the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. this hour another group of hostages held by the terrorist group hamas is freed and on their way back to israel. moments ago the israel defense forces released this video saying it shows the moment the 11 released hostages entered israel this morning. we believe that the group is now on their way to hospitals where they will be reunited with their families. almost all of those freed today were children, 18 years old or younger. two of them, two of them we are very happy to tell you are 16-year-old or yakov and his 14-year-old brother yadil. on october 7, on the very day, that horrible day they were kidnapped, i spoke with their mom on the phone live with you listening and she had been talking to her sons as the terrorists went into her home. she was not in the home at the moment. she told me that horrible story about hearing her sons being kiss napped by the terrorists themselves. here is some of the conversation we have. >> i was on the phone. the door broke. i heard terrorists speaking in arabic to my teenagerer and the youngest saying to them, i'm too young to go. they're 16 and 12. so it was very, very hard to hear. the phone went off -- the line went off. that was the last time i heard from them. >> thank god. thank god that or and yagil are back to their mother's warm embrace, thank god. along with 69 other hostages who have been released over the last four days under this temporary pause. israel and hamas confirmed they've agreed to extend the pause for two more days. we hope another 20 hostages will be released by hamas. cnn's matthew chance is in tel aviv outside the hospital where we expect the newly released hostages to arrive soon. matthew, what will happen when these civilians, mostly children, get to the hospital? >> reporter: well, they're going to be obviously welcomed back here. the hospital has released photographs of the special rooms they've prepared. each family, and there are members of several families expected to be arriving here shortly by lhelicopters. they'll get their own rooms and psychologically assessed. the trauma for those girls, as a mother and her two 3-year-old twins, they're expected to land in the next few minutes as well. it's going to be absolutely enormous. to try to get a better understanding, jake, of the ordeal these people suffered in gaza. i spoke to a relative of some other former hostages that were released on friday, in the first group that were released under this hostage deal to try to get a sense from her about what her family went through at the hands of hamas inside the gaza strip. >> did she indicate whether she was kept in a tunnel -- >> she was kept in different places. she doesn't know exactly where it is because they took them from place to place. they were all of them, the three of them were together all the time, but i can tell you that they ate, but they ate a lot of rice. sometimes they didn't have rice so they ate only bread. it wasn't that they were eating fruit and vegetables and vitamins and whatever things that you need. she told me if you want to go to the toilet, you have to knock on the door and only after 1 1/2 or 2 hours they open the door and you can go to the bathroom. they weren't beaten or tortured. they were in a closed room. they weren't with them. the room was locked and they were by themselves, and that's it. >> let me ask briefly, one of the images i remember is when he was handed over to the red cross by hamas gunman. he was being held tightly by one of those masked figures. you saw that picture. >> yeah. >> when you saw that, what did you think? >> i saw their faces. they were so scared. they were also scared -- they told me that on the way with the ambulance, the people in gaza just were on the car and they moved the car -- >> they shook the car. >> why? they don't like us, in an angry way. the citizen or whatever, i don't know exactly. she said it was very, very scary. >> reporter: very scary. the horror, the fear, the trauma. that trauma doesn't end here, jake. many of them are coming back into a world where friends, loved ones, neighbors are either missing or dead. some of them don't even know that until they get back here into these hospitals and they start that process of rehabilitation. >> cnn's matthew chance in tel aviv, thank you very much. cnn's m.j. lee is at the white house. m.j., john kirby, the spokesman for the national security council at the white house, he told cnn that no americans were in the fourth group of hostages being released today. when does the white house believe that the nine americans held by hamas might be released? >> reporter: jake, to state the obvious, the white house is very disappointed that americans did not end up being released today. they said, of course, three americans would be among the 50 initial group of women and children hostages to be released over the course of four days. one of them was abigail edan who we saw released yesterday, and then two additional women. day four of this truce has come and gone and no additional americans released so far. nothing we can say so far about the condition of these