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Biden Wants Pause; Tuberville Holds on Military Confirmations; Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) is Interviewed about Military Confirmations; Cornell Cancels Classes. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 02, 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]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Over the last couple of weeks, since October 7th, in small numbers. They can do it via ground operations, which they've tried before, but they can also do it with missiles. Hezbollah has built an arsenal - an arsenal of thousands of missiles, some of them long rage with the capability of reaching Tel Aviv.

They have enough if they were to fire enough in numbers they could conceivably overwhelm Israel's missile defenses and get some through, much like you saw Hezbollah with their rockets coming from Gaza. They fire enough in a concentrated period of time, you can get some through. The concern is Hezbollah would do the same in the north, and their missiles, frankly, longer range, higher capability, greater - greater danger -

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: More precise.

SCIUTTO: To the residents of Tel Aviv and broader Israel.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Jim, can we assume that Israel wants the world to see this?

SCIUTTO: You know, if I can give -- if I can give you a sense of what you're - sorry -- sorry, John, I'm having trouble hearing you over the gunfire. But if I can just give you a sense of what they're up to, these are special forces. You can see them with the flag there advancing in what's called combined arms. You've got armor, fires from a distance, gives them cover, and then you have the ground forces moving together on the ground. Oftentimes there will be aerial cover as well, though not in this particular exercise.

Again, they're training for the real deal. And the deployments up here are in position for the real deal. You don't move 70,000 forces to the northern part of this country without considering the threat very seriously.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And knowing you've got 70,000 forces to the north of up while the ground operation happening, you know, as we speak, into Gaza, showing training and action happening at the same time. Really an example, as Jim says, of preparing and -- or engaged in the real deal.

BERMAN: And again, you know, a very deliberate, I think, show of force from the IDF with Jim there.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: I think they want the world, they perhaps want Hezbollah to see this today on the eve of Hassan Nasrallah speaking.

Jim, we'll let you keep watching. Come back with us soon because that's fascinating to see.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:36:39]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, Israeli defense forces are moving closer in toward Gaza City, also saying Hamas' lines of defense are collapsing in northern Gaza. Now, as the Israeli ground operation intensifies, President Biden is reiterating his call for a pause in fighting in hopes of allowing more hostages, who have now been held for 27 days by Hamas, to be released. This happened, Biden's latest remark, happened in a closed-door fundraiser just yesterday where he was confronted by a rabbi sitting in the crowd who urged the president to, quote, "call for a ceasefire now."

Let's get over to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez. She's at the White House for us.

And, Priscilla, Biden's comment at this closed-door fundraiser and being confronted by this person at this closed-door fundraiser, it really does kind of show and lay bare the tough dynamics at play for the Biden administration in this.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: It does, Kate. The White - the president's comments were in line with what the White House has publicly urged, which is a humanitarian pause for the release of hostages that are held by Hamas in Gaza.

But what was noticeable about it was the setting. This happened at a campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis yesterday evening. And in that confrontation, the protester saying they were a rabbi and calling on the president to call for a ceasefire. The president acknowledging it and saying, quote, "I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out."

Now, again, this speaks to how delicate this conflict is and the heightened emotions behind it, particularly as we see more images of destruction in Gaza and the dire humanitarian crisis there, again underscoring how difficult politically this is to navigate for the president and the public push here by the White House for a humanitarian pause.

Now, again, the president has addressed this before, including in a press conference last week, and suggested that he has raised it with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well. But so far it appears that Israel has rejected the idea of a humanitarian pause. So, all of this coming together in this moment just yesterday again where the president was confronted in pretty close range with a protester who was calling for this ceasefire, as we have seen those calls grow rampantly across the country.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Priscilla, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, happening now, senators head back to the floor after a contentious, angry debate overnight on military confirmations. This was Republicans going off on Republicans. So, what's next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:42]

BOLDUAN: Next hour, senators are heading back to the floor after things pretty much exploded last night over the months long hold and fight over military promotions. This was all ignited by Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville blocking hundreds of nonpolitical military promotions over an issue that -- over an issue having to do with a defense policy on reproductive health care. Yesterday it became clear that fellow Republicans had had enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): No matter whether you believe it or not, Senator Tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. I don't say that lightly. I've been trying to work with you for nine months.

