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Interview With Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR); Blinken and Austin Push Israel and Ukraine Aid on Capitol Hill. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 31, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:02]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: We're getting the very latest on what they're going after and their rescue mission for the hostages there.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: And taking the stand in a case against their dad. At least two of Donald Trump's children could take the stand this week, called by prosecutors to testify in their father's civil fraud trial.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara Sidner is on assignment. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Capitol Hill right now. The goal, the mission for them today is to make the case to lawmakers for President Biden's $106 billion ask for an aid package that he wants in order to support both Ukraine and Israel, two nations at war, two allies of the United States.

But what has happened is protests, Blinken interrupted multiple times by people protesting angry over Israel's action in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROTESTER: Cease-fire now! Cease-fire now!

PROTESTER: Cease-fire now! Cease-fire now!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Natasha Bertrand has been tracking this hearing for us. She joins us once again.

Natasha, they eventually got to being able to make their opening statements and to getting questions from the senators. What is the case that they're making for this aid package?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate, so one of the big themes that we see Secretary Austin and Secretary Blinken underscoring here is the fact that Israel and Ukraine and the wars that both are fighting are pretty inextricably linked.

And, therefore, you can't divorce the two in a major supplemental aid package, as the House wants to do. And Secretary Blinken made this case explicitly by saying that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is being supported by Iran. And, in exchange, Iran is getting advanced military equipment and technology from the Russians.

What can the Iranians do with that? Well, then they can use that to support their proxies across the region, which attack Americans, which attack the Israelis, and, ultimately, this is all interconnected, this axis of Iran and Russia that is posing such a big threat to the U.S. and its allies.

So that is really the case that they are making at this point. Secretary Blinken actually said that, if the two were to be separated in a major aid package, then that would just show adversaries that the U.S. is simply playing Whac-A-Mole with its funding to its allies. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This is all one fight, and we have to respond in a way that recognizes that. If we start to peel off pieces of this package, they will see that, they will understand that we are playing Whac-A-Mole while they cooperate increasingly and pose an ever greater threat to our security, as well as for that of allies and partners.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So, this is a major issue at this point because the GOP introduced legislation just yesterday that would only provide aid to Israel at this moment. And, in addition to that, it would strip funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, something that the administration, as well as some senators, have said is a nonstarter.

So that remains to be seen just how this all gets passed. But another major through line so far in this hearing has been questions about humanitarian assistance and protecting civilians in Gaza. Both Blinken and Austin have reiterated that they have said multiple times to their counterparts how important that is.

The U.S. right now, according to Blinken, trying to get up to 100 trucks of aid per day into Gaza. Right now, it's at about 60, still a drop in the bucket, of course, what Palestinians there need -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Natasha, thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right, we're getting new reporting out of Israel.

First off, Israel now has changed its count to 240 for the number of hostages being held inside Gaza. They say this would now be their 25th day in captivity. We're getting some video of the Israeli incursion into Gaza this morning. You can see explosions there.

We also have some pictures of Israeli infantry on the ground there. And it's not the only place where Israel has been conducting operations. North of Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israel says it has targeted a Hamas leader's compound there. But I do want to get right to the very latest with our Jim Sciutto,

who is in Northern Israel, who has seen ingoing or outgoing fire along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Lebanon is where Hezbollah fighters are based in the southern part of that country.

Jim, why don't you tell us what you're seeing?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, John, just to place this, we're less than a half-mile from the Lebanon border, the top of that ridgeline.

And that's where you see the smoke and the flames have been dipping up above the horizon there from some of this cross-border exchange of artillery fire, rocket fire, mortar fire that we have seen the last several days.

[11:05:01]

In the last few minutes, as we have been standing here, we hear boom after boom, whether that's additional shells being fired or secondary explosions from this first one. You can see the smoke rising there. This is a measure of what is a low-grade conflict going on along the border here. These exchanges are happening multiple times a day.

A short time ago, the IDF told us of another strike in the Israeli town of Arab al-Aramshe just over where that zigzag is. That zigzag is the concrete wall barrier that separates Israel from Lebanon. In fact, we were in that town, Arab al-Aramshe, just on the weekend, and while we were there, more shells were dropping as well.

