Democrats consider changing course on Israel support

President Biden told Israel the humanitarian situation in Gaza is unacceptable and an immediate ceasefire is essential.

Meanwhile, U.S. weaponry continues to flow to Israel.

Could Biden back up his tough talk and curtail military aid?

Today, On Point: Democrats consider changing course on Israel support.

Nancy Cordes, chief White House correspondent at CBS News.

Robert Jimison, congressional reporter at the New York Times.

Josh Paul, non-resident fellow at DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now). Former director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in the State Department.

Senator Chris Coons, U.S. Senator from Delaware and a member of the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, and Appropriations Committees.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: It's day 187 since Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and took more than 200 people as hostages. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. In the days following the attack, U.S. support for Israel was unequivocal. President Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the hours after the attack.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I told them the United States stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop. There's never justification for terrorist attacks. And my administration's support for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering.

CHAKRABARTI: Today, though, it is no longer October 7th. Or even November 7th, or December 7th. Six months have passed. And in those six months, the world has witnessed Israel's military operations in Gaza, which so far have killed 33,000 people, including more than 13,000 children. President Biden's unwavering support, voiced on October 7th, may now be wavering, at least verbally.

BIDEN: I think what he's doing is a mistake. I don't agree with his approach. I think it's outrageous.

CHAKRABARTI: The president's tonal shift came most clearly after last week's Israeli attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy. Seven aid workers with the Humanitarian Food Assistance Group were killed by multiple missile strikes.

World Central Kitchen head, Chef José Andrés, says Israel targeted the aid workers and called Israel's operation a war against humanity itself.

JOSÉ ANDRÉS: This was not just a bad luck situation where oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place or no, this was over 1.5, 1.8 kilometers. With a very defiant humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, in the roof, a very colorful logo that we are obviously very proud of, but that's very clear who we are and what we do.

CHAKRABARTI: The Israeli military is investigating the attack and calls it unintentional. But it just so happens that Biden calls José Andrés a friend. And personal relationships matter a lot to this president. So therefore, President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu once again talked on the phone last week, this time with much tougher talk about how the United States would support Israel going forward.

The official readout of the call says Biden, quote, made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. End quote. Biden spoke with Univision after the call.

BIDEN: So, what I'm calling for is for the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country. I've spoken with everyone from the Saudis to the Jordanians to the Egyptians. They're prepared to move in, they're prepared to move this food in, and I think there's no excuse to not provide for the medical and the food needs of those people They should be done now.

CHAKRABARTI: The administration also says that U.S. policy with respect to Israel will be determined by how closely Israel makes changes to its operations in Gaza. Now those are strong words from a U.S. president. But they are also simply words. Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. That is what George Orwell noted in his immortal 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language.

Quote, "Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness," end quote. In the U.S.-Israel case, the obvious questions are if Israel does not make satisfactory changes in the administration's eyes, exactly what will Biden do next? What actual changes would he make?

Would he dare stop a major U. S.-Israel arms transfer that's currently in its final stages? Orwell called political language a tool, quote, "to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Could Biden prove Orwell wrong and back his words up with concrete action? And if so, when would he do it? Here to help us answer some of those questions is Nancy Cordes.

She's Chief White House Correspondent for CBS News. Nancy, welcome back to the show.

NANCY CORDES: Hi Meghna. Thank you so much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: We're also joined today by Robert Jimison. He's a congressional reporter for the New York Times. Robert, welcome to you.

ROBERT JIMISON: Hi, Meghna. Good to be here.

CHAKRABARTI: Nancy, first give us your view on what you've learned from your White House sources on the mood there and the thinking there over the past 24 hours.

CORDES: There's obviously growing frustration, and I think you laid it out quite well, with the Israelis, with their conduct in this war, with their pace of implementation of changes that they have promised to make. And there's a recognition that they are being vague, that they are giving these warnings to Israel publicly that are sometimes hard to make sense of.

They'll say if they don't make changes, then then the U.S. is going to have to change its policy. What changes exactly are you seeking? And what changes in U.S. policy are you talking about? When they say Israel has hours or days to make these changes. Okay. It's now been hours or days.

