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White House Holds Briefing on Hamas-Israel War; Republican Speaker Fight; Off-Duty Pilot Accused of Trying to Take Over Plane; Israel Widens Offensive Against Hamas. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 23, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:42]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington. Jake Tapper is in Tel Aviv.

And Israel is widening its offensive against Hamas, launching a fury of overnight strikes on the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and taking aim at Hamas ally in Lebanon. In Gaza alone, the IDF said it hit 320 -- quote -- "terror targets" overnight, including tunnels and dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad command centers.

A spokesperson from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health says hundreds were killed.

A warning now that the video you're about to see is graphic. You see there one of the smallest victims, a toddler pulled from the rubble in Rafah in Southern Gaza. We do not know the condition of that little boy.

Also, sources telling CNN the Biden administration has pressed Israel to delay its imminent ground invasion of Gaza to allow for the release of more hostages and to get more aid into Gaza -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Just a trickle of these critical supplies have come through, 30 some trucks so far.

CNN has calculated that Gaza is 7,200 truckloads short of supplies, receiving half of the 1 percent of the aid it normally received before the Hamas attack on October 7.

Let's turn now to CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Ashkelon, Israel.

Jeremy, give us the latest on Israel's plans for the ground incursion into Gaza.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, driving along the -- Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, it is clear that this is a massive force that is waiting, that is preparing to go into Gaza.

In just one area of about a square mile, we saw not just dozens, but hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers and these D9 bulldozers, which are used to tear up any potential IEDs and any other obstacles before a ground force moves in that.

We saw this force on Saturday, and we saw them today. There has certainly been some movement in the forces. But, beyond that, they appear to be just waiting for that command to finally come in order to move forward. And what we are also seeing is, the IDF is certainly preparing the ground in Gaza for those forces to move in.

They said yesterday that they were going to be intensifying airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. And, today, we saw evidence of that with the IDF confirming that they hit 320 targets overnight, including Hamas tunnels and operational centers, as well as mortar and missile positions of Hamas militants inside the Gaza Strip.

The death toll, of course, of those strikes has also come in. At least 436 people were killed overnight from those strikes, including 182 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. All of this, Jake, is coming as we are learning that the United States has asked Israel to delay its invasion of the Gaza Strip in order to allow for more time for these Qatar-led mediation efforts to try and get some of those hostages through.

Now, it appears that Israel is perhaps willing to delay that for a few days, but certainly not inevitably. When you listen to Israeli officials, it is clear that they intend to move into the Gaza Strip with a significant ground force. The question at this point, Jake, is when.

TAPPER: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much.

The Israeli military says it now believes 222 people were kidnapped during the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. The family of two American hostages who were released on Friday spoke out this morning. This comes, as Jeremy just pointed out, the U.S. is pushing Israel to delay the ground invasion into Gaza to allow more time for hostage talks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AYELET SELLA, COUSIN OF JUDITH RAANAN: We cannot put it aside. We cannot rest. This is -- getting Judith and Natalie back was not the end. It's the beginning. There are so many others. We don't know why them. So it's, for me, lucky and guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's bring in CNN national security reporter Natasha Bertrand, who's live for us at the Pentagon.

Natasha, what are you hearing about further efforts to free the 222 hostages?

[13:05:00]

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Jake, this is clearly a priority for the White House. President Biden has brought it up in virtually every conversation he

has had with Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as other world leaders. Last weekend, he held a number of calls with world leaders where these hostages, of course, were discussed, as well as the process of getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But, look, it appears, according to our reporting from our colleague Alex Marquardt, that the U.S. has been urging Israel to delay this ground invasion in order to see how these hostage negotiations continue to play out. Qatar has been leading those negotiations with Hamas.

And the U.S. believes that, following Hamas' decision to release two American hostages last week, there might be some forward momentum in getting the additional hostages released, clearly a priority for the White House because there are several Americans that are believed right now to be inside Gaza being held hostage by Hamas.

