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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Arrives in Washington

Aired March 03, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's special coverage of the Israeli prime minister's address to Congress starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures from Capitol Hill. We're one hour away from an extraordinary moment in politics, diplomacy and international security.

We have breaking news. What the prime minister of Israel will stay in this historic and controversial address to Congress about how soon he says Iran potentially could obtain a nuclear weapon.

We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

CNN's Elise Labott will have more on the breaking news in just a minute. As of right now the prime minister is on his way up to Capitol Hill. He supposedly is putting the finishing touches, rewriting a little bit of his speech.

But first, I'm joined by Jake Tapper, our chief Washington correspondent, the anchor of "THE LEAD."

There's some tough talk that's been going back and forth between the prime minister of Israel, the president of the United States, and yesterday the president, you know, said Netanyahu was wrong in his dire predictions about what would happen earlier as far as Iran's nuclear program.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER": That's right, Wolf. And let's take a look at this from 30,000 feet. Beyond the showdown mano-a-mano showdown between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is really quite remarkable in the history of relationships between the United States and Israel. We've never really seen anything like this. The degree of animosity between the two country's leaders.

But most importantly, beyond all of the psycho drama is the fact that this is about a potential deal preventing a nuclear weapons program with Iran. So when President Obama takes a shot at Benjamin Netanyahu's credibility pointing out that all the dire predictions Netanyahu made in 2013 about this interim deal, none of them came true. Yes, on one level that is about the personal animus between the two

but on another level Obama is making the argument to Congress you cannot trust this guy when it comes to deals with Iran. I know what I'm doing. He does not. Conversely, Netanyahu making the same case to Congress later today. I know what's best, he's going to say, about the safety, security and very existence of Israel and President Obama is almost a little naive.

That is what's going on. And really, the stakes could not be higher. We are talking about potentially the existence of Israel.

BLITZER: That's the point that Netanyahu is going to stress repeatedly.

What else are you expecting to hear? What else are you looking for in this speech?

TAPPER: Well, there are going to be two that I'm looking for. Is Netanyahu going to reveal any sensitive information? The White House has been very, very concerned based on leaks coming from the Israeli government, based on remarks made by Israeli officials on the way over here. What is Netanyahu going to reveal that he should not reveal in the view of the White House? And then, two, and this is almost more importantly, most importantly, is Netanyahu going to make a case to Congress successfully arguing that no deal is better than this deal.

In the views of the White House right now the breakout period between the time Iran if they decided to make a nuclear weapon and their ability to do so is two to three months. Under their deal, they argue, the White House argues, it would be one year. In that way -- and there are a lot of other details we could go into. In that way, this deal is better than the status quo. Is Netanyahu going to make a counter argument as to why no deal is better than that?

BLITZER: All right, stand by because CNN is all over this. We're covering the story like no other news organizations. Our correspondents and analysts are fanned out up on Capitol Hill. They're at the White House. Indeed they are around the world and we're trying to answer these critical questions, what will the prime minister of Israel say in an hour? What stern warnings will the -- will the president of the United States be giving the prime minister?

How will the speech be received in Israel? In Iran? In Switzerland where these nuclear negotiations are under way right now.

Let's get to the breaking news. We've got some additional details of what the prime minister's speech will include. Our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott has been working her sources.

What are you hearing, Elise?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER: Well, Wolf, we've talking to Israeli officials, you know, we traveled over here with the prime minister, and aides are telling us that the prime minister is going to lay out very specific details of what he knows to be in this deal and he's going to make the case that what he hears, this breakout time that Jake was talking about that Iran could move towards a nuclear bomb, in fact, if Iran were to break this agreement or when the agreement expired could be less than a year.

And this morning Israel's intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz told me that could be as little as six months if some of the things that Iran is looking for in this agreement, for instance, continuing to develop its nuclear program would be allowed to continue.

Now speaking to Israeli officials, they think they already won, Wolf. They see a huge media coverage. Attention to this Iran issue that would never have been before if it was just a speech. It forced the administration to admit yesterday president, Susan Rice, principles of the deal, that now they feel they have the administration on record in terms of what they will work to -- to protect Israel.