Have they satisfied you? So we have a lot of questions that we've been putting to them, and they don't really have answers. One thing that they will say, Meghna, is that just because they're being vague with us and being vague publicly, doesn't mean that they aren't more pointed when they're speaking.

Diplomatically, behind the scenes, with their Israeli counterparts. So they may be making much more pointed ultimatums to the Israelis themselves than they are when they speak on the world stage.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, Nancy, hold that thought because I want to come back to it. It's a really important one. And Robert, I'm going to come to you in a second.

Nancy, we've got tape of you actually asking these questions and struggling with the answers that you get back in a back and forth that you had with John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications. This was from a briefing just last week.

CORDES: In your readout, when you say the president made clear that the U.S., that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action. Could you decode that for us? What exactly is the warning that's being issued here?

JOHN KIRBY: I think it's very clear in the language itself Nancy. We're gonna, we're looking for concrete steps to alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Again, I won't get ahead of what the Israelis will or won't say or announce. We're looking for concrete steps to be announced here soon. And it's not just about the announcement of concrete steps and changes in their policies, but it's the execution of those announcements and those decisions and implementing them.

And we obviously will, we'll watch closely and monitor how they do on the commitments that they make. And as I said earlier, if there's no changes to their policy and their approaches, then there's going to have to be changes to ours.

CHAKRABARTI: Nancy, it's definitely understandable that members of any administration would be reluctant to specifically say, what they put on the table in the middle of delicate diplomatic negotiations.

That's understandable. But has the administration come so far as even to say we're not going to tell you what we're threatening Israel essentially with, but we do have specific concrete plans or changes in mind already. Have they even said that?

CORDES: They have. In fact, I think Kirby's answer on that day is emblematic of the dichotomy between their public statements and what's happening behind the scenes.

Publicly, in his answer to me and to other correspondents, that was incredibly vague, right? He said we have, it's very clear. We have certain expectations and if they don't meet them, our policy is going to change. So he didn't give us any details on what those expectations are.

But we learned later that day that in the president's conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he did actually lay out a specific request. He said, I want you to open the Erez crossing in Northern Gaza to allow more trucks to get in with aid. I want you to make Ashdod Port available for humanitarian aid shipments.

I want you to streamline the process of getting trucks from Jordan into southern Gaza. And Benjamin Netanyahu in response said he would and sure enough, later that evening, the Israeli government announced that's what they were going to do. That was taken as a good sign by U.S. officials. But here we are several days later. That promise has been made. Those crossings have not been open yet, particularly in the north. And so they're still in a wait and see mode. The Israelis, yes, are making promises to allow more aid in, but now they've got to make good on those promises.

CHAKRABARTI: And so then we also still don't know if Biden has said anything specific as in, if you don't make good on the promises, here's what the U.S. would do. Just to be clear.

CORDES: That's absolutely right. We still don't know. We do know what they won't do because White House officials have said over and over again that they are not going to halt military aid to Israel.

And that's something that more and more members of Congress have been calling for.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, it's as if you asked the question for me that I was going to turn to Robert with. Robert, give us the mood in Congress right now because from your reporting and others, it seems like the nervousness amongst congressional Democrats is growing.

JIMISON: I think that's right. And as you laid out, early on during the conflict, there wasn't as much vocal pushback or a lot of noise from Congress besides a unified voice of support for Israel. But what we've seen over the past couple of weeks and months is a growing sense of unrest in and a little bit of agitation amongst especially senators.

Many Biden allies on Capitol Hill, who are seeing the same images you and I are seeing coming out of Gaza, reading the same reports about Palestinians struggling with hunger and also the high civilian death toll. As that number climbs, a lot of senators are starting to ask questions. We're both the supplier of the bombs that are going into this region, and we're also one of the biggest backers of the humanitarian aid to support the people who are on the receiving end of those bombs.

And so senators are starting to ask questions, wanting more conditions put on the military aid going into Israel, wanting stronger concessions from the Netanyahu government to say, we will not use these giant 2000-pound bombs. They want more targeted attacks. And those really reached a new turning point in the past week.