Now, pressed on this directly, the National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, he would not confirm that the U.S. is putting active pressure on Israel to engage in any kind of military strategy one way or another. And we should note that the Israelis have also denied that they are feeling any pressure by the Biden administration to delay their incursion.

But Kirby did say that the U.S. is in constant contact with the Israelis about their -- quote -- "plans, intentions, and strategy." Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, NSC COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: We have been talking to the Israeli -- our Israeli counterparts about their plans, their intentions, their strategy.

We have been asking them for what -- how they're answering the tough questions that any military is going to have to do before you go on and conduct major operations. And that's what we're doing now. But, obviously, look, the Israeli Defense Forces, they make these decisions for themselves. They have to defend their own people on their sovereign soil.

And, of course, they're going to have to make those decisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: Now another aspect of this, Jake, of course, is the humanitarian aid that is flowing very slowly into Gaza.

The U.S. wants to see that continue. And the Israelis have been very public about the fact that the U.S. has been exerting a lot of pressure on them to allow medicine, food, and other equipment to flow into the civilians there.

TAPPER: Natasha, tell us about these two drones targeting U.S. forces that were shot down. They were targeting U.S. forces at a base in Syria that were shot down. Tell us about that.

BERTRAND: Yes, Jake.

So we just got this information from the Pentagon, where two one-way attack drones targeting U.S. forces at a base in Syria, they were shot down on Monday. And this is part of a really broader escalation that the U.S. has seen from these groups, believed to be Iranian proxy groups in the region, targeting U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

Now, according to the Pentagon, no U.S. troops were injured in these drone attacks either this week or last week. We saw a number, as many as four, separate drone attacks on bases, coalition bases, where U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria.

But the U.S. is really concerned about this, and that is why we saw Secretary of Defense Austin order additional air defense capabilities to the region over the weekend to try to protect these troops from these aerial bombardments that appear to be increasing in their frequency against U.S. troops in the region, amid this larger backlash to the U.S.' support for Israel.

TAPPER: All right, Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon force, thanks so much.

Let's bring in CNN military analyst and retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling.

General, sources say the U.S. has been trying to delay this imminent invasion of Gaza by the Israelis. A senior Israeli official is denying that. But beyond the push and pull and the diplomacy, do you think a ground incursion into Gaza by the Israeli military is the right move, is the correct strategy?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Jake, you have to take a look, I think, at all the strategies of the various actors in this particular circumstance.

You have Israel, which has publicly stated their strategy is to destroy Hamas and return hostages. You have Hamas, which has a stated strategy of destroying the state of Israel and killing as many Jews as possible. Then you have the U.S. strategy, which is to deter major actors in the area from escalating into a wider conflict and support its allies, Israel, and at the same time get hostages.

But we're also seeing the potential for an unbelievably large humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip. So all of those are competing demands. And it's difficult to achieve all of them. But the conversation about the U.S. persuading Israel to not launch a ground invasion, I think it's moot because of the amount of casualties that Israel suffered at the hands of Hamas on October the 7th.

They are not going to ask for a cease-fire. They may attempt to continue to get hostages, but they are going to go in and destroy, they have stated this publicly, the tunnels, the arms, the caches, the intel capabilities of this terrorist organization.

[13:10:01]

It's just, I believe, a matter of time, and it's going to be a large incursion.

TAPPER: Of course, if the leaders of Hamas really cared about the Palestinian people, they could release the hostages and turn themselves into The Hague, I guess, right?

HERTLING: Right.

I don't think you're going to see -- there may be a few in the each -- of the hostages released. But I don't believe you're going to see a large number released, because that would run counter to what Hamas has done in the past, using both Palestinians and hostages as human shields. That's part of their doctrinal tactics.

So it's going to be very challenging, even with another country like Qatar trying to get them to do that, or the UAE, or whoever. It's going to be extremely difficult to persuade them to do that.

