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Israel Conducts Dozens Of Strikes On Hamas In Gaza; Hamas And Israeli Troops Clash Inside Gaza; Biden Cautions Israel Against Invading Gaza; Volunteers Fought Off Hamas Attackers; Israel At War; Nine Republicans Join House Speaker Race After Jordan Drops Out; Top Donors Protest University Handling Of Alleged Anti-Israel Speech On Campus. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired October 22, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:18]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington joined by my colleague Erin Burnett, who is live for us in Tel Aviv, Israel.

We begin this hour with Israel's military ratcheting up its bombardment of Gaza. A short time ago, Israel's military reported it has conducted dozens of strikes on Hamas in Gaza in recent hours, as well as destroying two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon, according to an IDF post on Telegram.

It's part of Israel's plan to prepare for a possible ground incursion into Gaza. That order could come at any time. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the U.S. is worried about an escalation in the Middle East, so the U.S. will deploy missile defense systems like the one you see right there, throughout the region to protect U.S. troops.

And Erin, what's the latest on your end?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Well, Jim, here we are learning that the Biden administration is pressing Israel to delay a possible full-scale ground invasion of Gaza. Alex Marquardt reporting that, saying that the goal is to provide more time to negotiate for the release of hostages and allow for more humanitarian aid to go in to reach Palestinian civilians.

Now, the White House says President Biden has spent the day on the phone. He's had conversations with multiple leaders around the world -- I'm sorry -- including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Pope Francis, another conversation as well as Justin Trudeau and others in Europe.

According to the White House, Biden and Netanyahu have agreed that aid will continue to flow into Gaza. We understand thus far there have been about 14 trucks that have gone in, which by any account is a drop in the bucket of what would be needed on a daily basis, never mind as a one-off.

So I want to begin, though, with where this imminent invasion is, Jim, and that means we're going to go to Sderot where our international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson has been over these past two weeks.

So, Nic, the bombardment of Gaza continues. About an hour ago, when you were speaking with Jim and I, we could hear it and see it. How would you describe what you've seen even in these early hours of the morning here? It's now of course 2:00 a.m., and how this compares to the past few days?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. I think what we were witnessing here a couple of hours ago was the heaviest that we've seen in the past couple of weeks, the most sustained, the heaviest explosions, perhaps giving us to understand here, because the windows and doors on this building were rattling, that the detonations were happening just over the border inside of Gaza. Hard to imagine what it would be like there.

And we know from inside of Gaza, perhaps six miles from here, the Jabalia refugee camp. There have been reports of casualties there, and it does fit in with this picture of what the IDF is talking about, which is increasing the number of strikes in advance of a ground incursion.

I have to say right in the last 10, 15 minutes or so, it's been relatively quiet. I don't know if it will stay that way, but that's what we see often is it cycles right up, drops off, and it will cycle back up again. But the bombardment before absolutely constant.

BURNETT: Right, and they have announced, the IDF, tonight that they're going to increase strikes so we'll see what that actually means. But, again, it's 2:00 a.m., just to give people a sense of the 24-hour nature of what we experienced in this country.

So what are you hearing about the pressures, though, on Prime Minister Netanyahu? We've been using the word imminent accurately, and yet he still has not gone ahead with any sort of a large-scale assault on Gaza.

ROBERTSON: Yes. And you look at the troops as we have been over the past few days, who are in their armored fighting vehicles, their tanks, their big diggers, very close to the border with Gaza, not right at it, not ready to cross it, it seems, but very, very close, within direct rocket fire, some of the bases we were looking at today very close to the border fence. So they're ready to go.

And we understand from conversations we've had with soldiers they're getting the feeling that they're getting ready and then they're stopping. They're holding back. So there's this, you know, even among the troops, there's an uncertainty about when the order is going to come. But when it comes to pressure, that pressure is being felt by Prime Minister Netanyahu. He can't say no to everything President Biden wants because Israel depends on the United States for ammunition.