SEN. TODD YOUNG (R-IN): To undermine the safety and security of the American people during this perilous time just doesn't make any sense to me.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): But if each senator felt empowered to hold up all promotions in our military unless we got our way on one of those issues, why our military would grind to a halt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Lindsey Graham, Todd Young, Mitt Romney, we heard from Joni Ernst as well on the Senate floor, all Republicans, speaking up and saying, it's time to be done with this.

But despite all of that, Tuberville is not backing down. And now the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, is considering going around him, but that will suck up a huge amount of time on the congressional calendar and on the Senate floor schedule.

[09:45:04]

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is on Capitol Hill. She's joining me now for more on this.

Sunlen, this has been simmering for months, not very clearly boiling over. What's going to happen today?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, it's very clear that Senator Tuberville is not backing down here, that he's standing strong in the face of frustration from members of his own party, and he intends to keep this blockade up. We expect to see the same sort of wrangling potentially on the floor later today. And -- but the dust certainly is still settling from last night. That dramatic four-hour confrontation on the Senate floor where we saw Republicans stand up and object to his blockade. And then we saw the senator stand up on his own and block one by one each of the proposed nominees. It led to some dramatic moments. And here's how the senator responded in the moment last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): I have to respectfully disagree with my colleagues about the effect of my hold on readiness. My hold is not affecting readiness.

But I will keep my hold in place until the Pentagon follows the law or the Democrats change the law.

Every day this continues is a day that Democrats think abortion is more important than the nomination and our military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now this process of confirming military promotions is typically a very routine process. But this has been playing out for many, many months, nine months now, here that he's had this blockade up. And a lot of senators up here on Capitol Hill saying now given what's going on in the Middle East we have to get these people through. And that's why you're seeing Republicans, members of his own party, standing up and saying, do not do this anymore. We have to get these people through.

Now, notably, Tuberville is -- the whole intention behind this bill, Kate, is because he has an objection to an unrelated policy at the Pentagon that went into effect February of this year that expanded access and support for service members and their families who are intending to get an abortion. So, many Republicans not against that policy per say but they're against now what Tuberville is doing in his approach, in his strategy of holding up an unrelated nominations for an unrelated policies against.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I'm interested to see where this goes today.

Thank you, Sunlen.

John. BERMAN: All right, with us now is Congressman Rich McCormick, a Republican from Georgia. He's a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman, great to have you.

You don't get a vote here. You're in the House, not the Senate, but you are a former Marine pilot, former naval commander. I am curious if you agree with Senate veterans Lindsey Graham and Joni Ernst, that this is compromising safety and readiness?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): I - well, it is, but there's two sides to this story. First of all, it can be simply fixed if they do follow the law, if the secretary of defense decides to go with what Congress has already passed, that we don't - we don't use federal funds for abortion. So, I understand Tuberville's point.

I also understand the necessity to have the right people in place for the right time. Our commandant right now is in the hospital for the Marine Corps. We don't have a good plan in place for leadership. So, I am very concerned about the leadership side.

I can kind of see both sides of this argument. There's more than one way to solve this. But I think the secretary of defense gets (INAUDIBLE) very easy by reversing his policy.

BERMAN: You mentioned, I think, that you are -- in addition to everything else, an emergency room physician as well. We have seen images coming back from Gaza, from the air strikes over the last couple days on the Jabalya refugee camp. As an emergency room physician, I'm curious what types of injuries you think that civilians are most likely sustaining here?

MCCORMICK: And we saw this in everything from Haiti to Afghanistan, Iraq. You can have crush injuries, which are horrible, limbs lost because you get what's called compartment syndrome where the tissue's so damaged it swells up and actually kills the nerve and the vasculature (ph). You obviously can have fractures, lacerations, internal injuries, burns. Burns are very difficult to deal with, especially in these posterior (ph) conditions. Usually, it leads to infections. Any wound that's open, any burns, can lead to massive infections, which can downrange, basically create toxicity to your body and kill you.

There's going to be traumatic brain injuries. I mean, you name it, everything under the sun can be happening. This is war. War -- every single war results in this. War is a whole thing. This should have never happened. I thought, you know, Gaza and Israel were in relative piece until one people decided to attack another people and here you go. Now that has to be rooted out and this -

[09:50:00]

BERMAN: President Biden, last night, repeated something that he has been saying for a little while now, (INAUDIBLE) a humanitarian pause in order to help get hostages out and aid in. What's your assessment of that?