TAPPER: And what would an Israeli ground incursion mean for those hostages?

HERTLING: Well, when you're talking about the situation, having studied past incursions by the Israelis into Gaza, you're talking about, first of all, having to gather intelligence on an area that you haven't watched closely for years, which is what the Israelis are trying to do now, plan for large operations in an urban environment that has high-rise buildings, tunnels, narrow streets that are now rubbled, millions of civilians on the battlefield, and people who are caught between the warring parties.

These hostages are just part of that, and they are on Hamas' home turf. So it will be very challenging, even for the best of special operators, to find exactly where all 222 of these hostages are, and release them, while at the same time trying to conduct an operation which destroys Hamas, which is Israelis' -- Israel's stated objective.

TAPPER: And we saw a lot of activity over the weekend, Israel clashing with Lebanon, strikes in Syria, the U.S., Israel, and the West Bank.

How concerned are you about this escalating and spiraling into a larger regional war?

HERTLING: Well, I'm very concerned about a large regional war, as I'm sure the Biden administration is too.

But also what is concerning is even a state war within the defensive positions of Israel. You have already seen indicators that that's going to happen. You just mentioned the drone attacks on any deterrent forces in both Iraq and Syria that the U.S. has there. There's already been attempts at strikes from Yemen, which were intercepted by the deterrent force of the U.S. Navy.

So what you see is the potential for other nations or other terrorist groups to become involved. And this plays into something I have been saying for a long time. A doctrine of Hamas is the victims doctrine. They will try and use any kind of public action by Israel to blame Israel for deaths and destructions.

And, of course, Israel is contributing to that. And that's what the administration, the U.S. administration, is concerned about. But with each death, with each airstrike, there are more and more Palestinians and Arab states throughout the area that are saying Israel doesn't have to do that, when, in fact, they are attempting, just like the Ukrainians, by the way, to defend their territory, to defend their people.

And it results in horrific civilian casualties. But this has been the nature of any war between Hamas and Israel over the last two decades.

TAPPER: General Mark Hertling, thank you so much -- Brianna, back to you.

KEILAR: All right, Jake, thank you.

We are following a terrifying story here in the U.S., an off-duty pilot accused of trying to take over an Alaska Air jet in midair, and now he is charged with more than 80 felonies, including attempted murder.

Let's bring in CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean on this.

Pete, this happened on Sunday. Tell us what happened here.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we now know the name of the man who tried to cut off the engines of this Alaska Airlines flight, 44-year-old Joseph Emerson of California.

We're also hearing from Alaska Airlines that he was an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot. This flight was going from Paine Field in Seattle to San Francisco. That was the plan, but, ultimately, they had to divert because this off-duty pilot who was sitting in the jump seat -- that is the third seat behind the pilot on the left, the first officer on the right, trying -- usually typically used by pilots to commute from one place to another -- was trying to tamper with the flight controls.

And we have heard from the FAA and the airline here that this pilot essentially tried to cut off the power to this Embraer 175's two engines. You can see the flight deck there, pilot on the left, co- pilot on the right, the jump seat just sort of out of view behind those two pilots.

[13:15:03]

I want you to listen now to the air traffic control audio of the pilot who was still able to fly the airplane. They were able to subdue this off-duty pilot. And I want you to listen to the call here as they radio the Seattle center, control center, about this problem and say they're going to get to come back into land and they're going to need police help.

Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit. And he doesn't sound like he's causing any issue in the back right now.

I think he's subdued. Other than that, yes, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and parked.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: What is not clear right now is the method that this pilot, this off-duty pilot, Emerson, tried to use to cut off the power to these engines.

There's a few different ways to do that. What is clear, though, is that he's facing a huge host of criminal charges. We're talking 83 counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft.

We know the FAA is a part of this investigation. And they just sent out a message to airlines across the U.S. saying this is not in any way connected with world events, although very clearly a serious and scary incident on board this flight. Thankfully, everything turned out OK.

