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Richard Fontaine is Interviewed about Foreign Nationals Able to Leave Gaza; Johnson to Meet with Senate GOP Conference; New Polls for South Carolina. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 01, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR: Worth billions of dollars, even hundreds of millions if not true, what's what dollars when you're going to your riled base up to say, look at him, he's standing up for us, he's standing up to the swamp.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We could see Trump himself on the stand as soon as Monday. I mean just days from now. What happens if he carries some of this type of rhetoric onto the witness stand?

SALAND: I think you're going to see that change. I think once he's in front of the judge, that demeanor will be a little restrained.

BERMAN: Why?

SALAND: Because he has that much more to lose in the four corners of the courtroom. There's a vast difference between public opinion and the law. And he has to comport himself and conform himself to what that judge wants to see, not in terms of the facts and the allegations, but the behavior, otherwise he's only going to proverbially shoot himself in the foot, and that's pretty drastic.

BERMAN: Counselor, great to see you. Jeremy Saland, always a pleasure.

SALAND: My pleasure.

BERMAN: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up for us, civilians inside Gaza now being allowed to leave through the Rafah border crossing. Who, how many and where they are headed. We have more reporting coming in from their big developments at the Rafah crossing.

And we are also live on Capitol Hill where newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, he's set to meet with Senate Republicans today for the first time over some deep divisions on how to deal with funding for Ukraine, Israel and keeping the government open.

We'll be right back.

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[09:35:47]

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news this morning comes from the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza where, for the first time, people are being allowed to leave, including hundreds of foreign nationals who have been trapped in Gaza because Hamas would not let them out, and Egypt would not let them in. Sources say that this was a deal brokered by Qatar, the gulf nation over there, as well as Egypt, Israel and Hamas, all involved in this.

This will ultimately allow up to 500 foreign nationals to cross into Egypt, along with Palestinian patients, some of whom are critically injured. The United States says American are not part of this first group crossing today, but they are expected to be able to leave as early as tomorrow.

One thing we should note, this does not include the some 240 hostages that Israel says are now being held by Hamas inside Gaza.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So the fight for them and the search for them continues.

Joining us now to talk more about this is Richard Fontaine. He's a former foreign policy adviser for Senator John McCain, and the CEO of the Center for a New American Security.

It's good to see you, Richard. Thank you for coming in.

Let's start where John was just -- what John was just talking about, getting Americans and other foreign nationals out of Gaza has been a real priority for the Biden administration as it supports Israel's retaliation against Hamas in Gaza. If the crossing is now opening up more, Palestinians able to get out, how does that impact the strategy for Israel, do you think, and the view from the White House of this war against Hamas?

RICHARD FONTAINE, CEO, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY: This is one aspect of what the U.S. has been pushing for and the negotiations have been very complicated. I think there was just reference to all five parties that needed to come to agreement for this to happen, Israel, Hamas, Qatar, Egypt, the United States and so forth, which tells you just how difficult this has been even to get crossings of just a few people today.

That's a good sign. It's good to have some of the foreign nationals come out, but, of course, there's 240 or so hostages, including Americans, that are resident now in the Gaza Strip. And this is another huge priority for the United States and, of course, for Israel as well.

BOLDUAN: Yes. So then on the military efforts. The Israeli military now says that it has struck more than 11,000 terrorist targets in Gaza since the start of the war. That number really caught my attention when I saw it. And overnight, as we've seen the pictures and seen the reporting, we just had Mark Regev on to talk about it, there was this strike against the -- on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. The IDF and Mark Regev saying that they took out a top Hamas commander and other Hamas militants, but it also has led to an unknown number of civilian casualties. From what you've seen, are Israel's military objectives being achieved so far and how do you assess this?

FONTAINE: Yes, they certainly seem to be achieved in a limited fashion, in the sense that, according to Israeli reports, they've taken out some of the militants and key commanders that were involved in the attack on Israel, including in this latest attack in or near this refugee camp.

