Oct 16, 2023
WATCH: CNN's Jake Tapper GRILLS U.S. Security Official On Extreme Israeli Bombing
CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan about the effort to rescue American hostages in Gaza.
- 18 minutes
The Israelis are bombing
the crap out of Gaza.
It doesn't seem like saving the hostages
are a priority at all right now.
>> Speaker 2: Israel's utter bombardment
of Gaza with constant airstrikes is so
extreme that even Jake Tapper
seems pretty appalled by it.
[00:00:18]
While speaking with Biden's national
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
on the State of the Union.
Tapper expressed befuddlement over
why the United States seemed to sit
on the sidelines as American hostages
remain trapped in Gaza, an area that has
been absolutely blockaded and cut off
from humanitarian aid, fuel, water.
[00:00:37]
Obviously, they're dealing with
a crazy amount of airstrikes.
The civilian death toll
continues to increase.
So Tapper asked Sullivan about it.
Let's see what he had to say.
>> Speaker 1: What's the conversation
like in the White House about the U.S.
[00:00:54]
conducting any sort of operations in
order to save Americans being held
hostage in Gaza?
>> Speaker 3: Well, the President has been
very clear that he has no higher priority
than getting Americans back safe.
Americans who are being
held hostage by Hamas.
[00:01:10]
>> Speaker 1: The Israelis
are bombing the crap out of Gaza.
It doesn't seem like saving the hostages
are a priority at all right now.
>> Speaker 3: Well, for President Biden,
they are a priority,
they're the highest possible priority.
[00:01:26]
And he has sent hostage
experts to coordinate and
consult with the Israeli government
on hostage recovery efforts.
We do not, at this point have
pinpoint location information for
where the American hostages are.
So we have to continue to refine our
understanding of where they are and
[00:01:44]
even Jake, who they are, because we
know there are 15 unaccounted for
Americans, but
we cannot confirm the precise number of
American hostages being
held by Hamas at this time.
>> Speaker 2: But don't worry, everyone,
because our White House is currently
[00:02:01]
consulting with the Israeli government,
which, of course, is signing off on
the airstrikes that happen to level
entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip,
areas where some of those
hostages might actually be.
But that was just one of the interviews,
Cenk, where Jake Tapper actually
[00:02:18]
challenged some of the narratives coming
out of the Israeli government and
honestly, corporate media
here in the United States.
What are your thoughts on what Sullivan
said and how he answered those questions?
>> Speaker 4: So, first of all,
credit to Jake Tapper.
So, put aside everything in the past,
credit where credit is due.
[00:02:35]
It's good to see someone on cable
news covering this fairly and
asking the right questions.
God bless on all fronts there.
So we'll get to more of that interview.
And I just wanna say for now,
I always try to put myself in
the position of the other person, right?
So if I had a family member that was
taken hostage, what would I want done?
[00:02:55]
The very last thing I would want done
is bombs dropped onto buildings.
What if my family members in the building,
what if they're in a tunnel that
you're dropping a bomb under?
You have no idea.
Why are you dropping bombs?
No, look, we're gonna lose a lot of folks
here, and it's a heartbreaking situation.
[00:03:11]
So troops have to go in, and
they're also human beings, right?
And there's gonna be terrible
fighting in the streets, I get it.
But if I had a family member,
I want those troops in immediately,
trying to find the hostages.
Dropping bombs from the sky, a,
is never gonna find the hostages, b,
[00:03:27]
clearly endangers them.
And if I had a family member, I wouldn't
want the water and electricity cut off.
Well, then what the hell is gonna happen
to my family member who's a hostage in one
of those tunnels?
You got to get in there, I understand
that, but this is what they've done so
far, is 0% helpful.
[00:03:42]
>> Speaker 2: Now, what was interesting
was how Jake Tapper framed one of
the questions he asked Sullivan.
So he did this comparison of
the Palestinian civilians to the very
civilians in Ukraine who are currently
dealing with brutal conditions, obviously
[00:04:00]
an ongoing war thanks to the invasion of
Vladimir Putin and Russia into Ukraine.
So, let's take a look at how Sullivan
handled that framing and whether or
not he did a good job in
answering this question.
Let's watch.
