♪ ♪ ♪ at war. a note of caution from the u.s. >> far too many palestinians have been killed. as israeli forces pound gaza. >> we are increasing pressure on hamas every hour, every day. what's his war plan? israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu joins me live for his first cnn interview since hamas' terror attack inside israel and then u.s. national security adviser jake sullivan is here. plus, the right to vote. voters send republicans another message on abortion rights. how will the gopa dakota? >> i'll ask a the chairwoman of the republican party, ronna mcdaniel. >> a complicated headache, but will he run for president and what does an already crowded third party presidential win mean for a pabiden re-election. david axelrod and larry hogan join me ahead. ♪ ♪ hello, i'm dana bash in washington where the state of our union is watching global tensions rise even further. this morning the tension in the middle east is focused on worsening humanitarian crises in gaza as israel faces growing pressure to take civilians more into consideration as it prosecutes its war against the terrorist group hamas following its barbaric october 7th attacks on israeli civilians. at gaza's al shifa hospital doctors tell cnn the outlook for patients there becomes more desperate by the hour. low on food, water and fuel and largely without power amid heavy fighting in the area. this morning israel said it opened a self-evacuation corridor for the medical center for people to move south. the civilian crisis has prompted a shift in the approach of the biden administration saying too many palestinians have died in the conflict. while israel yesterday what we saw there were families of hostages taken by hamas demanding that they be more prioritized. the rescue comes soon. >> joining me now is israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, sir, thank you so much for joining me and let's start with what's happening at that hospital. israeli forces have said that they were engaged in intense fighting around al shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in gaza. i know that you say the hospital sits on top of a hamas command and control center, but of course, there are also patient, civilians sheltering in that conplex getting treatment. how do you go after hamas without putting sick and injured civilians in that hospital at more risk than they already are? >> we've called to evacuate all of the patients from that hospital and in fact, a hundred or so have already been evacuated. i've called for field hospitals and the french president has sent a floating hospital ship. i've asked the emirates to send a field hospital, they have, and other countries have done the same. i expect the u.n. -- there's no reason why we can't take the patients out of there instead of letting hamas use it as a command center for terrorism, for the rockets they fired against israel and the tunnels they use to kill israeli civilians. let's keep this in focus. just imagine what would happen if the united states were attacked viciously by 20 9/11s, 20, that's the proportionate number, 50,000 killed, 10,000 americans held hostage including babies, elderly, women, children, 10,000 rockets falling on cities and that's number of rockets that are falling all of the time on our cities and may fall during this interview, in fact, and we may have to go to a shelter. that's what's happening. what would america do? it would take all its force and go after these killers and what if these killers embed themselves in hospitals, schools and u.n. facilities, you'd do everything in your power to get the civilians out which is what we're doing. we'd call them to leave and you certainly wouldn't give immunity to the terrorists and we're treading carefully when it comes to hospitals and we're not going to give immunity to the terrorists and so far, even though hamas has tried to prevent civilians from leaving and hundreds of thousands have left and sometimes having go through hamas gun points and gun fire that wants to keep them in harm's way. >> just to be clear, sir. israel will aid, help these civilians who are quite sick and inside these hospitals come out not just in al shifa, but there are other hospitals where this is happening. >> yes. we're telling them to leave. >> telling them or helping them? >> helping them by creating safe corridors. so we have designated routes to a safe zone south of gaza city where there's no fighting and we're telling them, go ahead. move. 70,000 have moved three days ago. i think 50,000 moved yesterday. more will move today. we want all of the civilians to be moved out of harm's way and hamas is doing everything in their power to keep them in harm's way. they put muscles below -- yes, go ahead. >> do you believe that there are hostages below that hospital, israeli or american hostages? >> i'm not going go into the intelligence picture we have, but you know, there's been this vicious thing, they take hostages and imagine a baby is held hostage. who takes a baby hostage? i don't know if you have children and i'm sure your camera crew has, and we all have children. what is this taking children hostages? threaten to kill them? this is savagery of the highest order, so obviously we're doing everything in our power to achieve two things. one is destroy hamas because without it none of us has a future and it's not only our war, it's your war, too and it's the battle of civilization against barbarism and if we don't win here the scourge will pass to other places. middle east will fall, europe will be next, you will be next and the first goal is to destroy hamas and the second goal is to bring back the hostages and we're trying to do both. >> those are completely understandable goals and goals that the united states very much supports, understanding that hamas is a barbaric terrorist organization, but israel is not hamas and the united states also makes very clear that democracies have to do better. the secretary of state, tony blinken, said that far too many palestinian civilians have been killed. what is your response to that? i think any civilian loss is a tra tragedy and the blame should be squarely on hamas. it fired on the safe corridor that we enacted the other day to prevent palestinians from leaving harm's way. it put rockets inside schools and hospitals. it has tunnels below children's beds. this is what we're dealing with. >> absolutely, but because israel isn't ham a is israel doing everything possible to take that into consideration? and yes, dana and more than that, we're trying to minimize civilian casualties as a result of our ground action