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Zelenskyy Talks With Senators To Ask For Crucial Assistance; Israel-Hamas War; Today, U.N. Emergency Meeting On Gaza Will Continue; To Assist Screen Aid For Gaza, Israel Will Use Two Crossings; Iowa Poll: Trump Support Among Evangelical Voters Grows; 2024 U.S. Presidential Election; Interview With The Atlantic Staff Writer And "The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory" Author Tim Alberta; Giuliani Chastised By Judge For "Defamatory" Remarks Directed At Georgia Election Workers. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 12, 2023 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: On an act with defense mode in the next couple months while Russia attempts to attack infrastructure again during the winter just like they did before. And Ukraine has to prevent any Russian counterattacks. They need arms and ammunition to do that. They have been in a tough war for two years. And just to continue to exist, they have to have this kind of aid from the United States.

It is critical. And I'll say it again, Ukraine is at an inflection point. Congress certainly is tying this to aid -- to the border crisis and getting more funds toward the border, but that has been a problem that has existed for decades. Ukraine right now needs the money right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: The same "New York Times" article, which used the word failed, which you didn't like, General, also noted that there seems to be an internal argument, maybe between some U.S. military leaders and Ukrainian military leaders. What the U.S. wants to see, and again, I'm paraphrasing here, is a winter strategy of basically hold and strengthen for Ukraine.

Hold what they have. Strengthen those forces. Make sure that Russia doesn't make any new gains. Ukraine wants to take the fight to Russia. Ukraine wants more of the types of attacks that they've staged on Crimea and Sevastopol over the last several months. What do you make of that discussion?

HERTLING: Yes, I think that's actually a good strategy, to combine both the U.S. and the Ukrainian approach to continue to defend on the ground, maybe reduce the amount of maneuver warfare that Ukraine has been attempting over the last six months or so. Hold their positions on the ground while continuing to strike key targeting areas of Russia, ammunition caches, fuel caches, troop movements, key communication lines.

That is going to be what the U.S. generals and the Ukrainian generals are going to be discussing over the coming months as part of a winter campaign. And that is one part I think "The New York Times" article did get right. Unfortunately, the couching it in failure was really a bad messaging and incorrect in terms of the description of what's been going on the battlefield.

BERMAN: General Hertling, Ambassador Herbst, our thanks to both of you.

And, again, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, just ending his meeting with U.S. senators. He's on his way to the U.S. House now and is about to meet with the house speaker, Mike Johnson. We will wait to hear from him shortly. Our special live coverage continues right after this.

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[10:37:12]

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says, Gaza is hell on Earth now. This, as the U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote today on a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The vote comes as Israel intensifies its attack on Hamas. Israel's defense minister claiming now the last two Hamas strongholds in Northern Gaza are now surrounded. And heavy fighting is being reported in the south as well after Israel's military expanded its offensive. Meanwhile, Israel says, two crossings from Israel will open today so that aid headed into Gaza can be screened.

CNN's Alex Marquardt joins us now from Kerem Shalom. What have you been seeing there? What are you expecting as far as the humanitarian aid? A lot of people, obviously, in desperate need of that.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, this was once the big -- one of the busiest crossings of aid going from Israel into Gaza, that has not been the case since October 7th. Instead, all of the aid has been going in from Egypt through that Rafah Crossing.

What Israel is announcing now is that aid will be inspected before going into Gaza here at Kerem Shalom, essentially doubling, the aid that will be allowed into Gaza. That doesn't mean it will necessarily get into Gaza, but Israel has been very strict about inspecting all the aid before it goes into Gaza. They've only had one inspection point until now. Now, there is this second inspection point.

So, throughout the course of the day, we've seen long lines of trucks coming to Kerem Shalom, coming into Israel from Egypt that has now stopped for the evening, it looks like. They were inspected. We saw dogs that were inspecting the trucks. The soldiers were looking inside the trucks. We saw aid from W -- from the World Food Programme. We saw a truck from the World Central Kitchen.

And then, Sara, rather than going straight into Gaza, which they could do from this point, those trucks then go back to Egypt and drive up towards the Rafah Crossing. But there's no assurance that even if more aid is approved by Israel that it can get in at the Rafah Crossing, it's a real bottleneck. That crossing was not built for hundreds and hundreds of trucks every day, which is what would be needed right now.