The United States knows from its own operations in places like Mosul and Raqqah and Fallujah and things like that just how difficult urban combat is, particularly when you have militants threaded through a civilian population.

But Israel hasn't gotten all of what it seeks, and that's why you're seeing the ground operations proceed step by step and currently appears to be surrounding Gaza City where there's many tunnels and outposts of Hamas there. And that's going to be the very, very difficult next step in this operation.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And also since this has started, other of Iran's proxies have been jumping in, Houthis, Hezbollah, we've seen action on the northern border with Lebanon. The U.S. has sent assets to the region to deter further action, but it has continued. And I want to play for you what the secretary of defense said about this yesterday.

[09:40:01]

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We've taken a number of steps to make sure that we increase our force protection posture. We've deployed a number of assets into the region as well. We've been clear, the president has been clear, and I - and I have been clear, vice chair, that if that -- if this doesn't stop, then we will respond. And so we remain -- we maintain the right to respond. We have the capability to do that. And we will respond at a time and place of our choosing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Richard, what do you hear in that? I mean is the deterrents working? How serious is this threat in this moment?

FONTAINE: Well, what the secretary of defense was speaking of specifically is attacks on U.S. forces in the region. We have U.S. troops deployed both in Iraq and in Syria, both of which have been subject to attacks by Iranian proxies. The United States has already bombed Iranian proxies in Syria in retaliation. I think the secretary of defense is saying that if these kind of attacks on Americans continue, then the United States will take further military action against them to make it stop. That, of course, is separate from the sort of Damocles (ph), so to

speak, that is hanging over northern Israel, which is Hezbollah's potential involvement. The president has spoken to this in generalities at least to try to warn Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies to stay out of the war in Israel. Hasn't said specifically what the United States would do if Hezbollah did enter the war, but I think part of the deterrent message is that the United States might not stay on the sidelines if Hezbollah made the ill-advised decision to try to take advantage with Israel while it's tied up in the south with Hamas.

BOLDUAN: Yes, so the threat of this expanding further and beyond and through the region continues to hang over this whole thing.

It's good to see you, Richard. Thank you so much for coming in.

John.

BERMAN: All right, discipline day on Capitol Hill. Votes to censure, even expel members all on the agenda.

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[09:46:26]

BOLDUAN: This morning, House lawmakers head back to Capitol Hill. And just as quickly, it seems, House Speaker Mike Johnson is readying for a fight. A source tells CNN that Speaker Johnson is set to meet for the first time with the full Republican Senate conference today during their weekly lunch, which could prove critical as there's a real party divide right now over how to move forward on some much discussed, much debated aid packages for Israel and Ukraine. Johnson wants to move a stand-alone bill offering $14.3 billion in aid for Israel, not moving that together with any funding for Ukraine, however.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is on The Hill for us and joining us now.

Sunlen, this seems an important moment for Speaker Johnson to lay out his strategy when he meets for the first time with Senate Republicans. What are you hearing?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kate, certainly is. In essence into the lion's den for the new speaker who comes over to the Senate to meet with Senate Republicans today, many of whom are deeply dissatisfied with his new proposal for aid to Israel. Of course, there are deep divisions already with his new bill, his $14 billion proposal, that provides aid to Ukraine but does not provide any -- excuse me, it provides aid to Israel but does not provide any aid to Ukraine. It's paid for by deep cuts to the IRS spending.

Now, that has caused a lot of consternation among members of his own party and over here in the Senate, too, which is why he's coming to the lunch today to in essence sell this plan, talk to them about what he intended, as he's met with many people, many Republicans, saying this would be a deep mistake to decouple the funding for Ukraine and Israel. The White House even coming out with a very strongly worded veto threat about this bill. They said, quote, "the bill inserts partisanship into support for Israel, making our ally a pawn in our politics, at a moment we must stand together." And issuing a veto threat if it were to go forward up here on Capitol Hill.

