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Interview With Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); Kash Patel Grilled on Capitol Hill; United Nations Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 16, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: ground assault, Israel launching a full-scale offensive in Gaza's largest city, as a U.N. commission says Israel is committing genocide.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Right now, the FBI director, Kash Patel, is up on Capitol Hill, testifying as senators on the Judiciary Committee are grilling him over his leadership.

BROWN: But we begin this hour with major developments overseas, as Israel launches a ground offensive on the largest city in Gaza.

BLITZER: Let's go straight to CNN Jerusalem correspondent, Jeremy Diamond.

Jeremy, do we have a good sense of how long before Israel could potentially gain full control of Gaza City?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the Israeli military is refusing to provide a timeline of its operations, but what is clear is the ultimate goal here, not just to carry out some brief incursion into the city and then pull out, but rather to conquer the city altogether and occupy it for an indefinite period of time.

Those are the stated objectives of this Israeli government and the military that is carrying this operation out with a ground force of about 20,000 troops, two divisions operating within Gaza City.

Now, the Israeli military says that its tanks and troops are pushing into the heart of the city. We have not yet been able to independently verify that, and journalists who we have worked with in Central Gaza say they have yet to see the presence of Israeli ground forces. But what we have seen over the course of the last few weeks is the

Israeli military laying the groundwork to carry out that invasion of the center of Gaza City. We have seen intensified aerial bombardments, Israeli troops on the outskirts of the city.

Last night, we saw some very intense Israeli airstrikes with at least 38 people killed, according to local hospital officials. And in some of the aftermath footage that we have seen from Al Shifa Hospital, the scenes are devastating, many children among the dead and the wounded. You can see children on the ground clearly in shock with various types of wounds.

In addition to that, we have seen hundreds of thousands of people who have fled Gaza City in recent weeks. But hundreds of thousands more still remain inside Gaza City, many of them lacking the means to be able to actually escape even as they are watching this intensified bombardment all around them.

And then, of course, there is the question, Wolf, of the Israeli hostages, some of whom we believe are indeed being held inside of Gaza City. We heard President Trump yesterday warning Hamas not to hold the hostages above ground, as Israel is preparing to carry out this major offensive, but the families of those hostages taking to the streets today, calling for Israel to not move forward with this ground invasion, saying that they fear for the lives of their loved ones -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Jeremy, what more also can you tell us about this United Nations commission accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza?

DIAMOND: Well, this is a report by an independent United Nations commission of inquiry, and it is the first finding that we have seen from any U.N. body concluding that what Israel is carrying out in Gaza does amount to a genocide.

And this commission's findings find that at least four of the five characteristics of genocide are being carried out by Israel, the killing of Palestinians, causing Palestinians -- quote -- "serious bodily or -- and mental harm, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

This independent commission said that its findings are based not only on what's happened on the ground, in terms of the indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, attacks on health care facilities, the mass forced displacement of Palestinians, but also tying those findings to the statements of Israeli officials, which this U.N. commission of inquiry concluded establish an intent to commit genocide by the Israeli government.

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Now, Israel, for its part, adamantly and vociferously denies that its actions amount to genocide, insisting that these findings are based on Hamas propaganda, and they say that they are carrying out a military conflict in line with international law -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Jeremy Diamond reporting for us from Jerusalem.

Jeremy, thank you very, very much.

I want to get some analysis right now. Joining us, CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, thanks so much for joining us.

As you know, Gaza City heavily populated. How do you expect this Israeli ground operation to play out?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Wolf, I think this is going to be a very difficult operation for Israel to carry out. They will be able to occupy territory. The question then is, how are they going to maintain control of that territory?

And, as Jeremy mentioned in his reporting, the intent is to occupy the city. That is going to require a great deal of resources, probably beyond the two divisions that they have earmarked for this initial phase of this assault. There's at least one other division in reserve. That division will probably have to be called upon in order to carry out this particular mission that the Israeli prime minister has directed.

So it's going to be a very tough thing for them to do. And it's really questionable whether or not they will be able to achieve the desired result of basically eliminating Hamas.

