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Republicans Struggle to Choose New Speaker; Israel Conducting Raids Inside Gaza. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 13, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:02]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: You and I went in the spring to the concentration camps, and we questioned that. And now we see these images, and you question it again.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Yes, it's just so painful to see what's going on.

And it's -- we're journalists. We cover it, and so we see a lot of atrocities. We see a lot of bad things happening. We try to report as fairly and as honestly as we possibly can, but it's just awful. And none of us have ever been in a position of reporting some of the things we're seeing right now.

And it's just a hard assignment.

BASH: Colleagues are bearing witness, for sure.

Wolf, thank you so much. We will see you on "THE SITUATION ROOM" later today.

Thank you for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're tracking major developments on day seven of fighting in the Middle East. I'm Brianna Keilar here in Washington with Boris Sanchez. We have Anderson Cooper on scene in Israel.

And we do have breaking news, Israeli troops conducting raids inside Gaza. They have done this, the Israel Defense Forces saying they targeted terrorize cells and they searched for hostages here in the past day. Hamas is believed to have up to 150 hostages inside of Gaza, including some U.S. citizens.

Last hour, President Biden spoke with the families of 14 Americans who are still unaccounted for since the weekend attacks.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Now, earlier today, the IDF dropped fliers on Gaza.

You're seeing them there on your screen. The fliers tell people in the north to evacuate south within the next 24 hours. This indicates large ground operation could be imminent, the U.N. saying that evacuating 1.1 million people in one day is simply impossible -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Here in Israel, IDF tanks are on the move near Gaza and at the northern border with Lebanon.

Shelling broke out. Hezbollah claims it hit four Israeli targets, some witnessed by CNN, the specter, of course, of an escalation on two fronts very real and obviously of great concern.

CNN's Matthew Chance is here with me.

What are we learning about these Gaza attacks?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well first of all, they're not the big incursion, the big land attack that we have all been bracing for.

These are much more limited in scope, according to the IDF, and they're designed, specifically, first of all, to eliminate the threat of terrorism from the areas they're going into. That's how the IDF phrases it, but, more importantly, to try and locate some of the hostages that we know, between 100 and 150 of them, remember, Israelis mainly, inside the Gaza Strip, scattered across the whole area in unknown locations.

And it just underlines just how much danger there is for the military planners, how complicated it's going to be to try and conduct a big military operation with all those people on the ground. Already, Hamas, remember, say 13 hostages have been killed because of the airstrikes that Israel has been carrying out on the Gaza Strip.

That's not been verified, but, nevertheless, it underlines the complication.

COOPER: I mean, special forces raids by Israeli forces into Gaza are extremely tricky, extremely dangerous.

CHANCE: They are extremely dangerous because of the densely populated sort of like atmosphere there, the street plan there.

It's going to be much -- and it gives you an indication of how difficult it's going to be to put that full-scale invasion in as well.

COOPER: Yes.

CHANCE: But -- look, but there is this special effort under way at the moment by the Israelis to try and locate those hostages.

A newly appointed hostage coordinator has been meeting with family members of the hostages over the course of the day, telling them that everything that can be done that's humanly possible is being done to bring them back home.

COOPER: We also have some new video of airstrikes in Gaza. CNN has geolocated the footage that was released by the IDF, hitting an area near the Mediterranean Sea. Rockets can be seen being fired from a residential area near where the airstrikes took place. Israel is telling Gaza residents that they should flee to the south. Hamas is telling them, do not leave.

CHANCE: Yes.

Look, we are seeing the Israelis tell up to a million people, more than a million people, to basically move their homes, locate themselves to the south of the Gaza Strip. Obviously, that's going to compound the already acute humanitarian situation the ground.

It's going to cause massive disruption. Basically, the people of Gaza have really nowhere else to go. And that's why there is an emphasis now diplomatically on trying to negotiate a humanitarian corridor out of the Gaza Strip altogether, across the Rafah Border Crossing into Egypt.

Israel -- and I have spoken to lots of Israeli officials about that -- say they'd be very happy for that to happen.

COOPER: Sure.

CHANCE: They want to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible, but it's the Egyptians who don't want them in there.

COOPER: Just from a military standpoint, let alone a humanitarian standpoint, for Israeli officials planning any kind of ground incursion, they would like to see civilians moved out of these areas, so that they could go after Hamas full-bore.

CHANCE: Yes.

I mean, look, Israel is in no mood to compromise at the moment, but, at the same time, its spokespeople have made it clear they don't want to be sort of like killing masses of Palestinian civilians, at least any more than they already have done.

And so it would be in Israel's interest for them to move out the way, so they have got a free hand in that northern part of the Gaza Strip.

