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Israel Marks Three Years Since October 7 Attacks; Republicans in Peril in Midterms?. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 07, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And he's hoping that makes travel to the airports easier. He envisions people getting in the air taxi, landing on the roof of a sky club, going down, hanging out a little bit, and then making their way to their flight, Wolf. So, that is the future, it seems.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Well, it certainly is.

All right, Randi Kaye, excellent interview. Thank you very, very much. Always good to have you with us in THE SITUATION ROOM.

And the next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is on assignment. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

We begin this hour with a warning from a White House ally, who tells CNN that Republicans are concerned that midterm elections next month could be a -- quote -- "bloodbath" for Republicans. This comes as five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine faced Democrat Troy Jackson in Maine's Senate debate last night.

That race potentially could decide which party controls the Senate.

Joining us now, Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky and Liam Donovan. He worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

To both of you, thanks very much very much for joining us.

And, Liam, President Trump is headed to Texas once again today. It's his third trip in a month to campaign in the longtime Republican-held state. Do you have any serious concerns right now that the midterm elections that are coming up on November 3 could be what one Republican insider described as a bloodbath for Republicans?

LIAM DONOVAN, FORMER NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE AIDE: Look, Wolf, at this point, if you're not running scared as a Republican, you're doing it wrong. You have to act as if you're behind. That's the only way you have hope to win.

I think the blessing for Republicans is the reason you can send the president to states like Texas, states that the majority for the Senate is going to run through is the terrain favors Republicans. So, even as the polling doesn't look great for Republicans, running the majority requires Senate Democrats to win states where it's very, very difficult to beat incumbents and to even win open seats when the party, Republicans, typically win by 12, 13, 14 points.

It's very easy to imagine a scenario where Democrats have a very good night, as they are likely to, and it comes up just shy of the four seats that they need, particularly when you look at a state like Maine, where Susan Collins might hold serve.

If you keep Maine in the Republican column, it requires Democrats to win at least three seats in R-plus-12, -13, -14 states.

BLITZER: Julie, I want you to listen to this exchange from last night's Maine Senate debate, when Troy Jackson pressed Senator Susan Collins on her vote to confirm the Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROY JACKSON (D), MAINE SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: He helped overturn Roe v. Wade. And today she says she has no regrets.

QUESTION: You said at the time that he said that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law. Do you feel at any level that Brett Kavanaugh lied to you on that day?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I do not feel that he lied, but I think that he should not have said it was settled law, because, to me, that meant that it would not be overturned. But, to be fair, you cannot ask a nominee how he might vote on some hypothetical future case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So, Julie, what did you make of that answer?

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, it's interesting because I think Democrats are just fed up with Republicans saying, oh, this is inappropriate to ask a nominee something. It's inappropriate to tell the Justice Department to intervene in any particular political case, when the leader of Susan Collins' party, Donald Trump, does that all the time.

I mean, this is -- he has transformed politics, and it seems like Susan Collins is living in 1996 Maine, which is when she got elected. I actually worked up in Maine on a political campaign that year, and I can tell you that is a very different time than the one we're living in now.

And so it seems like Susan Collins is once again kind of shaking her head and saying, I'm disappointed, I'm deeply disappointed in the way things are happening right now.

Well, this is the reality, friends. I mean, this is the party and the situation that her party has wrought, and she's got to own it. And if she doesn't own it, and she doesn't acknowledge that everything has changed, and she's giving answers that are still answers from 30 years ago, she's not going to win.

BLITZER: We will find out soon, to be sure.

Liam, Senator Collins highlighted issues she disagrees with on President Trump -- with President Trump on, including tariffs and the Iran war. Trump has suggested he may make a campaign visit to the state of Maine. Here's what Susan Collins, Senator Collins, said when asked if she would campaign with him. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I don't think that President Trump is going to come to Maine. I have heard nothing from his office. And I'm not exactly his favorite senator. I think...

[11:05:05]

QUESTION: So, yes or no? Do you have a yes or no to that?

COLLINS: I would say that he is not coming to Maine.

QUESTION: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You think Liam, it would be a mistake for Trump to campaign in Maine?

