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The Lead with Jake Tapper

IDF: 12 Hostages Freed Today In Israel; No Americans In Latest Round Of Hostage Release; Father Of 9-Year-Old Hostage Speaks After Her Release; Cheney's New Book Blasts GOP As "Enablers" Of Trump; Hunter Biden Willing To Testify On Capitol Hill Next Month. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired November 28, 2023 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:39]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hamas just released more hostages but what about those kidnapped Americans?

THE LEAD starts right now.

Twelve more hostages freed, but not two American women. What happens with the deal cut last week that was thought to have included them? CNN teams working their sources.

Plus, a CNN exclusive. The father of Emily Hand, after reuniting with the nine-year-old kidnapped by Hamas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS HAND, FATHER OF FREED HOSTAGE: The door opens up, and she just ran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The joy, the relief, the trauma, and the pain for so many of these families.

And brand new this hour, in another exclusive, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney naming names. Her stunning new revelations about former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and what fellow Republicans would tell her secretly behind closed doors.

(MUSIC)

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We start today with some breaking news. The fifth group of hostages released by Hamas in exchange for some prisoners, some Palestinian prisoners, is now back in Israel, and headed to be reunited with their families. Newly-released video shows the terrorist group handing the hostages over to the Red Cross earlier today inside Gaza. Twelve hostages total, 10 Israelis were freed today, mainly older women, today. In the first released since the temporary pause was extended.

The Israeli hostages released today are 84-year-old Ditza Hayman, 78 year old Tamar Metzger, 77-year-old Ophelia Roitman, 75-year-old Ada Sagi, 63-year-old Clara Marman, 60-year-old Norlin Natalie Babdila, 59-year-old Gabriella Leimberg, and her 17-year-old daughter Mia, 53- year-old Merav Tal, and 36-year-old Rimon Kirsht.

As the hostages freed over the last few days make their way home to their families, we are starting to hear some of the heartbreaking, and frankly brutal stories of what some of them have experienced while in the custody of the group, Hamas, which the United States considers to be a terrorist group.

For example, the aunt of 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi says that he says Hamas forced him to watch videos of the October 7th attacks, murders, and such. She told CNN affiliate BFMTV that Eitan was beaten after he was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. That every time a child cried, Hamas threatened the child with a weapon, to quote, shut them up. His aunt also says that Eitan was forced to spend some of his days as a captive completely alone, solitary confinement for a 12-year-old.

Freed hostage Keren Munder and her family endured days of very little food, according to her cousin, who says Keren and her mother, Ruth, each lost somewhere between 13 and 18 pounds while in captivity. Some days the only four they were given was pita bread.

And young Emily Hand, who turned nine while in captivity, also lost weight, her dad Thomas told CNN. He's never seen her so pale. When they were reunited, Emily spoke to her dad in only whispers, he said it's because she had been conditioned by Hamas to not make any noise.

We're going to have more of Emily story ahead on THE LEAD. Clarissa Ward bringing us that story.

But we're going to start today with CNN's Jeremy Diamond who's at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, that's where Israel, Gaza and Egypt all meet.

Jeremy, what's -- what's happening there on the ground right now, and what happens next for this latest batch of newly-freed hostages?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, 12 more recently freed hostages are now on their way to hospitals in central Israel. We actually just saw four helicopters altogether, one earlier last hour and three more just now taking off from the Kerem Shalom crossing, where those Israeli hostages, as well as two Thai nationals crossed into Israel from Egypt after initially going from Gaza into Egypt via that Rafah Crossing.

[16:05:06]

Those helicopters headed north in the direction of central Israel.

We know that among those 10 Israeli civilian hostages, there is only one minor, a 17 year old, Mia Leimberg, who was freed tonight. That's unusual. We've typically seen more children, more minors released in a previous iterations of this deal.

But altogether, Jake, we now have 61 Israelis, 24 nationals who have been freed over the last five days. But now, Jake, attention is turning, as we head into this second day tomorrow, of this extended truce, to whether or not it can be extended even further.