BLITZER: All right. What other sorts of challenges, Colonel Leighton, do you foresee with this operation?

LEIGHTON: So there are going to be several different challenges. One of them is, of course, on the military side, and we kind of just talked about that, and that's really going to be, how do you maintain that territory? How do you keep enemy forces, in this case Hamas forces, from gaining control of select areas, where they can then conduct guerrilla-style operations against the Israelis?

The other thing that they're going to have to watch out for is what's going to happen to the hostages. If harm is caused to any of the living hostages, there are about 20 or so that are thought to be alive at this particular point in time, if harm befalls any of them, that's going to, of course, be a political risk not only for the Israeli government, but also for the war effort itself.

And then, of course, you have the international reaction to this, as you see with that U.N. report about calling this effort a genocide. This is going to be something that will exacerbate those kinds of tensions and it will further isolate Israel from the rest of the world diplomatically, and that's going to create other problems for Israel in the long run.

BLITZER: Israel, as you know, has repeatedly warned these Palestinian civilians to evacuate Gaza City, but some of them, many of them, in fact, don't have the means to leave, and many others have nowhere else to go. What kind of civilian casualties could we be looking at?

LEIGHTON: So, with a population of around a million, maybe 100,000 of them have already left Gaza City. So with the remaining 900,000, you can expect a large portion of them to fall victim to these attacks, because they don't have shelters.

It's not like in Ukraine, where there are significant bomb shelters that are put in place for the civilian population. In Gaza, you don't really have that, and that's going to create possible casualties as high as 10,000 or 20,000 wounded and killed. And that is really going to cause a lot of difficulties for the Israelis from a military standpoint, let alone the political aspect of that as well.

BLITZER: Yes, important point indeed.

Colonel Cedric Leighton, thanks very, very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf, we have some breaking news. FBI Director Kash Patel told senators moments ago he's not going anywhere as he faces criticism for his handling of the Charlie Kirk killing investigation.

The suspect in that case, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is set to appear in court for the first time today. Officials say he's being held without bail and Utah on charges, including aggravated murder. "The Washington Post" reports that Robinson sent messages in a Discord group chat about two hours before he was taken into custody, saying he had -- quote -- "bad news" and that "It was me at UVU yesterday."

Patel just said the FBI is looking to question more than 20 people in that Discord chat.

Joining us now to discuss is former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams.

All right, so Elliot, given the fact that the suspect is apparently not cooperating with authorities, per the Utah governor, how significant is this apparent confession over Discord?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's quite significant.

Now, to be clear, he's not obligated to cooperate with authorities.

BROWN: Cooperate, of course.

WILLIAMS: And more to the point, it's his right under the Constitution not to do so. So we should support that. It's the Fifth Amendment.

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Now, it's a significant confession, in that it appears to be the defendant acknowledging the admission of the crime to people who know who the defendant is. Now, I add that little bit at the end, to people who know who he is, because it's online and no one actually saw him making the statement, prosecutors will have to go to those individuals to verify that they believe that it was this individual. You have to sort of build the circumstantial evidence that the guy you

said, said the thing actually said the thing. But, needless to say, if it is what it is, it is a confession made openly, made knowingly, and it could be devastating for the defendant.

BROWN: So based on the evidence we have learned about so far, what can we expect to happen in Utah court today?

WILLIAMS: Well, the big thing is advising the defendant of the charges against him. I talked about the Constitution a moment ago and the right to remain silent.

Another right that we all enjoy is to be told what we're charged with. And so prosecutors will lay out the basics of the charges. You know, it's open -- it's an open question as to how much we will actually learn. But what's the evidence they have and what is he going to be charged with?

We might have some insight as to whether they intend to proceed with the death penalty, but that may come a little bit later. The judge will give him an opportunity to answer the charges to say whether he's guilty or not guilty, and then will set a schedule of the future hearings that are going to come up in the case.

BROWN: Yes it's interesting when you look at the difference in responses from Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Kash Patel, the FBI director.