It depends on it not just for the operations here in Gaza but also potentially if the conflict widens and Israel has to target some of the deeply hidden rockets and missiles that Hezbollah has in Lebanon, it will need heavy munitions for that sort of thing. So there's a lot of pressure there. But then there's the pressure here from, you know, from the population that feels let down by the prime minister, let down by the security forces.

[19:05:05]

They feel in danger from Hamas, from those barbaric attacks two weeks ago, and they want to see action. So there's pressure upwards on the prime minister. I think this is a very, very difficult time for him.

BURNETT: Yes. You know, it's interesting when you talk about the frustration of the armed forces. I was talking to someone who is in Be'eri who survived, and she was talking about how there were Hamas commanders who were trying to actually turn themselves into Israeli police to try to negotiate to get hostages over the border.

They were doing that, Nic, because they thought that they couldn't get over the border with the hostages surviving because the IDF would be there. All of their plans had the IDF there, but of course the IDF was not there. So even Hamas was surprised by the slowness of the response.

So we do know that Israeli special forces have been in Gaza twice. Could be more, but we know about twice, right, in the past few days. One of them today and there was that -- there was a firefight. Do you know anything about that and what those special forces were in there to do today?

ROBERTSON: Yes, it seems that they were going in to prepare the way for a possible bigger incursion. They had earth-moving vehicles, these sort of bulldozer trucks, and tanks as well. So this was a heavily armed force. And when we talk about bulldozers, we're not talking about what you have on a regular building site. We're talking about trucks here that have sometimes the diggers are actually up-armored.

The cabs are certainly up-armored. They're driven by soldiers. So these are vehicles that are at sort of sharp end of trying to clear the way for more troops to come in. But Hamas had an antitank rocket, a rocket that can go through the armor of a tank, and they fired it at the tank. And we understand that one soldier was killed and three others injured. Their families have been informed.

But it just shows you that despite all these heavy air strikes on Hamas, they are still able to put up a resistance and a resistance close to the border fence because this is where we understand this attack happened.

BURNETT: Yes.

ROBERTSON: So a small force, Israeli force going across really found themselves up against a well-armed unit of Hamas. And this is a concern for any soldier right now contemplating being sent across the border.

BURNETT: But a hugely significant point you make, that even after thousands of air strikes, which, using the math, it's got to be around that, that they put out daily, that while they have taken out a lot, that there's still able to be a resistance for a small force like that in a specific place is meaningful.

So, Nic, Israeli forces also launched a rare attack in the West Bank. This was an air strike. What are officials saying about that?

ROBERTSON: Yes, they say they had active, timely intelligence that there were two Hamas operatives inside a mosque where there were tunnels and ammunition stores, and they believe that they were planning an attack of some kind.

Now, I was in Jenin earlier on this year just after that a big Israeli ground incursion to go after a small group of Hamas operatives. I think Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, five or six of them. That took hundreds of troops. It took a big force, and the IDF took casualties on that. There were firefights on the streets, in people's apartments. So the option that the IDF appeared to have gone for today is an option they don't often use, which is an air strike, which killed the two operatives, but it didn't require them to use up a lot of troops on the ground.

One, because of the potential backlash on the streets of Jenin and also because they have a lot of troops who are frankly tied up around Gaza, who are tied up in the north along the border with Lebanon. So it appears that this was potentially why this method was used and for the IDF, it worked.

BURNETT: Nic Robertson, thank you very much, in Sderot.

And today, President Biden spoke as I mentioned with several world leaders as CNN learns that the U.S. is pressuring Israel to delay its ground incursion, something Israel says too bad, they'll do it when they want to do it. But we'll see if that's the case.

Our special coverage continues after this brief break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:13:26]

ACOSTA: President Biden spoke today with the Pope, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, and several other world leaders today as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on. The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 4600 people have been killed in Gaza. And as the humanitarian crisis there deepens, Mr. Biden is urging caution to Israel in its mission to take out Hamas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I caution this. While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Fareed Zakaria, a CNN anchor and host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" joins me now. Fareed, great to see you. Really enjoyed our conversation last week.

