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IDF Expands Ground Operations To All Of Gaza; Sullivan Slams Hamas For Causing "End" Of Hostage Agreement; Israel: Negotiations Over With Hamas, Recalls Team From Qatar; Trump DeSantis Vow To Repeal & Replace Affordable Care Act. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 04, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:01:09]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Israel is expanding its military operations against Hamas to the whole of Gaza, including in the south, where many Palestinian men, women and children have sought shelter. This as the White House urges Israel to do more to protect civilians.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And pivoting to health care, the Biden campaign preparing a package of measures the President would push in a second term, including price cuts to prescription drugs.

Plus, it means style, charm or attractiveness. It was made viral by Gen Z on social media and Oxford is now unveiling it as the word of the year for 2023. Can you guess what it is? We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Right now in Gaza, Israeli troops are operating in southern Gaza for the first time. But this new front is where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians fled after evacuating from the north. That is why a top U.N. official in the region put it bluntly today: "We have said it repeatedly; we are saying it again, no place is safe in Gaza."

The head of the Red Cross, visiting Gaza today pleading for humanitarian relief and for the ICRC to be allowed to visit the 137 hostages still held by Hamas. Those visits could be more crucial than ever now that hostage negotiations have collapsed. Moments ago, the White House slammed Hamas for ending the talks.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Sderot, Israel.

Jeremy, get us up to speed on Israel's latest operations.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the Israeli military is expanding its ground operations into southern Gaza. Over the last several days, we have watched as the Israeli military has been pushing deeper into southern Gaza after focusing its ground operations over the last month, primarily in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. At least one tank was spotted less than 5 km away from central Khan Younis, one of the main cities in southern Gaza. The Israeli military says that its operations in northern Gaza are nearly completed and the defense minister is saying that those operations will lead to the "breaking" of the entire area of Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip.

But there is no question, in speaking with Israeli officials, that the focus in the coming weeks will be in southern Gaza, in part because Israeli leaders believe that many of Hamas' leaders have fled to the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

And as they are doing that, they are coming under intense pressure from the United States, in particular, to ensure that their operations in southern Gaza look very different from what we saw in northern Gaza, where there were heavy, heavy civilian casualties as the Israeli military pummeled the northern Gaza Strip and also drove tanks and infantry troops into densely populated urban areas.

We've seen as the Israeli military has been ordering civilians in southern Gaza to evacuate from key areas of the southern part of the Gaza Strip, dropping leaflets near Khan Younis, that same key city in southern Gaza, and also dropping leaflets with a QR code dividing up Gaza into hundreds of districts, a map that Israeli officials say will help with evacuations of key areas.

But there are major challenges to the effectiveness of those orders, especially as more than 80 percent of Gaza's civilian population is already internally displaced. And Israeli officials, in many cases, directing Gazans to move towards Rafah, for example, where we've already seen in recent days that there have been Israeli airstrikes in those areas, and U.N. officials warning that shelters there are already overcrowded.

[15:05:01]

KEILAR: Talk to us a little bit about hostage negotiations, Jeremy. You have the U.S. blaming Hamas for them falling apart. How exactly did this end, and from the Israeli perspective, what are the prospects for getting them back going?

DIAMOND: Well, it appears that these talks have stalled, if not broken down entirely for the time being, and primarily it appears over this question of female hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Israel has made very clear that they will not move forward with the broader question of negotiating over men, as well as Israeli soldiers, until all of those women hostages are released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

Hamas, for its part, appears to be indicating that it believes that those younger Israeli women are considered soldiers because they are of the age to be called up as reservists. The Israeli officials, of course, reject that concept entirely. And so for now, it appears that we are nowhere close to a resumption of that pause in fighting to allow for the release of any hostages or for that much-needed respite for civilians in Gaza from bombardment.

KEILAR: All right. Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much live for us from Sderot, Israel.