[00:04:15]
>> Speaker 1: Take a listen to what
Secretary Blinken said last year when
Putin was targeting
Ukrainian infrastructure.
>> Speaker 3: Heat, water,
electricity, for children, for
the elderly, for the sick.
[00:04:31]
These are President Putin's new targets,
he's hitting them hard.
This brutalization of
Ukraine's people is barbaric.
>> Speaker 1: Now, look,
Israel is not Russia, Gaza is not Ukraine.
It's a different situation.
[00:04:48]
But cutting off supplies,
cutting off heat,
cutting off water to civilians,
what's the difference?
>> Speaker 3: Well, first, thank you for
saying that Israel is not Russia,
because Israel is not Russia.
[00:05:04]
>> Speaker 1: Civilians
are civilians Jake.
>> Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, they
are aand they deserve, as I said before,
access to water and medicine and food.
And we are working actively
to ensure that that happens.
>> Speaker 4: No, you're not.
[00:05:19]
>> Speaker 2: Right, so
we'll get to Sullivan in a second.
I just have to say, and I don't mean to
give such glowing reviews on Jake Tapper,
but I have to in this context,
because it's just so rare to see someone
in legacy media ask these difficult
questions about the behavior and
[00:05:36]
actions of the Israeli government and
the IDF.
It is incredible to see it.
>> Speaker 4: Look, I've criticized
Jake Tapper dozens of times, and
pretty harshly at times.
But as I was watching that,
I was thinking, go, Jake, go.
Someone on cable news saying Palestinians
are human, civilians are civilians.
[00:05:55]
Why do we have a massively contradictory
policy when it comes to Russia and Israel?
When Russia cuts off the water and
electricity, they're barbaric.
When Israel does it, Jake Sullivan saying,
we're trying to prevent that.
No, you've given no indication
of that at all, and
[00:06:11]
this is what you're supposed
to do as a journalist.
Challenge the powerful and hold them
to account, thank you, Jake Tapper.
>> Speaker 2: Now, I wanna skip ahead to
another interview that Jake Tapper had.
So, he has this conversation
with Jake Sullivan.
Later, he has a conversation
with Gilad Erdon,
[00:06:29]
who is the Israeli ambassador
to the United Nations.
Now, during that interview,
Jake Tapper basically relayed
a message from the Biden
administration to the ambassador.
And here's how that went down,
let's watch.
[00:06:45]
>> Speaker 1: President Biden and
the Biden administration are urging Israel
to hold off on any ground incursion
until there has been a humanitarian
quarter established so the innocent
Palestinians in Gaza can escape.
[00:07:03]
>> Speaker 5: I don't know
of any pressure coming from
the Biden administration
to hold our operation.
We said that we will use every
mean at our disposal to eradicate
Hamas's Turkey mobilities,
and we meant it.
[00:07:19]
The prime minister gave an early
warning few days ago already.
And sadly, it's very sad
because I really feel sorry for
the suffering of the people of Gaza.
[00:07:35]
But we should all remember they
elected Hamas 18 years ago.
>> Speaker 2: Just wanna remind you all
that Hamas was elected 18 years ago.
There haven't been
elections ever since then.
There's essentially a dictatorship
by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and
[00:07:52]
about half the population
under the age of 18.
So the majority of the population did not
vote for Hamas, but they are now dealing
with collective punishment by the Israeli
government in retaliation for
the brutal killings and kidnappings that
Hamas had carried out against civilians.
[00:08:10]
Now, if you find it deeply immoral and
disgusting that Hamas targeted civilians
in Israel, and I absolutely do,
you should have the same feelings in
regard to civilians in the Gaza Strip.
And it appears that Jake Tapper does,
because he follows up that answer with
[00:08:26]
a pretty hard hitting question,
which we'll get to in just a second.
Cenk, thoughts on that?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah,
just real quick on that one,
do not use the argument that
the Palestinians voted for Hamas,
other than the fact that Anna gave you,
which is already huge.
[00:08:41]
The second part of that is,
that's exactly what Hamas says to
justify killing Israeli civilians.
Well, they voted for
Netanyahu, they voted for
these governments that continue to occupy
us, so their civilians are just as guilty.