Now, all of these big ticket items, of course, must be attended to. This is what the speaker wants to focus on. But today the reality of this moment is the House, as they return to Washington today, they will be dealing with a flurry of these side issues. They have three resolutions that they need to deal with on the floor today. These are privileged resolutions, meaning they need to get quick action. That's on the censure resolution of Rashida Tlaib, censure resolution for Marjorie Taylor Greene and the effort to expel George Santos from Congress. So, the reality of this moment is a lot of these side issues are eating up precious floor time that the new speaker needs for these bigger ticket items.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Sunlen. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: All right, brand-new polling from South Carolina. Who is getting closest to Donald Trump?

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[09:53:12]

BERMAN: We have brand new polling out of South Carolina, which is a key early voting state which has been decisive in past elections. You can see, the top line here is Donald Trump, way ahead of the Republican field. He's at 53 percent. But look at this. Nikki Haley now a clear number two, in second place, with 11 percent. Nearly twice the support of Ron DeSantis. Granted, Nikki Haley was governor of South Carolina. But this still tells you where things are headed.

With us now to look much deeper, much, much deeper than merely these top line numbers, our senior data reporter, Harry Enten.

So, you look at this, Harry, and you see Donald Trump over 50 percent here. How is this different than when he first ran in 2015-2016.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, I mean, I think the key thing to keep in mind here, you always love this, right, which is, let's add together all of the other candidates. Donald Trump is still ahead right now, even if you add all the other candidates together, by eight points. Compare that to where we were back in October of 2015. Donald Trump led among Republicans in South Carolina, but all the others added up to about 60 percent of the vote. So, at this particular point, Donald Trump is much further ahead than he was at this point in the 2016 cycle. And the fact is, that this idea that, oh, my God, all these candidates are going to come together, that was much more of an argument for 2015 than today.

BERMAN: Yes, because he is beating the field.

ENTEN: He is beating the field.

BERMAN: All right., let's just, again, look at this closely. You will see there are two -- two candidates from South Carolina on this. Nikki Haley, she's in second. Tim Scott, back in fourth at 6 percent here. They are both from South Carolina. How important would it be for them to win their home state?

ENTEN: It's extremely important. So, candidates who have lost their home state in a primary and become the major party nominee since 1972, zero. Zero. You have to win your home state if you're going to become the major party nominee. The fact that Nikki Haley and Tim Scott especially isn't anywhere close to Donald Trump, very bad news.

[09:55:04]

They've got to win South Carolina, most likely, if they're going to become the Republican nominee.

BERMAN: It's really zero -- I mean it's zero?

ENTEN: It's zero. It's zero. It's zero, John. Think about it.

BERMAN: All right. OK

ENTEN: We could do the counting together if you want.

BERMAN: This is the Republican side - well, this is both sides, but the Republican side is what we've been talking about here. There's also kind of a warning sign, a big flashing warning sign for Joe Biden in the polling among Democrats?

ENTEN: Yes. So, essentially this poll also asked among Democrats - or this asked, actually, overall about views on Joe Biden. So, this is black voters in particular. Remember, they helped launch Joe Biden's bid back in 2020. He won the South Carolina primary and that got him rolling and then became the Democrat nominee. His favorable rating back in September/October of 2020, look at that, was 86 percent - 86 percent among black voters in South Carolina. Look where his job approval rating is today, just 63 percent of this pivotal group for Joe Biden.

BERMAN: And this is South Carolina. How does this extend out nationally?

ENTEN: Yes, so if we look nationally and we look at, OK, black voters nationally, Biden versus Trump. In the 2020 polls, Biden won those by 75 points. Look where Biden's lead is today, just 54 points. A bad sign for Joe Biden.

BERMAN: Big changes.

Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you. BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, we are monitoring still and very closely the Rafah border crossing where an agreement has been reached to allow civilians in Gaza to start moving through the crossing into Egypt for the first time since Hamas attacked Israel. We'll have the very latest from there, coming up.

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