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Israeli Airstrikes And Aid Needs; Escalation In Israel Continues; Jim Jordan Loses Second House Vote; Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty; Rafah Crossing To Open. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 19, 2023 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our special coverage. I'm Boris Sanchez with Brianna Keilar in Washington alongside Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv. Today, Israeli airstrikes have pummelled targets in Gaza, including its southern district, which is where Palestinian civilians were told to stay and where they desperately need humanitarian aid.

On that note, yesterday, President Biden got assurances from Israel and Egypt that food, water, and medicine would be allowed through the Rafah border crossing. That's the one between Gaza and Egypt, though delivery trucks are still waiting for the green light to cross. An Egyptian security official tells CNN the crossing will open tomorrow morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a few hours before that, President Biden will be pushing Congress for tens of billions of dollars in military aid for Israel. In his second ever primetime address from the Oval Office, Biden will argue continued wartime support for Israel and Ukraine is critical for U.S. national security. Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Here in Israel, another illustration of the scouring -- Let's go quickly to Nic Robertson being told. Nic, what's going on?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, Anderson, we've seen outgoing intercepts from the Iron Dome, and right now, we just got the camera locked off as we're taking shelter because we had the incoming siren of missiles incoming. And as you know from here, it's a very short range to Gaza, so when the siren goes off, you have about six or seven seconds to take cover here.

I think there were two salvos of rockets because we saw intercepts, probably intercepting rockets that were heading to the north, to Ashkelon and Ashton, and then the sirens went off for Sderot where we were, which is where we took cover, and we heard those rockets come over. It's been a bit like that this afternoon. Sorry, I'm a bit out of breath. We were just ducking for cover there because we know the damage that these rockets can do.

One landed not far from here a couple of days ago and really smashed through the side of the house, through the inside of the house, out through another wall, wrecked the inside of the house. So obviously you take, as you do, and our colleagues do, take precautions and take cover. But that seems to have passed. Yes, I think it's over. Well, Nic, right now [ph].

COOPER: Nic, let me ask you, you spoke to government ministers who gave you an outline of what a post-war Gaza might look like. That's something a lot of US security officials have been raising questions about publicly. I spoke to David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, among many other positions, and one of the things he was sort of stressing is assuming Israel's successful on the ground with what they want to do with Hamas, what happens in any vacuum that is created? What happens to Gaza then? What did you hear from the official he was talking to?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, there were several things today from both these government ministers. One is they made it very clear that the decision to go to war has been made. We understand that. But the green light for a military incursion has already been given to the military. It's up to the military now when they choose to go in. There's no more political steps required. But on the questions of what does a post- incursion Gaza look like, I think it's gonna look radically different. That border fence area that has an electronic border fence that has sensors on it, that has cameras on it, the wall behind it that drops down deep into the ground to protect against tunnels, and a small buffer zone behind that, that's going to become much, much wider. A zone along the whole 67 kilometers of the border fence, we were told, a zone that no one will be allowed to go into.

So essentially, the Israeli Defense Forces will have free fire in that zone. It creates a much bigger buffer and would prevent any physical incursion. So that's one way it seems that the mistakes, some of the mistakes that were made on Saturday the 7th will be overcome. But the other thing that's a very big takeaway, I think, is this, that if you compare the Gaza word to the West Bank today, and I give the example of the West Bank today, the Israeli Defense Force were able to go in there and arrest more than 60 different Hamas operatives in the West Bank. It wasn't an incursion. They were able to go in with a military force and do that. What the IDF, it appears, is planning for Gaza is a similar scenario, where it is so completely disarmed, where a new authority will have to be built and created, I was told, that the defense forces would be able to go in, as they can in the West Bank, and make arrests.

[14:05:09]

That would be a monumental shift from where we are today, and would seem to indicate that a huge ground incursion or military force is going to be required to achieve that. We know that the government says Hamas is going to be completely destroyed. But what we're hearing now are the steps that would follow on from that, which could only take place if Hamas was completely gone from the scene. You could not have a situation as it is today, where the IDF---

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Right. ROBERTSON: -- could go in and arrest people if they wanted to. I think

these are the first indications we're getting.