When you've got more Democrats, both in the House and the Senate, the most direct and confrontational push directed at Biden to say, Hey, we need to stop these weapons and we need to do something different in the immediate term, unless Israel changes their strategy involving civilians.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today, we're talking about whether President Joe Biden and the Biden administration would make or will possibly make meaningful changes to U.S. policy regarding Israel, given the ongoing death toll of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The administration has been making noises to that front or in that direction, but no significant concrete action yet has been taken. We're joined today by Nancy Cordes. She's chief White House correspondent for CBS News. And Robert Jimison is with us, as well. He's congressional reporter from the New York Times. And Nancy and Robert, I'm going to come back to you for a lot more of your reporting on trying to understand what's been happening in the past few days. But if you could, I'd appreciate it if you listened along with me to Josh Paul. He's currently non resident fellow at DAWN. It's Democracy for the Arab World Now.

It's a group that was founded Jamal Khashoggi, he of course was, or is the reporter and journalist who was assassinated several years ago. Josh was also formerly director in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in the State Department. That is the bureau responsible for U.S. security assistance and arms transfers. He resigned from that position on October 18th of last year due to a policy disagreement that he had concerning the U.S.'s continued military assistance to Israel. Josh Paul, welcome back to the show.

JOSH PAUL: Hello Meghna. Thank you very much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: So first of all, specifically, this arms transfer that's currently on the table, if my understanding is correct, in February, so just a couple of months ago, the administration formally asked Congress to approve the sale of F-15 fighter jets and some bombs and munitions at a total value of $18 billion.

So first of all, is that a normal sized weapons transfer between the United States and Israel over time, or is there something different about it now?

PAUL: Thank you. And just to clarify, so the administration has informally asked Congress to move forward on this.

CHAKRABARTI: Informally. Yes. Thank you.

PAUL: So they right now need the approval from the leadership of the oversight committees, the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. Once they have that, they can formally notify it. This is certainly a big sale, a big proposed sale. I think the largest in over a decade, since probably 2008 as it stands.

It would have taken some time to put together. And I think it's important to note that these aircraft will not be delivered until after they've been built. So we're talking at least three to six years down the line from now.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so actually those are important details. Because I think a lot of people when they first heard of this weapons transfer thought we're just going to ship these jets to Israel now and they could be used in Gaza in a matter of weeks or months.

So we're talking years out, but nevertheless, do we know the beginning of the plan for this transfer happened before or after October 7th?

PAUL: So it would most likely have come before October 7th. These sort of sales take time to put together. That doesn't mean that there is not leverage here, particularly given that there is not an urgency to this transfer, that as it is going to take years to deliver, there's no reason it cannot wait months for the Biden administration to assess Israel's steps towards increasing humanitarian assistance in Gaza, towards coming to a full ceasefire and so forth.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So hold that thought, Josh. Nancy, let me turn back to you here. Given what Josh says, is there any indication from the White House that they may be rethinking their request and perhaps would be willing to wait a while until Israel shows that it's complying with U.S. requests on changes to humanitarian policy in Gaza?

CORDES: There's no indication at the moment, although of course, that could change particularly as pressure from Democrats in Congress grows. Right now, what White House officials say is that A, these weapons transfers were years in the making. They were approved long ago as part of the U.S.'s yearly aid to Israel, that they are reflective of the decades-long alliance between the U.S. and Israel, its strongest ally in the region. And they argue that Israel is in tough territory. It constantly faces threats from Iran and Iranian backed groups that existed long before this latest clash with Hamas. And so they say they are not going to turn their backs on Israel.

And that they are not going to bring any kind of halt to military aid. But again, that's what they're saying right now. That could always change.

CHAKRABARTI: Robert, in Congress though, how are congressional Democrats weighing that long term security interest of Israel and that the security interest may be benefited by the completion of this weapons transfer versus the pretty clear, immediate political peril that going through with a transfer like this has on Democrats themselves in this country?

We're all familiar with the March 27th Gallup poll that just came out, so just a couple of weeks ago, that shows that across parties, Americans' approval of Israeli action in Gaza has dropped from 50% in November down to 36% now. Democrats have to be keenly aware of that.

JIMISON: You're exactly right. And I think it's very important to make a clear distinction. Democrats in Congress, while they are calling on the Biden administration to place some limitations on offensive weapons, what they're not calling for is the complete end of all military aid from the U.S. to Israel.