So it's a low-grade. It's certainly not what we're seeing in Gaza, but it's a measure of both sides testing each other at the northern border. And just one more measure, John, if I can, of the seriousness with which Israel is taking this.

Walking down main street in Shlomi in Northern Israel, it's empty because this town is, among several along the northern border under mandatory evacuation. Generally, the folks you do see who are still here are either soldiers -- that part of the town up there is now a military zone -- or folks that need to be here briefly.

But the town itself is under mandatory evacuation, as is really just a broad swathe of Northern Israel right now, worried about, defending against, concerned about an escalation up here.

BERMAN: And, again, this is where Jim is, right alongside the Israel- Lebanon border, and the explosion over Jim's shoulder, presumably, inside Lebanon.

And, Jim, we can see the flames burning behind you right now and the smoke rising.

SCIUTTO: That's right, yes.

BERMAN: Again, I know you're being as safe as you can be in this situation. You have done a nice job explaining what this is, this low-scale back-

and-forth between Hezbollah and Israel for the last few weeks. But what is it not so far? And what has U.S. military leaders so concerned about what it could become along that border?

SCIUTTO: So, it's already a deadly exchange. Hezbollah says it's lost perhaps 40 fighters. In fact, there was a Hezbollah funeral up -- there's another boom just as we're speaking. It gives you a measure that this is constant.

There was a Hezbollah funeral just on the other side out of the border from one of those fighters. Mostly, Israel has been able to repel those ground invasions. But, listen, those shells fall on this side, and they're dangerous, right? But it is not a full-scale invasion yet.

You have many, many thousands of Hezbollah fighters on the other side. And, crucially, Lebanon, Hezbollah has many thousands, missiles, including very high-grade precision missiles that they didn't have in previous conflicts, supplied by Iran. They fired a few, but if they fire those in number, the concern is, it would overwhelm Iran's -- sorry -- Israel's missile defenses, much like those rockets coming out of Gaza fired by Hamas.

They were fired in such volume and such number that they were able to break through the Iron Dome defenses. If Hezbollah were to unleash similar from here, then we're talking about something quite different.

BERMAN: Yes, Hezbollah's got forces in Iranian proxies, not just in Southern Lebanon, but Syria here. You can see how it threatens Israel from several directions.

Jim Sciutto, terrific reporting. You and your team on the Lebanese border, please stay safe -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's an important perspective from Jim on that border.

Let's talk about this. Joining us right now is CNN military analyst former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army Mark Hertling and CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier.

General, let's just start with what Jim was talking about, what we're seeing kind of happening in Northern Israel at the border with Lebanon. What do you see?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago when I was there with you and John, Kate.

Jim is in exactly the right place, because this is the tinderbox. And I believe Hezbollah is waiting for the right time to continue to launch more and more attacks. And as Jim just stated accurately, they are exponentially a greater force than Hamas is, by the type of weapons they have, by the number of fighters they have, and the fact that they're unconstrained within Lebanon. They don't have walls around them. They don't -- they aren't encircled by Israeli forces. But you combine

that also with what's going on in the West Bank, as you reported with Ramallah, when you talk about the potential for transporting new equipment through Damascus, Syria, when you have the Houthis in Yemen now saying that they are going to declare war on Israel.

All of these things are exactly what we talked about two weeks ago as the worst possible case scenario of an expansion of Israel being attacked on multiple sides with increasingly stronger and more capable forces that have better ammunition than what Hamas has, while their main forces are being tied down in the Gaza Strip.

[11:10:18]

BOLDUAN: Yes, and while their focus remains -- or the one -- I guess the first focus remains in Gaza.

And, Kim, the IDF -- on that front, the IDF announced this morning that they took out, they killed the Hamas commander who directed the massacre of two of the kibbutzim that were attacked on October 7. And the IDF says that they took out Nasim Abu Ajina in an aerial strike on Monday, and he also commanded Hamas' aerial array, is how they describe it, helping to develop UAVs and paragliders.

Taking these leaders, leaders like this, out, what does it do?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, part of it is the retribution that the Israeli public is waiting for, that the planners and those who carried out the October 7 massacre are held responsible.