two women either. but this is a big part of the reason, jake, why u.s. officials have been pushing for an extension of this truce. we are told that senior white house officials had at least four phone conversations earlier today with the qatari prime minister, cia director bill burns was closely engaged. of course, national security adviser jake sullivan was keeping the president apprised the whole time as negotiations were ongoing to extend this truce. but we are about to learn in the next 48 hours or so whether these two american women will end up being a part of the 20 additional women and children that will be released over the course of two days. that's, of course, separate from the seven other unaccounted americans as well. they are men, but their conditions we also know nothing about. >> m.j. lee, thank you very much joining us former secretary of defense under president trump mark esper. secretary esper, after this pause ends, which wit will, do you expect israel to resume air strikes which have drawn so much international outrage because of the collateral damage, the innocent civilians that have been killed? what is your assessment of how hamas is using this time, this pause to regroup and reconstitute its ability to attack israel? >> sure, jake. first of all, good to be with you this afternoon. i think they will resume their offensive operations -- israel, that is, will resume offensive operations. they need to apply as much precision as possible to limit civilian casualties. the next phase will likely incrude a move into the south, southern gaza which is more dense in terms of the civilian population. it's going to be more tricky. the hamas fighters have been pushing south as well. it's going to be very difficult. i think they understand they need to act with more precision. with regard to hamas, clearly they're not releasing hostages for humanitarian purposes. they are, first of all, trying to win the narrative out there with regard to the media and the international -- the press, the global community. secondly, they're using this time to reposition forces, refit, rearm themselves and do all these things. clearly they're going to gain a tactical advantage over the next few days or as long as this pause extends and they'll use it to their means, their best purposes. >> what tactical advantage are they gaining? israel has a far superior military, right? israel -- obviously they've destroyed a lot of buildings and a lot of civilians have been killed, but there's no military contest here, right? what could -- what advantage is hamas gaining? >> well, it will be more difficult for the israelis because, first of all, hamas -- the militants will be allowed to rest and recuperate. some will return to the battlefield after being stitched up. they will be able to fortify their positions. they'll be able to create new fighting positions. they'll be able to better booby trap the tunnels underneath southern gaza. as you point out, at the end of the day, the advantage is with the idf in this case, even though it's going to be, again, a ground fight on the ground in gaza. >> on sunday two ballistic missiles were fired in yemen toward a u.s. warship in the gulf of aden after it tried to rescue a commercial tanker from a pirate attack. the missiles ended up landing, quote, harmlessly in the water. what's an appropriate response considering that the u.s. defense department haven't confirmed the missiles were targeting a u.s. ship? >> i have been saying for quite some time, i don't think the administration's response has been appropriate. at this point there have been over 70 attacks by iran and its proxies. we've responded five or six times. it's insufficient and that's why it continues. i don't believe it's a coincidence that we captured some houthis trying to take over a ship and two ballistic missiles are fired at a u.s. destroy. keep in mind we didn't respond to this and didn't respond to the shooting down of one of our drones by the houthis as well. these are more examples of a lack of response by the biden administration. i know they're concerned. they fear if they do too much, things will escalate. my argument is the opposite. if they don't respond, at some point americans will be killed and that's when it will escalate. i think these militants, these terrorists in tehran, they respond to a force, people pushing back. i think we need to do more of that. >> former defense secretary mark esper, thank you for your time. as we go to break, i want to show you a helicopter containing the freed hamas hostages, the helicopter landing at tel aviv, at the hospital right outside tel aviv. it's a little after 12:00 midnight in tel aviv and the hostages are going to a hospital where they will meet family members and also, of course, be checked out after more than 50 days in captivity of a terrorist organization. we'll take a quick break and be right back. richest man got the vip treatment today during a visit to israel which might be a bit surprising considering all the questions raised by his promotion of an anti-semiticing conspiracy theories. as cnn's nick watt shows us, israeli officials including