DONOVAN: I think it's a waste of his time. I think the political operation, the White House understands that sending Donald Trump to the states that he has -- is very popular in and wins handily, that's where he is -- has his highest and most -- best use.

But, in Maine, you have to remember, in Maine 2, up there in the area that Susan Collins is from, that is not the deep blue area. It is the sort of place where you do need to bring out those Trump voters. It's a place where Paul LePage is likely going to win, I believe, and Republicans will take back that seat.

So he will not -- he will not go up there. I don't think it's a good use of his time. But you have to remember that the state of Maine and part of why Republicans are competitive up there is that there is a vestigial populist Republican element in the northwest.

BLITZER: Liam, speaking of President Trump, I want you to listen to why he thinks Republicans are struggling just ahead of the upcoming midterms. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're doing an extremely poor job of promotion and an extremely great job of running the country. The only thing we're doing badly at is public relations. In other words, we're doing a phenomenal job, but by a combination of maybe we're doing a bad job in selling it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Liam, do you agree with him?

DONOVAN: I mean, I think this is just a function of this is the way midterms work, particularly in what is the second term of president. The six-year itch is something that we see quite frequently.

I mean, messaging is part of it, and I think Republicans should do a better job of it to sell what they have done, and, frankly, to make the argument against what Democrats will do if they have power. But the fact is that people are dissatisfied because that is the mood of the country, and that is a function of how things are on the ground.

And so I think, if you're not grappling with how people are really feeling, then you're going to, as a candidate, miss the opportunity to maximize your opportunities.

BLITZER: Julie, how do you think Democrats are doing with their messaging for the midterms? And is it resonating, the Democrats' messaging, with voters?

ROGINSKY: You don't really have to message when people can walk into a grocery store and see that the price of everything is up. You don't need to message much when people can't fill up their gas tank.

Up in Northern Maine that Liam just spoke about, you don't need to message when tariffs are killing you if you're somebody living in Maine 2. Or they're killing you if you're living in places like Iowa, where people can't power their combines because the price of diesel is through the roof, or they're getting killed on the border in Texas because there are tariffs that are coming in that are impacting them in that state.

I mean, over and over and over again, the reason Democrats are competitive in places like Iowa and Texas and Ohio with Sherrod Brown and even places like Kansas is because Republican policies are killing their own voters.

And when you have something like that happening, Democrats just need to step back and let reality take its course. It's not just that we're in the sixth year of a second term, which would be bad enough anyway.

It is that we have a president with historically low, historically low approval ratings because of the policies that he's endangered because of the -- engendered because of the war that he's decided to get us into, because of tariff policies, because of his economic policies, because he cannot stand up to dictators around the world and tell them that American ideals, Trump, whatever that they want to do to put money in the pocket of him and his allies.

I mean, all of these things add up to people in the real world. That's all Democrats need to do is just let people live their lives, and they understand that they are much worse off now than they were two years ago. BLITZER: Julie Roginsky and Liam Donovan, thanks to both of you very

much for joining us.

And still ahead: Today marks three years since the October 7 terror attacks, the deadliest day in Israel's history.

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[11:13:58]

BLITZER: Happening now: Israel is marking three years since the October 7, 2023 day -- that's the deadliest day in its history -- with somber memorials and silence.

Earlier today, people stood still at sites of the attacks, marking the exact time when the Hamas-led terrorist assault actually started. About 1,200 people were killed, while 251 others were taken hostage. And all this led to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. It ended with a so-called cease-fire last October.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli military operations killed more than 74,000 people in Gaza, as the enclave right now is still facing a humanitarian crisis.

Less than a month after the October 7 attacks, I went to Israel and spoke with Gali Idan, an Israeli advocate whose husband was kidnapped and daughter was killed by Hamas in Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

[11:15:06]

Here's what she told me. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GALI IDAN, MOTHER OF OCTOBER 7 VICTIM: It was a closed casket, of course. You couldn't see it. And they wanted to hug her. And they wanted to just pat her hair, her curls, and hold her hand. And they couldn't.

BLITZER: Their older sister.

