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Secretary of State Blinken in Israel as IDF Conducts Large- Scale Strike on Hamas Targets in Gaza; Officials Say, 1,200 Killed in Israel, 1,417 Killed in Gaza; Today, House GOP to Meet to Discuss Speaker Vote. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 12, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The breaking news out of Israel this morning, we are seeing new Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Israel saying that they are targeting the Hamas terrorist there. And the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is in Tel Aviv at this moment. Moments ago, we saw him really just being mobbed by grateful Israelis and hugging and consoling survivors of the Hamas terror attacks. There are and people thanking him, clapping, they sang the Israeli national anthem, they were chanting, USA, USA. We will hear from the secretary of state again with a press conference shortly.

SARA SIDER, CNN ANCHOR: Now, early, Antony Blinken met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli President Herzog. You can see the pictures there of the two men standing together, him and the prime minister. He reiterated America's unwavering support for Israel and vowed that the U.S. doing and will do everything it can in a desperate race to find and free hostages, some American hostages as well being held by Hamas in Gaza as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is deepens by the hour. Israeli officials believe the hostages are being kept underground in tunnels.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's begin this hour with Jeremy Diamond. He's in Ashdod. Jeremy, you and your team, you just had to take cover. What is going on there?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. I mean, look, this is just the kind of daily reality here when you are somewhat close to the Gaza border. I mean, Gaza Strip is right behind us. There's only the city of Ashkelon, and then after that, you have the Gaza Strip.

And moments ago, we did get air raid sirens and we had to head into the shelter here. Here is that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: We just entered a shelter inside our hotel in Ashdod as we are hearing overhead the Iron Dome missile intercepts happening right now. This is the first time in the last couple of days that we have actually had a red alert right here in Ashdod while we've been here. Typically, they've been a little bit further south, in Ashkelon as well as in Sderot, which has been perhaps one of the hardest hit cities.

This is just the reality of life when you are just miles away from the Gaza border. Of course, we have also seen other rocket attacks further afield, in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, but those are more and more infrequent. But, again, this is what the people do. They come into the shelters. We are in a hotel. There're two of these on each floor, and people wait for a few minutes for calm to resume.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And then when we returned to our live shot position here at the hotel, we were able to see above us that there were at least three plumes of smoke indicating Iron Dome intercepts of rockets here above the skies of Ashdod. We don't have any reports as of yet that there were any direct hits of those rockets. And, again, we know that the Iron Dome System is incredibly effective. It is not 100 percent effective, and so everyone here still knows the drill to take those precautionary measures when that comes in.

At the same time, from our position, we can also hear the steady rumble of airstrikes hitting the Gaza Strip. We know that the Israeli military is now using not only airstrikes but also artillery to pound the Gaza Strip. And as a result, we have watched the death toll in Gaza also rising now heading northwards of 1,400 people killed in Gaza.

And we do know that as Israel prepares for the next phase of this military campaign and all indications points to a potential ground invasion of Gaza, we know that that will result in additional casualties not only of Israeli forces who head in, when you put troops on the ground, you're going to have casualties but also of the civilians inside the Gaza Strip, a congested area, where we know that every time there is a war, those are the people who are most often caught in the crossfire.

[10:05:00]

BOLDUAN: Jeremy, thank you so much. We'll stick close to you.

BERMAN: All right. Let's get back to Tel Aviv right now, where the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been meeting with leaders. We just saw him at a donation center. This has really turned into a remarkable visit.

Our Becky Anderson is there. Becky, the reception from the Israelis has been extraordinary.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, they wanted the American officials here. They didn't just want to hear these words of support. They really wanted to see U.S Secretary of State to Antony Blinken here, and he has been here this morning. In fact, his cars have just driven past where we are in this hotel.

But, look, let's have a look at these pictures. Lior Gelbaum, 24-year- old Israeli-American who survived that massacre at the music festival at the weekend, she was hugged by Antony Blinken. And she related the story that she has lived through. It's a story of nightmare, isn't it? It's an absolutely excruciating story to hear what happened at 6:30 in the morning on Saturday.

And Antony Blinken showing his absolute humanity as he was welcomed to that donation center in Tel Aviv and spoke to Lior personally.

Look, he's here. And earlier today, he was shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and he absolutely insisted that America's support is unwavering. And he said that as long as America exists, Israel will never stand alone in defending itself.