We know that today, the CIA director was in Doha, Qatar, meeting with his Israeli, Qatari, and Egyptian intelligence counterparts, to see whether a broader deal is possible, to see whether or not men and soldiers can also start to be included in the next phase of this deal.

For now, that is a massive open question, and of course, a lot hanging in the balance. The lives of those hostages still in Gaza, the trucks of humanitarian aid that have crossed in, and the polls in the bombardments in the Gaza Strip.

TAPPER: And, Jeremy, there were clashes earlier today between Israeli forces and Hamas. That would obviously be a violation of this pause. Tell us what happened.

DIAMOND: There certainly was, and now it's a question of who exactly violated the truce today. Hamas accuses Israel of violating the truce, and the Israeli military says that it was Hamas, and they provide some details of what they say happened. They said that three explosive devices were detonated near Israeli forces at two different locations. They said that multiple IDF soldiers were injured in that incident and that they returned fire towards Hamas.

Hamas says that Israel was the one that opened fire first, but clearly either way, this is the most significant break in this truce that we've seen so far. But for now at least, Jake, it does not appear to be a significant enough to call off this deal entirely.

For now, we are still expecting ten more Israeli civilian hostages to be released tomorrow, and one additional day of that pause in the fighting -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much.

Let's bring in Barak Ravid. He's CNN's newest political and foreign policy analyst.

Thanks so much for joining us, Barak, and welcome to CNN. Good to have you.

Are you surprised that this pause has gone on for five days, and appears to still be ongoing?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Hi, Jake. It's great to be here, on your show, and CNN.

I'm not really surprised. I think both sides have great interest that this pause will continue, at least for now, at least for several more days. That was, I think, one of the main issues on the table in this spy chief summit in Doha, Qatar, today, trying to see if we can, you know, continue this pause for another day, another two days, another three days.

The maximum amount of days possible, according to the Israeli cabinet decision, is overall nine-day pause. We are now at the end of the fifth day, so I think there's still some way to go.

TAPPER: So the Israelis get hostages back, and Hamas gets what? A breather, an opportunity to reconstitute itself and prepare to fight back against the IDF?

RAVID: First, a breather is something that Hamas really wants. So I think for them, it's really important. And second, I think what Hamas is banking on is the fact that, you know, we'll get to maybe nine days of Paul's and then they say, well, after nine days, could Israel really resume the operation the same way it did before the pause? It's an open question.

If you ask the Israelis, they will tell you, of course, we're going to resume the operation. If you ask the Biden administration, you'll hear some more nuanced answers.

But one very interesting thing is that during the spy chief summit in Doha today, the Israelis came with a very clear message because the Qataris came and said Hamas wants a new deal on more hostages, and maybe on soldiers, and men that they took hostage. And the Israelis said we are not going to discuss anything with you about the future deals, before you finish releasing all of the women and children that you still have in your custody.

And this is between 30 to 40 women and children. So this means at least between 3 to 4 days of pause.

TAPPER: And then, of course, as you note, there is this pressure, increasing pressure from the Biden administration, and also from, it seems, from the Brits as well, for the Israelis to be more careful when it comes to civilian casualties. Do you think that there is any chance that these rallies will take measures to reduce civilian casualties, even when they resume trying to go after Hamas?

[16:10:10]

RAVID: I think it's going to be a very tricky thing to do because they still have some neighborhoods in northern Gaza that they still need to operate in, so that's not the problem, because most of the people are out of there. But in southern Gaza, you have 2 million people. And to operate within such a dense area, it's almost impossible for military to operate there without causing great damage and civilian casualties.

So I think this is going to be a main issue of contention between Israel and the U.S. going forward.

TAPPER: What are you hearing about why the two American women have not yet been released? The two American woman taken hostage by Hamas?

RAVID: I don't think there is an issue there. Meaning, I don't think Hamas is saying, oh, your Americans, we're not going to release you. It's every day on the list coming in, sometimes there are negotiations over them. Sometimes they change, sometimes they change several times.