And I understand, Wolf, that Democrats have asked the prime minister not to say anything to embarrass the president, to pick a fight with the president. Israeli officials telling me the prime minister is going to keep very strictly on the substance of the deal, speak about respect for the White House, but lay out the deal as he knows it and why it's a very bad deal and try to make everybody identify with the threat, the threat that Israel faces in the world, but the threat of what yesterday he called the tentacles of terrorism that Iran has in the region.

BLITZER: All right, Elise. Stand by. I want to go up to Capitol Hill. Our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash is watching what's going on.

It's really amazing when you think about it, Dana. A prime minister of Israel comes to the United States getting ready to address a joint session or a meeting, whatever the technical term is, of the United States Congress and dozens of members of Congress, the House and the Senate, they decide to boycott the visiting prime minister of Israel. Maybe 50, maybe more. It's unprecedented when you think about it.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is all unprecedented. No question about it. And, look, you know this, Wolf. You've before covering this issue for so many years. Israel has been the one area -- one of the few areas that draws incredible bipartisan agreement and cooperation. And this is exposing and maybe even causing a partisan rift.

The fact that you have high profile Democrats like Elizabeth Warren deciding not to come. It's really -- is really telling. And now I will say that while that is happening, you also have the Republican House speaker really drumming up the pomp and circumstance for this event. This event which I should remind our viewers is something that he -- it's certainly his prerogative to invite the prime minister but he did so very much knowing that this rift would be a possibility.

He just tweeted out a photograph of a bus of Winston Churchill that he's going to present to the Israeli prime minister. Doing that for several reasons but the most important is because at this point it looks like the two of them will have spoken three times each to a joint meeting of Congress and that's in store. That is more than any other foreign leader that has come to this Congress. So that's why that's happening.

And the other thing, I just want to give you a little bit of color because I've been walking around the hall. There's a reception that's happening right upstairs from where I am right off of the House floor. And you know, if you look in there, it's really kind of a who's who of Jewish Americans and also some political Americans.

Sheldon Adelson and his wife, they are obviously billionaires who helped fund Republican campaigns and have done so very much supporters of Israel. Elie Wiesel who's going to be a guest of the House speaker, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and obviously well known author and holocaust survivor. And then you have people like Alan Dershowitz, who is obviously an outspoken supporter of Israel but you see him more in the legal -- in the legal arena. He's also upstairs.

So you definitely have an interesting mix of people who were invited here for these very, very hot tickets to come and see the speech.

BLITZER: It's amazing when you think about it, Dana. You just said that Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, very popular with that Democratic base, she has publicly decided to boycott the prime minister of Israel's address today. Is that what I heard?

BASH: That's right. She did. And I can just tell you just anecdotally, I was talking to Alan Dershowitz who said that he called up her chief of staff right away and said this is a huge mistake, and you definitely do have Democrats feeling like they have to make a decision between something that they think is wrong and partisan in terms of inviting the prime minister just two weeks before his election and taking the long view and maybe angering some of the very constituencies that they might need if they want to continue running for office.

And when I say that, I mean of course Jewish American voters. Not all of them support the fact that the prime minister is here but a lot of them do.

BLITZER: And a lot of them don't want him to be delivering this speech on this specific day, but a lot of them are going to be attending in any case.

BASH: Exactly.

BLITZER: All right, Dana, stand by. I want to go to the White House. Our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is gauging reaction over there.

We know the president, he doesn't even want to watch this speech. He's not even going to make a phone call welcoming the prime minister. The vice president, Joe Biden, normally he'd sitting behind the visiting speaker next to the speaker and be sitting behind the guest of honor. He's out of the country. He decided he had some other business to do. So in effect they're boycotting the speech as well.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They are, Wolf. And keep in mind that earlier this morning in addition to the White House saying that the president will not be watching this speech from the prime minister, they announced that the president will be giving a videoconference chat with his other European counterparts to talk about the situation and crisis in Ukraine.

Did the White House have to announce that, Wolf? No, they did not. They could have easily told us about that after that videoconference discussion occurred. That is one last kidney shot aimed at Benjamin Netanyahu before this speech later on this morning. But even though the president is not going to be watching, the White House is bracing for the impact of this speech.