I mean, Kash Patel has been putting out a lot of information. And he also said that Robinson allegedly said over text message to someone else that he wanted to go after Kirk and that you can't negotiate with hate. So this was before the political assassination happened.

What -- is there any sort of legal obligation for someone if they are alerted to the fact that someone might commit violence in this case?

WILLIAMS: Oh, absolutely. And that was important.

BROWN: Yes.

WILLIAMS: If you know someone might commit violence in the future, you absolutely have a legal obligation to disclose that information, right, and even a spouse or a member of the clergy or whatever else.

Like, if you tell somebody, I'm going to go kill someone, that allows you to lift your spousal or attorney-client privilege or whatever else.

BROWN: Right.

WILLIAMS: So that's big, yes.

BROWN: Right. That was notable to me, because in my understanding of the evidence released, that was the first time we know someone else may have been aware of these -- Robinson's alleged plans.

WILLIAMS: Right.

And depending on the nature of the information they sat on, that could bring criminal liability for them if they did not affirmatively try to stop the person from committing the crime or at least didn't do anything with the information. So keep an eye on that.

BROWN: Yes, so certainly.

And I also just -- I mentioned how they're handling it differently, Bondi and Kash Patel. Let's listen to Pam Bondi's response when pressed for details about the suspect in this case. Let's watch.

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PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes, I can't talk about details at all. What I can talk about that's public is that the FBI worked long and hard from day one.

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BROWN: So, as someone who has worked for the Justice Department, what strikes you about the difference we're seeing between the two?

WILLIAMS: Look, as a general matter, it is best to let the prosecutors and investigators on the case do their work and provide as little information to the public as possible. It's not just to be secretive. That's not it at all.

It's that the more the attorney general or the FBI director are out there talking, the more they could risk saying something that jeopardizes the case. So, more than anything else, they're both positive in supporting their people, and that's a good thing for building morale in both places. But, in general, the more they talk, the more they risk the investigation.

BROWN: All right. Elliot Williams, thank you so much.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Pam.

BROWN: Appreciate it -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And still ahead Pamela: a $15 billion lawsuit, why President Trump wants "The New York Times" to pay up.

Stay with us. We're getting new information. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BLITZER: There's breaking news we're following right now. Israel says it's launching what may be its biggest ground operation in Gaza since the war began some two years ago.

This comes as an independent United Nations inquiry just concluded that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel categorically rejects that accusation.

Joining us now is Republican Congressman Mike McCaul of Texas. He's the chairman emeritus of both the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: First of all, do you support Israel's new incursion into Gaza City? And if you do, tell us why.

MCCAUL: Well, I think it's important to note that Hamas committed genocide on October 7. And it's still -- I just got back from Israel in August, and the emotions are still very high about what happened October 7.

I do -- we did say to the prime minister that, look, you're winning the war, but you're losing the P.R. battle. And the sooner you get this accomplished, the sooner we can move on to the normalization process under the Abraham Accords agreement.

I think some of this is unfortunately inflaming our Arab partners in the region, who will have to play a key role in reconstruction and also in extending these Abraham Accords. My sense is that this is going to be their big frontal assault. They may have to pull like a raid on Entebbe that Netanyahu did many years ago to get the hostages out.

And the reason why this hasn't been completed, Wolf, is really because of the hostages and the way they manipulate the hostages in Gaza. But, yes, I'm hopeful that this will be resolved sooner, rather than later.

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BLITZER: How do you respond, Congressman, to this new United Nations commission finding that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza?

MCCAUL: Well, I know the ICC, we don't recognize their jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, have indicted him for war crimes.

I don't really think that's going to go anywhere. But I do worry about some of our European partners and prime ministers coming out with very anti-Israel remarks. I think it's important that we stand with our ally in the Middle East, but we urge him, I think as the president has done, to get the humanitarian assistance in, to end this war as soon as you can, so that, again, we can move on to the normalization process.

BLITZER: I know we have recently seen President Trump become increasingly frustrated with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, especially after Israel targeted some Hamas officials inside Doha, Qatar, Qatar being a major strategic U.S. ally in that part of the world.