IDAN: Yes. And they admired her. She was a loving, kind -- she was a ray of light. She was pure, pure good. Seriously, she was so good. I don't understand how can you kill -- it's like killing a unicorn. You can never kill a unicorn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: It was so sad indeed.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is joining us now from Tel Aviv. He's been covering the terror attacks and the conflict that followed for three years now.

Jeremy, beyond all the memorials today, how are Israelis reflecting on the tragic events of October 7 and how is it impacting the political climate right now in Israel? They're getting ready for elections for the Knesset, for the Israeli Parliament, what, at the end of this month.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, that duality really is the right way to frame this day today and how this day feels in Israel three years on.

It began with very somber moments of reflection, as many Israelis marked that 6:29 a.m. start of that Hamas-led attack on October 7 with a moment of silence, commemoration ceremonies that took place along the Gaza border in many of those kibbutzes that were hardest hit by those Hamas attacks.

But as the day has gone on, Wolf, what we have also seen has been public protests and grassroots organizations' efforts to call attention to another issue here, which is the lack of accountability internally in Israel for how one of Israel's worst security failures of all time managed to transpire and why there still hasn't been an independent commission of inquiry established.

President -- Prime Minister Netanyahu has resisted calls from many of the bereaved families and survivors of that day to establish such a commission. But it is now a central issue in this electoral campaign slated to take place with elections in just a few weeks' time now.

Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate running to replace Prime Minister Netanyahu, has vowed that that will be his first act in office if he is elected as prime minister to step into office and establish that independent commission of inquiry.

But, again, over -- by and large, Wolf, this is certainly a very, very somber day in Israel. It is also the first time that Israel is marking the October 7 anniversary without any hostages still being held in Gaza, a moment that has brought joy to many families whose living hostages came out, but also a difficult moment for the families of some of those, such as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was captured alive, but was killed in captivity.

I spoke with his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, just last week, and she told me that she is still living with that grief. She described it, Wolf, as living in a cage of suffering -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv for us, thank you very, very much.

More than 40 Americans were killed in the October 7 attacks, while Hamas took some eight other Americans hostage, many of them dual American-Israeli citizens.

At the time, Brett McGurk was the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa under the Biden administration. He was at the forefront of negotiations to release the U.S. hostages, and now he gives a firsthand account of these efforts in a brand-new book entitled "Brink." There you see the cover, "Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages."

Brett is also a CNN global affairs analyst. He joins me in THE SITUATION ROOM right now.

Brett, you have written a really amazing book. You can't put it down once you start reading it.

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Thank you.

BLITZER: Thanks very much for writing it, because you lived through it personally. You led a lot of these talks, which involved ongoing Biden administration and Trump administration discussions that were taking place.

Take us inside the talks and the cooperation between the various political rivals at the time.

MCGURK: You know, Wolf, it's great to be here.

I'm reflecting on the time. I was probably in the Oval Office at this hour three years ago as this was all unfolding. And President Biden said to us very early on -- he had a meeting with all the missing, the families of the missing Americans, and we still didn't know who was alive, who was dead.

And I will never forget this one woman. She left the screen. She came back wailing because she learned over the course of the call that her loved one was actually confirmed dead. And the president said to me at the time in the Oval Office: "We got to do everything we can to get the hostages home."

And that began what was really intertwined process, Wolf, between trying to stop the war with a cease-fire and release the hostages. They were both connected. And you had irreconcilable positions, because Sinwar, the leader...

[11:20:11]

BLITZER: The leader.

MCGURK: ... the leader of Hamas, the mastermind of October 7, he had a demand on the table. He said, we will stay in power. We will go back to the October 6 status quo if you want the hostages back. That was their core demand.

Israel, of course, after October 7 and what happened three years ago this day, said Hamas will never be allowed to stay in power in Gaza.

And the story is kind of how we tried to bridge that as best we can. And a month into the war, Wolf, we got -- we had a cease-fire. People forget this. All women and children have to come out. That was very difficult to negotiate. It's in the book, all women and children. For eight days, in November of 2023, the war stopped. Hostages started coming out.

BLITZER: This is a month after the October 7...