But I think that as those two Americans are part of this group, of 30 to 40 women and children that are still in Hamas custody. And Israel wants to get them back. So I think that if Hamas wants this pause to continue, it will have to release them.

TAPPER: And something else that I don't think a lot of Americans necessarily understand, Hamas isn't the only group that has hostages. There are other terrorist groups and other militant groups that have hostages, there might even be just like criminal Palestinian groups that have hostages that went into Gaza and just sees people as a crime of opportunity. Does Hamas even know who has all of the hostages?

RAVID: So, first, the answer to this question is, of course. They know completely well who has those hostages, in some cases, they know because they have given those hostages to look after them, and to keep them in hiding. And one such example is the Bibas family, and I think maybe -- I'm sure you saw it and I'm sure our audience also saw it, the mother with two redhead children.

TAPPER: Yeah.

RAVID: One of them is ten months old, Kfir Bibas, in Hamas tunnels, in captivity for 50 days now. And those mother and two kids are with a group that is not Hamas, but Hamas has given this group this family. And I think that the reason the Israelis are saying we will not discuss any further deals before you release our women and children, is because they want to press Hamas to bring this family back home.

TAPPER: Barak Ravid, thanks and welcome back -- welcome to CNN again. Good to have you.

Coming up next, the CNN exclusive with Thomas him, his daughter nine years old told him about her days in captivity, and her unspoken signs of trauma.

Plus, Liz Cheney on the record. The excuse she says Kevin McCarthy gave her that Mar-a-Lago visit with Donald Trump. Plus, what she says Republicans have told her about the former president behind closed doors.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:17:09]

TAPPER: Nearly two months after being ripped from their homes and torn apart from their families, freed hostages are returning to completely different lives in Israel. Some of them are waiting for other family members to be released, others are just learning for the first time that their loved ones were killed by Hamas.

Clarissa Ward spoke with one father, Thomas Hand, who you might remember him. He initially thought that his daughter had been killed, he was actually grateful for it because of what he imagined Hamas might do to her. Then he found out that she was alive, and now, nine- year-old Emilie is home safe, and she is slowly sharing the details of what happened to her, after she was kidnapped by Hamas, on October 7th.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS HAND, FATHER OF 9-YEAR-OLD HOSTAGE: You should be here in a couple minutes. Like, really? And all of a sudden, the door opened up, and she just ran. It was beautiful. Just like in -- just like I imagined it, you know, running together. I probably squeezed too hard.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a moment Thomas Hand thought would never come, told his nine-year- old daughter Emily had been killed in the October 7th attacks, then that she was believed to be held hostage in Gaza, finally, reunited with her family after 50 days in captivity, free, but visibly haunted by her ordeal.

HAND: The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was that she was just whispering. I couldn't hear her. I had to put my ear on her lips, like this close. And say, what did you say? I thought you were kidnapped.

WARD: She said, I thought you were kidnapped?

HAND: She thought I was in captivity.

WARD: And what has she told you about what she's gone through?

HAND: I thought she was in tunnels, but she wasn't in the tunnels. They were actually fleeing from house to house. She doesn't like it to be referred to as Gaza, she says koofsa, the box. So how long were you in the box? Koofsa. She said, a year. Apart from the whispering, that was like a punch in the gut.

WARD: There is that one photograph, right after your reunion, and your holding her, and there is this sort of seriousness to her facial expression.

[16:20:08]

HAND: Yes, she is almost staring, isn't she? A little bit of a disconnect with everything going on around her.

WARD: Had she cried?

HAND: Last night. She cried until her face was right and what she -- she couldn't stop. She didn't want any comfort. I guess she's forgotten how to be comforted. I decide to wait until she came out of it herself. She knows how to do that, she's a very determined little girl, very strong. I knew that her spirit would get you through it.

WARD: There have been glimpses of the old Emily, happily walking, the family dog. But many moments of pain, like when Thomas was forced to break the news to her that his ex-wife Narkis had been killed. Doesn't really understand what happened on October 7th?