At the same time, the bombardment by Israel has created such chaos in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. So many people have fled south that it has become very difficult for aid organizations to distribute that aid. And so not all the aid that is approved can actually get in. And so, a major question right now, Sara, is when will aid be able to go from Israel into Gaza directly, which is what humanitarian officials would like to see. That, we are told, is a political decision that for whatever reason, the Netanyahu government has not yet approved.

SIDNER: There's still so much suffering going on there. We will be watching, and I'm sure you'll be watching and waiting to see what happens. Alex Marquardt, thank you so much there live for us from Kerem Shalom in Israel.

Kate.

[10:40:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: And coming up for us, Ron DeSantis getting ready to court Iowa caucus goers in the CNN Presidential Town Hall tonight. A key opportunity for him just as polling shows Donald Trump's support in Iowa is only growing. Key to the Republican base in Iowa, evangelicals. So, where are they today on Trump and the Republican field? That's next.

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[10:45:02]

BOLDUAN: 34 days to the Iowa caucuses. Tonight, Ron DeSantis has a key opportunity to make his case to voters there during the CNN Presidential Town Hall tonight. The latest polling out of Iowa shows that he has real work to do. A distant second to Donald Trump who has a 30 plus point lead.

In the Des Moines Register poll, you see that part of it, also shows that Trump is leading with a key group of Iowa's Republican base, evangelicals. They're often a consequential voting bloc in the Iowa caucuses. They are key to Trump's support in Iowa past and present. So, can Ron DeSantis or any other candidate chip away at that support now?

Joining us now is Tim Alberta. He's a staff writer for "The Atlantic." He also has a new book, it's titled "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in the Age of Extremism." It's a great book. You, Tim, you base -- the book is kind of a culmination of one, years of reporting, deep reporting, that you have -- that you put into all of your work, but also lived experience. I want to get to lived experience in just a second.

But there -- when you see this polling out of Iowa, especially around evangelicals, you see what we know, which is there is -- I'm going to call it, resilience and support for Donald Trump among evangelicals in places like Iowa. From your reporting, what is the why behind that? Why evangelicals support someone whose behavior is really completely against the teachings that they follow.

TIM ALBERTA, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Kate, I mean, it's the million-dollar question. And you're right to ask it, and it takes a lot of unpacking in terms of the psychology. I think the simplest answer that I can give you in this setting is that, in many ways, these folks are not supporting Donald Trump in spite of that behavior, in spite of that rhetoric that you're referencing. They're supporting him because of that behavior, because of that rhetoric.

BOLDUAN: Which is counter.

ALBERTA: Well -- I mean, it makes -- well, so it makes no sense.

BOLDUAN: Which is counterintuitive.

ALBERTA: It makes no sense, except it makes perfect sense. And here's what I mean, right? So, for -- as I try to write about it in the book, for a lot of folks who have been -- for decades marinating in this idea that the end is coming for America. That this country is unrecognizable to them, that its Judeo-Christian heritage has been, basically, is collapsing in real time, and that the secularists are coming for them. They're going to shut down their churches. They're going to persecute Christianity. They're going to just banish the almighty from public life.

They've come to think, Kate, that sort of the barbarians are at the gates, and maybe they need a barbarian to protect them. And so, in some sense, Donald Trump's relationship with this community, which was once, you know, nakedly transactional.

BOLDUAN: Right.

ALBERTA: This idea that I'll give you policy victories if you give me your votes. They have now come to view him very differently. They've come to view him as almost like a mercenary type figure who can do the dirty work for them because he's not a Christian. Because he's not bound by biblical norms, biblical etiquette. He doesn't have to play by the rules of Christianity, and that empowers him to do things that nobody else can do. At least that's the way that many of them see it.

BOLDUAN: And it is -- and it takes the pages of your book to unpack it because there is more to this also in your reporting that you found that there's more going on below the surface among evangelicals. A schism, a split, a rift. You tell me how it's best to describe. Where is it and does it mirror kind of the divide that we're seeing in the Republican Party more broadly right now?

ALBERTA: Yes, it does. I mean, I think so. Well, in one sense, first of all, I think that what you're seeing in the evangelical movement in terms of its implosion at an institutional level --

BOLDUAN: Right.

ALBERTA: -- does, in some sense, mirror the implosion of the Republican Party, which is to say, Kate, that I think if you look at the Donald Trump takeover of the party, as we've documented here over the past 10 years or so. That was a case of a fringe movement steadily overtaking the mainstream, right? So, Donald Trump did not start the race in 2016 with anywhere near majority support. He didn't even plurality support.