This is what the Israeli prime minister had to say earlier.

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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: President Biden was absolutely correct in calling this sheer evil. Hamas is ISIS, and just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed.

And Hamas should be treated exactly the way ISIS was treated. They should be spit out from the community of nations. No leader should meet them. No country should harbor them. And those that do should be sanctioned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, questions, of course, now abound about what this war against Hamas will look like, and what the price will be that is paid by civilians.

And I spoke with President Herzog earlier on, who has also met with the U.S. secretary of state, President Biden, this morning. President Herzog gave no indication of when a ground incursion might start. Tony prepared to say that this will be a long and drawn-out campaign against Hamas.

And let's be quite clear, as you were reporting with Priscilla at the top of this hour, the U.S. has warned Israel to uphold the laws of war as 2 million Gazans under total siege face the prospect of a massive assault by Israeli forces.

Just earlier today, the U.N. deploring what it has described as the collective punishment reprisal strikes against Gazans.

Let me just close with this. The president addressing questions today, the president of Israel addressing questions today about the possibility of international support waning the longer this goes on and the higher the death toll in Gaza is.

There were questions about a policy of collective punishment of these Gazans. He was clearly frustrated and said we are working -- frustrated with the questions, and he said we are working to adhere to the rules of war. But he said we are at war. He said he admitted that there will be, quote, many Palestinians who do not support Hamas, but he said reality has turned into this tragedy. Back to you guys.

BERMAN: All right. Becky Anderson in Tel Aviv, Becky, thank you very much for all that. Keep us posted on what else you see there on the ground.

SIDNER: We don't thank Jeremy Diamond as well, who we heard from and had to take cover because rockets are still being fired from Gaza.

Right now, U.S. officials are furiously working behind the scenes to try to put together just how many Americans are being held hostage by Hamas and what can be done about it, how to get them out. A top U.S. hostage official is with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel this morning.

CNN's National Security Reporter Natasha Bertrand is joining us now from the Pentagon. Natasha, this is a very, very difficult situation with hostages, in general, and Americans, in particular, in Hamas' hands at this point. What are you hearing about the plans?

[10:10:00]

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, that's right Sara. U.S. officials really don't know at this point just where of course these hostages are, in what condition they are, whether they are all being held in one place. But that does not impact the ability of the U.S. to work, of course, with the Israelis and really an all hands on deck effort to try to find these hostages, especially before Israel decides to launch any kind of ground invasion into Gaza that could jeopardize the safety of those people being held captive by Hamas.

And as I said, this is an all hands on deck effort across the administration. FBI and Pentagon personnel are on the ground. There's an interagency working group at the State Department, National Security Council and FBI who are taking in information from these hostages' family members and special operators are on the ground in Israel working with the Israelis to provide them support and intelligence and help in terms of the best practices to try to get these hostages located and out.

Now, it is important to note that, you know, National Security Council Official John Kirby said there are only less than a handful of hostages that are believed to be American who are being held in Gaza. But that does not matter, he said. He said that if you hold -- even if you are a dual citizen, if you hold a U.S. passport the US is going to be doing everything it possibly can to help secure your release. And that is exactly what they're doing.

And, importantly, the FBI's critical incident response group, they are also on the ground and they have a lot of experience dealing with this kind of thing. So, really no effort being spared here across the administration but it is a very difficult task ahead, Sara.

SIDNER: Yes. And we should mention, you know, the last time that Israel managed to get someone out of the hands of Hamas and Gaza, it was Gilad Shalit, it was five and a half years to get him released back to his family. This is a very difficult moment as these families wait to hear any word about the status of their loved ones.

Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for your reporting. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And joining us now for more on this is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Congressman Mike McCaul. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for taking the time.

I want to start with the official, if you will, and then talk a little bit of the personal. After the classified briefing that you moderated for House members and after hearing from the IDF on CNN that reason dictates Hamas is holding the hostages underground, do you think the hostages can be recovered safely?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): It's going to be very difficult, Kate. And we're going to move into the sort of house-to-house rescue operation, not only to rescue hostages but to kill the terrorists.

And so this is the most dangerous part of the mission. It will be very bloody, we anticipate. They use hostages as human shields. So, they'll use them in the tunnels. They'll use them in the houses, the buildings. And they're very willing to give the hostages up to be sacrificed.