KEILAR: Thank goodness that there were these two other pilots there.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

KEILAR: Since you don't know what he was attempting to do to try to turn off the engines, do you know, if he'd been successful, whether the pilots would have been able to recover the situation?

MUNTEAN: It sort of depends.

So, it just depends on the method. But we know from Alaska Airlines, they say that the power was never fully cut off to the two engines. So, if that does happen, then an E-175 like this, or any airplane really, simply turns into a glider. You can only trade airspeed into altitude at that point.

And so you're essentially going down. There's no way to climb back up. And so you can only go forward and down. There's no up and back. There is real turning either. You have to just sort of commit to a point and go for it. So this would have been a really serious thing if they were not able to turn the engines back on.

Thankfully, though, the crew was able to catch this, subdue this guy and get the airplane -- essentially just continue the power to the engines and continue to fly.

KEILAR: What an incident.

All right, Pete, thank you for the latest on that. (CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Nine new candidates, after 20 days, still no speaker of the House, a shutdown and critical aid to Israel and Ukraine hanging in the balance. We will be live from Capitol Hill.

Plus, police in Detroit are searching for a suspect and a motive after a synagogue leader was found stabbed to death outside of her home.

We will have new details ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:50]

KEILAR: It is now day 20 without a speaker of the House.

Right now, nine Republican candidates are vying for this top job, following failed bids from Congressmen Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan. This evening, House Republicans will hear pitches from each of those nine speaker candidates during yet another closed-door candidate forum.

Then, tomorrow morning, they will take an internal secret ballot vote with the goal of selecting the party's nominee. The big question here, who can get to 217 votes? Because that, of course, as we all have learned time and again, is what they need to win the gavel.

Joining me now, we have two former Republican Congressman, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Francis Rooney of Florida, forest.

Charlie, to you first.

You have Tom Emmer. He's the apparent front-runner here right now. He actually voted to certify the 2020 election, which might give Democrats and moderate Republicans pause, but does that disqualify him with a significant portion of this Republican Conference?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that made disqualifying was some hard-line elements of the conference who believe the election, falsely, was stolen.

But, that said, I think the bigger problem for whoever the next Republican speaker is that they will have to turn around and immediately strike a bipartisan deal to keep the government funded. And so in order not to suffer the same fate as...

KEILAR: Gentlemen, I am so sorry to interrupt you. We have John Kirby at the podium at the White House press briefing, and we need to listen in now.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JOHN KIRBY, NSC COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: Going forward, it's important that the aid be sustainable, and that's what we're focused on. And, of course, throughout the weekend, the president (AUDIO GAP) the

development. And, yesterday, as you know, he convened calls with Prime Minister Netanyahu (AUDIO GAP) leaders that they released last night, so I won't reiterate it, but you can hopefully take away from that a real clear consistency and unanimity for Israel's right to defend itself against terrorism, while, of course, adhering to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.

Now, we have also seen over the course of the last few days, actually, the course of the last week, but certainly over the last couple of days of the weekend, an uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian- backed proxy groups against military bases housing U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.

And we're deeply concerned about the potential for any significant escalation of these attacks in the days ahead. At the direction of President Biden, the secretary of defense has ordered the military to take steps (AUDIO GAP) both in terms of being able to defend our forces and respond decisively as needed.

The secretary of defense has directed two carrier strike groups to the region, and we are now sending more air defenses to U.S. air bases in the region. Now, we know these groups are supported (AUDIO GAP). We know Iran continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah.

[13:25:00]

And we know that Iran is closely monitoring these events, and in some cases actively facilitating these attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict for their own good or for that of Iran. We know Iran's goal is to maintain some level of deniability here, but we're not going to allow them to do that. We also are not going to allow any threat to our interests in the region to go unchallenged.

We demonstrated last week that we have and will use the military capabilities available to us to protect and defend those interests. And those capabilities are getting bigger and better every day.

