, neither really tried very hard.

>> and by ending the war, we've been able to focus our energy and resources on more urgent challenges. there is nothing that i can tell you from my conversations with both xi and putin. nothing our adversaries and competitors like russia and china would have liked more than seeing us to continue to be tied down in afghanistan for another decade. for all those reasons, ending the war was the right thing to do. and i believe history will reflect that. and for the moment, i entered office, i also worked to free as many americans as possible, being held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas. we brought home more than 75 americans by last count. and in some cases, it took months, even years of effort, like the prisoner swap with russia over the past summer, a feat of diplomacy involving all of many of you and involving multiple countries who joined complex negotiations at our request. another example of the power of our alliances.

we did not have these relationships with those women and women who would likely still be in prison. and finally, i can report to the american people that we restored our leadership in a range of other generational priorities. when i took office, we were no longer part of the international climate agreement. we announced on day one that we would rejoin the paris accord, rejoin. and we've led by example. we've conserved hundreds of millions of acres, hundreds of millions of acres of land and water, more than any president in american history. making investments in clean energy and convincing other nations to join us. thanks to our efforts, the world has reached the goal of investing $100 billion every year in public and private funds to reduce greenhouse emissions, to drive down the cost of clean energy to help developing nations adapt to

climate change. our administration has launched a transformative initiative to build high impact infrastructure in developing nations. it's called pgi. you all know that better than anyone. this is our alternative to a china offers with its massive projects across africa and beyond. but their approach features no workers rights, no environmental protections, unmanageable debt, shoddy construction, all in exchange for military access to ports and other exploitative purposes. by contrast, we've leveraged $600 billion to unleash the private sector to build an infrastructure in order to grow economies and combat climate change. as an example, i was recently in angola to see a major project being built with the help of american public funding, which brought in even

more private investment. we're building the first ever transcontinental railroad across africa, which will significantly improve the economies of the region, will help farmers transport crops and new global markets, will transport critical minerals that would that need that are needed for electric vehicles and semiconductors. china used to control the supply chains in these materials, but not for long. now make no mistake, there are serious challenges in the united states must continue to deal with in ukraine and the middle east. in the indo-pacific must keep the pressure on the houthis, who are attacking ships in the red sea, launching missiles at israel and firing at american forces must deter north korea as they rattle their saber and draw closer to russia. and new challenges will certainly emerge in the months and years

ahead. but even but even so, it's clear my administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play. and we're leaving them and america with more friends and stronger alliances whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure. and america that once again is leading, uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our plans and visions. and america, which is no longer at war, which has made historic investments in american workers, american energy and american factories generating the strongest economy in the world, which is now in a much better position to win the future against any competitor. these wins are not partisan. they are american. they benefit all americans, and they reflect america's endless capacity for

leadership and reinvention. look, folks, the united states should take full advantage of our diplomatic and geopolitical opportunities. we've created to keep bringing countries together to deal with challenges posed by china, to make sure putin's war, putin's war, ends in a just and lasting peace for ukraine, and to capitalize on a new moment for a more stable, integrated middle east. to do that, the next administration must make sure the fall of assad does not lead to the resurgence of i.s.i.s. in syria and across the region, and must carry forward the commitment that america will never, never allow iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. and on the war between israel and hamas, we're in the brink of a proposal that i laid out in detail months ago. finally

coming to fruition. i have learned in many years of public service to never, never, never, ever give up. so i spoke to prime minister of israel yesterday. i spoke to the emir of qatar today. i look forward to speaking with president sisi soon. we're pressing hard to close this. the deal we have a structure would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to israel and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the palestinians who have suffered terribly in this war that hamas started. they've been through hell. so many innocent people have been killed. so many communities have been destroyed. the palestinian people deserve peace and the right to determine their own futures. israel deserves peace

and real security. and the hostages and their families deserve to be reunited. and so we're working urgently to close this deal. and as we deal with media challenges, in my view, we have to look to the future. i urge the next administration to carry forward two issues that have been central to my presidency, and which shaped the future of my view on artificial intelligence. we are in the lead, and we must stay in the lead. we must not. offshore artificial intelligence, as he once did with computer chips and other critical technologies. a.i. has the power to reshape and reshape economies, governments, national security, entire societies. and it must be the united states and our closest allies that lead the way to ensure people's rights are respected. their safety is protected, and