[13:05:00]

COOPER: There's no sign, though, for -- as of now, that Egypt would be willing to allow large numbers of Palestinians into their territory.

CHANCE: Well, I mean, Israeli officials that I have spoken to are holding back from making that allegation.

But they make the point that it is Egypt that controls that border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, not Israel. And they also say that it would be in Israel's -- they want as many people to leave the Gaza Strip as possible.

But Egypt doesn't want potentially militant Palestinians coming into that very volatile Sinai area of Egypt.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Also, they really feel, once they're there, there's very little chance -- the momentum would be to keep them there.

CHANCE: Well, that's the -- that's the reason Hamas is telling people to stay put, because they're concerned that, if Palestinians evacuate areas of the north of the Gaza Strip, they're never going to go back.

I mean, this whole region is littered with millions of Palestinians who have left their homes thinking they were going to go back, but never could and are still in refugee camps now.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Also, just from a military standpoint, it helps Hamas to have civilians around. If you don't care about the civilian population, it helps to perhaps weaken the efforts of your opponent.

CHANCE: It simplifies the military equation for the Israelis.

If everybody's there a militant, then why hold back in any way? Yes, of course, it advantages Hamas and other militant groups to have civilians around them.

COOPER: Matthew Chance, thank you.

There is also breaking news about U.S. intelligence warnings that the Biden administration of -- warning the Biden administration of potential for a clash in the recent -- in the region here before the Hamas attack on Israel. It's nuanced, though.

I want to get the details from CNN's Alex Marquardt.

Explain what you have learned about this.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is nuanced, Anderson, because there were clear warnings that were issued by U.S. intelligence agencies, by the Israelis that were briefed at a very high level, circulated at a very high level, but at the same time didn't point to anything, in particular, like we saw on Saturday, October 7.

We're now learning, my colleagues and I, that there were at least three different products that were published and circulated in the weeks and the days leading up to October 7. I just want to tick through this so that people really understand.

On September 28, so just over a week before, there was an assessment pulled from multiple streams of intelligence that pointed to Hamas possibly escalating rocket attacks across the border with Israel, between Gaza and Israel. And then, on October 5, so just two days before the attack, there was a product from the CIA that warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. And then there was this report that was circulated from the Israelis

on October 6 that pointed to a change in behavior by Hamas, indicating unusual activity, those indications, we now understand, that this attack was imminent.

The problem, Anderson, we're told from sources, is that warnings like this, the warning of violence by Hamas, the possibility of cross- border attacks, that had become the norm. But, taken all together, these three different products, warnings from Middle Eastern allies, it does beg the question if, at this moment, the U.S., the Biden administration, and the Israelis were taking this seriously enough.

Now, I spoke with two senior officials from Middle Eastern countries who said that, over the course of the past year or more, they had repeatedly in all kinds of meetings with the White House, with the intelligence community, with the military raised the possibility of significant violence.

And these sources say that, in all these meetings, that they were ignored, that the administration simply didn't understand the prospect of violence that Hamas could have carried out. There was an assumption -- and a senior Israeli official told me this as well -- that the next round of violence would simply look like previous rounds of violence, missiles flying across the border.

Of course, we know now, Anderson, that it was extremely different, and it was much more deadly.

COOPER: You use the term products. For those people who may not be familiar with that term, you're talking about intelligence reports.

Do you know how widely disseminated those were, at what level? I mean, it wasn't -- it was just sort of routine reports, you're saying?

MARQUARDT: Well, it was disseminated at a senior level within the administration, across the intelligence community. We know that some of this was also shared with Congress.

"The New York Times" is reporting that this was not briefed up to President Biden, but that, taken together, again, this was several successive, not products, but reports, assessments from the intelligence community that were disseminated.

And so when you have them all coming like that cumulatively in the days and weeks before this attack, it, combined with the warnings from allies, what we're asking now is, should these have not been taken more seriously?

COOPER: Right.

MARQUARDT: And there was certainly a sense on the Israeli side, we understand from U.S. sources, that they didn't think that this kind of thing that could happen, that the violence that they could have broken out would resemble previous flare-ups.

And, of course, that wasn't the case. COOPER: Yes.

Alex Marquardt, appreciate it. Thank you for the breaking news on that.

[13:10:01]

Right now, two top U.S. officials are in the Middle East reaffirming support for Israel, also trying to keep the war from expanding in the region, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meeting with top officials in Israel, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who the secretary of state met with yesterday.

Austin called the Hamas attack worse than ISIS and said America has Israel's back. For the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, he is now making multiple stops in Arab countries across the region. In the last hour, Blinken spoke to reporters in Qatar.

We just heard actually a very distant thud.

Of course, talked to reporters in Qatar. He urged Israel to avoid harming civilians and to establish safe zones in Gaza. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Israel has the right, indeed, it has the obligation to defend its people and to try to ensure that Hamas can never repeat what it's done.