There's still huge support unanimous support for the weapons that support the Iron Dome and other defensive weapons that the U.S. supplies Israel to protect itself against aggressors in the Middle East, like Iran. This F-15 jet order is going to be considered an offensive tool and since it is years down the line, it's a strong piece of leverage that Congress has as the oversight body of these weapons transfers to say, We're going to hold this up for a minute until we see more being done by Israel, or Israel assures us that they'll do more to take care of not bombing civilians and also the humanitarian aid aspect.

They want Israel to take a more active role in guaranteeing more humanitarian aid coming in. That's what you're seeing with specifically this transfer. As Josh pointed out, there's four people in Congress who can sign off on this informal portion of this F-15 order, two of them, the two Republicans with oversight, signed off immediately when it was notified.

They gave the thumbs up. The two Democrats have held it up and Congressman Gregory Meeks from New York. In the House he says, he is willing to hold up this weapon. He has not approved it and said he wants to hold up this weapons transfer and doesn't want these kinds of weapons to be utilized to cause more civilian death.

And he wants to get assurances that Israel will do more to get humanitarian aid and the two big concerns from Congress. And so I don't think the congressman thinks that in three to six years, these planes won't be delivered. I think he's pretty clear that the U.S. will make good on its agreements with Israel and this long, long decades-long partnership.

But, given the oversight and the way things work in Washington, Congress can hold up something and want something in return. That's what you're seeing with this F-15 order.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. You mentioned Congressman Meeks. Here he is once again, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of the key people that would have to sign off on any arms deal.

On Tuesday, he told CNN that exactly what you said, Robert, that he's waiting for assurances before giving that yay vote.

GREGORY MEEKS: I take things very seriously, and that's why I've got to go, I'll be going in a SCIF looking to see for myself what those assurances are. I say it is enough of the indiscriminate bombing.

I don't want the kinds of weapons that Israel has to be utilized, to have more death. I want to make sure that humanitarian aid gets in. I don't want people starving to death and I want Hamas to release the hostages. It's enough, and I want a two-state solution. The F-15s won't be delivered for five years?

I will make that determination once I see what those assurances are. Because I want to make sure though that death stops now, and hostages come home now. That's what's important here.

CHAKRABARTI: Josh Paul, what's your response to that?

PAUL: No, I think that's the right track to take on this sale. I do want to note and going back to something that one of your other guests said, when the administration says that this has already been approved, that's certainly not true when it comes to these F-18s.

And it's not true, not the case that this is some agreement that we already have with Israel to provide those. It is not until Congress approves the sale and the administration moves forward. In the meantime, I think it's important to note that there is a daily drumbeat of new authorizations for Israel.

Where even if they are coming under previous Congressional notifications, they are still being approved on a daily basis by the administration. So it is simply not accurate to say that, for the most of these sales, particularly of bombs and other munitions that are happening, as I say, daily, that they are somehow pre-approved and we're just moving forward on previous agreements.

These all require new agreements that do not require notification to Congress and that are being moved forward daily.

CHAKRABARTI: Do you have more information on what some of those daily approvals are in terms of what the weapons actually are?

PAUL: Yeah, media has reported just in the last couple of weeks several thousand approvals for bombs whether they be 2000-pound bombs, 500-pound bombs, guidance kits including joint direct attack munitions as well as various other military equipment.

So this is, beneath the surface, beneath what needs to be notified to Congress, there hasn't been any sort of change. And there's not clear that there is any leverage that Congress has, short of that, which the administration, which is to exercise, which to date it has not.

CHAKRABARTI: And these would be for immediate delivery?

Are we also talking about years out for the approvals that you're talking about now?

PAUL: No, for the approvals I'm talking about now, these are for pretty much immediate delivery. Delivery within 30 days typically.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So Josh one thing which a lot of people have been mentioning is the possibility of conditions to be put on any major weapons transfer between the United States and Israel.

And in a moment, I'm going to ask you to remind us about what conditions actually mean in reality versus in political speech. But first of all, I want to play a little bit of tape from Senator Chris Coons, our On Point senior editor Dory Scheimer just spoke with him just last night. He's a Democrat from Delaware.

He serves on the Foreign Relations Committee. He's also a very close ally of President Biden. So we asked him under what circumstances would he put specific conditions on further aid to Israel?