Now, we do think they're holding the hostages to be in exchange for prisoners, Palestinian prisoners that the Israelis have. So, that gives me some hope that it can be negotiated. I'm glad there are special operators with the IDF right now and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. I think they can add a lot of assets on the ground to help them in this mission.

BOLDUAN: On the question or topic of prisoners swap, you know, in exchange for prisoners being held in Israel, a Hamas official based in Lebanon spoke to Russian T.V. and he also said this. I want to read this for you, we have Palestinian prisoners in the U.S. who we want. We have Hamas members sentenced to life in prison in the United States.

Do you know anything of this? I mean, would you support releasing any Hamas prisoner in the United States in order to get an American hostage back from Gaza?

MCCAUL: Well, I don't like to incentivize more hostage taking. I've been critical of the latest swaps, like the ones that we had with Iran. We had five very dangerous Iran prisoners in the United States that were exchanged for five innocent Americans. But on top of that, Kate, was the lifting of the sanctions on $6 billion that will go into Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror.

Now, that greatly concerns me. We see what Iran is capable of. Their fingerprints are all over this, what's happening, what you're seeing on the screen right now. And I would hate to give them more resources to do more acts of terror like what you're seeing.

BOLDUAN: These are live pictures that we're looking at of Gaza. You're seeing more black plumes of smoke. We know Israel has started to conduct a large-scale strike operation ahead of the next stage, as they call it, which they're not, obviously, announcing what that is, to try to take out Hamas military infrastructure.

[10:15:00]

Tony Blinken, Mr. Chairman, said today in his remarks when he was in Israel that one of the goals of his visit right now is to prevent this conflict from spreading. Do you think it can be contained? Do you think Blinken can do it?

MCCAUL: That's my great hope. I brought that up in the classified briefing yesterday. I think our worst case nightmare scenario, Kate, is that this will escalate beyond the Gaza, beyond Hamas and the Gaza. It will escalate to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Remember, Hezbollah has 100,000 rockets at their disposal. That would entirely overload the Iron Dome. It's not capable of defending Israel from that amount of rockets. We're also worried about jihadist groups like in Syria. We have the Iran-backed Shia militia groups in Iraq, and we have all sorts of jihadist groups. That is our worst nightmare that we want to contain this conflict to the Gaza.

But what you're seeing on the screen is the original command and control operations to take those out by strikes. And then the second phase will be going house to house to liberate hostages and kill terrorists. That's going to take not days, not weeks, but months. And I think the American people and I think in Israel, people have to be prepared for that. And that would just give more time for our adversaries to react and respond to this.

So, I agree with the secretary on that. I'm glad he's there. I'm really glad he embraced the musicgoers that were so viciously killed at that concert. He and I both have a love for music. We had that piece through music event at the State Department, my bill that I passed.

And I just -- you know, I was on that, that kibbutz down in South Israel, near Gaza.

BOLDUAN: I was going to ask you about that. I was going to say your office actually sent me some images when that you visited the Kibbutz Kfar Gaza last year. How does that impact you now knowing the massacre that happened there?

MCCAUL: It makes it personal. I was just there a year ago with the speaker, then-Speaker McCarthy. And to see -- you know, I got a call the day after the invasion, if you will, of Hamas to tell me that that entire kibbutz had been annihilated, massacred.

And the saddest thing, Kate, was that that daycare center that I saw, with all the children and the babies that they were -- you know, they just had undergone a 4,500 rocket attack from Hamas a month prior to that, by the way. But to find out that the daycare center had also been invaded, and they killed all the children and beheaded them, beheaded babies, this shows you how vicious they are. When Netanyahu says they're just like ISIS, when they behead children and babies, I think they are. BOLDUAN: There is some lack of clarity now on how -- on the -- it's hard to even work through it -- on who was beheaded if there is confirmation that it involved children. I say that only for accuracy of reporting, not to at all diminish that children were massacred there and children were massacred everywhere. And it is -- and Tony Blinken himself said that it is akin to the worst of ISIS, even Tony Blinken saying that, what he sees coming from Hamas.

An interesting thing I'd also want to ask you about is the Saudi press is reporting that MBS actually spoke with the president of Iran yesterday about the Hamas attack. This is interesting to me in terms of the question of containment. What role do you think MBS and Saudi Arabia could play in preventing this from spreading further and from bringing an end to Hamas?