Now to the White House, which is where MJ Lee is. MJ, what did we just hear from the administration? Can you tell us?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna. For weeks we have seen members of the administration talking about the need for Israel to be more surgical and more deliberate as it continues on with its military operations. And they've made clear that what they do not want to see is a repeat of what we saw in northern Gaza, the kind of massive air campaign that caused such widespread casualties and destruction.

NSA Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser to the President, was just at the White House briefing room, and he said that he couldn't offer any kind of comprehensive assessment as to how Israel has been conducting its military operations since the fighting resumed on Friday. But I pressed him on that a little bit. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: But can you offer any kind of initial assessment just based on what you've seen since Friday?

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The facts that I see over the course of the past few days are that Israel has identified a very specific area, has asked people to leave that area. Israel has actually coordinated the commencement of its military operations on the ground in the South with that kind of notification.

Now, what I can't judge is how many of the people in that area, as of right now, have received that communication because I'm not on the ground. So I don't know that. And what we have indicated to the Israelis is they need to use every means and tool that they have available to be sure that when they actually move in, in force into an area in the south, that they do so with some confidence that people have actually gotten safe passage out of that area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And something else, Brianna, that I did ask Jake Sullivan about is whether, given the fact that these hostage talks in Doha appear to have entirely stalled, whether the White House could contemplate making some kind of side deal just to secure the release of the dual American citizens that are still being held back in Gaza, he basically said that all of the conversations are still ongoing and intensive and wouldn't rule anything out.

He also made clear that the conversations he has been having with the families have been incredibly challenging, Brianna.

KEILAR: I can only imagine. MJ Lee, live for us at the White House, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper on all of this with Yuli Edelstein. He's a member of Israel's Knesset and the Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Yuli, thank you so much for sharing part of your day with us.

So, formal negotiations to free the estimated 137 hostages still in Gaza have hit a dead end. Multiple senior U.S. officials tell CNN the talks do not appear likely to resume anytime soon. In your mind, what needs to happen to restart these negotiations to get the hostages out?

YULI EDELSTEIN, MEMBER OF ISRAEL'S KNESSET & LIKUD PARTY: Well, Boris, I think that we just witnessed a couple of weeks ago that military operation, military pressure brings Hamas closer to the idea that they have to negotiate the release of the hostages. And unfortunately, they broke their promises made to Qatar, made to Egypt, to the United States. As far as the previous release of the hostage was concerned, we had no choice, we had to resume the military activities, the military operation.

I sincerely hope that sooner or later, Hamas will understand that if they want another humanitarian force and more supplies, they will have to start renegotiating. They broke their promises, as your correspondent already mentioned, on the release of women and children, and this is exactly what we are trying to reach right now.

SANCHEZ: So Israel's top domestic security official, Ronen Bar, said that Israel has to eliminate Hamas leaders all around the world, even if it takes years and even if it means going into Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar.

[15:10:06]

Qatar helped negotiate the release of hostages. Are you on the same page with him? How do you then avoid drawing those nations into a broader conflict with Israel?

EDELSTEIN: Well, I sincerely hope there will be no broader conflict because everyone understands these days that Hamas is a very dangerous disease here in the area. It's a cruel terrorist organization that could be compared only to ISIS. What they did on October 7, murdering and decapitating babies, raping young women, I don't even want to go into all these graphic descriptions, makes us all to come to one conclusion: as long as Hamas is sitting in Gaza, as long as its leaders are alive, there will be no quiet and peace here in the area.

That's why what the head of our security service said is, I think, shared by 90 percent of the Israelis. We have to get rid of all those who committed the atrocities, and we can't - have to bring the situation to at least some initial start of normal life in Gaza, not under the rule of the Hamas, but under some normal government.

SANCHEZ: Understood, sir. I think that might be the consensus in Israel, but it's hard to say that that's the consensus in the region, especially if you're sending Mossad officers or IDF officials into Lebanon or Qatar or Turkey to eradicate Hamas officials there. It might lead to collateral damage. You're not concerned that that could spark a broader war?