Wanted to get into some of these deeper issues again. But just to -- a simple question off the start here, do you think Benjamin Netanyahu is listening to the president from what you can tell?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: I hope he is because President Biden is offering very wise counsel, and I think he may be because what I've heard from many, many people in Israel, and polling backs this up, President Biden is right now wildly popular in Israel, much more popular than Prime Minister Netanyahu.

And so he's using that political capital he has -- President Biden is -- to say something that, you know, Israelis may not want to hear, understandably as he said consumed with fear and rage and anger. He's telling them, look, think before you jump in. Look at our mistakes.

[19:15:01]

I had General Petraeus on the show this morning, and he was pointing out that it took nine months for the Iraqi army to clear out the city of Mosul, which is about the same size as Gaza City.

ACOSTA: Yes. That's a long time, I mean, and we're at the beginning of all of this.

And Fareed, in a "Washington Post" op-ed, you've laid a lot of this out and talked about how the U.S. military strategy after 9/11 was pretty flawed from the start. How might we see the same fate unfold with Israel and Hamas? Could we see history repeat itself?

ZAKARIA: Yes, I really hope we don't, but it does feel like we're moving in a very similar direction. Look at the nature of the siege, you know. You have no food, no water, no electricity to a vast civilian population. Remember, 50 percent of people living in Gaza are children. The median age of somebody in Gaza is 18 years old. So this person has very little, you know, to do with any of this. You're talking about 10, 12, 13-year-old kids.

The reports we're getting now is that the people who cannot flee from northern Gaza to southern Gaza are the poorest of the poor, the people who can't afford the taxi ride, who can't afford to mobilize, you know. So it feels as though there's got to be a better way, a more targeted, a more strategic way to do this. And once Israeli forces go in, completely understandably they will be most concerned about protecting their lives, and they will be willing to do a lot of damage to protect their lives.

That's how war works. That's what the American military did in Iraq. But as a result of that, you face a real dilemma, as General Petraeus again said, they have a sign on their Mosul headquarters saying, you know, our actions today, killing more bad guys than they're creating.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: And if you just keep that idea in mind, the politics of this, the longer-term consequences of this, I think the Israelis are smart. They have dealt with this for a long time. They have rarely wanted to do something this big. In the past, they would always do very targeted operations. So in a sense, what President Biden is telling them is remember -- you know, remember what your own strategy and tactics have been over the last 30 or 40 years.

ACOSTA: Right. Well, and I mean that leads me to this question that Erin and I have been discussing with our various guests, and we can talk about it is, we keep talking about this large-scale ground incursion being imminent. It's been imminent, I guess, for two weeks now, and we were just looking at a live picture of Gaza a few moments ago. It's as quiet and as silent as it possibly could be.

What do you suppose is going on? Do you think there's a delay going on, and why do you suppose that is?

ZAKARIA: If there is one, I think the possible reasons are, first, they're trying to figure out how much damage they've done. You know, there's been massive aerial bombardment, you know, thousands and thousands of bombs. Maybe they're trying to figure out where the hostages are, trying to think about whether there is some path to negotiating through Qatar or somebody else about the hostages.

And finally, as you began the questions with, maybe President Biden's counsel is prevailing and they are just trying to think through what would -- you know, for example, what happens assuming they succeed? Who will run Gaza? Who can they hand it off to?

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: And those kinds of --

ACOSTA: That was my next question. What does victory look like for the Israelis? I mean, what does that look like? The U.S. took out Osama bin Laden and then was still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan for much longer.

ZAKARIA: Well, and, you know, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel, was again on my show, and I asked him, well, you know, the last time we did a big operation, I went to the Egyptians, and I said, we'll get rid of Hamas. Will you take control? You know, tell us if we've got to get out, we will agree, and you take over. And then President Mubarak said no way. This is your problem. You handle it.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: Nobody wants to be seen to be going in on the back of Israeli tanks and ruling over the Palestinians.

ACOSTA: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Not the Arabs, not the Europeans, not the Americans.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. And, Fareed, I want to get into this because, I mean, this is just something that's been on the minds of a lot of young people in the United States and I suspect around the world. These fiery debates taking place on college campuses across the U.S., other campuses around the world, pro-Palestinian-led student protests. They're being criticized by top donors to places like Harvard and Penn. I'm sure you've heard about some of this, calling these demonstrations have been accused of being antisemitic.