HAND: Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, she does. How do you tell her your second mom is dead? Killed, shot? When we got back to the hospital, what should I do? She said she's got

to tell her straight, it's the best way. Okay, yeah, that was very hard, because we told her, and her eyes glazed up and she had to take a breath. Terrible thing for a child, I recommend that you have to close the book.

Sounds cruel, but you have to stop the hope. You've got to stop that. It has to be final. A kiss of death.

WARD: And so, what is the next step now? How long do you stay here? How do you start a new life?

HAND: The future is obviously to get Emily back to health. And we will do that along the way. But the next thing along the way is that we have to get all the children, obviously, all the women, all the men, all the hostages have to come back. They have to be brought.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on camera): Now, Jake, you heard Thomas talking about getting Emily back to health. Now, she is in good physical condition, there's no indication that she was physically abused in any way. She lost a lot of weight. She was very, very pale. She said that they didn't have enough to eat.

But obviously, there is the psychological component here. The very fact that she was only able to whisper, because she was so frightened of raising her voice. He said that the only word she appeared to learn in Arabic was the word for be quiet, which gives you an indication of the fear that she was living through.

He also talked about how she has very bad head lice, but all things considered, she is in reasonably good health, physically. One other important thing, when he talks about bringing the hostages back, he was very focused at the moment on the mother of Emily's very good friend. This is a girl he had gone to the play date with, she had gone to the plate with, was kidnapped with, was held with, along with Hila's mother, Raya Rotem, who acted like a second mother to her. And then, inexplicably, at the last minute, two days before they were due to be released, Raya was separated from Emily and Hila.

You can imagine, Hila was released with Emily, and the anguish that she is going through now, being separated from her mother. This is a very important point for Thomas, he says, going forward. We need to keep fighting for all the hostages, but particularly for Raya, and try to get to the bottom of why was that she was separated from her daughter, just ahead of their release, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Clarissa Ward in Tel Aviv, thank you so much for that report.

Coming up next, CNN exclusive, the new revelations from former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, that you will hear for the first time on the lead. The former congresswoman's take on Kevin McCarthy and Nancy Pelosi, and her warning about what she thinks will happen if Donald Trump becomes the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:29:15]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming delivering a devastating, devastating portrait of the Republican Party, and former President Donald Trump. It's part of her new memoir due out next week, it's called "Oath and Honor". CNN exclusively obtained a copy of the book.

And CNN's special correspondent Jamie Gangel is here with all the juicy details.

And, Jamie, you tell me that Liz Cheney does not hold back.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: She does not. She names names. She has emails, text messages. I think the book is extraordinary, because it goes behind the scenes.

And for the first time, you're hearing details about her Republican colleagues, about the Republican Party, and really, their cowardice is the word she uses, in their support of Donald Trump.

[16:30:07]

And here's just from one excerpt of the book. She says: Donald Trump cannot succeed alone. He depends upon enablers and collaborators. Every American should understand what his enablers in Congress and the leadership of the Republican Party were willing to do to help Trump seize power in the months after he lost the 2020 presidential election and what he continues to do to this day.

Jake, look, the book is unflinching, you get personal conversations, Republican meetings, there is a revelation about -- she was on, on January 4th, by accident, a White House -- a Trump surrogates call, that she describes where she hears just the stark specific planning for January 6th.

TAPPER: And she goes, you tell me particularly, after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and she says he said -- he told her that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, and he knew early on.

GANGEL: Right. This is two days after the election. Cheney writes that McCarthy told her that he had just spoken to Trump, and that McCarthy says, quote, he knows it's over. He just needs to go through all the stages of grief.

Cheney then writes, it's her rye sense of humor, that the stages of grief also apparently included tweeting, in all kept letters.