One major concern, and Jake talked about this, is that the prime minister will divulge sensitive details from current U.S. talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest warned yesterday that would be a betrayal of U.S. trust.

These aren't words aimed at an adversary of the United States. These are aimed at Israel which sort of is extraordinary. Netanyahu, as we know, he believes these talks will pave the way for Iran to have a nuclear weapon soon. But in that interview with Reuters, the president said Netanyahu has been wrong before, he's off the mark this time.

But despite all this, the president says he does not take this rift personally. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think it's permanently destructive. I think that it is a distraction from what should be our focus. And our focus should be, how do we stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? I think that in the meantime, negotiators are going full speed ahead. Ultimately what's been remarkable is the international unity we've been able to maintain in saying to Iran you have to show the world that you are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Interesting to point out the president went on to say that there's less than a 50 percent chance that these nuclear talks will produce an agreement and as to this personal rift that's emerged between the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu, you recall yesterday Netanyahu told the AIPAC conference that he doesn't mean any disrespect to the president.

But, Wolf, I talked to a senior administration official who said very bluntly we don't buy that -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, stand by because I'm sure there's going to be a lot more reaction coming out of the White House, not only before, during but for sure after the prime minister's speech.

We're waiting for him to arrive up on Capitol Hill. We've got live cameras all over the place. We'll be seeing the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrive on Capitol Hill and get ready to deliver this very controversial speech on U.S.-Israeli relations but also on nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Once again, Elise Labott is here, she's our global affairs analyst, also Gloria Borger, our chief political analyst, John King, our chief national correspondent, Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a retired U.S. diplomat served Democratic and Republican presidents and secretaries of state.

So, Elise, the fundamental difference that we might hear from the prime minister as opposed to the president, the prime minister is much more concerned that this so-called breakout period during which Iran might be able to go ahead and actually build a bomb, the prime minister is concerned it's a lot shorter than what the president might believe.

LABOTT: Well, I think that's the thing he's going to single on the most. I mean, this breakout capacity that some of the things he's hearing on the deal about the nuclear technology that Iran would be able to maintain as part of a deal and continue and increase as the deal goes forward. At some point if Iran were to break that agreement, when the agreement expires, that Iran's breakout time could be actually less than a year.

But, Wolf, I also think in addition to those specifics of this deal, he's going to really set the scene and try and paint a picture of what would happen if Iran in less than a year would be able to go out to the bomb. Not only if you look at the region, if you see where Iran is working, if Iran is working with Hezbollah, Hamas, these type of organizations, this would in fact give them what Israeli officials are calling a nuclear umbrella to continue terrorism in the region.

And that has profound effects on how Israel could act to protect itself if it's faced with the prospect of a nuclear Iran. It really limits Israel's options in the region.

BLITZER: Did you ever think, Gloria, you'd see a day when the prime minister of Israel comes to speak before Congress and 50 or 60 Democratic members of the House and Senate publicly are declaring they're not going to attend, they want to protest his visit to the United States?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I don't think that happened to Winston Churchill when he came three times as well. And in talking to diplomatic sources and congressional sources, everybody kind of understands what Bibi Netanyahu is trying to do, not only for himself domestically, politically he's got this tight election coming up in a couple of weeks, but also he's not trying to shape the deal because he doesn't want the deal.

What he's trying to do to Congress today is shape their reaction to any kind of a deal that might emerge because don't forget Congress could very well say, you know what, we're not going to provide the waiver for sanctions that perhaps this deal might require us to do. So he in a way is stepping right into the congressional arena and trying to get a bipartisan group of members of Congress to say no matter what emerges, we're not going to cooperate with you on the implementation, whatever that implementation might be. And that also is unprecedented -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And these are not just average, you know, fringe members of the House and Senate, John King. These are leaders in the Democrat -- Tim Kaine, the senator from Virginia, was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the chairman of the Democratic Party, and he has announced he will not attend the speech.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, now the leading voice of liberals and some think maybe a presidential candidate, she's not going to come as well.