COOPER: All right. Nic Robertson, I appreciate it. Joining me now is Mark Regev, the senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Regev, I appreciate you being with us. First of all, I'd like to talk about the border crossing in Rafah. Egyptian officials, Egyptian security official, told someone from CNN that it will be open tomorrow. Do you have a sense of how long that border may be open for? Do you know where those supplies that have been in trucks in the Egyptian side of the border, where they will be offloading their supplies and what happens then?

MARK REGEV, SENIOR ADVISER TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: So, it is also my understanding that we'll have movement tomorrow. It's also my understanding that the supplies are supposed to be for the refugee population in the south, those people who have relocated from the north, at our advice, to escape what will be ultimately a combat zone. And that is my understanding.

COOPER: Do you know how many people have heeded the -- advice or the urging of Israeli authorities to move south? Do you know how many in Gaza have moved south?

REGEV: I've heard different numbers, but we know it's in the hundreds of thousands. And all those people who have successfully moved, at our advice, are doing themselves a favour. No one should knowingly stay in a combat zone where there is the danger that they'll get caught up in the crossfire between us and Hamas. We don't want to see the civilian population experience mass casualties, and that's why we urge them to leave the north where we know, where we expect there'll be very intensive fighting.

COOPER: Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said today that, I believe that the IDF has told the families of some 203 people that it believes their loved ones are being held hostage in Gaza. That's a slightly bigger number than the 199 or so that we had heard before. Can you just talk about the difficulty of actually coming up with a number? Because from the people I've talked to, it's not just Hamas or Islamic Jihad who may have kidnapped people or who did kidnap people. It's possibly sort of families, mob gangs and the like, who initially may have taken people.

REGEV: That's 100% correct. And it's difficult for me to tell you that that's the final number precisely because of the situation. I mean, we know that people are missing, but we've also got--- I think it's between 200 and 300 bodies that have been so badly burnt we can't identify them. Hamas was using weapons that burn bodies very quickly and very thoroughly, and we haven't identified all the casualties. And so, to know exactly who is in Gaza and who is not, it's a question mark. And I am worried that that number, which rose from 199, could rise further. But we have to wait and see.

COOPER: I know two more Israelis who were missing have been declared dead today. I believe other members of their family, including a 12- year-old boy, are still believed being held captive. At least the 12- year-old boy, I believe, was seen in a video being taken out of Nir Oz. Do you know any more information about where they were found?

REGEV: I cannot. I apologize. But we can talk about the principle, and that is we have over 200 people being held hostage against all rules of international behavior by Hamas in Gaza. And as the expectation of the ground offensive becomes closer, I think this just shows us the sort of enemy that we're up against. A ruthless, brutal enemy that has no qualms whatsoever about butchering innocent civilians, and of the most atrocious and appalling violence.

[14:09:50]

And I think those Israeli soldiers going into combat will know who they're facing and why they are fighting. And we expect, unfortunately, difficult fighting for our soldiers. And we know that war, --victory will not come without a price. But I think this country is united in the knowledge that we have to defeat this enemy. We're not going back to the status quo. We're not going to go back to a situation where there was this terrorist enclave on our border, an ISIS-type terror mini-state that threatens our people the way we saw on October 7th. We're not just going back to that. And the way not to go back to that is to destroy Hamas's military machine in Gaza, to dismantle its political structure.

That way, hopefully, we're going to have a better situation for Israelis who live in the border communities. And I think also a different political situation in Gaza, a different reality in Gaza, also serves the people of Gaza, who have not done particularly well under Hamas rule over the last 16 years.

COOPER: As I mentioned to our Nic Robertson shortly before, I'm not sure if you heard that, I had been talking to David Petraeus, a former general, former director of the CIA. And one of the questions he raises, does Israel have a plan for, assuming you have success, as you see it in Gaza, against Hamas and Islam Jihad, presumably, what then? What fills that vacuum? As the U.S. is founded in Iraq and elsewhere, a lot of bad things can happen when there's a vacuum.