But, Jake, there's also another stunning anecdote about Kevin McCarthy. We all remember the photograph when, just three weeks after January 6th, there it is, Kevin McCarthy goes running down to Mar-a- Lago, he's afraid he can't raise money anymore. TAPPER: And just to -- just to -- I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is

a lifeline. Everyone thought that the Republican Party was going to rid itself of Donald Trump, everybody had spoken negatively about him. But then McCarthy does this and basically he's like -- Phoenix from the ashes, Donald Trump is renewed.

GANGEL: Correct. And nobody knows this trip is happening. And Cheney writes actually when she saw that photo, she thought it was a fake. And then she confronts Kevin McCarthy about it.

And she writes -- get ready -- Cheney, Mar-a-Lago? What the -- Kevin? Kevin McCarthy. You're really worried, Trump's not eating. So they ask me to come see him.

Cheney, what? You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump's not eating?

McCarthy, yeah. He's really depressed.

She also reveals that she was not the only one -- she talks about other Republicans who were, quote, angry and disgusted that McCarthy had gone running back to Trump. And there is a text that's going around, and she writes that her Republican colleagues, quote, some mocked him, circulating that Trump McCarthy photo along with -- get ready, the clip from the movie "Jerry Maguire", where Tom Cruise tells Rene Zellweger, you complete me.

TAPPER: And there are a lot of other headlines in the book, we're learning about for the first time, including about the new House Speaker Mike Johnson, from Louisiana. Tell me about that.

GANGEL: So, to be clear, when Cheney was writing this book, she did not know that Mike Johnson was going to be the next speaker of the House.

TAPPER: Right, he was in the leadership, but nobody thought he was going to the speaker anytime soon.

GANGEL: Most people didn't know who he was in the public. But what she writes is now critical, because she lays out specifically just the important role he was playing behind the scenes in enabling Trump. He was pressuring members, specifically freshman members, to support Trump in all of this.

There are also details about her relationship with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Two people who could not be further apart politically, about how Pelosi appointed her to the January 6 committee, what it was like, Cheney writes, she felt like she was from another planet. But she also says that Pelosi always backed her up. The back story of the two of them, and also that she was immediately impressed with Pelosi's leadership throughout.

One story here about Republican colleagues that I think goes to name names, there is an extraordinary scene on January 6th that she recounts where Republican members are sort of being asked to sign these sheets for electoral vote objections.

[16:35:14]

And she writes about Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee.

TAPPER: Yeah.

GANGEL: And he's signing, and she hears him, and quote: As he moved down the line, signing his name to the pieces of paper, Green said sheepishly, to no one in particular, the things we do for the orange Jesus.

TAPPER: He called him the orange Jesus?

GANGEL: Yeah.

TAPPER: Not exactly a compliment.

Cheney has said for a long time that she believes Donald Trump is dangerous. She sacrificed her political career, at least in the short term --

GANGEL: Right.

TAPPER: -- to warn the country about him. What else -- what else is she willing to do about it?

GANGEL: So, as she told you in that great interview you did a couple of weeks ago, she has not ruled out running for the White House herself. She has also said that if Trump is the Republican nominee, she is out of the Republican Party.

She says in the book that she will do whatever it takes to make sure that Trump never goes back to the White House. She thinks he is absolutely a danger to democracy.

One quote from her conclusion, she writes, quote: Every one of us, Republican, Democrat, independent, must work and vote together to ensure that Donald Trump and those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him are defeated.

TAPPER: That's a lot of people.

GANGEL: She thinks this has to be nonpartisan, that the checks and balances of our system will not hold if there is a second Trump term.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. We need to talk more about this, stick around.

Coming up, is anyone listening to these warnings from Liz Cheney? Anyone in the Republican Party? Does she have persuadable power? We're going to get into that next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:28]

TAPPER: We're continuing with our politics lead, and the exclusive look at Liz Cheney's pending new memoir, "Oath and Honor", that comes out next week.

CNN's Jamie Gangel is back with us, along with CNN anchor Chris Wallace, host of "THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW" on CNN as well as "WHO IS TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE?" on Max.

That's a lot of shows.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of shows. And I -- you would know who was anchoring them. It wasn't my idea.