MCGURK: A month after the war. And on the eighth night, December 1, about midnight here in Washington, I describe it in the book, because Hamas said, we're going to hold on to the younger women. We're not going to release them. These are the women from the Nova Music Festival, many taken from their homes. Let's just maybe skip to the older men, start talking about the older men.

And you have this moral quandary. It's the perversion of hostage negotiation, what hostage-takers do. What do you do? You keep the cease-fire going, you say, OK, well, let's talk about the older men, who are also in bad shape, including an American, Keith Siegel, who's in the book, or say, no, you broke the deal?

And the Israelis are unanimous. If we skip the younger women, who are being treated horribly, we will never get them out. And the war started again that night. And I go through that moment, just one of many moments in the book, because I did not anticipate at that moment it would take another 14 months to get back to a deal.

But that -- that is the almost impossible challenge of this horrific crisis. And I tried to just put it down in the book, Wolf, so readers are in the room, you are overseas, you're with Netanyahu, you're with the intelligence chiefs, with Hamas downstairs, Israel on another floor.

And it just -- I try to put the reader front and center to live through this, what it was like.

BLITZER: One of the most compelling elements of "Brink," you were in the room with President Biden during very sensitive phone conversations he had with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

MCGURK: Yes.

BLITZER: They were very sensitive indeed and sometimes very tense.

MCGURK: Yes.

BLITZER: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

MCGURK: Yes, the two men have known each other for decades. And as Joe Biden used to say about Netanyahu: "Bibi, I love you. I don't agree with anything you say, but I love you."

And -- but this all -- all these conflicting objectives and aims came together at key moments. I tell one in the book in April of 2024. And President Biden is just frustrated. Hostage talks have stopped. The war is getting worse. There was a strike against eight workers from the Jose Andres World Central Kitchen.

At the same time, we know Iran is about to launch 100 ballistic missiles or more at Israel, unprecedented event. And we are -- so, in the same moment of that frustration, the president is deploying U.S. military forces to help defend Israel.

And so what do you do? How do you use power, leverage, incentives to try to get out of something like that also then presents a path to try to ending the war, getting the hostages home? And that story is there. Because what we did, the president said to Bibi on that call, look, I'm going to help defend Israel, I'm going to deploy U.S. military forces to help do that.

We built a coalition of Arabs and European states. It's an extraordinary sequence of events, General Kurilla, the commander of CENTCOM, very central to this. And we did help defend Israel that night. And then President Biden said to Bibi -- he used some colorful language I won't quote on air, but let's get back to the -- we're going to get back to this deal and try to get the hostages out, end the war.

And within a few weeks, we had a deal on the table. And it goes back to this point I mentioned from the November talks. Hamas, once again, they don't answer. Israel's accepted a deal. We wait five weeks for an answer. There's a number of moments like that I go through, again, bringing the reader inside the process.

It's an important -- especially on this day. It's just -- I'm honored to be here with that.

BLITZER: And one of the most fascinating details, inside information you give us in this book "Brink," is that, at a month -- in the days leading up to October 7 three years ago, there were ongoing talks with Arab countries to further improve relations with Israel, including even Saudi Arabia...

MCGURK: Yes.

BLITZER: ... that potentially was on the brink of establishing formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

But there are these reports that the United Arab Emirates, the leadership gave Netanyahu advance word that Hamas was planning an attack. Did the U.S. -- was the U.S. aware of that, and did the U.S. get that advanced word that Hamas was planning an attack?

MCGURK: Well, you're right. On October 6, I had the Saudis in my office talking about this deal with the Israelis, just hours before the attack started.

[11:25:04]

I say in the book we had no warnings or indicators in our system, and the Israelis did not, from what they told us. I was not aware of a pre-warning. But this gets to what -- you had President Herzog on earlier in the show.

Israel has to have a commission of inquiry about what happened, what was missed. That's very clear. We had it after 9/11. Israel desperately needs that.

BLITZER: Yes, I totally agree.

MCGURK: Yes. BLITZER: All right, the book is entitled "Brink" -- here you see the cover right here -- "Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages." Brett McGurk is the author.

Thanks very much for writing this important book.

MCGURK: Thank you. Thank you.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very, very much.

And we're going to take a quick break, and we will be right back.

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