What is going on, do you think, with this debate, and why is it do you think we're seeing this among a lot of young people in the United States and other parts of the world?

[19:20:07]

ZAKARIA: Well, we've looked at the polling, and younger people have, you know, very different views about the Israel-Palestine issue than older people. I think college campuses have become a much greater kind of place where people, particularly young people, vent their frustrations and their angers.

My own view is, look, they should have the absolute freedom to say whatever they want on either -- any side of this issue. Big donors or big employers want to make statements saying they're never going to hire people like that, they have the freedom of speech to do that as well. If that's how they want to use their power, that's fine. It's a free country. You don't have to hire anyone. You don't have to fire.

What's interesting about it, to my mind, Jim, is that in the old days, we didn't really ask institutions like universities to take positions on political issues. For example, I don't know how many universities took positions after 9/11. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel as though we've --

ACOSTA: Yes.

ZAKARIA: In the last 20 years, all these institutions are being pressed to take sides, to take positions, and I wonder if it's a -- you know, it's a pretty complicated issue. The University of Chicago has stayed pure, where it has said, look, we are a university. We believe in free speech. We don't take positions on political issues. Our faculty, our students, they can take as many positions as they want, and we will protect them. But we as an institution stay out of it.

ACOSTA: Yes.

ZAKARIA: I wonder if people will look back -- because, you know, the next thing that happens, people are going to ask universities to take positions and denounce this and denounce that, and maybe the University of Chicago has it right. Let human beings take positions on these things. Let the university stay out of it.

ACOSTA: And as best as possible, keep it to a civil discourse if we can, if at all possible.

Fareed Zakaria, always appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time.

ZAKARIA: Pleasure.

ACOSTA: Up next, hear from a group of Israeli volunteers who took on Hamas fighters when the surprise attack on their kibbutz started. That fascinating conversation with Erin is coming up.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:26:28]

BURNETT: Amid the stories of horror that we have been covering, I do want to share one with you that is of bravery and triumph. There was a kibbutz in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip where a group of volunteers managed to fight off more than 30 Hamas terrorists during that surprise attack.

This was the kibbutz where nobody actually died. Nobody inside Mefalsim was killed, and the reason was the community defenders, the volunteer defenders. It wasn't the Israeli police or the IDF. They weren't there just like they weren't in any of the other kibbutz that morning.

Here is my interview with the heroes who saved their town.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: You were at the gate. They try to come in the vehicle gate. And I know in Be'eri we saw all the burned-out cars they used to block. You were able to stop that, but they burst through the pedestrian gate. And we have footage of some of this from the security cameras.

ELI LEVY, MEFALSIM VOLUNTEER SECURITY FORCE: Exactly. They were actually shooting anti-tank missiles on the gate. So there's an actual carnage going on outside the gate. People are trying to rush in from the party, people that were just driving.

BURNETT: They're trying to come in for safety.

LEVY: They're trying to come in. The gate is closed. They cannot see the terrorists, and they just go outside and run to the gate and they're being shot at from short distance, fall down.

BURNETT: The terrorists at the gate are trying to come in as people are rushing. So they basically just -- they were just like picking them off as they run in.

LEVY: Yes. They were actually taking cover around the gate from the outside firing --

NOAM KAZAZ, MEFALSIM VOLUNTEER SECURITY FORCE: And firing at them.

LEVY: And firing at those civilians that's running to the gate, studying them after they were shot down to make sure they're dead. And they're engaging -- there is this small -- this bomb shelter outside the gate. Some of the party members were hiding there. So you can see a group of terrorists going and doing their massacre there.

KAZAZ: They throw hand grenades.

BURNETT: Grenades into the shelter.

KAZAZ: Yes. You can see in the movie, the security movie, you can see the hand of the terrorist throw hand grenades inside.

YARDEN RESKIN, MEFALSIM VOLUNTEER SECURITY FORCE: So I went out in solo and started moving towards the main gate, but not in a straight line. I went through the houses. I got to parking lot number two that is like -- and there is a small hill over watching it but from outside. And there were three guys wearing black, looking at the road. I wasn't sure if this is our people or maybe I don't know what. And in the moment they turned around, I saw AK-47s.

