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Dori Roberts is Interviewed about Family Members Taken by Hamas; Nine Members Join Speakers Race; Rula Jebreal is Interviewed about Gaza. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 23, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:35]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Sources tell CNN the United States is pressing Israel to delay its planned invasion of Gaza in hopes of getting the hostages out. But a senior Israeli official says there will be, quote, :no cease fire."

On Friday, Hamas released two American hostages being held and there was hope more would be freed. That has not happened yet.

Earlier this morning, a cousin of the freed Americans told ABC News the work has just begun.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AYELET SELLA, COUSIN OF AMERICAN MOTHER AND DAUGHTER RELEASED ON FRIDAY: We cannot put it aside. We cannot rest. This is -- getting Judish and Natalie back was not the end. It's the beginning.

There are so many others. We don't know why them. So, it's for me, lucky and guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Our next guest, Dori Roberts, is one of those enduring this agonizing wait. He says he has been, quote, "walking a thin line between madness and sanity." Because five of his family members were taken by Hamas. Five. His aunt, who was later found dead along the Gaza border, her long-time partner, his cousin and her two little daughters. "The New York Post" putting the two girls recently on the front page. Roberts, who lives in Texas, says he thinks endlessly, what are they going through every minute of the day.

He had to discover the truth of what happened that day through a TikTok video. A TikTok video showing Hamas militants capturing his family members.

Dori joins me now.

Dori, good morning. I'm sorry does not begin to express appropriately, but I - I am, and we are so sorry for your loss and your now angst and grief over what could be of your other family members.

[08:35:09]

Can you talk about what you describe as walking that line between madness and sanity, what that's like?

DORI ROBERTS, FIVE FAMILY MEMBERS TAKEN HOSTAGE BY HAMAS: Good morning, Poppy. Thank you so much for having me on the show this morning, and thank you for your amazing coverage so far.

It's been over two weeks. There's no news about five of my members. We found out last week that my aunt has been pronounced dead and found along the border with the Gaza. I still have a half cousin who was in that community. We have not heard from him as well. He's still missing. His name is Ravid Katz. And it's been really challenging times for all of us. For family, for a nation, for Jewish people around the world.

Just yesterday I talked to my community in Los Angeles via Zoom, and we talked about all of that grief and how challenging those times are for us as a nation. The fact that we're still looking for any kind of relief, any kind of news, are they well, are they not well, are they still alive, these are day-to-day and hour-by-hour struggle. It's not easy, not for me, not for my family, not for anybody out there who has a missing and kidnapped people with Hamas. We just don't know anything.

HARLOW: As you speak, we're showing pictures of your beautiful family, including those two beautiful little girls, two and four years old.

I wonder how you balance the grief of the loss of your aunt, Efrat Katz, and then perhaps a little bit of hope because there were two hostages that were released on Friday.

ROBERTS: Right. Yes, thank you, Poppy. We are definitely trying to keep the hope. Just yesterday we celebrate (INAUDIBLE) sister Lior (ph). She was in many news outlets throughout those two weeks. And we celebrated her birthday. We're trying to keep them up. We tried to wrap them up with love and show them that there is still hope. It's so hard. It is devastating every day to go through those motions. And we all are parents. We all have partners and wives and husbands that need to - to be taken care of. So, walking that thin line between madness to hope is very real to us in a way.

HARLOW: Yes.

ROBERTS: Every day, every part of the day is around us. We definitely can feel it. The heartache, the heavy hearted to everybody and try to -- holding to hope through the little things. Sending my kid just now to school, giving them a big hug, promise that I will be there when - when they get out of school, and trying to hang on to those daily things to remain humane, to remain sane with those times, to be in touch with my family, to be in touch with my communities here in Austin and around the U.S. while I do my mission and be here with the news and keep this story and their faces up and hoping for their release as soon as possible. (INAUDIBLE) Hamas and we - yes, we are demanding that, and we are

still help from my other governments, from the administration, to help us and bring them back home. Not everybody were as lucky as the two American hostages that were released. I'm very thankful that they are back in safety.

We want the same for everybody else. We want that for our families. And we want that to everybody that is held by the Hamas so we can stop this war right now and go back to recovery and go back to grief and mourning and bury our dead. The news keeps coming back. It's not good (ph).

HARLOW: Dori, I wonder how you think about the new reporting that CNN has that the Biden administration is behind closed doors urging Israel to pause, to wait on a ground invasion of Gaza in the hopes that more hostages can come home. Is that something you hope to see?