But the other part of it is taking off the battlefield of the military members of Hamas who are seen as an obstruction to the hostage negotiations. I have heard from a source familiar that the Hamas political wing in Qatar is much more willing to negotiate than the Hamas military leaders inside Gaza.

So, the more of those leaders you take out, perhaps you remove some of that friction. But Hamas also knows that those 200-plus hostages are the only leverage against an all-out Israeli assault. So I think you're going to continue to see days, if not weeks, of Israel picking off these leaders with airstrikes, and the more of the area that they saturate, probably also raids on the ground.

But you can see that they're holding back on some of those raids to protect their own forces. They don't want to have their forces at this point also taken hostage as they're attacking.

BOLDUAN: And, General, what do you think about news like this coming -- being announced from the IDF?

HERTLING: Yes, well, Kim's got it all right, Kate, except for one thing.

Over the last 20 years, we have spent in two fights, Afghanistan and Iraq, continually echoing the fact that we have taken out the head of this or the leader of that or some key terrorist in a cell. And in each particular occasion, they are replaced.

This is a fight against not only the leaders, the people who direct the operations, who plan the operations, but also, the American people would be surprised, the financiers, who's getting the religious approval for different strikes. These terror cells are so robust that they can replace their leaders in a nanosecond.

It's important to take out individuals that we have identified as key leaders of the cell or that Israel thinks are controlling part of the operation.

But, truthfully, when you're talking about a terrorist organization that has thousands of fighters who have already been immersed in a plan and who are now hunkered down inside those tunnels waiting to continue the fight, and they have other terrorist cells in, like we just talked about, Hezbollah, Yemen, and other locations that are all being supported by Iran, it's very difficult to squash this terrorist activity, but also to basically beat the ideology, which is Hamas.

BOLDUAN: Right.

And in the mix of all of this, Kim, you have the hostages. Now 240 is what the IDF says. We know one Israeli soldier has been rescued. They called it an active rescue of getting her out.

But how does this -- what does this say about the effort to rescue more of them, an IDF offensive dovetailed with a hostage rescue mission?

DOZIER: Well, Israeli military officials will tell you that they don't have very good intelligence on where the hostages are.

So, each of these operations to take operators off the board is also an intelligence-gathering operation to see if they can find -- if they can map the tunnel system and if they can find pockets of some of these hostages, because the assumption is that Hamas has grouped them in small groups, so that they won't get rescued all at once.

But the problem is, to Mark's point, yes, there are many people who can tactically be replaced to do these jobs within Hamas. The hope is that, by the Israelis' military keeping the pressure on and taking out some of the well-known political figures within Gaza, that it gives the figures within Hamas in Qatar a greater chance to negotiate to get those people out peacefully.

BOLDUAN: General, Kim, thank you so much -- John.

[11:15:00]

BERMAN: So, Democrats say Republicans are setting a political trap when it comes to providing aid to Israel.

Donald Trump's own children on the stand starting tomorrow in the civil fraud case against him.

And breaking ground in Uvalde. Details on the plans for a new school for the students who survived the shooting there.

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BERMAN: Happening now, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state and Antony Blinken testifying before the Senate about the importance, they say, of passing a $106 billion aid package that includes funding for both Israel and Ukraine, this as lawmakers on the Hill clash over how to help both nations.

[11:20:15]

House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing a stand-alone bill that does not include any money for Ukraine and also calls for tying aid to Israel to cutting some funding from the IRS.

With us now is Congressman Steve Womack, a Republican from Arkansas on the Appropriations Committee.

Congressman, always great to see you.

How do you feel? Why tie cutting IRS funding to aid for Israel?

REP. STEVE WOMACK (R-AR): Well, just remember, John, that the money we're talking about with the Internal Revenue Service enjoyed bipartisan support when we did the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

So we're talking essentially about the same concept here of using money earmarked for the Internal Revenue Service and tying it to -- as a pay-for the emerging needs in Israel. I mean, Israel is at war right now with Hamas. It is a true emergency situation.

And, look, we have got a spending problem in Washington. So I think props to Speaker Johnson that, of all the things considered in terms of what we could use to pay for to offset this money, that the Internal Revenue Service money was agreed to in this context.