BURNETT: That's how you know, because you all have M-16s.

RESKIN: Yes.

BURNETT: All of you.

RESKIN: We don't use AK-47s. So that's not us.

BURNETT: Immediate signal about that.

RESKIN: That's not us. I shot at this group. One of them got hit. The other one -- the other two scattered.

BURNETT: Do you have any idea how many -- obviously you have M-16s. You have magazines. But just a sense of this went on for hours. How many bullets did you even shoot? Do you have any idea of what this took?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.

BURNETT: You know?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hundreds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I shot 240 bullets.

DAVID ROSENBERG, MEFALSIM VOLUNTEER SECURITY FORCE: I knew that I have only six magazines, and I counted every bullet. I knew that I cannot shoot like I have a backup or something like that. So I've been shooting every bullet has its own target. I didn't just to make them lie --

BURNETT: Right. You had to shoot to kill.

ROSENBERG: I had to shoot to kill.

[19:30:09] BURNETT: So I know, you all know, you've seen these. This is what was found on them. I mean, at least on somebody, right? This is their plans, I mean, of what they were doing -- I just was reading through it.

I mean, it's dated October 2022. They were -- I mean, if that -- they were planning it for a whole year. The details in here, Eli, I want to ask you at one specific thing. I mean, they knew everything about your --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Except our names.

BURNETT: Yes, except your names, but they put their phone numbers in here. They put, you know, the task, kibbutz Mefalsim, Raid plan B14. I mean, it's military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very specified.

BURNETT: God is great, the martyr, Al-Qassam Brigades, they label it all. But at the top, they have, you know. The cameras that are going to be visible, who was going to come to help you. They knew the tank brigade.

But it's this part I wanted to ask you all about. This was exactly what they plan to do inside the kibbutz. The duty of where they were supposed to go, what street numbers, everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They know where the generator is. It does mention in here.

BURNETT: Did they -- did you -- now, that you see this, and you saw them, were they trying to execute this plan?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly.

BURNETT: Exactly.

ELI LEVY, MEFALSIM VOLUNTEER SECURITY FORCE: Their plan was actually to engage the security group to open the main gate, to allow vehicles in, to sabotage the main power and the generator and to make as much casualties from the security team to allow the second wave to go in.

And the fact that they know the exact street where to go to, where the generator is, and stated in here.

BURNETT: Yes, I mean, it is street by street.

LEVY: Street by street. That's exactly what they were executing. Exactly.

They came to the exact point where the gates are, for instance, the point beside my house is they gate -- it is the southern gate.

It is a small gate that is closed. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Small and it is a hidden gate.

LEVY: It is in the plan. I actually saw a page in which I saw --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Symbols.

LEVY: Yes. There's actually arrows. Arrows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Arrows, gate, gate, gate.

BURNETT: When you sit here now and you think about it, that they didn't just plan and train. I mean that this is -- I mean, this is military. I mean this is -- how do you even react to that? This took --

LEVY: It is terrifying.

BURNETT: The date is October 2022.

LEVY: Yes. It's terrifying because it is a military plan. The combatants, they are trained on it. It was quite clear. They knew exactly what they are doing. They were disciplined. This is military grade planning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Jim, you know what is amazing, they were then looking through details and they were actually going through. In the plans, it lists where the cameras are in the kibbutz.

ACOSTA: Wow.

BURNETT: And this group of guys, they are trained, right, to protect their kibbutz, theoretically for 20 minutes until the IDF comes. That's what they are trained for. Right? They had to do it for hours upon hours upon hours, more than six hours.

But they said, well, we didn't even know where all of those cameras were. We didn't even know where this is. Well, they knew where the generator was, they didn't know where our backup was.

So they were very clear that it required inside work, that people who had been in the kibbutz had been able to observe and do surveillance, reconnaissance in order to prepare these plans.

But it was pretty incredible to have them actually look through it and to see that, but they saved every life in that kibbutz.