That is totally wrong, abhorrent, immoral.
[00:08:57]
But when we say, Hamas can't say that,
but we'll say it about the Palestinians,
again, you destroy any moral, high ground,
credibility, etcetera, and you feed
into the Hamas ideology that it's okay to
kill civilians because of how they voted.
[00:09:13]
And remember, of course, not everyone
voted that way in Palestine or
in Israel or
in America when we did atrocities.
>> Speaker 2: Now, Tapper went on to
challenge Gilad Erdan, let's take a look.
>> Speaker 1: If Hamas is a terrorist
group, which it is, but if it is, then how
[00:09:31]
can you hold all 2.3 million Palestinians
in Gaza responsible for what Hamas did?
Don't you think that they rule by
killing people who oppose them.
How seriously can you hold, how seriously
can you expect the Palestinian people,
[00:09:50]
half of whom are kids, by the way,
how seriously can you expect them to
rise up if they are brutal murderers,
which they are?
>> Speaker 5: We do not
expect them to rebel.
We cannot decide for
themselves how to live their life, but
[00:10:09]
we are fighting for our life.
We just lost 1300 Israelis who were
slaughtered and butchered and massacred.
And like any other normal country,
we have to ensure that such
atrocities will not happen again.
[00:10:27]
>> Speaker 2: So, it is absolutely
true that what Hamas did was wrong.
They committed war crimes, about 1301,
three to 1400 Israeli
civilians died as a result.
But currently, the retaliation that's been
carried out by the Israeli government
[00:10:43]
against the Palestinians, they say Hamas,
but take a look at the death toll.
At this point over 2670
Palestinian civilians gone dead,
women, children, innocent civilians.
[00:10:59]
So again, if there are moral
issues with the targeting and
killing of Israeli civilians,
then you can't have a double standard
when it comes to civilians of a different
cultural background or religion.
[00:11:14]
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, let me see if I can
clarify the absurdity of this logic.
So you remember there was a couple of
synagogues that were hit in America,
one in Pittsburgh and
one in Southern California.
And the people who did the killings there,
you could certainly argue, are terrorists.
They targeted them because
they were Jewish and
[00:11:31]
they had these crazy conspiracy theories.
Now, they happen to be awful right
wingers in those particular cases.
And by the way, there's Nazi
compounds in Idaho, for example.
There was Nazis in Charlottesville
chanting, the Jews will not replace us,
[00:11:48]
if a foreign country, Israel,
etcetera, said, well,
you've got terrorists
killing Jews inside America.
That's true, and then hence,
they dropped a bomb in Pittsburgh.
We'd be like, what?
Are you, insane?
What are you doing?
Just because there's some terrorists
that hit a synagogue in Pittsburgh,
[00:12:07]
which we all despise,
that they did that, etcetera,
that doesn't mean you
could hit Pittsburgh.
They said, a Nazi compound in Idaho,
you can't just drop bombs in the middle
of Idaho, well, maybe we'll kill some
civilians, but we'll also kill some.
When you make that analogy to here,
everybody goes, well,
[00:12:23]
of course you can't kill our civilians.
But when it's Palestinians, all of
a sudden everybody's not everybody, but
a lot of people are like, well,
maybe you killed our civilians.
Maybe that's their problem,
maybe they shouldn't have elected Hamas.
Maybe they should leave Gaza,
which is they literally can't,
[00:12:39]
it's an open air prison.
That's the whole point of the occupation,
is they don't control their borders and
they can't leave.
They're trapped in there,
it's an open air prison.
I can't believe how well Jake Tapper
did in correcting some of those myths.
Great job by Tapper.
>> Speaker 2: Well,
he continued this streak today.
[00:12:56]
He was interviewing a former Israeli
ambassador to the UK named Mark Regev.
And I haven't seen this yet,
it just broke.
But I am curious to see how he handled it,
let's take a look.
>> Speaker 1: Certainly taking
out Hamas's leadership,
I understand the point of that.
But the Palestinian Health Ministry
in Gaza says, 2800 Palestinians have
[00:13:15]
been killed and somewhere between a
quarter and a third of them are children.
That's not Hamas's leadership.
>> Speaker 6: Can I please
offer a word of caution?