ROBERTS: I hope to see that, absolutely. I think like this is a tremendous amount of effort from the administration, alongside with other players in the -- in the scene. I think our family are in intense and constant contact with the Germany government since three of them are actually duel citizenship with Germany, and we are in touch with them right now to do exactly the same, to apply the pressure, to influence the leadership of the Hamas to the immediate return. Hopefully other countries will join the effort, and we will be able to see result as soon as possible.

[08:40:04]

And if that what will bring an end to this war, the release - immediate release of all the hostages, absolutely. We do not want to see any more civilian, innocent people getting hurt on either side of the border.

HARLOW: Dori Roberts, thank you very, very much. If you hear anything, please let us now. We are all hoping for you.

ROBERTS: Thank you so much, Poppy.

MATTINGLY: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is supporting President Biden's call for Congress to bundle aid to Israel and Ukraine. But even if House Republicans agree, and that's a big if, they can't move forward without a speaker. And they don't appear to be any closer to finding one. We'll have more on that, next.

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HARLOW: We do have new reporting this morning about Donald Trump's handling of potentially sensitive national security information while he was president. According to "The New York Times" and "60 Minutes" Australia, Trump allegedly shared information about his calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq with an Australian billionaire named Anthony Pratt, who is a member of Mar-a-Lago. Pratt is also a key prosecution's witness in Trump's classified documents probe. He gave an interview to the special counsel Jack Smith.

[08:45:02]

CNN's affiliate in Australia, 9 News, obtained what they claim are secret recordings of Pratt speaking about Trump. Here's what he allegedly said about a conversation Trump had with Iraq's president.

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ANTHONY PRATT, AUSTRALIAN BILLIONAIRE AND MAR-A-LAGO MEMBER: I hadn't even heard it, it hadn't even been on the news yet, and he said, I just bombed Iraq today. And the president of Iraq called me up and said, you just leveled my city. And he said, and I said to him, OK, what are you going to do about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And he also recalled Trump sharing information about that infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where Trump pressured Zelenskyy to launch an unfounded corruption probe of Joe Biden.

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ANTHONY PRATT, AUSTRALIAN BILLIONAIRE AND MAR-A-LAGO MEMBER: Trump said, you know, that Ukraine phone call, that was nothing compared to what I usually do. And he said, that Ukraine phone call, that's nothing compared to what we normally talk about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Pratt also offered some searing critiques of Trump's personal ethics, saying he, quote, "says outrageous things nonstop."

MATTINGLY: Well, former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy urging House Republicans to finally select his successor.

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): This is not a time to play games. This is a - this is embarrassing for the Republican Party. It's embarrassing for the nation. And we need to look at one another and solve the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Good news, they will get another chance this evening to try and solve the now nearly three-week long embarrassing, Kevin McCarthy and many other people's words, not mine, issue that they're dealing with. Jim Jordan, he is out. This time around they'll be looking at nine Republicans who are vying for the gavel. This evening, those candidates are expected to make their pitches to their Republican colleagues in a candidate forum before an expected closed door vote tomorrow.

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox joins us now live from Capitol Hill. Lauren, I got to be honest, I'm looking at this list of nine. I don't

see anybody that gets 217. That's the number they're going to need to become speaker. So, where do we go from here?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the rigamarole that's going to unfold over the next several days on Capitol Hill, a lot of viewers are probably very used to at this point given the fact that it is the third week without a House speaker and it is going to be their third attempt in a closed-door room to try and get a speaker designee who can get the votes that they need on the floor. That magic number of 217.

What you can expect is that tonight there will be a candidate forum. It is the first opportunity for those nine Republicans to make their pitch to their colleagues as to why they think that they should get the speaker's gavel. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. the voting begins. It will be behind closed doors first. This is an opportunity for Republicans to choose their speaker designee.

There have already been two times that they have chosen both Steve Scalise, then Jim Jordan in the closed door room. After they emerge, though, neither one of those candidates were able to clinch the votes that they needed to become the actual speaker.

So, the next two days are going to be this process to try to find that person. And while Representative Tom Emmer, who's the Republican whip, is certainly probably the frontrunner given the fact that he has the endorsement of Kevin McCarthy, given the reality that he has experience in leadership, there is a thirst and a hunger from a lot of hardliners that they do not want to see the status quo continue. That likely means they're going to be looking and have their eye on someone else, perhaps Byron Donalds or another one of the hardline Republicans who are running, hoping that they can get the 217 they need on the floor.

Again, it is such a difficult margin because you can only afford to lose a handful of Republican members. Just about four members, Phil.