EDELSTEIN: No one is sending right now Mossad officers anywhere. We're right now dealing with the danger on our southern border and I don't have, once again, to repeat what our peaceful communities on the southern border went through on October 7th. So the message we get from these people is quite clear. We will come back. We will revive the agriculture and our normal life there, but on one condition, that there will be no threat from the Hamas.

As long as Sinwar and his like are alive there, they are a threat. We all have to understand that. Right now, we are concentrating on the military operation. In the long run ...

SANCHEZ: Sure.

EDELSTEIN: ... they have to understand that they are a legitimate target.

SANCHEZ: Yuli, when it comes to the intelligence failures on October 7th, The New York Times published portions of this intelligence report that detailed Jericho Wall that showed that Hamas had these plans more than a year before October 7th, that it was within Israeli intelligence, people were aware of these plans. Were you aware of this report before October 7th? Why don't you think it was taken more seriously?

EDELSTEIN: It's a very sad question, Boris, that you're asking. As you can imagine, I work very closely in my position with the Israeli defense forces and the secret service and the Mossad. And this is the question that is being asked by everyone. There was, I guess, a terrible mistake, misconcept, whatever you call it, and it will all be thoroughly investigated after we finish the military operation.

Right now, everyone, the heads of IDF, the heads of our secret service, the political leadership, we are all dedicated to one goal, and this is the return of the hostages and the elimination of Hamas. And this is what we are dealing with right now. We don't have time, actually, to start right now with this whole investigation of the mistakes. Once again, one thing we made sure that we right now don't repeat the same mistakes.

But in terms of who is to blame and who exactly knew what, this is something that we'll leave for later.

SANCHEZ: You didn't specify when you learned of this report. I am curious, before we go, what do you think accountability looks like, specifically for Prime Minister Netanyahu? Do you think he should resign?

EDELSTEIN: Everyone bears responsibility. The political leadership, the military leadership, myself as the chair of the committee, everyone does. And as I've said, there will be a special committee to investigate all that, and this independent committee, in the end, will decide who bears which part of the responsibility. As I've said, who knew what, who had known what.

The reports are troubling, and the things that are surfacing right now are troubling. But on the other hand, we do have to say that if we look at our defense forces, they managed to overcome this trauma, this terrible trauma, and they are operating in Gaza right now, trying to do their best, trying to reach the goals set by the security cabinet. And this is something that they get full support for from the Israeli public.

[15:15:00]

SANCHEZ: Yuli Edelstein, we have to leave the conversation there. We very much appreciate your time and perspective.

EDELSTEIN: Thank you for having me, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still to come, we have new reporting on how the Biden campaign is hoping to use new health care proposals to win a second term.

Plus, accusations of academic meddling against Harvard University, there's a researcher saying she was put out of a job in order to protect a relationship between the university and Facebook founder and mega-donor Mark Zuckerberg.

And later, the Seminoles sideline. Florida State winning every game this season, going undefeated but getting shut out of the college football playoffs. Why? We'll discuss when we come back.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're also going to fight to give much better health care than what you have right now. This is a newer subject, but Obamacare is a disaster. And I said, we're going to do something about it.

[15:20:00]

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Obamacare hasn't worked. We are going to replace and supersede with a better plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So there you have former president, Trump, and Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, both vowing over the weekend that if elected, they would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The Biden campaign now seizing on those threats, preparing to unveil a series of health care measures that Biden would aim to pass in a second term.

We have CNN's Kevin Liptak who is live for us at the White House.

Kevin, what more do we know about these health care announcements and the political plans coming from the Biden camp?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN REPORTER: Yes. These are ideas that have been under discussion for a while, but they are gaining new momentum with this vow from President Trump and others to repeal Obamacare should he regain the White House. And certainly, President Biden was actually surprised to hear his predecessor make those remarks, just given the attempts during his own administration that went nowhere to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something else. And that surprise also fueled by the relatively popular plan that went into effect during the Obama administration.