BOLDUAN: Right.

ALBERTA: He was a candidate who was almost viewed as a laughingstock, somebody not to be taken seriously. But the fact that people did not stand up to him. The fact that there was no sort of strong institutional response to Trump emboldened him, and he gained support and eventually took over the party.

I think what you see happening in American evangelicalism, particularly in the white evangelical -- excuse me, movement today, is very similar. In that, this, sort of, militant far-right Christian nationalist movement that we want to believe is very much at the periphery, at the fringe, not something we need to treat seriously as a, you know, quantifiable threat --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ALBERTA: -- to the country, is growing in power.

[10:50:00]

And there has not been the sort of strong institutional response even though, Kate, I would still argue that a majority of white evangelicals really are turned off by that sort of, you know, that sort of radical ideology, and yet they have not responded in a way that's able to sort of keep it at bay.

BOLDUAN: And I mentioned in this -- perfectly too. I mentioned you also come at this from lived experience. Your father was an evangelical minister. And this book, I didn't know this until I started reading that this book was born out of your experience in grieving your father's death. What is -- what has this whole journey been like for you? Where do you think you've landed? You had the question. You faced the incoming. Where have you landed?

ALBERTA: You know, in many ways, I've landed in a darker place in terms of my view of this tribe that I was a part of for most of my life. Understanding how warped the incentive structures have become. Understanding how, again, there is not -- there are not this sort of defenses, you know, systematic institutional defenses that can keep this extremism, at bay. That part of it has been dark for me and quite discouraging.

At the same time, you know, my own faith and my own relationship with Jesus has never been stronger, which frankly has been surprising to me. I was really worried that my faith would suffer offer as a result of this project, and, actually, it's been the opposite. And I think probably the reason for that is, you know, C. S. Lewis is my favorite author. He wrote that we only know that a line is crooked because we've first seen a straight line.

And so, you know, if we believe, as my friend John Dixon says, that Jesus wrote this perfect symphony, every note flawless. But you hear somebody on the street playing their trombone or their tuba or whatever, and it sounds terrible. And you might say, oh, that's an awful symphony. And so, then you say, no, no. It's not the symphony. It's this joker trying to play it. They don't know what they're doing, but the symphony is perfect.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that by seeing all of what's wrong with the church, I am continually reminded what is right with the church, and that's Jesus.

BOLDUAN: It's such a thoughtful project of reporting. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

ALBERTA: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's really good to have you here.

ALBERTA: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism," you can get it now.

John.

BERMAN: Tim Alberta, one of the best reporters out there.

All right. We have breaking news in the trial where Rudy Giuliani has Already been found to have defamed two Georgia election workers. He just received a new major rebuke, standby for news.

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[10:57:08]

BERMAN: All right. Breaking this morning, just a few minutes ago, a federal judge handed Rudy Giuliani a major rebuke. This is in his ongoing defamation trial where he has already been found liable for defaming two Georgia election workers. CNN Zach Cohen following this for us. And this week didn't start well for Rudy Giuliani, but all of a sudden, this morning, Zach, it seems to have -- be getting even worse.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. John, a jury's already deciding whether or not Rudy Giuliani should pay Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, two poll workers, tens of millions of dollars in damages.

And what does he do on his first day of this trial? He walks out of court, and he repeats the same defamatory claim in front of reporters and on camera that are at the center of this trial to begin with. And, look, the judge this morning in this case said that Giuliani may have opened himself up to more legal liability and that his comments may have warranted and support another defamation claim against him. Take a listen to what Giuliani said last night that hasn't been hot water today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: But everything I said about them is true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you regret what you did to Ruby --

GIULIANI: Of course, I don't regret. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no proof of that.

GIULIANI: Oh, you're damn right there is. Stay tuned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, remember, Giuliani is supposed to take the stand and testify during this trial in his own defense. The judge this morning questioning Giuliani's lawyer, asking if he can be trusted to go up on the stand and not repeat the same thing he repeated outside court yesterday.

BERMAN: I got to say, those comments were surprising. His trial getting very interesting, Zach. All right. Keep us posted as to what goes on behind those doors. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Still ahead, we're following two major stories on Capitol Hill unfolding at the same time. Republicans are taking the first procedural vote on an impeachment inquiry against president Biden. And at the same time, the Ukrainian president, as you've been seeing, is making a desperate plea for aid to lawmakers here in the states. We go there live next.

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