As President Biden has said, our message to any hostile actor seeking to escalate or widen this conflict is very simple: Don't do it.

And with that, I will take some questions.

QUESTION: John, is it your view that the Israelis should begin their Gaza offensive whenever they feel ready?

KIRBY: It's our view that the Israeli Defense Forces, Steve, need to decide for themselves how they're going to conduct operations. We're not in the business of dictating terms to them, and we're certainly not going to be in the business here from the White House of previewing any future operations one way or the other.

That would be inappropriate.

QUESTION: And then, secondly, you said that Iran is actively facilitating these attacks. What are you seeing? What exactly are they doing?

KIRBY: Well, their support for these Iran-backed proxies is no secret. It's pretty open. And they have tried to make -- they have made no secret of it, funding, resourcing, in terms of providing the rockets and the munitions that they fire, training for some of these guys.

I mean, there is a connection between these groups and the IRGC, a very direct connection.

M.J. LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The -- we have reported that the administration has been urging Israel to delay a ground invasion. Can you tell us whether other countries are making the same request? Is there a coordinated effort on that front?

KIRBY: I won't -- M.J., I won't speak for other nations and what communications they might be having with Israel.

I can tell you we have since the beginning of the conflict in the early hours maintained a level of communication with our Israeli counterparts to ascertain their intentions, their strategy, their aims, to see what their answers are to the kinds of tough questions that any military ought to be asking before you launch any kind of a major operation.

Have you thought through the branches? Have you thought through the sequels? Have you thought through the unintended consequences? And so we are in active conversation with them about that.

LEE: And, John, we have seen a number of leaders travel to Israel or commit to traveling to Israel, of course, the president himself. Is it your understanding that there would not be a ground invasion as long as there is a head of state in the country?

KIRBY: That is a question for Israeli officials to speak to, M.J.

Again, I just don't want to be in the position where I am speaking for the Israeli Defense Forces.

LEE: Another quick topic. Why is it that people currently are not able to leave Gaza right now? Do you have sort of an explanation as to why that humanitarian corridor for people to exit Gaza, why that isn't open?

Is the obstacle Hamas? Is it the Egyptians?

KIRBY: I think there's a lot of factors going into why there's no exit out. We're glad that stuff's going in, as Karine briefed you all, but we still want to see safe passage out, and particularly for the several hundred American citizens that we know are in Gaza and want to leave.

And Ambassador Satterfield is on the ground working this very, very hard. But there's a number of factors. And I think security -- certainly, Egyptian officials have spoken to this. I mean, there's a -- they have got legitimate security concerns. And, again, we just need to work through that.

QUESTION: Admiral, can you tell us the latest on the status of hostages and the work to try to release additional hostages? Do you see a category of those being held who might be sort of the next available to be released, if that were to take place?

Can you give us a sense of what that picture looks like?

KIRBY: I wish I could, Kelly. I really do. And these are all great questions. But, unfortunately, where we are right now in the process makes it impossible for us to publicly detail the efforts that are going on.

We are grateful for all the help we got, and we got help getting those two Americans out, the mother and daughter. And we're glad that they're OK and they're going to be reunited with the families and come back home. But there's a bunch of others that aren't. Now, a small group, we still think, are Americans.

And then there are dozens and dozens from other countries, and obviously Israel as well. And there's just a lot of effort going on and a lot of conversations and discussions with partners in the region. And I think it's just best if we don't detail that.

QUESTION: Do we have more specificity on the number of Americans? It's floated from a handful to as many as 10. Anything more on that?

KIRBY: I want to be careful here, because the numbers, as you rightly said, have fluctuated since the last time I talked to you.

Certainly, now, we're glad to know that the number is less than -- down by two, obviously. But we still have about 10 unaccounted-for Americans. And it's not exactly clear to us where those 10 people are.

So, I would still categorize it as about a handful. But -- and I know that's not the specificity you want.