What does that tell you? It tells you that one of the world's largest security challenges, controversial issues, sensitive negotiations, is now wrapped in probably way too many layers of politics. So the prime minister says he's not here to pick a fight. He's going to stand before the United States Congress and the United States people and say not only is your president wrong on this, but I don't think you can trust him.

What is the White House saying? I think the prime minister is wrong and you can't trust him. The public fracturing of this relationship between the two leaders and to a degree between the two governments, can it be repaired? Sure. But that Reuters interview you just played with the president says it's not permanently. Not permanently. So that's an admission that it's temporarily broken.

And -- so the question for me is they're all boxed in now. The president is boxed in to say you can't trust the prime minister. I'm going to get on a conference call with European leaders and forget about this. The prime minister is boxed in. He's going to take his Churchill bus from Speaker Boehner and give his speech.

So since they're boxed in for today, the big question for me is what happens tomorrow and the week after that and the week after that, and if there is a deal for an American president to sell to an Israeli leader, will it be Benjamin Netanyahu?

BLITZER: And, Aaron Miller, you know, there's been rifts in U.S.- Israeli relations going back to the establishment of Israel in 1948. But publicly, have you ever seen anything like this before where the personal animus seems to be coming through in open declarations from both sides.

AARON DAVID MILLER, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER: No, it's unprecedented, Wolf. I mean, you've had dysfunctional relationships in the past. Carter and Begin, Shamir and Bush 41. Even Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu in his first incarnation. But amidst all the dysfunction, there was cooperation and production.

What's unique here is this has gone on for five years, number one. And the stakes right now are higher than they've ever been.

BLITZER: You know, here's some poll numbers. We have -- and I want to put them up on the screen. First of all, GOP's Netanyahu invitation registered U.S. voters "Wall Street Journal," NBC News, perception. Do you approve or disapprove of this visit to the United States and the speech? 48 percent of Americans were question said they disapprove, 30 percent approve, 22 percent undecided.

BORGER: And that breaks down -- if you look in the internal polling along partisan lines because the question here is whether Speaker Boehner just kind of did this without the acquiescence of Nancy Pelosi and he did. And that's not the way people think foreign leaders ought to be invited to address the Congress and there's also the question of this close to an election he's doing it for his own political reasons and Americans don't like that.

BLITZER: You know, I think it's fair to say, and, Aaron, I think you'll agree that one of the major reasons that Netanyahu came here is it's exactly two weeks from today the Israeli elections, March 17th. He thought standing ovations before the United States Congress would help him get himself re-elected. Polls in Israel show it's very close right now. He might not get himself re-elected.

But the perception of President Obama in Israel, according to this "Times of Israel" poll, Obama has 33 percent favorable rating in Israel, 59 percent unfavorable.

MILLER: Yes. And I think that's what the prime minister is counting on. This isn't Bill Clinton. This isn't a man who's beloved and admired. And I think that's the reality from the domestic side that the prime minister stepped into.

Remember what you're going to see regardless of how this goes. You're going to see a guy in his baritone voice, perfect, flawless, Philadelphia accentuated English, paint a compelling picture of a small power at risk. And that is going to resonate, I suspect, at home.

BLITZER: All right.

MILLER: Perhaps even more than it does here.

BLITZER: Hold on for a minute.

Jake, I want to go back to you. I know you have a special guest.

TAPPER: That's right, Wolf. Tom Donilon, the former National Security adviser for President Obama, is sitting with me now.

Mr. Donilon, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, I want to get to the substance of this proposed deal in a second. But we can't avoid the geopolitics and psycho drama breaking out. Does President Obama bear any responsibility for how ugly this has gotten and how personal it's gotten between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States?

The president just yesterday was specifically trying to undermine Netanyahu's credibility talking about how he made, quote, "all sort of claims about the 2013 interim deal with Iran and none of them came true."

THOMAS DONILON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yes. A couple of points on that. Number one, I think that the process by which we got to this moment today was badly handled. Not on the -- I don't think on the administration side frankly.

TAPPER: Not at all? The White House didn't bring us here?