HARLOW: Lauren Fox, thank you very much. I wish I could say this is almost over for you, but I don't think it is.

MATTINGLY: Well, the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, it is getting far worse. The near constant bombing has left one hospital, quote, "overwhelmed" with bodies, low on electricity and has forced its doctors to operate without morphine.

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[08:53:19]

HARLOW: Take a look at this new video just into CNN. It shows the shear devastation of Israeli air strikes in central Gaza. Israel says 320 terror targets were struck in Gaza overnight, including tunnels and command centers belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian health ministry says 436 people, that includes 182 children, were killed in the strikes. Joining us now, foreign policy analyst Lula Turell.

Thank you for being here very much.

King Abdullah of Jordan spoke about this over the weekend. He went as far as to call what Israel is doing in Gaza a war crime. And then he said this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: Our lives matter less than other lives. The application of international law is optional and human rights have boundaries. They stop at borders. They stop at races. And they stop at religions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He says that in the context of the United States repeatedly saying over the past two weeks how Israel does this matters. And now are reporting that the U.S. government, the Biden administration, is urging Netanyahu and the Israeli government to pause before a ground invasion.

How crucial that a U.S. ally like King Abdullah said that over the weekend?

RULA JEBREAL, JOURNALIST, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST, AND VISITING PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: I think it's very important and the message is not only to the Israelis but to the American administration to pressure the Israelis to care for civilian lives, to distinguish between civilians and militants. And what we are seeing, because they're seeing things that in America we are not seeing, the unfolding of humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

[08:55:01]

Before the war, 50 percent of people in Gaza had basically food shortages. They didn't have access to adequate food. Ninety percent didn't have access to clean water. Now we're seeing a catastrophe that is unfolding that I think in Palestinian history they remembered in 1967. In the Middle East, they connected to the humanitarian catastrophe that took place in Yemen.

Gaza is a small strip of land. You have 2 million people. So, to starve 2 million people, which is a war crime, where they call it out as a war crime, they are seeing people that are -- especially children. I mean 1,800 died. They see children consuming water that's unfit for human consumption. They're seeing people basically being operated without any anesthesia.

But also they are seeing real starvation. And 20 trucks, you know, of humanitarian -- is nothing. What they need is 7,000 now, yesterday. And I'm reading even stories where hospitals that are becoming morgues basically, are becoming graveyards. And all of this is happening while Israelis flag and tell the region, we're going to wipe out Gaza. So, the region is very worried because if they seen as complicit in

what's happening, that - what Israelis, even scholars, Jewish Israeli scholars go on television, denounce these policies and they said, this is -- what Israel is doing is a textbook definition of genocide. These are Israeli scholars. So, when you hear the region, they are - they are -- they don't want to see being complicit to -- basically to the destruction of the Palestinian people.

MATTINGLY: But there are lines to what they will do to help to some degree, right?

JEBREAL: Yes.

MATTINGLY: You're not seeing -- Jordan's king has made it very clear, King Abdullah, there will be no refugees into Jordan. Egypt's - El- Sisi has said pretty much the same exact thing. And there are layers to that in terms of their people and what they oversee in terms of the countries themselves.

But why are those - why do those lines exist?

JEBREAL: Well, this is the fact. Jordan has already 60 percent of its population that is Palestinians.

MATTINGLY: Right.

JEBREAL: They took refugees from Syria, millions, and from Iraq. So, they've paid the consequences of both Israeli actions and American actions. Egypt is 100 million people. It's the poorest country in the Middle East. They didn't trigger this. They've been asking the administration, we are willing to take some, but with one condition, that they would be allowed to return. And Israel is now refusing. I mean, what Israel is suggesting to those countries, but also to the Palestinians, we would basically expel you, millions probably, and this is a definition of ethnic cleansing. If you are allowing refugees to exit but never to enter to the land they belong to, you are basically creating a massive refugee crisis. So, a country that is already paying the price of other refugee crisis.

So, the only alternative that they are trying to ask the administration, pressure Israel to create basically a place where, if you really care about human life, and the sanctity of human life, and international law as well, Israel is the ultimate power that can determine what - what to do with, you know, refugees. Maybe movement. If they really care, move them somewhere else, but guarantee that they would come back home. If they really care about distinction between Hamas, which is 30,000 or 40,000, but there's 2 million people. So, if you decide that to sacrifice 2 million people then become - this become a catastrophe and will drag America into another war.

MATTINGLY: All right, Rula, we appreciate you coming in, as always. Thank you very much.

HARLOW: Thank you.

And thanks to all of you for joining us this morning. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" is next.

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