Now, I'm going to say this too. I get it that, at the other end of this capital there are other ideas emanating out of the Senate, Senator Schumer and others, even Republicans. If they have got a better plan, let's see it. And then let's be able to come together and reconcile our differences.

But the House has put forward a plan. I think you will see that on the floor this week. And my hope is that it will pass, and then we can find out what comes our way from the other end of this Capitol.

BERMAN: One of the things that might come from the other end of the capital is a deal that includes both funding for Israel and Ukraine. You have been very supportive of funding for Ukraine in the past.

Would you vote for a bill that included both funding for Israel and Ukraine together?

WOMACK: I have made no bones about it. The opportunity to be able to defeat Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe is attractive to me, and I have supported funding for Ukraine. But, look, I'm not going to sacrifice one for the other. We have a

raging conflict going on as we speak now, three weeks into it, in Israel, in the Gaza Strip. And this is a true emergency. We need to get money out the door for the Israelis and for the IDF to replenish our stocks, to be able to do all the things that we deem necessary.

But at the end of the day, you're right, John. What we get back from the Senate may look entirely different than what we send over. But I look forward to those negotiations.

BERMAN: Democrats in the House are calling this a political trap tying funding for Israel to the IRS. And you called it an emergency just now. So why tie it to anything? Why not just vote up or down on aid to Israel?

WOMACK: Because that's not where the GOP in the House is right now.

BERMAN: Is it where you are?

WOMACK: We have put forward a plan.

Look, I'm going to support what the Republican Conference puts forward in order that we can get something sent to the Senate and then reconcile our differences. So, if it's a reasonable solution -- and I believe this one is a reasonable solution -- then why not support it, and then get it to the Senate, and then come back and settle our differences and get something that the president can sign and get this money out the door?

Look, if I were running the show by myself, would it look a little different than this? Perhaps so. But, at the end of the day, this is going to be a decision it's going to have to be made by the majority of the people, 218 votes in the House. And I believe we will have an opportunity to do that.

We're going to lose some Democrat support, no question about that, over the IRS funding issue. But there are people sympathetic to the plight of our friends in the Jewish community in Israel that will join us in this -- in this conquest, and we will get it to the Senate, and see where it goes from there.

BERMAN: So, Congressman, we have had the chance to speak with you quite a bit over the last few weeks, given everything that's been happening in the House with getting leadership there. And you have been frustrated with a capital F -- I think that's safe to say -- over the last several weeks.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Listen, over the summer, you had said you were considering whether to seek reelection.

After Labor Day, you made a decision and said you were running again. I am wondering, after everything that's happened over the last few weeks and how frustrated you were, whether you're reconsidering seeking reelection. WOMACK: Not reconsidering my decision. I make that decision every

other Labor Day, and then, afterward, to be fair to my district and to be fair to other people who might want to seek election in -- to succeed me, then I think it's important to give plenty of time.

[11:25:04]

But I made that decision. And I'm going to stick with that decision. Next week, we will file for reelection.

And, look, this institution is pretty important to me, this country. I love my country. This country is important to me. And it needs people, I think, that are here that understand the context, and the context of where we are today and -- domestically, and where we are in the face of the world and what's going on in the context of the global environment.

And I believe I have those skill sets to be able to continue to deliver for the Third District of Arkansas, and I plan to do that. But you're right. It is frustrating at times, but not sufficiently so that it would cause me to want to take my take my wares and go home.

BERMAN: Congressman Steve Womack, we do appreciate you. You come on, you answer our questions. We enjoy seeing you. Please come back soon.

WOMACK: You know, John, I'm hoping to play a much lower profile here in the ensuing days and weeks.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: All right, well, we won't help you with that.

Congressman Steve Womack, appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: He is interesting.

Coming up for us: New images are coming out of a caravan of thousands of migrants leaving Southern Mexico headed for the U.S.-Mexico border. We also have new reporting on the journey that they have planned. That's ahead.

Plus, Sara Sidner visited a kibbutz targeted by Hamas in the October 7 terror attack, and, after the attack, the people now taking on the grim task of trying to identify so many bodies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During our identification process, we heard the screams and we heard the cries of the family that came and said their last goodbye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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