How would you advise Prime Minister Netanyahu at this very sensitive and critical moment?

MCCAUL: That, first of all, consult with the United States before you do something like that.

Secondly, we do have our -- a major hub of our CENTCOM in Qatar, along with an air base of operations. We asked the Qataris to try to negotiate and broker this cease-fire negotiation. I think a shot across the bow, as the president said, doesn't serve the United States' interest or Israel's long-term interest in the region.

And, in fact, they missed the high-level targets that they were going after. I think that's a setback. And, again, that is inflaming the Arab world as well, what they did in Doha. I would encourage them to finish Gaza, be focused on that, and not start firing missiles into our allied nations in the region.

BLITZER: Yes, that's important.

On another international issue, a very critically important one, Russia's war against Ukraine, President Trump now says the NATO allies must implement sanctions on Russia, stop purchasing Russian oil, for example, in order for the U.S. to do the same, escalate sanctions against Russia.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who authored a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill, agrees with the president. Is there any risk in waiting to put U.S. sanctions on Russia? What's your reaction?

MCCAUL: Well, I think once we -- I'm all in favor of secondary sanctions to put pressure on Putin to come to the negotiating table in good faith, which he's not done.

It's interesting to note that the drones, offensive drones that were flown over Polish airspace and shot down, the nuclear bombers that flew to the border of Poland, the war game exercises with Belarus on the Baltic states, the eastern flank border of NATO, and then the firing of missiles in the Arctic, Mr. Putin is ratcheting this up.

In response, NATO is moving, it's called Eastern Sentry, moving their military assets to the Eastern flank border of NATO. And then Poland called for under Article 4 convening of the NATO nation. So this is really -- the temperatures rising on this.

And I think we have to really exercise peace through strength here and put the sanctions on Putin and Russia and keep the weapons going through in Ukraine. I tend to agree with the president in the fact that it doesn't do us any good to do the secondary sanctions alone, if, say, France and Germany are going to continue to buy oil from Russia.

So it really does have to be a team effort, a whole NATO approach. And I think, if the president can get all NATO nations to agree to these sanctions, I think that's a lot stronger than the United States going alone on this.

BLITZER: On another matter, a sensitive issue, I know you just announced, Congressman, that you're retiring from Congress after more than 20 years up on Capitol Hill.

You're known for working across the aisle. Did the escalating division unfolding on Capitol Hill right now and the increased instances of political violence in this country influence your decision at all?

MCCAUL: No, I mean, Wolf, I have served over two decades in the Congress. I have served as chairman of Homeland Security during the rise of ISIS and the caliphate and then chairman of foreign affairs as Afghanistan fell, Putin invaded Ukraine, the Middle East lit up on fire, and the threat from Chairman Xi and China and the Indo-Pacific is still very real.

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I accomplished a great deal. But, to your point, the way I conducted myself was more of a statesman and working across the aisle to get good things done for the American people. That's the only way you're going to pass legislation in the Congress is working.

And when you -- I always had an agreement with my ranking member that we're not going to agree on everything. We will try to, but when we don't agree, we can agree to disagree civilly. That tone and the rhetoric I think has gotten worse in the 20-plus years I have been in Congress.

I chose to be a more effective lawmaker, and not one just seeking attention by pulling stunts, say, on YouTube. And so, yes, I do worry. I worry about the tone and the rhetoric. And every time the tone and the temperature rises, you see violence. And I think you're seeing some of that today.

In fact, at our conference, we had a briefing on security for members and what can be done to protect members of Congress when they're both up here and back home.

BLITZER: Yes. Well, we're grateful to you for all your service over these many, many years.

Congressman McCaul, thanks very, very much for joining us. I have known you for a long time. We will continue this conversation, to be sure. Appreciate it very, very much.

MCCAUL: I will be around. Thanks, Wolf. Thanks for saying that.

BLITZER: All right, Congressman McCaul, thank you very, very much.

And officials say the dark Internet culture helped radicalize Charlie Kirk's accused killer -- Pamela.

BROWN: Up next, how technology is transforming extremism here in America and how you can protect your kids from it.

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