MCCAUL: Well, I think Turkey could have a role in that. I think the Qataris could have a role in that, Qatar. Of course, the Saudis have a role in terms of their connection to the Palestinians. And so I think that that is something that I think we need to bring all diplomacy to bear here.

And I'm glad Secretary Blinken is over there to meet with our partners who can bring a diplomatic end to this nightmare and, I think, as you and I talked about, prevent a future escalation of this massacre that's taking place.

BOLDUAN: And it is important to note what you said, that this -- we could be looking at months here of conflict, months to try to get -- bring Hamas down and to get these hostages out hopefully safely and alive.

[10:20:11]

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time.

MCCAUL: Thank you, Kate. Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Of course. John.

BERMAN: All right. On your screen there, that is a live look inside Gaza right now. Israel says it is conducting large-scale strikes on Hamas targets. We are hearing more stories of the horror of the Hamas terror attacks in Israel, including a teenager who survived by hiding underneath his mother's dead body.

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[10:25:00]

BERMAN: All right, happening a little bit later today, House Republicans will meet behind closed doors to try to figure something out. Yesterday, you know, Steve Scalise narrowly won a majority of House Republicans to be their choice for the next speaker of the House. The problem is they can't get 217 of them to agree to put him over the top on the House floor. So, they're going back to the drawing board. We should note, as this chaos ensues and they can't get a speaker, Congress is doing nothing. And that means nothing while Israel hangs in the balance. By CNN's count, there are at least a dozen Republican holdouts. Scalise can only afford to lose four.

With us now, CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon and CNN Political Commentator Ana Navarro.

Ana, I want to start with you here. Scalise won the vote inside the conference yesterday, but that doesn't seem to be enough. I mean, do you think that they're going to be able to coalesce around a speaker? Will there ever be a speaker?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, there's going to be a speaker at some point. I think Scalise won in yesterday was good news, as good news comes right now from the Republican caucus, because he is less polarizing by degrees, albeit, but less polarizing than Jim Jordan.

But, look, I have to say this, it just -- the contrast could not be starker. At a moment when our friend and ally, Israel, is under attack and at war, when there are American hostages, when there have been Americans killed, when the entire region is inflamed, our Congress cannot have a reaction, much less a unified reaction and speaking one voice because they don't have a speaker.

This is no time for the clown show, for the performances and for the contest of click and Twitter-bait and fundraising appeals that has taken over Congress for the last few years. It is imperative that these people do their job. It is imperative that they get their act together, that they get some leadership, and that they stop the infantile games and stupidity, which we have all been victim of for the last few years. It's really enough. This is no time for it. For God's sakes, turn on the T.V., look at the children dying, look at the slaughtered teenagers, and have some common sense.

BOLDUAN: And that is what is wrapped up in this, is when you talk about what has happened in Israel.

And on the political front, it is kind of a miraculous thing we see kind of happening, which is we just had Mike McCaul, who's clashed with the administration, the Biden administration before, chairman of House Foreign Affairs, has threatened to hold Tony Blinken in contempt, complimenting Tony Blinken in the administration for being there and being on the ground to stand with Israel.

Who is not doing that is the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. And I want to play for everyone what he said yesterday, because we've also just received a response from the Biden White House. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I'll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing. I will say that. When I see sometimes the intelligence, you talk about the intelligence, or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week, they've got to straighten it out because they're fighting potentially a very big force.

And they said, gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn't attack from the north because that's the most vulnerable spot. I said, wait a minute. You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They're all very smart. The press doesn't like when they say it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Very smart. From the White House, the White House just put this out, a spokesperson, on these statements says, we don't comment on 2024. Statements like this are dangerous and unhinged. It's completely lost on us. Why any American would ever praise an Iran- backed terrorist organization as smart or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel, especially now as Israel is fighting back against one of the worst acts of mass murder in the country's history.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, there used to be an idea that was elevated by Republicans that partisanship ought to end at the water's edge. That's particularly true in a time of crisis like this with an ally. The fact that Donald Trump didn't have the decency to try to unite the nation, but his instinctively -- instinct is always to divide and make it about himself, and then to praise the terrorists who are murdering children as very smart. You know, it reminds me of language he used after Tiananmen Square, where he praised the Chinese government at that time for being tough and smart.

He seems to praise violent actions by so-called strong men or groups.

[10:30:01]

And that's part of that. It's this instinct to make it all about himself, not thinking about others, let alone thinking about uniting the nation or the world.