We continue to discuss with Israel the importance of taking every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: CNN's Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon for us.

So, what more do we know about Secretary Austin's visit to Israel?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we see this as part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to give a full support for Israel in the coming days and weeks.

And you can see that from not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken's statements, but also from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who made it clear that now is not the time for any sort of neutrality in his broad show of support for Israel. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: This is no time for neutrality or for false equivalence or for excuses for the inexcusable.

There is never any justification for terrorism. And that's especially true after this rampage by Hamas. And anyone who wants lasting peace and security for this region must condemn and isolate Hamas. (END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Austin also arrived with shipments of weapons, the first of which have begun to arrive.

According to U.S. and Israeli officials we have spoken with, Israel has requested Iron Dome interceptors, which the U.S. will be providing, as well as precision-guided munitions, perhaps artillery, ammunition and more. So, that's the job of Austin in the region.

But as you have spoken about, Anderson, Blinken also in the region trying to make headway not only on the hostage rescue effort, speaking with officials in Qatar and other Arab countries, but also says he's working with and the U.S. is working with international aid organizations to try to ensure any sort of safe zone in Gaza that civilians could go to, all of this a very great challenge for Blinken and Austin as they make their rounds there.

COOPER: Yes, Oren Liebermann, thank you very much.

Want to go back to Boris and Brianna.

KEILAR: Anderson, thank you.

Turning now from Tel Aviv to Washington, there are some breaking developments here in the race to elect a new speaker of the House. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan is now running to be the Republican nominee. And at this very moment, the GOP Conference is behind closed doors, all of them together meeting.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this comes after Majority Leader Steve Scalise suddenly withdrew from the race last night after it became clear that he didn't have enough votes, 217 votes needed to win the gavel.

Jordan, though, believes he won't have the same problem. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I think -- I think we will get 217 votes.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But you will only keep running if you get 217 votes?

JORDAN: I think we will get -- I think we will -- watch yourself. Watch yourself.

I think we will get 217 votes.

RAJU: Would you be open to empowering Patrick McHenry if you don't?

JORDAN: I think we're going to get 217 votes. That's the quickest way to get to the unifying...

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: Let's take you now live to Capitol Hill with CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju.

And, Manu, we understand that now Jordan has some competition.

RAJU: Yes, he does. And he's going to face that against Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia declaring himself as a candidate.

This conference meeting now behind closed doors. It is a bitterly divided conference, many very frustrated members, many tired members after that historic ouster last week of Speaker McCarthy, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, pushing him aside. Never happened before in the history of this country.

And this party has not been able to find any consensus behind a speaker candidate. And that is significant because no legislation can get done, either dealing with pressing international issues, like the war in Israel, or even key domestic issues, like avoiding a government shutdown by mid-November.

No action can be taken unless there is a speaker of the House. And the question is, can Republicans finally get behind one candidate who can have the votes, not just in the conference meeting just now, where they will have a vote this afternoon, just it requires a majority of their 221-member conference, but then getting 217 votes on the House floor/

[13:15:00]

That is the big question. Jordan has indicated that he would only go to the floor if he has 217 votes. So, when they vote in a matter of moments, that's going to be what we're going to be looking at, whether or not Jordan is close to that 217-vote threshold.

If he is not, that will signal problems for him and potentially could lead to another candidate in this race. And another problem for Jordan, there are some members who simply will not vote for him, including some who say they will vote for Kevin McCarthy as speaker, even though McCarthy himself is backing Jordan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: On Jim Jordan, are you going to support him?

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-AL): No.

LIEBERMANN: You're not? Why not?

ROGERS: I'm supporting Kevin McCarthy.

RAJU: Do you support Jim Jordan?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm supporting Kevin.

RAJU: Still?

Do you worry this disarray will cost you guys the majority?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I think a lot of things have happened so far that make a real damage for us moving forward.

I fear of different people retiring. I fear of having the resources to be able to do the job. I fear that what has slowed us down on the amount of legislation we're already passing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, it's very possible that, even if they do find some consensus in this room, that this could all wait until next week, in part because there are some attendance issues.

There are members on both sides of the aisle who are not even in Washington. So they might not even be able to have a floor vote today to elect a new speaker, pushing it potentially into next week, even as all these issues continue to pile up.

But the question still remains, who can get to 217 votes? And if they can't get someone, will they try to prop up the interim speaker, Patrick McHenry, to have more power and say over the legislative process on the floor? That is an internal debate that is still ongoing, but shows you the desperate times Republicans are in after the dysfunction that was part of their own making -- guys.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the House frozen until they elect a speaker, with so much in the balance, including aid for Israel.

Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, thanks so much.

We are continuing to follow the latest developments from the Middle East, including Israeli shelling in Southern Lebanon, fears rising of Hezbollah potentially entering this conflict.

KEILAR: And then, along the Israel-Gaza border, we are witnessing tanks on the move amassing there.

Stay with CNN for the latest developments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:18]

KEILAR: Now, this just in.

The White House confirms that the call that included the families of 14 Americans who are still unaccounted for after the attacks by Hamas in Israel, that it has wrapped. And before the call took place, President Biden told "60 Minutes" of what he expected to say personally to the families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Why do you feel so strongly about speaking to these families personally on Zoom? JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because I think they have

to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what's happening, deeply.

We have to communicate to the world this is critical. This is not even human behavior. It's pure barbarism. And we're going to do everything in our power to get them home, if we can find them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The Biden administration says it is working closely with Israel to locate and rescue those who have been kidnapped -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: I want to take a closer look at what's happening right now along Israel's border ahead of a possible ground operation in Gaza.

Retired U.S. Army Major General Spider Marks joins us.

Major General, always a pleasure to get your perspective on these matters.

I want to start in Southern Lebanon, because we have seen an exchange of artillery fire there, the IDF responding to an explosion at a security fence.

The fear, of course, is that Hezbollah could open up essentially an operation into Israel, war coming from the north. How big of a problem could that be for IDF forces as they try to go into Gaza?

BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Boris, the big question is, Israel has dealt with multiple fronts before.

So, the question is the magnitude of what just occurred in Gaza, will it distract the IDF? I don't think it will. But the concern is, do they get target-focused down in Gaza and not pay enough attention to what's happening in the north?

My short answer to that is, I don't think that's a concern. There's been a mobilization of close to 300,000 additional soldiers. What you see in the vicinity of the Gaza in Northern Israel, Southern Lebanon, it's one of the most highly patrolled militarized area in the world today.

So, Israel, as a matter of routine, has a number of highly trained personnel. Plus, it has some really good intelligence capabilities that stretch across the border into Southern Lebanon. So, it's a matter of identifying, reading the indicators and then being prepped for multiple options if the Hezbollah forces decide to come across.

SANCHEZ: General, we have seen, focusing in on Gaza, tanks starting to move closer into the border. Over the last 24 hours, there have been raids in Gaza.

From what we understand, these are more specifically in the search for hostages. How do you see the early part of a ground operation into this region playing out?

MARKS: Yes, what you're seeing right now are the initial what would be called preparatory tasks.

I think those operations to go after hostages were done because they had a high confidence, the Israelis had a high confidence on the intelligence of where hostages might have been, not to confuse operations like that in terms of conducting those to gather intelligence.

However, one of the offshoots of any operation is, you're going to get a better sense of what's taking place on the ground. So, good intelligence, trying to go after hostages, and then positioning your forces very, very precisely in multiple locations, so you don't simply come across in one location and give your enemy forces, Hamas, an opportunity to galvanize their forces and look directly at the Israelis as they're coming across.

[13:25:07]

So, give Hamas multiple targets to deal with, and help put them off their guard.

SANCHEZ: And speaking with experts over recent days, they mentioned that that intelligence that you were describing is also going to be key in preventing the death of civilians in the area.

And Israel actually started sending down pamphlets, literally shooting pamphlets into the sky. And, essentially, they're in Arabic. There's a map of Gaza, and they're warning civilians in Northern Gaza to get out.

How likely is that? The U.N. has described getting that many people out of there quickly as impossible, General.

MARKS: Yes, well, it really is difficult.

But what is really saying is, look, we're going to conduct operations into Gaza. We're going to go after terrorist cells. We're going to do the best we can to try to recover our hostages. If you are in the way of that, we are asking you to please go to ground and get out of the way.

In other words, Israel is conducting its operations, intends to conduct its operations with the laws of proportionality, to minimize collateral damage. Civilians, now that you have a chance, get out of the way, because we're coming across.

Hamas has indicated, we want you to stay, stay in place.

Clearly, the mixture of civilian targets -- you have got civilians with military targets completely interwoven. That's the challenge. And that is against international law. Hamas is guilty of bringing those two together. There is an obligation that Israel has, an absolute sovereignty obligation, to go after the source of this terror that's taken place in its nation. And what Hamas is doing is, they're going to set up civilian targets,

use them as human shields. That, by itself, is against the law as well.

SANCHEZ: General Spider Marks, we appreciate the perspective. We have to leave the conversation there. Thanks for being with us.

MARKS: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, we have new details about the planning of Saturday's attack by Hamas.

Our own Clarissa Ward is reporting on how years were spent training for it, literally right over the border from Israel.

Stay with CNN's special live coverage. We're back in just moments.

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