the prime minister himself went out of their way to roll out the red carpet. >> reporter: the world's richest man taken by israel's prime minister to a kibbutz tanked by hamas on october 7th. >> the terrorists infiltrated into the kibbutz itself. >> reporter: there were umbrella bearers, musk took some pictures. the editor of a prominent israeli newspaper calls it a pr visit, calls musk a blatant anti sem mitt. the backdrop to this visit, musk recently replied, you have said the actual truth torques a tweet espousing anti-semitic trope that jews push hatred of whites. that theory also espoused by the man who murdered 11 jews in a pittsburgh synagogue in 2017. many accuse musk as overseeing the descent of x into a cesspool of hate, particularly since october 7th. musk bought x for $44 billion. that investment is now in danger. there's an exodus of heavyweight advertisers over the hate. musk has said claims he's anti-semitic couldn't be further from the truth. today we couldn't reach him for comment. musk and netanyahu had a chat on x, they agreed on a lot. >> -- must be neutralized, then the propaganda must stop, and they're making gaza prosperous. if that happens, i think it will be a good future. >> i hope you'll be involved. >> i'd like to help. >> welcome to israel, mr. musk. your visit means a lot to us. >> reporter: israel's president implored musk to help fight anti-semitism. >> you have a huge role to play, and i think we need to fight it together. under the platforms which you lead, unfortunately there's a harboring of a lot of old hate which is jew hate which is anti-semitism. >> we have to do whatever is necessary to stop the -- essentially these people have been fed propaganda since they were children. >> we in the jewish faith believe in repentance and atoning for one's sins. perhaps that's what's going on right now. the proof will be in the pudding. we'll have to see what happens on his platform. >> reporter: elon musk also controls star link which is an internet satellite service which makes him a key player in any conflict on this earth. now, he wanted to provide the service to aid organizations in gaza. the israeli government wasn't happy, saying hamas would use it for terrorist activities. today an israeli government minister posted that they had reached an understanding that star link would only be used in israel and gaza with the approval of the israeli government. we have not yet confirmed that. jake. >> nick watt, thank you so much. coming up next, my conversation with a mother who played video for musk "today" showing the moment hamas captured her son. we'll be right back. you want to be able to provide your child with the tools or resources they need. with reliable internet at home, through the internet essentials program, the world opened up. fellas, fellas. that's how my son was able to find the hidden genius project. we wanted to give y'all the necessary skills to compete with the future. kevin's now part of this next generation of young people who feel they can thrive. ♪ ♪ as 11 more hostages return to israel this evening, so many other families are waiting and hoping and praying that hamas will release their kidnapped loved ones soon. that includes my next guest whose son was wounded by hamas on october 7th. joining me is rachel goldberg, her 23-year-old son hirsh had his arm partly blown off by hamas terrorists. he was in a bomb shelter. he remains a hostage in gaza. rachel, thank you so much for being here. i cannot imagine how painful the last 52 days have been. you had the chance to meet with elon musk today. you showed him that video that captured that horrific moment after his arm was blown off, that video that anderson cooper showed you. what did elon musk have to say after you showed him that video? >> i mean, he was obviously very -- it's very dramatic footage. they say a picture is worth a thousand words. a video is worth a million words. i think he was really taken aback and he was also very surprised by the fact that this took place while someone was at a music festival. he was very sympathetic. i found him to be a very sympathetic person. clearly shaken and rattled by what he had seen. there were three other families that also shared their families stories. he seemed genuinely concerned and moved by what he was he hearing. >> what has it been like for you as all these hostages have been released, and most of them have been women and children or sen seniors. obviously not a lot of young men have been released. it must be awful. >> you know, it's actually funny. people keep asking that. the truth is we've become a family with so many of these hostage families that we were relieved when we were seeing these children coming out, the moms coming out, the holocaust survivor grandmother coming out. there was no sadness about that at all. in fact, if anything, i would say it was finally a whisper of relief within this agonizing galaxy where we find ourselves. the only thing that's concerning is that aside from abigail mor, the 4-year-old american girl who is an orphan now, the other american women, judith and lee yacht have not been released. obviously