ACOSTA: It's just incredible, and it underlines how much planning went into Hamas' attack on these communities.

And I was just struck by you're sitting around a table with just a regular bunch of guys in t-shirts and polo shirts, and yet, they had this courage that, I mean there's something inside of them that made them want to fight this off, and they succeeded. Just incredible.

BURNETT: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

ACOSTA: Well, Erin, great report. Really appreciate that.

Much more from Israel ahead when we come back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:38:15]

ACOSTA: We will have much more of our special coverage from Israel straight ahead, but first, this week, the high-stakes race for House speaker enters a new and crowded phase.

Nine Republicans have announced they'll vie for the gavel after GOP Congressman Jim Jordan failed to win enough support from his party last week.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN senior political commentator, Scott Jennings. Scott, really appreciate you joining us, so you know, I'm tempted to say instead of one head of lettuce, maybe we have nine heads of lettuce.

Now, I don't -- maybe you can walk us through this. But do any of these candidates have a shot at becoming the speaker by the end of this week?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, certainly they have a shot, but of course Jim Jordan had a shot, Steve Scalise had a shot and those shots came up short. You know, based on what I hear, I think Tom Emmer, who is currently part of leadership has probably the most robust operation, but there are some other people like Byron Donalds of Florida, who are very well-known conservatives and they're going to attract some support as well.

They are going to have a candidate for him and then start voting -- on Monday night and then start voting on Tuesday. They certainly need to get their act together, because I really do think the House of Representatives being paralyzed, if nothing else, is a major security risk for the United States.

ACOSTA: Right. I mean, you saw the president there last week call for aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine, as well as other assistance down at the border and to Taiwan and so on. So there is obviously some very important legislation that needs to make its way through the meat grinder of Capitol Hill and without a speaker of the House, Scott, you know this, you used to work up on the Hill, it is just not easy to get stuff done. You can't get it done.

JENNINGS: Well, yes, it is against the rules to get anything done. The Senate right now is actually moving ahead with their plans on spending, but of course, it takes two to tango in Congress and the House is paralyzed and this deadline for government funding will be on top of us before we know it.

[19:40:05] So it really would behoove the Republicans to get a speaker this week and get in the game. Remember, the Democrats control the Senate. There is a Democrat in the White House.

So the principal Republican negotiating arm here is supposed to be the House of Representatives, and so, if you're a Republican who donated to or voted for Republicans to get this majority, you're probably pretty unhappy right now.

ACOSTA: Yes, no question.

And CNN political commentator, Bakari Sellers joins us as well. We've got Bakari on the line. Bakari, great to see you as well.

I mean, what is your sense of it on the Democratic side of things? Is there any appetite at all to help the Republicans get out of this jam and get to a speaker?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, I think one of the things that you've realized over the past, you know, decade -- definitely few years, but at least a decade, is that Republicans simply don't have the ability to lead. I mean, we saw this conundrum when we were talking about the Affordable Care Act. And now you have Republicans in control of the House again, and just simply cannot get out their own way.

You asked a good question, Jim, is there an appetite for us to help Republicans kind of figure this thing out? And the answer to the question is maybe. We want to do what's best for the American people.

Every Democrat in this country wants to do what's best for the American people. However, Democrats are not the reason why we're here right now.

Republicans filed a motion to vacate. They voted for it. And right now, you don't even have enough Republicans to actually win the speakership.

So, you know, I think it's going to take someone who has commonsense, someone who has common ground. Jim Jordan was not that individual. We'll see what happens. It won't be Byron Donalds, or any of the long litany of names that people have floated, but we'll see what happens over the next week because I think, as Scott said, it's a national security risk.

ACOSTA: Yes, and Bakari, I guess, to some extent, you can't let the Republicans flail for too long, right, because if the president has this aid package that he wants to get through the Congress, obviously, you need a speaker of the House.

And so I think, while Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats were all too pleased to let Jim Jordan sort of hang out there in the wind, I can't imagine you can do that for too much longer with these other items that have to get through the Congress.