REGEV: So, you're 100 percent correct in these questions we need to ask. And we are asking them. And I've been in discussions where the afterward scenario has been discussed. There are different contingencies. I apologize, but I'm not at liberty to discuss them. But I can assure you that we are thinking and looking at those constituencies. This is not new. We've always known that there was a possibility of an all-out war with Gaza. We always knew that maybe we'd have to interfere. We didn't want to do it. This war was forced upon us. But now those theoretical documents that were once out there become more realistic. And we are thinking about those scenarios.

President Biden said yesterday, words of wisdom, he said, you don't want rage to dictate your policy. And we have the right to be angry, and we have the right to have rage after what Hamas did to our civilians, the way they were butchered. But we have to be judicious, and we will be judicious in how we use our force and in what happens afterwards.

COOPER: Just a final question. Nic Robertson earlier, just a few moments ago, said he had talked to one official who'd said that the decision now is in the hands of the IDF in terms of when any kind of operation actually begins, that the political part of that is over, that decision has been handed over to the IDF. Is that correct?

REGEV: I'm not going to confirm or deny anything to do with operations for obvious reasons. But I can say this. I know from our own intelligence that Hamas has been surprised by the determination that Israel has struck back. Hamas will continue to be surprised. They will regret the day, those who remain alive, that they butchered our people. And we will destroy their military machine. And anyone involved in the attack on our civilian population, the butchering of our people, will be found and they will pay a price. And that includes Hamas leaders inside the Gaza Strip and those outside the Gaza Strip.

COOPER: Mark Regev, thank you for your time. Brianna, back to you.

REGEV: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: All right, Anderson, thank you. Back here in Washington on Capitol Hill, there is even more chaos over the Speaker of the House race. Congressman Jim Jordan, who has failed to win the speakership after two rounds of voting, is putting a pause on a third vote and, according to sources, may back expanding the powers of the interim speaker, the Speaker pro tem Patrick McHenry, as a temporary fix until Jordan can try again. It's a plan that seems to be dividing the GOP conference just as much as Jordan's candidacy. And tensions are soaring in a GOP conference meeting underway right now, with a lot of swearing and shouting. So, let's get more now on this latest twist from CNN chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju. This meeting, Manu, really sounds like it got out of hand. Where are things standing?

[14:13:50]

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's been going on for more than three hours. It is devolved into a back and forth, tense words being exchanged, swear words being exchanged, including at one point the former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, telling Matt Gates who led the effort to oust him to sit down. Gates, then some other members, cursed at him. One member, Mike Boss, went after him as well, says, cussing at him several times, we're told. Also, a number of members calling on Jim Jordan, the Speaker nominee for the Republican Party, to drop out. That is something that Jordan is refusing to do.

Basically, where this stands right now is that Jordan has said that he would support making Patrick McHenry the interim speaker, giving him more legislative power to move through the legislative process, take up bills that have been essentially paralyzed amid this fighting within the House. But he says he would not drop out of the race to be speaker. He said he would allow this process to be, Pat McHenry to be an interim speaker, to happen till January, at which point he'd be willing to move forward. But there's a problem. There has been furious opposition to this idea of propping up Patrick McHenry. One Republican member after another has come out here essentially saying that that is dead, that they will not support that, that it will not pass the House, and that ultimately they need to abandon that plan altogether here, raising even more questions about how they are going to proceed and whether Jordan will try to, will actually drop out of the race, whether a new candidate will emerge as speaker, and whether that candidate could even get the 217 votes he or she might, will need in this bitterly divided Republican conference. And in talking to these members and leaving this room, it is very clear the tension is very high, and many members are very, very much on the opposite sides about how to proceed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM BANKS (R-IN): It's absurd. It's the biggest FU to Republican voters I've ever seen. It's a big mistake. It's a big mistake.