CHRIS COONS: If Netanyahu orders an assault into Rafah, where there are more than a million Palestinian refugees in the very south of Gaza, trapped up against the hard border with Egypt, and makes no provision for humanitarian relief or for those Palestinian civilians to move out of the way before this assault, I would seriously look at conditioning aid, but that's not a position I've taken before, and it's meant to convey just how seriously I take the civilian risk here. Tens of thousands would likely die in that conflict. To be clear, Dorey, I do think that we should continue to provide Israel with defensive weapons.

CHAKRABARTI: So Josh, clarify for us what exactly conditions on aid, and this is specifically military aid, what does that mean in reality?

PAUL: Of course, there are already conditions on, or at least theoretically so on U.S. grant military assistance, such as laws that say we cannot provide that assistance to countries that are restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

It is not the case, however, the Biden administration has actually enforced those conditions, but they are there. It's encouraging to hear Senator Coons say that. Because not only is he on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is also the Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee that makes appropriations for the State Department, including our military grant assistance to Israel.

So in that capacity, he could theoretically write into law conditions such as we have in the case of, for example, of our assistance to Egypt, where that assistance is conditioned on Egyptian progress on human rights. So that is certainly possible. Of course, when it comes to the arms transfers themselves, there is no need for legal action here.

The administration, any administration, can suspend or delay any sale for any reason at any time until up to the point of delivery. So that is a policy tool that Biden has at its disposal right now.

CHAKRABARTI: Josh, the last time you were on the show, you also clarified in more detail again, what specific conditions can be put on weapons transfers.

You mentioned one big one, that if nations are acting against the sort of the U.S.'s humanitarian assistance policies, or what they'd like to see those nations to do, that's one. But a lot of people have been saying can't we condition how those weapons are used by the receiving country?

And if memory serves, Josh, you said there's no way to do that, that the conditions have more to do with technology transfer, et cetera.

PAUL: So once the weapons are gone, they're gone. This isn't something that the U.S. typically looks at very closely. It is beginning to look at processes to do a better assessment of how weapons are actually used.

But the way it interprets the law, it believes the only existing legal hooks are if weapons are illegally retransferred or, reverse engineered. So there's nothing in law that lets them do this, but there is also nothing in law that stops them from suspending transfers if there are concerns of any type.

CHAKRABARTI: So Nancy as Josh, literally this was his job for many years, to guide weapons transfers through Congress. Hearing him say twice the Biden administration or any administration can actually stop a transfer at any time. Any point in time, for any reason, has The White House given any indication, I'm using any a lot here because I'm just trying to cast a wide, as wide net as possible, that they would even consider doing that.

CORDES: Not yet, but I think it's very significant that someone like Senator Chris Coons is now publicly saying that he would support conditioning aid in certain situations. He's not only a member of the foreign relations committee, longtime ally of Israel and supporter of Israel, but also, he is one of the co-chairs of the Biden reelection campaign, and he's unlikely to do or say anything that is really going to put the Biden administration in a bind.

So the fact that he is moving in this direction suggests that the White House is okay with that. And the White House is okay with democratic allies in Congress, putting more pressure on the White House, which the White House can then use to put more pressure on Israel to say, Hey, look. We've got Congress breathing down our necks.

They want us to condition our aid to you. If you don't make changes, you need to do a better job. For example, deconflicting, which is a fancy way of saying doing a better job of knowing where humanitarian workers like the world central kitchen workers are, and where they are moving to. So we don't see a tragedy like the one we had last week where seven humanitarian workers lost their lives.

And in a way, yes, pressure is ramping up on the White House. But that can sometimes serve the purposes of the president and White House officials because then they've got more leverage with the Israelis.

CHAKRABARTI: Josh, I have to let you go in about a minute here, but I'm curious. Since you resigned in October because you felt that there was no fair and robust conversation or debate over weapons transfers to Israel, unlike other countries that have received weapons from the United States.

Has anything changed, you think, since then?

PAUL: I think that conversation is beginning now, and we see that, for example, in Senator Coons' comments. I think it has a long way to go, but it is beginning. That door is beginning to open. I think that's very important, because you can't have an effective foreign policy if you don't have an effective debate.