Now, some of the things that President Biden could be discussing in the coming weeks and months include a plan to expand these drug cut price reductions, including on insulin that are currently in place for Medicare recipients. The President also discussing expanding federal premium subsidies, talking about a workaround potentially to extend this Medicaid expansion that some states had passed, but other states have not.

Even talked about repealing or reviving the public option, essentially a government-run health care that President Biden had campaigned on in 2020. So certainly, the President and his team, certainly very aware that this is a highly potent political issue and preparing to go make an affirmative case for a second term using this healthcare argument in the coming weeks, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you for that report.

SANCHEZ: Let's expand the discussion now with Scott Jennings. He previously worked for former President George W. Bush and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And Maura Gillespie, she was deputy chief of staff for former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, also a press adviser to former Speaker John Boehner. She's also the founder of Bluestack Strategies.

Thank you both for being with us.

Scott, first to you. On the campaign trail, the subject of the threat that Trump poses to democracy, it's really only been brought up by Chris Christie. It doesn't appear to be a winning issue on the right. Is that why Trump's rivals aren't specifically calling him out on it?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, defending democracy means something very different to Trump's voters than it does to, say, Joe Biden's voters. I mean, I do think if you look at the polling, it pops - the term pops for both Republicans and Democrats. But if you're somebody who loves Donald Trump, you think democracy was damaged by Biden winning. And if you're somebody who voted for Biden, you think Donald Trump tried to steal the election.

So actually, I do think you're going to hear both parties talk about it. But, of course, what it means to both sides is something very, very different. I do think the Democrats have had some success with it with independent voters. We saw that manifest itself in November of 2022.

KEILAR: Maura, let's talk about these healthcare comments, because we're hearing them now over the weekend from Trump and also from DeSantis. Do you think that this is a good move or is this fraught?

MAURA GILLESPIE, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO FORMER REP. ADAM KINZINGER: It's an easy win. I think, as far as a talking point goes, it's easy to say, let's repeal Obamacare, right? But it takes real leadership to actually come forward with a real plan and ideas and explain to the voters how you would improve on our healthcare system by making it more transparent, affordable and accessible.

So, while it's easy to say those things and Trump and DeSantis are going to use it as a rallying cry and use it to campaign off of, I hope voters are actually going to follow up and wonder how they would actually make our healthcare system better.

KEILAR: What's the strategy, Maura, when you're talking about repealing and replacing something that is popular with three out of five Americans? Again, explaining to them how it benefits them. We are a nation that really is, as families are looking at their bottom dollar and what they're spending money on, they want to know how a policy or how a plan is going to impact them personally, their families.

And so, I think talking to them about those issues and really zeroing in on that for them is going to make the most impact to voters. But again, I think for the Trump base, as Scott mentioned, they're going to want to hear one thing. But the more moderate and the independent voters are going to want to hear concrete plans.

SANCHEZ: And Scott, you know well the way that the last effort to repeal and replace Obamacare went in the Senate, basically up in flames, and it backfired on Donald Trump if you look at the 2018 election. Why are Republicans bringing this strategy up again, do you think?

[15:25:00]

JENNINGS: Well, it's one thing to say, I'm going to replace or repeal all of Obamacare. I think the better thing to talk about here would be the thing that people often or most often bring up as a problem with American healthcare, and that's affordability. And it is true that premiums are up, it is true that deductibles are up, and it's also true that if you're someone who pays for their healthcare either a monthly premium through your employer or out on the open market, oftentimes it feels like your insurance costs have gone up, but your coverage has gotten worse.

So I think instead of repealing Obamacare full stop, the real conversation, if I were advising a candidate, is how am I going to bring down costs and make it feel like your insurance is actually insurance and not something that's just gotten more expensive but worse in quality.