i'm worried about hirsh who has been gravely wounded, now disabled for life, missing a limb. i'm worried about him. i'm worried about keith who is a gentleman in his 60s. so that's a bit concerning but there was no ill feelings about these children and women coming out, truly. >> have you gotten any updates on hirsh from any of the individuals that have gotten out, any of the hostages who have been released? >> unfortunately no, we haven't. the intelligence community, people are going gently through things with the people that have been released. obviously they've gone through trauma, so everyone is kind of respecting the process. but the people they have spoken to, they don't know his name, they haven't seen anyone who didn't have an arm. so we're very worried. we're very, very worried. we feel like the clock is ticking, time is ticking. here is this extremely wounded young man, american civilian and we're worried like any parent would be. >> rachel, you obviously have much bigger concerns that just how nasty social media can be. obviously twitter is a cesspool -- x i guess it's called now. elon musk, quite frankly, hasn't exactly been helpful when it comes to that. i'm just wondering, especially when it comes to anti-semitism, not to mention anti-muslim sentiment and all sorts of bigotry. i don't know if any of that came up today. obviously you have much bigger serious life-and-death concerns having to do with your son. did it come up? >> it didn't come up. to be honest with you, certainly in the last 52 days i personally have not followed news, haven't been reading newspapers. >> i wouldn't either. >> you know what? i'm a little bit old. i'm not a twitter or x person. >> rachel, we are the exact same age. cut it out. >> you're also old, okay? in fact, don't throw me under the bus, jake, because you're six months older than i am. >> when hirsh comes back and you guys come to d.c., please allow me to throw you all a party. i'm putting that check on the line right now. throw a big party, a celebration of his return. i'm anticipating that happening and i look forward to celebrating his return with all of you when he comes back and when you come back to d.c. to visit. even though i've never met you. rachel, thank you so much for joining us. >> i appreciate it. thanks. thanks for the time. take care. coming up, a judge's decision today in a case that i have followed for years. a major development and some rare good news that you'll see first here on "the lead." you won't want to miss it. it's next. a bring you now some rare good news in our law and justice lead. in october 2022, 13 months ago, i told you about c.j. rice, a former patient of my pediatrician father who my dad was convinced could not have committed a shooting crime in philadelphia. c.j. was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison back in 2011. now, the point of our segment and the cover story that i wreet for the "atlantic" magazine was not only that c.j. could not have committed the crime, but that c.j. did not have adequate legal representation. so much so that i, my co-author argued it was a violation of the 6th amendment of the u.s. constitution's guarantee to assistance by counsel. today a judge agreed and c.j. rice could very well soon be a free man. could, could. now, the basics of the story, rice was shot in september 2011. those are his scars you see right there. after he was released, he saw his pediatrician, my dad, dr. theodore s. tapper. rice could barely walk. soon after that, days later, two young black men shot a separate family, causing injury. rice was picked out as one of the shooters in a photo lineup. it seemed quite questionable. remember, my dad had just seen rice in his office. take a listen. >> he had staples in his abdomen over approximately an eight or nine-inch surgical incision from his breast bone straight down as far as you could go. there is no way this young man five days after i saw him was running anywhere, let alone walking fast. >> after hiring an overworked, underpaid defense attorney of very questionable competence, a woman named sanjay weaver, rice was convicted and sentenced to 30-60 years in prison, for a crime in which no one was even seriously injured. reading the trial transcript was maddening. weaver made mistake after mistake. she has since passed away. now, the habeas petition to release c.j. from prison was filed by an attorney named carl schwartz who i think my dad hired, but my dad refuses to confirm it. that's my dad. the petition specifically argued that sanjay weaver incompetently stipulated to evidence that provided a motive for the shootings. she should never have stipulated that. carl schwartz filed that habeas petition in december 2022. the wheels have justice spin rather slowly. on september 22nd of this year, the district attorney's office, which had charged c.j., they agreed with schwartz. then it went to a magistrate judge who on october 24th, judge carol sandra moore wells, she agreed, and she agreed that habeas relief is warranted. then it went to a different judge. today u.s. district court judge alejandro found rice's counsel rendered ineffective