Before I go, I do want to issue one note of caution, which it is great that Israel is letting in more humanitarian assistance. It is great that it has withdrawn some of its forces. I think we need to be very cautious that I think Israel still has every intent of going into Rafah.

And so it's great that this debate is playing out here in the U.S., but it is also creating a window where more arms are being transferred on a daily basis that is just stoking that arsenal for a future operation.

CHAKRABARTI: Josh, we have a few seconds. If you were advising the White House directly, would you advise them to stop the transfers?

PAUL: I would advise them to stop the transfers of lethal arms that can be used to kill civilians in Gaza. Yes.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Today we're taking a close look at what the near future of U.S. policy toward Israel might be. The Biden administration and specifically President Joe Biden have ratcheted up its language regarding the demands it wants Israel to comply with, regarding humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

But the question is, will actually any policy change? I'm joined today by Nancy Cordes. She's chief White House correspondent for CBS News, and Robert Jimison is with us as well. He's the congressional reporter for the New York Times. There's been so much happening virtually hour by hour here, that I just also want to give voice to family members of hostages who are also trying to put pressure on the administration as well, because a group of family members, of hostages being held in Gaza met with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House just yesterday.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin' son, Hersh, was taken hostage after his arm was also blown off at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th. He's a dual American Israeli citizen, one of eight American citizens currently still being held hostage by Hamas.

We discussed a lot of different things and one of the things we talked about is that there is a possibility of holding two truths.

You can believe, as we do, that it is horrible that innocent civilians in Gaza are suffering. And at the same time, you can also know that it is horrible and against international law for hostages to be held against their will. So that's Rachel Goldberg-Polin, her son, is still being held hostage by Hamas.

CHAKRABARTI: Here's State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who gave a briefing to reporters on Monday of this week. He said Israel is taking steps to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza, but reporters asked him why it's taken so long for Israel to even begin to respond to demands that the U.S. has been making for months.

MATTHEW MILLER: I can't speak for the Israeli government, but I can, I'm about to, I can, what I can say is we have made clear over time the changes that we wanted to see implemented. We've seen some changes over time, but it has not been enough. And there has been an increasing sense of frustration inside the United States government, that they have not taken some of these steps that we have been recommending and urging for some time.

And the president last week made clear that ultimately, their policy needed changes, change or ours would.

CHAKRABARTI: That's State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday. So Robert again, there's a lot of language here and we're seeking clarity of like actual facts on the ground. Because when Miller says that Israel is taking steps, Nancy outlined some of the things that they said they were willing to do after that second call between Biden and Netanyahu.

But in reality, right now, we also have a situation where many AIDS groups have just stopped working in Gaza because it is too dangerous. Hundreds or almost 200 have been killed. So is there a plan, a U.S. plan to actually support organizations that have stopped doing the work so humanitarian aid can actually get into Gaza?

JIMISON: I think that's a conversation a lot of the senators and members of the House are having right now because, like you said, after the strike on those seven World Central Kitchen workers, aid workers. The other organizations CARE, World Food Program, all these big aid organizations that are delivering the food and supplies and medical needs into the region alongside the U.N., they all stopped. Like you said, they said this is too dangerous. Their executive directors have been on the hill recently.

They've been in constant contact with senators and their congressman. And so that's an ongoing discussion. There's a huge concern that if you open the U.S. crossing, which Netanyahu said, announced shortly after that call with Biden, who's going to drive through if the aid workers and the aid organizations are afraid because there's not open communication channels between the Israeli government, the IDF, and these aid workers trying to get food in.

This is one of the top concerns that I'm hearing from members of Congress right now who are saying, yes, more needs to be done. You can open these gates, you can open another port, but you need to really assure that these humanitarian aid workers who for months now we've seen time and time again, are being inadvertently targeted and killed in airstrikes.

We need to make sure that they can get in safely and deliver the aid and assistance that they're trying to get to the people who are suffering there.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So Nancy, we can talk a lot about negotiations over getting aid assistance in, but there's also the continued military operations that are going on in Gaza.

Josh mentioned, Josh Paul mentioned it just before our last break. People are now wondering about Rafah. Because I don't think I've heard the Netanyahu administration say that they plan on not entering Rafah with the IDF.