their data is secure. and likewise, clean energy transition will race ahead for years to come. i know, and some incoming administration, some in the incoming administration are skeptical about the need for clean energy. they don't even believe climate change is real. i think they come from a different century. they're wrong. they are dead wrong. it's the single greatest existential threat to humanity. and the clean energy transition is already happening. china is trying to dominate the clean energy manufacturing critical materials supply chains. they want to capture the market of the future and create new dependencies. the united states must win that contest, and we will shape the global economy and the planet for decades to come. let me

close with this. like many of you, i've dedicated a significant portion of my career to our nation's foreign policy. as chair of the foreign relations committee, as a senator, vice president for eight years, and now president of now president of the united states, i put together one of the most competent foreign policy teams, i would argue, in american history, sitting in this room and before my eyes throughout my my eyes, throughout my career, the world has gone, undergone tremendous change. but certain things have always held true at our best. america leads not only by the example of our power, but the power of our the our example. in the past four years, we've used that power not to go it alone, but instead to bring countries together to increase shared security and shared security and prosperity.

to stand up to aggression and to solve problems through diplomacy wherever possible, and to relentlessly defend democracy, civil rights and human rights. because that's who we are. that's who we are. that's who we are. you heard me say it many times before. we're the only country on earth founded on an idea. every other every other country is founded on geography, religion, ethnicity, or some other unifying factor. but america was built on an idea. on an idea. literally, not figuratively. that idea was all women and men are created equal. the idea that has inspired the world for 250 years and counting. for 250 years and counting. we're always reaching to do better, always looking to the future. not our best, always seeking progress for our people and for

people everywhere. it's been the honor of my life to serve as your president. today, i'm optimistic about our future. as optimistic as i've ever been. just remember who in the hell we are. you've heard me say it many times. we're the united states of america, for united states of america, for god's sake. there is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity. if we do it together and commit to it, nothing. so thank you all for all you all for all you've done. i hope many of you are going to be staying in the next administration to keep this moving. may god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. thank you. thank you. >> thank you. hi. my name. thank ana navarro. thank you president biden speaking there at the state department on the legacy of his foreign policy approach. during his

four years in the white house, ending it saying, we are the united states of america, for god's sake. there is nothing beyond our capacity, which is quite joe biden esque, i would say. let's bring in our panel to talk about this. we are covering this from some of the key flashpoints that he mentioned from europe and from the middle east, and also here in washington. and i just want to start with you, kim and cedric. just give us sort cedric. just give us sort of the overview of what you heard in the speech. if this was a fair representation. were there omissions, things that you noted? >> look, he patted himself on the back, quite rightly, for alliances that he built or rebuilt. and european officials will tell you he brought in bro stability, that they craved after the mercurial nature of the last trump administration. but he fails to understand afghanistan and the nexus with ukraine. and the nexus with ukraine. the withdrawal from afghanistan that he said was necessary to stop spending

lives and treasure, sent a message to the world, including to vladimir putin, that the u.s. could be challenged and wouldn't fight back. and it is one of the reasons putin cited for his invasion of ukraine. so biden wouldn't have had to have bring together all the alliances to help fund ukraine if they'd appeared tough to russia. at least that is how history is going to debate this. >> i think one of the things that's important here to build upon what kim has said, is that putin misread the united states and what the united states would be doing vis a vis ukraine. the fact that the united states supported ukraine in this way was a very significant move. the strengthening of the alliances, that is absolutely key, a key component of key component of biden's legacy. one of the things, perhaps on the other side of the balance sheet might be this, that while those alliances focus alliances focus physical and kinetic power and also on economic power, they don't specifically address