the number of civilian casualties is being reduced because people are heeding our calls to leave the area and define hamas' attempt to keep them there and we'll do everything in our power to do that, but you know, the one example i can give you is this. these savages, they perpetrated the worst horrors on jews since the holocaust. the german chancellor scholz called them the new nazis. they were attacked by hitler and so they invaded france and then germany and when they did that they went into the cities. they had to fight the german army that was often embedded in civilian -- in the cities. >> yeah. >> in civilian neighborhoods and many civilians were killed so who was the blame laid on to? did they say the nazis -- the allies are wrong? the allies should stop fighting? they said use forces judiciously as you can, but don't give the nazis any refuge. defeat the nazis which is what we're doing. we're using force in the most judicious way, but we have to defeat these new nazis and we will, for our sake and for your sake, too. >> want to ask about the hostages. thousands of israelis including families of hostages rallied this weekend right across the street from where you are right now. they're very frustrated that they're not getting more information from you and where their loved ones are, believe that the government, your government is not doing enough to get them back. what do you say to them? >> it's understandable. they're under tremendous distress. they're under torture. you can imagine that. you have your -- your father, your husband, your son, your daughter taken by these savages. >> are you doing enough? >>. >> we're doing everything we can around the clock, and i can't talk about it. i personally met with the hostage families, foreign minister lease of hostages several times and it just tears your heart out and yes, we're doing everything and many things that i can't say here obviously, but this is one of our two war goals. one is to destroy hamas and the second is to bring back our hostages and we'll do everything it can, and we think the entire world should join us. the demand from the red cross and it demands hostages and demand the unconditional release from the hostages and saying this is barbarism that is unacceptable. i would like to see the u.n. secretary-general basically lay the blame on israel and lay the blame on these savages to demand that they obey international law because israel is fighting international law. the army is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties and minimize terrorist casualties and we need the international community not to give support and moral support and legit mass toe sheer evil that hamas represents, support israel and attack hamas. >> prime minister netanyahu, one of the questions right now is when it comes to hostages is whether there can be a negotiation that worked towards a deal that worked through large groups of hostages in exchange for a sustained days' long pause in fighting. is there acceptable to you and if so, how long of a pause would israel be willing to allow? >> i said that we would pursue the battle to destroy hamas to an end and i said the only cease fire that we would consider is one in which we have our hostages released and that remains true. it doesn't mean that we can't give humanitarian pause for a few hours and a place, a specific time and place where we want to have a humanitarian corridor and have the people leave safely and we've done that and hundreds of thousands have left. >> how long of a pause would you be willing to support? >> so far we've dealt with -- if you're talking about a ceasefire. >> no, i'm not talking about a ceasefire, a longer pause, days, for example. >> that's not a pause. if you're talking about stopping fighting, that's exactly what hamas wants. hamas wants an endless series of pauses that basically dissipate the battle against them and it's like the germans after normandie and let's have a cease fire, you guys hold off, let us replenish our supplies and let us get out of our terror tunnels and let us re-arm ourselves and so on. obviously, we're not going to do that. >> the u.s. says -- in order to have a cease fire in the entire area, that will require the release of our hostages. >> the u.s. says that you need an extended pause in order to get the hostages out. >> do you not believe that, as well? >> we don't disagree with that? we need to get the hostages out. >> the u.s. also says that any post-war plan for gaza must include palestinian-led governance and gaza unified with the west bank under the palestinian authority. you appeared to reject that yesterday. you said israel would not accept a, quote, civilian authority there that educates its children to hate israel. would you not accept giving control of gaza over to the palestinian authority after the war? >> first -- the first thing we have to do is destroy hamas because otherwise they'll do it again and again and again and they've said so. so we'll destroy hamas. the second thing is there needs to be an overriding and an overreaching of the israeli military envelope because every place that we leave, we just exit and give it to some other force and we achieve nothing. the third thing we have to understand is that a civilian authority has to cooperate in two goals. one is to demilitarize gas and the second is to de-ral caddize gaza, and i have to say that the palestinian authority has unfortunately failed on both counts. they don't demilitarize the west bank. we have to do it. we have to go in and fight the terrorists. they don't de-radicalize. they teach children the hate of israel. they pay for terrorist murderes and their families, the more jews they kill the more they pay. they refuse to this day, 36 days after this savagery to condemn -- >> if not the -- >> sorry? >> if not the p.a. -- >> there has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. there has to be something else. otherwise we're falling into the same rabbit hole and we'll have the same result. remember, the p.a. was already in gaza. when israel had gaza it handed the keys over to the p.a. and what happened? within a very short time hamas took over. they're not willing to fight hamas. so you have to have some kind of authority, civilian, palestinian authority that is willing to fight the terrorists, and educating and importantly, must educate their children for a future of peace, cooperation and prosperity and cooperation with israel and not the annihilation of israel and so far that hasn't happened and the burden of proof is on the p.a. and they failed every single count? i say that regrettably, but