CORDES: To the contrary, actually, the prime minister has said that a date for the Rafah operation has been set.

Now he didn't say what that date was, and U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken said yesterday that if a date has been set, the U.S. doesn't know what it is. So that has not been conveyed to the Americans who are in constant conversation with the Israelis. So that's concerning. And of course, what Blinken, what the national security advisor, Jake Sullivan and some of their colleagues at the White House and the State Department have been urging the Israelis to do, both publicly and in meetings, is not to conduct a ground invasion at all.

Because they're so concerned about what that would mean for more than a million Palestinian civilians who are crowded into Rafah right now. They have laid out big menu of alternatives that they say the Israelis could choose from in order to go after Hamas and the leaders that are holed up in Rafah without resorting to a full-scale ground invasion.

But so far, they say the Israelis haven't committed to any of those alternatives. So that's a big concern for them. And as you mentioned, that is a red line for lawmakers like Chris Coons, who say that if Israel does go forward with this ground operation, that could be the trigger for them supporting, conditioning U.S. aid.

It's a red line for congressional lawmakers, perhaps. Is it a red line for President Biden?

CORDES: The president has said publicly, he does not want Netanyahu to do this. He even said publicly in a new Univision interview that that this is a mistake. The entire way that Netanyahu is conducting this war, he wants Netanyahu to embrace a six to eight weak ceasefire right now, seemingly without any kind of agreement from Hamas to hand over more hostages. I think the White House is sending the signal as clearly as it can to the Israelis. And I do think it's notable that we haven't seen signs of an impending.

CHAKRABARTI: Robert, I'm going to come back to you in a second, but again, I'm very focused on the different, the gap, the delta between language and reality, right?

Because I think Americans are just trying to understand profoundly, and they care a lot about what would the United States actually do? So this phrase, red line. It's a familiar one in U.S. politics, right? Thinking about when President Barack Obama said, if Syria uses chemical weapons, that is the red line that would exact enormous consequences from, via U.S. policy. Syria did use chemical weapons. Obama didn't exactly lay down the law thereafter. So with that in mind, what does that tell us about the reality of when administrations come to the point where they either have to put their money where their mouths are or not fulfill their promises regarding red lines.

CORDES: So I think the challenge is that the U.S. doesn't have a ton of options when it comes to imposing consequences on Israel, particularly if it is reluctant to either place conditions on U.S. aid or more dramatically halt aid altogether. Beyond that, what is it that the White House could really do that would be in the U.S. interest to place more pressure on the Israelis? There isn't a lot.

And so what White House officials have said to us behind the scenes is that at least if they remain in conversation with the Israelis, if they continue to hold this vague threat over the Israelis. At least they're still in the room with the Israelis. At least they're still able to meet with them, either in person or virtually, and try to steer them in a different direction.

If they have some kind of dramatic rejection of the Israelis and walk away from them, too, they're not going to be in those conversations, and we'll lose some of the ability to steer the Israelis in a course that they think is certainly better for Palestinian civilians and better for U.S. national policy.

CHAKRABARTI: I see.

That was really helpful, Nancy, because leverage, even if limited, is still some leverage versus none at all. Point well taken. Let's hear a little bit more from Senator Chris Coons again. Our senior editor spoke with him just last night. And we asked him about a Washington Post report recently that said the U.S. transferred additional bombs to Israel on the same day as the World Central Kitchen Aid workers were killed. And in fact, that's what Josh Paul was talking about earlier, that there are daily transfers going on even as we speak. Now, Coons said he wasn't clear on the details of that report, but he said this about U.S. weapons going to Israel.

COONS: Here's something that is unique to our relationship with Israel. We have a stockpile, a significant stockpile of U.S. manufactured munitions and weapon systems stored in Israel in the event there is a regional conflict. During this six-month war, the administration has authorized Israel to receive transfers directly out of that stockpile.

That is different from the kind of procurement, appropriation notification process that is typically used when we are sending, for example, ammunition to Ukraine. I'm just learning some of these details in the last few days.

CHAKRABARTI: Robert, your thoughts about that?