UNKNOW: How many Republicans?

BANKS: And over half the Republicans in that room are against it and are going to go to the floor and vote against it. It's going to take Democrats to make it happen. And that's a, that is a historic betrayal to our Republican voters if we go along with it.

RAJU: What's the level of tension and frustration in the room right now?

UNKNOWN: Hi. I'll -- I'll just leave it at this. The eight who did this clearly did not have a plan. Where I come from as a veteran, if you're going to blow a bridge, you better have another one to cross. And those eight clearly didn't have another one.

RAJU: And I'm here right now with Carlos Gimenez, who's a congressman from Florida, someone who has opposed Jim Jordan multiple times. You were just in this room. When Jim Jordan is indicating he's not going to drop out of this race and he's going to be still be the speaker designee. Is that the right choice?

REP CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL): No, I think he, he's, he's going to reassess. He's going to call the folks that are, that are -- voted against him, find out if there's any movement. And then he's going to have to, he's going, he said he's going to reassess that with his family and then make a determination.

RAJU: So, he just told you guys inside the room that he's going to consider whether to continue as a candidate here.

GIMENEZ: I think that, like I said, he's going to call the, the, the 20, 21, 22, and then find out if there's any movement. Is there a path to 217 and then he'll make that choice.

RAJU: And then you're one of those 2022 are you going to change your approach to him?

GIMENEZ: At this point?

RAJU: No. So, you're going to continue to impose him?

GIMENEZ: Yes. RAJU: So then will they move forward on this resolution to empower

Patrick McHenry or does that seem like that's dead?

GIMENEZ: I would hope that they would something similar to that. And I think Patrick's been very, very clear. He's not going to just do it on his own. He thinks the parliamentarian was right and he's not going to take that step in his own right. But the resolution said, yes, he could continue if a resolution was passed. I think we need a resolution with a majority of, of Republicans endorsing it. Can we get a majority of Republicans endorsing it?

RAJU: It didn't sound like; it didn't sound like that.

GIMENEZ: I think if you put it into that, you better, it's either our resolution or something else is going to come. Maybe we can get to that. Okay.

RAJU: Appreciate the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, Brianna, there are a bit of news here just saying that the congressman saying that Jim Jordan will reassess his candidacy, will decide whether to stay as a speaker nominee, will talk to those 22 detractors and see if he can figure out any way to the speakership. And if he doesn't, perhaps then he will step aside from the speakership, which could change the dynamics here completely. So, as you can see, just so much confusion and division within the Republican conference about how to proceed as this house remains stuck in gridlock amid this Republican infighting.

KEILAR: And yet Manu, if that's the case, to quote Michael Waltz there, where then is the next bridge?

RAJU: Yeah, that is the question that Waltz raised as well, right? How do you figure out what the next step is, especially if you're the ones who pushed out the speaker of the house. The problem for those hardliners who pushed out Kevin McCarthy, many of them supported Jim Jordan, but they may be ultimately have to accept a potentially more moderate person for speaker, Patrick McHenry, being more moderate than Jim Jordan and perhaps about more moderate than Kevin McCarthy or at least in line with him ideologically in many ways.

[14:18:40]

So, the question is, what did they ultimately get out of this? But will even McHenry be the interim speaker? The Republicans are divided over that question as well. So, no one really has any clear sense about how they'll proceed, all because Republicans just simply cannot get on the same page amid all the ill will and tensions that have lingered for the past two weeks and have only grown and all devolved into this very heated closed door conference meeting that's been going on since the morning up until here in the afternoon here, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah. The Republican devolution. I think we are watching there in the basement of the House side there. Mani Raju on the Hill. Thank you so much. And while the House remains in limbo, President Biden will address the nation to ask for wartime and for Israel and Ukraine will have more on that just ahead. And former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleads guilty in the Georgia election subversion case, forcing her to testify against Trump in future trials. Should prosecutors want that? All the details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:31]

SANCHEZ: We're back with a major development in the Georgia election subversion case. Sidney Powell, former Trump attorney, who's fiercely loyal to the president, especially after the 2020 election and spreading conspiracy theories, she has accepted a plea deal. She's now flipped, meaning that she's pleaded guilty to reduce charges and in exchange she might testify against the Trump team at future trials.