honestly, we have to be realistic about what we expect. we can't fall back on formulas that failed. we have to succeed, to succeed to give gaza a better future and let's not bring it to a failed past. let's create a different reality there. >> prime minister netanyahu, before i let you go, i know you've been asked this several times, but i have had multiple people inside israel reach out to me knowing that i was going to interview you, and say the one thing they want to hear from you is that you take personal responsibility for failing to prevent the october 7th attacks and protecting your people. i know you say that time for that will come after the war. why won't you take responsibility now? >> i've already addressed that many times, and i said this whole question will be addressed after the war. just as people would ask -- >> why not now? >> did people ask franklin roosevelt after pearl harbor that question? did people ask george bush after the surprise attack of september 11th? >> i think those questions were asked. >> i've said one thing that is important and i've said we're going to answer all these questions including me. i'm going to be asked tough questions. right now i think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose. one purpose alone and that is to achieve victory. that's what i did. we formed a unity government. the country is united as never before and that's what we have to pursue. what the people expect me to do are two things and one is achieve victory and bring the hostages back and assure that gaza is never -- and to the israelis that are disappointed that you won't take responsibility, you say -- >> i said that i'm going to answer all the questions that are required including the questions of responsibility. there will be enough time for that after the war. let's focus on victory. that's my responsibility now. >> prime minister benjamin netanyahu, thank you so much for your time this morning. i appreciate it. >> thank you, dana. up next, as we've talked about a word of caution this week from the u.s. to israel, national security adviser jake sullivan will be here and also coming up, how much could a third party candidate hurt joe biden's chances for re-election? david axelrod and larry hogan will be here ahead. welcome back to state of the union and america's close ally israel. implementing humanitarian pauses of gaza and overseas, the u.s. secretary of state tony blinken said, quote, far too many palestinians have been killed and more needed to be done to keep civilians safe. here with me now is president biden's national security adviser jake sullivan. thank you so much for being here this morning. i just want to be clear, does israel need to do more to limit civilian casualties? >> first, dana, any loss of innocent life, palestinian, israeli, civilian, every one and we grieve for those who have been lost. at the same time what israel is facing is a terrorist enemy who hides among civilians who uses civilians as human shields and so it has an added burden of trying to prosecute this campaign against that terrorist group while distinguishing terrorists and innocent civilians and that doesn't lessen its responsibility to operate according to the rules of war and we have continued to make that point both publicly and privately and we will continue to do so as we go forward. >> is israel operating according to the rules of war? >> dana, i'm not going to sit here and play judge or jury on that question and what i'm going to do is state the principal of the united states on this issue which is straightforward. israel has a right, indeed, a responsibility to defend itself against a terrorist group that just in the last couple of weeks has come out and said that it would like to repeat october 7th over and over again until israel no longer exists. a hamas spokesman on the front page of "the new york times" said the entire objective of the group is a permanent state of war with israel because that is what israel is up against. at the same time as i have said as president biden and secretary of state blinken had said we are democracies and as democrats we have to be different and we have to abide by the rules of war. we have do our utmost to protect innocent civilians and that means being targeted and careful and military operations to try to reduce and to try to avoid any loss of civilian life. >> on that note, israel says its forces are engaged in intense fighting around the al shifa hospital, the largest in gaza. doctors without borders says there are some 600 patients including infants in that hospital with no food, water or electricity. israel says that beneath that hospital is a major hamas command and control center. first of all, is that the u.s. understanding? >> dana, i can't get into intelligence matters and you can see from open-source reporting that hamas does use hospitals along with other civilian facilities for command and control, for storing weapons and for housing its fighters and so without getting into this specific hospital or that specific claim, this is hamas' track record. >> israel says that it is. >> that puts an added burden on israel. >> israel says that hamas is using this hospital as a place to control and command -- command and control their terrorist activities. what is the u.s. position? >> right. what i'm saying is i can't speak to intelligence matters here live on camera with you. i can just say that we know from a lot of different sources including open sources that are not classified that this is a common practice of hamas. >> so given that, the reason i ask the question is, of course, how should israel proceed with this hospital given the fact that not only are there civilians in this hospital, but there are sick and injured civilians in this hospital? >> well, dana, i think your question just points out the difficulty and complexity of this conflict. you have a terrorist group using civilians as human shields and even using sick and injured civilian shields and you have an israeli defense force which is seeking to root out this terrorist group to make sure it can no longer represent a threat to israel, and the hospital puts this question into stark relief, but the bottom line for the united states is that we do not want to see fire fights in a hospital. we do not want to see innocent patients who are sick or wounded be injured or killed in the cross fire. so that is how we look at this issue and that is how we are communicating with our israeli counterparts. >> jake, there are still more than 200 hostages being held in gaza including a number of americans. a senior u.n. official