JIMISON: I think one, it demonstrates what the U.S. does for its allies when they're in conflict. They supply them with weapons. They give them the support that is typical. We're seeing that in Ukraine. We're seeing a lot of that, as the Senator pointed out, in Israel. I think what's notable is the process that we're talking about, the requirement for the administration to ask permission or get the thumbs up from Congress for these weapons transfers.

There's a threshold to that. There's a, the numbers vary based off of a number of different circumstances, the type of weapons that are involved, whether they're jets, the technology that they're equipped with, the kits that are on these types of weapons, but there's a threshold. So say the $14 million threshold.

Every day, as the Senator pointed out, there's transfers that go beneath that threshold. In fact, the vast majority of weapons that the U.S. sends to its allies do not get notified to Congress, do not need any sort of approval from Congress. Because they're below this threshold. And like you said, there's these transfers happening every single day.

So if there's a bombs transfer, that either A) was previously notified to Congress and was signed off years ago and has taken years to get through, those are still in the pipeline and those are going to be delivered. Those plans come with years long delivery timelines or B) if it's a smaller weapons transfer.

Under $14 million in some circumstances, those sail through immediately without being notified to Congress. And I've been told by state department officials and some members of Congress that can represent up to 90% of the weapons transfers that the U.S. sends to Israel and other allies around the world.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So here's one more comment from Senator Coons, because we asked him how long would the Biden administration give Israel to take the steps that the administration wants to see? And again, we tried this multiple times, but we also asked him what policy changes would happen if Israel doesn't make changes.

COONS: I'm a senator. I don't speak for the administration, but I can say this. I'm encouraged that there have been announcements promptly of an intention to open three more routes for humanitarian aid into Gaza, that today, more than 400 trucks crossed into Gaza. It's still below what is needed, but is dramatically more than was being delivered even a week ago. And that there was a prompt investigation and two officers have been dismissed and three have been disciplined who were responsible for the strike on the world's central kitchen convoy.

I do think there's more that needs to change, but those I take as positive initial steps.

CHAKRABARTI: So that's Senator Chris Coons. We spoke with him last night. Robert, I should also ask you, what are Republican members of Congress doing right now? We've been focusing on the Democrats because of obviously the relationship with President Biden.

The GOP controls the House. What's their take on what's going on in Gaza right now?

JIMISON: It's full-throated support for Israel is the messaging that you'll hear from Republicans. A number of Republicans during the recess, a number of House freshmen went to Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who directly lobbied them. Saying, we need the support from the United States.

Please don't let any disruptions come in the aid packages. That's one of which is currently pending in the House of Representatives and is waiting on a vote. But Republicans are resolute in this. And in fact, they're taking issue with some of the language that the president reportedly used on the call with prime minister Netanyahu, saying the aggression or the frustration from the administration is one sided.

It's too much directed at Israel and not enough directed at the actions taken by Hamas. And also, House Republicans are voting on this resolution. They were supposed to vote on it today, actually, but they've delayed it until Friday. A resolution to also condemn the actions taken by the U.N. when a couple weeks ago the U. N. abstained, the United States abstained from a vote calling for a ceasefire. Republicans are wanting the message from the United States to be full throated, unconditional support for our ally Israel with no changes, no caveats and no demands.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting. Okay, so let's bring it back here to the United States specifically for a moment and its impact on U.S. politics. Because again, looking at that recent Gallup poll, Republicans at Gallup polled, they used to have a 71% approval rate of Israel's military efforts. These are Republican voters.

That's now down to 64%. So still a majority, but a reduced majority. Democrats, they were already very opposed to Israel's actions. Now that number is 75% disapproving. Okay. And, even more, I think, remarkably to me, Gallup found that more than 70% of Americans, regardless of party, say that they are following the Israel-Hamas situation closely.

So Nancy, we've just got 30 seconds or so. Is there any indication from you that the White House is taking that very seriously? Because all it takes is a couple of thousand votes, say, in Michigan, Wisconsin, to have a pretty big change in what happens here in November.

CORDES: They are in very perilous political territory, Meghna, even setting aside the moral quandary.

Because as Robert points out, while right now they're getting a lot of heat from Democratic voters and Democratic politicians, if they do get tougher on Israel, there are Republican lawmakers who are just waiting to slam the White House and accuse them of abandoning a longtime U.S. ally.