TAPPER: They both -- "THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW" on CNN and "WHO IS TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE?" on Max. They both have your name on it.

Anyway, Chris, even if Trump loses in 2024, and Liz Cheney does not formally lead the Republican Party, she is going for that she's ever gone before with this book.

WALLACE: Oh yeah. You know, she is taking receipts here. And telling about inside conversations, and I can't say there's a single one of them that you go, well, I don't believe that. I mean, I love the story that is in the book that you have an excerpt from, Jamie, where Cheney says that McCarthy said to her, hey, I talk to Trump, he knows he lost, and then he goes on Fox that night and says, oh, no, he won the election.

So, this is not the most reliable source of what's going on. And I agree with something you said earlier, which is you cannot overstate the January 28th meeting at Mar-a-Lago, because there was a real question at that point, is was the Republican establishment that is led by Donald Trump or not.

And remember, this is before the impeachment, and people like Mitch McConnell are saying, I don't know what I'm going to do, but, you know, this is unacceptable. What -- McCarthy himself said that Trump bore responsibility.

TAPPER: So, did Kevin -- so, yeah, McCarthy -- you had Kevin McCarthy and McConnell --

WALLACE: Right, on January --

TAPPER: Yeah.

WALLACE: And then he goes down there, and that was just the statement that, you know what? We're still tied to the sky.

TAPPER: What of the revolutions in the book surprise you the most? I love the one of McCarthy saying that he had to go to Mar-a-Lago because Donald was depressed, and he wasn't eating.

GANGEL: He's not eating.

TAPPER: First of all, that alone I found surprising. But just because he's a man of many appetites, I don't mean that disparagingly. But the idea that he would even try to peddle that malarkey to Liz Cheney I find amazing. But what -- all of the stories in there, what is the most surprising to you?

GANGEL: I think actually it's the number of stories like that. It is the hypocrisy, it's the duplicity, it's all of these things are being said in private. And they're mocking Trump, and they're saying, well, we just need to do this one last thing, or he's not eating, or we know he's lost.

WALLACE: Or what I do for the orange Jesus --

GANGEL: What I do for the orange Jesus, right?

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: The total cynicism of it, I'm going to contest the electoral vote, because I've got to. But I don't believe it.

TAPPER: Yeah, Mark Green, who I thought was a true believer, I mean, some of these guys you can say, like, this one is just going along to get along, this -- you know, you game out who -- this one's just being quiet, you know? But Congressman Mark Green, I kind of just thought he was a true believer. But he called Trump the orange Jesus according to Liz Cheney? That's surprising to me.

WALLACE: As he is sitting there, literally putting his name on objections to counting the electoral vote in specific states.

TAPPER: Yeah.

GANGEL: The things we do. And that sort of summarizes all of it. I also think -- look, she has -- throughout the book, she talks about Mitch McConnell. How it first was that he told her that he was in favor of the impeachment. And she watches his evolution, and then pulling back.

[16:45:01]

So I think it's this notion that they were all in the right place for about 15 minutes. And then they all went running back to Trump.

TAPPER: I remember, the Senate came very close to convicting Trump -- or was it 57 votes?

WALLACE: Fifty-seven, but I was looking at that actually today. They needed 67, so they were ten shy.

TAPPER: Oh, okay.

WALLACE: But still, 57, that gives you an indication of how much even Republicans had turned on Trump, and that just seems like a different universe than we are today. TAPPER: And the Speaker Johnson revelations, the idea that -- what

does she mainly say about him that Johnson was very easily buttered up by praise from Trump?

GANGEL: So, she says that he seemed that he wanted Trump's flattery, he wanted -- but I think the important part about Johnson is there really is chapter and verse in here about the role that he was playing at the time, and you will have to take from that her clear concern that when you get to 2024, if the Republicans are still in charge of the House, if he is still speaker, this is someone who will do what Donald Trump wants.