assistance. and pennsylvania needs to decide whether to retry c.j. rice or to free him within 180 days. now the philadelphia district attorneys larry krasner, has six months to decide whether they're going to retry c.j. rice for this crime or to free him. a statement from krasner's office today said they were pleased with the district court order vacating his conviction. quote, this matter will be referred to the d.a. sentencing review committee. we expect this matter to be finally resolved within the next several months. remember, a division of the d.a.'s office already ruled that c.j. didn't get a fair trial to begin with. remember, no one was even seriously wounded in the shooting to begin with. my opinion, my opinion, i'm only speaking for myself. maybe it's time for public officials in pennsylvania to right this wrong as soon as possible. let me bring in carl schwartz and amelia max field with the innocence project, two of the lawyers for c.j. rice who helped get the case to this point. carl, congratulations. >> thank you. >> amazing work, you and amelia both. your reaction to the judge's decision. i know you've been begging me not to say anything through all these hurdles that we got through. but you let me say something today. your reaction to the big decision by the judge. >> well, we're overjoyed, jake. it's bittersweet because c.j. rice has spent 12 of what should have been the most promising years of his life, among the most promising years of his life in custody. after a trial that was violative of the united states constitution in which his right to counsel was abridged by ineffective performance. the issue that we raised, the prosecution, to their great credit, agreed that the evidence, the quasi evidence that it allowed in was massively damaging in what otherwise would have been an overall, in their words, weak case. a case with one identification witness in which -- and we know about the unreliability of identification testimony, in which that witness on the evening of the incident indicated she could not identify the perpetrator. >> even though she had known him for years and years and years. amelia, one of the points i tried to make in the article is this is so common. thankfully, hopefully we will see justice in this and c.j. will get out and be able to have some sort of life, hopefully. hopefully. it's still up to krasner and his team. how often do you think this kind of case happens? >> unfortunately, it's all too common, jake. wrongful convictions can be contributed to pa number of causes. the leading cause is eyewitness misidentification. ineffective assistance of counsel has been estimated to contribute to 1 in 5 exonerations in this country, which is a pretty shocking statistic. that only speaks to cases where someone is exonerated. >> amelia, the work you do at the innocence project is so, so important. karl, you know tappers are not -- neither of us are patient. we didn't get that gene. let me ask you, he's going to be let out, right? he's going to be let out. the district attorney's office has already ruled he didn't get a fair trial. but the d.a. -- there's this whole procedure now that we're going to have to go through, and it's going to take -- they have six months, and it's probably going to take at least one to three. why don't they just let him out? they've already acknowledged. >> jake, it is a reasonable procedure. as anxious as i am to have c.j. released, and he should be released yesterday, this prosecutor's office is different than a lot of them in this country. they truly seek justice. the position they took on this case was the right position. many other prosecutors' offices wouldn't have. that kind of blind adherence to a conviction, to a bad conviction brings disrespect for the law. this office operates differently. i'm not here as a cheerleader for the philadelphia district attorney's office. lord knows i take positions against them every day. they genuinely try to do the right thing, and it inspires respect for the law. it truly does. it's a different world when that's the case. >> credit where it's due. i hear you. credit where it's due. most prosecutors, as long -- they stick by a conviction even -- they don't even want to look at it. karl schwartz, amelia maxfield, thanks to both of you. we'll keep you updated when c.j. gets out. you betterer believe i i'm goin be t there with h five camerera. we'll be rightht back. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. in our law and justice league, former president trump fights against a gag order, telling an appeals court today that criticizing the judge is his first amendment right. the judge in that case first imposed the gag order to prevent trump from making statements about him and his court staff after trump made a baseless allegation involving the judge's principal law clerk. he can't be held responsible for actions taken by others. but others did take action as they almost always do. trump's remarks resulted in hundreds of threats and smears against the judge and his clerk. the court officer signed a sworn statement saying that the threats appear to be serious. the court filing transcribed multiple voice mails left on the judge's phone. a warning you might find somewhat disturbing, of course. some of you might like it based on my social media these days. one voice mail said, quote, filthy little jewsa, and that's you. and i hate putting people under group. you should be assassinated, end quote. another said dirty jews. you guys want to make it all about identity. what dirty jews. i hope you guys all die. let's talk about this. trump argued the threats do not justify a gag order. i know you are a first amendment guy. but what do you think? >> trump's lawyers argue this is unprecedented, and they're right it would be unprecedented to do a gag order. it would be unprecedented for a guy with 91 indictments still running for president and saying these kinds of things -- never mind a former president saying these kinds of things about a judge. it is a great example for how hard cases make about bad law. a lot of this is a preamble to the criminal stuff where he has to try this stuff in the court of opinion and intimidate witnesses and all that. i don't think there are great answers here. >> separately the d.c. appeals court could rule at any time on a gag order and trump's election subversion trial. let's say that one or both of these gag orders are imposed against the former president. we're less than 50 days away from the iowa caucus. how will those headlines play with voters, the idea that he has, you know, gag orders against him? >> he has just a vast lead in the republican party right now as the party of obstruction, the party of the lack of democracy. you know, my freedom versus yours. so it plays perfectly well with those primary voters. but it does do two things to our democracy. it turns away people from actively participating, whether as voters or to become election officials or to become officials. public service becames a danger when candidates like trump a allowed to get away with this. justice is not swift, when bureaucracy is used to stop the wheels of justice from holding the president accountable. we all know that no one else would be able to get away with what president trump has been saying. >> well, the other thing is it works, right? he knows it works. >> and it's his best option given the reality of a lot of these cases. >> so this book, that one republican congressman reportedly told romney he wanted to vote to impeach trump but he declined, quote, out of fear of his family's safety. a senate leader was encouraged to vote for reasons of his personal safety. he knows what he's doing, right? >> we want people to be leaders, but we're not giving them the protection and safety and security of support. that's what trump takes advantage of time and time again, is being the bully that no one is properly challenging. >> yeah. the fundamental problem for six years now, take away the threat stuff and all that, is that trump's super power is shamelessness. he does not care about the norms or tradition or decorum. he cares about weaponizing anything that was useful for him to weaponize. so i don't blame some of these senators. imagine if you were hanging around january 6th and you had that fresh in your mind. i can see people buckling and chickening out about voting to impeach and remove trump. i think that was almost textbook cowardly, but i can also understand it. >> then there is also lessons from january 6th. utah's senator mike lee a few days ago there were speaker johnson released some of these other images from january 6th. and there was a guy that took out a vape, and i think there were people saying, oh, that's a badge. and it shows how some of the rioters were actually undercover feds. mike lee was busuggesting it waa badge and mike lee was saying, no, it was vape. >> i find it disappointing and shocking. >> we're seeing a record number of resignations from congress or people not looking to run for congress again either because the money, it costs too much, or because of this political environment. so something needs to change. >> but also fox had that wrong information about what happened on the rainbow bridge. and then betty johnson quoted fox and ted cruz quoted for false information and nobody takes it down from twitter. >> well, you would have to have regulations in place from people who understood how these platforms work. >> you know, you don't need regulations. you just need, you mentioned it before, shame. anyway, it's missing. good to see you guguys. thanank you so m much. we'l'll be rightht back. the casket carrying the remains of former first lady rosalynn carter has arrived in atlanta, georgia. the former first lady will lie in repose for the rest of the day. and tomorrow former president jimmy carter is expected to attend a private tribute service to her, which will be televised. president biden and first lady jill biden will attend, as will former president bill clinton, former secretary of state hillary clinton and former first ladies laura bush, michelle obama and melania trump. our coverage of rosalynn carter's memorial service will start tomorrow at noon eastern. i will be anchoring that. our coverage continues now with g wolf b