DONILON: Well, I think -- I think that this could have been handled a lot better by the Israeli government and frankly by the Congress. There's a process here by which you can consult and frankly this has become a distraction, as the president said yesterday. This really should be about the merit here of the case. It was just unnecessary. And it caused unnecessary controversy the way the process was handled in my judgment.

It wouldn't have been that difficult to consult with the White House about coming to speak to Congress, and I don't think at the end of the day the White House would object it frankly.

TAPPER: Let's talk about the substance of the deal. Obviously the final negotiations have yet to take root. But there are some points about the deal that we do know. One of them that Israel objects to is the idea that Iran is going to have the right to enrich its own uranium one way or another. And it points out accurately that there are 30 countries that have nuclear power, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Of those 30, only 11 enrich their own fuel. Canada, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, none of them enrich their own fuel yet they have nuclear energy. And they say, why should Iran have the right to enrich uranium or manufacture plutonium? That doesn't make sense.

DONILON: I have only a couple of point on that. First of all, I don't think that this deal would or should grant any sort of right to Iran to enrich. What the deal here is, is that there would be some enrichment capability that would be severely constrained over an extended period of time, in addition to having very close monitoring verification inspection regimes on that which would endure for a long time. And I would hope endure actually even after the term of the arrangement. So --

TAPPER: But doesn't that --

DONILON: This is not -- but this is not about the right to enrich. This is based --

TAPPER: It allows the program to continue.

DONILON: Well, but they have a program today. Right? And what's happened, by the way, through the interim agreement that was put in place by the international community led by the United States is that program has been frozen, rolled back, and we have additional and intrusive inspections and information which we never had before.

So I think it's very important. This is not about a right to enrich on Iran's part. It's about coming to terms in a deal. And part of the deal would be some indigenous capability to enrich that would be severely constrained for an extended period of time and what's really important here, Jake, these inspection verifications in monitoring regimes because what I worry about frankly going forward here is not an overt breakout.

That is they're taking overt facilities which used to be covert, by the way, at Natanz and at (INAUDIBLE), which we blew the whistle on. But a covert program that they try to move forward on toward a nuclear weapon which is why these inspection regimes are really important and need to continue.

BLITZER: We're seeing live pictures now. The prime minister of Israel and his motorcade arriving up on Capitol Hill right now. He's going to be going in and getting a warm reception from the Republican leadership. The speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Orrin hatch, the senior senator from Utah, he'll be sitting right next to the speaker behind the prime minister as he delivers his speech. Normally the president of the U.S. Senate, that would be the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, would sit next to the speaker behind a visiting guest but in this particular case the vice president decided he had business out of the country and would not be able to attend.

Are you surprised, Tom Donilon, that the president isn't even going to pick up the phone and say to Prime Minister Netanyahu, you know what, I know you're in Washington. We've got differences. Let's talk -- you know, you have a big election, right after your election assuming you're re-elected. And he might not be re-elected. Then we're going to get into substantive dialogue. Given the stakes involved, given the importance of this U.S.-Israeli relationship.

DONILON: I think that it goes to really how raw the feelings are. I think that's a fair point. But secondly, as the president has said, he does not want to interfere in the Israeli elections which are happening on March 17th, just a couple of weeks -- just a couple of weeks from now.

There's intensive engagement between the United States and Israel about this deal. This potential deal. And indeed it's also important to point out that the prime minister will be speaking today about a deal whose terms are not known as this point. It's a deal that we're in the middle -- the United States and the international community on one side and Iran on the other side -- are in the midst of negotiating as we sit here today.

BLITZER: And as the president himself said in that interview with Reuters yesterday, there might not even be a deal. This whole dialogue may be moot when all is said and done because even if some of the more moderate Iranians like Sharif and Rouhani, the president agreed that Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah, may say, you know what, we don't like it. And we're not going to accept it, and so the whole deal could be --

DONILON: I think that's right.

BLITZER: That's a possibility, right?

DONILON: That is a possibility. It's absolute possibility. You know, I mean, we're at the table frankly because of the international pressure campaign the U.S. and others led to bring Iran to the table through what's kind of unprecedented multidimensional set of pressures on Iran. But the ultimate decision with respect to whether there will be an arrangement between the international community in Iran on the nuclear program, that ultimate decision rests with the Supreme Leader, not with these elected leaders.