SELLERS: Sure, I mean, I think you have a compromise candidate like Patrick McHenry, and who will be, for all intents and purposes, a human CR. I mean, I think you'll have somebody who will be able to come in and be able to stay for 30 days or 60 days or 90 days until Republicans are able to get their act together, and I think Democrats would support that.

I do not imagine that you're going to have Democrats vote for someone who's out of touch with the rest of the American public or some extreme individual like Jim Jordan. That ship has sailed.

I think Steve Scalise was the speaker-designate for about a day and Jim Jordan had his week. I do think you'll have a compromised candidate like Patrick McHenry. We're under no -- I don't want to disabuse the American public or anybody watching that thinks that for some reason Hakeem Jeffries may be speaker of the House because five Republicans will jump ship and vote for him, that will not happen.

But what also will not happen is someone who is an extreme Republican being elected speaker, those days are long gone.

ACOSTA: Scott, that is not happening, Hakeem Jeffries as speaker. I mean, you do hear that from progressives from time to time.

JENNINGS: Yes, it's not going to happen.

ACOSTA: Hoping on a wing and a prayer, I guess and that sort of thing.

JENNINGS: Yes, the best chance for that to have happened would have been over this weekend, if they had stayed in and a bunch of Republicans had gone home, then by function of math, it could have happened, you know, for a day. But no, that's not going to happen.

Republicans have to come together and get somebody. And if they can't, then Democrats are going to have to figure out if they want to, you know, enough vote present to allow this to move forward.

Aid package aside, we are coming up on a deadline, the mid-November funding deadline for the government.

ACOSTA: Right.

JENNINGS: It is coming and that doesn't move, it comes whether we have a speaker or not, and so at some point, I would think Democrats would want to try to join in here and help if the Republicans can't get their act together.

But I have to say, I suspect the American people are fairly annoyed by everybody here, especially the Republicans for not keeping their eye on the ball -- their own priorities. They can't do anything right now, so how can they be focused on your priorities if they can't do anything other than sit in a room and say each other's names all night?

ACOSTA: Right. And Bakari, I'll give you the last word. I mean, one thing we were talking about with Jim Clyburn in the last hour, is that maybe there's a newfound appreciation for what Nancy Pelosi was able to do as the House speaker. SELLERS: Yes.

ACOSTA: I mean, when she cracked the whip, she cracked the whip and people had -- you know, she could whip votes like nobody else and that is just an art form that has not, I think materialized on the Republican side as yet.

SELLERS: No, no. She is going to go down as one of the greatest legislators of all time, and I think that individuals who served with her during her time will acknowledge that as well.

[19:45:01]

What the Republican Party has now is a bunch of characters and caricatures. I mean I think from Matt Gaetz to Nancy Mace to many of the individuals who serve right now, the Boebert's, you know, these individuals who just come to make it a show, who want to get Instagram reels or TikToks, who are not about the business of the people.

I think you're starting to see that their allure may be fading within the Republican caucus, but the Republican Party has a cancer, and that cancer is really showing itself right now in that House GOP caucus.

Nancy Pelosi was one of one, she was her. She was somebody who could literally get anything done and even with a small majority. No one dare try to do what they have done to Kevin McCarthy because she commanded respect, and she had that fortitude, and it is something that Scalise, Jordan, McCarthy, the list goes on and on, just simply don't have.

I think there are a lot of individuals -- there are a lot of men in the Republican caucus who wish they could be Nancy Pelosi tonight.

ACOSTA: All right, Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers. Guys, thanks very much for your time.

Bakari, glad you could get in there. Appreciate it.

JENNINGS: Thanks.

SELLERS: I am glad to be with you. Thank you.

ACOSTA: Better late than never. No problem. All right, good to see you.

An Ivy League school coming under fire, major donors cutting off an award to the University of Pennsylvania after the school held a cont--

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[19:50:41]

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LIZ CHENEY, FORMER US REPRESENTATIVE: What we've seen, though, around the world, is even frankly, before Israel began any kind of a response in Gaza, we saw this massive expansion and explosion of demonstrations around the world, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel. Here in the United States on our university campuses, it is outrageous, it's dangerous, it needs to stop.