issues, at least they haven't in the public realm of things like cyber security and the fact to protect intellectual property like artificial intelligence. he certainly mentioned artificial intelligence quite a bit in these in these remarks. but the key thing going forward is going to be going to be that th basically biden's defense of the pax americana, the fact that the united states from the end of world war ii, up until the present point in time, has basically held sway over a large portion of the world. yes, there have been issues like korea, vietnam, grenada, panama, you know, all of these things have come up during this time. and there certainly were perturbations since nine over 11. but the very fact that we've had a basically stable relationship with other rival countries like russia, like china, is critically important. and president biden definitely alluded to the fact that they've managed that quite extensively and prevented it from really becoming a major conflict. >> i mean, his thesis really is

that our foreign adversaries are much weaker than they were before he came into into office. that seemed to sort of be the common theme across every specific issue. he spoke about, whether it was from iran, russia and china. but of course, the change of regime in syria as well. i want to bring in m.j. lee, who's at the white house, for us, because, m.j., you know, we were talking before this speech about some of the progress made in the israel-hamas ceasefire deal. you know, we heard from the president that he had spoken to the emir of qatar as well, but also with with benjamin netanyahu, which i believe was the first, at least publicly announced conversation they had had in quite some time. um, i wonder if, given what we have heard so much so far, come out from this deal as well. did we get a sense for for how much they wanted to emphasize united states involvement in what was going on between israel and hamas and potential optimism for a future in regards to any ceasefire. >> yeah. you know, it was

interesting, actually, given all of our reporting on how optimistic u.s. officials are feeling today about the possibility of getting this deal in place in gaza. president biden actually didn't spend a ton of time talking about the mechanics of that deal. he did say that ceasefire deal is on the brink of finally coming to fruition. he said u.s. officials are going to continue pressing hard to close the deal, so certainly went right up to the line of suggesting that this could happen in the coming days. but really, this was not a speech that was going to get into the machinations of how those negotiations have been going. and omar, just in the big picture, i completely agree with you. i mean, this very much sounded like, as we had expected, a foreign policy victory lap speech on everything from how the u.s. has handled itself when it comes to ukraine and iran and the degradation of its capabilities. on china, you know, he was saying when i first got into office,

everybody was saying it was inevitable that china's economy would at some point surpass america's. and he said, at this point, that is just not going to happen. talking about afghanistan, i was a little surprised how glancingly he mentioned the fact that u.s. service members had died in the chaotic withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan. but nevertheless, he did say it was important to him that he keep his promise of ending the presence of american forces there and not handing off that war to his successor. but i will say, as we are talking about in the big picture, this victory lap that he is taking on foreign policy and trying to cement his legacy. i think we just have to be realistic about the fact that, you know, if it is president biden's right to make this kind of a speech, it is also incoming president donald trump's right to ignore every piece of advice that president biden might be trying to give him on ukraine. he

said, you know, we can't walk away now on china, he said it is better for the u.s. to deal with china alongside its its alliances and allies. president trump doesn't have to do anything with that. and i think that is going to be a reality that president biden, of course, knows very well and is going to be a bitter pill for him to swallow, given that he didn't want to be passing the baton back to donald trump. >> yeah, such a good point, m.j. and david, that mj makes there. this is going to be quite a turn because i think he said something that i think a lot of people agree with democrats and republicans, which is that there's a sense that america is at an inflection point. there's a lot of fear about what is around the corner when it comes to competition with china. and these flash points that we look at that he covered. and as we make the turn here in the u.s. from the biden administration into the trump administration, it is going to be very, very

different. >> oh, there's no doubt about it. i mean, think about the whole frame of the speech. it's about what he inherited from the previous trump administration and how he believes he brought it to better standing, both economically in terms of the global economy and in terms of the nation's security. so he's already in the frame of that speech, not just tying a bow around his legacy, which you would expect any president to do at the end of their term. but in contrast to what was handed to him, and he's handing it back to those same people, or at least the same president, and maybe some other people will populate it. but it's hard to think about this moment without recognizing. i mean, listen, i don't consider myself a spring chicken, right? joe biden has been in washington at the center of foreign policy debates and policy making for longer than i've been alive. and when you think about that, you know, 52 years ago, a 30 year old senator was starting out, and here he is in his preferred milieu, right. the state department. and as he even re