KEILAR: CNN's Katelyn Polantz is covering all of the developments here. Katelyn, what are you learning?

KATELY POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORT: Well, Sidney Powell today becomes the second of 18 co-defendants of Donald Trump to agree to plead guilty in this case out of Georgia, a state case accusing Donald Trump and many others of a racketeering conspiracy as well as other various crimes. And Sidney Powell is extraordinarily notable here because she's a top lawyer around Donald Trump. She was in the upper echelon of people who was even inside the White House talking to Donald Trump one on one in some of the crucial days after the election, as she and others were leading that effort to try and sow disinformation around the results of the 2020 election. So, the immediate impact here of this guilty plea today by Sidney Powell in Georgia, it's that she's admitting to doing some of the things she was accused of, especially related to Coffee County, Georgia, a rural county where she and others were accused of tampering with voter equipment and data.

The second immediate impact here, Brianna Boris, is that she's not going to trial. She was supposed to go to trial on Friday. Now it's just one other defendant in this massive case who is set to have jury selection begin on Friday. We're going to have to wait and see what happens there. And then the big picture step back. She is agreeing to testify against others in this case at future trial or trials. That includes very likely Donald Trump in Georgia, where he is set to go to trial at a later date after this first round of trial was set to start. But then also she's a person that doesn't know just about Coffee County, Georgia, what she is admitting to in the misdemeanours she's pleading too today.

She's also a person who's privy to so much happening in the White House, including was at that December 18th meeting where she and others were trying to convince Donald Trump to appoint her as a special investigator, as a special counsel, to look into voter fraud and try and find that across the country. She was involved in court cases as well, trying to sow that disinformation of voter fraud that just didn't exist. And so, the likelihood she could be asked to testify about those things is possible. And also, there may be expanded interest into what she has to say by federal investigators.

KEILAR: She has significant insights that could be crucial when it comes to a case against Trump. So we'll see where this goes. Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

SANCHEZ: So, in just a few hours, President Biden will deliver a primetime speech about the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine. He's expected to urge Congress to approve around 100 billion dollars in emergency funding, not only for Israel and Ukraine, but also for Taiwan and the U.S. southern border.

KEILAR: And President Biden is also expected to talk more about the deal that he made with the Egyptian president to open this Rafah crossing tomorrow so that up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid, such needed aid, can get into Gaza.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, joining us now to discuss is retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel Leighton, always great to have you. How significant could it be if the Rafah crossing is able to open and have some humanitarian aid get into Gaza? And how well can they screen potentially for munitions, different kinds of armaments that Hamas can use?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, Boris, that's going to be a huge differentiator if they can -- cannot screen for weapons or other things that might come in. That could be a bit of a problem. But the opening of the crossing would be a significant move because it would be the first time in this conflict that there would actually be some kind of a ceasefire or some kind of a pause in fighting, at least in a localized sense. But there are some risks obviously involved in this.

KEILAR: Part of President Biden's speech while in Israel, it involved urging some restraint from Israel. He was urging them not to repeat the US mistakes post 9-11. Biden has compared Hamas to ISIS. So, if Israel's plan is to eradicate Hamas from Gaza, what steps does Israel need to take to ensure that a new terror group doesn't fill that void?

LIEGHTON: Yeah, Brianna, that's a really difficult problem for Israel because what they'll need to do if they try to eliminate Hamas, they can expect to see many other groups try to fill that void. So, the challenge is going to be one that's based on a lot of not only force that's going to have to be used, but also a robust intelligence architecture that would be looking at what's going on in Gaza from this day forward. And that is the kind of thing that the Israelis thought they had. But it turns out they really didn't have when it came to what happened on the 7th October.