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ACOSTA: That was former Republican congresswoman, Liz Cheney, and she's not alone in her views. A growing number of big donors are cutting off financial support to top universities, including the University of Pennsylvania.

This comes after UPenn last month hosted a Palestine Rights Literature Festival, which included speakers with a history of making anti- Semitic comments.

I should note ahead of the event, the university released a statement saying they condemn anti-Semitism, but: "As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas. This includes the expression of views that are controversial, even those that are incompatible with our institutional values."

And I'm joined now by David Magerman, co-founder and Managing Partner of Differential Ventures.

David, I know you're one of the major donors. You pulled your financial support from Penn. Let's talk about it. Why did you decide to weigh into this?

DAVID MAGERMAN, CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER, DIFFERENTIAL VENTURES: Yes, thank you for having me.

ACOSTA: Yes.

MAGERMAN: You know, I was in Israel when the war started with my family celebrating Sukkot, and when I came back to America, I was kind of like, stunned, and you know, kind of paralyzed, not really sure what I wanted to say. And a couple of donors stepped forward and declared that they wanted to pull their support for the school unless the school had a better reaction.

And I realized that I didn't feel the same way. I felt like the reaction that they had, at first was authentic. It represented who they were, and I didn't think anything they said could change that. And I realized I just wanted to basically break up with them, to let them know that I wasn't going to support them. I wasn't asking him to fire anybody, make any more statements. Their values aren't my values and I didn't feel like I could give them any more of my financial support.

ACOSTA: And the president of the university issued another statement, in response, saying: "Alumni are important members of the Penn community. I hear their anger, pain and frustration and taking action to make clear that I stand, and Penn stands emphatically against the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel and against anti-Semitism." Does that statement go far enough for you? MAGERMAN: I mean, it doesn't. But again, it's not what they think. The donors are negotiating with them to come up with the least offensive thing to say to satisfy them so they can stay in the fold. But that's not really changing the facts on the ground, which is the school, for whatever reason, can't feel like it can defend Israel and attack evil, and call out Hamas for what it is.

The things that they did were evil, and they weren't willing to say it the first time. They weren't willing to say the second time, and anything they say after that is just compromise.

ACOSTA: Yes, and David, what do you make of the passion that we're seeing on these college campuses across the US, especially when it comes to these pro-Palestinian rallies? Why do you suppose that is taking place?

MAGERMAN: I mean, I think that the universities that I went to, the colleges that people of my generation went to, that we continue to donate to are not the places that they were when we were there. Their values of changed, their constituencies have changed, the faculty has changed. And I think that we have to recognize that the values that the institutions represent today are not our values.

And the protests and the voices that are being expressed on campus are permission by administrations and faculty that do things like host anti-Semites at a Palestine rights kind of an event and that are willing to enable the kind of hate that escalates. Every time you allow some amount of hate, they realize they can get away with more and more, and then it grows into this point where they are celebrating the martyrs of Hamas who died by murdering Israelis.

ACOSTA: And do you suppose, there are just some lessons of the past that have been forgotten and they're just not being taught enough on our college campuses.

[19:55:02]

MAGERMAN: No, I think that the lessons -- the lessons that we've forgotten over the last 2,000 years, the reality that Jews have been through periods of time where we've had places of security in different governments around the world, and eventually that runs its course.

I think the reality that's motivating what colleges are doing, what administrations are doing, and what faculties are doing is that they fundamentally, at some level, think that Israel is evil, and that belief system, which is contradictory to the facts, and contradictory to everything that's happened in the last 20, 30, 40 years on the ground in Israel is permissioning them to apologize for the ISIS-like, the al-Qaeda-like and the Nazi-like behavior that Hamas has demonstrated time and again, but you know, in no uncertain terms in the past few weeks.

ACOSTA: David Magerman, it's a very provocative discussion, great conversation to have. Let's continue to have that conversation. I'd love to have you back and talk about it further. David Magerman, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. Good to talk to you.

MAGERMAN: Thank you very much.

And Israeli troops clash with Hamas fighters. They did that earlier today inside Gaza. Our special coverage continues live in Israel after a short break.

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