TAPPER: And, Tom, let me just ask you.

DONILON: Yes.

TAPPER: I have heard from Democrats close to the administration that they sense that the White House is hungry for a deal. They want this as part of President Obama's legacy.

Are you at all concerned that the desire to have a deal might be blinding them to some of the concerns that the allies such as Israel have?

DONILON: Well, a couple of points on this. I mean, generally the international community is deeply involved in this on a broad basis, as you know, through the P5 Plus 1, which includes the Security Council plus Germany. Number one. Number two, the president certainly knows that when this deal comes back here after it's negotiated, if one is negotiated, again we don't know, it's going to -- receive a great deal of scrutiny with respect to its specifics.

So the administration is clearly aware that they know this is going to be high bar. The prime minister today is going to try to raise that bar even higher with respect to the details, although I think he may -- he's in danger of coming across as being against any deal, I think, today. But certainly, Jake, the administration is fully aware of the high bar that's going to have to be crossed here with respect to the specifics and the specifics on this will matter a lot.

BLITZER: All right. The prime minister is now up on Capitol Hill. He's getting ready to address members of Congress, indeed address the nation and the world. But we're getting some major news coming out of Israel right now.

Kate Bolduan is in Jerusalem.

Kate, I understand there's some issues involving the broadcasting of this speech in Israel. What's going on?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CO-HOST, "AT THIS HOUR": I find this fascinating. And it definitely seems an unusual move. On this question of what impact the speech will have on the election here in Israel, that seems to be a key concern here in Israel as well. A judge's ruling has come down that anyone, any network broadcasting this speech on radio or television has to broadcast it with a five-minute delay in order to ensure that the prime minister's speech doesn't turn into -- doesn't contain propaganda for his re-election campaign.

I of course have a key question of who is monitoring and who makes the decision what's propaganda and what is not. But still that is very unusual. And this also, this move coincides, Wolf, with a big moment for the campaign for the election here in Israel. Today marks the day, the kickoff of the final push of the elections where all of the candidates can start running ads on both radio and TV.

Those ads just now starting to air in the lead up of the coverage of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech. This really just shows how interesting these -- the politics here are absolutely coinciding with the speech and the politics in the United States against the backdrop -- I know you have been talking about it, Wolf. He is in a very tight race. We've been combing through the polls here. And in some of the most recent polls, he's neck and neck with his main competitors.

Competitor Isaac Herzog, the equivalent of two congressional seats difference in one recent poll. It's been flip-flopping over time. Another poll last week showed Netanyahu leading with about 42 percent support from likely voters. Herzog having 37 percent support but that gap narrowing from its previous survey. And on key questions like trust, they seemed to be neck on neck on that as well in terms of there's a survey that asked if they -- whom they trusted to protect the relationship with Israel and the United States.

Less than a third, fewer than a third trusted their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to safeguard that relationship about the same as his opposition -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, Kate, basically what I hear you saying is that this judge in Israel given the fact that the elections are only two weeks away has decided that the Israel broadcast network, state television, some of the other channels in Israel, there will be a five-minute delay so that experts can determine if he's actually campaigning, which you can't do on Israel television within two weeks of an election, as opposed to delivering a policy speech? So there will be experts to decide what to delete and what to keep in, is that right?

BOLDUAN: That's my sense. That's -- you also have a question of who is monitoring, who makes that decision with regard to that five-minute delay. But clearly there is a concern and a sensitivity and a question if this will remain a policy speech about the existential threat to the survival of Israel from Iran or if -- or if somehow his campaign becomes part of that speech and the election becomes part of that speech as well. It clearly is a key question here. A key question with voters.

But I don't think anyone can say one way or the other what the impact of this speech will be on the election because folks across the board are split if it means it could backfire on him or if he's already won because he's successfully forced the conversation to be about security when folks here have said by and large that they care most about the economy when it comes to their election.

BLITZER: All right. Kate, we're going to get back to you obviously. Get more Israeli reaction. The elections in Israel exactly two weeks from today. And it's very, very tight if you believe all of the public opinion polls in Israel right now.