MCCORMICK: Well, I've seen this before. And, first of all, why do you think they took the hostages in the first place? They're using them as shields. They're using them as bargaining. And this is what people do. I remember, in Vietnam, if you study history, whenever we started to win, they would sue (ph) for peace, and then they would use that time to reinforce, to re-entrench and make it more difficult for the next round, because they're not done. Hamas (ph) is not going to all of sudden say, oh, let's - let's give all the hostages and then we'll be peaceful. Let's face it, as soon as Hamas lays down their arms there will be peace. If Israel lays down their arms, they would be destroyed instantly. They would be annihilated from the fact of the earth. The fact is that Hamas uses children to shield their weapons and Israel is using weapons to shield their children. There is a big difference in what's going on here.

Now, I feel very sorry for the Palestinian people. They have been used and abused. It's a small fraction of people who are violent and evil. They're giving everyone a hard time and it's - and it's created this horrible death and destruction.

BERMAN: If Congressman Rich McCormack ran the world, would emergency aid to Israel be connected to anything else, including IRS funding, which is what you're going to vote on later today?

MCCORMICK: Yes. My preference would not be that because, first of all, it's fairly unprecedented to attach emergency funding to something like defunding the IRS. It's going to get a negative CBO score, which hurts my heart, too. I understand the premise of it. I don't want more IRS agents. I'm not in favor of strengthening the IRS, which I think has because biased and misused. It's been weaponized. But I would love to see something come out of it, such as HR-2, which is a very popular, bipartisan, of actually controlling our border right now. You see Democrats and Republicans want to see that done. That's a good leverage point to get something like that done. That would have been my preference. I understand what leadership's trying to do in this, but I - I think standalone is probably the best way to do it because it is emergency funds being released for an emergency purpose.

BERMAN: I want to ask you one campaign-related question. You have endorsed Governor Ron DeSantis from Florida for president. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, she's feeling it right now. She's bumped up in some of the polls. She's feeling it so much that she went on "The Daily Show" last night and was joking about Ron DeSantis' footwear.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you wearing higher heels than Ron DeSantis next week at the debate so you can look taller than him on the stage?

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know. We'll have to - we'll have to figure that out. I can tell you, I've always talked about my high heels. I've never, you know, hid that from anybody. I've always said, don't wear them if you can't run in them. So, we'll see if he can run in them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Why do you think Governor Haley has been gaining on Ron DeSantis?

MCCORMICK: She's done very well in the debates. She's a very well- rounded candidate. I respect her. She's been a U.N. ambassador. She's been a governor. She's - she's smart. She picks a lot of great things. The reason I support Governor DeSantis, he's a military guy. What he's done with Florida is extraordinary. I love to compare them (ph). I can't wait for the debate on November 30th. It's going to be in my home town, in Atlanta. I can't wait to see what we do in comparing states like Florida to states like California in how they're doing. I think that will be the bigger part of what's going to lead us into success in the next generation.

BERMAN: Congressman Rich McCormick, we do appreciate you being with us. Come back again. Thank you.

MCCORMICK: Thanks so much.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is interesting.

Coming up for us, classes canceled at Cornell University tomorrow because of the threats to Jewish students on campus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57:50]

BOLDUAN: Cornell University is still reeling from the anti-Semitic threats against Jewish students made by a follow student. So much so, classes are canceled tomorrow. That student, Patrick Dai, he faced a judge yesterday after he allegedly threatened to kill and injure Jewish students on campus.

Joining us now for more on this is Omar Jimenez.

Omar, there were also reports of another threat yesterday. What do we know about this?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. So, the university's president said there was another concerning crime alert that came across yesterday, which ended up being unsubstantiated, but at the very least added to the stress of what we have already seen to be a very tense campus. It's part of why the university is canceling classes on Friday, acknowledging how tense things have been there. Also including, as you just mentioned, a student being arrested on federal charges, accused of making online posts threatening to kill and injure Jewish people on campus.

Now, in response to all of this, the university president outlined a few things they say they're going to do to try and help anti-Semitic threats on campus, including responding rapidly and forcefully to threats, focusing on anti-Semitism and diversity programing, anti- Semitism experts to speak on campus and new policies to prevent doxing, which is, of course, disseminate private identifying information of people online. And it's not just Cornell, by the way. We've seen these types of tensions. We've seen them in campuses all across the country within the context as well of a rise in Islamophobic incidents according to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

So, this is an example now, cancelled classes, of university campuses trying to manage what has been a very tense time.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: For sure. And it's not going to be over anytime soon.

Omar, thank you.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, moments ago, Donald Trump Junior arrived at the New York courthouse. He is about to take the stand in the fraud case against his family.

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