Now, I know that there is
real suffering in Gaza.
[00:13:32]
There's a war going on, and
innocent people are getting caught
up in a very difficult situation.
I don't minimize that.
But you have to take with a grain
of salt any information that
comes out of the Hamas controlled
Ministry of Health in Gaza.
[00:13:48]
>> Speaker 2: Right, so
we should just all ignore what we
can see with our own two eyes.
The leveling of entire neighborhoods,
the 24 hours evacuation order,
impacting 1.1 million Palestinians.
We should just ignore that because
it's all made up by Hamas, right?
[00:14:05]
>> Speaker 4: So as I look at that city,
it reminds me of Istanbul,
where I grew up until I was 8.
And my parents have an apartment there.
And I think, imagine you've got parents
who live there or kids who live there,
and you see bomb after bomb on
top of building after building.
[00:14:22]
How would you not be a nervous
wreck that your parents or
your kids are in those buildings?
I mean,
this is the oldest adage in the world.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
An eye for
an eye leaves the whole world blind.
[00:14:39]
So we're not guys,
this isn't an anti Israel thing.
Israel was very hurt,
their civilians were massacred.
I get their anger,
their sadness and their rage.
>> Speaker 2: And we felt that anger and
sadness and rage.
I felt that anger and sadness and rage.
[00:14:54]
But I also feel anger, sadness and
rage when I see Palestinian civilians get
killed and brutalized the way that
they are as we speak right now,
when they are victims of collective
punishment that they do not deserve.
And what is the point of
international war crimes?
What's the point?
[00:15:12]
No one really cares,
let's keep it real, okay?
Because the United States will continue
supporting whatever the Israeli government
wants to do.
Okay, there's no question about it,
it's unequivocal.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
made absolutely clear that we
will continue funding and aiding the
Israeli government as this war continues.
[00:15:29]
No conditions, no strings attached.
Doesn't matter how many Palestinian
civilians die as a result of what
military operation the government
thinks they're engaging in right now.
>> Speaker 4: And so far,
it has been nothing but counterproductive.
[00:15:45]
Zero hostages recovered,
2800 innocent civilians killed,
which then forces everybody to say,
those poor 1400 that died in Israel,
but now twice as many poor
Palestinians killed inside Gaza.
So, you had the world's sympathy.
[00:16:02]
There was a moment where someone
could have been magnanimous.
And I was talking to a Jewish friend
over the weekend, and I said, look,
I know it's impossible and
it's probably too much to ask for,
but imagine if Israel had,
in that moment of incredible grief, said,
[00:16:18]
we're gonna be better than this,
and we're not gonna do likewise.
We're going to go and
try to get Hamas, and
a lot of our troops will be killed
doing that, and we're gonna go and
try to get those hostages because
we need to return them, but
we're not gonna drop bombs, and we're not
going to kill civilians like they did.
[00:16:37]
I know they can't say the end
occupation right after Hamas attacks,
I understand that.
Of course, you don't wanna encourage
wrongdoing by Hamas, right?
But if at a later time, they were to say,
we're going to end occupation
no matter what happens,
[00:16:52]
it would give such, there's too much
anti Semitism in the world, guys.
We need to cleanse that anti
Semitism out of the system.
And if Israel were magnanimous at
a moment when they had no business being
magnanimous, no one expected it of them.
[00:17:09]
It would have been amazing.
There's still time.
But unfortunately, Netanyahu and
this right wing government is
not inclined in that direction.
Instead, they're inclined in the direction
of giving away all sympathy,
starting a larger, broader war,
attacking civilians as well, and
[00:17:25]
just going, we accidentally hit the bus,
and we accidentally hit the ambulance.
I came to rescue people from the bus, and
we accidentally dropped bombs
on top of residential buildings.
No one believes that, I know some people,
in their rage and anger and sadness,
say, I believe it.
[00:17:40]
It was all an accident,
they didn't mean to kill civilians.
But I got news for you, the rest of
the planet does not believe that.
So this bloodletting doesn't
help anyone on any side.
Hamas started it,
no question in this case, but
we cannot have it on either side.
[00:17:56]
We must protect civilians, no matter what
their race, ethnicity or nationality is.
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