So I think the - it depends on who you ask. If you're somebody who gets healthcare for free, you probably think it's great. If you're somebody who has been paying for it or you own a small business and you're paying for it for your employees, you probably don't think the private insurance market's done very well for the last few years.

SANCHEZ: That sounds like a thought-out argument from Scott, not exactly what we've heard from Donald Trump. So I guess the question I was getting to more specifically is why is Donald Trump bringing it up this way at this time when it hasn't yielded success for him before?

JENNINGS: Well, I think he's bringing it up because he still believes that Republicans want to repeal Obamacare, and he probably feels like it was a failure that it didn't happen on his watch. And so, it may be a knee-jerk reaction also to something he read.

I read in the press that he may have read an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal talking about Obamacare and he kind of went out and didn't think it through and just sort of brought it up. I mean, he often does that. And so, I wouldn't expect that he has a fully thought-out strategy or plan here, but it's something that crossed his desk and he said it out loud. I mean, this is par for the course for the way Donald Trump manages political communications.

But if you want to have a healthcare debate in this election, there's a way to do it, but you've got to get laser-focused on affordability and have a plan to say, here's how I'm going to make it more affordable than the other guy.

KEILAR: Maura, we've been hearing from former congresswoman, Liz Cheney. She's been warning about 2024, about former President Trump, of course, but also about the role specifically that Speaker Mike Johnson could play considering his role last time. You worked for House Speaker, do you share any of these concerns and how do you see her criticism here?

GILLESPIE: I understand her concerns and I do think that when we're looking at 2024, there is the real threat to our democracy. As far as, quite frankly, I think either candidate, if they win, that people are saying are the two options we have, which I hope is not the two options, Biden versus Trump again.

They're going to be in their 80s and why are they running? Either candidate, why are they running? Is it for power? Is it so the other guy doesn't win? Those aren't good enough reasons to be the commander- in-chief, the president of the United States of America.

And so, I think her concerns, obviously, she's mostly focused on her experience with Trump and through her front-row seat during the January 6 Committee and seeing how he's already tried to abuse the power of the presidency.

But basically, our options in those two scenarios are somebody who doesn't seem to understand how the Constitution works and somebody else who doesn't seem to understand half the time where he is. And I'm not saying that to be mean; I'm saying that as a genuine concern as a voter and as somebody who's looking at this, quite frankly, as a concern from both sides of our democracy and both sides of where our Constitution stands in 2024.

So, I think people need to be more thoughtful about it, and those who are - because they're lamenting Biden are just going to go to Trump that's not good enough. That's lazy to me, and I think we really need to be more focused on, can we get a better option up here before next year.

KEILAR: Scott, what do you think about her concerns about Speaker Johnson?

JENNINGS: Well, obviously, he was a proponent of a piece of Donald Trump's argument to invalidate the 2020 election. He had concocted - helped concoct the legal theory about the lawsuit that was filed was ultimately not held up by the courts.

Look, I tend to think the American people are going to make a fairly clear decision in 2020. I don't know what that decision is going to be, but my supposition is they're going to make a clear decision. And this is - these elections have been close for a long time, but I ultimately have a lot of faith in the people. I have a lot of faith in our constitutional order, and I also have faith in the institutions.

I know that may sound crazy in this day and age, but no matter what you did in the past, I think once you are the Speaker of the House or you are the vice president of the United States, which we saw with Mike Pence, or when you hold a title that is constitutionally recognized and you have responsibility to do something on a certain day, I guess I'm going to view the glass as half full. I think all these people have integrity, and I don't believe our constitutional order will be hijacked by anybody, no matter who wins in 2024.

KEILAR: All right. You have some faith, there's some waiting and seeing. We will see. We have time ahead.

Maura and Scott, thank you so much for being with us.

[15:30:00]

JENNINGS: Thank you.

KEILAR: Up next, a disinformation expert accuses Harvard of caving to pressure from Facebook.