WALLACE: But the bottom line to me, is the first thing that you said, which is -- and a lot of people say it, Liz Cheney isn't alone, which is that she very much worries whether the system that was set up by the founders in the 1770s, the checks and balances, the Constitution, whether it will hold --

TAPPER: Yeah.

WALLACE: -- the institutions if Trump is reelected, knowing what he knows now, with the attitude he has now, with the -- I ain't worried about the establishment and showing that I've got people like, you know, Jim Mattis, you know, that he is, as he calls it, it's the retribution tour.

TAPPER: Yeah. Adam Kinzinger said to me one time, you know, sometimes you drive on a highway and you see a guardrail, and you see where a car hit it. And it's all smashed and dented, right? That's fine, it saved the car that time. But what about the next time the car hits the guardrail?

WALLACE: That's exactly your conclusion. It is chilling. The guardrails, in her opinion, are gone.

TAPPER: Jamie Gangel and Chris Wallace, and don't forget, you can watch "THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW" Saturday mornings at 10:00 Eastern, right here on CNN, and his other show, "WHO'S TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE?" --

WALLACE: Are you trolling me at this point?

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: No, I'm promoting your shows, Chris. Now, you made me forget it. It's "WHO'S TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE?" There are two of them. Streaming on Max, by the, way you can also watch THE LEAD on Max.

Next here on THE LEAD on CNN, the new offer to House Republicans from President Biden's son, Hunter.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:52:07]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, Hunter Biden, the president's son, who is the subject of an investigation led by Republicans in the House Oversight Committee, as well as a federal investigation, said today that he is willing to answer lawmakers' questions with this stipulation, that he gets to testify in public and not behind closed doors.

CNN's Manu Raju is live for us on Capitol Hill.

Manu, why does Hunter Biden want to testify in public, and I would assume, House Republicans would be keen to accept the offer?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, House Republicans have been demanding all year Hunter Biden's testimony, they issued that subpoena last month. That subpoena called for his testimony in a private deposition, behind closed doors. Hunter Biden's team is saying he will testify, but in public. And the reason why they say that if not, they argue that his testimony will be leaked and it will be distorted.

In the views of his lawyers, they say this. We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door, if you claim your efforts are important and involve issues that Americans should know about, then let the -- let the light shine on these proceedings.

Now, the House Republicans are not going for this. Both House Oversight Chairman James Comer, as well as the House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan say that, first, Hunter Biden must come before closed doors, and then they will consider having an open, public hearing. This is what James Comer says. He says Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules.

Instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won't stand with House Republicans. Our lawfully issued subpoena, to Hunter Biden, requires him to appear for a deposition on December 13th.

We expect full cooperation with our subpoena for a deposition, but also agree that Hunter Biden should have the opportunity to testify in a public setting at a future date, and Jake, as you, know this is all part of the Republican impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, trying to draw a link between Hunter Biden's business activities and Joe Biden's actions as vice president. They don't have proof, but they are trying the two together, but they are hoping that they can reveal some in this closed-door and also potentially public testimony. We'll see if it gets to that point, where the standoff will persist.

TAPPER: So, how are House Democrats reacting?

RAJU: Well, they're pushing back and they're siding with the Hunter Biden attorneys, Jamie Raskin, who's the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee said, let me get this straight, after wailing and moaning for ten months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast unproven family conspiracy, Chairman Comer and Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear in public.

So you're seeing Democrats response, siding with Hunter Biden. The question is, what's next?

TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju, thanks so much.

As Hamas releases a new set of hostages today, what the Biden administration is telling Israel ahead of the pause in fighting possibly ending in the next phase of the war, recommencing.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:59:36]

TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

And moments ago, newly-released Israeli hostages just reach the hospital in Tel Aviv. They, among them are 11 -- I'm, sorry, among them are ten Israelis, and two Thai nationals. They were freed today. No Americans, no Americans were released today, as had been hoped.

And those left behind also include the youngest Israeli hostage, 10- month-old Kfir Bibas. He was kidnapped on October 7th, alongside his four-year-old brother, Ariel. The boy's cousin told CNN this, today.